Loving the Unloveable

Her character arc, ever since she drifts off completely from Phos, is quite interesting, as it shows how she deals with the loss of the one hope she was tied to ever since the story started—and the choice she makes as a result.

Unfulfilled Promise

For half the story, Cinnabar is tied to Phos’ promise, to the possibility of him finding a job for her. And everytime, Phos disappoints her—everytime, Phos shows a complete lack of care for the weight of the promise he made, and, by extent, a lack of care for Cinnabar herself, it eats away a little bit more of her soul. 

Cinnabar is used to waiting. She's been waiting hundreds of years to be taken away. In a way, you could say she's laser focused on a single idea—her death. Phos changes this for hope, the hope of connecting with someone, of sharing her life and existence with her.

But that dream is met with crushing disappointment.

I think the reason Cinnabar rejects Phos is quite apparent for everyone who's read the manga, but just in case, it's because Phos changed. Phos turned increasingly manipulative, cunning and started to bottle up more and more—she became discreet and rational, just like Cinnabar, and that's the opposite of what she needed.

She needed someone fun, not someone practical.

She needed someone sincere, not someone two-faced and manipulative.

She needed Phos, not a reason or a job.

Of course, the failure of their relationship also has to do with Cinnabar's lack of communication. It's because both closed off their hearts that in the end all that they become to each other is a reason, a memory, not a person.

Because a real connection takes effort and real empathy—to truly put yourself in another's place and try to understand how they see and feel the world, something that every gem utterly fails at due to being too self-absorbed and caught in their own insecurities and problems to reach out to another. This is especially true for Phos, who, as the story advances, actually becomes more and more insecure, and thus, more self-absorbed, compared to the selfless Phos that chose to take on Cinnabar's burden in chapter 2.

One of the two's most minor interactions is actually incredibly telling of the way they're conditioned:

Phos is too caught up in his own problems to even think about Cinnabar, and it stays that way.

It's funny, really, how such a collectivist society breeds such selfish people incapable of empathy due to the repression and neglect of everyone's insecurities and bonds. It's because, like Cinnabar, the flaws are pushed away into the night, that the gems, seemingly perfect and lustrous, don't get to be human, and thus, don't get to connect and be happy.

False Connection

However, once Cinnabar rejects Phos, a new door opens. She connects with everyone, who see how useful she actually is, and finally gets to be included.

Despite the danger, despite the menace that Cinnabar’s existence brings alongside it, which is a metaphor for how each and every one of us carry flaws that may or may not be accepted, Cinnabar is now included, despite them.

Her mercury is seen as an advantage, rather than a bother. Her flaws are now seen as strengths, and this finally... makes her whole.

Phos’ return, however, is a reminder of what was.

Of the way everyone abandoned her for hundreds of years.

Of how she is valued only because of her battle strength, from a community that doesn't really care about her as much as they care about her utility.

And she knows. She knows this, and she stays with them regardless.

Cinnabar sees the whole picture because she has come to terms with the imperfection of life, with the imperfection of bonds, with the superficiality of it all—and it's enough for her. 

For someone with as low of a self-worth as her, these fragile, superficial, fake bonds are as real as it gets. While Phos pursued an ideal and ended up destroying everything because of it, Cinnabar accepted reality, for better or for worse. She turned a blind eye, despite seeing the whole picture, and that's the kind of happiness she chose. She is as wise as she is foolish, as happy as she is truly, and deeply, alone.

Cinnabar ends as a character by thanking Phos.

Because, in one way or another, she served as the catalyst for Cinnabar’s happiness, even if it meant that she had to act as the villain in her story.

In the end, Cinnabar stays happy with the gems in the lunarians’ world.

A feeble, superficial, hedonistic happiness, but happiness nonetheless, and one that shouldn't be looked down upon. Because the one she could have had with Phos was taken away, by both of them.

In the end, they were both too self-absorbed—too selfish, to reach out to each other.

And they become just a memory.

What is Happiness?

Cinnabar's happiness, though, is in stark contrast with the one Phos shares with the pebbles, and it's up to the reader to decide what kind of happiness seems to be more realistic.

Is it Cinnabar's happiness, founded on lies, superficiality, but in a way, humanity? A happiness enjoyed in falsehood and repression, in what is said and not said, in the beauty of flowers that represent connection but also superficial beauty?

It's funny, because the flower Cinna gives to Ladra in Party of the End is apparently... eaten by Blue Zoisite, who the photographer is dating.

The purpose of Cinnabar, the job she found, related to the flowers and nature she used to know all about during her time as a gem, are now only another thing to be to be eaten—or perhaps, consumed.

And this, too, is something she knows. She's accepted it.

Padparadscha's Past

We know little about Padparadscha's past, but we do know that:

She was partnered up with Rutile, who is used to tending to her due to her condition.

2. She's as old as Yellow Diamond.

3. She's almost as strong as Bortz.

And that's all we really need to know!

Judging by Phos' admiration for Padparadscha and the gems' reaction to him in subsequent chapters, it's obvious that he's seen as a cool and wise guy—that is his reputation. He looks cool, acts cool, and is cool.

Padparadscha was incredibly valued for his battle prowess and intelligence—he's not only strong, but he's smooth, nonchalant, and knows how to read people. He's almost like a legend. I'd argue that he wasn't born like this, however, but rather, that it's because of his condition—his disability, that he started to realize why he needs what he calls "discretion" in his first conversation with Phos.

Padparadscha is Discreet

Discretion, like "Courage" is for Antarc and Winter Phos, is the perfect word to describe Padpa's way of living. He thinks before he acts, he understands how fragile people's feelings are and as such he proceeds with caution. This is even shown when he calls Phos out for being too reckless.

But how does someone end up like this? It's strange to see just how cautious Padparadscha is of altering things... of altering the status quo.

So let's go back to Kongo's society—a community that values usefulness over everything, and in which you need an unchanging role to thrive. Padparadscha was useful, yes... but her role was not "unchanging".

She had to constantly be examined and repaired by Rutile, and everytime she woke up, things were different... and yet the same. Gems were taken away, never to be seen again, and yet everyone still acted the same. Everyone stuck to their roles, and the only exception to that was Padparadscha.

It must have been sickening for her, because for every other gem, they live so long that every year starts to blend together—they aren't aware of what changes or not (unless it's as flashy and uncommon as Phos).

But then you have Padparadscha, who wakes up in a world that acts the same, looks the same, and yet shouldn't.

Because valuable companions are missing—cherished people have gone away, and everyone still acts as if nothing has happened.

Really, how must this all feel for her? She's as old as Yellow, which naturally brings a special kind of tiredness and apathy, and she's as strong as Bortz, and yet unable to do anything about all the tragedy surrounding her.

Thus, due to her condition, Padparadscha realizes that the story of a hero was nothing more than a sham, and the roles the gems attribute so much meaning to now seem like a way to cope with their meaningless existence.

Not only that, but changing your role from the hero she used to be to the gems to the burden that Padparadscha is to Rutile must be eye-opening... Even the bond she valued the most can be turned into nothing but a puzzle for Rutile due to how much she values her work—due to how dehumanizing the gem society is.

It's a question about what society does with you when you stop fulfilling its expectations, when you stop fulfilling your role, an allegory that's intimately linked with disabilities, similar to the way Gregor in Metamorphosis by Kafka is rejected by his family after becoming unable to work by becoming a literal bug.

Why else do you think Padparadscha looks uncomfortable here? It's like she's heard this a million times, and now she's learned to be discreet and nod, or rather, not even say anything, because she understands how fragile and yet resistant the gem society is.

Padparadscha states it rationally and objectively: her luck is to blame. Rutile responds subjectively and through existentialism: her inability to fix Padparadscha means something in regards to her ability as a doctor. It's a battle of outlooks, of cynicism vs meaning, and Padparadscha gives up because she has come to understand that detracting meaning will only break Rutile, just like it broke her.

Despite knowing that the gems lack empathy, that they lack perspective, and they lack proper relationships with each other... she can't do anything about it, because the truth would make it even worse. It's better for them to continue to believe the lie than for Padparadscha to reveal it—that their society only makes them more self-absorbed, and that the roles they find meaning in only contribute to their torture.

It's similar to the way Moon Phos interacts with gem society, don't you think? Detracting meaning, being rational...

Except Phos isn't discreet, and that's why everything breaks.

Padparadscha is Useless

Padparadscha understands the hierarchy so well that she even teases Phos about it:

Despite Phos not obeying the figure they're supposed to, and cataloguing him as a bad child, she can only laugh, because whatever they do is futile in face of the society they're trapped in.

Padparadscha is lonely—probably even resentful for the life she's gotten and the burden that comes with her disability, both physically and mentally.

She seems relaxed and nonchalant probably because the only way to cope with her circumstances is to pretend that nothing really matters, and live only valuing the little things, like the weather and sleep, which is what she talks about over everything else in her minute of screentime.

Anything else would not only futile, but perhaps even damaging—the only thing Padparadscha can do... is do nothing. Ask meaningless questions, and talk about meaningless things.

Why would she make Rutile aware of the truth, that what she's doing is useless, that there's no point, when Padparadscha knows best how it feels to have your role suddenly taken away like that?

Padparadscha sees the truth of gem society, and she's become cynical because of it—she's the gem who understands everything and will do nothing, not only because she physically can't, but also, because it's easier that way... It's easier for Rutile, easier for the gems, to play pretend, rather than face the truth and have their emotions distorted like Padparadscha has.

If you want an example of why she's justified in thinking that way... just look at Phos, who stared at the abyss and paid the ultimate price for it.

Padparadscha’s character is defined by her inaction, by her state as a passive agent, one that wishes to enact change but can't and will choose not to—not even her body will respond to her wishes.

She can't do anything to change society, and she can't do anything to change herself... that is, until her savior, Phosphophyllite, comes.

Padparadscha and Phos

I find it funny how nonchalant Padparadscha is with everything on the moon, and how she points Phos to the right direction by being the voice of reason once more. She understands more than anyone how rapidly things can change for the worse, so she begs Phos to think before she acts.

It's also this very same quality that points out that things may have already changed on the enemy side.

But why is Padparadscha going along with Phos so much? Knowing what we know about her now, it should be obvious.

Padparadscha sees Phos as all that she isn't—a reckless, but hopeful, force of change. And she can't help but but go along with her, as it's precisely that same force that allowed her to have a functional body again. Not Rutile's meaningless meaning, but Phos' reckless advance. It's precisely this why she's the only gem to fight for Phos until the very end, despite his instability.

She's happy to see him succeed, and tries her best to mentor him despite feeling incapable for the role, as stated by the character introductions.

Phos, despite doing everthing she doesn't want to do and viewing her as nothing more than an immature child, is her savior, and strangely, it motivates Padparadscha to finally let go and imitate her courage.

Padparadscha's Rage

Every gem changes in the moon, and Padparadscha is no exception.

What's funny though, is that unlike everyone else, who changes because of the influence of the lunarians, Padparadscha changes simply because her condition, her disability, was fixed, and that unleashes the monster that was always there, shown in full display.

Because the apathy she had accepted as a necessity in face of her disability isn't needed anymore—now she can live for herself, she's no longer an object or a reason for someone to exist. She's a person.

I think her breaking point is this scene right here... Rutile isn't refusing to attack Padpa because she cares about her... she refuses to attack the pieces of the puzzle that managed to make her move again—she only cares about that, the object, not the person. This is the epitome of everything wrong with Kongo's society, and Padparadscha loses it in response.

The aggression and indifference she exhibits in her return to earth is a response to the silent but growing resentment she had of Kongo’s society—a society that always neglected the individual in favor of the majority, a society that was unchanging, cruel and impersonalized. In a way, she's just returning the favor, along with repaying her debt to Phos. It's finally the excuse she needed to lose her discretion, her composure.

Padparadscha seems to be more aware of the flaws of Kongo’s society than any of the other gems, and for hundreds of years she was unable to do anything about it. It's no wonder that when she is given her agency back, she goes in a rampage—she can finally act now: she's tired of the charade she's been part of since the beggining of her existence, and, rid of her condition, she unleashes all her potential as a monster into the world that tied her to the ground.

