#I still think Jacob and August’s relationship was underdeveloped and I think actually showing us more of jacob’s repression and how that

[heir-of-the-chair]

Been turning this reply over in my head (mostly I’m elated I got a response at all cause the hyperfixation has increased). That post was made a day after I saw the show, and I’ve listened to the cast album a couple times and Jacob has definitely grown on me as a character since. (Apologies if this gets very long I’m a theater major with adhd who loves character analysis)

Rest is under the cut bc Heir from the future here to tell you that it Did in fact get very long djdhddj

As for him being suicidal at the beginning, I see how that interpretation makes sense (jumping onto a random moving train, some pretty implicative lines in “Wild”). I didn’t pick it up when watching it. I don’t know if it’s more clear in the book or the movie, but the beginning didn’t read as much to me as intentional self destruction as it did an attempt and escape and reinvention based on when in his journey we opened but both make sense.

As for character arc, I definitely agree that it would have felt weird for his arc to be him getting over his grief and I like that they didn’t do that. What I thought they might do is have him start out trying to ignore/bottle up his grief which I think is what they were trying to do but I feel it could have been executed more clearly. He’s running away from his old life and it seems like that would be to run away from his grief, but he seems very in touch and accepting of his own emotional state from the beginning of the show. He’s not trying to emotionally distract himself through leaving, he’s just leaving because he doesn’t know what else to do.

A more clear arc I think would be for him to be perhaps more desperate to throw himself into the circus once he joins to try to forget about what happened and the old life that was taken from him. Maybe this is part of why August takes such a liking to him, a desperate man who doesn’t want to take the time to reflect out of an avoidance of his own emotions. It could make an interesting to Wade who was also taken on by August after losing everything, only this time Jacob is able to resist August’s control through opening up to the rest of the circus and coming to process his grief similarly to in “I Choose The Ride.”

“Go Home”/the dream sequence in general is probably one of my favorite moments of theater I’ve ever seen in a show (along with the stampede but that’s not related it was just really cool) but to me it feels a little disconnected from the rest of the show. It’s an amazing payoff with not enough setup. Again I think what they were trying to do was show how Jacob’s discovery of Camel and Walter’s deaths is what caused him to fully confront his grief for his parents deaths as well and that could have been an amazing moment, except that he was already shown to have been swimming in his grief the whole time. “Go Home” is amazing, but it could have been even better if a dam-breaking moment if we’d seen him trying to bottle up his emotions earlier. He finally has to face his sadness about his parents and his anger at the bank as he says “leaving him for dead”, in this moment of immense sadness for his new friends and his anger at August.

It feels kind of weird to say that it doesn’t really feel like he’s running away from his grief when the whole premise of the show is running away, but it feels a little show don’t tell to me. Relying too much on the metaphor without showing the actual emotion. “Look at him run from his emotions! He’s on a train now!” Meanwhile he’s very upfront about his emotions both about his parents and in general. He’s clearly had a very understandable mental breakdown to have gotten here in the first place but the dialogue doesn’t match the implication.

I think a character arc is supposed to be there, but based on the sort of inconsistent emphasis on the theme of accepting grief that book (as in the script not the og novel) gives it, “Anywhere,” “I Choose The Ride,” and “Go Home” which are the songs that emphasize Jacob’s arc of accepting his grief the most feel sort of out of place compared to the other themes that feel more balanced between the book and the lyrics.

I don’t think I really have a specific conclusion other than I love this show so freaking much, and critique is part of the fun of seeing theater for me, so yeah if you read this whole thing I’m honestly impressed and I am more than happy to go off more about this amazing show if prompted because Elephant Circus Show has eaten my brain.

Lowkey hyperfixating now and I’ve come to the devastating conclusion that Jacob the main character of Water For Elephants… doesn’t really have a character arc