phos, my beloved
（/TДT)/
Well said, this was exactly my reaction after reading this a month or so ago. Still pissed af at the gems. That piece of dialog was so infuriating to me as well. Im pretty sure i know the exact fucker who said that too lmfao. It was cinnabar, the one who iirc was basically one of the catalysts and main motivators for phos’ whole ass journey to the moon and back. So ungrateful and oml dont even get me started on the other icy gem who ONLY cared about sensei
FRRRRRRRRRRRR, Like I used to like Cinnabar and anarchic but once they got on the moon they turned into selfish assholes. Like who do you think brought you back to life?? brought you to peace and saved you from an eternity of torture or roaming the beach at night??
I feel like the main message is instead about realizing there is peace in nothingness (plus humans suck, but that's the more obvious message).
One point I want to raise is that Phos wanted to hurt their friends in order to make Adamant set the Lunarians free. I also think Phos became unhealthily obsessed with the idea of the "greater good" that they didn't care about who they hurt in the process. I didn't like how Phos was enforcing that "greater good" without asking the gems if that would make them happy; it felt more like Phos was doing it because he wanted to feel like he'd been doing the right thing and that it wasn't all a mistake. But that makes Phos the most human character of them all.
For discussion's sake, let's say maybe your family betrays you and leaves, and 10000 years pass. Would you be able to hurt someone you used to care about? Hate is strong initially, but time passes and you just get tired of holding onto that emotion, or you come to realize that everyone else is also tired and hurting and can't bring yourself to hate them. Hate fades away first, and love fades slower, but fatigue does not. That's why the Lunarians want to become nothing so badly. Personally, I think I would've done the same thing as Phos did and set them free. I wouldn't hate them, and maybe I wouldn't love them anymore, but I'd understand why they want to attain nothingness. I think that's the main message of the manga and that's what Phos means in ch 98 by "at last, we all understand each other."
Regardless, maybe I also would've done it because I'd be happy for my existence to have meaning, even if it means sacrificing myself.
"sure sure, turn into nothingness or whatever, just get out of here I don't wanna deal with you anymore" -Phos probably
I don't think Phos was thinking of the greater good when doing what they did. Just because the gems never said they wanted to lunarians to go away does not mean that they didn't want it. For example, we hear multiple times from different gems that they wish that they could gather pieces of their former friends and rebuild them and that they would rather live in peace than fighting lunarians. The thing is what the lunarians did was neither bad nor good because those concepts of morality don't exist in this universe, there is only a problem and a solution. The problem is the Lunarians taking the gems away from Earth, the solution was found by Phos, who decided to take this into their own hands and save the gems. Now Phos themselves may think that they are doing "good" but in general they have no idea what that is until they go through the 1000 years of reliving human memories. Some examples of the gems hating the Lunarians can be seen in the remaining gems on earth, who do not go with phos because of their hate for the Lunarians and feeling like they have been betrayed by their gems. Why does this hate exist if they did not see the lunarians as a problem? Now For phos's psychology, I believe that they did not revile in the fact of helping their friends, I personally think that phos had become messed up in the idea of solving a problem and wanting to know more which was caused by lapis head being put into phos's body. The gems said themselves that they had no idea what could happen to phos if they put Lapis's head on phos. I would say that the obsessive phos's your talking about is more of a personality problem rather than a coping mechanism.
Also, I think your point of the main message being about finding peace in emptiness is true but I think it only relates to the latest chapters. If you didn't know this story is based on a philosophical problem known as the Ship of Theseus, which is basically if you were to replace a plank of wood every day, would the ship still be called The Ship of Theseus? Now to us, it can seem simple on the outside but when diving deeper into the problem we see a lot more. If the ship of Theseus is still the same even after being fully replaced is it truly the same because of its name or because we believe it to be the same? If The ship is different is it because the ship's hull has been replaced therefore changing its autotomy? many different questions which go right back to the very thing of the gems, the gems lose their memory when losing pieces of themselves. Memories are the very thing that makes us who we are, both in humans and even in gems. I know I said my point was: "People will sacrifice you" but I was honestly Drunk while writing that. I truly believe that the meaning of this story is Humanity exists through different autotomy, that humanity is not trapped in humans but instead humans trapped in humanity. I also believe that the main point is that memories create us and that people without memories become husks and empty beings. Honestly, I suggest watching this YouTube essay about the fear of memory loss, it goes a lot deeper into the horrors of losing memories.
I don't know what to say, the fact that every single person in this world is an asshole to Phos, or the fact that this is the most amazing thing I have ever read. The message is big and truly if I were to dissect this manga piece by piece I would find myself lost in its philosophy (get it? phos, philosophy (▰˘◡˘▰)) The character Phos first starts off as a young child/gem who knows nothing of the world and is pushed down by his peers for being too weak and useless. In their journey to become better, phos is put through some traumatic injuries. where they start to lose limbs of themselves and become stronger in that fact. now that is the basis of the plot, there is a lot more trust me. But let us dissect just this part. Gems each time they lose a limb lose a piece of memory, the bigger the limb, the more memory is lost. Phos is basically sacrificing EVERYTHING, to become stronger including his innocence, his memories, his feelings, and everything above. Because in general without memories we become husks of who we once were, with goals that were utterly useless to our former selves. Phos does all of this for his friends and sensei, in the end, Phos is left to rot for 10,000 years to become the next god to save the world. They do this for 10,000 years and their friends don't even fucking care, they quite literally say it in the manga "Do you feel bad?" "No" that is quite literally the fucking dialog. can you guess what happens in the end??? PHOS FORGIVES THEM and SETS THEM FUCKING FREE. WHAT A FUCKING SAINT, and what is their fucking answer to phos?? NOTHING, NOT A FUCKING WORD IS SAID, NOT EVEN A FUCKING THANK YOU OR SORRY??? phos WENT through HELL to become exactly what these gems wanted, he went through every single fuck ton of hell to save his friends and find out the truth about the lunarians. ONLY TO BE USED and FORGOTTEN FOR 10,000 YEARS. I would say that this manga's main message is that you should not sacrifice yourself for people who do not actually care about you. Even if they do care and love you they will still betray you once you sacrifice yourself, that is the simple truth of human nature and that is the simple truth for being without human nature. so, everyone who is reading this comment, I hope you know that you are not a sacrificial lamb following a shepherd, you are human, and as a human, you do not deserve to be sacrificed.