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General
General
- Is Caine genuinely concerned for the performers' safety and well-being? Or is all of his kindness stemming from a desire to keep his favorite toys from breaking? Caine's own agency in the situation is also a hotbed of theorycraft and analysis after the pilot, as there are several allusions to the idea he may be just as trapped and clueless as the performers throughout the video, with the possibility of everything he does in the Circus being to keep things level in the confined ways he can operate.
- Kinger opens a collection of worms himself. Is he really as insane as he appears? Is he just extremely good at Obfuscating Insanity and is actually the smartest and most knowledgeable person in the cast thanks to all the time he spent in the Circus? Is he some combination of the two, being insane but also genuinely resourceful? Is his insanity half-genuine and half-feigned? Is he trying to be Crazy Sane? What was his relationship with the Queenie, the Black Queen chess piece person that used to be part of the cast too?
- Did Jax turn into a cruel, unsentimental asshole after being trapped in the Circus? Or was he always like that, with the lack of "actual" (from his point of view) negative consequences giving him a chance to finally cut loose and do the kind of things he'd been wanting to do for a long time?
Episodes
Pilot
- Did Jax really leave centipedes in Ragatha's room or is he only saying he did to make her paranoid for his own amusement? His comment after she calls him out on this does little to clear up the ambiguity.Jax: What? It could be a completely unrelated question! You'll never know until it's too late!
- Is Ragatha looking away from Pomni near the end of the pilot because she's upset that she chose an exit over getting Caine, or does she still feel guilty that Pomni's first day went down horribly and doesn't blame her, if not both? Given how she's (mostly) friendly towards someone like Jax in spite of him being a worse person overall, the second one could be plausible. "Candy Carrier Chaos" seems to imply it's a mix of both, as Ragatha passive-aggressively points out how Pomni abandoned her for the exit, but claims to understand and afterwards is still genuinely kind to her and constantly worries for her safety.
- Also, she was the first to suggest checking on Kaufmo. Was it out of genuine concern for the clown, or did she already know that he abstracted, and think that giving Pomni a wake-up call about the real dangers of the Digital Circus would be better than a warming-up wacky adventure?
Candy Carrier Chaos
- The Candy Canyon Kingdom worships Caine as a god. Have they come up with it naturally, since he does have full control over their world, or is it a trait he gave them deliberately?
- Gumigoo would likely be screwed either way, but did Caine really just delete him on the spot or simply teleport him back to the (currently being destroyed) Candy Canyon Kingdom?
- Caine's stated reason for deleting Gumigoo is to avoid mistaking an NPC for a human, but considering his powers as the game master, he should be able to tell who's who. This suggests that either there's a different reason why Gumigoo isn't allowed in the Circus or Caine actually did make such mistake in the past.
- Jax' behavior raised many questions:
- He's noticeably more violent in this episode than in the first, but a majority of his violence is directed at the NPCs rather than his fellow trapped humans. Is Jax actually The Sociopath, or does he see killing NPCs as some form of stress relief? Note that while he does do violent things to the other characters (such as having Pomni stretch between the two trucks further than should be possible), he knows that Caine's made them immune to physical pain (with the only exceptions being Abstraction and glitching caused by Abstracted characters).
- At the end of the episode, he has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it expression of sorrow when Ragatha talks about Kaufmo's funeral. Is this because he's sadder about Kaufmo's abstraction than he's letting on? Did he lose someone he cared about in the past and did Kaufmo's funeral make him remember it? Or is it because he's afraid that he'll share the same fate at some point? If the latter, is he also worried how the others might react to him being gone? Either interpretation implies he has a Hidden Heart of Gold.
- After Caine deletes Gummigoo and Pomni starts having a breakdown, Caine declares he's "gonna go drink water now" and zooms off. Was this him being his usual weird and oblivious self? Or did he realize how Pomni was reacting and decided to make up an excuse to get out of there? If the latter, was it out of fear of Pomni possibly attacking or yelling at him (or even abstracting), or just a general "I don't want to watch this" feeling?
