jax died before she could come out, and she died before she could become a better person and make any kind of amends with the people she hurt. I don't think the story was written that way by accident
she's horribly repressed and comes from horrible circumstances including homelessness. she also pushed away every hand extended to her and every chance she could have taken to get better. there were a million better decisions she could have made and she did not make them, and she caused an incredible amount of harm along the way. and still the story wants us to believe her worthy of being understood and loved
to come out would be to embody herself, to view herself as a real person, to start to leave the haze of dissociation that allows her to think of herself and everyone else as cartoon archetypes in a false world where nothing matters
she's desperate to stay in this world that she sees as false, where she's a funny cartoon character and she can still brush off the pain she causes as silly cartoon antics
it's exactly this dissociation that allows her not to take her own pain or the pain of others seriously. it was what ultimately led to her death. a jax that cannot come out is also a jax that cannot make amends
something I love about a tragic story, where a character fails to complete the arc that might have satisfied us as the audience, is that it asks us what led to the tragedy
the despair it leaves us with, the satisfaction it denies us, leaves us to yearn for things to have turned out differently. it leaves us thinking about what could have been done, what decisions could have been made, what different circumstances could have prevented the tragedy? dissatisfaction drives us to act
you're not supposed to be satisfied when she dies
I love, by the way, the matter-of-fact cut from her walking away to her already being gone. like many tragedies we experience in our lives, the news comes to us unceremoniously, undramatically, flatly. it arrives well after the moment where we could have been there. in one quiet moment the world shifts underneath our feet. at first it feels like nothing at all until the information percolates through us, manifesting first as a dull ache that feels inadequately small and insignificant
we don't get to ask "what could I have done if I were there," we can only ask "what could I have done before it got this bad?"
when a trans woman in your life commits suicide, she is not going to have tied up all the loose ends first. a trans woman's suicide is not the last page of a full life well lived. it is an abrupt end in the middle of a story that deserved to keep going
people who survive their lowest moments are the ones who get a chance to grow and make amends. far, far too many trans women do not survive