Padparadscha is a Burden

However, despite her rage, Padparadscha did still care about Rutile, deep down. Perhaps, the only meaning Padparadscha allows herself to find at this point is the one she serves for Rutile. That's why she feels bad that she was repaired, instead of feeling grateful.

It's even pointed out in the volume introduction of her final appearance, as that is the redemption Padpa chooses for herself as her last stand—to repay her debts to the two people that meant something for her, Phos and Rutile.

Her appearance on Earth is nothing short of suicidal, showcasing just how deep the gem's self-loathing due to her condition must have been. Imagine waking up, and seeing that once more everything has gone to shit. Phos failed, the gems moved on, and Padpa stayed the same, as always.

This was probably the last straw, which is why she doesn't see herself as a person anymore... she's a gift, for Rutile, a subordinate, for Phos, and nothing, for herself. In a way, she's choosing to fulfill the role she's always had—that of a burden.

With some implicit contempt, she throws a piece of herself at Rutile while distracting her from Phos, accepting her reality.

Padparadscha ultimately chooses to die for the two—she returned what was lost, she reverted the progress back to the status quo... because it's the only way in which she, paradoxically, has found meaning in her life. Meaning in the meaningless burden she was born to carry.

Padparadscha's Samsara

Thus, when she returns as a lunarian, she stays depressed—helping with Rutile's clinic, barely talking, barely existing. She's described as lifeless by implication. She chose the status quo, and that's that.

However, because she still has to live, Padparadscha chooses to value the little things: sleep, a book, and eating sweets.

What others might call laziness, she sees as the only way for living—now rid of her condition, she still chooses not to do anything meaningful, because she understands that whatever she might find meaning is, is as feeble and superficial as everyone's relationships around her.

As shown by the "Party of the End" interview, just as always, the only thing she has to grasp on left is her discretion, her composure—rationality. That's why she's reading a book about a scientific view of the universe.

The last thing we learn about her through this interview is that apparently, she's also a therapist in Rutile's clinic.

And what does a therapist do if not hear people talk about their secrets? About the prohibited truth that will destroy its surroundings, that has to be contained? Padparadscha is repeating her affliction again and again, trapped in the samsara...

While Rutile prospered, Padpa is "content" sticking to her role, lifeless, but by her side. She saw everything, and yet did nothing once more. Despite her brief moment of freedom, now she's nothing more than accessory, as she always was, and, as society and her body dictated, as she should have always been.

Padparadscha gave up, by judging that her life wasn't worth living.

HE HAS A DREAM

Shonen protagonists have dreams (or motivations that drive their character). For Goku, it's to become stronger (just because). For Naruto, it's to become Hokage (to make up for the lack of attention he received in childhood, but doesn’t that sound unhealthy?). For Deku, it’s to become a hero (both to help others but also to make up for being born quirkless, and the last part goes completely unacknowledged by the narrative). 

Eren’s search for freedom manifests in the two dreams he has in the series, which are both also subverted and shown to be extremely dangerous. 

His first dream is the wish to wipe out every titan.

Of course, we later know this is subverted both by revealing that the titans are also human, and thus, greatly messing with the black and white shonen protagonist-esque logic Eren exhibits, and by the fact that even after fulfilling his dream, Eren is completely empty, because not only they weren't the simple enemy he thought them to be, but he still has to fight the outside world regardless if he wants to truly be free. 

This serves both as a subversion of the shonen protagonist who has to face black and white enemies, and of the genre as a whole, by adding a huge layer of moral complexity to the conflict in the series.

And because of it, now his second dream is to wipe out all of humanity, and I think I really don't need to point out why this dream is a complete subversion of everything a shonen protagonist represents, right? The shonen protagonist, which usually fights for his friends, ends up getting many of them killed, wiping out 80% of humanity, all because he followed his dream without giving up. 

The takeaway is that following dreams blindly and without any sort of reflection is stupid and can have horrible consequences for both yourself and others, especially if said dreams have a subtext of trauma and generational abuse like many shonen protagonists (and Eren) share.

And that leads me to my next point.

HE NEVER GIVES UP

Shonen protagonists have their eyes set on a goal, and they follow it singlemindedly, no matter the consequences. They always fulfill their dream by virtue of never giving it up, and that allows them to reach recognition and happiness.

Eren also never gives up, and that gets everyone around him killed many times. Hell, if he didn’t have the Attack Titan, he would have died in episode 3 because he just didn’t know when to retreat. Eren doesn’t listen to other people, and never gives up his dream of being free and seeing an outside world “levelled”, and the result is mass genocide. Even though he should have compromised like adults do for the sake of everyone’s happiness, he was a stubborn child that wouldn’t let go of his dream and not giving up resulted in the biggest massacre in history.

Eren's iconic catchphrase, "I will keep moving forward", implies not looking back, not thinking about the consequences or the implications of what you're doing—how many people will suffer because of it, or how to break the cycle of hatred at all. It's a phrase that encapsulates never giving up, at the cost of others, and that's awful. Attack on Titan itself has a message about how giving up is the right choice sometimes, Erwin’s whole thing is “Give up on your dreams and die”, and that allows the scouts to win in Shiganshina and discover the basement. Armin and Mikasa also give up on Eren, and that allows for the remaining survivors to find happiness, and yet Eren just had to be the man, Eren just had to never give up and look where it got him.

HE FIGHTS FOR HIS FRIENDS

Shonen protagonists are unnaturally selfless, and they always go out of their way to save others.

Eren tries to be selfless, hell, he uses his friends as a facade to explain why he did the Rumbling, but it’s all a lie. Because Attack on Titan is realistic, and human beings just don’t have it in them to live for the sake of others.

Shonen protagonists are all about how they do what they do for their friends, but if the story goes a little deeper, it isn’t really about them, is it? Does Deku want to save others because he’s selfless, or because he wants to make up for his percieved inability to be a hero by overcompensating and saving everyone? Does Naruto save his villains because he’s the kindest being who will empathize with any mass murderer, or because he wants to save himself deep down, and his villains share many aspects of himself?

Eren tries to act like he’s doing everything for others, at first to have revenge for his mother when the titans are the enemy and later for the sake of his friends when the world is his enemy. But he’s never doing it for them. He’s doing everything for himself.

Eren feels insecure and powerless because his mother died in front of him, and he puts himself and everyone else at risk by trying to compensate for that fact. He’s not after justice as much as he is after placating his guilt. And do I need to mention how his actions through the Rumbling resulted in Sasha and Hange dying? Does that look like protecting his friends to you?

He literally killed his mom.

Eren is doing all of this because he didn’t grow up, because he wasn’t mature enough to compromise and realize that maybe, just maybe, committing mass genocide isn’t helping anybody, not even himself.

HE HAS THE MORAL HIGH GROUND

Shonen protagonists have the moral high ground, and no matter if the villain they’re faced with is making good points, they maintain their black and white ideals and continue to perpetuate the status quo that is responsible for the conflict of the story (Just look at Bleach and its corrupt Soul Society that never really changes for the better, and that Ichigo still fights for until the end, or Deku and hero society, or Naruto and-)

Sure, they attempt to change a few things, and they give peace to the villains affected by systemic issues in messiah-like ways, but they don’t attempt to question the roots of the issues (Bleach) or they only make slight modifications and everything works out (MHA and Naruto).

Eren also starts as a victim of systemic issues, feeling like he has all the right to wipe out all titans and unabashedly committing himself to that goal without morality really coming into the picture until way later. And when it does, it shows just how dangerous Eren’s black and white morality really is. 

The worst part is that when he talks to Reiner, you can notice that he actually realizes the nuance, but he chooses to ignore it for the sake of “moving forward”, a phrase that once again, doesn’t really have much meaning beyond "not giving up" and that makes Eren and everyone around him suffer immensely. 

Eren swears that he has the moral high ground at the start of the story, and even when he realizes he doesn’t, that he’s the same as Reiner, he still friggin does what he does, because in his mind, he’s still being a hero this way, he’s still trying to save Paradis and his friends…

But he’s just lying to himself. Eren is no hero.

HE’S RECKLESS AND LOUD

I mean, this one is pretty simple. While Shonen protagonists are rewarded for their recklessness and loudness (Deku saving Bakugo), Eren is so incredibly reckless that it puts everyone around him in danger.

The main example of this is when he tries to save Armin and ends up in the belly of a titan as a result. He didn't have the strength nor the intelligence to plan what he was doing, and it got him killed—if it weren't for the Attack Titan, his story would have ended there.

I’ve explained why in the previous points, so there’s no really a reason to repeat myself, but it’s this same recklessness and frankly stupidness and lack of preparation that ends up with a boy that has too much power and uses it in the most stupid way possible.

HE GETS POWER UPS

Shonen protagonists get power ups for the convienience of the plot, in order to timely defeat their enemies. Whether they’re justified or not, it brings ocmplicated power scaling questions in to play, until the protagonists’s strength and the rest of the world’s is so far apart that he becomes a godly being with enough strength to protect everyone he cares about and defeat any enemy.

Instead of that though, Eren’s power ups are a curse, that end up slowly corrupting his mind and do more harm than good in the long run—creating a teenager with too much power in his hands, an amount of power that Eren himself says is too much for one person to handle.

The Attack Titan is often uncontrollable and the casualties Eren brings throughout his path at the start aren’t small, and part of his character hints that it’s his way of fulfilling his destructive tendencies.

And I don’t need to mention how adding the Founding Titan to the mix messes up Eren’s conception of his free will and overwhelms him with the ability to destroy the world and see every possible future.

Yes, this powers give the scouts the edge to finally fight back and Eren is often referred as “humanity’s last hope”, but every coin has two sides, and it’s this same power that dooms 80% of humanity.

Attack on Titan subverts the idea that power is unequivocally good, and it poses the dilemma (that characters that Levi also properly express) that being the strongest doesn’t mean that you can control everything and exercise freedom. The actually strong characters understand that the world is too big for one person to handle and don’t let their defeats and failures define their life and their subsequent goals in it. Life is cruel, and also beautiful, and Eren couldn’t accept the first part and used his power ups to define the plot when in truth all he was doing was throwing a childish tantrum.

Besides, Eren’s seemingly “out of nowhere” asspull power-ups are always properly foreshadowed and even if, at the time, they seem unexpected and unpredictable, later it becomes obvious that they were always intended as a vital part of the story rather than a way of bending the plot to make the protagonist win. 

HE’S AVERAGE… wait, huh?

Eren is what happens when you throw a Shonen protagonist into the real world. All the lofty facades fall off. He’s not powerful. He fails at almost every single instance. He is a burden to his allies most of the time, and there’s a hundred people other than him that could use his powers better than him. Throughout the start of the series, Eren constantly tries to prove the idea that he’s average wrong, and even when he comes to accept that he has to take a step aside and serve as a tool for humanity’s survival, it’s treated as a step forward rather than a bad choice.

Eren both matures and doesn’t mature, he stops seeing things in black and white and yet continues to act self-servingly regardless—he loses his fiery passion and replaces it with pragmatism and manipulation in service of his goals.

He becomes a person, a proper tridimensional protagonist for a story as complex as AOT, and all he had to do is face the world. Of course, the fact thet he loses his simplicity isn’t a positive development in and of itself, because no matter how much he grew externally, his wishes and motivations remained the same, except Eren becomes someone so nuanced that it’s impossible for him to keep pretending like things are as simple as he once thought he was, losing himself in the cruelty and complexity of the world instead of keeping his spirit regardless, like Armin does.

Shonen Protagonists are both Good and Bad

Eren first loses the "bad" aspects of Shonen protagonists, but he also loses the good ones as the story progresses, and retains some others… he becomes a complete person, nuanced, who makes good but primarily bad choices, who is swept up by his ego, by the narrative of a protagonist he built for himself—and he destroys the world as he tries to fulfill it.

Eren loses the optimism, the courage, the camaraderie, and continues with the most toxic aspects of the shonen protagonist—the need to do it alone, the need to fulfill his dream no matter what and move forward, without questioning himself in the process.

