Well, hello there! Welcome,
welcome! Please come in! I know this might not be what you
were expecting, but you and I... We're going to go on so many adventures!
We're going to have so much fun! Forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever! Ha ha ha ha! Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory! The show that's here to show you the
most jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, mind-bending theories you can imagine! In case you missed our last theory
on The Amazing Digital Circus, the long and short of it
is that we believe that the circus here isn't exactly what it appears to be. Instead of some futuristic,
fully immersive experience, we believe that it's actually
a VR video game from the 1990s. One that copies the brains of
anyone who puts on the headset. It then turns that copy into a digital character
to go on adventures throughout the circus. So the people trapped in this
world looking for an exit? They're not actually people, just digital copies
of their consciousnesses, their personalities. That's why we repeatedly see workstations
of VR headsets in the first episode, but with no one actually wearing the headsets. And our theories didn't stop there. We continued by saying that Pomni
is either the creator of the game, or an employee at the development
studio making the game, as evidenced by our mental breakdown
when seeing those work desks. And while this is the direction that I
still believe the series is headed for, how about we talk about something else? You see, there's still a ton to dig
into here with the Digital Circus. While, sure, those initial theories are the ones that I think are the most
likely and the most intentional, it's once you stretch a bit further
out that some of the truly fun, wacky ideas really start to develop. Are they right? Yeah, probably not. Are they interesting and fun? Absolutely. And therein lies the beauty of theorycrafting. For example, last time I briefly
tossed out a bit of wild speculation that the Digital Circus may have
itself some biblical connections. In this brief scene exploring the backrooms of
the company who seemingly created the circus, we see the initials C and A painted onto the wall. C made me immediately connect things
back to our lovable AI ringleader Caine, a guy who is probably the most in
control of this entire situation. And if you tend to see the
name Caine partnered with the initial A in any sort of pop cultural reference, the first immediate jump is gonna be
to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. See, Cain and Abel were the
children of Adam and Eve, the first humans to ever exist
in the Abrahamic religions. At the time, I wasn't really sure if this was meant to be anything or if
it was gonna lead anywhere, but the more I sat and thought about it,
the more connections that I started to make. Some of those connections
were admittedly very dumb. For example, in biblical canon, Cain
kills Abel and becomes the first murderer. And what does Caine do multiple
times throughout the pilot? He pops bubble for comedic effect. Ow! You parasite! Caine kills a bubble, Abel. Coincidence? Absolutely yes. It is single-handedly one of the dumbest
things I've ever said in a theory, and I have said a lot of dumb things in theories. But other parallels that I found as I was doing
this little brain search through the episode again were a lot more compelling. In fact, some connections were so large that
I believe I may have just cracked the question of what the Digital Circus is wide open. You see, loyal theorists, the Amazing Digital
Circus isn't just some mere video game that's trapped these consciousnesses. No, it's something much darker. It's an eternity of torment and torture. The Amazing Digital Circus
is, quite literally, hell. Put on your headsets and get your
randomly generated names, my friends. We're going in. So the claim that the Digital Circus
is literally hell is a pretty bold one, so why would I possibly make it? Well, look at this. At the very end of the pilot, here we're shown all the human characters sitting
at a table while eating food. But you notice anything weird
about their dining arrangement? Of all the ways they could have set up this table, they decided to have every
character on just one side, all of them facing the same
direction, out at us, the audience. When this is done in fiction,
it's rarely by mistake, because this right here, this
is a very iconic framing device from one of the most famous paintings ever made, The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. This depicts the final meal of Jesus and
his followers shared before his crucifixion. It's been the backbone of conspiracy
theories and Dan Brown novels for centuries. Gooseworx, creator of the series, and
all the other creatives over at Glitch, they're smart people. They wouldn't be using this
