Why I Think Jax’s(And Pomni’s) Character Failed
TADC Episode 9 spoilers under the cut! Though, I do think that was obvious.
Hello! I know most of you all hated Jax even before Episode 9, so I figured I could come in and talk as someone who actually used to be a fan and invested in his development(in fact— I used to selfship with him!). I figured I should offer my perspective. I would like to add that I haven’t fully finished Episode 9 yet, as I did get a bit too uncomfortable during Jax’s fantasy sequences to continue. So, do take most of this with a veritable grain of salt.
To start off, what was there to fail to begin with? Jax’s character is based upon facades, the falsifying of his personality(and others’) in order to let go of his feelings of his current situation and his own actions. In the beginning episodes, this was an interesting premise for a character, especially for one that I think was originally supposed to be a side character. Jax was a character who was implied to care about the other characters(we’ll come back to this part later), beneath his deep facade and general dickheadery. In the beginning, his actions were barely— if not excused at all. In fact, Pomni called him out for it multiple times, and whether it be from a lack of understanding or simply a lack of tolerance, I think it was what Jax deserved to get a wake up call. If they continued with Pomni being generally empathetic, but not to a fault, leaving Jax with a choice in the end: “Put your act together or I’m leaving,” it would have been a compelling way to “redeem” Jax but not excuse his actions at all.
I think that Pomni continually giving Jax excuses was what led to the utter destruction of his original, intended character honestly. This is especially prevalent in Episode 6 onwards. While I enjoyed the exploration of both Pomni and Jax’s general characters, I found that the slow pushing away of other main cast members became only detrimental to both their characters in the end. With this isolation, Jax became the sole focus and Pomni simply became a device to find out more about him. And with this, Pomni slowly became less of a character and more of a robotic hug-giver to Jax, not the outgoing and generally well-rounded Pomni we used to know, who used to actually stand UP to Jax!
And as we transition from Episode 8 to Episode 9, I believe that this is where the true deconstruction and rebuilding of Jax’s character happened. And I do not mean this in a positive way, they took all the possible routes to go with Jax’s complexity and threw them out the window, instead making him ENTIRELY unsympathetic and completely retconning his care for members of the circus other than Ribbit and maybe Kaufmo. Jax was originally a very interesting character BECAUSE of this dichotomy, his inexcusable abuse towards others paired with someone who’s.. actually very observant. Someone who does understand the members of the circus, but chooses not to most of the time! The original Jax was someone admittedly very complex, and very interesting as a character. He was teetering on the edge of irredeemability because of this inner implied character, and yet, when I watch Episode 9, it’s all… gone???
His character turned from someone very centered around the OTHERS, to a character centered around himself. All of his slightly positive feelings about the others was completely removed to in favor make the very facade that he swore upon.. his only character. I suppose his backstory was also something they focused on, but it wasn’t really anything that added to the story because all of his other character got removed for the sake of woobifying and victimizing him.
Part of what made his portrayal so bad is that they never focused on how his abuse affected others. How they only treated it as a passing joke, and how most of the characters he mistreated were pushed to the sidelines and never were able to show their TRUE feelings about Jax. They, too, became devices to victimize him. They never showed if he actually felt guilt or any sort of negative emotions to how he treated the others later in the series, so I guess we’re supposed to assume he didn’t give a fuck…?? The only time it’s shown he feels guilty is in Episode 6, where he has a momentary falter after his argument with Pomni. Personally, I think this was the last episode his character remained intact.
