RDM

Let's rip the band-aid right off from the get-go and state the obvious; Jax and Gangle are in a toxic codependency sort of relationship, built on the foundations of childhood trauma, and here are the observations I've made that, I think, is what makes these two characters so very interesting.

JAX

First up we got Jax. He's a whole giant mess of a human being at the time he was brain scanned and put into the game world, and with next to no room to grow and better himself in the circus (after he had ruined the only genuine friendships he had made), he just slowly got worse and worse with age, affecting everyone around him as he spiralled into self-destruction. We know about his upbringing now and that both of his parents were terrible people that definitely abused him in ways that really fucked with his head. Wasn't manly enough for his father who then left and never came back, then became the focus point of his mother's ire ever since. Something that leads into the notable pattern that he acts the worst towards any girls he meets.

They say that with some childhood trauma cases, the victims may end up repeating the cycle of abuse to their own children, be it knowingly or unknowingly, if they don't get the right help they need to recognise what they're doing is wrong and overcome said trauma.

Now, when Jax first met Gangle, he was already neck deep in his own personally made hell/conflict. Ribbit was already gone because he pushed her away, terrified about letting himself become too vulnerable around someone else, even when he liked and trusted them enough to share about his old life. Kaufmo wouldn't be too far behind, another close friend he pushed away and allowed to abstract because of his need to bury his insecurities. He'd made Ragatha promise to never speak of Ribbit ever again, thus breaking the very last threads of friendship he had left.

One of the very first things he did was give Gangle the name she would be stuck with for the rest of her existence at the circus. A little bit like a parent would give to their child? I dunno, kinda feels like I'm just reaching for something that's not there.

To me, it feels like when he saw the way she acted all scared, timid, and on the verge of tears from being thrust into this strange new world with no escape, it reminded him of himself. The way he arrived at the circus himself all that time ago, potentially. He looked upon her in the same way that perhaps his own parents looked down upon him, and thus, by making her the target of his own pent up frustrations, self disgust and hatred for his own personal issues, what he was and has been through in the past, and what he was responsible for causing in the present, he subconsciously enabled that cycle of abuse to continue on to a new victim.

GANGLE

We don't really know all that much about the real life Gangle, other than she excelled at her art career despite being 'injured'. Given the way she acts, it might be safe to say that during the period of time she was brain scanned, she wasn't doing too hot mentally either. Entirely speculation on my part, but she gives off the sort of energy that she was that kid who got picked on in school for liking anime, drawing her own manga doodles in class, and generally having different tastes and interests to her peer group. Then she grows up and gets a dead end fast food job that wears her down mentally even more. Strong possibility that she might have attempted suicide by car accident, which is where she got her injuries, and because some people are real pieces of shit, there's a non-zero chance she was picked on for potentially having a physical disability on top of all that.

Long story short, art, anime and manga may very well have been her safe space and mental retreat during any particularly hard day during her formative and adult years, and was certainly the thing she fell back on after leaving her job behind.

While not outright stated or confirmed, it's likely that she didn't have very many real life friends, if any at all, and between the bullying and consuming of eastern media full of attractive guys and girls, she may have subconsciously developed a 'type' that she is attracted to. Someone who was rough around the edges, crass and rude, but someone who actually noticed her and made her feel seen. Maybe in some kind of weird, fucky brain related malarkey, some wires ended up getting crossed, and that's how we end up with her and Jax becoming the complicated, toxic kinda partnership we've seen them be during the series.

DYNAMICS

Gangle met Jax first, and it would probably be a couple of years before Zooble would come into the picture, so it's probably fair to say they've been at this cat and mouse thing for a while. Jax was generally settled in with the idea of treating everyone around him like shit now, and poor Gangle seemed to be the main victim of his 'pranks' and verbal dressings down. Found all of the ways to push her buttons and make her cry, and because she simply had no choice to just escape and get away from him, she was forced to lump it. It's never shown, but it feels like Gangle was never particularly close to anyone else, likely down to her own social anxiety and general social skills. It creates the perfect storm, with plenty of time for this odd form of 'hatred' for Jax to fester and stew inside of her, since she couldn't fight back against him either physically or verbally. Honestly wouldn't surprise me if she'd drawn vent art about him in secret. Or as much of a secret as one could have when Jax has your door key.

Personally, I think in some kind of extremely messed up way, Gangle might have been attracted to Jax. He gave her the attention that she craved that she might not have got from Kinger, Kaufmo or Ragatha (though Rags for sure feels like she could have at least been some source of comfort for her, maybe), he was the 'type' that she could've had a taste for, but was a total piece of shit to her much like the bullies of her past. She hates him because he hurts her feelings, but she likes him because something inside her finds him attractive. Maybe? I dunno, maybe I'm reading too deep into my own speculations here.

