Cinnabar sees the Whole Picture — HnK's Fragile Happiness
So I saw this image the other day, from the character introductions in volume 12, and I was just… captivated by what it implied about Cinnabar’s character, something that is also emphazised in her fight with Phos: Cinnabar knows the superficiality of the bonds she has with the people around her, and she's content nonetheless.
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 happines, 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.
Cast away into the night along with what could've been, because just like everyone else, she's living in order to die—the same as she was in the beginning.
minecraft: "yeah souls have power and they can suck light out of things and there's sand in literal hell that have the screaming dead in them and when combined make a literal demon that rots everything living in sight and in the deep dark there's plants that can detect movement and hisses when broken and there's a warden that protects the caves and can kill you in one hit and it has souls in his chest and it makes a heartbeat sound and all the lights around it flicker off if its near"
don't forget the giant fossilised remains of god knows what that used to be and also the implications of the fact that villagers turned into zombies look different to the normal ones wandering around that just so happen to look like you. also the endermen speaking thing.
"Lightning has transformative powers, gold has regenerative properties so strong it can save you from death, ghasts are trapped in Hell, piglins built the bastions and the zombification virus nearly wiped them out, the ancient peoples created some kind of apocalypse so fucked up it almost wiped out all life and basically severed the link between dimensions, and also none of this is real, the universe is just a story we're telling about ourselves because we're all stories and stardust and not ready to perceive the true nature of existence yet."
There is only one mob found in all three dimensions. They speak in distorted words. They can teleport so quickly that no projectile will ever hit them. They roam freely. They roam in a world of villages, of bastions, of mansions, of strongholds, of mine shafts, of fortresses, and of buildings old and vast. Something built these structures.
There is only one mob left that retains the ability to build. To create. Endermen place their blocks haphazardly. Their actions appear random, but they can build all the same. They are the only living creature left that has the power to build. At least until you come along. You are also capable of living in all three dimensions. It hurts Endermen to be perceived by you. You are the only one that can hurt them in this way.
These creatures live in a place called the end, on tiny broken islands in an endless sea of void. Cities can be found on these broken islands. Cities and ships, littered with incredibly high level items. All built with purpose, a purpose that you might never get to understand. There are no people left here. There are no notes, no signs. Nothing left behind to tell the story of what happened but the buildings frozen in time.
The end is the only place survival players can obtain flight. The end is the only place creative players can easily die. The void can kill gods. It is the only thing that can kill gods. It cannot kill the Ender Dragon. You can kill the Ender Dragon. You can bring the Dragon back. You are not the first person to kill the Ender Dragon. You are not the first person to bring it back. Those who came and built cities, those who built ships in the void, those who figured out how to craft wings. They killed the Ender Dragon too. Every ship in the end has a dragon’s head. There are so many ships.
Those who came before you did everything you can do, and more. It did not save them. Yet here you are. You are not special in any singular ability, and yet, for some reason, you have made it here. You have survived. You are here, you are alive, and you are still creating. You are building, changing the world once more, taking apart the old and ushering in something new. Forming bonds in ways no other creatures can.
Those that came before you killed the Ender Dragon countless times. They brought the dragon back countless times.
And yet.
When you kill the Ender Dragon for the very first time, she gives you a gift. She has died countless times before, to countless hands. You aren’t any different, and yet you are. Because you are the first one to receive her egg. It is entrusted to you. There is only one egg. You cannot get it in creative, you can only get it from her. She has chosen you, out of so, so many. She will not tell you why. You are left to find your own answers. To create your own answers. That’s what the game’s all about.
the entrance to the end is built as a trap. Buried and hidden entrances in labyrinthine fortresses, locked on the uniquely cleared central island with the dragon once you enter. The entire thing is concentric circles - a circular portal, a circle of towers drive clear through the island, a perfect circle of missing land around that. The overworld portals are circles, the strongholds are arrayed in circles. There is no way to know why, whether it was made like this because it was easiest, or because it had to be, or because it incidentally happened.
Signs of previous civilization have advanced golems, a phenomenon we can ourselves utilize a crude form of. The dragon could be artificial, or it could be natural, but it is sustained forever all the same.
The cities are fortresses. End stone floats - the only material naturally found floating by intentional generation, so the cities could float too same as the ships if their bases were cut. A harsh climb to reach the walkways, harassed by artificial protectors firing homing projectiles. The cities are stocked with weapons, armor, enchanted and pristine. Time does not touch things built in the end, no wind wears at the walls nor rain breaks through the ceilings. What were they defending from? What were they running from?
a late tribute to Chrono Trigger’s 23rd anniversary!! I used to play this game a loooot as a kid! (but I never finished it to this day… bc I have a bad habit of game jumping)
namine as someone who was manipulated to an extent but also really didn't need to have her arm twisted that hard to go along with the "replace kairi" plot
namine being so lonely that she was fine (more than fine really) with everything until she started seeing first hand how messed up sora was getting and went "ohhhhh.... oh no" and then course corrected HARD in the later games to make up for it
and like it wasn't truly out of a sense of morality or being a better person (if that was the case she would've been more vocal about roxas and xion)
it was specifically to make up for The Bad Thing She Did To Sora
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