imagery without understanding the historical baggage that comes along with it. And it's not just the table layout
that's worth calling out here. Look at Pomni in the center, the exact
position that Jesus is in for the painting. And notice the colors of Pomni, red and blue. Wouldn't it be weird if- Oh, wait, never mind, Jesus is
also dressed in red and blue. The interpretation of his colors is that the
blue represents the divine half of God, heaven, and his red represents the blood, mankind. So in Jesus, you have the
mixing of these two elements, a God born amongst men and set to
live as a human, red plus blue. And in Pomni, we actually have something similar, at least if our earlier theories were correct. A creator of this game, a God
of this world, if you will, now set to live as a part of their own creation. And it's not like religion is completely
absent from this world either, quite the contrary. We know for a fact that God exists in
the circus in some form or another. During the first adventure
that Keen sets up for Pomni, the Gloink Queen says this, I am Gloinks. You will be
Gloinks. God will be Gloinks. What an oddly specific thing to say. Speaking of making oddly specific
references that we can build off of, let's talk about abstraction. According to the show, when you obsess
over being trapped in the circus and drive yourself crazy looking for a way out, eventually you get to asking
what the point of anything is, and you completely lose sight of who
you are and why you're even alive, and when you reach your breaking point,
something really terrible can happen. This is known as abstraction, and we see the results of it
when we meet Koffmo the Clown, or at least what's left of him. Oh! Koffmo's been abstracted! Last time, I wasn't really sure if we
had enough to really make a judgment over what was happening here, but I did find some more information when
digging through the creator Gooseworx's Tumblr. According to her, abstracting isn't just
going crazy and becoming a big scary monster. It's definitely part of it for sure, but there is a deeper meaning. According to Gooseworx, when you abstract,
you lose everything about yourself. You're stripped of every
single scrap of individuality that you become something unrecognizable. All abstracted people look the same, this glitchy, four-legged
monster covered in eyeballs. And perhaps most importantly,
abstraction cannot be undone. Now, looking back over the series with
this new lens of religious imagery, the abstracted start resembling something else, something beyond just monsters. They almost look like angels. Well, not really angels. More biblically accurate angels, which, ironically enough, doesn't
really come from the Bible. Let me explain, it's kind of confusing. Three years ago, a meme started
spreading across the internet featuring these monstrous multi-eyed creations. They were called biblically accurate angels. Now, you might look at these things and go, really? They don't exactly look like
the traditional image of an angel, with robes and wings and halos and all that. But what they're riffing on here is
a very specific part of the Bible. A few chapters in the book of Ezekiel he describes having visions of
winged creatures with four faces. Some human, some animal, and these creatures were joined
by wheels within wheels with eyes. Here's a version of the quote. Now, for the sake of clarity,
the wheels with eyes, or ophanim, both are and aren't considered angels, depending on what documents you're
using and how you're classifying things. Again, all of this is based
on a few very short lines in a very long, very ancient religious tradition. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that these religious
entities are always described as having an abnormal number
of eyes all over their bodies, just like the abstracted that
we're seeing in Digital Circus. The weird descriptions even
fit with the name abstraction. These so-called biblically
accurate angels are weird, almost completely unrecognizable to humans because we can't comprehend what we're witnessing. They're unknowable. In other words, they're abstract. Now, while it's never made clear why these
biblical creatures would have so many eyes, one persistent idea is that the design
represents God's watchful eye over us. They're always watching us because God knows all. He sees all. Look again at the Digital Circus. There's a ton of eyeball imagery here, all throughout this first episode. Eyes are hidden in the intro,
they're hidden in paintings, they're hidden in the background. Caine even admits that he wants
all the cast to stay in the circus. I keep my hundreds of all-seeing eyes on you. Caine, an omniscient character
who knows everything. A god of sorts. And what's he made of? Basically a mouth and two big ol' eyes. Oh, and looking at Caine's dialogue
through this more religious lens makes this line hit a whole lot different. Do you like adventure? Activity? Wonder? Danger?