Eren fails because he wants to be a Shonen protagonist, but Shonen protagonists are not human beings. No one always wins, we should strive to be like them and at the same time avoid losing the nuance that is so vital in such a cruel and beautiful world like this. The reason why we like Shonen protagonists is because they inspire us, they are role models, simple and ideal, but if you don’t separate the character from reality, you forget that every strength comes with a downside, and you end up following a misleading narrative in which you lose sight of what truly matters.

At first, his wish didn't align with the death of others... but later on, it did. It's as simple as that. He had done too much harm to have any sort of morality at that point. He was corrupted by his experiences, and he lost the idealism necessary to find a satisfying result in which he and his friends live, while at the same time keeping the toxic idealism that wouldn’t let him give up on his dreams. 

Eren wasn’t a Shonen protagonist, and that was both for the best and for the worst, because humans shouldn’t dream and wish for impossible outcomes, but most importantly, they should never lose the hope for a better world, and for their own happiness.

Self-Imposed Burdens

I’d say that the word that defines Winter Phos best is “burdens”, because that’s how he acts in regards to every single one of his decisions from now on. He just keeps piling them on—the burden to redeem himself because of what happened to Antarc, the burden to find out Sensei’s secrets in order to protect the gems, the burden to not be responsible for anyone’s (Ghost) disappearance anymore…

Despite his best intentions, all these endeavors end up in failure, all because Phos keeps trying to compensate for his mistakes by immediately going to extremes instead of actually achieving any semblance of balance in regards to his reasoning and his emotions, which as you will see later on, are always at constant odds with each other.

Because the things Phos wants to do aren’t things he *truly* wants to do or feels as much as it’s what, logically, should be done—AKA, burdens.

Even if he was happier idling away before, now he must fight alongside everyone else even if it’s meaningless.

Even if he loves Sensei deeply, he must discover his secret for the sake of the gems.

Even if it’s not his fault and he’s only a small piece of a whole array of events and circumstances outside of his control, he takes responsibility all by himself, claiming that it’s only his fault when things go wrong—that all his thoughts lead to are mistakes.

Winter Phos abandons OG Phos’ pettiness and laziness, which from one perspective are seemingly bad—but from another it allowed him to at least appreciate things for what they were, while now he keeps favoring soulless tasks such as staying awake in winter.

In this sense, I’d say that the winter symbolizes not only growing up, but also duty—doing the things you don’t want to because it’s your task. That’s the lesson Antarc teaches Phos through his philosophy:

Overextend yourself. Even that which you can’t do, do, no matter how much you break. 

Once Antarc dies, Phos takes after him in his self-demand, once more casting away what actually makes him special in favor of an imitation that ignores his actual strong points. In this sense, we see less and less of the empathetic and naive Phos that could reach out to Cinnabar (which is also signified by the latter’s more sparse appearances in this part of the manga), replaced by Winter Phos, who is colder, more reserved, and always tries to be up to the task— inspired by Antarc’s diligence, but even more importantly, by his courage.

Courage

This word is repeated constantly throughout this part of the manga, in reference to Antarc every single time. 

But why? What is courage?

Usually, it means to act despite being afraid, right? Well, I’d say Houseki no Kuni more or less agrees with that definition, with the twist that it’s constantly used in contexts of Phos’ burden—Phos is pushed to act by the illusion of Antarc (his guilt), pushed to stray away from the things that he actually finds meaning in or that he actually cares about (Cinnabar), in favor of the lonely duty to find out the truth, as unfulfilling and harmful as that task may be to him. 

Phos is doing something SO uncharacteristic of him, that it eats him away from the inside— it makes him forget what he actually desired (to be understood and appreciated) by focusing on the future and the problems it may hold instead, looking for acceptance by being useful and yet also realizing that everyone’s admiration isn’t worth much when he can’t even accept himself. 

In this sense, Winter Phos is the ultimate soulless employee—the slave to a self-imposed burden so typical of the current capitalist society, the man who forgets what he wanted in the beginning favoring complicated matters that place him further and further away from his happiness.

Phos following Antarc’s philosophy seemingly makes him stronger and more capable, but it also discards his individuality. He is simultaneously and paradoxically the perfect dehumanized soldier for Kongo, while also the only one with enough humanity to question the status quo and deviate from the rest. It’s a paradox, a constant battle between reason and duty vs emotion and empathy.

And this is Winter Phos’ tragedy.

Because the winter symbolizes maturity, growing up, losing your childlike innocence and starting to think and reason, and the trap that comes with it.

Reason vs Emotion

We are introduced to Winter Phos with this scene: 

All Phos needed to save Antarc was to use his head more—to act not out of instinct but using his abilities logically in order to reach the right outcome. This scene tells the reader that reason, rather than raw feeling, is fundamental in actually changing things meaningfully, while at the same time questioning the need to take on that burden to begin with—after all, doesn’t he look miserable?

Because of his trauma and the pain of being out of control due to not being strong or smart enough when Antarc was taken away, Winter Phos starts to process things much more rationally than OG Phos, while still having so much empathy that he can’t handle the way his decisions seem to affect others—he grew up, in the sense that now he can’t afford to not make rational decisions anymore, and that weighs heavily on his shoulders.

It’s a constant clash between knowing what “has to be done”, or rather, what Antarc would have done vs how much acting that way actually hurts Phos because of his sensibility. 

He has a kind heart underneath the cold exterior that pushes him to act for the sake of others, while, paradoxically, his methodical actions to save them also hurt them the most—because instead of acting with discretion, Phos overcompensates by acting uncharacteristically rational, to the point of abandoning his empathy and paying the consequences because of it.

His true wishes don’t align anymore with what Phos has actually been doing—he’s kind inside, and yet he was cruel enough to abandon Ghost just to confirm his suspicions regarding Sensei. 

It really is the opposite from what he wished to achieve.

I’d argue this tragic chain of events occurs because Phos’ biggest issue is that he looks at his rationality and his emotions as if they were in conflict with each other, which leads him to be reckless when he feels as if he’s overcompensated more in one area than another. In every version of Phos, he tries to be rational and discreet, but paradoxically, his feelings always get the better of him and he ends up messing everything up. 

Maybe, just maybe, emotions and feelings come together, and it's all about a balance. Phos doesn't need to be less rational or less emotional... he needs to be more rational AND emotional. That is what it means to be composed. 

To have the balance Padparascha is talking about, to be discreet enough to know when the truth (reason) will result in feelings being hurt (emotions) and whether that is worth it or not—to distinguish between the two and use them accordingly, is what Phos doesn't do, because he always overcompensates and goes from one extreme to the other instead of finding balance and discretion.

Whatever the case, due to Winter Phos choosing the facade of cold rationality, he even abandons Cinnabar, the person who before he spent hours thinking about how to help. He doesn’t pay attention to his words carefully anymore—He disregards Cinnabar's wishes, and even when the gem is begging for emotion, all that Phos can offer him is the stressful job of finding out Sensei’s secret, forgetting about the “fun” of it. 

And of course Phos doesn’t remember about the fun part—fun is the last thing in his mind, unlike the original Phos.

Despite Cinnabar’s expectations to partner up, the key that could solve many of these two gems’ self-inflicted problems, what Phos proposes instead is cold, rational utilitarism. If Phos was connected to his emotions, then this wouldn't have happened—if he was connected to what he truly wanted, he could have paired up with Cinnabar, and perhaps, found happiness. 

It’s stupid, but it’s these small, seemingly mundane moments, that held the key that could have changed these two’s fates for the better—together, rather than apart.

The worst part is that Phos is still thinking about Cinnabar even while partnering up with Ghost—he knows what he craves for, what he wants, but he doesn’t stop and think about it enough to actually pursue it due to being too much inside his head, too caught up in what he has to do rather what he wants to do.

In fact, I’d say Phos’ overcompensation through following a self-imposed duty is perfectly reflected in the main source of his internal conflict in these chapters—the suspicion of the parental figure who represents unconditional love, Kongo-sensei.

Suspecting Love

I’d say it’s no coincidence that Winter Phos’ character is so closely related to a breaking point in his relationship with Kongo. It’s this suspicion and paranoia of the person who raised him that pushes him to start dancing into immorality (and let’s not even mention what he does as Moon Phos because of this same suspicion afterwards), which I would say is a fundamental part of growing up.

Because Winter Phos has grown up, now he questions the love that his parental figure gave him, and where every gem chose to trust him, Phos chose to shatter that trust into pieces.

Why? Is Phos just built diffy?

Of course not. It’s because he’s now acting rationally—he’s becoming human, and that means realizing that your parent isn’t the perfect figure you thought it was.

The issue here, though, is that Phos faces extreme pressure after realizing that he’s the only one going so far with his distrust—if even Cinnabar and Antarc, the two most rational and discreet figures in Phos’ eyes, chose to trust him, why the hell shouldn’t he?

There’s this constant sensation that the more Phos pushes to try and find out Sensei’s secret, thus undermining his relationship with him, the more he strays away from what’s actually meaningful—from the affection he truly wants. This idea is repeated in Moon Phos’ arc, too.

Maybe, just maybe, Phos should have gone with his gut, and valued the fact that, no matter how many lies, the fact that Sensei loved him was indisputable.

His suspicion of the one person who loved him unconditionally sends Phos into a downwards spiral he can’t get out of, and doing so alone eats away at him.

However, after finally accepting to share his burden with Ghost, Phos pays the consequences of his overthinking and lack of being in the moment by being cut in half due to not paying attention. 

And because of this blunder, Ghost is taken away.

Repression

Of course, Phos loses his mind after this fact, and he overcompensates once more by shutting off the two main factors that contributed to his mistakes—his rational suspicion of Sensei, and the fact that he opened up to a person.

This is tragic, because while the first factor is clearly showcased to be the right choice, and Phos seems to truly enjoy the company of others for the first time in ages, the fact that he also closed his heart off means that it’s just a facade. He can’t truly experience the love of the people that care for him, and it doesn’t help that he hates himself too much for it to make a difference.

In the fight with the board pieces, Phos is too hard on himself due to his past mistakes, despite the fact that he constantly tries to make the best calls—to call Bortz, to regain the pieces they were losing... He was trying, but instead of acknowledging that, he chooses to attribute everything that goes wrong to his flaws, further isolating himself into his self-hatred and immensely high expectations.

At this point Phos has just changed too much to pretend he hasn’t, and sealing away his problematic thoughts and feelings only causes them to explode once they do come out.

I’d argue this is why he loses his head.

Literally but also metaphorically, he risked everything because his self-imposed burden and guilt were too heavy, and that caused him to try and redeem himself instead of accepting that he can’t save everything and everyone on his own.

But to actually practice what I preach, I’d argue we should look at it in a deeper manner, because I actually think that saying that “Phos should have done x, y, z”, is missing the point and further pushing expectations of perfection onto the gem.

Phos is not Perfect

Yeah, Phos lost his head because he cared too much, but should he have cared less? Should he just let the Lunarians steal away the people he loves and have blind faith in Sensei? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no, because Phos wasn’t in a simple situation. 

Expecting Phos to achieve a perfect balance between his emotions and feelings considering his context and lack of support system is impossible, and not only that, but Phos should be allowed to make mistakes without it being a death sentence.

By asking of Phos to be perfect, to have the existentialist truth that “he already had what he needed” at this point of the story, would be foolish, and it wouldn’t respect the process of Phos’ transformation, that, if you remember correctly, does end up with him in a better place overall.

Balbadd is Relapse

What I love about the second Balbadd arc is that it shows us how Alibaba's development isn't straightforward—because that's not how humans beings work. We take a step forward and two backwards. We believe that we learnt our lesson but, as soon as our insecurities resurface, we let them dominate our thoughts and make horrible decisions as a result—decisions that serve no purpose but to try and stroke our ego, to prove that we're valuable and that our fears are unfounded.

And decisions disguised as selfless that are actually selfish are bound to backfire.

Alibaba is a character that comes to believe more and more in himself as the story moves forward, but he's still defined by his insecurities—he still compares himself to others the moment things go slightly wrong, he takes decisions to try and be someone he's not because of his feelings of inadequacy, and he isolates himself because he overthinks and feels as if involving others in his matters will only put them in danger.

