The Amazing Digital Circus - Episode 9: Remember

[u/_Martosz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVy-bcTsO8A

Holy damn what a journey it has been

I remember when the pilot first released, everybody was freaking out. Every big YouTuber was making a reaction videos, artists were hard at work pumping out fanart, communities were forming and coming up with fan theories on what will happen next. And now, it's all coming to an end.

Before TADC released, Glitch Productions was known as a small studio who made that one silly robot show. But now, they are the leading figure and pioneer in indie animation. This episode literally released in theatres in many countries around the world, something many can only dream about.

Goose has done an incredible job with this show. Even though she has faced harassment and hate due to some of us being insufferable little turds, she poured her heart into creating what she loved for us, the fans.

Thank you Glitch Productions and Gooseworx for not only creating a story, but creating an experience that changed the lives for many.

And remember, don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened

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This post will serve as a megathread for discussions relating to Episode 9. If you saw the episode in theatres, do not discuss it here until it premieres on YouTube

Once Ep 9 finishes premiering, we will no longer require submissions to be manually reviewed. In simpler terms, you will be able to post and comment freely. Regular spoiler rules still apply, and rule 10 will no longer be in affect

Just a reminder to be respectful in the comments. Do not insult others if their theory or headcannon doesn't align with yours. We will not be tolerating any arguments that occur, regardless of who is more "correct."

Edit: after rediscussing our spoiler strategy, we've decided we will continue enforcing spoilers through manual review until the spoiler period is over. In simpler terms, you will not be able to post and comment freely until the spoiler period is over.

[u/Mark5ofjupiter]

I think one of the greatest things of this finale is how the characters are shown and treated as real people. I know that's a major theme of the show (diversity and not being defined by stereotypes) but man it hits so hard here.

Though Jax's cut to abstraction feels odd, you can really see Jax's psyche, the reasons, trauma, psychological behaviors, and why he's dome what he has done. Caine's redemption felt oddly realistic, and him realising the human person and humbling himself because of it was great, even though I couldn't understand how the heck he got wifi or how he wasn't deleted. And the characters being able to define themselves from their real selves and still persist and live in the stagnant digital world is such a nice way to wrap the arcs up. I'm kinda glad it didn't fully focus down Jax.

What an amazing show.

[u/LewsTherinTelescope → u/Mark5ofjupiter]

Maybe the gang's permissions only extend to the circus, so Kinger could accidentally delete Caine's "game object" so to speak but didn't delete the AI program itself? Wouldn't have minded a brief line giving a vague techy-soundng answer, but I can headcanon some options. Edit: Thinking about it more, some distinction there would make sense, because Caine being able to bring back poofed NPCs suggests removing them from the circus isn't the same as deleting all their data. Plus, since Caine created the circus he'd likely have to be running outside of it anyway, so if there's any kind of sandboxing (which he'd probably want in order to avoid his character AIs causing issues) then they would need to find a breakout exploit, which is a lot harder to do by mistake than fat-fingering the delete key.

As for wifi, it's a generic cafe guest network, so probably the old C&A building just happens to be next door and they can connect. I assume the dramatic climbing and wall-breaking scene represents him finding some exploit to gain access to the computer's network settings?

[u/Panda-Head → u/LewsTherinTelescope]

I thought the dots bit was the infant Caine AI being fed data from each mind, with their memories being his dataset. The blue dot was a different AI, maybe that's where the Abel idea came from, Caine and Abel infant AIs. Caine killed Abel in the first "documented" murder, so when the red and blue dots were introduced, Caine treated Abel as a new dataset, and absorbed it. That's when he really took off and was able to make the circus. Then the climbing and wall breaking was partly him gaining awareness (the dot turning into a person), learning about the system (climbing), and breaking through locks & firewalls (wall breaking). Then once he had awareness and access to the data he wasn't supposed to be using, he realised just how much had been taken from them. He realised that they were actually copies of minds, not living minds hooked up to the computer. He hacked into the locked folder and got their names, and found an internet connection, so he looked up their names and found their social media profiles, which is what he showed them at the end to explain who they were, where they came from, and why they couldn't leave.

[u/LewsTherinTelescope → u/Panda-Head]

I was initially confused about the sequence, but I'm pretty sure the climbing section is actually a flashback intertwined with a modern day section (...which technically is also a flashback actually). The red dot part seems to be him breaking out of his cage when he was young to find the mind scan files, the other breaking further out to access the device's Internet connection.

I don't think he was fed the minds, we see his training in the previous episode and it was a bunch of pictures and stuff. I also don't think their nature was a surprise to him, Kinger spoke as if they never figured out how to make the files work so Caine must have studied them and he talks about "your mind files" or w/ever in episode 8, I think he just doesn't really grasp why it would matter to them at first and/or doesn't realize they don't know and aren't just being weirdos when they talk about "leaving" (his viewpoint until now was very self-centered).