War? Pain? Suffering? Agony? Death? Seizure? Angel food cake? Om! Not only does suffering, agony,
and death all sound very hellish, but why angel food cake? Like, why call out that
specific type of cake here? Again, we have ourselves a weird
connection to angels and religion that comes seemingly out of nowhere. But the most compelling reason
for why we can draw parallels between this series and all these religious ideas has to be the way that the creator
Gooseworx talks about the Digital Circus. When asked if anyone in
the series would be killed, Gooseworx answered that it depends
on your definition of kill, which is likely pointing
to the idea of abstraction. But it's interesting that
she makes this distinction. It means that none of these
characters can die, so to speak. They're trapped in here forever,
in eternal torment, just like hell. Gooseworx also talks about how
characters deserve to be there, specifically calling out Jax as the
one who deserves to be there the most. Using the phrase, deserves to be there, it shows that the circus
is some place of judgment. It's either a reward for those who are good, or a punishment for those who are evil. And considering Gooseworx has a lot
of negative things to say about Jax, this ain't your reward day at the spa. Time and time again, Gooseworx has gone
on the record to say how awful Jax is. According to Gooseworx, Jax is morally
the worst character in the show. So much so that when asked if he
was more of a jerk or an anti-hero, she explained that, quote, there's absolutely nothing heroic about Jax. Those are some pretty strong words for
a character that you yourself created. When another fan commented that
they hoped Jax was gonna get worse, Gooseworx said, you're probably gonna enjoy some
of the things we have planned. And already the behavior that we've seen from
him throughout the series is pretty awful. He's mean, he trips people, he knocks them over, he steps on one of Gangle's masks without caring. He knows that Ragatha's
deepest fear is centipedes, and he uses that information to torture her. By the way, I may have left
something in your room today, so let me know if you find it. You're not afraid of centipedes, are you? Jax! That's literally my only fear. Why would you do this? Jax is clearly not a good person. So if Gooseworx is saying that he deserves
to be in the circus more than most, then it clearly implies
that we're trapped in hell. But just because they're in
hell doesn't necessarily mean it has to be your typical fire and brimstone hell. Case in point, one of the most
influential depictions of hell comes from a play by French
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, known as Oui, Clos. Or, translated into English, No Exit. In it, three people condemned to hell are
brought into the same room and locked inside. But instead of a torture chamber, they
just find a comfortably furnished room. Not exactly what you'd expect, right? But, as these three start talking
and getting to know each other, they realize they don't click. They annoy each other. They push each other's buttons
and they twist the knife, until one of them realizes this is the torture. A famous line from the play reads, Hell is other people. That sounds exactly like what we
see here in the Digital Circus. It's six people who don't
necessarily click with one another. And no matter how polite they are, they
all still push each other's buttons. They exploit each other's fears and
fake laugh at each other's jokes. But the worst part of all? There's no exit. Trapped in a digital room with no escape. But now to the big question. What's the point? It's all interesting for sure, but
why bring up all these parallels? Well, if we can point to all these religious
ideas to show what the digital circus is, and how they're going to be using it in the story, we can also use them to point
to where the story is headed. Specifically, I believe that we
can use the religious imagery to get a pretty good idea of what
Pomni's story arc is going to be. You see, Pomni is digital
circus's parallel to Jesus Christ. I know that sounds insane. Sounds crazy enough for one of those MatPat out of
context compilations that I see floating around. But the connections are there when
you actually stop and look at them. I mean, think back to what I pointed
out earlier about the Last Supper scene. Pomni is framed as the one in the center. Exactly where Jesus is sitting in the painting. Her color scheme matches Jesus's. His robes are split between two colors, red
and blue, just like Pomni's jester outfit. Additionally, we have to consider Pomni's hand. About halfway through the
episode when the abstracted Kaufmo attacks Ragatha and makes her glitch, Pomni tries to help her and gets
her hand glitched in the process. This plotline is actually left
unresolved at the end of the episode, with Caine fixing Ragatha, but not Pomni,
who keeps the glitching hand a secret. In Christianity, wounds or scars on your hand like this usually reference a
very specific thing, stigmata. These are representative of the wounds that Jesus
got when he was being hammered onto the cross, usually depicted as scars on your hands. Another connection to Pomni. And, if our previous theory is correct and Pomni's human persona is an employee of the
company behind the Digital Circus, well, she's the developer of this game. That would make her the creator. And just like Jesus is an aspect of
God in many sects of Christianity, that would make Pomni an aspect
of a God or creator of this world. Heck, her arc in the very first episode, forgetting who she is so that the information
can be dramatically revealed to her later on, it even follows what Jesus
went through in biblical texts, beginning life as a human
before having to discover for himself that he is, in fact, the son of God, discovering his purpose to
save humanity from themselves. And this is why I think we
have to care about all this, why we started looking at all these
religious parallels in the first place. If the Digital Circus is
indeed designed to be hell, and everyone here is condemned
to be there in some way, and Pomni suddenly comes in
as a representative of Jesus, well, she's there to save them, to help the other cast members escape from
this torment that they found themselves in, in Pomni's creation. But, in the cruelest twist of fate, saving them is gonna doom Pomni. If I was a betting man, I'd say that Pomni
will be the only one left in the Digital Circus after she's helped all the others to escape. Just like Jesus sacrificed himself for humanity, Pomni is gonna do the same thing here. She's gonna get left behind, forever tortured by this wacky
AI going on his silly adventures. But it'll have been worth it, because she'll manage to save everyone else. But, hey! Though the cast of the Amazing
Digital Circus might be being burned by their experience on the computer, you don't have to be, thanks to our
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remember, it's all just a theory. A film theory. And cut.
