I'm personally leaning towards Jax deliberately ignoring empathy rather than him completely lacking in it, entirely because of that split-second look of sadness on his face before he puts his metaphorical mask back up and leaves instead of attending Kaufmo's funeral.
I think he was always a Jerkass to some extent, even before the Circus, but that being trapped in the Circus for as long as he has led him to maladaptively cope with his situation (and avoid abstracting) by going out of his way to be as much of a dick as possible, both for stimulation (think of it like playing a game of GTA and going on a rampage when you're bored out of your skull) and so that he doesn't get attached to anyone else who might abstract.
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's DictionaryI mean, what many people are interpreting as a split-second moment of sadness is so split-second it could very easily be interpreted as just him being in the middle of rolling his eyes. Honestly, I think it's far too soon to call whether Jax has a Hidden Heart of Gold somewhere in there or is just a full-on piece of shit.
Caine is the closest thing the show has to an antagonist (though also a Big Good at the same time) but Jax is the closest to the purely malevolent force of evil.
Funny thing about the show is that for the most part, characters are rather basic - Ragatha's nice, Jax is mean, Zooble's grumpy and withdrawn - but the context of the circus makes all of this much more complicated. Raggie is the most transparent about the whole "helping others to avoid thinking about your problems" but this applies to everyone.
The opening scene was the only time we saw the other circus residents in Pomni's nightmare and it was only Caine, Ragatha and Jax there.
I think the arm that grabbed hers at the ending scene was Ragatha's so I'm assuming Kingler's just absent.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 7th 2024 at 11:05:46 AM
Given that's it's been clearly implied Kinger knows more about the digital world than most of the others, I wonder if that's part of why he's managed to make it so long without abstracting; he understands how it functions and that makes the nightmare of being in the Circus marginally more manageable for him when he's actually lucid, as he doesn't have the total Mind Screw "what the fuck is all this" situation the others do.
I think if any of the main cast are NP Cs Gangle is the more likely candidate. She’s the only one with the gimmick to her personality. Jax, as awful as he is does feel more like a person, same for Zooble despite how little we see of them. But Gangle seems to only have two modes, happy if she’s wearing her comedy mask and sad if she’s wearing her tragedy mask. The others show a wider range of emotions. Gangle seems simple by comparison, that makes me think her personality is AI generated.
In the event that Gangle isn't an NPC, what I instead have to wonder is... can someone really be so vain, that their "happy mask" gets destroyed, and their ego is plummeted before long?
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad....Like... vanity mirrors and stuff, wanting to look your best, and getting that brave face marred.
Self-professed Wild Card who thinks cynicism isn't so bad.

Jax does things to deliberately hurt people and gets mad if he's not allowed to do it. Caine tries his best to maintain order and safety in the Circus, albeit in an Obliviously Evil fashion.
"That we continue to persist at all is a testament to our faith in one another."