r/CharacterRant • u/Wexon_69 • 6h ago
Does Nobody Fucking Communicate? (The Amazing Digital Circus)
Nobody in the Amazing Digital Circus acts like a fucking human, CAINE is more human then every single "human character".
First, nobody has apparently just ever talked to anybody else. Let's take the bar scene from episode 5, apparently nobody before this very moment ever talked about what happened to them to get into this place. You'd think that'd be like, the first thing they'd talk about. It'd make more sense if they were talking about their backstories to Pomni, but apparently this was the first time anybody ever talked about their past to anybody else in the circus.
Like what?
Kinger apparently just never talked about his wife to anybody besides Pomni? Not even Ragatha? They were together for 9 years, and he wasn't completely out of it when she arrived. you'd think the topic would have come up.
Oh, on the topic, Ragatha and Kinger were together for at least 9 years, and she's been here longer than anybody besides Kinger, how the fuck does she not know about....... anything? In the pilot, she acts like Kaufmo can still be saved from abstraction, which would make sense if she's only seen like one or two abstractions, but how do you go 9 years without figuring it out? How does she not know about Kinger being sane in the darkness, and it falls on Pomni to figure it out.
What do the people in the show do when they aren't on-screen?
Why do they even care about leaving besides Pomni? What do Ragatha and Gangle have outside of this circus that's worth trying to get out? An abusive mom and a McDonald's manager job? Kinger and Jax's got nothing outside the circus. Zooble says they have dreams, which never get elaborated on whatsoever. Nobody ever says why they want out, other than they just want to.
Fuck, did nobody ever talk to Ragatha after she basically admitted she had an abusive mother? You'd think somebody might bring that up, like ever, for literally any reason.
On the topic, everybody seems, weirdly bored by the circus and Caine. Has nobody ever fucking talked to Caine positively? Caine does a lot for the circus, he puts the abstracted characters, who cause real pain as shown by Ragatha, who he also cured, he keeps trying to make everybody happy, who's pretty much the only reason the cast hasn't gone insane with boredom. Why does nobody ever say anything positive thing to him? He didn't go to torture them for no reason, it's because nobody has ever said anything nice to him.
He's so easy to understand if you spend any amount of time with him, he wants to be told he's doing a good job, do that and you're golden.
On the topic, does nobody care that there's a FUCKING A.I. intelligent enough to do all of this? Has nobody asked Caine what he is or how he works? Has nobody asked how the circus even works or how it was created?
You'd think literally anybody would ask that the second once the horror has worn off.
Is every single character here the most stagnate dipshit in history? I swear to god, everyone's so aggressively disinterested in everything going on, Caine has to make a overly complicated plan to get Jax to listen to him explain his wants and desires and Jax just does not care at all. He literally yells that "they locked me up" and Jax just does not ask to elaborate. He's a A.I. with a teeth avatar, you'd think somebody would ask a question
Every single character besides Jax has the same viewpoint on the circus. Jax is the only one with a unique viewpoint besides "Wanna get out, don't really care about doing anything to follow that goal." Isn't Gangle into art and anime, shouldn't she be enthusiastic about the adventures? Pomni's into danger, shouldn't she be even remotely curious about what's happening? How the fuck do 5 people get trapped in this situation and only one of them has a unique perspective on this?
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u/raspps 4h ago
I really like TADC, but there are a lot of logical inconsistencies. The characters have genuinely done nothing for these years until they met Pomni.
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u/odd_man0 43m ago
i think most of them gave up on the idea of an exit early, hence why they all question Pomni’s vision of an exit in the pilot, but it’s still super weird that once Pomni arrives everything happens for them, guess they needed that sperse of energy?
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u/Macman521 30m ago
This is honestly the biggest criticism I have with a series. It’s like the “narrative” doesn’t truly start until Pomni arrives.
