A Higher Goal

Ok, so, I have been working on an analysis of episode 6, and I’m gonna be completely honest…it’s been really fucking hard, because trying to dissect certain scenes in a critical manner without getting what closely equates to white-hot reflexive anger about what happens in them has been a challenge. There’s something that I think that I need to address regarding Jax that specifically pisses me off before I can actually dive into why this episode was phenomenal.

Because make no mistake, I loved episode 6, I rank it as the 2nd best episode of the series, and I really want to bring up about what’s been on my mind that makes it so good. But I just need to get a few things off my chest so I can finally move on with talking about this show again in the way that I want to.

Full disclosure, this is not meant to convince anyone why Jax should be hated or that you’re a bad person for liking him. And if you come into the comments or reblog this post trying to defend your stance on why he’s actually not as terrible as I make him out to be or that I’m taking what happens to a bunch of cartoon characters way too seriously or why you think he actually deserves my love instead of my contempt, I’m deleting it and blocking you on the spot.

Alright, let me just cut right to the chase.

This moment here

Was legitimately triggering

And it makes Pomni’s subsequent reaction of just fucking going off on the obnoxious motherfucker that much more cathartic

Because nothing pisses me off more than someone backtracking what they said that clearly went too far by putting the blame on the person who was offended for being offended

I grew up with people like this, and it is fucking exhausting

But more importantly, it solidified exactly the kind of asshole Jax is that I want to keep far away from me

People who find Jax to have the most depth out of all the characters, I’m glad you’re enjoying your puddle of a man. Sincerely, I’m glad that he’s a character that you can go crazy for and he has so many layers that you can peel back and play with to your heart’s content.

But to me, Jax has always been kind of a glass onion. A character that may appear complicated, but their covering is so transparent that it doesn’t take much to see their core. And at Jax’s core, he’s a selfish coward.

Which is why as a character I didn’t find him to be all that endearing compared to the others, cuz he doesn’t give me much else other than “Insecure bully”, and later “insecure bully who also misses his friend”

That’s not to say that I didn’t find him entertaining or his behavior interesting to analyze, because obviously that’s not true. I just wasn’t inclined to sympathize or project any headcanons about how he just needed one good hug to be better. He wasn’t a misunderstood jerk, I understood him just fine, it’s the deliberate choice to be shitty to other people that I don’t tend to tolerate

And it can be quite aggravating to once in a while stumble onto a take that claims that because Jax’s behavior manifests from a trauma this means that it entitles him to some patience and understanding, or even worse, forgiveness and empathy from the victims of their abusive nature

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I’m just gonna say it, you don’t owe the people who hurt you your patience, nor are you lesser for refusing to extend that patience

Now, there’s a big difference between a misanthrope and a bully. Misanthropes would rather fully not engage with people for reasons that vary, but generally it’s because they don’t like or trust them. They will do whatever they can to be as isolated as possible. They will not be friendly, they will bare teeth, they will push others away because isolation is much more manageable and it makes them feel like they’re less likely to get hurt. Bullies, however, need to be around other people that they can torment so they can feel better about themselves, they actively seek out their victims and seek validation from like minded mean spirited individuals because it gives them the satisfaction of having power over someone to compensate for having little to no power in other aspects of their lives. Taking and coveting control are a bully’s main goal.

And because of that, bullies have always been losers to me, and no amount of sad backstory or tragic reasonings or self justifications is ever gonna make me think of them as anything less than just losers

Do I pity the fact that they are commonly victims of their own terrible coping mechanisms and quite often victims themselves that led to them developing the said coping mechanism? Sure. Do I think they deserve death? No. Do I think that bullies deserve the chance to change and eventually find a way to be genuinely happy? Absolutely, I actually quite adore characters like that. I adore characters that grow from a crack in the concrete, get stomped on repeatedly, yet still find the strength to bloom into something that defied previous expectations. I find that kind of resilience rather beautiful

But Jax, is not that kind of character, and the show has been repeatedly beating its audience over the head with the fact that his arc is not about getting better. It’s him making the conscious choice to double-down on his bullshit despite the fact that it’s obviously making him absolutely miserable

And choosing to hurt people out of some flimsy attempt at self preservation, will automatically make someone unsympathetic in my eyes

What ultimately makes me think of Jax, and by extension a lot of troubled male characters that are generally favored by their fandoms, as genuinely awful:

Is the utter lack of personal accountability

And for a character to receive any kind of redemption arc that’s actually worth something, they need to acknowledge the people they’ve hurt and make an effort to change

(Also, the key to redemption, is to not expect complete absolution for those efforts)

Jax has proven time and time and time again, that he won’t

Even him getting explosively defensive over Pomni unintentionally insinuating that the reason why people abstract is because [he] doesn’t take things seriously enough, goes to show that just accusing him of being in the wrong sets him off

He doesn’t want to acknowledge consequences

This is why I sincerely doubt that Gooseworx wrote him with a redemption arc in mind, because it takes more than just a character having someone to support them in their journey and not giving up on them, they need to not give up on themselves, and Jax already has

Jax essentially lost what little respect I had for him (and mind you there wasn’t much in the bucket to begin with) when he admitted that he doesn’t think of the others as people

And I’m well aware that he includes himself on that front, which is why he uses this self defeating nihilism to cover up his own self loathing

But there’s a clear double standard that he exhibits between how he thinks the others should be seen and therefore treated and how he prefers to be seen and therefore treated

If he really believed his own cope, he wouldn’t get so petulantly upset when things don’t go exactly his way. If the benefit of no one being real truly meant that everyone has the freedom to do what they please, he wouldn’t try to force everyone to act a certain way just to feel more comfortable in his own skin. So it’s pretty obvious by that point that he’s just saying all this to take the agency away from his own shitty behavior. If he’s not a full on liar, then he’s a full on hypocrite.

And, frankly, when we get to the point where we see him visibly struggling and regretting his choices

I could not give two iotas of a shit about how bad he was feeling in that moment. My pity well had pretty much dried up at that point for him. Call me heartless if you want, but the only thing that was going through my mind in this moment was, “fucking good”

Because here’s the thing, the level of cruelty that Jax put Pomni through, to taunt, lie, deny, belittle, and poke at her most deepest insecurities, are all very conscious acts of malice. Cruelty, and I’m not talking about knee jerk reactions like yelling or hitting, I mean true cruelty takes actual effort. Jax deliberately went out of his way to callously put Pomni down so that he doesn’t have to face the reality that she was starting to actually like being around him. His cruelty was needless and irrational, and while I can sympathize with the fear of experiencing loss again, I don’t see that as the only driving force for it

People who experienced cruelty do have the power to not be cruel in turn

Or at the very least, learn to not spread that cruelty onto those that care about them

Jax is not a asshole who is secretly good, he’s an asshole who’s (not so) secretly scared

So, do I feel like Jax deserves to suffer alone for everything that he’s done? Well, that’s not something I wish on anyone, even someone as pathetic as him