ChaoticAce

I definitely feel that Jax’s backstory we get with his mother adds more context to the push he gives to Pomni when she hugs him and the way he keeps looking at his hand after (and in episode 8.)

We see him relax for a hot second for the hug before being completely overrun with panic, and all I can imagine is this is him thinking about his last memories with his mom as well as telling Ribbit about it.

Two very different hugs: one done after beratement and abuse, and the other being genuine. I also wonder if Jax pushed his mother with his right hand. When he pushes Pomni it’s with his left, and that’s the hand he immediately looks at. But then in episode 8 when Zooble says he’s a one of them, he looks at his right.

Jax’s relationship with hugs is probably so sad, because I can imagine there was a point in his childhood when the hugs he got from his mom were real. But then as he got older the became less, and also more of a way for her to keep him close, even while hurting him. And maybe after a while he didn’t even want the hugs because they felt weird (especially if his mother did treat him as a full in for his father), but what else was he supposed to do?

FINAL WARNING

Thinking of the “doors” scene, one thing that hit me about the scene behind door 1 is that the Pomni in the scene may not be the real Pomni. She isn’t interacting with any of the other scenes beyond actually walking into the piano room, and while it could be argued she learned her lesson with the first room, I think it’s interesting to consider that Pomni may have been watching a caricatured version of her interact with Feral!Jax.

She later asks the Jaxes if that’s really what he thinks of them, and Loonytunes!Jax says it’s just more fun to see things played out the extremes. Thinking back to the Pomni in that scene, Jax could have landed on the fact that her “archetype” is the hero, and as such she’s trying to “save him.”

She literally says “I can fix you” and “you need me”, and while that could just be actually Pomni putting her foot down on Jax’s bullshit, I feel like it’s equally probable that this is what Jax assumes Pomni thinks of him, and as such that’s what his mind comes up with. The same way he came up with manager Gangle and angry Zooble.

It makes sense given behind each door is the abstraction of a different character, and how another character responds to it. Gangle and Zooble were paired together because they’re close. It makes sense in the case of Ragatha’s abstraction he’d see Pomni, and even more so that the scene would deal with her trying to “fix” him. It also parallels the memory of Ragatha approaching him after Ribbit’s abstraction- someone reaches out, he lashes out, and pushes them away. Only this time instead of words he uses physical violence.

(I do think it’s also interesting to note that none of the rooms dealt with POMNI’s abstraction, I wonder if Piano!Jax (the most genuine seeming, who seemed a lot like Evil Jax in terms of demeanor) would be the Jax that genuinely mourns her.)