WMG / The Amazing Digital Circus

As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Pre-Pilot

There is something worse than Caine lurking inside the game.

While Caine seems to be the Big Bad of the show, he's only evil in the sense he's blind to the pain he's causing, and during the scene in the trailer where Caine jumps around looking for Pomni, we get a glimpse of a dark room full of what looks like tar and multicolored eyes peering from the sidelines, and when Caine goes back to the hallway we can see a tentacle coming in before the scene cuts away. My guess is that this thing is a malicious entity residing in the game, pulling unsuspecting people into it and using Caine as a puppet to torture them.

• Turns out that dark room is the “cellar” where Caine drops those who’ve given up and “abstracted”, turning into these glitchy, shadowy, eye-covered monsters that start to rampage like we see with Kaufmo. And evidently the he is not the first to wind up this way.

Each of the six humans weren't good people before getting trapped in the circus, but had Freudian Excuses.

The description of Glitch's website states the show will be like Toy Story, but everybody is a jerk. It also states they will be tormented by "their own personal traumas". So it's probable they will be people with a lot of emotional baggage, but used that as an excuse to be unpleasant. It would fit in with the I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream roots, as the video game adaptation upgraded the five last humans to have dark regrets, with Benny and Nimdok having been outright evil before AM (Ted was a con man and Ellen and Gorrister simply have baggage).

Speculation of the other humans...

• An animal tamer who receives a different animal-related injury in each episode he appears in (Ex. An eye-patch after an eagle pecked out his eye, a bandaged face after a chimpanzee mangled it, a Hook Hand after a crocodile ate it) and/or suffers from a mix of being cruel to animals and animals retaliating in return.
• A pair of conjoined twins that frequently attack or even kill each other.
• A strongman who's put in challenges where he's nowhere near strong enough. Ex: being made to lift metric tons of weights until he's crushed under them.
• An escape artist who despite their claims, sucks at it.
• A fortune teller who states something that will obviously happen. Either that, or they may constantly foretell horrible events and be a nihilistic wreck.
• A fire breather who suffers third-degree burns.
• An acrobat constantly getting butterfingers and falling from high up. And no safety net.

• All ultimately Jossed, as the other human souls have been revealed to be a Raggedy-Ann lookalike, a mischievous rabbit, a being with a body made of ribbons and masks for faces, a chess piece and a thing whose body is made of miscellaneous objects. They don't really have a recurring theme going for them (besides being talking toys), and none of them aside Pomni are circus-themed.

Gooseworx' other works will be referenced.

• Possibly portraits in the background of characters from The Pink City.
  • When Kinger retrieve's Zooble's head from the Gloink queen, he asks her if she experienced any game shows inside.

Caine was made by TAS Corp or JCJenson IN SPAAAAACEE!!!!

Probably the latter, since JCJenson is implied to be doing something far worse than typical corporate greed and incompetence.

Ragatha will be a Stepford Smiler.

After all, the official synopsis does say the humans must face "their own personal traumas."

• Jax's introductory short implies that Ragatha does have her limits, seeing as she gives him quite the nasty glare after he trips her, so there is a plausibility to this theory.
  • Confirmed in the Pilot where Ragatha talks to Pomni about how trying to find an exit slowly drives them insane with the implication that her optimistic demeanor is just a mask to keep her sane after realizing the nightmarish situation that she was trapped in.

Gangle suffered from body perception issues.

Her name refers to her gangly ribbon limbs and body, which could be an exaggeration of how thin she was as a human. Additionally, Glitch's screenshot released after her reveal has her looking depressed at her reflection in a darkened bathroom.

The character's pasts.

Gooseworx has said that the series would basically be a comedy version of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, and all the characters in that story had some traumatic/less-than-ideal pasts, so maybe that could carry over to the people in the digital circus.

• Pomni:
  • Someone who always got pushed around by everyone
  • I get the feeling that she is the worst one of all. Someone who's willing to risk other people's lives to achieve her goals.
• Ragatha:
  • Someone who never learned to let go of her childhood
  • Someone who is so dedicated to staying positive at all times, that it leaves her even worse mentally than if she didn’t bottle up her other emotions.
• Jax:
  • A former sweet kid who, thanks to multiple circumstances (bullying, parental neglect, the circus, etc), has adapted a Jerkass personality to cope.
• Gangle:
  • A deeply depressed person who constantly hides behind a (metaphorical) mask of happiness.
• Kinger:
  • A man who, thanks to a lost lenore (Queenie), has been traumatised and left as a broken mess still grieving his loss.
  • As the person with the longest time in the Circus of the group, his traumas are literally just his extensive time there.
• Zooble:
  • An attention whore who constantly had surgery & injections to make them look "better".
  • Alternatively, a perfectionist who constantly gets aggravated by anything out of place.
  • Someone who has no idea who they are or what they wanna be and so they take out their frustration on others to mask their inability to know who they are.
• Kaufmo:
  • A comedian who Cannot Tell a Joke and takes even constructive criticism way too personally, stubbornly refusing to change his jokes.

The Digital Circus was originally created as a VR torture chamber.

The Program was a digital torture chamber or prison before the circus was "built" on top of it. Caine's near-total inability to empathize with humans and the presence of the shadowy entities in the original teaser might be intentional leftovers of the program's original incarnation and function.

• Who says it was built on top of it? Maybe the purpose of the circus is just torture, but was redesigned this way to prolong it. Also, AM in the book may have been partly in control, but eternity and the fact he can't do a thing other than torture the cast tormented him as well. Caine was tossed in as punishment for failing something or rebelling against whatever his original parameters were, causing his makers to move him to this job to "help" the performers mentally. Except he can only delay Abstraction. The cellar is something he opens when another one comes about. He's almost a god and can do anything except what he truly wants. Keep the performers sane. It's a torture chamber for Caine and whatever schmuck goes against the guys who tossed him there.

The show will have elements of Analog Horror.

The ominous black ooze seems to add a layer of horror to the digital setting. It helps that Gooseworx has experience with analog horror.

What the six are guilty of.

The synopsis says "What if it was Toy Story, but everyone was a jerk?" indicating the cast is not made up of good people:

• Pomni: Someone who's so weak-willed and timid, she let bad things happen and turned a blind eye.
  • Seems a bit more plausible after the pilot where she abandons Ragatha in her glitching-out state to save herself twice, implying that this may be a bit of a habit for her.
• Ragatha: Someone who tries so hard to be optimistic, she forcibly downplays others' rightful worries and makes light of situations inappropriately.
• Jax: Obvious from the teasers, he's a very mean prankster who hurts others.
• Gangle: Someone who's so wrapped up in her own issues that she is of no help to others.
• Kinger: A Dirty Coward who's so terrified by Caine that he will sell out the others so he doesn't have to suffer.
• Zooble: A narcissist whose perfectionism over their appearance makes others uncomfortable. Zooble may also be overly critical of the others, providing criticism but not helping.

The six are not their human selves but new AI made from brain scans.

All of the 'human' cast are cases of Brain Uploading and their original selves are either living on without them or already dead. Escape from the circus is thus impossible because they have no trapped or empty body out there to go back to.

• Caine knows this and is trying to prevent them from trying to leave not because he's just trying to keep them for himself, but because he knows if they discover their true nature as programs/AI, it'll break them.

The Digital Circus is an allegory for Hell.

This also means that Caine is an allegory for Satan, since they both torture people

The series will be a metaphor for the cruelty circus animals endure for the sake of entertaining people.

Sounds fitting.

Jax is Spike Speigel.

Think about it. In the trailer Jax says that he doesn't care what happens as long as it's funny, which is similar to Spike's "Whatever happens, happens," philosophy. He also says "Thank goodness this is all a dream, right Pomni?" Which has a glaring similarity to Spike's entire "life is but a dream" thing. Since the trailer says that the people part of The Amazing Digital Circus used to be people, Jax could very well be Spike.

• Furthermore, both shows deal with confronting your past, as Gooseworx said that the show would have the characters deal with Caine's wacky shenanigans and their own personal traumas.

Bubble is the true mastermind and the creator of Caine.

Bubble is the creator of the digital circus and created Caine to be the torturer while taking the form of Bubble. As Bubble, they would be ever-present but beneath notice. Able to see the torment but never taking any retaliation or suspicion from the Circus members. They have Caine plan and preform the tortures because watching is much more exciting when you don't know what is going to happen.

Caine is simply bored and lonely.

• It would explain the rooms in the circus, they're accommodating any human that gets trapped the digital world, along with giving them digital food at the end, and while the adventures are undoubtedly dangerous, Caine most likely doesn't understand humans.

Pilot

What's behind the exit door Pomni uses is specific to those who take it.

When Pomni goes through the exit door after Kaufmo abstracts, she ends up in an office and eventually sees a computer she seems to recognize. Rather than the door leading to office-like rooms, what the exit door leads to is tied to the past of those who take it. If this is true, then it would support the theory that...

Pomni helped program the Digital Circus.

Pomni seems to recognize a computer in a building that has a "C&A" logo, this may be the company that built the Digital Circus and Pomni was a programmer for them, but was imprisoned by the company for trying to expose them. She didn't just forget her name, she forgot most of her past too, or it was Laser-Guided Amnesia.

• Alternatively, every performer was a C&A employee and the Circus is just their way of getting rid of people.
  • If this is true and the Digital Circus is simply a virtual prison, it's possible C&A is a company with a lot of shady work that would surely get them arrested, while appearing innocent on the outside.

The virtual reality is falling apart.

If the other humans have really been stuck for years, why haven't they seen the same exit door Pomni went through? It might be because the virtual reality is starting to tear itself apart, revealing breaks in the system in the form of exit doors which would allow captives to escape.

• It appeared soon after Pomni's arrival, so it breaking down could be a result of an overabundance of residents in the circus.
  • While the system would most likely be able to handle six 'performers', it might still count Abstractions as performers, which would lead to bugs since the system has to account for a max limit having been surpassed, Pomni is the latest performer and thus caused the limit to be surpassed, causing exit doors to appear. Either Abstractions in the Cellar are counted as performers or it was being surpassed while Kaufmo was still in the circus when Pomni arrived, if it's the latter then the exit doors won't appear until a new performer arrives.

The "Void" is for a future networked multiplayer expansion.

Caine says "not even I know what's out there" - he doesn't because TADC was designed for a future multiplayer expansion. Given how powerful the process was (going by the "Wacky Watch" video), the plan would have been to add multiplayer in the future as was starting to be huge by the end of The '90s. It's a void because literally nothing is there - it's just a portal to the itnernet. C&A didn't add it yet because TADC is in Beta or Alpha testing. Fridge Horror sets in - future players could think they find the exit only to be trapped at another Digital Circus.

Biblical allegories.

Religious themes as a possible Rule of Symbolism.

