Jonathan The Trans Writer

Now, I wanna preface this by saying I’m not a pro theorist. I haven’t done deep dives or research. I haven’t slowed and reversed and analyzed every pixel and every frame. In fact, I normally don’t even make theories. I usually just take information as it comes canonically and don’t add on. But THIS? This is interesting.

To start, I think Abel was telling the truth. I believe they’re all hooked up to stasis pods, part of one giant experiment. I even think he was dead on with the way to escape, too. But here’s the issue: Caine was watching from the beginning. We got shots of the eyes in the photos. Caine realized what was happening and panicked, but he had no idea what the plan would be. In his panic, though, I think he forgot that he had the ability to enter the Chinese room, watch, and listen. He was just panicking. However, I believe that all got thrown on the back burner when Jax asked him to dinner. He was so excited by the idea that he forgot it all. Then, when Jax said there was a surprise, it continued throwing him off the trail with excitement. However I believe at some point, Caine decided to check in, spoil himself a bit. Only then do he realize they were going to go through with the plan, meaning he had to come up with something QUICK.

Now, as for what I think about abstraction and all that. I believe, firstly, that all of the abstractions in the pit are people who worked for the company. Their experiments failed quickly, perhaps due to Caine’s testing, constitution issues, ect. I think abstraction happens when your mind gets overwhelmed to the point of disconnecting you from the game, and I also believe that, through testing, the hold has gotten a lot stronger. Now, you might be thinking, if all of those people are disconnected, why aren’t they working to stop it? Because they can’t. Due to the nature of this experiment, I believe all those who get disconnected (abstract) are immediately taken somewhere and held captive to continue studies and keep the information from getting out. I also believe that Caine can forcefully disconnect people, and that he’s caused people to to abstract on purpose before. Why? As part of the experiment. The developers put it in his code to test his limits, so that’s what he’s doing. I believe Scratch was his first failure. He tried so hard to make them happy, but it ended up overwhelming them and the system, causing an abstraction. Caine may have attempted something similar for Kinger, maybe after his wife’s abstraction, causing him to go crazy. I also believe that Abel, at the end, was taken over by Caine and then forcefully disconnected. That’s why he didn’t abstract nor explode into confetti. Instead, he fizzled out in a static shock.

As for Jax, I don’t think he was involved in an accident, or that he’s done anything along the lines of murder, but I do believe he’s on the run. Maybe he has an abusive home situation, one that he finally decided to run from. Only then to get chased down and cornered. In a last ditch effort, he ran to an “abandoned” building (aka a building C&A set up to lure in fresh blood) and hid. That’s where he found the headset and was subsequently dragged to a stasis pod. I fully believe he was an asshole teen who was defensive to hide the pain his home life caused. That’s why, after he met Ribbit and Kaufmo, he finally started to put that all behind him and start new. He was happy to finally be free of all the expectations and problems he faced. Then, he lost both of the people he had found that comfort with. His walls shot back up. So, in episode 6, he realized those walls were starting to crack. That’s why he did a full 180 on Pomni. In the beginning of episode 7, he seemed to accept the idea of abstracting. He knew it was coming. He smiled and closed his eyes. He was okay with going if it meant seeing them again. “But why’d he panic when they knocked on his door?” Being okay with what could be death is scary. Knowing that he was ready to fully abstract probably scared the shit out of him when he came to his senses. Even still, probably chose the red button because he’d rather die and go into whatever unknown afterlife awaits him than face reality again.