#character meta

Episode 7 of The Amazing Digital Circus is out. Let’s talk.

In episode 6, Jax explains his worldview. “What’s the point in pretending we’re not [cartoon characters]?”

The most recent adventure just confirmed everything for him.

He clearly didn’t want to get his hopes up about leaving. After all, that’s what drives them to abstract in the first place.

He tried deflecting. Pointing out that Abel was obviously a twist villain or that the whole escape plan was meant to be one of Caine’s secret adventures. He called it. But inexplicably, he hoped that maybe there really was an exist. He hoped he was wrong.

“I can’t believe I was right!”

His belief in the possibility of an exits existence was strong enough that even he thought that his own performative disbelief of one was simply coping gone overkill. He did not want to be right.

But he wasn’t wrong.

His twisted view on their situation, his view defined completely by being a desperate coping strategy — it was just confirmed.

Because this whole plan, this situation, this escape, it was all fake. A plot. They really were just… characters in a skit.

Jax felt betrayed that everything was a lie.

Pomni said they were all real, too. Zooble said the same thing to Gangle.

So imagine his surprise when Jax, outnumbered, was right about their whole situation. Not only was the escape plan a phony, but on a basic fundamental level, his mentality — realizing that they’re all characters in the focus — is the only way.

The circus doesn’t let them escape. It doesn’t let them be real. Neither did the adventure, which rewarded playing along. Because the characters in Caine’s circus would never choose to leave.

He refused to hold Pomni’s hand, to show vulnerability or be a friend, especially after their recent fight.

This would’ve been his last act of vulnerability before coming back to the real world, had their plan been true. His last chance to be good to her before they were ripped back into the world.

They couldn’t leave, though.

He was right again. Would’ve just regretted his actions even more if he did choose to hold her hand. Because why act so serious anyway? What are they preparing for?

Nothing. So no need to abandon their established roles!

Jax never wanted to be right. He was self aware enough to know that his logic was fallible. He didn’t like his conclusion either. So when it was confirmed?

…

He was horrified when he realized he chose to stay.

While they were all trying to figure out how to make sure what the correct choice would be to allow them to leave, he forced everyone to stay. Whether it was guilt, terror, or confusion at himself, this expression shows that it wasn’t just play.

He pushed that button because he wanted to stay.

He didn’t “jokingly” choose to stay.

Wasn’t following a script or a skit.

Wasn’t just deflecting, either.

He thought that blue button would bring him home — and he refused to hit it.

Whatever was out there, he didn’t wanna go. Caine was right! He really would just rather stay in the circus.

This begs the question; what is out there?

“What’s the rush, you got someone waiting for you outside?”

“Don’t you?”

“Y-yeah…”

He asked that so flippantly. As if it’d be ridiculous to assume that someone would be out there waiting for any of than.

Maybe he’s the one who did something. Maybe he can’t face his mistake. There’s no one out there waiting for him. That’s might be the thing he really can’t face.

Or it has something to do with this. To put it bluntly: it looks like a little girls room.

Now, was it just made to match his avatar? Or was his avatar and his room meant to represent something about himself? Something he doesn’t want to share with anyone? A secret.

How bad could his secret be?

Jax deflects in the bar when he’s asked about his life, but so did Zooble.

Refused to show what happens when he holds his breathe, too, but that’s such a minor thing.

It’s clear that no one else in the circus knows. Or they do, but they’re down in the cellar.

His wrath about the porn and the dropped threads and the wasted potential was perfectly sincere; this was not what he signed up for at all. (The frustration was justified. Not leaving was clownish. Clownish exaggeration of normal impulse; who among us has not insisted on finishing something we weren't enjoying to See What Happened.)