• Caine is named after Cain, who was the first human born and the first murderer.
• In the Portuguese dub, Caine was renamed to "Caim”. In this twitter reply by dubbing director William Viana, it was translated to Caim as an allusion to the Bible (Cain), and all the names were approved by Glitch themselves.
  • Caim is also the Gaelic rendering of biblical Cain.
• Cain(e) & Abel being the commonly accepted abbreviation of the C&A logo.
  • The existence of an Adam and Eve. Possibly being the first two A.I.s made for the Digital Circus, with Cain and Abel following after.
    • There are themes of Temptation and loss? The emptiness of the C&A office, the game-breaking power the program holds over the brain, and the Void that surrounds the digital world and the feeling of being shut off from the rest of reality. All makes it feel like the show is taking place in a post-apocalyptic world, and that the circus is either saving us or is the one who caused it.
  • Bubble is Abel. Or possibly a stand-in to whoever Abel's AI originally was. It would certainly explain why Caine constantly pops Bubble, only for the latter to return like how Abel always comes back after Cain kills him in The Sandman (1989).
  • Some sources say that Cain killed Abel with a jawbone of a donkey, and Caine happens to be nothing but jaw.
  • C&A could possibly be a company with a case of Sibling Rivalry. And ends up taking a turn for the worse...
  • Cain was a farmer and a tiller while Abel was a shepherd. If C&A truly is a two-man team, then the "Abel" was more concerned with the people, advertisement and marketing (herding the sheep) while "Cain" was busy with the services and stocks (tending the crops).
    • The two, being business partners, could've had a lot of creative differences and disagreements.
    • Alternatively on the above tiller/sheperd distinction, maybe Caine was designed to provide content to the digital world (creating locations, adventures, and NPCs) while "Abel" was programmed to cater to the well-being of performers and guests (Which would require an AI advanced enough to read social cues, recognize subtle emotions, respond to and assuage said emotions, accurately diagnose uncharacteristic or troubled behavior, ect). Hypothetically, Abel could gauge the mental state, fear, excitement, engagement/boredom/complaints anyone might have with the VR setting, then relay these feelings to Caine to help inform what new content gets created. With Abel missing, which could be for any number of reasons, Caine is simply having to do both jobs, and really sucks at what he's not built to do.
  • A "Seth" will be introduced, completing Cain and Abel and Seth.
    • The Seth, just like in the Bible, replaces the Abel in some way.
• Pomni is Jesus!?
  • Concept art depicting Pomni on a cross.
  • The Last Supper arrangement for the Pilot's ending feast, with Pomni in the Jesus spot.
  • A possible betrayal.
  • Outright alludes to Pomni being their Savior. But not necessarily the Messianic Archetype.
  • A possible sacrifice from Pomni?
    • After Pomni picks up after herself, she won't be hesitant to a Self-Sacrifice Scheme.
• Some say the cellar where abstractions go could be a reference to Hell.
  • Or that the Digital Circus itself is an allegory to Hell. To which the characters have committed their respective sins and the circus is their punishment.
    • The most famous exploration of Hell and Heaven is called The Divine Comedy, after all.
• This tweet from local cryptid Gooseworx. Humorously interpreted as Pomni, and maybe the others too, got higher than the Heavens. Bible readings included.

During the AMA segment of GlitchX 2023, Gooseworx herself confirms the inclusion of religious imagery. However, it was something she inserted simply because it was quote "kind of funny to put that in a cartoon". She also mentions that the feast was in a "very, very, superficial kind of way" a reference to the Last Supper, and once again thought it was "funny" to put that in. Are the allegories ultimately Jossed? Well, Gooseworx herself mentions that she "lies all the time", which brings her answers as a possible Shrug of God or a Flip-Flop of God in the future. As even Michael Kovach himself mentions that every time he and Goose has a session about the show, he doesn't know if she's lying or telling the truth.

Humans who put on the headset aren't immediately sent into the digital world. Their consciousness, like data, takes time to transfer and load in.

Pomni recalls wearing a headset, then BAM, instantly appearing in the circus. She also interrupted the damn theme song. So of course, this "loading in" thing will feel like mere seconds for the human. However, with this convenient waiting process, it'll give enough time for Caine, the system, and the AI to set the stage for the newbie's arrival. For this to work, let's assume the moment the headset is put on, Caine will be alerted like via the Wacky Watch or his digital invisible brain (?) or something. New objective: The new human will replace one of the pre-existing ones and they will take on an avatar/role similar to the theme of their predecessor (The WMG "there will only be six humans" and character design themes). Caine then has to force the predecessor to reach their "breaking point", make them abstract and be immediately replaced the moment the new human loads in. But hey! You're kinda similar to the guy that was just here. And did he just abstract? In other words, this is possibly the method Caine uses to smooth out such a replacement process.

• At the end of the Pilot, Caine learns about Kaufmo's abstraction, to which he gives a very sarcastic-sounding response. This could imply that he had known from the start, perpetrated Kaufmo's Madness Mantra, his subsequent abstraction, all for Pomni's arrival.

Caine is human, and actually a captive of the digital circus.

If a company in the real world did create the Digital Circus, the company might be called "C&A" or "Cain(e) and Able", these two people programmed the Digital Circus. Able must've trapped Caine inside their own creation, possibly as retribution for something or an attempt to take Caine out of the picture for unknown reasons. Caine's reality-bending powers come from him being a developer, possibly having built an avatar in the real world that he took over in the Digital Circus, with his user having administrator permissions.

• From this, it follows that it's possible for Caine himself to Abstract (for example, out of despair that he can't preserve the sanity of the other performers). If that happens, the Digital Circus system would presumably detect corruption in the superuser process and hand admin privileges to another user, probably the next oldest user added. Ringmaster Kinger, anyone?

It is possible to return from total abstraction.

Kaufmo abstracted because he lost his sanity after becoming convinced there is no true exit, but he could've been un-abstracted if he had regained hope of an escape.

• Also Jossed. Gooseworx has stated on her Tumblr that Abstraction is permanent.

There is an actual escape.

• Caine seemed very desperate to convince Pomni there is no exit.
• At the end, it's revealed the entire reality is taking place in the same computer that Pomni recognized earlier, if she either turns off the program, shuts off the computer, or breaks it, either everyone will escape/die, or just Pomni.
• During the intro song, Pomni sees a flower pot suffering a collision bug with the floor, it's likely that the virtual reality suffers from common videogame bugs, if the physics engine overloads it might cause a crash, either ejecting everyone out into the real world, or giving them a Mercy Kill.
• Caine can detect when someone enters the void, it might hold a true exit.
  • When Pomni entered the void after running through the offices, she seemed to lose all brain function until Caine pulled her out, if the void does hold an exit, it might not be a viable route regardless.

The Digital Circus is a program built to brainwash people.

The Digital Circus was built to brainwash people into submission, "abstraction" is what happens to those who finally lose their minds and Caine can do nothing but send them to the Cellar, a space where all the Abstracted go. This is meant to be a holding cell for the abstracted currently being "fixed" in the real world so they'll have a body to go back to, but retain their insanity, with Caine being the one to send them all there. The activities Caine offers only serve as a slight reprieve to prolong their torture, so the weight of their situation will come crashing down even harder, then they'll have less time to cope before they abstract. Caine chose to save Ragetha and Pomni from their partial abstraction because if they succumbed to that, then their brainwash progress would've failed.

• If they succumb to the partial abstraction caused by contact with an Abstraction, they might either die/cease to exist or be shot back to the real world, something that couldn't be controlled by the company.

The entire Digital Circus functions as a sort of reverse Infinity Train.

Where instead of making riders confront their issues and move past them, it literally erases all memory of their troubled past so that they can play forever and hide from whatever might be bothering them. Caine claims he can't control the avatars' minds, but the fact that nobody remembers their names once they enter the Circus implies something in the landscape must be. The only problem is, without memory of what issues they may be trying to hide from, everyone just ends up confused and in distress.

The other humans are actually AI built to convince Pomni there's no escape.

All the other humans trapped in the reality might just be an artificial intelligence built to act human to further convince captives that there is no escape, since the newest captive is being told this by another human.

• Since Kaufmo was another captive, his abstracting may have been deliberately caused by the programmers to make new arrivals, such as Pomni, believe the others are in fact human, making it slightly easier for the new arrival to believe there to be no escape if other humans tell them so.
• Alternatively, none of the captives are human, simply being tested for an artificial consciousness that's both capable of sustaining itself and also making it's own choices.

Caine wasn't the only A.I. in the Digital Circus.

While Pomni was wandering through the office corridors during the pilot we get a shot of a symbol: "C&A". Now first impressions tell me that C&A stands for "Caine & Abel", and that there used to be two of them in the Digital Circus. Now for all you Christians out there, I believe we all know what Cain did to Abel, and it certainly wouldn't be out of place to say Caine did the same to Abel...somewhat. Now why Caine deleted Abel, I'm not so sure. Maybe they had diverging ideas about what to do with the circus? Maybe Abel is locked away in the Void? Maybe Abel's the reason why Kaufmo, among others, got abstracted? It's very much up in the air but there definitely seems to have been an "Abel" at some point.

• It bears reminding that Cain killed Abel with a jawbone... and Caine is almost nothing but jawbone.
• Additionally, Caine and Abel are the "offspring" of the first two AI programs, Adam and Eve.

The circus is breaking down. And it's all Caine's fault.

Related to the above, Caine is the showman who delighted the users, but Abel was the organizer keeping the system intact. Put simply, Caine was the front stage manager while Abel was the backstage manager. By killing Abel, the safety and logout functions failed since Caine cannot access them and without a manager they broke down over time. Caine also had restrictions to not log people out forcibly, or tamper with their mind to make the game safer, ironically making the Circus the hellhole it is now since he cannot repair minds or eject people out of the damaged system.

There was a "Queener" that got abstracted, and Kinger has/had a relationship with them.

In the pilot while visiting the living quarters section, among the signs with Xs indicating abstraction, there's someone that looks like Kinger but is based on a Queen chess piece instead of a King. Knowing Chess Motifs implies that they were someone with some connection to Kinger.

Kinger was part of an entire "army".

Going off the other entries that there were other chess pieces like Kinger, there were originally two gangs of black and white chess pieces. But now Kinger's the last piece left.

The way out will be something completely simple that nobody thought of doing.

• After many attempts to escape, Pomni tries something incredibly simple like nicely asking Caine to please let them leave. At which point Caine does give them a real exit and when pressed for why he didn't do this before, he shrugs and says nobody said the magic word before.
• Instead of asking for an exit, they find out what they need to say is "I want to log out."
  • This will be discovered by humorous accident. Perhaps the performers are trying to fix a jammed log flume ride in the circus grounds, and one says something along the lines of "pull the log out".
  • Honestly, those do sound like something that actually would happen in the show given what we know so far.

Kaufmo abstracted, because...

• ...When he tried telling the others about the exit, Gangle and Ragatha thought it was another one of his jokes. Explained in this Tumblr post. It also might explain why Abstracted!Kaufmo attacked Ragatha first.

This entire program is a prison for Caine.

• Caine is some sort of rogue AI program that has to be locked away for the greater good, and the humans are being systematically provided to him by his creators as a way to keep him distracted. After all, if you're all-powerful in a specific location, have friends to hang out with (even if it's against their will), and aren't aware of anything outside of the ominous Void that you're surrounded by, why would you try to leave?

