deranged 😏👍

(Post episode 6)

i usually never post so please forgive me and im sorry if anyone else has posted these but i literally couldn’t sleep cuz i was thinking about these so here we go-

1) Everyone’s character is based on their “shortcomings” in the real world, and the point of the game is to get them to accept these.

This might not even be a theory and I know it ALMOST sounds like the plot of SAW LMAO BUT but, I don’t believe everyone’s designs are random. When Jax pointed out that everyone has an “archetype” it got me thinking about how everyone’s character design (from the ones we know) basically lines up with what we know about them based off their memories.

>Zooble maybe didnt like parts of themselves, they talked about being a tattoo artist so possible they liked being able to body modification type things because they weren’t comfortable in their own skin.

>Gangle to me is used to represent her life about wanted to pursue her love of art but ultimately due to pressure, not being able to. Her sad and comedy masks are literally 2 staples/representations of art media throughout history. She can’t accept that she can be happy without having to hide behind a fake mask of what other people what her to do/be

>Ragatha is similar, her family treated her like a doll. From what I remember in episode 4, she talked about having to do things like dance lessons, and didn’t sound too fond about it. In episode 5 she went into depth more about all the things she endured with her mother, and these things to me are what’s important here. If you think about someone (especially someone from a wealthier family) berating, guilt tripping, emotionally manipulating, and forcing their child to do certain things and act a certain way then you are quite literally, to me, not acting like you have a child, but that you have a doll. Something you can “mold” and “perfect” the way you want them to be. You have a puppet, or basically a doll. This makes sense to why she’s trying to get people to accept her.

>Pomni is where I might go off beat here but the idea of being a jester screams to me as something to be laughed at or mocked. I don’t know if it maybe has something to do with her doing her YouTube explorations and maybe she’s embarrassed about them? Not quite sure but if you think about a Court Jester, their purpose was to basically make everyone laugh even at their own expense.

>Kinger is definitely where I start to ramble. I can’t help thinking about how his connection to “bugs” (like everyone says, probably bugs in a game code) and how his character looks. He does take on the form of a King chess piece, but to me he also represents a Pawn in a game. I’ll explain in a bit, but I believe he is most likely being used by C&A or whoever and does not know it. Usually when someone says “you’re playing___ but they’re playing chess” it’s a remark about how the other person is several steps ahead of you and way smarter with the moves they’re making.

>Jax, I’m not gonna lie here I don’t have much, and I’ll even explain this later. At the very least, I think his character as a rabbit probably represents the fact that he runs from everything that he’s scared of. Emotions, friends, etc.

I have an even stupider theory that runs with this that the idea of Caine and Bubble are meant to be physical adaptations of a narrator (Caine just literally being a mouth) and speech bubbles (bubble themself). Two things that are very important when it comes to telling a story inside of a video game or other animated pieces of media.

2) Kinger is literally a pawn in a game

Let me cook okay LET ME COOK

To me it seems like Kinger is supposed to literally represent being a pawn in a game. However, he is the king piece. So I think that what’s happening is that he either isn’t real himself, or worked for C&A but has no recollection. I think the whole point of his character is to fix things (bugs) and be the guiding light (it’s why he glows in the dark). I think the company is purposely “leaving him in the dark” about everything which is also why the only times he regains any form of cognitive function is when he’s in the dark “. After he’s out in the light, he’s what C&A made him to be: a lovable and goofy character that cannot remember anything. He’s a pawn yes, but he’s the King piece in C&A’s chess game because he’s almost an intruder of sorts with the others. Especially when you tag this with Jax’s line of “Ol’ Kinger’s supposedly been here the longest”.