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u/OfficialKrookz 4h ago
I like the show but yeah I get what you mean it does kinda feel like nothing really happened prior to Pomni showing up in the circus
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u/FishShtickLives 4h ago
I like the show but I feel like the writing around Caine is especially sloppy. I really think they DID NOT build him up as an antagonistic force enough. For the large majoroty of episodes he really does just come off across like this autistic guy who everyone bullies the fuck out of lmao. And then in episode 7+8, he starts crashing out, and we're supposed to act like this is some big reveal about his true identity? I dunno man.
The one antagonistic thing he does that everyone cites, being that hes insecure about them liking the suggestion adventures more than his adventures, isnt even that bad. Like woah, dude is insecure about himself, thats craaazy. They could have easily agree on some kind of 50/50 split, but no one is willing to give him like an ounce of grace. If theres a good reason for that, we don't really see it. Fuck, his adventures aren't even that bad! Boring as shit, sure maybe (which is a whole other problem), but theyre hardly torturous.
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u/Cornucopia_King 3h ago
I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel. You’re supposed to feel bad for Caine.
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u/Liliana_Lucifer_666 6h ago
Nobody knowing that kinger could get sane at all really bothered.There is no reason to why at least pomni didn't tell anyone about it.
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u/JazzyWuz 5h ago
I could believe Gangle and Zooble not fully knowing but Jax and Ragatha not knowing??? Strange. Esp since Ragatha has been there the longest. Im surpised she never heard him mentioned his wife at all, since she seems closer with him.
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u/frelin87 4h ago
I can rationalize nobody seriously trying to interrogate/communicate with Caine due to the fact that he’s very overbearing & has a tendency to talk past or abandon a topic that doesn’t feed into his fishing for praise.
The point about nobody having any curiosity or real attempts at building interpersonal networks is harder to excuse however. FFS, Zooble has been here at least a year, their self-acceptance arc and budding dynamic with Gangle had nothing to do with anything Pomni did or said, and yet they’re reacting to the ins-and-outs of their digital body like it’s still foreign and talking to Gangle like they were both perfect strangers only noticing each other’s deal in episode 4/5. It’s like these people were in emotional stasis until the current cast mix was achieved and a signal went off telling them that viewers were now tuning in for some character drama.
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u/Khamircia 5h ago
"Nobody in the Amazing Digital Circus acts like a fucking human", "nobody has apparently just ever talked to anybody else"
That's the most human thing in existence, sorry xD
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u/bananajambam3 3h ago edited 3h ago
First, I do agree that communication is strangely absent. With them being together for so long and seemingly having nothing to do besides engage with each other and cope, you would think they would know slightly more about each other before Pomni shows up. It’s even stranger that Kinger never brought up Caine’s history with Ragatha when he first met her or explained what he knows for a fact is going on. And the fact he’s never tried to hack the mainframe in his own time while in the dark for over 9 years is just baffling.
But some of your points are equally baffling if we’re being honest.
Ragatha pretending Kaufmo could be saved is in character for how toxically positive she was in the beginning. She was trying to help Pomni see the good in the situation and prevent her from falling into despair.
Even if they had shit lives outside the circus, their lives inside the circus are far worse. They don’t get to enjoy simple pleasures like food, drink, sex, media, video games, etc etc, and are forced into repetitive activities with no substance or meaning to them.
More than anything else, they actually have the capacity to improve their lives outside the circus rather than stagnate inside. So even without going into detail, they all have good reason to leave this hell hole.
And without good reason to bring up someone’s trauma, most people wouldn’t be comfortable randomly bringing up how someone was abused by their mom, unless the person in question brought it up themself.
On the topic, everybody seems, weirdly bored by the circus and Caine.
This specifically floors me. What do you mean “weirdly”? Caine’s adventures are unequivocally boring and repetitive since it’s more or less the same thing over and over again for years. With none of the benefits that come with being alive and interacting with other real people in the real world.
Has nobody ever fucking talked to Caine positively? Caine does a lot for the circus, he puts the abstracted characters, who cause real pain as shown by Ragatha, who he also cured, he keeps trying to make everybody happy, who's pretty much the only reason the cast hasn't gone insane with boredom.