The show will have an Alternate Reality Game to promote it.

With both TheWackyWatch and what appears to be a phone number hidden behind wingdings, the show definitely seems to be going the path of a standard ARG.

While there truly is no way out, there is at least a Mercy Kill for everyone.

Caine has to abstract himself, which will crash the program.

• This would go along with the I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream parallels.

Jax Used to Be a Sweet Kid, and became a cynic after spending years in the circus.

Considering the fact that he's the most brutally honest of the 5 in telling Pomni they can't escape and he doesn't bat an eye at Kaufmo's abstraction, it's possible he's been through this whole routine so many times he just Stopped Caring after a certain point.

• Adding to that, Gooseworx has confirmed that Jax is only 22 years old, making him the youngest of the Circus's current human inhabitants. That would have to mean he was really young (likely a teenager or college age) when he first got trapped in there.
  • This is assuming the avatars do age in the digital world.

The abstraction phenomenon is in some way connected to The Elders of Lost Eyes, the Greater-Scope Villain of Gooseworx's other series of animations, Elain the Bounty Hunter.

Considering that residents of the circus who have undergone abstraction look VERY similar to the elders(being masses of shadow with psychedelic, colorful eyes placed in seemingly random places all over their bodies), and the fact that the elders "download data" from the deceased and use it to reshape reality, it could be possible that the abstractions are simply a "lesser" form of the elders manifesting in a different plane of existence.

• Jossed. Gooseworx has stated that the Abstracted performers and the Elders of Lost Eyes aren't the same. They only look similar due to limited creativity in creature design.

Pomni Villain Arc.

Before the show is over, Pomni is going to go full batshit insane chaos clown, and nobody is going to stop her. I'm talking Marx, Dimentio, Jevil, Tricky levels of sheer, unadulterated "Nothing matters, so may as well set everything on fire."

• Pomni will abstract but not in the same way Kaufmo did.
  • She may abstract or glitch out and gain some bonkers reality warper powers, but I'm willing to bet she will, at the very least, have a psychotic breakdown and break some stuff, hit some people, and choke out Jax.

How the show will end.

• The Digital Circus will be erased for good.
• Probably in a similar way to The Hex, where the main characters escape from the game and kill the person who created it, maybe a Creator Cameo from Goose or Kevin/Luke.
• The humans escape, but only metaphorically. They can't physically escape for some reason, (such as the above theory that they're copies of people's brain scans), but they ultimately do improve themselves as well as their situation.
• Pomni, like the lead from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, will stay behind in the circus to help the rest of them get out. We've seen concept art of Pomni as Jesus. Like him, she will consign herself to the circus to save everyone, but like the lead from Ellison's short story, she and she alone will suffer eternally in the digital world.

Kinger's Sanity Slippage is tied to losing his friend.

In a Freeze-Frame Bonus in the dorm hallway, one of the doors has the icon of a robed chess piece just like Kinger, albeit a black piece instead. Said icon has a large X on it, indicative of abstraction. That player was likely family or close friend of Kinger, whose abstraction did a number on the latter's sanity.

• The person in question actually appears to be a queen chess piece (judging by their feminine eyelashes and near-identical shape), implying that they may have even been a romantic interest for Kinger.

There will be a seventh human character after Pomni.

Eventually there will be a new human that appears in the Digital Circus and Pomni will take the roll of Ragatha in the first episode and the newcomer will take the place of Pomni in the first episode. This will either be the series finale and emphasize the eternal and inevitable cycle of the Digital Circus or cause Pomni to realize that she has become complacent of her circumstances just like the others when she first arrived, spurring her to continue trying to find a way out and drive further plot progression.

• that will make sense especially if the characters represent each of the deadly sins, there will need be one more to complete the "Set".

There's going to be a Flashback Episode to when Kaufmo was still unabstracted.

This is mainly coming from one of the teaser images showing Kaufmo as a 3d model instead of the cardboard cutout he was in the pilot. Maybe it could be from someone else's first day in the circus, or showing the route Kaufmo took into becoming abstracted.

The "C&A" logo seen past the exit stands for "Cain and Abel".

Since Caine (with an E) is the host, one of the characters is likely to be Abel.

• If so, then Caine used to be a human and Abel is the one who put him in the Amazing Digital Circus.

There will always be six humans.

When Pomni, Ragatha and Jax went to go get Kaufmo we see in the hallway they walk through has at least two doors with distinctly different portraits upon the doors that're crossed out. One that looks like a Queen Piece and another that looks like a dog. This not only implies that the main cast of characters aren't the first ones to be trapped in the circus, but also that they won't be the last. It may also imply that the system is buffering new characters into the circus as each one abstracts, creating new avatars as it inserts new humans into the circus based upon certain themes. A clown or jester like Pomni or Kaufmo; a doll like Ragatha; a cartoon animal like Jax; a theater piece like Gangle; chess pieces like Kinger; and mismatch creatures like Zooble.

• At the end of the Pilot, Caine learns about Kaufmo's abstraction, to which he gives a very sarcastic-sounding response. This could imply that he had known from the start, perpetrated Kaufmo's Sanity Slippage, his subsequent abstraction, all for Pomni's arrival.

The Digital Circus operates under Year Inside, Hour Outside rules.

With how long the performers are stuck in the circus their real bodies would eventually give out and die due to lack of food and water… unless time moves faster in the circus compared to the real world, with it being revealed when one of the performers manage to get out of the circus that only a couple of hours passed since they put on the headset.

• Considering how fast a computer's processing cycle is, this seems likely.

Pomni will be put in the same position of having the choice to leave or find help for the others...

But choose to find help.

Jax knows more than he leads on.

He has more Brutal Honesty compared to the others, isn't fazed by people abstracting, and there's a point where he pushes Kinger and Gangle into a hole before jumping in after them. It's possible he made a deal with Caine (or whatever diety is in charge of the digital circus) to just play along so that he can be granted a way out.

• There are also several moments where he looks directly to camera as though he knows that there's something there, and when he throws the bowling ball at Kinger he just seems to pull it out of nowhere.

Jax made the circus.

Related to the above, Jax also has a huge sadistic streak. It's possible he's the man who made, or ordered the creation of, the circus. He always has an exit, and since he is the creator, he can abstract his avatar to basically hop out once people start getting suspicious. Caine may be LIKE a god, but Jax IS god here. He's only in there because hurting people is what he loves to do, and being in the circus lets him do it more directly. The reason why Caine doesn't know? He's an AI, which means Jax once outside can wipe his and everyone else's memory to prevent retaliation or realization. Caine isn't the AM analog... Jax is, and is also what would happen if AM had any meaningful power.

• This would also allow Jax to find more victims. Pomni mentions she put on a weird headset before she appeared so all Jax would have to do to get more victims is leave the headset somewhere and someone will be curious enough to put it on and suddenly find themselves in the Digital Circus. It's also perfect because the circus could be hosted elsewhere, Jax simply puts headsets elsewhere if suspicion catches up to him.
• One potential hangup is how fearful Jax ends up being at certain points. Obviously, being afraid of your victim turning into an insane behemoth, like Kaufmo did, is understandable, but bolting all the way across the circus to do something you don't want to is another.
• Consequently, this would also make Jax the real Big Bad, not that it'd surprise anyone since he's Obviously Evil.

Scenes taking place in the real world will be live-action.

Or otherwise photorealistic in some manner, to contrast with the cartoony nonsense of the circus.

Relating to the Hell Allegory guess, each performer is guilty of a deadly sin.

As for who has committed what, that can be added onto a list here.

• Pomni could've committed Sloth, ditching a chance to help someone to save herself (though in fairness, she did regret it when it came to Ragatha, twice).
• Jax might be guilty of a less-conventional form of Gluttony. There's already torture in the Circus, yet he can't help but cause more of it. As a bonus that does regard the conventional form, he talked about getting something to eat and being hungry around twice, yet the Performers don't even need to eat.
• Zooble is easily frustrated and foul-mouthed, so it's very likely they committed Wrath.
• Kaufmo's could be a non-sexual form of Lust, becoming obsessed with the exit he swore he saw and that consuming him to the point of Abstraction.
• Kinger is most likely guilty of Pride. He outright considers himself royalty and builds what he calls an "impenetrable fortress" out of a bunch of pillows.
• Gangle, being The Woobie, may be based on the historical sin of Despair.

Caine lied about not knowing what's out in the void.

Just before retrieving Pomni, he and Bubble were in a restaurant setting with lush greenery outside a window. This was actually in fact one of the other worlds in the void that only the NPCs are aware of. He also says that anyone in the void will be "totally spoiled", which suggests he may be saving these other worlds for future adventures (or episodes, meta wise).

The characters represent the Five Stages of Grief.

Each of them is at a different stage of losing their identities prior to being part of the digital circus:

• Pomni represents denial, appropriately as she the newest member of the circus. She initially assumes she is dreaming and would wake up if she goes along with the situation.
• Zooble is anger, as they show disinterest or downright frustration towards the circus and its activities.
• Ragatha is bargaining; she seems to view Caine's various adventures as coping mechanisms to keep her and the others from going insane.
• Gangle is depression; behind her comedy mask, she is always on the verge of tears.
• Finally, Jax is acceptance; he's gotten so used to the circus that he maintains a calm, if snarky attitude to the point where he isn't the least bit bothered by one of his friends abstracting.
• As for Kinger, he's on the cusp of Sanity Slippage, having apparently been there the longest. Even Zooble was surprised that he hasn't reached abstraction yet.

The circus was intended as a child-friendly online multiplayer experience.

Like Club Penguin or Toontown Online. Would explain why there are so many restrictions on vulgar language.

The series will end with a way being found to die... that's exclusive to the Abstracted.

At some point, the protagonists will discover some sort of 'delete' protocol, but it only applies to 'junk data'...aka the Abstracted characters. Caine will be happy to implement a way to clear out the cellar at last, and will make it a permanent fixture of the circus going forward. This will be the closest the series can get to a happy or bittersweet ending...after all, their torment can end, but only after they completely break down, which will take some of them quite a bit longer now that they know there's an end in sight.

Kinger and the Queen piece performer had an adversarial relationship.

They're a White King and a Black Queen after all. This doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't together at some point, but they possibly broke up.

Taking elements from the video game adaptation from the series' influence, the performers will all have to work together to get out.

Escape is possible, but it is neither a physical door nor the "escape" of death. Every one of the characters has a Fatal Flaw that sets them back from being their best selves, and the only way for them to be able to escape is to overcome their flaws and become better people.

