r/Tadcriticism

I have bad news for Goose. Jax's problem is not that he was a closeted anything, a bully, or even that he enjoyed making others suffer (well, those are big problems yes, but they can be dealt with and ppl do all the time)

No, Jax's real problem is that he's a textbook NPD'er (narcissistic personality disorder)

Put simply, the core of being an NPD'er is that your brain literally can't consider other people as really having their separate existences independent of the subject's relation to them (and with their own same rights and weight as the subject)

The simplest example is after he virtually doomed everyone to stay trapped in the circus just because HE was scared: The way he processes is just "it wasn't real so it doesn't matter", completely failing to realize what he did and what it means.

This is not to say an NPD'er can't feel bad, and Jax does feel bad, but since they can't perceive others properly, it's always a nebulous bad feeling abt how HE feels hurt and lost and things should be better in some abstract way, as he does in ep 7 and 9, but whatever their perspective, it never includes other ppl as existing without their observing them. Which is amply shown in ep 9.

And so, we come to the 'bad news' for Goose, which is: there's no cure to being an NPD'er... you can't "exorcise your demons", your brain is just that way till you die

Just curious. If there had to be a jax montage before his abstraction, what song do you think could have worked better instead?

This was one of my theories when I started watching the show, and honestly deep down I was hoping the story would give us a plot twist like that. A character who seems innocent, sweet is actually an offender in real life and since they got another chance to live in another world they are trying to better themselves. Or, hell, they start sabotaging others because they are a disguised psychopath. Caine would seem like the obvious villain but the real bad guy is among the circus members themselves. Who would be that character, I'd pick Pomni, since her backstory is barely revealed until the end.

I guess I wanted that Don't Hug Me I'm Scared or Black Mirror vibe. But alas. They're only just a dream now.

If y’all are confused to what exactly I’m criticizing, you can ask questions! ^^

(also sorry if the quality is low, sometimes Reddit just does that 👀)

Now hang on a second, let's not automatically default to "Goose forgot" or "Goose just needed an excuse to give them funny names", does not being able to remember your name actually have any significance to the overall story? I suppose the only thing it actually played into was the ending when Caine revealed everybody's names with his montage of everybody's life, but even then it was more or less just information we already had or determined from the previous episodes just with IRL footage.

I say they could have just as easily entered the circus knowing their names, and Caine instead could have said "Nope! You're going to need a Gamertag to go by here!!!".

(CW: Discussion of suicide and emotional abuse.)

I have seen far too many people both in and out of the fandom who seem to think that Jax's Abstraction is something to celebrate, since she* was a horrible person. We should not be celebrating this as any sort of win or justice, because to do so misses the entire point of Jax's character arc. This is not about justifying her horrible actions.

This is about understanding the root cause. Remember: Empathy is about understanding, not excusing.

Jax is someone who has always been trapped in the cycle of abuse. The digital avatar that is Jax is a snapshot of a person at the lowest point in their life, exploiting the cartoon world to become a the trickster archetype as a defence mechanism. She grew up trapped in the double bind of toxic masculinity, being constantly criticised and even physically abused for not being "man" enough, but simultaneously being too much like her abusive father.

She was brought up in an environment where love was weaponised, and the hug from her mother came directly after more abuse, so it's little wonder she lashed out. She was deeply afraid of getting close to anyone, for fear of being mocked or belittled for being honest about her emotions.

That's why she pushed Ribbit away. She was the only one she ever told about her history of abuse, and getting interrupted by Kaufmo triggered her. She recognised the pattern of expressions of love being a trap.

Furthermore, the flashbacks in episode 9 backs up several scenes we've seen in previous episodes. She is hurting herself just as much as he hurts everyone else. This is why she mocked her reflection after Ribbit abstracted, sarcastically saying "You gonna cry, huh?!" She is beating herself up for her own emotions, because she pushed herself to do something horrible.

Caine being temporarily deleted was the final straw, since she no longer had the wacky cartoon adventures to act as a front to mask her true emotions.

After all this, I need to explain why this is important. The story does not frame this as a win, because to look only at the surface actions is to ignore the pain behind it. Jax is a warning: don't suffer in silence. There are always people who will listen with a genuine heart, not to mock. We can't help people who aren't willing to help themselves, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Nobody deserves to feel afraid to be honest with themselves, especially trans people who suffer under the pressure of cisnormative society. Jax deserved to live her real self, but would never trust anyone to do so.