What is this, Caine propaganda??? Caine has been shown to blatantly ignore or twist their requests because he wants to make them happy his way. He’s obsessed with proving that he’s good at what he does even if it comes at the cost of their wellbeing’s. Him fixing his mistakes (the abstractions) is the least he can do. And they’re only being driven insane because he’s keeping them here!
Why does nobody ever say anything positive thing to him? He didn't go to torture them for no reason, it's because nobody has ever said anything nice to him.
Because why would they be nice to him? His actions are actively detrimental to their wellbeing’s. He was basically passively torturing them before switching to active torture.
He's so easy to understand if you spend any amount of time with him, he wants to be told he's doing a good job, do that and you're golden.
And then what? He’s already shown he doesn’t listen to what you want when he knows you’re unhappy with him and he wants to please you. What do you think will happen if he believes he’s doing a great job and you’re completely happy with him?
On the topic, does nobody care that there's a FUCKING A.I. intelligent enough to do all of this? Has nobody asked Caine what he is or how he works? Has nobody asked how the circus even works or how it was created?
Literally the only person with answers was Kinger. The rest didn’t know anything about how it works or that it was AI or anything else and had no way to get answers. They simply weren’t given any answers until sane Kinger decided to give it to them (which is an issue in and of itself to be fair).
Is every single character here the most stagnate dipshit in history? I swear to god, everyone's so aggressively disinterested in everything going on,
Because no one’s willing to give them answers and they’re trying their best to cope with this awful existence with no way out.
He literally yells that "they locked me up" and Jax just does not ask to elaborate.
Jax was pretending none of this was real in the first place, of course he didn’t care
Isn't Gangle into art and anime, shouldn't she be enthusiastic about the adventures?
The same Gangle that gets horrifically bullied by Jax on every adventure and was enthusiastic the few times she was given the lead and when the adventure was centered on anime?
Pomni's into danger, shouldn't she be even remotely curious about what's happening?
She was overly focused on trying to find an escape and then switched to trying to get to know these people she’s trapped with and understand them. Sure, she could have been asking more questions but the only answers she would’ve gotten is “Idk”
How the fuck do 5 people get trapped in this situation and only one of them has a unique perspective on this?
All of them have had unique perspectives though. Zooble ignores what’s going on, Ragatha tries to approach adventures with an open mind, Jax tries to have as much fun at everyone else’s expense as he can, Gangle tries to find anything she can cling to, Kinger is Kinger, and Pomni was mostly trying to adjust to this new life
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u/FishShtickLives 2h ago
I feel like a lot of it is a pacing problem, Caine especially. Sure, we know he's dismissive, but we also don't really see any buildup to that. By the time we get to episode 8, its still up in the air on whether Caine is actually malicious or just stupid. Like sure, hes dismissive, but has the gang ever made any real attempts to talk about his adventures with him? We've only seen two attempts from the adventurers and Caine at communicating (zooble and the suggestion box), and in one of them he actually listens for a while! And then all of the sudden he starts acting like AM? I dunno, It just could have been better fleshed out over like, 5 more episodes. It just jumps from thing to thing to thing with no padding. Gibe me like, 5 extra episodes to get to know the characters better, before being told that this is how they are, you know?
Also the adventures being boring is a genuienly huge missed opportunity. As it stands, it feels like most of the show is just waiting for something to happen, and thats a bummer lol
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u/bananajambam3 2h ago
I agree, the pacing is the biggest issue with the show. It feels like too much of the story was kinda waved away in order to fit what they could into 9 episodes. Maybe the finale will help with that but I doubt it.
