Analyzing TADC's Cast Psychology Based On Their Designs
With Episode 8 confirming that the cast's bodies are reflections of their minds at the moment they put on the headset, I thought it'd be fun to dig into what that tells us about each character's psychology.
Firstly, it's important to note I'm going to be basing this analysis off a few assumptions:
1. The mind-to-body program uses people's conscious identity as a baseline. Nobody's bodies reflect who they truly are, instead they seem closer to how each person perceives themselves, meaning their bodies tend to reflect a lot of insecurities.
2. The mind-to-body program is flawed. This is obvious, as nobody actually LIKES their bodies. Specifically, the program seems unable to differentiate negative and positive ideas of the self.
3. The mind-to-body program uses a snapshot. Again, it doesn't encapsulate all of who someone is, only who they feel they are at the moment they put on the headset. This is important, because our identities are quite fluid, and tend to change based on external circumstances.
4. This was all written off-the-cuff, meaning I'm likely overlooking some important details. Please share your own insights in the comments!
With all that out of the way, here's my read on the "snapshot" the program took of each character's mind:
A cartoon rabbit who lies through his teeth. I think the most notable detail in Jax's design is that his mind is physically incapable of opening most of the time. He cannot "open up," and the few exceptions to this are moments of instinctive expression, such as when he's laughing, screaming, or choking. I said "lies through his teeth" because I think that's Jax's default state, or more accurately, that's what Jax FEELS like he's doing most of the time. Next there's his connections to Bugs Bunny and Cheshire Cat, two witty tricksters who are smarter than everyone else and toy with people. This is who Jax thinks he is, however an important distinction to note is that characters like Bugs only work because they never initiate conflict, they only defend themselves from bullies in clever ways. There's significant meaning in that. Jax's mind manifested as a sarcastic prey animal who's constantly fending off bullies.
Pomni manifested as a diminutive jester, which I think signifies she spent a lot of her life feeling small, and like nobody took her seriously. This aligns with how she likely put on the headset while recording footage for a YouTube video that nobody would watch. Her large, intensely expressive eyes reflect her emotional openness, and her notably coherent and human-like design compared to everyone else aligns with her relative emotional stability. Notably, her body seems to be made of rubber. It's quick to distort in expressive ways when stretched or impacted, but is also highly durable and always snaps back to its default shape. It's a testament to her resilience and sense of self that her body is the ONLY one Caine can't physically disassemble.
A soft, spineless ragdoll that's been damaged and repaired many times. Ragatha is the most blatantly toy-like of anyone within the circus, and that means a lot. A ragdoll can be comforting, but is no replacement for a real friend. It's a plaything designed for children to dress up, project their feelings on, and eventually discard. Most significantly, ragdolls are traditionally fashioned out of old rags that have outlived their purpose, and are meant to be easily repaired when they inevitably take a beating. A "well loved" ragdoll is one that's been repeatedly torn and repaired over years of play. All this paints Ragatha as someone who lives for others while fundamentally devaluing herself. She's easily cut into or torn, but that's ok because she isn't made of anything valuable, and those wounds can be quickly patched over. She is something to be used, and if she isn't being used, she's a failure. I'm not sure it's possible to create a better physical metaphor for the mindset of an abuse victim, right down to her button resembling a black eye.
Zooble's body is perhaps the easiest to read of anyone within the circus, as it's their relationship with their body that defines their insecurities. What I find especially interesting though is the way Caine's program seems to have struggled to interpret the unique neurology of a gender-fluid mind, which would have been quite confusing to something made by a static AI like Caine. Were Zooble simply nonbinary, the program would have had a definitive identity to draw from, however because Zooble's sense of self keeps shifting between male, female, and neither/both, the program seems to have ended up latching on to the only constant between these forms: Zooble never feeling QUITE comfortable within their body. Thus it gave her a form that is always changing, but eternally awkward to pilot. His face being limited to just a set of mismatched eyes is also significant, because he often hides his feelings within an abrasive exterior. It takes quite a bit for them to be vulnerable with others, and it's only though helping Gangle that they're able to come to terms with their own insecurities, and eventually open up enough to let Gangle help them back. And of course, the colourful and eye-catching nature of his body suggests Zooble was someone who considered herself difficult to ignore, which aligns with the sorts of social, expressive professions we know they had.
Gangle's mask gimmick being baked into her avatar suggests she suffers from an emotional regulation disorder, but that's already been made clear by the show. Her body is notably the most intangible and flimsy of anyone we see within the circus, which aligns with her quiet and unassertive nature. Most interestingly, her body has the capacity to form a wide variety of shapes, which we see her use in expressive ways on those rare occasions when she's feeling confident enough to assert herself. This, coupled with her drama mask motif and her interest in art makes me think Gangle is someone who quietly dreams of being someone important and attention-grabbing, but lacks the confidence to place herself in any such position. This is supported by the way any degree of power or control tends to immediately go to her head. It's what she wants, but she's so unused to having it that she quickly gets carried away and is ultimately left feeling hollow and unworthy. Lastly, I wasn't sure where else to mention this, but Gangle and Zooble being the only two cast members without clothes feels significant to me. I think it suggests either that clothing played little importance in their identities, or that neither one had clothes that they particularly identified with, be it due to Zooble's fluid nature or Gangle's lack of self confidence. Or perhaps they were closeted nudists and I've uncovered the show's deepest lore. Who can say?
Note, my observations regarding Kinger are directed at who he eas when he first entered the Circus some 20 years before the show's beginning, not who he is by the time Pomni arrives. Kinger's primary feature is how he entered the circus as one half of a whole. He and Queenie's bodies were literally made for each other, to a point where they can only be eye-to-eye with one another due to their wonky facial compositions. This reflects a real phenomenon that occurs within long-time partners, in which their brains gradually structure themselves to act as a single two-part mind. Say, one will remember names while the other remembers dates, or one will manage the pair's physical needs while the other manages the pair's emotional needs. It allows both minds to be more efficient, but comes at the cost of codependency. Should one mind be lost, the other will find itself unbalanced and struggling to function on its own. The fact that Kinger and Queenie's minds were so intertwined that the program gave them matching bodies perfectly encapsulates this, and also makes Queenie's abstraction all the more devastating. Besides this, other more surface-level observations can be seen in how both take the form of leaders, and what their specific pieces suggest about their relationship. The king piece is important but weak on its own, relying on the more powerful and independent queen piece for protection. The fact that they come from either side of the board could suggest they were mental opposites who fit well together. Their floating hands likely signify a degree of mental detachment from the world around them, their intense bloodshot eyes could suggest a degree of shared neurosis, and their lack of any other features could suggest that neither one was particularly social by nature.