3) There can only be 6 characters in The Digital World at a time

I’m not counting Caine or Bubble because obviously they’re AI, but I believe that even if each character isn’t supposed to represent something, there can only be 6 at a time. (Or at least maybe even 1 type of archetype/character design at a time, but this is just a ramble)

We find out in episode one that as soon as Pomni has entered, Kaufmo has abstracted. Talk about weird timing I guess? You could say it was just there to introduce to the audience what abstraction is. But we can also see on the doors when we get a shot of the hallway that there are (not including Kaufmo) 4 other doors with X through them, there’s Ribbit, Queenie, A worm on the string thing, and a dog looking character. Taking away Pomni, AND Kinger (since he’s supposedly been here the longest), that’s 4 crossed out characters that match 4 characters we have in the crew (ragatha, gangle, zooble and Jax). This is just something I’m tossing around, because the rest of the doors (as far as I could see) has just NPC icons. This would also make sense if Ragatha was the one who joined right as/after Queenie abstracted. This would join in with Kingers talk with Ragatha in episode 6 (forgive me I’m paraphrasing this) about how he was in a dark place and very sad until she came along. Right after Queenie abstracts, Ragatha arrives and changes his outlook on everything.

Idk but to me it seems that in the digital world, one specific thing cannot exist at the same time as another (I know that’s vague).

4) The final episode will be 57 minutes long

Okay this is just a crack shot LMAO but the letter 57 pops up in basically every episode so this is just literally me shooting in the dark.

5) Jax was at some point an NPC or AI and he is not happy he’s changing

HOOOWEEEEE Here I go further off the deep end but let me EXPLAIN

This is more of a toss around than an actual theory. But I think he’s playing into his archetype on purpose to keep from changing.

I want to point out in episode 6 after his and pomni’s fight how he starts swearing he stares at the bar on his mouth, to me it looks like he’s more surprised he’s censored or something than the fact that she got him to swear.

In a previous episode, when Caine is talking about an adventure not being scary, Bubble adds in something like “where’s the sex appeal” but it’s not censored, but it is when Zooble says it. Then in episode 6, when Caine does his ass-u-ming bit, it is also not censored, but it is when Pomni questions it. So it looks like when “Ai characters” use things that are considered “swears”, it does not censor them out. We never hear Jax swear until that fight, maybe he was doing that on purpose because if he did then it wouldn’t be censored.

Now you can point out that some things Bubble says are censored but I have no clue if what they are saying is swears or what. It could be info about a different adventure or info about Caine, no clue lol. You could also point out when Pomni talked about being in Hell, it wasn’t censored. Or the fact that (I’m pretty sure) Gangle hasn’t swore, at least from my immediate memory.

So the most easiest explanation for this “theory” is that when the “”swear””, or something deemed inappropriate, is used in a literal sense, it doesn’t count. Which I can imagine is probably the case.

He’s also the only one who doesn’t show us his “holding breath” trick in episode 3. This is a stupid take, but it might be because he simply just doesn’t have one. But he can hide it under the guise of being guarded. He’s also extremely violent to other NPCs, which is the same case for other NPCs (gummigoo and his crew immediately get into fighting the others in episode 3 without any reason, simply because it’s in their code). It would make sense for an npc or Ai to also whittle down everyone else to “basic archetypes” when that is all he is or meant to be, judging by how that’s what other NPCs would see the crew as.

LASTLY, he is very self aware and constantly addressing the audience/breaking the fourth wall. He has been seen talking when “no one” is around, like in the fast food episode when he’s doing the re-training or whatever and he says “nobody can see this right”, but then again he could’ve been responding to Gangle on the TV).

In the pilot episode after him, Kinger and gangle go into the gloink hole, go down the slide, and then knock out the pins, a sign appears in the air that says something like “spare”, Jax physically grabs and breaks the sign. Normally, someone would expect this “sign” to be like a text/speech bubble, and not something you can physically grab but Jax does anyway. You could just write this off as he just has a better understanding of “cartoon logic”.

The last thing is the 4th wall breaks. I know he’s done this at least 2 times so far, and I know in the Haunted Mansion episode, he directly turned and the camera followed to his face when he pointed at us and asked what we thought his “ability” was when holding his breath. Even having the others asking who he was talking to. Then again, you could pass this off as him just having a better understanding of how “cartoon logic” works in digital spaces like tv shows/video games.