He has a great heart, and he truly cares about others, but due to how his low self-esteem he's constantly misguided in his selfless quest—he ends up taking selfish detours in order to prove to himself that he's worth something, that he's trying to do it right according to everyone's standards, when he'd be much more productive if he just believed in himself and acted upon his own beliefs and ideas.

And all of this comes to a boiling point once Alibaba's mental state is revealed to us on the boat to Balbadd. When he fought in the war in Magnostadt, compared to Kouen, he felt as if he was nothing.

Considering Kouen is the person to blame for Balbadd's subyugation to Kou, it's no wonder that Alibaba feels the need to surpass him and reclaim his country... and yet, despite his efforts, Alibaba still is too young and inexperienced—too naive, to face someone like him and believe he can truly win.

Hell, even Balbadd's state of affairs is telling him that he's not needed.

Because Alibaba's past in Balbadd represents his greatest failure, now he feels like he has to try and do something for it in some way. He wants to make up for his naivete by becoming a figure of importance to his country, and yet his "royal responsability" also contradicts the very ideas he proposed for the "democratic republic of Balbadd".

Alibaba's selfishness and selflessness come into full display here, and it's wonderful—it's human. It's incredibly ironic that in the very same chapter, Toto remarks just how much Alibaba's presence has helped so many people—the pirates, the gladiators, Morgiana, Kougyoku... and yet he just can't see it.

It's as if the manga itself is telling us that Alibaba's worries are misplaced—that instead of thinking about what he's lacking and how he's failing compared to Kouen or Sinbad, he should think about what he's good at—his honesty, his kindness, and his ability to reach out through them—and have faith in that path.

However, due to his low self-worth, instead of believing in his way of doing things, Alibaba feels compelled to play dirty, like Kouen.

Because the proud people of Balbadd, who fought so hard for the lives and happiness they wished to have, had settled into being satisfied with mild comfort and security while throwing away their dignity in the process. This grimly reminded Alibaba of his past self, so he decides to fight for his people and his country—responding to the promise he made with his father and following his duties as the royal prince of Balbadd. Thus, he faces Kouen and Koumei, now without turning down his head on the process, using all his wit and newfound confidence and showing how far he has come.

However, despite his progress, what Alibaba chooses... is to join "the dark side", a freaking colonialist empire—because if he doesn't, then he'd repeat the same mistakes as before.

To not take the perfect offer Kouen made to him—consisting of Alibaba becoming part of the forces of the Kou Empire and assisting him with his knowledge, wit and battle abilities, in exchange for the control of Balbadd—would be to be too naive, too stupidly optimistic, like he always is.

Alibaba resents his own best qualities, and so, he takes the deal, not because it's what's best for Balbadd, but rather, because it's what he has to do in order to reach his ideal self—someone like Kouen. Someone like Sinbad. He rationalizes his choice in a million different ways—it's for Balbadd, it's what I have to do to stand my ground against Kouen, it's what I have to do to be king... but when did it become about that?

Paradoxically, because Alibaba wants to become someone powerful and strong enough to make the hard choices for the sake of his country, he also goes against everything he once stood for—democracy, kindness, idealism, his promise to Morgiana...

But of course, he's unsure. Because even if it might seem like a positive development at first, with Alibaba supposedly gaining the maturity necessary to understand that he will never make a change without dirtying his hands, the truth is that such a misguided decision would have been... a mistake, as good as killing himself, symbollically.

Because by obeying Kouen, who purposefully strikes at Alibaba's insecurities in order to take him to his side, Alibaba fell back into the habit of following others and trying to copy what they do right instead of forging his own identity and finding out what are his own strong points, and it would have led him to become as twisted as Kouen and Sinbad were.

After all, once he chooses to fight Hakuryuu in order to "protect Balbadd", what he actually ends up doing is almost killing one of his trusted friends, cutting his legs off, and going against everything he had previously learnt. And it's precisely because of that... that Alibaba ends up dead.

Alibaba is punished for choosing wrong—for, despite having the best intentions, once more making the same mistakes due to his low-self worth, trying to compensate from what he perceives that he lacks.

Finding your Worth

Despite Judar claiming that Alibaba lost because he wasn't merciless enough, after going through the life-changing experience of... literally dying, Alibaba finally understands.

He didn't do it for Balbadd's sake. He did it for himself. And when he cut Hakuryuu's legs, that wasn't for Balbadd, either, he just lost himself in the violence of war.

So now, what's left? Is Judar right? Does Alibaba have to become twisted, like Sinbad and Kouen?

No. Finally, Alibaba will believe in himself. No matter what anyone else thinks, he will follow his path founded in kindness and empathy, which will be his most valuable assets moving forward!

This epiphany wasn't reach in an instant, though. In another dimension, Alibaba meets the people of Alma Torran, and he proves his determination to them.

He shows why he's "Alibaba", and manages to escape and come back to life, with 100 years of experience and newly acquired knowledge from them that, as we all know, he WILL use in a practical manner.

Alibaba in the final arc is the ultimate version of the coward we knew at the beggining of the series. An Alibaba that has all the key things he lacked at the beggining; strength, experience, and confidence. And thanks to that, he's able to shine like he never did before, using the skills he gained throughout his life to the best of his ability in order to face even the likes of Sinbad.

He's calm, and he knows that he doesn't need to make quick judgements just from hearsay. He explores the world Sinbad created, and without being given the answers from anyone else, HE decides what he likes and dislikes about it, a farcry from the easy to manipulate Alibaba from before. I guess that you could say that now he KNOWS who he is. He fights with confidence, he negotiates with confidence, he has faith in his ideas, takes the help of others when needed, and, through opening his heart, he gains the trust of those around him, and... just like that, the mediocre Alibaba flourishes into a marvelous person who took advantage of his best traits to shine. Ja'far puts it perfectly:

He helps Kougyoku out of the goodness of his heart, is incredibly upfront about Sinbad's twistedness (proving his honest nature once again), and ends up making the Kou Empire great again.

Alibaba thrives, and the only thing that changed is that now, he's living with pride in himself... with worth.

Balbadd is Letting Go

When Alibaba comes back to Balbadd, everything he had been worried about had been fixed WITHOUT himself, and he realizes how foolish he had been. How he was a hypocrite for trying to install a democratic republic while doing all these things for Balbadd purely due to the fact it was his responsibility as its prince with royal blood.

That's why, when offered the chance to take the reins once again, unlike someone like Sinbad, who has to control everything, he responds saying...

I find this scene wonderful, not just because it shows his growth in regards to finally letting his ego-stroking obssession with Balbadd go, but also because it showcases how wrong people like Sinbad and Kouen were by taking matters by their own hands and committing so many atrocities for their counties instead of believing in their people. After all, just imagine the atrocities Alibaba would have continued to commit in the name of the Kou Empire's expansion, losing himself and his moral integrity in the process all to protect a country that wasn't even his responsibility in the first place.

The idea that his previous determination was foolish is reinforced once again in his meeting with Aladdin, Morgiana and Hakuryuu. He apologizes for cutting Hakuryuu's legs and trying to kill him; for almost losing his moral integrity in order to protect something, thinking it was the only way.

Ohtaka subverts our expectations by showing how seemingly irreparable relationships full of differences and conflict that have been built up throughout the manga can be solved easily, in basically less than a page, because sometimes the solution really is that simple—simply requiring someone to be the better person. People could argue this is rushed and disappointing, but I’d say it's the perfect way to illustrate the strength of Alibaba’s ability to understand, forgive, and apologize. The entirety of the final arc is a subversion of battle shonen, of big, climatic fights (Sinbad vs Kouen), of tales of royalty and selfishness, favoring empathy and love instead.

Alibaba’s simpleness and kindness is a clear foil to Sinbad's—the main antagonist of this arc, someone who thinks the ends justify the means and that would do anything for his country. His growth is also reflected with his relationship with Morgiana, going from someone who was "rejected" and had his confidence DESTROYED as a result... to a confident young man who straight out asked the girl he was in love with for MARRIAGE, and she accepted, without second thoughts on the matter. As a final test of fire, Alibaba has to go against the at-first-glance perfect Sinbad himself, and prove why no one, no matter how much they shine, can rule and enforce their ideology over everyone else. 

Sinbad vs Alibaba

Once Sinbad brainwashes the entire world, even Morgiana—the person who Alibaba views as the bravest in the whole world—is saying that Sinbad is right. And Alibaba's confidence is shaken.

Even he, previously, was blinded by Sinbad's light. He followed him, his idol, blindly, thinking he could no harm, almost to the point of losing himself as his assistant as a result... something that happened to basically all of his followers, who discarded their protagonism in their lives, favoring the charisma of the High King. Maybe Sinbad was right again. Maybe... he should just obey, after all, he's just a coward, right...?

AS IF! 

Alibaba shows how far he has come by going against the entire world, even those he loves or looks up to—believing that HIS way is the right path to take, because that's the answer he came up with by himself. The boy who didn't know who he was and submitted to the blinding will of others is no more... now HE makes the calls, because he believes in himself and in the lessons that came from all that he has gone through. As he puts so eloquently in his fight against Hakuryuu:

Believing in the importance of free will and multiculturalism, and in order to protect their loved ones, Aladdin, Alibaba, Hakuryuu and Judar enter the Sacred Palace... and once again, Alibaba isn't shaken by what everyone tells him is "right" or "wrong", "allowed" or "not allowed.

He comes up with an answer, and I love this moment, because the Alibaba from the past would have given the naive, easy, and not realistic answer that made Sinbad and Arba react incredulously, but now he has matured, and he can come up with something realistic and satisfactory, without compromising anything in the process. 

And, by joining efforts with everyone, they end up with a solution that respects everyone's beliefs and wishes—the complete antithesis of how Sinbad was operating and a perfect encapsulation of Alibaba's character—someone who joins forces with others through emotions and creates solutions wit his brain and his heart.

It's beautiful and natural growth, and I can't praise it enough. And during the final confrontation with the entire world, he continues to deliver, going against his own master Sharrkan and winning, this time through his strength and experience.

But it doesn't end there. Faced with an infinite amount of enemies, he continues to believe, recalling the faith Aladdin and everyone else had in him.

He deserved to be King Vessel, and he'd prove it right there and then. And in a wonderful union of the thematic and physical, he fights. Through his strength, he shows his growth. His confidence, and his determination. He is what Sinbad would have been if he didn't lose himself, he's... a true king vessel, one who fights for and alongside everyone, first and foremost. And once the option of gathering all the power in the world is handed out to him at the cost of the lives of everyone he loves—even when he's told there's no other way...

He refuses, because he knows he's still just human.

After all, through all of his development, Ohtaka reiterates the idea that no matter how incredible Alibaba is, at the end of the day, he's just a normal guy, no matter how many labels everyone tried to put on him. The wine trader of Qishan, the leader of the Fog Troupe, the prince of Balbadd, the ultimate King Vessel... He's all of those things, and yet... he shouldn't let himself be defined by those labels. Because he's so much more than that, and through his journey, he was able to understand that.

That he's great... because he's Alibaba.

It's this confidence in himself and the certainty of who he IS that allows him to reject the infinite power he is offered, knowing that he could be corrupted, just like anyone else. And it's thanks to that decision, that everyone lives, and a new world is created, full of possibilities for growth and change.

His Name is Alibaba

I think that Alibaba's development is... one of the best I have ever seen in fiction. It's so natural and satisfying, and it ends up with a character who you want to root for until the very end. Sinbad and almost every figure in his life always pushed these ideas on him—whether it is about royal duties, about sacrifices, or about power, and it's inspiring to see how he slowly comes to reject them, thanks to the confidence he builds along the series progresses. It's a reminder of the importance of knowing yourself, and of making decisions out of your own judgement, without being influenced by others' biases and limited views.

For that, you must gain experience in order to have a storage of information to compare to when you're going to make a decision, and that's precisely what Alibaba did, by going to different places and discovering different cultures and ideas. But even then, that's not enough—because you need the strength and power necessary to make a change and not be bossed around by those more powerful than you... while also never compromising your morals and integrity; with the values who define who you are, and that let you know the type of person you've become when it matters the most.