So instead of cheering that Jax abstracted, we should use it as a warning about the path to self-destruction, and what we should do to prevent it.

They also mentioned the part where jax said “ladies first” in the pilot before pushing gangle then going first which is an insane reach. The “hints” before ep 9 were poorly done with the only decent one being the feminine room, but even that was a clue with easy to come up with multiple interpretations that were equally plausible. They didn’t mention this, but even jax’s purple bunny design, another so called “hint” he is trans, is a design with easy to come up multiple interpretations that were equally plausible. Fuck me for not picking the one interpretation among the many equally plausible intepretations before ep 9 i guess lol.

The ultimate problem I have with the “I don’t headcanon the Jax is Trans metaphor” is that people will ideologically default you to some hateful bigot if you think this way.

In truth, The Amazing Digital Circus is so much more interesting than a trans metaphor. It is such a shame that, for some people, the entire show legitimately disassembles to pass along this message because when I first got into the show it was most certainly not what I was interested in..

Also Gooseworx isn’t some victim for audiences having multiple reads of these scenes. It was purposefully written to be vague. Trans Jax fans treat the desire to see a trans egg plotline to be more specific with a pedantic, “what?? Do you want Jax to turn to the camera and just say he’s trans?” Like, yes?? One of the specific behavior Jax is consistent in doing? Why is this a rhetorical argument whenever the show already transparently has a nonbinary show in Zooble? Why does Jax get shafted with the endless trans/non trans arguments that Gooseworx rod had created from her own back.

I never, at any point, attacked fans for gender headcanons before it was supposedly “obviously confirmed in the plot”- so why, when the script has been flipped to them, is it okay to call people abusive bigots when they don’t follow your headcanon now that this read of the show has eclipsed all other interesting aspects of the show. With the finale, the fate of Jax completely consumes everyone else’s character arcs besides, perhaps, Caine. By the way, Gooseworx has confirmed that you can freely use he/him or she/her pronouns for the rabbit- so why is it ok to attack people who doesn’t respect the pronouns that Jax themselves don’t use. Where I am from, it is considerably disrespectful to use someone’s non AGAB pronouns without their consent. Also, they are fictional.

Oh, speaking of twitter. Didn’t we all hate when J.K. Rowling and other writers chose to confirm plot elements in external media, especially media posts like twitter/reddit/interviews? I am sorry, if it isn’t in the media- it is dubiously canon. Again, the degree of canon for this specific read has famously been dubious in the actual text itself.

I’ll say it again, if you come from an lgbt background, obviously TADC being ultimately a trans story and little else is more prone to be the specific read you take away from it. That’s the funny thing about media. It’s not just the stories themselves, it can also be what you bring to the table. I love when people have multiple reads of the story and the purpose of this post isn’t to demonize when you have a trans takeaway from the story. Great for you! But stop attacking other people when they don’t see it that way either. Respect is a two way street- and you are making people not adopt your read of the story on principle.

Sometimes I imagine the scene from that one movie with the actor who plays clark in the backrooms movie where they are in the crop fields and it's dry and then water comes through a hose and they all start celebrating. That's exactly how this show feels sometimes.

Like don't get me wrong, you do get somewhat some good lore just from watching the show, but you don't get all of it. They don't even tell you Jax is trans in the finale, you had to wait until after the finale for gooseworx to drop a Twitter post confirming it, and that seems to be how most of the lore is distributed. That's like if the creator of Breaking Bad hid the fact Walter White had cancer until after the show ended! But it just seems a little lackluster to just drop lore on a platform most people want to avoid when they want to be happy instead of incorporating it into the show for people to find and discover.

Also the "obvious" hints with Jax is just so dumb lol. I imagine a lot more of other folks would be embarrassed to be in a maid suit and to have a bow put on their heads by a frog with severe scoliosis. Anyways, my rant is over.

It WaS NeVeR aBouT tHe LoRe iT wAs AbOuT tHe ChArAcTerS

It failed on both 😂

awww,, jax didn't abstract guys 🥺🥺 here she/he is with ribbit and kaufmo look how happy our baby bunny is 😣😣 anyways buy our new merch

My first TADC fanart