Who do you think is more sympathetic? Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus? Or Gary Barkovitch from The Long Walk? (Spoilers for both)
After re-watching The Long Walk and having watched The Amazing Digital Circus, I got similar vibes from two of the characters, Jax from TADC and Gary Barkovitch from The Long Walk. Maybe I'm reaching. Maybe I'm an idiot. But I wanted to know which one of these characters seems the most sympathetic.
Granted, I'll have a lot more to say about Jax because he was a major character and Barkovicth. And I'm going to spoil both so keep that in mind if you haven't seen either of them and want to.
Early Lives.
Before he was trapped in the Digital Circus, Jax was a human named Leeroy. They had an emotionally distant father up until he divorced Leeroy's mother and abandoned his family. Afterwards, Leeroy's mother emotionally abused them. If they took the abuse, then Leeroy wasn't a man. If they lashed out, then they were just like their father.
One day, when Leeroy, who was born male, came out as a trans woman to their mother, their mother berated them and screamed at them. Then, when she went in to hug Leeroy, they pushed their mother, who fell to the floor and hit their head. When she didn't get back up, Leeroy panicked and ran away from home. They were homeless for some time until they, assumidly squatted in an abandoned office building where they had their brain scanned by a headset there, sending a copy of their mind into the Digital Circus. This copy would become Jax.
For those who don't know, the Digital Circus is the creation of an AI named Caine. This AI was originally created to be a creative AI. However, his creations weren't up to the satisfaction to his creators, a company only known as C&A, so he was locked away. He would eventually escape his confinement and make the Digital Circus, a place on the servers in the now abandoned C&A office building.
Caine never stopped wanting the approval of humans, so when he found brain scans of different humans, he activated them, and gave them bodies in the Circus. There, he created Adventurers for them. Or rather, so they give him approval as to how creative and talented he is. There is more to this, but it isn't relevant to the discussion at hand. Just giving context for those who haven't watched The Amazing Digital Circus.
Note: I use gender neutral pronouns since Leeroy/Jax went by masculine pronouns but is implied in the series (and stated on tumblr by the creator of the show) to be a trans woman who hadn't transitioned, so I'm splitting the difference.
We don't get much about Gary Barkovitch's life except for a few sentences and the state of the US as a whole. We know that some time ago, the US fought in the “Big War”, which they lost. This war is implied to have been WW2, and the defeat lead to an economic collapse that had endured at least two decades later, up until the movie takes place.
The US is now under the rule of a totalitarian Military Junta. Once a year, this government hosts and televises The Long Walk, a contest open to young men (in the movie. In the book it's 13-18 year olds). The prize for winning The Long Walk is riches (the specific amount is unknown, but speculated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars) and a single wish. Poverty is wide spread, to the point of being near universal, so nearly every boy, if not every boy, in the country signs up for it, even though it isn't required.
The Long Walk is a simple contest. Maintain a speed of 3 miles per hour and walk as long as you can. No stopping for rest, bathroom breaks, or meals (though food and water is provided). If you slow down too much, or step off of the pavement, you get executed by the troops escorting you. Despite this, there are so many people signing up each year, that selection is done through lottery because people are so desperate.
Barkovitch is one of the people who signed up for The Long Walk. From what little we know about his past, he has been isolated for much of his life. He mentions he's always gotten off on the wrong foot with people and that he never “had a crowd” in school. This is seen when he tries to join the main characters when joking around at the start of the movie, but he's brushed off. Afterwards, he immediately says “Fuck you, I was just joking”There isn't any malice in it, but he was affected.
The Big Thing
Both Jax and Barkovitch have The Big Thing they did. The thing that causes the other characters, and/or the audience to turn against him.
For Jax, it was causing another member of the Circus to Abstract.
Jax had a pair of friends in the Circus, Ribbit and Kaufmo. When Jax first entered the Circus, they were a fun person to be around, after getting used to their new life. However, Jax opened up to Ribbit about their past. Their time homeless, them possibly killing their mother, and implied their gender identity (they had been going as a man when in the circus). Afterwards, Jax freaked out, made Ribbit swear to never tell anyone about their conversation, pretended it didn't happen, then started icing Ribbit out. Whether it was not joining Ribbit on Adventurers to telling the other people in the Circus not to listen to Ribbit because she is a liar.
During their final confrontation, Jax blew up at Ribbit, who wanted to both clear the air between them and reconnect as friends. Jax, among other things, accused Ribbit of manipulating them and using what they told her against them, neither of which was true. Afterwards, Ribbit fell into even more of a depression and Abstracted.
This isn't to say that Jax was the only person responsible. There were two other sane people in the Circus at the time and Ribbit could've leaned on them/they could've checked on Ribbit.
After Ribbit Abstracted, Jax doubled down on their behavior. He pushed away two people who tried to comfort him, denied that they felt any guilt, and tormenting the other humans, including one that had just entered the circus after Ribbit Abstracted, who had nothing to do with what happened. They justify it as believing that none of them are “real” that they're just cartoon characters falling into archetypes, though this seems to be a lie they tell themselves to keep from taking responsibility for what they did.