Cooperating with others allowed him to make up for his weak spots when it was necessary, and his bravery let him build the world he wanted to have for himself and for the people he loved.

All said and done, I think that Alibaba is a shining example of the path to follow to improve one's self worth and of the importance of bravery—in the sense of having the courage to decide what to do for yourself. As he develops, he enhances and has more faith in his strongest qualities, realizing the way in which he's capable of influencing the world. Thanks to his friends' help and kind words, and by believing in himself as a result, he slowly went from someone who relied on others to tell him what to do and how to act, to someone who can inspire others and confront even the likes of Sinbad, all while staying humble and not letting himself get swallowed by his own ego. He's a normal person, your everyday man, and that's why he is the strongest character in Magi. He developed his good qualities as best as he could and he turned out to be respected and capable, which is proof that, given the right tools, even those who were thought to be "trash" can decide, and change the world. 

You only have to keep yourself grounded instead of getting down by mistakes or tragedies, while constantly clashing views with others in order to improve and learn—and having the bravery to take a step towards your dreams, even if the road to get there might be hard and messy, and things might not turn out like you expect. If you don't take a risk, things will never change.

His first step was defying the wine trader, and from there on, once he had the courage to enter a dungeon, he achieved greatness. There can be many different ways to get there; some less righteous (as proven by Hakuryuu and Judar), but as long as you don't stagnate, doing the things that your heart tells you to do instead of bending down to others, no matter how brightly they may shine, you are moving along "the great flow" of progress, diversity and freedom.

A Cowardly Protagonist

Alibaba Saluja... is a coward. He's afraid to act, thinking he'll mess things up, knowing that he just doesn't have the skills to change anything in a meaningful way. His past determination to gain enough power and money to be able to do something in regards to the inequality and injustices in Balbadd is but a distant dream—he's accepted he's just an average individual, who will never truly make a change.

He's... settled, as nothing more than an assistant to a wine trader, and it's all due to his low self-worth. And things will stay that way for years... until he meets Aladdin.

Aladdin is able to see the good in Alibaba, beyond the facade of a pathetic young man. Because he realizes that, when it matters most, when he has to choose between money and his stability and the lives of complete strangers, he chooses the latter.

His compassion and bravery wins against his poor view of himself—he had been lying to himself for so long, that he had started to believe that lie. But all it took was someone to see past that, to believe in him and reassure his worth, for a truly splendid king vessel to be born.

Thus, with newfound confidence, Aladdin and Alibaba enter the dungeon.

Here we see the first snippets of Alibaba's mysterious past, with Ohtaka cleverly showcasing his wit, his ability to read foreign languages, and his masterful skill with the sword.

These skills which not only increases the viewer's curiosity in Alibaba, but also prove that he's much more capable than he himself thinks—a reocurring theme in his character.

Thus, his time in the dungeon proves to Alibaba that he does in fact have the qualities he needs to shine. Strength, courage, kindness—these are all Alibaba's strongest points, that his low self-esteem didn't allow him to see and that Aladdin helps him recognize as well.

I also love how Alibaba constantly postures as completely hedonistic, saying his motivation are girls and money, and the first thing he does when he becomes rich is use the money he got to free the slaves that Jamil possessed and give them a salary, including Morgiana, who gave him the beating of a lifetime—it's so in character for him, and it just shows us once again where his priorities truly lie.

This first arc sets up Alibaba's character incredibly well, showing us how the only thing he needed was the push from someone who believed in him—and I'd say that's the beauty of the dynamic of the Magi and their respective King Vessels. It's a bond founded on the idea that, to achieve your true potential, you need others to see it in you, in order to regain your confidence and truly shine. Being alone is not a strength compared to fighting side by side with your friends, and no sole person can make the right choices for the world—this is an important theme in Magi that Alibaba and Aladdin's bond showcase perfectly.

Alibaba's Past

Before talking about Balbadd, it's important to talk about Alibaba's past. The impact that his life on the slums and then as a prince had on shaping his identity is excellently written, whether it is to explain his low self-worth, his kindness and good heart, or his wit and skills.

I think that one of the key ways in which living on the slums influenced Alibaba is how grounded he can be, despite his idealism. He knows how horrible and unfair the world can be, which is the reason why he was so quick to assume that he had no way of changing things in Qishan. That's how the world "worked", in his eyes, and his entire lifestory had drilled into him the idea that he didn't have the strength to change that.

However, thanks to his mother's kindness and love, he gained a degree of hope and naivete that no amount of tragedy would uproot—unlike his friend Kassim. These two characters shows us how even two people growing up in the same environment can turn out to be wildly different according to their nature—but, most importantly, due to the people who raised them and the things they've had to do because of them.

Alibaba and Cassim both had horrible self worth that they coped with in different ways, and I could (and will) dedicate a whole post to that dynamic, because I love Kassim as a character. As a takeaway, though, Alibaba abandoning Kassim is something that he will always regret coming forward, and it's a vital point on his decision for joining the Fog Troupe.

The most important part of Alibaba's past, though -the incident that shaped who he would become as an adult- is the attack on the palace organized by Kassim and the people from the slums. The death of his father, and the loss of the royal treasure, were all caused by his naivete and willingness to trust in Kassim—Alibaba's most valuable traits were the ones that costed him everything.

No wonder Alibaba would repress his kind nature and become a lot more opportunistic and cynical after the fact—in his mind, he was cemented as a coward because of his heart... and yet, deep down, the promise he made to his father to protect the people of Balbadd, as part of the royal family, would be the tiny flicker of hope that would guide him, taking it as his duty and responsibility until very late in the manga. 

However, Balbadd tests these beliefs, and showcases how he is still lacking valuable lessons before he's able to truly make a change in the way he wants.

Balbadd is Failure

As he joins the Fog Troupe, Alibaba is put into a position of leadership... and he sucks at it. He knows that the situation in Balbadd has to change, but he doesn't know HOW to change it. Once again, he falls into following another's plan, serving as Kassim's puppet with royal blood in order to gain influence and power. He is, supposedly, the leader of the band, but only in name, doing acts of "justice" against the rich without a clear purpose or objective. And not to mention that when Aladdin meets him, he rejects him, seeing it as something he has to do... alone. Because his responsibilities are his and his only. Alibaba is trying to change things, but his methods are idiotic, because he's not truly acting for the sake of Balbadd, rather, he's trying to compensate for his past mistakes—for his poor view of himself. 

When Alibaba fails, his first instinct is to isolate himself—to wallow in self-pity and be unable to act. And that is natural, it's human. But Alibaba can't take it—because everytime he has failed, everyone else has had to pay because of it. Even as a child, he probably felt as if his mother's death was his fault, and then his father died because of him,—Mariam too, and Kassim seemed to be next in line if he didn't take action. Taking the burden of a whole country full of systemic issues in his shoulders on his own is a recipe for failure, and yet Alibaba can't help but try and help as he can, because he's a good person.

However, as I've said before, doing things on your own, taking immense burdens by yourself—these aren't just bad choices for you, but also for the world around you. "Doing it together", whether it is on a personal level, or, later on the story, a political one, is Magi's motto, and it's the reason why Aladdin is the perfect person to guide Alibaba.

However, the one who will show him how to truly make a change is Sinbad. Once he takes leadership of the Fog Troupe, he's all that Alibaba isn't. Strong, charismatic, more experienced, great at inspiring others, good with the ladies—someone who cooperates with his allies instead of doing things by himself and has a clear objective in mind, a tangible goal that can change the reality in Balbadd. He rightfully criticizes the Fog Troupe's destruction, obviously founding in a desire to lash out rather than a real wish for change, which serves as inspiration for Alibaba moving forward.

The ways in which Alibaba and Sinbad are foils to each other are material for its own post, but for now, all that we have to know is that Sinbad, in Alibaba's eyes, is living proof that he's just... not good enough. He constantly compares himself to others far more experienced than him—and he always ends up frustrated because of it. 

After this, he almost falls back into settling and doing nothing again. But once Kassim threatens with attacking the palace and cause a civil war, and Alibaba knows that he can't tell Sinbad or he may harm his best friend... Alibaba steps up, once again.

He storms the palace by himself, showing the fruits of his training and determination, and, now inspired by Sinbad, has a clear idea of what he wants to do with Balbadd.

Using all that he learnt during his time away, he proposes to create a Democratic Republic, and everything... actually works out.

This is the first showcase of Alibaba's negotiating abilities that will be a fundamental part of his character later on—he uses his knowledge of thw world to propose a different way of resolving things that not even Sinbad, who worships power for himself, had thought of, and even uses a sophism to gain Kougyoku's favor and stop Kou from invading Balbadd. It's genius, and it showcases in several steps just how smart and resourceful Alibaba is. Thus, once Sinbad reaches the palace... everything's been resolved.

Alibaba proved that in desperate times, he can live up to the expectations, and that Aladdin and Morgiana aren't wrong for believing in him. Sinbad finally understands what's so special about this guy... His bravery, his honesty, his compassion, and his mind. And when he's not strong enough... his friends are there to help him:

This moment really struck a chord with me—it may even be my favorite in the manga, with a magnific double spread in which Aladdin admires to himself the hidden strength which Alibaba possesses but he can't even see. It's because he's Alibaba that he could do as much as he did. And he should feel proud of himself because of that.

And with that same good heart, he reaches out to Kassim and allows him to return to the Ruhk instead of being lost forever into depravity. He uses his shameful past and miserable days as a way to connect with his friend,

And he thinks again and again for the sake of others, lamenting inequality, and truly empathizes with the plea of someone who was crying for help without even realizing it. He opens up his heart, and Kassim is saved as a result.

Empathy is Alibaba's greatest weapon, and it will always be moving forward.

Alibaba's Heart

However, after that, shits hits the fan, Balbadd is attacked by the Kou Empire and Alibaba is forced to flee... knowing that he failed completely in saving his friend's life AND his country... and it was all due to his lack of power.

No matter how cool you are or how much you believe in yourself, the world won't accommodate to your determination. You NEED to be able to show results, not only with words, but with your actions as well. And the current Alibaba... just isn't strong enough to save his people. Now everything is up to the powerful Sinbad, which frustrates the young prince to no end.

What I love about the arc his character has to go through during this part of the story, is how it showcases how Alibaba has grown so much... but also how he's still defined by his flaws.

Unlike Hakuryuu, he's able to do well in the dungeon because he learnt that he can't do everything by himself and that friends are there to support each other in the toughest of times, without caring about how personal the matter is. After learning his lesson, he serves as a role model for Hakuryuu to follow, which is wonderful.

I especially love the choice to have Alibaba cry so desperately (due to being reminded of Kassim) here. He's vulnerable and he's rewarded for it—it's the trait that all powerful king vessels like Sinbad or Kouen don't have which allows him to connect with Hakuryuu.

His encounter with Kougyoku showcases this trait once more—even the crazy princess of the empire to blame for the state of his country is just another girl to befriend in his eyes.

However, as I said, this arc also showcases Alibaba's weaknesses, directly tied to his sensibility. Despite Sinbad’s reassurance that things could have gone much worse in Balbadd if Alibaba didn't intervene, he still falls falls back into a pit of not doing anything, without a clear objective. He's frustrated for not being able to save his people, as if he were responsible for Balbadd just because he's of royal blood—despite that fact going against his own idea of trying to install a democratic republic to end the royal family, who don't have any more right than the people in choosing how they live.

Because of his frustration and tendency to rely on Aladdin for validation and Sinbad to resolve everything for him, he ends up going along with everyone's wishes, and if Aladdin hadn't prevented him from accompaying him to Magnosttadt, he would have gone there instead of doing the things he HAS to do in order to fulfill his goals.

The last step Alibaba has to go through to regain his confidence is to do it by himself, knowing he's enough. This might seem paradoxical consider that I said before that Magi is all about bonds, but I think that even though they are important, they should serve as supports for your own strength rather than pillars, that, if broken, leave you with nothing to stand on.

Bonds are important, but solely relying on them... (or on just one, shining person...) is also a mistake.

