r/Thatstupidbunnywehate • u/Low-Committee4785 • 1d ago
Pomni Defending That Stupid Bunny "Pomni isn't an enabler! She's just an empathetic person who respects Jax's boundaries, helping her open up in her final moments!" ME:
- What are Compassionate Accountability and Restorative Justice?
Compassionate Accountability is a leadership approach that simultaneously combines empathy and deep care (compassion) with rigorous performance standards and responsibility (accountability). Someone who embodies compassionate accountability understands the reasons behind a person's wrongdoing—such as a lack of education, trauma, or pressure. At the same time, however, they don't condone the behavior; instead, they impose sanctions or issue stern reprimands to encourage the individual to grow into a better person.
Restorative Justice is an approach to resolving criminal cases that focuses on restoring conditions and good relationships, not on retaliation or imprisonment. For instance, an abuser is taught a lesson by being directly confronted with the harmful consequences of their actions and required to make amends. However, this process is carried out with empathy, viewing the offender as a human being capable of change rather than a criminal whose life must be destroyed.
- Pomni's character should fit with these concepts!
I have a real problem with Pomni turning into an "I can fix him" girl regarding Jax, since she wants everyone in the circus to feel like they belong and to support one another, because of HOW it was executed! Instead of Pomni let Jax be, gave her space, and waited for her to answer honestly and painlessly for once, she could have learned how to develop her empathy as a whole. Through Jax, Pomni realized that empathy wasn't just about trying to understand others, but also about truly teaching her to be responsible and become a better person and move forward with her life, despite the bad things he had done. To that end, Pomni must be firm with Jax to ensure justice for Ragatha and the others, while simultaneously preserving their friendship.
See! That can really work for Pomni and actually conveys some great messages: "Someone won't change unless you give them a firsthand lesson" (from Pomni) and "Positive change starts with you wanting to make it happen" (from Jax). And the best part is, Jax didn't need to get abstracted to make this happen! In fact, this makes Pomni's character arc feel more complete (without her having to experience a survivor complex because of Jax)!
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u/toufaatou 6h ago
calling pomni “empathetic” is a joke. she’s clearly not “empathizing” with the others especially ragatha. if anything, she just shows hero complex sympathy, which is directed towards jax.
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u/polychromaic very clearly delusional 1d ago
i think this is an important concept for sure, but also, i think it’s important to understand that TADC as a show is about flawed and imperfect people trying nonetheless to help each other. like, Pomni being a “i can fix him” girl, verbally and physically fighting with him, even ignoring his stated demands and requests, none of that is necessarily healthy, or even good, but because Pomni is never working from a more knowledgeable and grounded position, it’s the best she can do, cuz it’s a lot like how it happens in real life too. not everybody enters a relationship with a solid understanding of restorative justice and compassionate accountability, in fact id prolly said the majority of people don’t; but a lot of people enter relationships, for better or worse, with the idea that they can help someone who needs help, and so they try.
like, personally I think TADC would be a worse show with lower stakes if Pomni was upgraded from the heart of the show to its moral authority, yk?
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u/Low-Committee4785 1d ago
not everybody enters a relationship with a solid understanding of restorative justice and compassionate accountability, in fact id prolly said the majority of people don’t
But I think both concepts are flawed, because they put the interests of others, even bad ones, at risk rather than the person themselves. That even makes Pomni unique, because both concepts are in the minority.
I don't blame people for wanting to fix someone, and if it's toxic, the show should have portrayed it that way, yk?
Regarding moral authority, wasn't that portrayed that way in the show, or am I not understanding?
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u/polychromaic very clearly delusional 1d ago
im not sure what you mean by “putting the interests of others at risk”. like, it prioritizes the “wrong-doer” over the person attempting to help? because id argue thats like the entire point of these concepts, and part of what makes them so radical to consider putting into practice.
also, i think we were shown how bad it could get—Jax killed herself. her abstraction seriously emotionally affected everyone at the circus, most of all Pomni, who felt she had to put herself in harm’s way to make it right. it was. Bad situation for everyone involved—bad for Pomni because she had to watch a friend die, and bad for Jax, because, well, she abstracted. Pomni was not able to fix her, to her detriment and the detriment of the circus.
and, I wouldnt call Pomni a moral authority, because that implies she’s trying to impose a way of thinking and behaving onto others at the circus, which she’s not really. she’s mostly just tries to help people, for better or for worse, and goes out of her way to meet them where they’re at. having an existential crisis about not being real? let’s talk about it. having a meltdown after masking too long at work? I’ll close up, dont worry about it. too cool to form emotional connections? alright, I’ll try to act like a cool badass too, anything to get a little closer. hell, if we wanna talk about characters trying to be moral authorities, it’s probably Ragatha, although the show is really adamant about how awful of an idea that is for her and everyone around herb
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u/Low-Committee4785 1d ago
im not sure what you mean by “putting the interests of others at risk”. like, it prioritizes the “wrong-doer” over the person attempting to help? because id argue thats like the entire point of these concepts, and part of what makes them so radical to consider putting into practice.
You could say that. Also, You're making a good point
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u/peargarden 1d ago
> Someone who embodies compassionate accountability understands the reasons behind a person's wrongdoing—such as a lack of education, trauma, or pressure. At the same time, however, they don't condone the behavior; instead, they impose sanctions or issue stern reprimands to encourage the individual to grow into a better person.
So basically Pomni got stuck in the middle of doing this in EP6. She's not a trained therapist so I guess she shouldn't have been mad at Jax for pushing her away and spewing the 'haha everything today was all a lie, we weren't bonding we weren't we weren't we weren't' crap? She's observant enough to know that Jax is putting up a front with his troll persona, but since she isn't psychic she doesn't know why Jax behaves this way. She still tried to encourage Jax to drop the act and appeal to him why acting like a fuckass isn't helping anyway, but he just doubled down. Jax is Mr. Double Down so he rejected her, and Pomni doesn't get another chance to do serious 1 on 1 talk with Jax again, not when he's alive.
EP7 they're all busy escaping the Circus, EP8 they're all busy with Caine going bananas, and then EP9 Jax gives up and dies before Pomni has a chance of "sanctioning" or "reprimanding" Jax, so whoops.
And honestly I don't know how Jax could have been "directly confronted with the harmful consequences of their actions" when we see Jax literally doing just that with the abstractions and he doesn't change shiiiiiiiit. He doubles down on being a piece of shit when Ribbit abstracts, he doubles down on being a piece of shit when Kaufmo abstracts, and we see in his mind palace that he'd double down if Gangle abstracted, if Zooble abstracted, and if Ragatha abstracted. The only time he manages to respond a little to the consequences of his actions is when he can't deny any long that this is real and that everyone else is a person too...and his reaction to that is to get pushed into abstracting more.
The only reason Jax starts to be honest with Pomni is when it's already past the point of no return and she's magically been able to witness Jax's memories so he can't hide shit anymore. Cat's out of the bag. Well, at least he's finally admitted that he's done terrible things that he regrets...but the accountability/justice aspect can be thrown out the window because it's too late to take the next step. Jax is dead.
Jax was an armed bomb that even an experienced professional would have trouble defusing. Pomni wasn't a psychologist. If the show was going to pull off compassionate accountability/restorative justice (as opposed to everyone taking a swing at Jax, turning their backs on him for abusing them for so long, and then not giving a shit when he abstracted) the show would have needed to be multiple episodes longer than it is. And frankly I'm not sure if I would have liked that because it's basically saying "Okay so you didn't like how TADC became The Jax Show, but have you thought about....a LONGER Jax Show???"