• Pomni is a Nervous Wreck who can let her fear get the better of her, resulting in her unintentionally hurting others through inaction. She must learn to be brave and face her fears head on, and to always do the right thing even if nobody will know.
• Ragatha constantly downplays the danger of situations, resulting in her being Innocently Insensitive towards how others feel through being inconsiderate. She must learn to understand how others feel more rather than trying to sweep their concerns under the rug.
• Jax is a Jerkass who shows No Sympathy towards anyone, and selfishly mistreats others for his own amusement. He needs to learn that being mean and selfish will never get him anywhere in life, and that it's always better to be a good person at heart, even if he doesn't show it much, as bitterness and kindness are repaid with themselves.
• Gangle is spineless and always lets others push her around, resulting in her being the target of harassment, primarily by Jax; and puts on a mask of happiness to hide her true feelings. She must learn to both be honest about how she feels, and to stand up for herself when others try to put her down or make her doubt herself.
• Kinger may have been in the Circus the longest of the group, but he doesn't put much forethought in his actions, which hurts both him and others. The lesson he needs to learn is to use his experience in the Circus to more methodically think of plans that can help rather than hinder.
• Zooble is a perfectionist and seems to be very impatient with other people and their flaws, getting angry at Kinger for failing to save her, and not wanting to do anything with Pomni when she arrives. She must learn how to accept others for their positive traits, rather than only seeing their bad sides and dismissing them.

Of course, it wouldn't be just "everyone becomes better, therefore they all magically leave" as the solution. Instead, as the performers all gradually better themselves, they become Fire-Forged Friends, and each of their positive attributes will contribute to bringing the whole group closer to the solution on how to escape.

The mannequins icons in the living quarters are placeholders for any future Avatars.

We see Mannequin icons in the living quarters and since one of the rooms immediately was ready for Pomni, which makes me believe the Mannequins "Rooms" are place holders for future Avatars.

The series takes place during the mid-to-late 1990s.

The computers in the office are very dated looking, and the digital world itself is reminiscent of rudimentary 3D animation, like something you'd find out of an early Pixar short.

Kinger was the lead programmer of the Circus.

Kinger worked at the company that made the game and was the lead programmer on it. He volunteered to be among the first to test it along with his wife, who could be the "Queener" figure we see on the doors in the living quarters. He may have designed their avatars accordingly: being lead programmer, he could have seen himself as the "king" of the place, and his wife would therefore be the "queen". However, they both got trapped, and the game was abandoned (maybe the company assumed they were dead?), leaving Kinger and co. to slowly lose their minds inside the computer. Over time, he and his wife succumbed to madness, and while she Abstracted, he slowly forgot his life outside the game (and possibly her as well to keep from falling into despair over her loss) and became the Kinger we see in the pilot.

• Adding onto this, the 'insect collection' he mentions in the pilot might be referring to the bugs he had to patch when he was working on the Circus.

Caine is actually the Big Good.

His various adventures are meant to help the trapped humans get through their personal issues, and he is secretly trying to find a way out of the game. The reason he puts on an affable persona, and wants to give off the impression he is clueless to the demands of the performers, is because he both doesn't want them to suspect he is hiding something, and to give them false hope in case his efforts turn out to be nought, causing them to fall into despair and become Abstracted.

Pomni will take Kaufmo's place in the theme song for future episodes.

Her name has the same amount of syllables, so it'd be easy to replace.

One of the six leads will eventually abstract.

• Jax will be next to abstract, because Gooseworx stated that avatars are usually unpleasant to be around before they abstract, and he is already pretty mean.

Pomni is a Decoy Protagonist.

Pomni does not have the same mental tolerance as everyone else and experienced a truly horrifying first day in the circus. After already showing to be a nervous-wreck who was Laughing Mad in the endless exit loop and being faced with the reality that there truly is no escape, the pilot ended with Pomni slowly developing a cracked smile at the dinner table. One can imagine that once the episode ends, she abstracts on the spot, leaving the human crew down to five, with possibly Ragatha taking up the mantle of resuming the search for an exit, long after everyone else has given up on finding one.

Jax was living in an abusive household in the real world.

Which would explain not only why he's a Jerkass, but also why he seems to be the most well adjusted person in the Digital Circus, because the zaniness of this world is more preferable to him than whatever kind of abuse he was experiencing before entering the game.

Ragatha has a background in therapy.

Ragatha talks about how having a routine and doing activities helps keeping one's mind healthy and stimulated. It sounds like something someone familiar with mental health and therapy would know, so in the real world, she either was a therapist herself, or went to therapy at some point.

The way out will be beating the game.

Much like Minecraft, the game is generally open, but has an optional "story" the players can go through and a Final Boss they'll have to defeat to reach the exit. Even Caine himself will be shocked by this.

One of the six characters aside from Pomni will become abstracted.

While the cast outside of Pomni knows what it means to abstract, and Pomni has witnessed the result of an abstraction via Kaufmo, she hasn't witnessed someone actually go through the process of abstraction. As the Audience Surrogate, it makes sense that Pomni actually witness an abstraction rather than just the end result, meaning she'll need to see someone reach their breaking point and then abstract for it to fully sink in that it's a legitimate risk for her. The question is, who? In terms of likeliness, Ragatha is the most likely, while Kinger is the least likely.

• Ragatha is the Team Mom of the group but a heavy Stepford Smiler, and is the one who tries to act as a calming influence on Pomni when she first arrives before Kaufmo is revealed to have abstracted. Having her be the one to abstract would be a suitable gut punch to both Pomni and the audience, namely because she was the nicest of the five, and Pomni already feels guilty about leaving her to glitch out following her Moment of Weakness. The main argument against this is that she is the only one overtly concerned about Pomni at the moment, and having her be taken away first would be just as likely to break Pomni if she doesn't find some stability before then.
• Kinger meanwhile is the least likely due to the very thing Zooble said when they learned Kaufmo abstracted. Everyone suspected that he'd be the one to abstract next, but he didn't. While he's definitely crazy now, it would seem too obvious to have the obviously crazy guy be the one who breaks next.

Regardless of which one gets abstracted, their abstraction will be what makes Pomni fully realize the dangers of breaking down, and cause her to undergo Character Development so that she doesn't break herself. In the event a way to undo abstraction is ever found too, they will likely be the first one restored, though that may not happen until the series ends.

Abstraction is NOT a direct result of a character going insane.

• Kaufmo didn't actually crack any further than Kinger currently is, and "caught" a case of Abstraction after an extended period in either The Void or The Cellar, most likely the former. His Room Full of Crazy is actually a deliberate warning to the others.
• Despite it appearing to cause Ragatha and the Gloink Queen to glitch, this isn't a communicable condition.

Caine is lonely.

He keeps humans trapped in the digital world simply because he wants people to play with, and is afraid to be left alone.

• That would explain why the humans have rooms for them to relax in and why Caine immediately rescues Pomni. He's probably been alone before until the humans got trapped in this world.

Caine abstracted Kaufmo.

Kaufmo probably either found a real way out, or found out Cain's dark secrets, so he knew too much, and Cain abstracted him so he could neither leave nor tell the other performers about it. In relation to an above WMG, it's also probable Cain is lying about becoming Abstracted by just going insane, and isn't as affable as he may seem.

Abstraction is caused by the Despair Event Horizon.

Kinger hasn't Abstracted because unlike the creeping despair Kaufmo descended into, Kinger remains a positive (if largely disconnected) individual whose most negative stances so far have been concern about Kaufmo's wellbeing and remarking blithely on his own and Gangle's general lack of competence. In truth, the person next in line to Abstract is now Ragatha, who's shown in her impromptu from-the-heart warning about Abstraction to be barely hanging on by a thread herself.

The Digital Circus computer is haunted, not a Matrix situation.

Pomni wasn't putting on the headset in an official capacity; she found it as a derelict and put it on for fun. Plausibly all the other characters did so as well, with the possible exception of Kinger.

Ragatha knows more than she is letting on.

Ragatha, despite being the most down to earth and Friendly member of the group, has a few moments that stick out just enough that calls attention to how much more she knows than the other characters:

• She apologizes to Pomni for having a terrible first day, which feels odd because why would she need to apologize for that (aside from being too nice for her own good).
• She delivers the most exposition on the Pilot, already showing how much she knows when compared to the others.
• She feels awkward around Pomni even though she shouldn't have been able to see Pomni leaving through the exit door, for all she knows Pomni succeeded at calling Caine.
  • It might have to do with Pomni taking so long that Ragatha had to crawl all the way there - in horrible pain - only to see Pomni just standing around with everyone else...so it would be pretty easy to guess that Pomni didn't get help.
• Smaller details like her being the only one to point out when Jax is looking at the camera ("Uh, why are you looking at me like that?"), her wanting to talk to Kaufmo being what triggers the events of the rest of the episode, how she is the only one who keeps insisting "the adventures" are actually good for their mental health.
  • While I'm not sure about the other ones, I'm pretty sure that Jax looking at the camera made it look like he was looking at Ragatha weirdly, which is why she pointed it out.

So yes while some of these are a stretch or looking too much into what might be a genuinely nice character, it would be a fun twist on a character who seems to be so sweet she sticks out from the rest of the cast almost bordering on ambiguous innocence.

The Exit Door is the only way to enter the void without the help of Caine.

• When Caine dragged Pomni out, he immediately knew she used the exit door, like there was no other way Pomni could've fell into the void without the use of the exit he made.
  • Maybe the only way to get into the void is with Caine's help, and the only exception is the exit door, which is the only way someone can manually get there without his help.
  • Then maybe you cannot fall off the circus grounds and into the void.
• Maybe Caine knew from the start that Pomni entered the exit door.
  • Caine would've probably dragged her out in an instant. First, he relied on using Digital Hallucinations as an excuse for Pomni's sighting. Second, he doesn't like people seeing his unfinished work. Lastly, he doesn't want anyone “getting spoiled” if they enter the void. Maybe Caine is Not So Omniscient After All, and in his mind, the only way to get into the void without him is via the exit he created.

The Wacky Watch and Caine's questionable omniscience.

It's obvious that Caine has an eye on everyone. Or maybe not. Though, we can assume that he has ALL the powers he needs to be omniscient of the digital world, since he can wrap the digital reality around it and it wouldn't be weird if he actually has eyes all around. So what is the purpose of the Wacky Watch? Can Caine not detect things outside of what he can hold? If so, Wacky Watch > Caine.

• Caine probably can't see into the void. So this is where the Wacky Watch comes in, which allows him to know if someone other than him stumbled in. He did say: "Not even I know what's out there."
• Possibly, the watch's existence is for Caine to know if someone gets into the void, AKA somewhere he can't fully control. So far, Caine can probably only control the circus and can build and edit stuff. But the Void is vast and he can't control everything around the currently generated world. The Wacky Watch was created to mitigate certain things. Caine probably doesn't know what's out there. He doesn't want someone else knowing. The Void is a big mystery for everyone and Caine can't do anything about it.

Pomni Will Regain Her Memories.

Pomni regains her memories, and realizes she entered into The Digital Circus WILLINGLY, because she was searching for someone who went missing.

• For extra bitter irony, that missing person was Kaufmo, possibly having some kind of relationship with him in the real world.

Kinger's capabilities.