Whatever the case, it's this constant struggle between being confident and being insecure... these contradictions, that prove that no matter how incredible Alibaba can be at times, he's still human. And it's so REALISTIC. He's incredibly consistent regarding what he's good and bad at, which in my opinion, is marvelous writing, and watching him overcome these flaws is beautiful to see unfold. 

Either way, the tale of Alibaba continues as he slowly realizes that he HAS to follow his own path, without copying anyone else's, going into Reim to become stronger and be able to full body Djinn equip.

Aside from cleverly presenting to us Reim for the first time, this mini arc delivers by once again showcasing Alibaba's strength and use of his past experiences to beat the obstacles that appear before him in the present. It's an arc that shows us not just how far he’s come, but also, how much he still has to grow, as the two magois inside Alibaba represent both his and Kassim's united hope.

Thus, Reim is for Alibaba a journey to remember his purpose, and regain confidence in himself to a point that he can now act according to what he wants, standing his ground and not letting anyone or anything dictate the course of his life.

Whatever the case, the next time we see him, we stand in front of a wiser Alibaba. Someone who can pass on the same lessons he learnt to the friends that have helped him so much—someone who can oppose strong opponents with confidence and wit... and yet someone who still isn't perfect, and who still has to grow a lot before being an equal against the likes of Kouen or Sinbad. 

The West and the East

There's many factors that cemented the difference between the individualistic collectivist cultures, but in essence, what separates them is what each of them valued according to their cultural and religious beliefs. Beyond looking at what caused that each side of the world turned to a different way of living (which in and of itself is massively simplifying it, because not the entire west is individualistic and viceversa, it's a lot more gray than that), it's important to understand what each philosophy entails.

It has to be said that this separation, through globalism and its subsequent capitalism, became blurrier and much more skewed towards the western way of doing things, in which eastern spirituality is just another commodity, but I'll talk more about it later.

By the way, my little analysis of the incredibly underdeveloped Admirabilis is that they basically aim to represent a culture under monarchy (because of their designs), but I don't think there's a lot more to extrapolate from that other than the fact that they represent the missing piece of how humanity can organize itself and its beliefs, I guess.

The Lustrous

I normally call them gems, but I guess their official name is the Lustrous, right? Well, whatever, maybe I'll use it interchangeably as I write.

The Lustrous are clearly a collectivist society, which are associated with Eastern cultures. Characterized by favoring community, which many times means the suppression and neglect of those who don't fit in it or those who aren't in it, it's clear that characters like Phos and Cinnabar are meant to be the misfits in a society like the one Kongo promoted. The arrangement at the start of the manga, in which everyone knows Cinnabar is suffering but no one does anything about it because it's more convienent that way is a perfect example of this.

Even those who fit in and take pride in their usefulness (the value that reigns supreme in the gems' society) have to compete in that regard, as a collectivist society which values a specific trait will have a "supposed way of being" that isn't as tolerant of differences and different ways of expressing yourself and achieving success as an individualistic society would.

Just take a look at Dia and Bortz, the former who despite being at the top of the "usefulness hierarchy" still feels like she isn't enough because she has Bortz as a partner, or the latter who feels like she constantly has to live up to her reputation of being the strongest and actually feels relieved when others step up to cover for her. (Like when the Lunarians stop attacking.) Everyone is bottling things up and no one is doing anything about it because it's easier that way... except it obviously isn't.

Hell, even though I do agree that Phos' loneliness is self inflicted for the most part, it can't be ignored that the reason the gems alienated them so easily and quickly was also partly due to this collectivist mentality, in which the gems are "us" and everything else is "them*.

Phos further strayed from the "us" with each transformation, to the point that she is rejected understanding because of her differences with the rest, despite her seemingly good intentions. This black and white way of viewing people and beings in general results is dangerous, and can justify inhumane acts such as what Phos was made to bear during her prayer. And of course, the "architect" of this society is Kongo/Adamant, though I do understand the reasoning behind it.

The Mastermind

I'd say that Kongo overcorrected, and created a society that separated itself from the selfishness of humanity along with the earthly pleasures that he saw dominated the humans, to the point of the gems' worth becoming completely about how useful they were in their work and neglecting their emotions and the fun they could have in between along with ignoring the importance of their individual relationships (as opposed to just their cordial relationship to each other, out of being part of the same species).

Kong actively discouraged feeling, discouraged crying for Phos—he discouraged humanity, with the good and the bad.

This has both pros and cons, because even though it keeps the gems together and allows them to effectively counter the threat that the lunarians pose, it also eaves them in a stagnant society, one in which they have to bear the risk of losing the people they care about while still being expected to keep their composure for the sake of each other and tradition.

It's a society that is afraid of change, because change is a stand out, and no one should stand out in a collectivist society—and yet, it's that same unchanging quality and resilience for the sake of each other that strengthens the bonds of the gems after Kongo reveals the truth to them. Their loyalty to Kongo and each other gives them meaning, and allows them to keep going year after year.

Whatever the case, that status quo is broken the moment Moon Phos enters the picture. And I'd say the main difference between her and the rest of the gems is her selfishness, the selfishness to see how far she can push herself and to discover what's out there. This is where we start to enter into individualism, with all the progress and independence usually attached to it, that many gems secretly admired, to the point of calling her their "hope".

The reason we call the Phos with Lapis' head "Moon Phos" is because once she arrived to the moon, she assimilates with the Lunarians in a way—she's extremely compatible with their way of being and the optimization and research they constantly promote, but she also has the disadvantages that come with being like that, in how that obsession for optimization and rational planning keeps her mind away from those who are supposedly important to her, just being tools in her game and ultimately causing her downfall as she's broken by those whose trust she broke with too many mindgames and rationality. But in order to analyze this more in depth, let's take a look at individualism in general.

The Lunarians

Personally, I see individualism as a cult of of rationality and its subsequent optimization, in which the only logical conclusion of valuing independence and progress over everything is the commodification of any and all experiences and resources in order to sell them and increase your own gains. Everything is a tool, a means to an end, feeble feelings like love and community aren't as important as the american dream and the self made man. Individualism, and the economic version of it, capitalism, are systems that perpetuate the ideas they represent and instill them onto the mind of those born under them.

We can clearly see how Ichikawa meant for the Lunarians' extravagant lifestyle to be a complete contrast to the simpleness and community-focused society of the Lustrous.

They are literally a society expecting and wishing for their demise, too caught up in it to value what it is and keeping their minds busy with sensorial pleasures and progress—"what will be". They are much more technologically advanced than the gems due to this, which is good, of course, but it also comes with a cost.

And that's the magic of comparing these two cultures—each of them is incredibly flawed, and yet changing them also comes with losing something of value in the process. It shows the contrasting nature of certain philosophies and ideas and how the overreliance on them leads to black and white thinking and unhappiness, whether it is from suppressing yourself too much like the gems or not allowing yourself to compromise and live at all like the Lunarians.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of grand philosophies that apply to everyone and anyone, idealizing their principles and taking them as a gospel to live, it's better to just be, like Phos learns to do in the last arc.

Assimilation and Conquest

Remember what I said about how globalism blurried the line? I'd say the assimilation of the gems to Lunarian society, becoming Lunarians themselves, reflects this perfectly.

Now, they're allowed to be who they are, seek their own interests, indulge into the endless pleasures that were prepared for them and discover a whole new world in which love, food and entertainment are part of their day to day life. However, as great as it sounds, much is also lost through the assimilation—the gems' glitter is gone, and their care for each other isn't really touched upon.

The gems, upon first arriving on the moon, are made to wear new clothes, fancy and more feminine, they are shown the pleasures they can indulge in, and the possibility of keeping the culture and mantaining the positive aspects of their bond is neglected, almost ran over, in what is in essence a colonization.

Cairngorm is a clear example of this, and although she becomes happier by allowing herself to show her true colors (literally) and falling in love with Aechmea, there is this constant feeling that she strayed away from who she should have been, from her relationship with Phos, from her own wishes and interests… because she never discovered them.

She always lived for the sake of others, for Phos, for Lapis, for Ghost, and even if it is under the mask of a loving relationship, she repeats this pattern with Aechmea. Their relationship is all that is great and wrong with Lunarian culture, in which you are drunk with pleasure and forget your true self as a result. Why else do you think Cairngorm is continually portrayed as hyperfeminine and small, almost child-like, compared to the manipulative, dominating and masculine Aechma?

These labels are the ones that individualism and capitalism pushes in order to survive and keep the power dynamics that characterize it. They are images and illusions of what "should be", of masculinity and femininity that the characters fool themselves into wanting in order to continue with the "blinding-youself-with-pleasure" charade.

There's a foreboding sense that Cairngorm—no, that the Lustrous, have lost their purpose and are trying to distract themselves from their inevitable demise through the eartly pleasures that the Lunarian society offers. There's a reason why the album of photos starring the gems living on the moon is called "Party of the End"—because that's what the life of the Lustrous on the moon is.

A party, which involves overindulgence on sensorial pleasures, that is done in order to create an instance away facing their own mortality and having to reflect upon their actions. A celebration that precedes the end, in which they become nothingness and yet they also become something else without ever having come to terms with who they were, like Phos does.

We are all the Same

Understanding Eren’s Trauma

The driving force for Eren's character is his wish to be free because he was “born into this world”, though if you allow me to go deeper into the WHY he thinks that way, I’d argue it’s not only in his nature as many often argue; it was also boosted by the fact that he lived surrounded by walls to protect humanity from titans (and I’d say both the titans and the walls represent the antithesis of freedom to Eren) in one of the poorer districts of the city, in which everyone craved security and stability over the risks that came with venturing out, which Eren considers the behavior of cattle. Everything around Eren is telling him that he isn't free.

And of course, the defining moment that turns this desire for freedom into obsession is his mother’s death, which could have been prevented if the symbols of Eren’s lack of freedom were gone. Rather than just sources of frustration, the walls, the titans and Eren's own lack of ability become reminders of the loss and suffering inherent to being trampled by the strong—the pain that comes with not being free.

To understand his subconscious thought process more, I picture it like this:

“If humanity ventured outside the walls, exercising their freedom and killing the titans, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“If we didn’t live in Shiganshina, a dangerous district where the poor live due to being so close to the outermost wall, this wouldn’t have happened.”

And coupled with this, comes his own lack of exercising his freedom:

“If I had been strong enough to do what I wanted, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Eren's trauma is reaffirmed again and again, by failing to save Hannes, then failing to save Armin, and so on, and it all builds up to make him become who he is in the final act of the story.

Later on, it's revealed that Marley, actual humans, just like them, are the real villains behind Eren's opression. And that's when our protagonist snaps. It's no coincidence that the whole point of his genocide is to end civilization as we know it—he can't stomach a world in which everything that happened was by the hands of humans, one in which the monsters have families and insecurities just like him—it's just too nuanced, and that's too much to handle for Eren. It's easier to trample over everything and restart, than to face his inferiority complex, one that has its roots in the symbols that trample over his freedom, rather than solely on his nature.

From Personal to Systemic (and viceversa)

However, if we look even further than Marley to point towards someone to blame for these symbols, Marley became the way it is because human civilization was responsible for the divides that now can be seen not only inside, but outside the walls.

To put it in a simpler way, why did Attack on Titan start? Because King Fritz enslaved Ymir, someone with the power to become a titan. But we should go into the why, shouldn’t we? And it’s because that’s how human civilization works. The ones in power use it to their advantage and leave a wave of trauma that lasts generations, all to make up for their own weaknesses and fears. It’s about how the personal becomes systemic, and viceversa; and that’s exactly what happens with Eren. He represents the ultimate way in which you can trample over someone's freedom, which is met with retribution (and at the same time being an attempt at making up for his horrible trauma.)

I’d have to get into a whole rant about systemic issues and the feudalism that laid the basis for capitalism for this to become more understandable, but in the end, I’m saying all of this to prove a pretty simple point: it’s all about the cycle of hatred, which isn’t simply about revenge. It’s years and years of systemic oppression, combined with circumstance, combined with nature, and how all of it is processed by Eren’s self-esteem and ego, that led Eren to become who he is.

The line between the outside and the inside blurries, and black and white thinking become shallow in comparison to the nuance of the world—just like Eren's worldview.

