"jax was written poorly, they expected to be forgiven after all that just bc they had a sad backstory" im going to KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS!!! BUT FIRST I WILL DO AN ANALYSIS SO I MAYBE DON'T HAVE TO!!
a character having a sad backstory is no excuse to be a shit person. i will not deny that. but you are still allowed to feel bad for the person without defending them or endorsing their actions. you are supposed to pity, but not forgive this person. i have felt sympathy for a person who bullied me and my closest friends for years, because they have a horrible home life. i will never tell them i forgive them for what they've done to us.
and this is exactly what you are supposed to do with jax. neither glitch nor goose is trying to say jax was redeemed because she's a repressed trans woman and has an absent father and possibly dead mother, neither glitch nor goose is trying to say this justifies her pushing away ribbit and kaufmo to the point of abstraction, neither glitch nor goose is trying to say jax is safe from consequences after relentlessly bullying gangle.
what glitch and goose are trying to say is jax could have learned. jax could have been a sweet person who grew into a kind soul and proud trans woman after learning to move past her trauma and accept friends into her life. we are not supposed to pity jax despite everything they have done. we are supposed to pity jax because of what they could have become instead. what they chose not to be. WHO they chose not to be.
and it's not like she's meant to be forgiven without consequence. she had consequence. that's what her abstraction was. she was horrible to others, and for it, she lost everyone around her and then herself. her consequence was exactly that.
and gangle crying doesn't mean she forgave them, it means she feels bad because a person she knew is the circus equivalent of dead. pomni didn't forgive them either. pomni learned about what they went through, and she wanted to see if they could be redeemed. she wanted to talk to them. she just wanted to see if she could help. she didn't want them back because she thought the circus lost a perfect human being who could do no wrong, she wanted them back because she saw potential to grow.
and pomni isn't stupid for wanting to help or anything. jax could have been helped, they just pushed everyone away from doing so. calling yourself unlovable or beyond help doesn't mean you inherently are, it means you don't want to be and will push yourself until that's how you see yourself. if she wanted to accept pomni's help, she wouldn't have been absolved of her crimes instantly, but she would have tried her best to grow.
that is what the whole point of the finale is: jax had room to grow and make genuine attempts to atone, but she didnt choose that path. she chose not to be forgiven, just to be pitied. not once did she say she wanted to be forgiven. she said she didn't want to go.
i'm also sick of seeing people say "there was no hinting that jax was trans until the finale" but that is a yap for another day
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