But he would have been so mad if the book had properly delivered the Shen Jiu & Yue Qi backstory, and the Tianlang-jun and Su Xiyuan backstory, and gotten all the symbolism and fate and cycles of violence properly lined up as intended. And let the sun set on a Luo Binghe who was peerless, and alone, and miserable enough to die.

even acknowledging that hiding his mother's illness is treason and therefore asking anyone for help would be asking them to commit a crime at best and risking getting turned in at worse, AND acknowledging that he's probably tried to appeal to the bright queen+kryn dynasty to let him study the beacon (if he wasn't too paranoid to do so) and they said no, essek DOES still have people he could've turned to.

they added verrat for a reason*, they showed us that essek isn't actually alone, and that there are high-ranking figures that don't agree unilaterally with the dynasty's rules. essek could have confided in verrat or others, hell he could have tried to petition the crown to let him at least research typhros and try to find a cure. surely the dynasty would support trying to cure the one thing that kills them forever, no? idk maybe it's a stretch but i'm just saying essek had options

but essek decided that not only could he not trust anyone in the dynasty (effectively saying everyone in the dynasty is too blindly religious to entertain anything he has to say, looking down on them for their, in his opinion, ridiculous devotion) but he also decided that he will be the one to unearth the secrets of the beacon when centuries (millennia?) of people before him could not.

essek thinks he can crack the code while deceiving the dynasty right under their nose and working with a foreign, antagonistic power with unknown motivations. he thinks he can control this situation he's created and he thinks this so resolutely that he is willingly, knowingly, risking the lives and souls of himself, his family, and his country.

essek's arrogance comes through in so many of his choices and interactions (sneering to trent about how it would take centuries to teach trent the basics of dunamancy despite only being a century and change old himself, his snide comment to his mother about her faith, the fact that he LITERALLY floats above others) and it's one of my favorite things about his character because he is smart. objectively, he is smart. and yet his belief in his own intelligence makes him do such stupid things. not only is this realistic, but it's FUN

it's so fun to me how he disdains the dynasty for its "blind" belief in the luxon but doesn't recognize his own blind faith in his own abilities. and (putting this below the cut bc spoilers for campaign 2 and essek's story)

Aegon's mythology is spectacular in this episode. He decides to proceed and face the advancing army instead of fleeing once more or cowering, or having people and the histories tell that he was killed ingloriously by his brother, while Larys who had stayed by his side all this time finally reveals his true colors and abandons him, choosing himself and his own ascenscion rather than allegiance to the King, whereas Tyland Lannister who has saved his skin from the Gullet once before now chooses to pursue the same grand mythology and die alongside King Aegon Targaryen, as the two of them will be surely annihilated by the advancing army.

And just as the soldiers appear and ask Aegon to yield and bend the knee to Rhaenyra Targaryen, only then does he realize the magnitude of the sacrifice and the courage and bravery that he needs to become the legend that he intends to be, and he falters, but there is no turning back, and out of his own disgust for any other kind of death which he considers demeaning and belittling, he faces the army with a newfound courage and bravery, Aegon the daring, revealing his identity as Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, and he sees the soldiers tremble before him, and incorrectly but proudly thinks that his bravery has inspired such fear and terror in them only to realize that his confidence and courage has actually awakened half-dead Sunfyre, who has heard him and made his way to stand behind him, and now at his command his dragon burns them all.

the "diagnosis" Chilton gave Will during his trial was the one closest to the truth ("Will Graham has never been diagnosed. He won't allow anyone to test him. He has carefully constructed a persona to hide his real nature from the world. He wears it so well, even Jack Crawford couldn't see past it. (...) There is not yet a name for whatever Will Graham is.")

unlike Alana Bloom or Jack Crawford, he saw what a manipulator Will was and that in front of them he played a poor, confused, wounded bird ("(...) A particularly-manipulative one at that. Poor, confused, wounded bird for Agent Crawford and Doctors Lecter and Bloom. And for me, well, I get the psychopath's triumvirate: charm, focus and ruthlessness. The charm, of course, being debateable.")

he believed Will that Hannibal may be the Chesapeake Ripper and said Jack Crawford: "Hannibal once served me tongue and made a joke about eating mine. It's hard not to at least consider it.". Jack ignored him. (I think Jack was already planning some large-scale action against Hannibal, but that's a topic for another post)

he called Dr Lecter "Hannibal the Cannibal"

he understood that Will Graham was alive because Hannibal Lecter liked him that way

criticized Jack for letting Will and Hannibal get closer to each other and then leaving Will alone ("You dangle Will Graham and now you cut bait. You are letting Hannibal have him hook, line and sinker.")