Of course, I’m not saying that Eren realized all this. Dude was probably angry with the titans because they killed his mom and that was it. But a lot of it was probably part of his subconscious, and even if all of it wasn’t, all of these horrible circumstances were a vital factor in what is what the Marleyan general calls out for what it is:

Except this time, it’s not just by the Marleyan's hands. Nor is it even present humanity's.

It’s everything.

Eren is to Blame

All of what I showcased explains Eren’s insecurities, trauma and subsequent decisions. It’s because of his nature, coupled with the terrible circumstances he was born into, that shaped him into someone willing to wipe out humanity—it isn’t as simple as just because “it was in his nature”, and I’d argue that’s an excuse Eren himself would use to try and rationalize his horrible actions.

That’s actually what Eren does the most with his all-seeing power: he uses it as an excuse not to take matters into his own hands.

What I feel AOT is criticizing here is that whether it was his nature, or his environment, or the generations of systemic abuse, how Eren dealt with his trauma was his decision. Eren perpetuating the cycle of trauma and hatred, of civilization and war, was his decision. 

We later learn that Eren was the one who killed his mother, but I’d argue that rather than to only highlight that it’s in Eren’s nature to be free even if it’s a destructive goal, this scene also shows that trauma is self perpetuated—in the end, Eren literally caused part of his own trauma and led himself to a destructive path, though instead of being due to a decision that will have consequences in the future, it’s one that had consequences in his own past. Speaking of which, I think the mind-boggling past-present-future coexistence ability Eren attains due to the Attack Titan isn’t a coincidence, and perfectly complements his character: it’s the ultimate way to reinforce that he’s the one furthering his trauma through his pursuit of freedom, and that no matter where or why it started, he’s the one responsible for not dealing with it and harming everyone and himself so much.

This isn’t to diminish the fact that it was the world that shaped Eren to become that way, or to fall into a “good-victim” and “bad-victim” debacle. Putting it in the frame of the present day, I’d say that saying that your trauma is caused by yourself sounds extremely wrong and it’s not the point I’m trying to make. Yes, Eren causes his trauma, but only a part of it. Eren causes his suffering, but only a part of it. Whatever the case, it’s up to Eren to continue perpetuating that suffering for himself and others, or stop it, and unfortunately, what he ends up doing is continuing it.

Of course, asking for severely traumatized people to deal with their own trauma on their own is not realistic, is it? Asking for severely traumatized people to know how to not take it out in a violent way, without even being taught other ways, is unreasonable. For a quick view on my thoughts, even though I completely agree that Eren should be held accountable for his actions, in the end, the solution to his suffering isn’t to demand him to somehow know how to deal with it: that’s why others are key in helping heal that trauma.

So why didn’t Armin and Mikasa help Eren with his trauma, you ask?

Dude, they’re on like, the AOT equivalent to the 19th century. They probably don’t even know what trauma is, and they have their own to deal with.

Though the real reason is that Eren isolated himself from them, refusing to talk to them about his weakness—refusing to be vulnerable. They weren't allowed to be by his side, and that ultimately spells Eren's downfall.

But we know better now, don’t we?

In the end, I think that what the precious bond between the main trio highlights, whether they're conscious or not, is their ability to stand for each other no matter what kind of crueltry they experience. That’s what the Alliance’s last stand, and their ability to forgive and understand each other in the final arc showcases, too. That even if traumatized, we can make an attempt to connect with one another, and perhaps it will reach those who can’t even think of a way out.

Paradoxes Once More

In buddhism, it's all paradoxical. To attain happiness, you let go of happiness. To connect with others, you let go of others. And the same happens with Phos. Because Phos changed so much, to the point of not being herself anymore—and at the same time, she still is Phos. Even after changing so much, she wants the same things, and returns to base, to simply being satisfied as she is for who she is and indulging in the little moments of life. It's a cycle. All the suffering she went through led her to the final form of returning to be herself, to finally enjoy herself as she is, the simple answer that she had from the very beggining and yet couldn't accept until the very end.

The very ending is paradoxical, because it praises both the simpleness of the rocks but also the plan carried on by Ayumu, Kongo and Aechma in order to attain happiness for everyone, Phos included.

The rationality to execute it is key, as I explained in my Moon Phos analysis, and yet it was also that very extreme rationality that needed to be erradicated for everyone to be happy. Moon Phos, the Lunarians, the overcomplicated plans, all of it was the bridge—Rationality was the bridge. But all bridges must be burnt after crossing them.

Of course, that isn't to say that the pebbles aren't rational or are stupid, because they clearly became capable of reasoning in a way that the story frames as good; rationality for the sake of others which allowed Phos to be saved. It was just the "hyperrationality", the one that comes with civilization and optimizing (ahem, capitalism), that had to go.

Thus, the pebbles are the most intelligent of them all. They were simple, and that's all they needed to be. They reject Phos' offerings, because they're content as they are, which is the complete opposite of Phos.

For Phos, humanity is the wishing for something grander, the thing that made her push herself too far and ruin everything for herself.

That's why she refuses to accept that it's fine for her to live, and she acknowledges that humanity remains inside her to the bitter end. But I feel that isn't humanity as much as it is civilization, and the values it pushes onto humans.

Criticizing "Enlightenment"

I think that what's wonderful about Enlightened Phos is the way she criticizes the self-actualization that tradidtional Buddhism points towards, along with the supposed enlightenment that comes with it. It's a criticism of the idea that you can reach an ultimate form of yourself, and to the lack of importance that this idea and buddhism in general gives to the present and to the meaning of it all. Check out this exchange between Phos and one of the pebbles as an example.

The supposedly enlightened Phos points out how everything fundamentally doesn't matter and that whether they die sooner or later is irrelevant. She has suffered so much and gone through so much loss that she's at a point that, despite reaching some form of happiness with the pebbles, she also is suicidal, and wants to end it all. She realizes the meaninglessness of everything and, even though she has experienced some happy moments, she ultimately sees it all as transcient, and any attempt at giving life meaning is self-sabotage in her eyes. Thus, buddhism's transcience takes away meaning from life, from happiness, demonizing pleasure and leaving a husk of a person instead.

Sadly, buddhism is right in it's meaninglessness—it's right in many things, which I'd say is the whole point of Houseki no Kuni, but it's also missing a huge point, which the series constantly makes sure to point out: even if everything will end one day, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't cherish your life, or that each moment is meaningless because of it. Sure, there's no grander purpose, there's no meaning to the why things happen the way they do, but it's precisely because of that that every moment is all the more meaningful, not in the grand scheme of things, but on a personal level. Because if everything constantly changes, even your own identity, then you should cherish the present, a moment that cannot be repeated, all more.

That's precisely what the pebble argues, by saying they want to extend their happiness a little bit more. Sure, if the pebbles dies its atoms will be used to create some new form of life, but that's missing the point, and looking at it too coldly, through an outlook that lacks humanity and yets is also fundamentally human in its rationality.

The pebble wants to live, right now, in the moment, as they are, enjoying the little things—not as a cosmic exchange of matter. And Phos and Pitapat (who also greatly suffered because of the humans' rationality by becoming the Ice Floes) agree with the sentiment.

Pitapat's sushi cream chips' obssesion is also an easy way to understand how something as mundane and crude as that can be important to enjoying life and make our existential anxiety go away (so go eat something yummy right now).

There's No Replacements

There's no moment or relationship like another, and no way to replace someone you lost. And that's why Phos' biggest regret is realizing this too late.

She could have been happier sooner, not by optimizing herself to satisfy the usefulness the Lustrous society valued, but just by sharing her life with someone. With Cinnabar.

That's why their story is a tragedy, and why it was framed as Phos' most important relationship since the beggining. Because just by simply reaching out and sharing the present, you can combat the meaningless of it all and the future, the worries and the anxiety.

Even if Phos became happy with the pebbles, knowing that she never managed to get close to Cinnabar, and that there is no replacement to that relationship—to any of the relationships she could have fostered with the gems that she dropped in the pursuit of self-actualization, is heartbreaking. That's why as she dies, she wishes to see everyone again.

Of course, I'm not saying that only Phos is to blame for how her relationships with the Lustrous turned out—the Lustrous society discouraged moments of closeness and honesty that didn't have to do with being useful, and gems like Cinnabar and Bortz constantly pushed others away because of this obssession with their work and loneliness, but that's also missing the point.

You can't control everything. You can only control your own actions, and even when she was rejected by some of the people she tried to get close to, Phos could have also risked it and gained a close relationship with people she was similar with, just by reaching out and taking proper care of her relationships. It was that simple.

Death

With all of this in mind, I think that the main difference between everyone else's death into non-existence and Phos' fulfilling death is precisely in how they spent their time in life.

The gems distracted themselves from their eventual demise with the pleasures of the lunarian life, living for the sake of dying and then ending things unceremoniously, accepting their fate. At first glance, this seems similar to the conclusion Phos arrived at, but it's different in the journey they took to get there.

Because the gems never became human, they never truly suffered and gained the wisdom necessary to accept life as it was. The key difference between Phos and the gems is that while the former is enjoying life with the pebbles, and cherishing each moment wholeheartedly, the gems take their instances of pleasure as a distraction, as nothing more than a hedonistic party to distract themselves from the end. Phos accepted that she would die, and she was fulfilled doing so by knowing she enjoyed thousands of years with the pebbles, not in wait for her death, but in service of her life—of the fact that she was alive.

Thus, the answer doesn't lie in an overreliance of pleasure to distract yourself from the end like the gems did, but it also isn't about a pseudo-intellecual enlightenment in transcience like the one God Phos reached before meeting the pebbles. As always, the answer lies in the middle—in balance. It's about finding pleasure in the moment, not as a distraction, but in service of living and caring for others, in service of kindness, happiness and celebrating life.

A Cyclical and Paradoxical Existence

However, no matter how much fulfillment (or lack thereof) you found in life, we are all subject to the cycle of rebirth, with the matter that makes our body being reused for something else. But that should be an afterthought.

After the last extract of Phos is rescued by Pitapat, God Phos is allowed to die, paradoxically not having any "Phosphophyllite" in her and yet still being Phos.

Because those cosmic and biological matters of what makes you you aren't as important as what is reality: what makes Phos isn't the matter she's made of, but rather, the experiences that made her who she is and the decisions she takes along the story.

And when Phos dies, Phos also lives through her fragments, and she continues her journey, forgetting the lessons engraved in her inclusions and yet being granted the beautiful right to live once more.

And I feel like the comet symbolizes just that. A new beggining for Phos, starting from the end, granted from truly making peace with everything this time. A cycle, in which she lights her own way into acceptance and belonging. She always had what she needed. Perhaps now, there'll be enough light to cast the shadows away and she'll be able to see it.

To Suffer And Live Regardless

If the goal in buddhism is to renounce humanity and the suffering that comes with it, I think that paradoxically, Houseki no Kuni both accepts and rejects that idea. Because humanity is beautiful, and yet it must also be exterminated to allow the pebbles to exist. Because for every part of the kind and weak-willed OG Phos, there is the cynical, but at some point necessary, Moon Phos. Because to live is to suffer and that isn't an impediment to enjoy life—rather, it's what makes those little moments of peace all the more special.

All we need is there from the start—the ability to join up with others, enjoy nature and play with one another, and it's up to us to stop our bothersome overthinking and anxiety, to be able to see it.

In the end of the story, at the ideal world that was reached through humanity's rationality, what's kept of the humans is the kindness and will to share great experiences, while getting away from the overthinking, the anxiety and the hyperrationality that caused so much trouble for everyone in the story and yet were also so important to reach the beautiful ending Phos achieved.

Eren's Motives

Three of his generally accepted motives are these:

1- To see the sight in the book, aka, "levelling" the land. His childish dream he couldn't let go of.

2- To save his friends by having them kill him (they would be seen as heroes and the titan curse would end, saving Armin, Reiner, Annie, etc.).

(The result being the end of the titan's curse)

3- Keep Paradis safe (the level of development of the world would be incredibly reduced, Eren's friends could act as diplomats, and Paradis would now have a fighting chance.)

