Something that will always stick with me after watching Project Hail Mary was that Grace didn't just not want to die, he wanted to live.
He wanted to live so badly he fought till he couldn't, begging and crying to let him live. He liked his life. He liked teaching and his students. He liked science. He liked Earth. He liked people, and being around and connecting with them.
Ryland Grace loved living so much that the idea of giving it up- even for a cause he knew would save all humanity- felt not only terrifying, but foreign. In his talk with Eva before he literally ran for his life, he claims he's not cut out for this. It could be his (or lack of) self-esteem, but what he's saying is that he isn't a hero. Heroes die, and are okay with that, and Ryland Grace just wants to live. He's not a hero, and wasn't meant to be one. He was perfectly fine just being a human. Even if he'd die in the next 30 years, that's still 30 more years of living. He was okay with that.
And then in the first 5 minutes of the film it hits him that he's not going home. He's here for a reason, and that reason he will fulfill.
He spent all that time alone in the shop just surviving, making his way to complete his mission or figure out how to do that. And then Grace met Rocky. And in the moment he only thought it was temporary- but he'd get to live again just a little before the end. Rocky offers him a chance at life back on Earth and he accepts. Of course he's never actually made peace with the idea of never going back home, but now he wouldn't have to!
But of course, by the end he had to make a choice. Go home or save Rocky.
And Rocky needed to live. I don't think Grace believed he was a hero by the end.
He was brave, but he wasn't a hero. He probably wouldn't call himself that. He's just human, with the human urge, not just avoiding death, but embracing life.
It's very important to me that Ryland Grace got to live. And not just by eating the rations on the ship until he died or surviving long enough to make it to Erid with Rocky... But having a real life and home for himself on Erid after his mission was over.
He got to wake up in a normal bed again. In his own house again. He got to sit by the beach again. He got to Teach again.
Ryland Grace got to live again, because he fought and chose to keep living.