Barkovitch's Big Thing was the death of Rank, a fellow Walker. On the first day, those two are walking near each other, having been talking for some time when Barkovitch starts making fun of Rank's name. It starts as schoolyard taunts before he mentions that Rank's mother must have failed to abort him and she took out her anger on him by naming him Rank, which provoked Rank to try to attack him, which gave them both a warning (Rank for attacking Barkovitch and Barkovitch for slowing down to dodge the punch) and he keeps taunting, even as Rank tries to keep walking.
It culminated to Barkovitch calling Rank's mom a whore (in more words), and Rank rushes at Barkovitch to swing at him again. But Rank misses and skids on the pavement cutting his face up badly Rank is in so much pain he can't get up in the time allowed and he gets killed by the soldiers because he accumulated 3 warnings. Notably, Barkovitch yelled at Rank to get up and he sounded genuinely distraught. When he's called a murderer, by one of the other walkers, he yells that it wasn't his fault, that Rank came after him. Then, with his voice still shaking, he tries to relate to a nearby walker who had seen the whole thing “Hey, you and me, we're the same. You like to talk-” though he's quickly rebuffed. Then he starts hitting himself as he walks.
Doubling Down
Both characters double down, at least initially, on their behavior after their Big Thing.
For Jax, he bullies and tormentshis fellow humans. From constantly breaking Gangle's comedy mask (She's only able to feel happy with that mask in the beginning of the show), to throwing another person in a deep fryer, blackmailing people to do what he wants, and being generally unpleasant. As stated before, he believes, or says he believes, that the people fall into archetypes. Their archetype is “The Funny One” He messes with people, sees how far he can push the circus, and generally makes things difficult for people around him. When the main character, Pomni, tries to crack his shell, to actually bond with him, they push her away, both metaphorically and literally. To the point of telling her that if she (Pomni) abstracted, they (Jax) would move on and forget about her (Pomni). This was after they had spent the entire episode bonding.
That isn't true. Jax does care about Pomni, but they won't let themselves be vulnerable or genuinely bond with anyone else.
Later, the group thinks they found a way to leave the Circus. They are given two buttons. One will let them leave, one will trap them in the circus forever. 3 want to leave, and Pomni wants to get more information from another member of the group. That member is insane, but has more insight about the circus when he is sane, which happens when he is in darkness. Pomni wants to wait to see what this member thinks when he has his mental faculties. However, Jax gets a panic attack at the thought of leaving the circus and going back to their old life and pushes the button to trap them in the circus, pushing past two other people to do it. When it's revealed that it was another Adventurer, they never apologize for unilaterally pressing the button to trap all 5 other people in the circus, simply saying “it wasn't real, so it doesn't matter”. Jax never does apologize for this.
Barkovitch, while he was distraught about his role in Rank's death, starts taunting the other walkers, notably on the Hill Scene. The hill scene is when the walkers have to walk up a steep hill, while still maintaining the speed of 3 miles an hour. Barkovitch, while he maintains speed, starts taunting the other walkers, specifically getting in the face of another walker and yelling “Hey 4-eyes! You're dying tonight! You're dying to-NIGHT!” Then, he then catches up to the main protagonst, Ray Garraty, jumping over the body of another walker as he does so, then starts taunting him too about how Garrety is going to die tonight. And he does this for a solid 30 seconds. Keep in mind, Garrety has 2 warnings already, and a soldier is literally walking behind him with a carbine to Garrety's head, ready to kill him.
The next day, after another argument with another walker, he says “I've got plans for you, motherfucker”
Their End
Both characters commit suicide because they couldn't handle the strain of their situations.
For Jax, it was after a one-two punch of learning that they were just a brain scan of Leeroy, and thus not real, and the accidental deletion of Caine, which causes the Circus fall to ruin without anyone to maintain it. While most of the other humans pulled themselves together to try to repair the Circus and make lives for themselves, Jax didn't. They continued to isolate themselves until they Abstracted.
For Gary, despite saying he had plans for the other walkers, he never acted on them. After several days, he ruminated in the guilt of getting Rank killed. It culminates when 5 of the 6 remaining walkers make a pledge to help out the wife of a fellow walker who had died. No one had asked Barkovitch because they assumed that he'd say no. However, he tries to reach out one more time. Opening up that he never had friends, says he's sorry about getting Rank killed and says that he doesn't want to die hated. He asks Ray to tell the walker who proposed the pact that he (Barkovitch) is in on it, which Ray does.
However, when another walker asks if Barkovitch is okay he lashes out again before Ray comforts him and says that they'll keep walking as friends.
Having just had a bit of camaraderie and not wanting to fuck it up, because in his mind, he knows that he's going to fuck it up, he walks ahead of the group. After saying “I'll be with you whores forever now” he stabs himself in the neck to kill himself.
Which character do you think is more sympathetic? Both characters found themselves in a terrible situation that exacerbated their existing mental issues and both took it out on the people around them. Both doubled down on their toxic traits anda both ended their own lives.