(I'd argue this motive is just a happy consequence of his real priorities, number 1 and 2).

But the first and second motive directly contradict each other, no? If Eren wanted to do a complete rumbling and truly level the land, he wouldn't wish to be stopped. But according to the second motive, he always intended to be stopped. Not only that, he knew he'd be stopped at 80% because of the power of the Attack Titan.

So why bother doing the Rumbling at all even though it could never accomplish point 1? For his friends only then? But he didn't even know which one of his friends would survive, just that they'd stop him and end the titan curse.

Maybe everyone but Pieck could have died while trying to stop him, so his plan wouldn't fulfill point 1 nor point 2. He wouldn't get a full Rumbling to fulfill his dreams nor a happy ending for his friends.

To make sense of this, my theory is that Eren is stupid and just couldn't help himself despite the risks and impossibilities. He just had to do it.

Eren is an Idiot.

Eren has always been stupid. He tried things irrationally just because he wanted to be free and go outside the walls, believing that it would go well as he severely overestimasted himself, almost getting killed several times because of it.

He's a subversion of a shonen protagonist in a realistic world. The only reason he got so far is because so many people were covering his back and because he got the Attack Titan. This is a vital part of his character. He is average, childish, and prone to succumb to his feelings; and that's exactly what he did. Eren developed so much along the course of the series, and managed to keep control of his recklessness with rationality and discipline... but he never developed emotionally, and this was the result.

Even if he knew that the Rumbling would stop at 80%, it'd still partially fulfill his dream to see a levelled land and becoming free. At least for a moment, he'd be able to feel like he was accomplishing that goal of his and feeling free because of it.

He fought back against Armin because Eren wouldn't give up his freedom without a fight, and he wanted to know that he truly tried everything (aside from taking away his friends' freedom, which would make him a hypocrite in his eyes). Eren was a slave to freedom and was unable to give up on it unlike basically every other character in the series. (give up on your dream and die). He was the ultimate shonen protagonist, especially in his unyielding dream, and it backfired immensely. In no universe Eren was able to stop himself from doing the Rumbling, because it's what he wanted to do to get his freedom, even while knowing it'd fail. It isn't rational. He just couldn't help himself from doing his upmost to live freely, because he was born into the world and thus had a right to, in his eyes. Eren latched onto that childish idea, of never compromising, of being unable to give up on his desired outcome, and it ended up making him a mass murderer. He never grew up, and this was the result.

At the same time, though, he did want to give his friends the chance to stop him and become free themselves, which would also save them to boot. There was the risk that they died, but he couldn't help himself, and in the best case scenario, most of them would live.

Thus, no matter what, the Rumbling was the best way of fulfilling Eren's contradicting goals, not from a logical sense, but from an emotional one.

Rationalizations

In the end, Point 2 and 3 of his motivations are just rationalizations for going through a plan he knew would fail. Point 1 was the main reason he did it (even though, as I explained, it's not really the only reason, just that if he truly wanted to save his friends and Paradis this plan was one of the worse options), and the worst part is that he knew it wouldn't go his way and he did it anyways.

So yeah, he's smart, stupid, free, trapped, selfish, selfless, and that's the point? If so, I think it's a pretty interesting point to make. Eren never managed to mature enough out of being a child—he was denied agency again and again by the world, and unlike everyone else in the series, he couldn't accept that. He couldn't compromise, not on his dream, but not on his friends, either.

I think it's really clever writing to hide all these layers behind Eren, even though the confusing explanation did end up making a lot of people wrongly excuse his genocide "because he did it for his friends", even though he straight up admits he wasn't, he just thought he was.

In truth, he killed 80% of humanity because he wasn't mature enough to pinpoint his irrational motives founded in the trauma of living trapped in walls with the physical manifestation of being trapped embodied by the titans. (A systemic analysis of Eren coming in another post!)

I do admit that actually understanding that all of this was Isayama's intention though, if I even got it right, was completely convoluted and confusing and could've been written way more neatly; but I still love the ending, because it shows us that Eren is doing the most Eren thing imaginable through the Rumbling—showcasing his stupidity, rashness and average nature, which was always a huge part of his character that I'm glad wasn't forcefully taken out of him because of his "cooler" role in the last season.

If there's one thing I've always loved about Eren, is how human he is. How imperfect he is. And his actions are, without a doubt, the embodiment of what it means to be an irrational being with a brain that tries to rationalize everything—a being that would kill 80% of humanity for his dreams, while risking his friends' lives, while also deeply wishing to save them.

I guess that his character (and humanity) can be summed up by Mikasa quite well, don't you think? Because in the end, even if he's stupid, he's also kind. He's cruel...

OG Phos vs Moon Phos

While OG Phos used to be a lot more present-focused and someone who took things at face value, that also made her capable of reaching out in a very honest and genuine way to people like Cinnabar, who was too caught up in her mind and insecurities to see an escape for her situation. Phos used to be someone who was able to enjoy the moment, and the simple things that come with it, whether it was the butterflies, the amazing views, or her own cute mint-colored hair.

I'd argue this way of experimenting life is what HnK argues to be the key to happiness: that existence is what you make of it, and Phos was content as she was, but everyone around her pushed her to become something else, to the point that she absorbed those frustrations and lost sight of her way of living.

What corrupts Phos isn't that she acquires new body parts; that's just an extreme metaphor for what changing would look like if our soul also experimented physical change—it's all about how she loses sight of the simple happiness she could have experimented on her own (and along with Cinnabar, if she reached out to her), in favor of increasingly more complicated goals. (Moon Phos is the extreme version of this.)

Phos' corruption into overthinking doesn't come out of nowhere, though and it starts to manifest strongly the moment she loses herself in the stress and burden of losing Antarc in Winter. Phos does retain some of her groundedness as post-Winter Phos, but she also starts to think more, to question more things and to brute-force her way into change, with disasterous results.

When she realizes this, she makes the right call by trying to stop, but it's too late by then—she had already stared at the abyss, and the world wouldn't let her forget all that she had learnt.

When Phos loses her head, now she has all the tools she needed to generate change and innovation—to look at the big picture and avoid getting caught up on the little things... and that's her demise.

Because in comparison with OG Phos, who looks at the present, Moon Phos is someone who always looks forward. Someone who always uses reason as her greatest weapon, in order to manipulate others while losing sight of many important details (some related to her own well-being and that of others) in favor of big, complicated plans in which everyone's feelings, even her own, are just pawns in her game.

Cairngorm explicitly warns her about this, saying that she hasn't valued those at her side (Cairngorm herself, or Cinnabar) as much as she should, and that's why she's become such a lonely individual.

Moon Phos is someone who lives in her head, in the world of ideas and the abstract, while OG Phos was the complete opposite, and the change in approach has a direct impact on her happiness, as she loses sight of the simple things in favor of objectives that just don't translate into happiness as well as she thinks she does. Moon Phos optimizes, but loses the essence of happiness that she could have achieved in a simple manner by focusing too much on "what should be" rather than "what it is".

To put it succintly, Moon Phos is brute-forcing her way into being accepted, into bringing change for her people, losing all the tact that was needed for a moment as life-changing as a pact with the lunarians could be for the gems. And if OG Phos had something that Moon Phos didn't, was that ability to look at things in a simple way that would have avoided such a mess in the first place.

By talking about both of them, I think it's clear that each have their strength and weaknesses, and that's why talking about Phos is so difficult. Because even if she lost many of the good things that made her who she was, she also gained many others that brought "prosperity" for the gems. Prosperity in quotations because later, we'll see that the optimization didn't really bring many benefits.

Whatever the case, in order to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of Moon Phos, we need to analyze her sacrificial role in the story according to the themes of buddhism in it.

The Bodhisattva

A sacrificial figure in Buddhism, and that Phos, especially Moon Phos, represents to a T.

But why? Well, one of the fundamental characteristics that the Bodhisattva represents is that they work towards enlightenment in order to save others, being a kind of Buddha in training. The problem here is that sometimes, saving others requires for the Bodhisattva to sacrifice their own happiness and enlightenment.

Phos becomes the opposite of the teachings of buddhism. Hyperrational, manipulative, working towards her own desires and masking them as altruism. (because we all know Phos didn't do everything she did for the gems, she did it for their validation and to be acknoledged by them). And yet, the contradictory part of it is that it was necessary for everyone's enlightenment, but most important of all, for Phos to be given the chance to be happy, away from a world that pushed her to be rational.

Buddhism has this constant theme of paradox in it. The paradox that in order to reach happiness, you must let go of happiness. The paradox that in order to realize that you must focus on the present and stop thinking, Buddha had to spend years thinking about it. And Phos is a living paradox, in the sense that her hyperrationality and look into the future and big picture was needed for everyone to reach happiness, at her own expense. She was played a fool by everyone, and it's even implied that Kongo was on it, all because she was the one most attached to her earthly desires of them all, to the point of changing every part of herself in order to accomodate to what she thought others wanted her to be.

In a way, Moon Phos (and the lunarians, because it's no coincidence that the "lunarian" Phos is the one that represents these themes) doubles as a criticism of our present capitalist society as a whole, with all its hyperrationality and big-picture focus that allowed for progress and suffering alike, always at the expense of oneself. Because we're our own slaves, and we work ourselves to death to reach a happiness that is further and further away from us due to those same efforts (paradoxically). All Phos wanted at first was to be loved by those around her, but she chased that dream with such relentlessness that she ended up casting away the parts of her that made her loveable and losing the people that would have been able to connect with her. And yet at the same time, Moon Phos (and the lunarians, the rationality, Ayumu herself) paved the way for God Phos' chance at happiness at the end of the story.

A Paradox

Thus, to the question of how to live in society and be happy, Houseki no Kuni poses that the answer is balance, or perhaps, a paradox. It showcases the ugly but necessary aspects of humanity, and the reality that every time you gain something, you lose something else, through Phos and her loss of body parts that benefitted society at her expense. Thus, there is no right extreme, and no goal that can be achieved by just rigidly doing the same thing.

Whether you look at the enlightenment buddhism promises you (as showcased by the way of living of the gems, simple but without meaning and creating resentment between everyone, with a literal buddhist monk as its leader), or the prosperity that civilization achieves (as showcased by the lunarians, who corrupt and surround themselves with earthly pleasures to distract themselves from their problems), both have their strong points and weaknesses and seem paradoxically necessary to reach one another, to ultimately work towards the goal of enjoying existence, as it is, unabashedly.

The gems truly found happiness on the moon due to finally allowing them to be themselves, and eventually, all the lunarians (including the gems, who turned into ones by virtue of corrupting themselves with the eartly pleasures), reached enlightenment by letting go of those desires. Of course, if you analyze it more, it was a "fake" kind of salvation, and only Phos reached true happiness in her God form (expanding more on it on another post), but at least they got to enjoy more of their life than they would have if they had continued in the endless cycle they were put in (or the "samsara").

In the end, Phos had to gain the rationality that characterizes present-day humanity in order to save everyone, while at the same time, condemning herself. Because for all their short-sightedness, destruction and cruelty, humans are also kind and wise, and they allowed the rocks to live just that little bit more by escaping the sun in chapter 106. Both the optimization and the relaxation and appreciation of little things are necessary in order to become happy, and we need to find the balance in the different aspects of ourselves in order to do so.

As Phos herself says at the end of the manga, despite it all, she is grateful. Because no matter how she got there, every step of her journey was necessary to make her who she is—and that's how it is for everyone. Experiences mold us, they change us, we can't force change and we certainly can't predict where it'll take us... and that's the paradox. Because sometimes, working towards the result we desire leads us astray from it, and viceversa. Phos was someone who had her eyes set on a goal, one that she didn't want to admit: the goal to be admired and loved by everyone.

And in the end, she had no one.

Moon Phos was necessary, but she took it to an extreme and burnt herself up along the way. Thankfully, she was granted a second chance by the very same flawed people (Kongo, Aechmea, Ayumu) that made her into a sacrificial lamb for their own selfishness.

A chance she took to finally accept that no matter what she did, there was no predicting life or changing yourself to an "optimal" version of yourself, so she might as well enjoy the ride.