After a day has passed since the film is out, I think I should be ok to talk about spoilers and my final thoughts on Jax as a character (Spoilers for the TADC Movie/Ep 9)
So, I think trans Jax is canon (I think, its a bit confusing because Leeroy (irl Jax's name) is still referred to as a he, so I suppose either 1. Leeroy hasn't tranditioned yet, 2. Im wildly misintrepretting the Ribbit bed scene, or 3. Jax is trans and Leeroy is not.) therefore I'll be referring to Jax with she/her pronouns from now on.
The thing that I hate most about Jax is her abusive relationship with Gangle and the other feminine figures in her life.
In the short segment where Pomni explores Jax's mind palace, we get to see how Jax imagines how she'd react to Zooble's, Ragatha's, and Gangle's deaths.
Gangle's is quite comedic but does highlight a small aspect of Jax. The short segment begins with Jax outside of Gangle's door before Zooble confronts her and blames her for Gangle's death, ultimately ending with Zooble meeting the same fate as many a Wile E. Coyote before them. It establishes now that Gangle is dead, Jax fully leans into the Bugs Bunny aspect of her faรงade, trying desperately to not let anyone know how much she's really hurting inside.
Ragatha's is fucked up. After Pomni intervenes and offers Jax support, she is thanked with having the life nealy choked out of her while Jax dissasociates before stopping at the last minute, passing the whole thing off as a terrible joke because "We can't die of suffocation". This, rightfully, makes Pomni run away in terror. Its also important to note that this isn't the real Pomni, Jax specifically turns her head towards the peeping Pomni after her idea of Pomni runs away (basically two different Pomnis in this scene, Jax's idea of Pomni and the real Pomni that's watching from above.)
Zooble's, while brief, is honestly sickening to me. Jax wears the maid dress from the misc. adventures episode while Gangle, in her manic mask, tries to effectively coordinate the best possible funeral for Zooble. When Gangle sees Jax, she gets flustered and is distaracted from the project from both Jax's outfit and her teasing remarks towards Gangle. It's heavily implied here that Jax thinks Gangle has a crush on her which 1. No, she evidentially does not. And 2. Jax, depsite thinking this, still treats Gangle like garbage and psychologically tortured her to a degree where Gangle is terrified of making Jax even the tinsiest bit angry (as seen in the gun episode.) I don't need to tell you why that is disturbing and tells a lot of what Jax's homelife must've been like and her views on relationships.
Jax may be a victim of a shitty homelife, but thats not an excuse to lash out and make everyone else hurt just because she's also in pain. Jax, at any point, could've decided to be better and take the many many hands extended out to her, but refused at every turn. Even when Ribbit tried to clear the air, all she got was a pointless screaming match. When Pomni and Ragatha tried to help, all they recieved was more verbal abuse. After Ribbit abstracted, Jax distanced herself from Kaufmo too (as seen when Kaufmo went to tell Jax about the exit doors and specifically said "I know we don't get along-") As well as Ragatha, and tried to do the same to Pomni.
One of my biggest complaints about the entire series is honestly Jax's and Pomni's relationship. It feels like it boils down to Pomni having to (to quote the fake Pomni) 'fix' Jax. Let me tell you right here and now, it's not yours or anyone else's (except for a paid therapist's) job to 'fix' anyone. If the last thing someone does to you is kick you off of them and tell you that they wouldn't mind if you died the next day and not IMMEDIATELY apologize for saying that, then you are fully justified in leaving that person behind. If you know FOR A FACT that the person you are trying to help has fully envisioned themselves capable and willing to almost strangle you to death and then try to pass it off as a joke, then you need to get the hell out of there! If you know that the person you are hanging out with has severly hurt and psychologically tortured another one of your friends, then the reason why or tragic backstory doesn't matter, they are an abuser and your highest priority should NOT be playing amateur therapist or going "well, we all did bad stuff before", but instead ensure that the abuser remains as far away from their victim at all times.
The biggest problem with TADC is that Jax has done too much fucked up shit to be worth forgiving. Even in ep 8, after the crew forgives her for the button thing (which, in all fairness, Jax was going through a mental spiral and was in a panicked frenzy when she hit the button), she then throws her arms up in the air for Kinger's ACCIDENTAL deleting of Caine and goes "Yeah, we should all make a bigger deal out of this" and then gets pissed off when everyone else silently goes "No, they're bigger things to worry about like the fact that THE ENTIRE WORLD IS COLLAPSING AROUND US!"
Jax has mental issues and trauma, yes, but that is merely the explanation, NOT the excuse. Everyone else in the circus is also tugging along their own shit-ton of trauma and baggage, but they rarely make it everyone else's problem and are willing to healthily work through it with the support group they've all formed together. Jax is not and refuses at every turn to try to be better. I may be forgetting something during the hug between her and Pomni, so please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Jax verbally apologized for ANY of the shit she did to everyone else. That refusal to properly acknowledge everything she did to Gangle, Zooble, and Ragatha is what makes her actions truly unforgivable.
