The Amazing Digital Circus gives us a group of very cute, very loveable characters who are trapped in a digital world - and in some cases, have been for years – with no means of escape. It's hard not to feel bad for them. Well... most of them.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Episodes:
Pilot
- Pomni. She's a girl clearly filled with anxiety, and you never really know if she's about to have a panic attack or just completely lose her mind.
- When Ragatha points out the door to Pomni's personal room, Pomni stops her walk to briefly stare at the door's portrait, sporting a frozen face as she gets her first glimpse of her avatar's appearance. Once she sees her physical reflection for the first time, she needs time to consider the harlequin in the mirror is her, and looks like she's gonna snap at any second.
- After escaping Kaufmo, she finally finds the exit door... only to find it leads to an office room with an exit door, leading itself to an office room with another exit door, and it goes on and on until the final door which leads to... the Void. The entire time she's pushing through the endless doors, she sounds like she's teetering back and forth between panicked gasping and sobbing uncontrollably.
- The best example of this is right at the end of the pilot, where while the rest of the gang chats with one another, Pomni just stares into space, as her face slowly changes to make a very forced smile. You know the poor girl is crying on the inside.
- Pomni's anxiousness and breakdown of sanity aren't just in the pilot. Pomni is present in the official video for the series' theme song
. At the start of the video, she just looks like she doesn't know what to do with herself, but by the end, she's in a full-on Troubled Fetal Position.
- Gangle after her comedy mask breaks, is constantly in a state of sad. She gets no sympathy from Jax, who casually walks over her already broken mask without a care in the world.
- If you're not laughing at Jax offering Gangle to go up the escalator first, only to shove her down to go first instead, you're feeling bad for Gangle getting bullied and doing nothing about it.
- Even worse (or more tragic, as may be): after she gets pushed down, she doesn't even try to get back up until the others have passed her by. It's like she ranks last and she knows it.
- Word of God is that Jax bullies her the most because he knows she won't stand up for herself.
- If you're not laughing at Jax offering Gangle to go up the escalator first, only to shove her down to go first instead, you're feeling bad for Gangle getting bullied and doing nothing about it.
- Ragatha has it rough too:
- When Pomni asks how to leave in the room corridor, Ragatha explains that looking for an exit is pointless... as everything happening in the circus is, and that thinking about it could make them reach their breaking point... something she's about to do when giving the exposition. Her following remark about adventures being a way to stay "healthy and stimulated" sounds more like a way to cope than a sincere thought.
- She's very quick to try to calm and befriend Pomni, who repays this kindness by abandoning her twice, albeit reluctantly: once after attempting to grab her and save her from Kaufmo, and again when she goes through the exit instead of looking for Caine. At the end of the pilot, after Caine unglitches Ragatha, she silently walks over to Pomni, stands next to her, and dejectedly looks away while Pomni also looks down in shame. The worst part is that Pomni's established as wanting to help Ragatha, trying several times in spite of the danger to herself, but the temptation of escaping the claustrophobic hellscape that stole her very name is just too much. It really hammers home that the Digital Circus is, for all its colors and whimsy, an astonishingly cruel place.
- Considering how she was right there for almost all of the worst things that Pomni had to witness on her first day, Ragatha could also be ashamed of how her own efforts to help have ultimately failed.
- At the end-of-adventure reward dinner, Ragatha is sitting as far away from Pomni as possible (with Kinger and Gangle between them, where every other option would have put her either next to Pomni or only one seat away). Is she upset with Pomni for failing to help her, or upset with herself for failing to help Pomni through her first day? Either way, it's a tragic start to their relationship.
- Judging that Kinger has been in the circus the longest, he's obviously been through a lot.
- He possibly had to witness member after member abstracting in his time there.
- One fan theory even suggests that he knew someone called Queenie, in which he had to witness her getting abstracted, which probably caused his paranoia. And if we were to consider the possibility that she was his lover, you might really feel sorry for what Kinger had to go through over the years...
- Don't worry, this can get even worse! Zooble mentioned before that Kinger is the least likely to abstract out of the six characters in the circus, and if you think about it, it's abit sad that he'll never be put out of his misery...
- He possibly had to witness member after member abstracting in his time there.