This can couple with the fact that so far I’m pretty sure Caine has only ever changed things about him. He switched Jax to be vegan and he also tapped into his mind to give him a replay about his instructions from the trust buddy activity. Maybe it’s just a coincidence but maybe Jax is the only person Caine can do that to because he’s an npc or AI, just like Caine. You could also pair this with the fact that Jax is extremely uneasy after learning Caine can indeed rewrite how he talks because of the vegan thing (in episode 5 when he orders his drink he says “hold the egg white because I’m a vegan” and then looks really taken aback like he did not mean to say that but it automatically came out to correct how he speaks to go with his new “character update”. Caine even outright says in the Pilot Episode “one thing I do not have control over is your minds”, but then has shown to have control over , at least, Jax’s twice so far. Which I have to say is a pretty interesting detail.

You could also pair this with a similar opposite theory that Jax is slowly turning into and ai/NPC and certain things he’s doing is to stop that from happening (playing into an archetype, etc). I’m not quite sure.

6) The order in which everyone joined the Circus

If I had to guess when everyone joined, I’d say it was definitely Kinger first, then maybe gangle, Ragatha, Zooble, Jax, Pomni.

Maybe Zooble and Jax are flipped, but it was interesting to me how Jax referenced Breaking Bad in episode 5 with Zooble being the only person to acknowledge it saying “I get what you’re referencing”. This tells me they are probably on the later side of joining as Breaking Bad aired in 2008. But then again, Pomni didn’t say anything so maybe it was just something Glitch added in as a funny reference.

7) The characters are all NPCs/Ai

This one is just something I’m constantly thinking about. The idea that everyone in the circus was never a person, but an npc or ai. They’re all character files. To me this makes a little sense as to why the only thing they can’t remember is their names. When you re-save an existing file on your computer for literally whatevs, you have to either overwrite a file with the same name or give it a new name. If the characters are being recycled with the same “archetypes”, Everytime someone abstracts and someone new joins, it might just be a new person “overwriting an existing file” (whoever abstracted, basically they’re taking their place). So they get a new name and cannot remember any other they had. They get a backstory because it’s what their actual file/code is so they remember all of that. Idk I just always found it interesting that everyone could remember everything about themselves except their names. It’s a really interesting detail.

Or they’re just people who got sucked into a digital world LOL

LASTLY: the others will not be able to leave without Caine OR Kinger Abstracting

This is self explanatory. But Caine might become a little “too” human, especially with all the emotions he’s been expressing. He’s not the villain of the story, but him breaking his code might be the only chance for everyone else

For Kinger, I still think he’ll be the “guiding light” for the others to get them out, but I’m not entirely sure what the cost of it could be. But I think he certainly is a lot more important to the story then were made to believe.

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Thank you for reading all this HOGWASH and absolute GARBAGE I can’t wait for episode 7 to come out and absolutely wipe the floor with me and use this post to blow its nose with.

EDIT; 8/22: I remember Gooseworx talking about how a lot of people were gonna be pissed with episode 7 and that she couldn’t wait to see peoples reactions. If I had to guess maybe it’s that Jax and ribbit never actually really knew each other. There’s nothing in there that ever explicitly states that they were bffs or something, just hints about him always looking at the X on his door and so on. As for ragatha’s “not anymore” line about him having any real friends, it could be because (like I mentioned in my theory about how when someone new shows up, someone else has to abstract to keep it being 6 people) his arrival caused ribbit to abstract. So maybe everyone blames him for that, and maybe even for Kaufmos. It’s not explicitly stated who he’s talking about in his argument with Pomni when he says “just blame me for something like everyone else, you didn’t even know him” , he could be referring to kaufmo, possibly something he did also caused him to abstract and pomni’s arrival solidified it. Idk. Maybe Ragatha’s “not anymore” is talking about the rest of the crew @ him. It just feels like something Glitch would throw at us LMAO

This is something I was also just tossing around, I have no idea yall.

Eee