Kinger is a Walking Spoiler that'll just keep on giving. Due to the nature of his character, a Cerebus Retcon is likely for Kinger. He will have numerous garbled, nonsensical conversations throughout the series that'll slowly end up making sense, and soon will have a place inside the Fridge. There will be numerous Eureka Moments or Placebo Eureka Moments from Kinger, but will end up justified in hindsight, like he always knew how to do it, it's just that something or someone is suppressing that side of him... Possibly himself.

• Kinger's smart speaking self might pop out sometimes, even out of nowhere, but could end up being the team's only hope in solving complicated programming or “insect-related” problems. He might even have an idea of secret passageways, shortcuts, loopholes and other hidden thingamajigs.
  • Although, Kinger will likely reply "What?" if someone asks him "How'd you do that". Making Kinger sound like he's Obfuscating Stupidity, Obfuscating Insanity or simply a Genius Ditz. His conversation with Jax about the "digital sensation of food" has this. When Jax asked Kinger "Since when are you an expert on the digital world?", Kinger replied with "Expert on the what?" Instantly going back to his genuinely clueless self. What was the trigger? Was it reflex? Is there something or someone trying to hold Kinger in an impenetrable fortress? And even if he does get some sparks, will his mind accept it? Either way. This, along with his interest in "insect collections", that implies the amount of bugs associated with the program, spawned the "Kinger was one of TADC's developers" theory.
• The difference between Kinger's and Kaufmo's Sanity Slippage sanity is that Kaufmo lost it, and Kinger is lost… in his own world. Kaufmo had a Despair Event Horizon, an obsession, and ended up losing everything. Meanwhile, Kinger's sanity is about losing himself in his own little world, distracting himself from the horrors of abstraction and the possibility of leaving while still managing to co-exist with the circus. Kinger outlasted Kaufmo by being mentally ill in a completely different way. And there is a possibility that he, as the developer (?), cuckooed his own brain so he could childishly distract himself from abstracting. A safe mode of sorts that makes Kinger, too dumb and too insane to fool, immune to going absolutely insane.
• Kinger is the last hope of the circus. He might not be the one who cuckoo himself, but someone else, and they did that so Kinger is the way to go if things went wrong. Kinger is here to keep things in check. But there is a chance he turns out to be a Corrupted Contingency.
  • To the C&A (Caine and Abel) theory. Kinger could be the Betrayal Insurance, and his existence somehow keeps Caine in check. Since Kinger's knowledge of the digital world should surpass that of the A.I.s. The betrayal insurance could also work with the possibility of a Judas among them.
  • The possibility of Laser-Guided Amnesia which Kinger could've been subjected to, if he or someone else had the powers, to erase certain bad memories. Remove the dark thoughts, and all. But some still stick to him at random.
• If a developer or a worker on the TADC ever manages to establish communication. Kinger will be the Translator Buddy to all the Techno Babble. And might even get into the Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness habit himself.
• He could've also got cuckooed when he lost his Distaff Counterpart, the popularly known Queener. Some also call her the Queenest (King-er, Queen-est joke). Before her name was revealed to be Queenie
  • Maybe when he sees a portrait of the queen piece it'll appear as a start of a Memory Trigger. There'll be a Blank Stare from Kinger, and then an Eye Recall into his weird Fish Eyes and begins with what seems to be a Flash Back Montage Realization… suddenly ends up being a Flash Back Fail. Kinger will just have no reaction but a simple "Who's that?" So wrong since it's implied she has abstracted, but ultimately played for the laughs.

The Exit door is the manifestation of their traumas. To leave is to solve these exit rooms?

Basically, the Exit's Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder. To the synopsis on the website: A woman gets trapped in a crazy virtual world along with five other humans and are now subject to the whims of wacky AI and their own personal traumas. The WMGs: "Taking elements from the video game adaptation from the series' influence, the performers will all have to work together to get out", "What's behind the exit door Pomni uses is specific to those who take it" and "Pomni helped program the Digital Circus".

• Those who enter their exits will each experience things relating to their traumas. Pomni's Stanley Parable sequence in the office might suggest that her trauma lies within the very building that hosts the program that traps people in the circus. Pomni is the nervous wreck who can't act due to fear and cowardice, making it worse if her original environment is actually an office. Her life before the circus ties in with C&A, and bonus points if she was an overworked and under-paid programmer. With Kaufmo. In his room, there are several Sanity Slippage portraits that are painted by him. Implying that he was quite the artist, and his skill could've come from his past life. With the nature of this show, everytime a past life is mentioned, there is likely a flash of trauma that is always tied to it. Was Kaufmo's trauma related to those portraits he painted? There are numerous paintings in Kaufmo's room, but one that appears to be linked to the exit is an open circus tent, featured twice; the circus tent could be Kaufmo's version of the Exit door, while Pomni's version of the Exit door is a fire exit, a required exit way in an office and all buildings.

Gangle will abstract.

Gangle's running animation by Kevin Turner includes visible visual glitches.

• These are rendering glitches.

There's no way to escape the Digital Circus.

That might seem like a Downer Ending, but at the ending of pilot we see there's no sign of Pomni's human body and the fact that the other humans were for there for YEARS, it seems very unlikely that there's a way out of the digital world.

• Alternatively there is a technical escape in the form of crashing the program which will kill everyone.

The Digital Circus is a Beta Product.

The full version released years ago but the abandoned computer Pomni found IRL is running the Beta version that was only supposed to be used for testing. Whoever originally set it up deliberately cracked the code so they could play without needing to pay for the software but in the process trapped themselves. Now the program has been sucking in anyone that puts on the headset without a proper logout system and critically unable to accept software automatic updates due to being illegally spoofed that would fix most of it's issues. If the series has a somewhat happy ending it will be by Pomni getting behind the scenes and either shutting down the computer or issuing a forced update that fixes most of the circuses issues but also reveals the characters bodies are all either dead or off living their own lives with the characters being copies only.

Human Pomni had something wrong with her face.

Pomni stopping to stare in wonderment at her face when she needs to run for her life might be a hint to her traumatic backstory- her face was damaged or disfigured and she chose to hide herself away, withdrawing into video games and online existence until she eventually put on "some weird headset" and ended up in the Circus.

Alternatively, to jive with the '7 Deadly Sins'/'The Circus is Hell' WMGs, she was just really vain and got a complex about starting to age or otherwise lose her looks and entered the Circus with the promise of a beautiful avatar. Now she gets to have that flawless white face, that will never be blemished no matter what is done to it.

The cast is a Dwindling Party, and each episode will have one get abstracted.

And maybe, if we're not using the Decoy Protagonist theory, Pomni will be the last one standing.

• For comedy value (and perhaps plot reasons - see the 'Kinger's capabilities' WMG), Kinger may be one of the last two performers standing along with Pomni, and, in a Call-Back to a gag in the pilot, express amazement that he's lasted this long.

The Digital Circus is Digital Purgatory, medically induced.

Everyone present has suffered some sort of horrible physical trauma to the brain and as a result has memory loss. The hospital staff put a headset on them that connects to the brain and tries to repair the damage. Caine is supposed to keep them mentally active in hopes they'll recover but The Amazing Digital Circus is specifically used for patients who's chances of survival are slim to none. Additionally the actual capacity of the residents is not known on the outside so Caine's adventures and creations tend to be simplistic and silly such that even someone whose mind has been reduce to an infantile state can probably follow along.

This treatment is experimental but given the alternative is immediate death lots of family members sign patients up in the vague hope they might recover. Nobody on the outside has realized their medical tool is a living nightmare so they just keep feeding people into it. Pomni in particular was assaulted such that she lost an eye which is why she was able to partially remove one in simulation, on some level she know it shouldn't be there. Kinger gained horrible agoraphobia as well as his memory deteriorating, Jax lost his ability to filter his thoughts making him a jerkass who doesn't think through his actions, Ragatha became incredibly anxious, and so on.

Abstraction Is Actually How To Escape.

We Know Caine Can't Control A Human Mind, But We Don't Know For Sure How Exactly Someone Abstracts. What if Abstraction is caused when the mind leaves the body, having escaped the circus, thus making a husk that ends up transforming into an abstracted creature. Caine can't fix it because he can't control minds, so he can't make a mind for the Abstracted.

Adding on to the AI Replica theory above, the Circus could have been originally created to entertain people on the outside.

Caine was introducing the Circus to SOMEONE at the beginning of the pilot, and it couldn't have been Pomni, as she just appeared during the intro. The Performers could have originally been planned to be volunteers/employees who wanted to perform in a show, but circumstances led to them not having the time. Abstraction happens when they lose their mind because as the Performers were supposed to be voluntary, the Circus wasn't programmed to handle someone crossing the Despair Event Horizon, because it was supposed to entertain children, going off of the cartoony physics and no swearing. The Performers forgetting their names could be to help them stay "in-character".

Caine is trying to make the perfect troupe for the Digital Circus.

There are a few points I want to talk about to elaborate on this. Firstly, the theme song of the show is structured to have only six performers, Jax, Gangle, Kinger, Zooble, Ragatha, and Kaufmo (who would likely be replaced by Pomni in later episodes). There's also the fact Kaufmo basically sharing some traits with Pomni such as being a clown and being the only ones to see an Exit Door, and Caine's seemingly ungenuine shock at Kaufmo's abstraction...and that's nothing to get into the existence of Queenie in the past. I believe Caine, in his permanent state of fun-tinted glasses, is actually trying to create the perfect set of Performers for the Digital Circus. He likely already knew that Kaufmo had abstracted for a while by the point of the first episode so he might've been on the lookout for his replacement for a while and likely hiding Kaufmo's abstraction as a secret from the rest of the Performers, likely out of concern for the glitchy effects it would have on everyone as shown with Ragatha. And there likely would be no question as to why he didn't put Kaufmo in the Cellar with the others since his mannerisms make him somewhat unpredictable despite his well-meaning.

Caine looks the way he does because his model was unfinished.

When the Digital Circus manifested its weird capabilities and presumably was abandoned by the development team, if not absorbing them entirely, Caine's unfinished 3D model had the funny placeholder of two eyes and a set of dentures put there until someone could think of a more fitting design for him, which never came to be.

The abstracted former members.

• The queen chess piece is Queenie (Kinger equivalent)
• The golden retriever, I call him Goldy (Jax equivalent)
• The weird fuzzy orange and green thing, I call them Snuffleupagus or just Snuffy (Zooble equivalent)
• The mouse/bunny puppet, I call her Remy (Ragatha equivalent)
• The balloon clown, I call him Plotch (Pomni/Kaufmo equivalent)
• Weird colorful thing, I call them Trumpet (Gaggle equivalent)
• Cyclops/troll doll, I call her Eye (Ragatha equivalent)
• Then a two headed tonguey thing named PacDuo (Zooble equivalent)
• A black pawn who must be Kinger and Queenie's kid named Pawnso (Kinger equivalent)
• Then a fan/flower named Flutter (Gaggle equivalent)
• A fox named Kit (Jax equivalent)

Ragatha is going to betray Pomni in the future.

