u/AgainUntoTheBreach

This has been a theory of mine for a while, and might actually add quite some merit to the idea of them escaping in the end. Goose talked about how the lesson of TADC was finding meaning in a stagnant life. Most people would assume she’s implying that they will be made to stay inside the circus but still appreciate their imprisonment under a more optimistic point of view.

However, I have a different interpretation of that statement. I believe that, when she talks about a “stagnant” life, she is not referring to their lives in the circus, but rather, to our lives.

Think about the life you’re living right now. My guess is that it can be summed up as an ouroboros cycle of Wake Up -> Go to work/school -> Get home and prepare for more work/school -> Go to sleep. This weight, this monotony, this stagnation, can come to crush us and make us depressed/hopeless. We dream of being able to escape from this monotony, to not have to work, to go explore the world, to have fun and go on adventures every day, never worrying about a thing in our lives, and just being happy.

The circus represents an incarnation of that dream. Inside the circus, nobody needs to eat, sleep, or work. Endless fun and relaxation is accessible 24/7 (e.g. via the beach and carnival) and Caine is there to provide us with new and wonderful adventures, making each day different but equally as eventful from the last. This life may seem, well, “amazing”, but only on paper.

At first, this opportunity may be everything we’ve ever wanted, but the joy in instant and unearned gratification is inherently fleeting. We see this when we pursue shallow pleasures (e.g. eating junk food, watching tv all day, or “gratifying” ourselves physically), which may feel great during the fact but in the end leave us only hollow and empty.

On the other hand, when we willingly pursue difficult tasks (e.g. exercising, creating artistic works, or building real relationships), we end up feeling good in the end. That’s because, though the work itself may be difficult and stagnant at times, we continue through it because we know the payout is worth the effort, specifically because effort is necessary to attain the payout. That is where real pleasure and fulfillment is attained.

The circus doesn’t allow them to achieve that fulfillment, because when everything becomes free, nothing becomes valuable. We can see how this is happening with things like Generative AI dampening the value of the artistic process by letting people skip it altogether. In the end, we end up begging for the stagnation of our lives, specifically because it’s difficult, and because it makes the chances we can escape said stagnation have real value.

The way I see it, the circus stands to represent the joy we want to escape to in our own stagnant lives, but also how bitter and fleeting said joy can end up being. Caine can be seen as a Devil figure, offering endless joy and escape from stagnancy (the circus) in exchange for what makes said happiness valuable in the first place. By revoking their names, Caine also erases the individual identities we work hard and suffer through stagnation in order to build. 

I believe that this lends merit to the idea that they do end up escaping, because they’ll learn to find meaning in the stagnancy of the everyday lives they once led (what we as real people experience everyday and seek escape from), rather than the endless joy and craziness of the circus they were forced to lead (what we as real people want to have but we know we shouldn’t get). 

(Side note: There is definitely a significant parallel/message to TADC in Wall-E. The Axiom is the circus with its endless though fleeting pleasure, while the ruined Earth is our own lives, usually stagnant and barren, and even depressing at times, though nonetheless meaningful specifically because of the potential such stagnation allows us to take advantage of. The quote "I don't want to survive, I want to live." applies here too.)

Alongside the characters of TADC, we ourselves will learn that a life of endless color is most often worse than an endless grey, and that it is because of the greyness of the everyday that the color we can work to find in each day is meaningful.

That is what I believe Gooseworx is trying to say, and why I believe they will most likely escape in the end.

This has been a theory of mine for a while, and might actually add quite some merit to the idea of them escaping in the end. Goose talked about how the lesson of TADC was finding meaning in a stagnant life. Most people would assume she’s implying that they will be made to stay inside the circus but still appreciate their imprisonment under a more optimistic point of view.

However, I have a different interpretation of that statement. I believe that, when she talks about a “stagnant” life, she is not referring to their lives in the circus, but rather, to our lives.

Think about the life you’re living right now. My guess is that it can be summed up as an ouroboros cycle of Wake Up -> Go to work/school -> Get home and prepare for more work/school -> Go to sleep. This weight, this monotony, this stagnation, can come to crush us and make us depressed/hopeless. We dream of being able to escape from this monotony, to not have to work, to go explore the world, to have fun and go on adventures every day, never worrying about a thing in our lives, and just being happy.

The circus represents an incarnation of that dream. Inside the circus, nobody needs to eat, sleep, or work. Endless fun and relaxation is accessible 24/7 (e.g. via the beach and carnival) and Caine is there to provide us with new and wonderful adventures, making each day different but equally as eventful from the last. This life may seem, well, “amazing”, but only on paper.

At first, this opportunity may be everything we’ve ever wanted, but the joy in instant and unearned gratification is inherently fleeting. We see this when we pursue shallow pleasures (e.g. eating junk food, watching tv all day, or “gratifying” ourselves physically), which may feel great during the fact but in the end leave us only hollow and empty.

On the other hand, when we willingly pursue difficult tasks (e.g. exercising, creating artistic works, or building real relationships), we end up feeling good in the end. That’s because, though the work itself may be difficult and stagnant at times, we continue through it because we know the payout is worth the effort, specifically because effort is necessary to attain the payout. That is where real pleasure and fulfillment is attained.

The circus doesn’t allow them to achieve that fulfillment, because when everything becomes free, nothing becomes valuable. We can see how this is happening with things like Generative AI dampening the value of the artistic process by letting people skip it altogether. In the end, we end up begging for the stagnation of our lives, specifically because it’s difficult, and because it makes the chances we can escape said stagnation have real value.

The way I see it, the circus stands to represent the joy we want to escape to in our own stagnant lives, but also how bitter and fleeting said joy can end up being. Caine can be seen as a Devil figure, offering endless joy and escape from stagnance (the circus) in exchange for what makes said happiness valuable in the first place. By revoking their names, Caine also erases the individual identities we work hard and suffer through stagnation in order to build. 

I believe that this lends merit to the idea that they do end up escaping, because they’ll learn to find meaning in the stagnance of the everyday lives they once led (what we as real people experience everyday and seek escape from), rather than the endless joy and craziness of the circus they were forced to lead (what we as real people want to have but we know we shouldn’t get). 

(Side note: There is definitely a significant parallel/message to TADC in Wall-E. The Axiom is the circus with its endless though fleeting pleasure, while the ruined Earth is our own lives, usually stagnant and barren, and even depressing at times, though nonetheless meaningful specifically because of the potential such stagnation allows us to take advantage of. The quote "I don't want to survive, I want to live." applies here too.)

Alongside the characters of TADC, we ourselves will learn that a life of endless color is most often worse than an endless grey, and that it is because of the greyness of the everyday that the color we can work to find in each day is meaningful.

That is what I believe Gooseworx is trying to say, and why I believe they will most likely escape in the end.

(And by PL Spoiler I mean Somewhat Damaged)

Lord knows I wasn't thinking of scavenging for blueprints while the giant evil killer robot was chasing me all around! I'm surprised people managed to find them on blind runs (and much less had the calm headspace needed to do so, all things considered). 💀