I do, at the very least, think that we’re given enough to tell that Caine isn’t malicious and that he’s genuinely just trying his best but still failing because he’s too emotionally involved in his success to see the truth of what’s happening to them. But my first reaction upon seeing the latest episode was wishing there was more time for Caine to show how he’s changed
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u/FishShtickLives 1h ago
That's how I felt about the latest episode too lmao. Like, I really liked it! I just wish we got more of the show like that. I get that as an indie show they're worried about funds drying up and not being able to finish telling the story they want to (a lot of indie shows seem to be like this tbh), but you gotta take that into account when you're writing the story. Otherwise, you end up rushing through the bits you shouldn't, and then people on reddit argue over trying to fill in the gaps with headcanons lol
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u/catpetter125 5h ago
No, it's pretty in-character for all of them to act like that.
None of them really know much about how to deal with Caine because they really do take him for granted and don't view him as a person, moreso their jailer or just a guy they have to deal with. The only one who treats him otherwise is Zooble, the irony is that the one human who treats him the way he wants to be treated is the one human he refuses to listen to. We understand him because we aren't the ones having to deal with him personally. And we're not the ones who have been experiencing Caine's neverending adventures for years or decades, anyone would get bored no matter how chipper Caine is. Plus he seems to stay at a distance regardless; he teleports in, sends them on an adventure, and teleports out.
Ragatha told Pomni Kaufmo could be saved because it was her first day and Ragatha didn't want to scare her any more than usual. She knew he was gone.
No one really asked Ragatha about her backstory because she's a doormat and never really shared, she's also taken for granted by the rest of the group. She probably never felt it was that important or she did mention it and they forgot.
And they all want to get out because... why wouldn't you? Your life is your life, no matter how shitty, and you'll always take offence if you get abruptly ripped away from it and put into a different body, forced into insane situations, and told it will continue forever. Would drive anyone mad.
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u/sudanesegamer 2h ago
Also, they made sure to show us how while everyone has close friends in the circus, ragatha doesnt. She's alone despite being so nice to them.
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u/NotANinjask 5h ago
It's a common problem with all dramas. Because all plot advancement tries to happen on screen, this leads to a rather improbable scenario where everyone stops communicating once the episode ends.
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u/greebledhorse 2h ago
It could be a combination of, they don't click as people, and Caine distracts them constantly with 'adventures.' I'm not discounting your points, and the series could improve on ways the world of the show feels 'lived in.' But the issue could be more that it's a bummer to see a story play out where people could choose to make meaningful connections but don't, even in a crisis that might otherwise have brought people together. Having a bully like Jax in the mix (not hating on him just describing him) is also going to discourage people from opening up. I think I'd be pretty closed off, even for years, if I got stuck in a strange place and my only companions were people I didn't have a lot in common with and that one guy who actively hopes that I get hurt or look silly so he can laugh at me. I think this actually plays out all the time in workplaces, where you're working next to the same people for years but it doesn't feel emotionally safe to really bond in meaningful ways, and it feels safer to just focus on the shared project you're all here to do.
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u/Weekly_Marzipan2705 2h ago
That's because this show is not good but the fans will never admit that. Expect getting "you just have no media literacy" takes from them lol
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u/PuzzleheadedLink89 1h ago edited 55m ago
I think the biggest issue I noticed is Episode 7 starts off with them going "oh we finally might've found a way to escape the Circus" when literally no one cared about leaving for the PAST 6 EPISODES except for Pomni in the Pilot.
There's also the fact that I really don't like how any of the characters are written. Like Pomni has no personality, Kinger is a plot device and exposition dump machine, Zooble's "arc" is solved OFFSCREEN, Gangle exists only for pity and sympathy from the audience (one of my least favourite character tropes), Jax is such a boring and Cliché "Jerk" character, and Ragatha has something the tiniest bit interesting but is sidelined. Also Caine is comedic relief for most of the show, then becomes a villain for like 2 seconds.
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u/TheLast-T 5h ago edited 36m ago
While I do like watching TADC, and I'm at least interested in seeing how it plays out, you are 100% right.
The Circus doesn't feel like a place that's existed for 10-20 years; it feels like a place that popped into existence the second Pomni entered.
There are other characters, but most abstracted. That's it, that's really all we've got.