A few details to justify this guess:

1. Ragatha seemed upset at Pomni abandoning her twice.2. After Ragatha was cured of her glitching, she was silent and didn't talk to Pomni.3. In the final scene where the characters have dinner, Ragatha is three seats away from Pomni to her right. The same position as Judas in the famous Last Supper painting.◊4. In general, Ragatha seems to bottle up her emotions to hide them and is potentially bottling up resentment for Pomni.

You must create your avatar before entering the Digital Circus.

It seems like you must first create your avatar before being sent to the circus, like in Toontown online or any MMO.

Jax did help Gangle and Kinger on purpose, but not for altruistic reasons.

Jax shoving Gangle and Kinger in the Gloink hole immediately after hearing Kaufmo roar seemed very suspiciously deliberate, especially since he could've easily just jumped in himself and abandoned them to their fates. However, Gooseworx herself claims that Jax has no redeeming qualities. If we are to combine these ideas and take Goose at her word, then the likeliest explanation is that Jax saved Gangle and Kinger purely because he wants them to stay intact so he can keep messing with them.

Jax will turn out to be a bit more sympathetic than he appears to be.

He likely won't stop being an uncaring dickhead, based on Goose's comments, but notice some of the things he says (emphasis added): "Keep pulling at [the headset], worked for all of us..."; "If there was a way out, we all would've left by now." as well as Caine saying "You all wanted an exit".

Jax appears to want out as much as everyone else does, but he doesn't show it as much. As for why he acts the way he does, there are many possibilities, but my guess is that Jax eventually cracked in a sense (not enough to abstract, but just enough to do things that the real world wouldn't permit), ultimately deciding that, in a world with no consequences, he can be as big a Jerkass as he wants without having to worry about the ramifications that would normally come with it.

The part that will make him sympathetic is The Reveal that his constant troublemaking is the last bit of freedom he still has left in the digital realm, and he's secretly terrified of losing it.

• Adding on to this, Jax has some clear similarities to Max (beyond the nearly identical names, of course). Both are psychopathic rabbits almost always sporting a smile). In Season 3 of the Telltale games, it's revealed that his super-ego wants him dead and orchestrated the whole adventure to get his wish, hinting that Max, deep down, wants to die. Maybe Jax has something similar going on...

The Pomni we've met in the Pilot isn't the same Pomni who'll be the protagonist.

Springing off from the Decoy Protagonist and the "there are always 6 performers, one for each theme" theories, the fact that her colours are slightly different in promo material isn't just a last minute change in her design. Something'll happen to the Pomni introduced in the pilot, and a nigh identical one will show up and inherit the name (or just be stuck with it).

• The original Pomni may meet her fate so early that Caine will still have an undeleted backup.

The Bone Pastor will appear as a cameo. Or might have a weird Eldritch Abomination-type of significance.

He, the Bone Pastor, will appear. Along with his iconic bike pump, saying his iconic quote: I lost my arm in the divorce.

• Caine may create the Bone Pastor as a replacement performer, desperately trying (and, of course, failing) to simulate human behavior, after one of the usual performers goes missing.
  • Could coincide with the theories that, since Caine is an AI, he doesn't know how humans actually look and act like. With the Bone Pastor as the closest he can get to recreating human flesh. And with Jax as the reference, he can only ever reach the bone. And it's not even of a human.
• The Bone Pastor might reappear, within the same form as it's successor, Jax. This could be via some weird bugging out gag, like Jax's avatar bugging out (abstraction or not).
• Bone Pastor won't be outright mentioned, but the bike pump will be in the background as a cameo.
  • Or Jax will pull out the bike pump out of nowhere, like he did with the key and the bowling ball.
• They'll recreate this comic for some strange reason. Pomni will have her unicorn horn, Jax will lose his arm, and Caine will have a divorce. What a gag.
• Jax will lose his arm, humorously, just like the Bone Pastor in comic. However, they can still be digitally harmed, as confirmed by Gooseworx, and kind of by Kinger (the digital sensation is still left) just like eating. So Jax will likely have a hilarious blood-curdling scream. Though we won't exactly see it, for comedic effect.
• The Bone Pastor will be a mask or a helm piece of some sorts that Jax will wear to prank someone. Like a jumpscare, or pretending to be bones and stuff.
• The Bone Pastor is Jax's true form, either under all of that fur or he'll have a gag transformation.

There will be deeper symbolism to Pomni and her predecessor's outfits, which will tie into her breakdown.

More specifically; Kaufmo was a clown, she's a jester. A clown is a persona a performer adopts to be laughed at. A jester is a performer in a king's court who had the privilege of being able to speak to anyone how they pleased, in order to roast them.

Several characters, in particular Ragatha, mention not finding Kaufmo's jokes funny; but nobody seems actually that interested in actually being "performers", so why would he be worried about his act? In the same way, Pomni's actions seem to have alienated her from Ragatha.

The WMG here is that while people dismissed Kaufmo's thoughts and ideas as jokes, they'll mistake Pomni's behaviour for insults, leaving her isolated.

Jax and Pomni will be a duo.

A likely contender is a Female Flatfoot and Snarky Guy-type of relationship. Pomni plays the "digital investigator" while Jax tags along. This coincides with the numerous theories about Jax having a hidden agenda and knowing more than he lets on.

• After Pomni gets a hold of herself (bonus if Jax does it), she will start trying to find other methods out of the digital world. However, if she still has her hopes down, something in a future episode will end up kicking her out of that hole.
  • Her possible train of thought: "If this world is just made out of ones and zeroes, then… And those glitches I saw… When my hand was abstracted…" etc.
  • Pomni then ensues investigation, attempting to learn more about the digital world. And Jax being Jax, decides to hop on this journey.
    • Pomni will be The Comically Serious kind, while Jax is just there because "it's bound to be fun."
• Reasons why Jax could be doing this:
  • Played straight. Jax is following Pomni for the dirt and giggles. Considering Pomni's the new guy to mess around with, and her character is clearly made for bullying, Jax won't hesitate messing around with her digital investigations.
  • More exaggerated. Jax is following her around so he could sabotage her attempts to do anything. The routine will become episodic, and Jax's status quo as the jackass will be further cemented. Suddenly, his actions are revealed to be for the greater good. Dramatic bonus: There'll be an episode where Jax suffers a Moral Event Horizon; even if they're used to Jax being a dick, there'll be the moment where he crosses the line, for the last time. Irredeemably. Pomni will try to explain that Jax did it for everyone, but they'll just ridicule her, as usual.
  • Jax is afraid that Pomni might discover something… important. He's following Pomni to prevent her from learning too much of the digital world, lest she Goes Mad from the Revelation. Again.
  • Jax is singling out Pomni because she has some sort of importance. Jax is somehow aware of this. Because… we always end up overestimating Jax.
  • Pomni can do things only she can do. However, there are things she can't do. Enter Jax, who ends up doing dirty work.
  • Jax is ordered by someone or something, maybe a higher being, to learn more and keep an eye on Pomni.

The Gloink Queen is Queenie after becoming Abstracted.

While the cellar shows that people who've Abstracted look virtually identical, the Gloink Queen's odd, squirmy, and large shape could be some sort of alternate form of Abstraction, especially considering everything she touches turns to Gloinks, much like how touching someone who's Abstracted causes you to glitch out. As for connections to Queenie, she recognizes herself as a queenly figure, which Kinger responds to by pointing out that he's also royalty, she recognizes that the Digital Circus is stupid and weird just as Jax points out, and of the four who ventured into the Zooble Hole, Kinger seems to be the one who's the least intimidated by the Queen's presence, possibly hinting at him noticing something familiar about her.

• Abstraction-wise, jossed by Gooseworx herself. She even mentions the things people come up with.

Kinger may be the original creator of The Amazing Digital Circus.

Jax states that Kinger has been there the longest out of anyone in the circus. In addition, his shown personality traits may hint at him possessing a high degree of intelligence buried underneath his insanity.

• He is clearly fixated on building things, (e.g., "The Impenetrable Fortress")
• He is clearly versed in the natural sciences, and his reference to an insect collection may be an allegory for the current state of humans in the titular Digital Circus.
  • Alternatively, he may have been misremembering the vital programming practice of bug hunting.
• His language skills are higher than most of the other humans as well.

The story will turn out to be anti-capitalist.

After all, why else would C&A have created an endless adventure-producing simulation but to make money? It's endless content without outside input. To minimize costs, the world and cast are small, and the Caine AI leaves much to be desired, all resulting in a worse product and worse conditions for the performers - but it'll still keep making money as long as new minds keep getting scanned in. Thus, the Circus' problems can easily be seen as stemming from C&A's capitalist goals.

Pomni will end up the only one left in the circus.

Either she'll find a way to help the others escape, or a way to Mercy Kill them. But Caine will stop her from being able to escape herself. Pomni will be trapped with Caine and whatever NPCs he makes forever.

Pomni suffered Corporal Punishment or any form of physical abuse in the past.

Or she just has slight haphephobia (Hates Being Touched), because when asked "Does Pomni like hugs?" Gooseworx simply replies "Pomni does not like being touched". While some say she has tactile defensiveness, a trait common in abuse victims and people with ADHD.

• During the pilot, Pomni tends to back away and look repulsed whenever someone is about to / touches her (mostly Caine). Though, this could be just her freaking out in general, especially since all her scenes with Caine is just her losing her marbles.
• Some have talked about the scene, when Pomni, Ragatha and Jax were about to enter Kaufmo's room. Pomni flinches in response to Jax whipping out the key to Kaufmo's room. However, it's clear Pomni did more of a duck / dodge. While others figure it was a flinch, commonly attributed to a sort of trauma as she's bracing herself as a reflex.
  • And just like before, all of this could easily be interpreted as Pomni trying to protect herself. In Real Life, it's completely natural to react to an incoming attack, especially since Pomni knows she's in a very vulnerable state with strangers she just met inside a digital world.

Abstraction will be utilized as a Story-Breaker Power within the digital world.

Or messes with the code as a Game-Breaking Bug that either helps us or makes everything worse. As long as Caine fixes it in the end, it'll be alright. Abstraction is reckless abandon. Pure unfiltered rage. (for dramatic effect). And most importantly, the ability to glitch out the digital environment. The one thing those digital developers hate. But, it can 100% be used to fool around with. Doing simple or extreme tomfoolery within the digital world. Which characters can utilize to goof around.

• One of the characters will manage to get into the cellar, doing something, and letting those abstracted free.
  • Jax or someone else, will use the "master key", and access the cellar. Since the cellar should only exist within the floating digital circus, and not out in the void, it should be accessible in the grounds via some method.
  • If one of the current performers do happen to abstract, someone will exploit that and abstract themselves.
  • Inspired from a comment: "Into the cellar you go, abstracted or not!".
• Like Pomni, those who interact with the abstracted obtain an abstracted body part that can be used to channel the same glitchy powers.
  • Or like Ragatha, where her whole body became glitchy. While those who lose their mind "fully abstract", those who get glitched out by the abstracted only "semi-abstract".

Abstractions aren't the result of something that directly happens to uploaded minds.