- One can't help but feel sorry for Caine. He genuinely wants to help his performers, but completely lacks the understanding to do so, and due to not being able to control their minds, there's effectively nothing he can do for people who abstract except seal them away where they won't be a threat to anyone besides themselves. Hell, he even attempted to create an exit, but because he just didn't understand what the performers meant by wanting one, he wasn't able to complete it. As much as he may seem like a villain at first, he's ultimately just as helpless as everyone else, albeit in a completely different way.
- The ending of the pilot... Dear God. After frantically trying to break free with no success and exploring the darker secrets of this world, Pomni has to grimly accept that escaping the circus really might be impossible. Whilst the rest of human avatars have grown accustomed to their prison, casually talking with each other about having dinner, all she can do is give a Thousand-Yard Stare. The last we see of her is her stunned, silent expression slowly morphing into a distorted smile.
- What's made worse is how Pomni stares down at her food, which looks very low-resolution and fake. Not only has she lost her real name, she's also, according to Kinger, lost her body and the sensations that came with it, including eating.
- The juxtaposing triumphant music in the background only makes the pill more bitter and harder to swallow.
- Even better! The name of said music? "Your New Home".
- To top it all off, absolutely nobody around Pomni seems to even notice the fact that she's clearly going through a silent mental breakdown. They're all just talking to one another and minding their own business including Ragatha, the one person that seemed to genuinely care for Pomni the most. It just makes Pomni's situation feel all the more hopeless and lonely.
Candy Carrier Chaos!
- Ragatha is implied to still be upset at Pomni to some degree for leaving her in an agonized and glitching state, even if she does try to mask it and claims to forgive her.
- Ragatha throughout the episode seems desperate to make friends with Pomni and is upset over being continually shut out by her. Kinger reassures her, telling her not to take it personally, then right when Pomni is cheering up over making a new friend Caine deletes him from existence and Ragatha is left trying and failing to cheer her up again — though inviting her to the funeral does seem to give hope Pomni and Ragatha will become friends in the future.
- The episode opens on Pomni having a nightmare and she's still so rattled and upset by being trapped in the Circus that she doesn't even seem to notice Ragatha is still hurting herself over the previous day's events.
- At the beginning of the episode, it seems as if Gangle will keep her comedy mask for a little while... and then a blue mannequin shatters it when announcing the arrival of Princess Loolilalu. Poor girl couldn't catch a break.
- Jax antagonising and bullying Gangle is a lot harsher than in the pilot, pressuring her to drive recklessly whilst on pursuit of Gummigoo without any consideration about Pomni's safety. He even points out Gangle's submissive nature to her in order to get her to comply. Then later just as they are sinking in a chocolate lake after getting separated from Pomni, Jax does not hesitate to pin the blame on Gangle, despite the fact that HE forced her to drive the truck in the first place.
- Gummigoo's Tomato in the Mirror moment after clipping through the map, realizing that his Tragic Backstory has a few holes in it.... including his inability to remember his own mother's face. The Circus players have a hard enough time, but at least they know they're real people. Gummigoo, on the other hand, has to deal with the fact that he was created as a video game character and serves no greater purpose alongside everything he's known in his world so far.
- A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment occurs when Pomni tries to encourage and cheer up Gummigoo: when he declares that he doesn't matter and is "nothing", Pomni notes that feeling like you're nothing is normal, leading to some depressing implications about her own self-esteem and what her life might have been like prior to being trapped in the Circus.
- With their adventure in the Candy Canyon Kingdom over with, the gang heads back to the tent with Gummigoo, who had decided to take up Pomni's offer of staying with her and the others in the Circus... and then Caine comes in and effectively deletes Gummigoo from existence on the spot, as his presence would interfere with his ability to tell who is and isn't an NPC.
- Gummigoo's 'death' is brutal, too - he just explodes into confetti on the spot, right in front of a horrified Pomni.
- Pomni's reaction to Gummigoo's fate as a whole, all she can do is just stand there silently with a look of evident horror. Considering that Gummigoo is the one friend Pomni managed to relate to in her situation only to just suddenly be wiped out of existence, her reaction is nothing short of justified as she then starts to laugh...