When Zooble did eventually come into the picture, Gangle would find someone who she had been waiting for her whole life; someone who was tough but fair, would defend her from her tormentor, and stand up for her without backing down. In Zooble, Gangle had found her safe space again, and in the later episodes, she eventually found the courage to really let Gangle know how she feels about her. A feeling that is all too accepted and reciprocated. All very nice and good stuff, and I for one am glad that they got to have their happy ending, but this ramble isn't about Zooble, is it?

Inside of Jax's own mind, in the door where the flirty and sexually charged version of him resides, lays the scenario where Zooble abstracts. Gangle isn't torn up in the slightest that the person she obviously, actually likes, is dead. She's happily working away at directing the funeral under her manager persona from the fast food episode. There's a little back and forth between her and Jax where he retorts back at her that she was also making fun of Zooble somehow, something that hits her directly at her core and makes her actually upset enough to utter that she hates him. Something that is quickly brushed over when she's having her face caressed and told to meet him in his room after the funeral - an offer that she doesn't in fact refuse verbally. Definitely not a statement that she at all consents to this idea, but it does kinda look like she's giving it some serious thought to go ahead with that idea.

That moment right there feels like a sorta manifestation of that hate/attraction conflict she's felt towards Jax for years, and that Jax apparently knows full well about and feeds right back into to keep her coming back. That, or this was Jax's way of mentally getting back at her for the stunt she pulled during the fast food episode where she actually did have the fortitude to stand up for herself and put Jax in his place. Of course, all of this said, and being that all of these events took place inside of Jax's dying mind, it's pretty obvious that this all comes with heaps of bias from Jax's own skewed final thoughts about her. Likely the case she's never felt that way at all about him at all and that all of this is a big old pile of bullshit, but isn't it just so fun to speculate what could have been?

I can't find the video at the moment, but I know there was a post-show Q&A session with the cast at a movie theatre where it was said that Gangle was meant to be 'scream crying' after seeing what had become of Jax when he was being led into the tent near the end of the movie, but that this had to be dialled back for the final cut. Even Zooble knew that Gangle was undergoing some 'complicated feelings' about the whole ordeal, and she was right. Gangle couldn't cry for Jax when he first abstracted, because why should she weep for someone who just made her life hell for years on end? Something that was entirely of Jax's choice and design, by the way. As he said, he didn't want people to care or have any reason miss him when he abstracted, and projected as much on to Pomni when she asked about what if it happened to her. I'm pretty convinsed that he'd been sitting on this suicide plan since Ribbit, the only person who actually truly knew and cared about him, abstracted. Yet, she cries for him all the same. Is it a crushing sense of overwhelming emotion that Jax can never hurt her emotionally anymore? Does seeing him in that irreperable state cause her to genuinely mourn the loss of Jax despite everything he'd ever done to her and the others? Some mixture of both of these things? Is she sad that she'll never be able to tell Jax how she truly felt about him one way or another? Only Gangle could know the truth about that.

TL;DR

So what does this long old ramble mean for Jax and Gangle's relationship? To me, the two of them feed into one another in a way that is both negative but mutual. Jax uses Gangle as someone to vent his frustrations and project himself upon. He sees the soft, emotionally vulnerable part himself within her that he hates, and Jax is his own biggest hater. Gangle in turn, puts up with the horrible way that Jax treats her because a part of herself that she most likely hates, enjoys the attention he gives to her. It isn't the soft and safe retreat like her hobbies or Zooble's loving care, it's rough and bumpy, it makes her feel something, and gives her a rush that none of those other things provide.

Maybe, just maybe, all of this happened because they were a couple of broken adults, grown from broken children, that met at the right place at the right time. Like it or not, Jax had a profound impact on Gangle's life as much as Zooble did. Juuuust not a very positive one.

EXTRA (SEMI RELATED) THOUGHTS

Speaking of those other internalised versions of Jax, it gave me pause for thought: If Ragatha, Gangle or Zooble had abstracted before him, would Jax have turned into a full on psycho, flirt, or silly billy, respectively? We also never saw how he would have felt if it was Kinger or Pomni who 'died', now that I think about it. Given how great of a father figure Kinger has been depicted from time to time, I kinda get the feeling that Jax has no idea how to process what it would feel like to mourn someone who was or could have been an actually a decent parental figure to him, and that's really sad.