Thinking about it more, I feel like Zooble accusing Caine of being childish is another instance from the cast of every accusation is a confession. Zooble has themselves acted extremely childishly, such as their self inflicted self isolation due to personal issues, the fact that when they were forced to go on the Spudsys adventure they threw a tantrum about it and then didnāt do anything more than exactly what a burger flipper is expected to do, they acknowledge that no one should antagonize Caine and then repeatedly poke the bear themselves, they hate when the adventures are too complex but also hate if theyāre too bare bones Ć la the gun adventure. It really comes off as Zooble doesnāt know what they want or that their moods and demands are so mercurial as to make them particularly unpleasant to be around.
Iāve seen something like this interpretation before, on a pro-Zooble Discord server no less, (which has a mirror Community on Tumblr btw) so itās entirely possible thatās the intent.
Personally, I donāt read the āpickinessā that way. (Only the Poke The Bear trope.) It is not unreasonable to have personal preferences that are Goldilocks-like. You donāt want to burn your tongue, and you also donāt want to drink tepid, lukewarm broth.
That Caine could never quite thread the needle on that (although, technically he did. Twice. They enjoyed the episode 4 adventure, while he got to sprinkle in a small dose of chaos with the NPCs, which Pomni the Humorless did not find amusing, but wtvr, and ze by all appearances enjoyed the gun game) was just unfortunate, and as for the rest of the cast, we donāt exactly know what balance of āthat seems sort of ā¦ dark?ā by Gangle and relatively fluffy Candy Kingdom and Gloinks stories happened in the years that were referenced in the pilot.
(sidebar: the one time I feel bad for her, she speaks up and gets shut down)
Also, being an extreme introvert myself, I donāt read opting to spend time alone as vindictive (even tho you easily could, given their line in the pilot), merely one valid choice among others. They did not seem like they were particularly suffering from having lots of alone time. We didnāt see any relief nor angst about it. The other thing is, RAgatha called Zooble a āgrouchā (or as I like to say from the mispronunciation, āThe Grunchā) but has Zooble ever directed that grumpiness to anybody who didnāt come after them first, as in, incite it? Other than Caine and Jax, I donāt think theyāve ever said an unkind word to anyone in particular?
Maybe weāre supposed to conclude that ze has, since RAgatha was disgruntled about it.
In that case, it would just be the story suffering from another case of, by virtue of being a mini series, not enough runtime to organically establish character traits as opposed to just stating them aloud. This problem also plagued Jaxās characterization (which I have a Google Doc on) and seemed to be the root of confusion in the fandom.
(though to be clear, I think this has put enough very obvious stress on Gooseworx that even if we could go back in time and petition for a second season, I donāt think having a better story would be worth whatever sheās going though in being unexpectedly thrust in the spotlight. Sheās stated that she never expected this thing to get this big)
When I was first watching episode 4, and hearing Gangleās utter lack of foresight in invoking Caine as enforcer, and Zoobleās subsequent line about it, it was legit scary wondering what Caine could do if he put his mind to it, but after watching ep 7, where Zooble references getting run over by a steamroller, seemingly not traumatized by such, it got me to wondering what exactly theyād be afraid of. They seemed on the whole pretty unbothered. I used this notion to introduce the Only Read Only fic, too.
And that brings us to yet another possible ābouncing from mood to moodā thing which may be in play, which is something a lot of pro-Caine blogs, myself included, spend a lot of time on, which is not considering what Jax did as torture, (albeit lesser amount) but whipping that out against Caine.
So, since you phrased it this way, that does beg the question, what if it is Zoobleās mood that determined that?
I see them as a pretty consistent character in feeling and attitude, but what if theyāre not? What if Iām just blind to it bc autism?
Is it that they were just more fed up, which resulted in stronger wording?
I gotta say, with burger-flipper Zooble, I would love to do a fan animation collab with someone, where Zooble and Jax teamed up that episode on the basis of āwage slavery sux, screw the consequencesā
Jax, at multiple points, doesnāt seem too concerned about danger. He strapped a bomb to a person who was gonna be in a room he was in. Upon rewatch of ep 4, he wasnāt begging for something not to go down ā¦ just trying to make sure nobody would see him cower.
Jax in canon apparently throttled himself a little bit, in not doing anything else OTT like the tossing Ragatha thing, but still couldnāt keep a lid on it enough not to mouth off.
(only time I even remotely relate to him. I can refrain from virulently insulting or shouting at someone, but if Iām snarky, it can still get me in trouble. lol.)
But with Zooble as a backup egging him on (pun not intended) maybe heād be bolder.