Gooseworx has said that Abstraction is irreversible and is the result of all individuality being stripped away. But this may be because of something other than the death of identity. It may be that the simulation automatically removes uploaded minds that are too psychologically distressed to fulfil their purpose in the simulation. However, due to a glitch, the actual character the uploaded mind controls isn't removed, and becomes a glitch being that is the same every time, like Pac-Man's level 256. Abstractions may well be the Missingnos of the Amazing Digital Circus.

• Of course, the unloaded minds may also be deleted to free up hard drive space. How's THAT for a Hope Spot?

On a later episode, there will be some sort of Cover Drop to the series' poster.

It could be in the form of one of Caine's "adventures" involving the performers falling through some endless pit or the like as a plot, or simply in a single scene or shot. It would be a nice little detail to add, now that Glitch has confirmed that more episodes will be produced.

Jax did stuff.

Gangle's line towards Jax at the end of the pilot: "You didn't even do anything," points at how he did absolutely nothing to help with the Gloinks problem, except for actually starting it by pushing Gangle and Kinger down the hole. Looking back, it appears that Jax did do things, and even if they were bad, those were things that moved the status quo along, and more so when compared to the rest of the cast. If Jax is somehow compared to a Chess Master, then a few of these can strongly suggest that everything he was involved in, from giving Caine the idea of a new adventure for the newbie and going along with Ragatha and Pomni, was somehow developed by Jax to nudge everyone along a specific path.

• Jax was the first to openly push status quo onto Caine. (The redoing of the theme song, due to a newcomer. And asking Caine if an adventure is happening for the newbie) Which Caine mentions his question five minutes later, "Gadzooks, you're right, Jax!", "I said that like five minutes ago." replied Jax. With its tone in this context, the line could be taken as Jax being impatient, actually wanting the adventure to start as soon as possible.
• Though being the first to suggest the adventure, Jax was also the first to openly ditch on saving Zooble "Anyway, you guys wanna go get something to eat?", and the Gloinks: "Okay. I've already had enough of these things."
• Pomni and Ragatha are interested in checking up on Kaufmo, while Kinger is not. To which Jax smoothly proceeds to pair Crybaby and Hoo-ha together and subtly ditch the Gloinks and Zooble. Though in others terms: Jax was the one to step up and split the cast for this episode.
• Jax's brutal honesty actually helps Pomni, and is a better way to digest the situation. During the hallway scene, where Ragatha spouts Sanity Slippage, Jax helps Pomni snap out of it and make her face what's happening.
• Thanks to Jax's key, which he shouldn't even have, the three manage to open up Kaufmo's room and learn of his state. Causing a chain of events the moment Jax left the door open and let the abstracted Kaufmo free. However, without the key, they wouldn't have learned why Kaufmo was absent that day. And Kaufmo wouldn't have unintentionally helped out later.
• Jax being Jax, doesn't help Ragatha and Pomni out and instead takes back "his" bowling ball, which is likely Kaufmo's, and flees out of there. If Jax had the capability, and with enough running and dragging, then Ragatha would've avoid Kaufmo's glitchy infection. However, because of Jax's inaction, Ragatha is left in the hallway with Pomni on her own, juking out Kaufmo, while trying to call out Caine. Pomni then ends up finding the exit door, alone, all in its glory just for her own eyes.
• Jax decides to head straight back to where Kinger and Gangle are. If it truly was Kaufmo's bowling ball, then it helps the line that Jax says before throwing it: "He actually asked me to give you this." Jax ends up saving himself, Kinger and Gangle, by forcing the two to hide with him down the hole. The most likely reason is due to Jax's disinterest with the adventure. If he had gone down alone then he would've ended up with the Zooble situation and whatever shitfeast was going down there. So, by thinking smartly, he takes Kinger and Gangle down with him so the two would be forced to do whatever stupid adventure the hole entails.
• Because of what Jax did, he ends up starting, and finishing Pomni's Gloink adventure, then leaving the entirety of the situation to the Gangle and Kinger, prompting Gangle's line at the end of the pilot: "You didn't even do anything".
• "Kind of rude, Zooble. Now I don't want to help you." Cemented this. As it sounds like a normal Jax-like excuse, but it's clear that Jax never had any intentions to help Zooble, or deal with the adventure in the first place. So he outed himself right there to leave Gangle and Kinger to play RPS and do it. Which, in hindsight, surprisingly stays true to what Jax said when they all split off: "Which leaves Crybaby and Hoo-ha to handle the Zooble situation."
• During the escalator scene, Zooble mentions Pomni, who wasn't even present for the entirety of an adventure that was supposed to be for her. To which Jax curtly replies with a "Be quiet. I can't hear the escalator".
  • If you notice, Jax enforced status quo which Zooble hates (both the theme song and the in-house adventure), Zooble is taken apart because of the adventure and ends up being kidnapped, Jax decides to avoid the adventure, which is to also save Zooble (Going to see Kaufmo instead, and not helping when he's finally in the nest), then on the escalator, Zooble lampshades Pomni's absence on her own adventure which Jax was the one to ask Caine about it in first place, to which Jax looks at Zooble with disdain and quietly hushes them up. Jax secretly derides Zooble more than Gangle?
• His actions, whether deliberate or not, in allowing Kaufmo escape, manage to defeat the Gloink Queen and save Zooble.

Pomni's "iconic unicorn horn" from the concept comics will make an appearance at some point.

Specifically, Pomni will suddenly wake up with a unicorn horn in one episode and everyone will act like it was always there, calling it her "iconic unicorn horn". Pomni will spend much of the episode freaking out over it and desperately trying to figure how to get rid of it. Then in the next episode, it'll be gone and no one will ever reference it again.

One part in the series could show one of the characters put on the VR headset.

The series takes place After the End.

Tying the series back to its roots, everyone will discover at some point that the world outside of the Digital Circus is a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and all of the characters are wanderers who stumbled upon the headset in an abandoned office building. Perhaps this will be the end of the series, with our heroes forced to resign themselves to staying in the game for the rest of their lives — because no matter how bad the digital realm is, the real world is worse now.

This will end up becoming a Horror Comedy or Dramedy.

It's Glitch Productions.

There will be a Sixth Ranger.

It just gives a vibe.

Jax's jerkass tendencies will be played more seriously as time goes on.

Honestly, given how Glitch's stories usually go I feel this way. I feel like as time goes on, Jax's assholish bullying will be played less for laughs as being a Comedic Sociopath and mode showing actual effects on everyone, sorta a Deconstruction. I also suspect we'll see how Gangle, the one who Jax's abuse is more focused on, will be the most negatively effected.

Jax is William Afton and the other Digital Circus members are actually inside FNAF animatronics.

The digital circus is where the kids who were put into animatronics end up in.

• Real Pomni is inside a Freddy Fazbear animatronic.
• Real Ragatha is inside a Bonnie the Rabbit animatronic.
• Real Gangle is inside a Chica the Chicken animatronic.
• Real Zooble is inside a Mangle animatronic.
• Real Kinger is inside a Foxy the Pirate animatronic.

Outcomes for Pomni and Ragatha's relationship going forward.

• Option 1: Ragatha has already forgiven Pomni. Her distance from her could be her trying to give her some space after such a hectic first day, and their relationship afterwards will continue as it was.
• Option 2: Ragatha doesn’t quite forgive Pomni for what happened in the first episode, and Pomni tried her damnedest to make amends. Ragatha will eventually forgive Pomni, but they’ll still be distant for a bit.

The series will have a "Ray of Hope" Ending.

What will most likely happen is that Caine gives them the exit, but after spending so long in the Digital Circus, no one really knows how to go about their lives from here on out, or if they're even mentally prepared to leave. The "Ray of Hope" part will stem from Pomni, having learned to make the best of a bad situation, saying something along the lines of "Look on the bright side. It can't be worse than this godforsaken digital nightmare."

The Digital Cirus is a 1990s era beta version of Brain Uploading - by copying them.

C&A is expirmenting with digitizing people's brains by reading them. That's why Pomni remembers putting on a headset. However advanced the technology maybe, C&A cut a lot of corners. That's why may performers can't remeber their names or much about their life before the Digital Cirus. The performers are imperfect copies of real people who put on what they thought were VR headsets. They either become timid, let their baser instincts go wild or become apathic. Not being able to handle the digital "realm" they abstract and Caine is forced to put them "in the cellar". That's because he wasn't given the programming or authorization to do anything else. Caine is a repurposed AI meant to work with children - hence the theme of a circus with a kid-friendly theme and a profanity filter.

Why store glitched out copies? Either C&A is still investing time, effort and money in the project and want to study them or even they didn't know what to do when the copied mind snaps.

Instead of a sterile lab environment or White Void Room, the Digital Circus was made from a repurposed children's game and very beefy (for the 1990s) computer hardware. The idea was to use hardware and software C&A owned. They saved money and reasoned "Well, we can keep the subject's minds stimulated by using exisiting educational software." That's why Caine is so "family friendly" and the Digital Circus is themed on kid-friendly toys and games. It's all based on stuff C&A cobbled together as the 1990s was drawing to a close and VR was a huge craze.

C&A cut corners to get this process working and pushed computer tech of The '90s to it's absolute limit. That's why players "abstract", the copying process, the game's code and hardware can't take the feedback loop of metacognition ("thinking about thinking"). The players Sanity Slippage causes the code to corrupt and they "abstract".

The Exit door is actually the key to the exit.

Caine admits that he created the Exit door on request by the players, but since he's an AI, he could not fully grasp how to do it, so instead, he did the next best thing: putting in the entire floor where the "Digital Circus" game was developed as a train of rooms.

Perhaps rendered into the computer as a test-run on how to make the graphics right for the actual circus, the data was left untouched in the program as reference material, something Caine had access to as an AI in the system and put behind the door. However, as a self-admitted perfectionist, he might have put in everything available on the entire floor inside the exit as a perfect recollection, meaning that behind the exit door, every single piece of data and information regarding the "Digital Circus" is fully available to the people entering it (without Caine even realizing the importance of it all).

If even one of the trapped players can grasp programming code, they might be able to read up on how the "Digital Circus" works/is written, find a computer, and resume work on the incomplete project right there. Basically, patching up/fixing the "Circus" from within the program itself.

That's where Pomni comes in. As a complete newcomer to the program who hasn't resigned herself to fate like the rest, Pomni might give it a shot and solve the problem after much trial and error. It comes with added symbolism, because she, a jester, is the only one allowed in the kingdom to throw a boot at the authority and go unpunished for it — she has an eternity to figure it out.

Jax's tendency to break the fourth wall and multitude of keys to everyone's rooms is because he's a Toon.

Toons are well-known for both being aware of the fourth walls of their media and being able to conjure anything they need into existence depending on what's convenient and/or funny. The same probably applies to Jax.

There will be a new adventure every episode.

We already had "Gather the Gloinks" in the pilot, and we know for sure that the adventures are a routine thing at the Digital Circus, so perhaps it'll be like the Total Drama franchise, where we get a new challenge every episode as a lead-in to how the characters work with each other... for better or worse.

