I Hope Jax Becoming Popular Will Make More Room For More Asshole Characters In Media Because They're Usually The Most- - Tumblr Posts
it's so funny seeing the negative fan reactions to Jax being even more of an asshole than he was in episode 1. like first of all, how can you not enjoy his dickhead antics and growing frustrations at the things that aren't allowing him to be a dickhead 100% of the time. i think it's really entertaining to watch him be a complete jackass to everything and everyone! and second of all, i feel like this is an effect of twitter fandom kiddies always praising a character who's a perfect angel or a "bad boy but he's bad in a good way..." character and deeming characters "immoral" as soon as they do something bad. as soon as that character they attached themselves to isn't what they thought they were, they get super mad about it, even though Jax hasn't really changed at all since episode 1. it's like seeing Jax have more opportunities to be an utterly selfish and destructive asshole put them off from the character entirely because "ohh he's mean now". it's so weird. like god forbid a character has flaws or does objectively horrible things that makes them more entertaining /sarc.
it's kinda like the whole discourse surrounding Pomni "abandoning" Ragatha in the pilot. a lot of people were deeming Pomni to be a terrible character because she did something that could be perceived as "morally incorrect" when 1. she was scared and confused out of her mind and practically in survival mode the entire time she was there, 2. she literally just met Ragatha a while ago and wasn't in the right place to properly prioritise anything but her own survival, and 3. characters are allowed to do """immoral""" things because it's interesting, it makes them more complex and it drives the plot. oh yeah, and they're not real!!! they can't hurt anyone!!! it's so confusing how people will see a character with flaws and then get so enraged about how immoral they are, while completely missing the point as to why a character has flaws in the first place.
i just find it funny how people saw Jax in the first episode, visualised a bad boy version of him in their heads and then got super mad when he was even meaner deliberately in the second one and isn't exactly what they wanted him to be. like you guys just pulled a full 180 and went from loving him to despising him in and instant. characters will have something deserving of a character arc and twitter fandom kiddies will become livid about it.
by the way, i thought Jax being even more of an asshole shined a brighter light on his troubled nature. like,,, to me it seems Jax's asshole-ish attitude is kind of a mask for deeper insecurities, especially when you see his face soften during Kaufmo's funeral, before quickly replacing it with anger and walking away. i think he's grappling with some heavy shit and trying to hide it behind a troublemaker attitude and constantly causing chaos and destruction to distract himself. i think that's why he got so angry and frustrated during the second episode, because he couldn't always have his way. he's definitely hiding something. whether it has something to do with Kaufmo, his situation or both, i wanna see what happens and what's going on with him.
personally, i want Jax to get worse, because it would be a very interesting look at how he deals with the circus compared to everyone else. i want him to get so aggressive and asshole-ish that he does something he deeply regrets (in reference to what a tweet from Gooseworx teases). to me, the biggest allure of TADC is the way the characters react to what's going on around them. each character has such a different way of coping with everything and i think Jax's way of coping, desiring chaos and death and destruction, would be an interesting look into who he is as a character. i want his harmful coping skills to drive him to a breaking point because hell yeah, character development!!! i want to see what makes the asshole into something closer to not really being as much of an asshole as he started out as.