from comments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whHvvOjThnI>Jax makes the primary audience of this show uncomfortable because Jax forces them to confront their own misconceptions of how the world works. No one who genuinely loves the show Bojack Horseman has problems like this because Bojack Horseman is a show with a target demographic old enough to start comfortably questioning black and white morality. The target demographic of TADC is young, and victims of the constant morality contest that has been swarming the internet for the past 7ish years.>While I think an internet more willing to acknowledge wrongdoing is a great thing, I also fear that children and teens being exposed to that lightening-fast competition to identify and destroy the most "evil" creator of the week is leading them to internalize lightning-fast judgements of character, based on minimal information, as the correct way to approach morality. Jax is a fictional character on a fictional cartoon, but once again, we see people treating her as if she is a truly abusive human currently victimizing real people in our real world. People promoting media literacy and the concept that "fiction impacts reality" are being horribly misinterpreted by people too young and too disengaged to even fully process what they are being told.>Its not their fault- children have ALWAYS had wishy-washy extreme opinions based on new information. They are building their personhood and morality, and they are supposed to be testing out new ideas and beliefs. It is a healthy part of development. The problem is that they are now doing so in the public arena of the internet, and are egging each other on in their extremism. The internet is insular to the change that occurs naturally in the real world.
>Ironically, much like in TADC, someone who finds escapism from their pain in a virtual world is unable to ever truly grow. Leeroy was forced to live with the real world, the consequences of her actions, and to go through the long, dreadfully painful process of finding a way to live when you have nothing and no motivation to do so. She was FORCED to either grow or be destroyed, and she chose to grow. I cannot imagine what horrific suffering she went through to get to the other side of her lowest point, but she did it. The version of her that became Jax, after being re-triggered into her worst defense mechanisms, decided to try finding escapism in the disengagement that comes naturally in a virtual world. Even as she understood that her dissociation into a caricature was killing her soul, it still felt more comfortable than confronting the reality of her past pre-circus, and her actions post-circus.>Even as an afab nb person, I saw myself in Jax, because I truly did consider becoming a horrible person for the sake of distancing people from me. I decided I was a horrible person, so I wanted people to think I was just as horrible as I "knew" I was. It felt like it would be easier, more humane, to hurt them so badly, make them hate me so deeply, that my death would be a RELIEF to them. It was unfathomable to me that there were still people who chose to love me at my lowest point, even knowing the worst of what I had done. It was excruciating to try consolidating the truths of both my extreme self-hatred, and their ability to love me. It was excruciating because it meant there was something loveable about me that I was unable to see, and I could not figure out whether it was something real, or something I fabricated. I lost sight of who I was, and 6 years later I'm STILL putting the pieces back together.
>For someone like me, characters like Jax, Bojack Horseman, Mae Borowski, Kyo Sohma, Shoya Ishida... these characters, despite being easy to hate if you only glance at them, are a reflection on what it means to continue living after feeling you no longer deserve it. They consider what it means to decide to be a better person when you feel you were predestined to be evil.>For Jax, she is the first time I've seen one of these characters fall too far. Make a decision too final to take back. The most important part is showing that she REGRETS it. She is horrified of what she has done. She so deeply regrets that she no longer has the chance to see a future where she got better, where she accepted herself and worked through her pain. It may have been scary, painful, even worse than where she ended her own story... but she'll never know. She decided to end the book halfway through, and the rest will forever be a blank, empty reminder of what could have been. That is an IMPORTANT story to tell. It is IMPORTANT that people like me really dwell on that. It is IMPORTANT that we really consider what we could be giving up if we end it prematurely.
>I want to end my comment section essay with a poem from Bojack Horseman, "The View From Halfway Down">The weak breeze whispers nothing>the water screams sublime.>His feet shift, teeter-totter>deep breaths, stand back, it’s time.>Toes untouch the overpass>soon he’s water-bound.>Eyes locked shut but peek to see>the view from halfway down.>A little wind, a summer sun>a river rich and regal.>A flood of fond endorphins>brings a calm that knows no equal.>You’re flying now, you see things>much more clear than from the ground.>It's all okay, or it would be>were you not now halfway down.>Thrash to break from gravity>what now could slow the drop?>All I’d give for toes to touch>the safety back at top.>But this is it, the deed is done>silence drowns the sound.>Before I leaped I should've seen>the view from halfway down.>I really should’ve thought about>the view from halfway down.>I wish I could've known about>the view from halfway down—