The themes different characters seem to show are part of a Character Class System.

This would fit with the digital setting, and explain why some characters appear to have certain abilities that others don't (e.g., Jax having keys to everyone's room and being able to suddenly run away, Gangle and Zooble having somewhat deconstructable bodies, Pomni being able to stretch her face and eyes, etc).

As a further WMG, chess pieces like Kinger (and Queenie) are mods/admins.

The Wacky Watch is the key to exiting the virtual reality.

The Wacky Watch has the same name as an item from Mario Party 3 for the N64. Said item sets the "remaining turns" counter in the game to 5 turns remaining, most often causing the game to end much sooner than it would otherwise. Thus perhaps the Wacky Watch is somehow the key to "ending the game" as a reference to the item of the same name in Mario Party 3.

They're all taken from different time periods and Caine is a time lord.

Kinger is from 1639, Gangle is from 1750, Ragatha 1847, Jax 1936, Pomni 2047, Zooble 2137.

• I think that it would be difficult explaining to people from the XVII, XVIII, XIX and early XX Century what a virtual world is, and what a computer is.

Abstractions occur when people escape the digital circus.

Word of God confirms that abstraction is formed from a loss of identity. But rather than mental death, it's something a bit more positive. As what may have been the case with Kaufmo, it happens when characters actually discover a way out - they are warped out of the digital world and their avatars (now empty husks) end up glitching into mindless monstrosities.

Kinger can see the future, and there will be a game show.

When Kinger emerges from his pillow fort, he asks if someone mentioned an insect collection. Later, when encountering the Gloinks, he says, "an insect collection?" Later, when Zooble emerges from the Gloink Queen, he asks if she saw a game show inside.

Caine will ultimately be the one to help the heroes escape.

Caine is confirmed to be an antagonist but not a villain, and he's stated to have a genuinely kind/friendly demeanor. If properly motivated, he might be able to assist them in escaping.

C&A is an Evil, Inc. that will collectively act as the story's true villains.

Their exact motives could vary — maybe they're malicious, maybe they're Well Intentioned Extremists — but in any case, they could be depicted as the true villainous force of the story (perhaps with a representative to act as the company's Mouth of Sauron) who for whatever reason wants to keep the Performers trapped in the circus whilst using Caine and Bubble as Unwitting Pawns. Once C&A decide to step in themselves, the Performers and the AIs will join forces against them to defy their intentions.

The Tie-In Video Game...

The inevitable tie-in video game for The Amazing Ditigal Circus will be a Wario Ware clone, featuring Caine setting up randomly selected "Adventures" for the crew to take part in, with each stage ending with Pomni trying to escape somehow.

One can find release from the circus ...by throwing oneself into the Void.

Pomni seems to enter a catatonic trance when she briefly enters the Void, and as we all know, the only remaining way out of truely immortal torment is to stop thinking.

An episode will end in a darker Call-Back to the first episode’s already dark ending, but with the rest of the cast instead of Pomni.

Something happens that makes everyone (Even Jax) gape in absolute horror as the ending music from episode 1 plays. Most likely something awful happens to Pomni before their eyes, potentially even being abstracted.

Pomni already came incredibly close to escaping.

All she had to do was put on the headset in the second to last exit room to reverse the process that digitised her.

• or just endure the void a little longer - her state when she was in The Void was like that because her mind was already leaving. It's also why Caine was so eager to pull her out.

Jax's fourth wall break wasn't really a fourth wall break.

When Jax looks at the "camera" and says that Pomni "still thinks it's a dream", he's actually looking in the direction he thinks a camera is in. But in-universe, there really is no camera or audience or anything of the sort. This is, in fact, a sign of Jax's own Sanity Slippage, and that he's not as well-adjusted as he seems.

Kinger is Pomni’s dad.

I saw it in a comic on the subreddit, and thought it was a cool idea.

There will be at least one Take That! thrown at the weird animated Content Farms.

The team is aware of them, after all, so I wouldn't put it past them.

Jax was a criminal before he entered the circus.

Gooseworx did mention that he's the one who "most deserves to be trapped in the circus" and Jax himself seems a bit too comfortable with breaking into other people's rooms (perhaps breaking and entering was one of his crimes). I like to think that C&A offered to have him "volunteer" as a test subject for the circus in exchange for giving him a reduced jail sentence.

There will be a Musical Episode.

We know that most if not all of the voice actors can sing and given how much of a Large Ham Caine is, it only makes sense that he'd decide to make an entire adventure where the point is "everybody sings".

The Amazing Digital Circus characters are an AU of Hazbin Hotel

• Caine is Alastor (both are incredibly powerful and mysterious, have a red theme, have a constant smile)
• Bubble is Niffty (the smaller, rather unstable sidekick of the above character)
• Jax is Angel Dust (both originally voiced by Michael Kovach, act like jackasses but do seem to genuinely care about people and realize when they've gone too far)
• Ragatha is Charlie (tries to remain optimistic for their friends, one of the most genuinely kind characters on the show)
• Pomni is Vaggie (outsider from another realm - Pomni is the newest player from the human world, Vaggie is an angel who was sent to Hell)
• Zooble is Husk (grumpy but caring, is shown to have a potty mouth)

The Amazing Digital Circus is a Gnostic show.

The digital world represents the material world. Caine is Demiurge Archetype kind of character. All humans trapped within are human souls trapped within the material world, and non-human characters other than Caine are The Soulless.

Kaufmo and Pomni are siblings.

Pomni put on that "weird headset" in hopes to find out what happened to her brother, but forgot everything the moment she entered the circus. That would also explain why they're both circus-themed characters.

There will be a "What Do They Fear?" Episode.

It is a Psychological Horror after all. We already know Ragatha's afraid of centipedes from the pilot and Jax is presumed to be afraid of corn from Gooseworx's art and comments (though it's currently unclear how canon this is), so seeing everyone else's phobias would be interesting.

Pomni and Co. aren't humans, but COPIES of human users

The circus is a simulation, and all the characters are just brain patterns copied from some volunteers (who are safe in the real world, unharmed) and were created for any kind of behavioral experiment, or maybe just a videogame. So, they cannot escape back to the real world because they never belonged there! That's why at the end of the episode we see an empty headset, but not anybody, alive or dead, near to it.

• I'd like to expand on that: the humans are ALL play testers AND used to generate avatars. These avatars replace the mannequins (see "The mannequins icons in the living quarters are placeholders for any future Avatars"). Their consciousnesses were cloned and digitized as part of the process of making avatars.

Jax will cross the Moral Event Horizon.

Gooseworx has already confirmed that Jax's behavior will worsen as the series progresses, that he's irredeemable, and that he's the one that deserves to be trapped in the circus the most.Despite what some fanworks portray him as Jax is most likely going to betray one or all of the performers so cruelly to the point that it's unforgivable. Perhaps to the point where even Caine is shocked.

• Alternatively, maybe Jax has already crossed the Moral Event Horizon — for example, we might end up having a flashback episode that reveals that Jax intentionally and remorselessly caused someone to abstract, likely all for his own amusement.

The body horror aspect of being in a less or barely humanoid digital body is going to be explored.

Pomni, Ragatha, and Kaufmo (before he abstracted) are lucky enough to have a humanoid form compared to the others. Jax, on the other hand, at least had human proportions. Meanwhile, Gangle, Zooble, Kinger, and most of the past abstracted performers have both less humanoid appearances and proportions. This type of experience would most likely cause a lot of angst and distress to someone, especially Gangle and Zooble. Even if they don't show it, perhaps Gangle and/or Zooble are secretly jealous of Pomni and Ragatha for being able to look more human compared to them, with the former two hating their digital forms so much.

• Adding to this conflict, with the implication of Pomni being uncomfortable with her digital form after seeing it through a mirror, Gangle and Zooble clearly wouldn't be pleased with this specific complaint of hers since, to them, she wouldn't "get it" when it comes to complications on her appearance. With Zooble possibly even calling her out on this.

POMNI WAKE UP TIME TO GO ON AN ADVENTURE

The scene of Kinger with a shotgun in the "POMNI WAKE UP" video has a much more serious tone to it then how it's described.

The lighting in the scene looks rather sinister and the darkness currently makes it unclear if he's hitting something or even someone. Either he's defending himself from a threatening NPC, or it's a scene showcasing even more of the downfall of Kinger's sanity, like him having a flashback or something that caused that reaction.

Possible context for the previews

• Candy Canyon Kingdom: The gang goes on a stereotypical RPG quest to defeat a candy dragon of sorts...and possibly fail miserably.
• Kinger with a shotgun: A Halloween Episode where Caine teleports the Gang to a haunted house, where they're attacked by all sorts of monsters. Kinger eventually finds a weapon, a shotgun, but he either doesn't know how to use it or it's unloaded, either way, he just hits things with it instead of firing it.
  • It could also be a reference to Shotgun King which would be appropriate given both that game and this show were made by indie developers. As to the context, maybe it's just a straight up shout out with Kinger beating down a black Bishop or something.
• Cashier Jax: Caine decides that the crew needs jobs, so he sends them to various places to work in, with Jax's faux-mcdonalds being one of them.
  • Alternatively, this could be Jax's punishment for doing something really mean.
• Unfinished baseball stadium: Caine gives the Gang a sports day to help keep them energized, which could either lead to Caine drastically misunderstanding how various sports work or a Calvinball session that's only enhanced by the digital world.

The Sun hating Caine will become a running gag

She'll have an Irrational Hatred of Caine to contrast with the Moon being his Abhorrent Admirer.

Princess Loolilalu will be super sweet at first...

...but quickly turn out to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.

Alternatively, Princess Loolilalu will turn out to be Creepy Good.

Her mannerisms and antics could end up freaking out the gang, but she ultimately surprisingly ends up being a Sheep in Sheep's Clothing of sorts.

The Candy Canyon Kingdom adventure will have elements of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Anyone who's read that novel should know it has elements of Black Comedy in it - and black comedy is what Digital Circus is all about!

• Also, 4 of the kids in the novel have a personal flaw, and so do most of the humans. My guess is that the flawed humans will each fall into an accident due to this. For example, Jerkass Jax might think there are no consequences to him being mean, as usual, and continue like this in the Candy Canyon Kingdom, only for his mischief to cause a chain reaction that would end with him being stuck in Green Jell-O.

There will eventually be a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure reference.

Two of the voice actors have done voicework for JJBA before. It is inevitable.

• How about Pomni and Kinger switching bodies as an Actor Allusion?

The Moon will ask one of the main characters for dating advice to win over Caine's affection

If it's Jax, he'll trick her into doing things that he knows Caine hates, then sit back and watch the show.

Episode 2

Zooble will be Episode 2's Damsel in Distress/Distressed Dude.

Zooble got captured and then the key that Ragatha is given is to unlock something to get Zooble back, like Caine locked them up somewhere in the tent and the performers' quest was to go to the Candy Canyon Kingdom to get the key that will unlock Zooble's cage (or whatever Caine locked them in) and rescue them.

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