#kit's takes

[mooneserval]

Caine said at the end of episode seven, that if he did too much to modify their minds, bad things would happen. I have a feeling that he means abstraction, that is the consequence of doing too many modifications to people’s psyches, turning parts of their minds into ‘corrupted data’ of sorts, thus killing their mental stability. So kind of like a digital lobotomy. I feel like that will have some major implications for the last two episodes.

[mooneserval]

Really bothering me that people are calling Ragatha toxic, fake or abusive when in reality she is just a traumatized people pleaser who has her fair share of flaws, but in the end is not a bad person. She's trying, and she clearly does care about the others, even if there is also an element of fear she has that they won't like her if she doesn't act nice enough.

Ragatha isn't even in my top three favourites of the cast. But it bothers me how shallow and unnuanced some people are being about her character. I love Jax and his character is so rich and interesting to me, but I can still blatantly acknowledge he's done some pretty nasty things, and gets defended too heavily because of a few softer moments. Yet Ragatha has a few moments where she acts out (PAIRED with context that she's experienced emotional abuse her whole life) and all of a sudden she's the fandom's punching bag? It's so weird to me. Double standards. Kind of reminds me of the Gangle hate we got post episode four, but worse.

Attaching an image from Gooseworx's Bluesky to kind of sum up the second half of this post:

[mooneserval]

WAIT, DID JAX PRESS THE BUTTON BECAUSE CAINE MESSED WITH HIS HEAD TO INDUCE TRAUMATIC FLASHBACKS TO CAUSE HIM TO FEEL UNSAFE RETURNING TO THE REAL WORLD???

[mooneserval]

Damn these circusers got trauma

Some Ragatha and Jax thoughts for episode six and beyond…

For Ragatha, there’s def some foreshadowing for abstraction in episode five. Even in her most vulnerable moment in the episode, when she suddenly starts discussing her trauma, everyone goes silent, unsure how to respond. Her coping mechanism, stemming from her trauma, is to be the people pleaser. She prioritizes appeasement over speaking her mind. This is backfiring because she’s so in her head about how she comes across that others don’t feel like she’s genuine, thus don’t open up to her or bond with her even if they like her on a more superficial level. This lack of close connection could definitely drive her to abstraction.

So, for Ragatha, I feel it could go one of two ways in episode six. Either we could see her slip further into loneliness or isolation, or we could see Kinger (when in a dark environment) help her work through her fears and reflect on herself and how she responds to situations emotionally and behaviourally.

The foreshadowing for Ragatha could also be an attempt to distract us from another abstraction contender, Jax. Jax will likely have to wrestle with a lot of conflicting emotions this episode, and we may get some backstory on his friendship with Ribbit. Perhaps Jax played a part in Ribbit’s abstraction and is grappling with/repressing guilt and despair. Jax is the foil of Ragatha, and vice versa. They both try avoiding their true feelings. But Jax does it by being an ass, and Ragatha does it by trying to be an ‘angel’. I feel like Pomni could be a very supportive friend to Jax and may get him to open up about himself. But if not, it’s not looking great for him. New buddy or not, he’s traumatized and going to get triggered by something eventually. Pomni may even ‘backstab’ him in-game. I feel like that’d do numbers on his wellbeing as she’s the first one he’s even somewhat tried to open up to.

[mooneserval]

My Hazbin Hotel character tierlist

Might change this based off the final two episodes of S2, I haven’t watched them yet!