- Even Caine knows that murdering NPCs is bad, but then he has genuine PTSD over whatever happened the last time he accidentally lost track of which sprites were actual Player Characters. Judging from his Thousand-Yard Stare, he clearly regards NPC execution as a necessity to prevent something far more tragic.
- Ragatha may have tried to assure Pomni that she might see Gummigoo again in the future as Caine likes to reuse NPCs, but for all we know, his memory of his experience with Pomni will be completely erased, or he'll be a version of Gummigoo entirely different from the one Pomni bonded with.
- Before that, Jax betrays the kingdom by unlocking the walls of the kingdom and letting The Fudge inside again. Before Princess Loolilalu can process what happened, the gang has already returned to the circus, leaving her and her citizens alone to face the menacing monster (assuming that scenario and world continues after the group leaves).
- The episode ends with the group holding a funeral for Kaufmo, and while we don't hear what the characters have to say it's clear they're all getting choked up reminiscing about the old clown. Even Zooble seems to be struggling. The audience never got to know Kaufmo but it's clear he meant a whole lot to the other characters.
- While Jax doesn't join the funeral, he does look saddened for a split second when Ragatha mentions it.
- Judging by how many others other than Kaufmo were abstracted, how many more funerals did they do for the others?
- Building from this, while the audience doesn't hear anyone's eulogies for Kaufmo, we do hear Ragatha say this:Ragatha: Oh, man. I always think I'm ready for these things, but then you set up the picture and, well... [tears up and begins wiping her eyes] ...I'm already breaking.
- Building from this, while the audience doesn't hear anyone's eulogies for Kaufmo, we do hear Ragatha say this:
- In a very subtle detail at the end where Pomni's nightmare from the beginning of the episode replays, everyone in the group is seen grabbing her hand to save her except Jax's. This all but heavily implies that Pomni doesn't consider Jax a friend due to his Jerkass behavior and wouldn't expect him to have her back like the others. And considering his borderline sociopathic actions in this episode alone, she's probably right.
- This is even more notable because Pomni still imagines Gangle's hand (or ribbon). Keep in mind, Pomni literally hasn't shared a single conversation with Gangle yet, but she'd rather entrust her life to somebody who is effectively a total stranger than someone like Jax. Granted, Gangle is nothing like Jax and doesn't have a mean bone in her body, but again, she and Pomni have yet to properly communicate, so the point still stands.
- To pour salt into the wound of both tragic events in this episode, GLITCH released a picture of the crew enjoying some sweets to celebrate the episode doing so well...and in the background, Pomni is looking over a funeral picture of Gummigoo, right next to Kaufmo's. And it's very easy to tell from her posing that she is pretty miserable. Sure, he was an NPC...but he was real enough to her.
Other Media:
Other Media
- While it quickly veers into silliness, POMNI WAKE UP TIME TO GO ON AN ADVENTURE opens on a very unpleasant note. In the aftermath of the pilot, Pomni lies frozen on her bed, giving the ceiling a Thousand-Yard Stare, while a slowed version of "Your New Home" that can only be described as funereal plays in the background.
- It's been stated that Gangle wouldn't be seen with her happy mask often, meaning she's going to be a mopey mess throughout a majority of the show.
- “A Very Special Digital Circus Song” ends with Caine announcing Pomni will perform a duet, followed by Gummigoo popping in. You can hear the relief and joy in Pomni’s voice from seeing him alive, but he doesn’t say much more than “Crikey!” before glitching out and bursting into confetti once again. Pomni turns to the audience and screams in frustration.
- After the aformentioned commercial about all of the series' merch, GLITCH released a picture on YouTube about a bunch of photos of the plushies. The image itself is mostly a fun one, but there are some photos that may touch some of people's heart strings:
- The last photo on the lower right is about Pomni and Gummigoo next to a candle, sitting next to one another, and the third photo on the upper right... is about Pomni doing a funeral for Gummigoo, with the Gummigoo plushie laying on a basket in a bed of flowers.
- If you're a Gangle fan, you may feel bad for her in the fourth photo on the middle left, with her holding her comedy mask in tears. There's also the seventh photo on the lower left, which shows her in a cage and Jax grabbing her comedy mask away from her.