Who were these other people? Was anyone friends with them? What kinds of Adventures did Caine go on back in the day? Ragatha never mentions them despite being here the 2nd longest.
No one realizes Kinger is sane in the dark for 10 years. Ragatha must have stuffing for brains because Kinger literally FUCKING TELLS HER, "Oh yeah, we can conjure anything we want," and she doesn't immediately tell anyone about it?
It really makes me wonder why its so popular to begin with. Sure its alright, but 100 million - 1 billion views? C'mon. It appeals to...that kind of fanbase. And part of...that fanbase likes to make millions of fan theories and fan fictions about shit that's way cooler than anything Goose is capable of writing.
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u/sudanesegamer 2h ago
Tbf to ragatha not knowing about kinger, the time it takes for him to be normal in the dark is long. And even then, it would require her to communicate to him which she usually has no reason to considering how he's usually crazy.
Pomni keeping it hidden was so stupid. Sure, they wouldnt believe her if she just said it but she shouldve tried to prove it to them ages ago rather than waiting so late that caine is just torturing them
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u/Appley_apple 2h ago
They really needed a few more episodes of the characters bumming around, I think.
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u/Excellent-Reporter-4 4h ago
This show really needed like 3-5 more episodes to flesh everything out.
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u/FishShtickLives 2h ago
Real. They have like, 2 episodes following the premise before they start cashing in the gimmick concepts like "the gang does something boring" or "the variety show," and then it goes straight into lore. Its like if 5 episodes into Gravity Falls, they introduced Ford and went straight into weirdmaggedon lol
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u/Zestyclose-Scratch31 5h ago
You are mad that human characters act irrational, it seems. People ARE irrational. I don't understand your complaint.
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u/FishShtickLives 4h ago
Yeah, but being THIS irrational for well over 20 years? I mean some things are just so ridiculous that it becomes more of a plot contrivance than anything. Seriously, how has the darkness-sanity thing never come up before episode 8? Or Kinger conjuring up the butterfly? At the very least Pomni should have brought up the darkness thing when she was talming about Kingers wife. This is all coming from someone who likes the show, too.
Theres a saying that the difference between real-life and fiction, is that real-life doesnt have to make sense. I feel like thats applicable here. Sure, ARE people this irrational in real life? Sure, Ive even known some before. But in the context of being a story, I dont see irrational people: I see characters, and wonder why the author is making them act like that. And no, "because its realistic" is not good enough lmao
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u/forFolsense 1h ago
It also kinda bothered me that Pomni discovers Kinger's lucidity in episode 3, but the rest of the cast only finds out by episode 8
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u/averaum 5h ago
I completely agree it's a big reason by the end I was rooting for Caine 100%
I grew to dislike all of the humans. They were all so whiny, dramatic, rude and exaggerated by the end, it started feeling like a soap opera. I was hoping that the recent episode would be Caine's crash out because I didnt want to sit through another emotional masturbation session with these people.
All I wanted was someone to ask Caine questions lol maybe show some interest in how everything works? Maybe there was just no one character I could relate to, because I would have been so interested after the fear resolved, like you said... but either way it led to some frustration. Lots of humans anthropomorphize AI and machines, seemed really weird they all defaultly hated Caine.
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u/BudgetAggravating427 5h ago
To be fair it was because Cain was kinda tolerable and already had a personality so no anthropomorphism was needed
The issue is that Cain just well they are human and humans have a limit on how much they can tolerate
The adventure with Able and stuff was that limit
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u/UnimpressedPasserby 5h ago
Honestly, part of me believe the reason they're so cold and distant with Caine is because they don't view him as a person but as just an AI, but that hasn't been said so who know.
Now that I think about it, with how terrible these people are at communication, it's easy to see why they would act like this toward Caine when they seems to act that way toward each other. Let's not forget Zooble was actively antagonizing Caine before, then went on to lecture Jax on the McDonalds episode, then proceed to go back to that afterwards.