another thing I think is so very interesting from the amazing digital circus finale is that the thing that was pulling them back, more than anything, was the belief that they were trapped
yes, caine was unhinged and the way in which the adventures were done made things feel cyclical and difficult to perceive progression when nothing feels like it amounts to something
but the true power holding them back was that they saw themselves as trapped, rather than capable of changing or moving forward, even when in the circus, because they were too preoccupied with the idea that they were not where they were supposed to be
whether or not they had lost faith in ever "returning", they still perceived themselves as unable to move on because they couldn't "escape"
it's like they were seeing themselves in a synchronic perspective (a snapshot of a moment in a time of their lives) rather than a diachronic one (a progression of events with the capacity to move forward)
when they were scanned, all of them were at point in their lives in which they were struggling with something deep and painful, and those fears and issues were carried into their feelings inside the circus
however, the idea that they were trapped made them believe that they were unable to move from any of that as long as they didn't "return" to the real world, because true change could only happen "out there"
when the truth was revealed, they could either accept their existence and let themselves finally move forward while inside the circus or, like what happened to jax, see themselves as perpetually tied to the memories they had from who they thought they were before the scan, unable to accept that growth was always possible and with the helpless belief that it would always be that way
which is something we sometimes perceive in real life too
when pomni says "abby is out there living her best life, and here, I'm just pomni" it's a way to establish that, from the moment she appeared as pomni, her life and abby's life had been divided, and it was up to her to live as pomni from then on, untethered from whatever abby's life would become, as her own person, in her own terms
accepting their identities and existence as they are, rather than seeing themselves as a sub-par trapped version of someone else "out there", was what they needed to move forward
it's an incredibly interesting take on awareness, on self perception, on how most often than not it isn't on the things that happen or on our reaction to those things but on the relationship between the two to understand true experience
