Let’s get this over with.
“Jax is a main character” the pilot did a poor job showing that because we spend most of our time with Pomni and Ragatha. They show him to be an annoying goofy side character. He doesn’t have main character energy and the show only decided to fully focus on his issues/mystery during the sixth episode out of nine. And by the time the show ends, we know more about Jax then we do about our main character.
“Mother issues”. we learn in the final episode of the show after Jax has committed suicide and that he had an abusive mother, he opened up to Ribbit about those issues, the problem is that we get this in the FINAL EPISODE. I understand that trauma can shape a person but saying things like “ he was a victim too 🥺” removes the harm he has done to not only his two friends that he pushed to isolation and suicide on purpose, but treating the rest of the circus members like toys. He was the one to name Gangle and treat her like a play thing to the point where she didn’t feel human anymore. He was more than “just a jerk”. It’s power dynamics. He is benefiting off of making these people suffer. He told Pomni to her face that he wouldn’t mourn her death. He knows what abstractions have done so why would he say that to her face? If everyone’s a victim of something then no one can take accountability. Suicide is not facing your problems, it’s running away from them. jax died because they didn’t want to take accountability. Is what happened to Jax’s unfortunate? Yes. But does that excuse him literally pushing people to suicide and mocking Ragatha for also having an abusive mother? Hell no and I am tired of these fans excusing it because….
Muh mommy issu- if he was chill with Pomni during the gun fight and Abel adventure then he can show more than one emotion. he’s capable of being a good person. Being a good friend. But he actively chooses to be a misogynist, he chooses to be mean those around him to make himself feel better. We are shown in episode one that people like Ragatha can feel PAIN, Pomni can choke, Zooble talks about how they were thrown into an active volcano and ran over by a steam roller. Jax is torturing people and using the excuse of “ cartoon physics “. These people can feel pain and he knows that. He chooses to say hurtful things that he knows will hurt them the most. He wanted them to stay in the circus and he got what he wanted. He acted out on his intrusive thoughts. he is a grown ass man capable of controlling his emotions.
“ Goose’s favorite character”
I’m not opposed to self inserts, but it comes to where they can get annoying. A good example of a self insert is Shinji from evangelion. Shinji is a developed character that has chunks of the author experience. He’s just a kid questioning himself in the place in the world and it fits into the themes of the show.
Goose had said time and time again that Jax is an awful person. At some point when I was in the fandom I said that Jax’s was an awful person but a well written character. You’re ““intrigued”” by their evilness and you want to know how and why they’re like this (like Bojack Horseman or Jimmy from mouthwashing). But this love is less like a fleshing out a character to make 3 dimensional and more like a “ he was a poor baby this entire time, if he came out the closet things might have been better”. I like writing evil characters that have a reason for being evil, you can get into their ways of thinking, their psychology, heck maybe you could apply that to the real world when trying to avoid red flags but it comes to a point where you have to balance it out when writing evil characters. You can’t have “ I pushed my friends to suicide, you’re my toys” and “ isn’t she lovely” in the same room together minutes apart. All we have seen from Jax’s is how comically terrible he is in the earlier episodes so why now 2 minutes after he’s abstracted are you fleshing out his entire backstory in a bootleg mind palace?
No I do not want a “ perfect woman” but you need to realize that we were left with breadcrumbs of a headcannon. Jax’s has a pink room, so what? The maid outfit was treated as a joke, both in the series and for merch. Any causal person could easily miss the chicken in an egg thing. This isn’t an ARG. This is a Indie show, either you say “Jax is a women” in your show or don’t. It doesn’t even have to be bashing over the head, just have Pomni help abstracted Jax out by saying something like “ come on guys we need to help her” (if they’re all just brain scans of the past then why does Leroy still goes by he/him pronouns irl ? that means he’s still in the closet years after he already made amends with his mother AKA THE SOURCE FOR WHY HE’S WAS CLOSETED). Intentional or not this comes of as a TERF’s stereotype dream “ the closeted Trans women pushes her Demi girl friend to suicide on purpose, treats a women as a sexual plaything pet and is a raging misogynist that daydreams about choking her female best friend”. The fans say “only cis people want a perfect innocent trans woman” only to turn around and boil Jax down to a “ perfect goth feminine queen 🎵 isn’t she lovely 🎵”. Guys Jax’s still sexualizes their female friends. Jax died before they can ever achieve anything, they died before they could even become a better person, they died before they could transition, they died without apologizing to anybody, they died before they can see their IRL self thrive. And it doesn’t even matter because it was all pointless thanks to Leeroy. This isn’t a happy ending for Jax. So why are we pretending it is? The story removed 80% of what makes abstraction a terrifying concept just to make Jax a cute pet.
people in the LGTBQA+ community are capable of making bad rep (I mean, look at high Guardian spice). THEY AREN’T TRYING TO AVOID CENSORS. THIS IS AN INDIE SHOW. Slapping the transfem representation tag onto an abusive misogynist Tumblr sexy man AFTER the show ended is awful representation, in my opinion. EVEN GLITCH CALLS HIM A GUY. So what are these mixed signals?
Ignoring(i’m not ignoring this) the racism, the dumbing down of racism from fans, Shadman glaze, hiring a lolicon that drew nsfw of real kids to sing a song about a black baby girl, and more. I think Jax’s could’ve been an amazing character, a subversion of the cartoony jerk character turned into an abusive misogynist. I believe it could’ve worked perfectly, I love subversions. But this ain’t it.