And sadly, I know exactly where it went wrong, because I’ve written a character like this myself. I’ll introduce their very bare-bones characterization: Neres is a character from my book. They, like the other characters in my book, are in a godlike position of power. Neres is also someone who desires control within their situation, and thus, lashes out and takes it out on others when they do not get it. This comes from a need for distraction as well. This is their basic character, and now we’ll move to what I originally did with them. As I wrote my story, they gradually went from a character who did what they did because they felt it was right, to a character who acted out of general malice, selfishness, and disregard for other characters. I ended up simply looking at the IDEA of them as a character, and not the problems their one-dimensional character would bring. And this was because I couldn’t handle actually bringing consequences down upon them. In my original first draft, I ended up giving them an ending like Jax’s: simply killing them off and moving on. There was no musing on what they did, no understandable traits about their character. They went from a complex person to a moral lesson of sorts. And the funny thing is, I accidentally created a near-exact Pomni replica for them, without even knowing it. The basic premise of Ivory’s original character is that: She’s cautious, likes Neres and has a mental breakdown somewhere in the book idk. Ivory was essentially a betrayal-farmer and hug-giver for Neres until the very end, and had no actual feelings about what Neres did other than Ohh Nooo Sad :(. I Want To Redeem Them!
Eventually, I had a realization that Goose seems to not have, because she seems to have projected herself on Jax too much. I realized that Neres could simply not continue like this as a character BECAUSE of the lack of consequences for them. The lack of other characters forming thoughts on them, and the lack of elaboration on THEIR character. Eventually, I realized that making the book all about Neres and just angstfarming for the others was heavily unsatisfying— so I changed it! I gave Neres and actual backstory, and toned down the severity of their actions to make them redeemable, and made Ivory her own character(in fact, she’s now one of the least close to Neres). I replaced Ivory with Trin, who’s unafraid to tell it how it is and gives Neres a final choice in the end, instead of simply asking over and over for them to change. In the end, because of their shared issues that simply could not be solved in the spaces they were in, they flipped the switch that returned them to being mortal, and removed all their memories of being gods. Together. Both of them have problems because of the circumstances they were forced into, and without getting into the nitty gritty about my own story(since I know this is long winded and boring!), the general message of the story shifted from “Uhhh, don’t be selfish and don’t abuse others?” to “Sometimes the only escape from our circumstances is to start anew, and that’s okay.” I will admit, my story is imperfect, and a bit rough on the edges currently(I’m still working on how to give Neres consequences and keep the ending intact) but I still think it serves on a good example on how to fix bad character development early. The main point is that I sacrificed the version of Neres that I personally really liked at the time to create a better message and more coherent story as a whole.
And I WISH THAT WAS WHAT GOOSEWORX DID WITH JAX! 💔 Instead, she doubled down on his flawed and inconsistent characterization to excuse what he did since she didn’t seem to be ready to accept that some things need to be changed, even if he’s a character she personally projects onto, and in the end, it created an incomplete character and a butchered version of him. I consider Episode 6 and below Jax and Episode 6+ Jax different characters, honestly.
I’m just… so upset on how they handled him. How they turned one of my favorite portrayals of a character like him to one of my least favorites. It makes me genuinely so upset, because he used to be one of my favorite characters, and I was excited to see what they’d do with him. So that’s my Ted Talk on Jax, and why I think his characterization was completely forgotten. I hope you enjoyed! :)
Ignore if any of this reads as clunky, I wrote this shellshocked at like 2:00 AM LMAO.
Adding onto all this, I genuinely think Jax would have had a better character arc if he was a girl. If Jax was a girl, then her canonical misogynistic character would shift from being the general oppressor to someone who had it internalized because of her upbringing. It gives her a REASON to be misogynistic, instead of just being a dick for… what? Sad backstory? It was never really explained WHY Jax was misogynistic, and even though Jax being transfem was heavily implied, heavily implied doesn’t work in a story where the character dies in the end. I understand WHY Gooseworx wouldn’t want to canonize it, but if Jax is your pre transition self, wouldn’t the correct way to resolve their character be having them realize their identity in the end, and ultimately be happier? Instead of killing them off? I suppose you could take it as a cautionary tale of sorts, that ignoring your true identity leads to going down dark paths, but it really was not executed well because none of it was ever portrayed as THAT bad. Anyways, I’m just very mad about what they did to Jax.
