Fascinating canonical answer to this one, actually!
[ID: transcript excerpt of Taako telling Lup: "You know you didn’t… mean… to make something like that. I understood the rationale you came up with. I mean… It was just damage, it was just… damage. The other ones that we made, they can be twisted and perverted in so many different ways. And I think… At least the way you explained it to me, that by making something that was just damage, you would limit it. You didn't mean for any of this to happen." End ID.]
And IMO, it paints a really interesting picture. Where most characters were entertaining the belief — whether consciously or subconsciously, whether subtly under the thrall or not — that their Relics could be used for good. But unlike everyone else, Lup wasn't.
Davenport, Merle, and Taako made Relics that could've brought about resources and abundance, something voidfished-Magnus even alludes to before agreeing to destroy the Oculus. Magnus himself and Lucretia made Relics that could be used to save and protect people — to say nothing of Lucretia still secretly clinging to her plan to defeat the Hunger, of which the Bulwark Staff was a part of (and in a way, she was eventually vindicated in her plan, though not in its original form and not by trying to do it alone). Then Barry is fascinating because the Animus Bell is so, so useful for a lich in his position — one of two immortal beings, on a plane where their bodies will suddenly start aging, and eventually fail to serve them.
But there's nothing like this that applies to the Gauntlet! There's no hint of a temptation we see Lup express, to create a Relic that could be used for any good — and according to Taako, this was something Lup was so deliberate about!
That's such a striking contrast with the rest of her characterization, over those last few cycles — because Lup herself invented and even spearheaded the plan to create the Relics altogether. That was all alongside Barry, of course — but after a point, Lup and Barry start to differ. Like Barry, Lup was fully, single-mindedly committed to the Relics plan — tunnel-visioning so hard on it as the way to stop the Hunger, that they both outwardly rejected Lucretia's criticisms and never thought through Lucretia's plan as much as they should've, even though it clearly could've been perfected once the whole crew put their heads together. But unlike Barry — who created one of the most complex and mysterious and jarringly specifically useful Relics — Lup did nothing of the sort. Lup was evidently terrified of not just what harm her Relic could do, but how it could do that harm.
Lup was terrified in a way that no one else in the IPRE was — because no one else made a Relic that was "just damage." Everyone else made a Relic with some potential appeal, subtle or obvious, to people who wanted to do good. But Lup just... didn't.
Lup herself, champion of the necessity to create the Relics, champion of the belief that they were the only way to save the world...
...was simultaneously terrified, as the nature of her own creation shows, of the Relics' thrall corrupting the intent of "greater good."
And that's what makes me lose my mind about her character! What makes the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet just as compelling as the Animus Bell to me, even though they seem like opposites! Lup is saying the Relics need to exist, for the greater good, all while she's designing her own Relic with the philosophy that if people think they can use it for good, the harm they do will turn out worse! That good intentions will lead to more pain, more suffering!
Lup has a hundred years of experience with the Light's thrall, and what it can do — what intentions it can prey off of! And as she crafts the Gauntlet in such a way to do damage control, we can tell Lup has already subconsciously admitted that the Grand Relics will do damage! That if crafted irresponsibly, they could do things even worse than leveling an entire town! So on some level, no matter how much she's arguing for the Relics' creation, Lup fears and maybe even knows that they'll be devastating!
Lup doesn't trust a Relic-wielder's intent for "greater good." Not through any fault of their own, but not while they're under the thrall. And it's because she already doesn't trust her own ability to do "greater good," either.
So this is how Lup replies, to Taako reminding her why she made the Gauntlet how she did:
[ID: continued transcript excerpt, of Lup replying to Taako: "I know that, Taako. I know. I… And I know it’s good. Like… The Hunger’s not here. And The Hunger’s worse than anything we've done. I get all that. I just… I can’t help but ask… Did we make the right decision?" End ID.]
She calls into question whether the decision that causes less harm than the Hunger — the decision she made despite knowing what it would lead to — was ever the right decision at all. Because it's antithetical to her own morals, and she knows it. It's antithetical to the promise she made the crew swear on the robot cycle, to never even think of destroying a civilization just to fight the Hunger.
Altogether, it's such fucking fascinating characterization for her. It's such a compelling web of both contradictions and resonances, in her morals and her choices. Going into the Stolen Century, knowing it's ultimately a retcon to explain the beginning of the podcast, it seems like the contradiction will be that Lup created the most brutal Relic — because why would Lup do it, as the moral compass as the team? As the compassionate woman we're getting to know, who's forever been the most dedicated to preventing collateral damage?
It sure seems like a contradiction, before Taako gives us this information. But from there, we see — the real contradiction lies not between Lup and the Gauntlet itself, but Lup and the Relic plan at large. Lup breaks her own promise from the robot cycle — by committing to creating the Relics, and with it, consigning a world to destruction in the name of stopping the Hunger. She does this out of desperation, out of a hundred years of exhaustion, and in the name of the greater good. But as if she can tell that a tiny, tiny sliver of the thrall is still embedded in her brain, urging her to let the Light be used — she silently realizes what a mistake she's making. And she loses faith in her own ability to bring about the greater good as a result.
The Relic plan contradicts Lup's own morals. But the design of the Gauntlet contradicts Lup's own faith in the Relic plan. The Gauntlet is her ugly disillusionment. It's her admission of having betrayed herself, betrayed what she held important, and failed a whole civilization as a result. It's her admission of resignment, to acceptance of one of the most recurring declarations in the story: that "the Grand Relics cannot be used for good."
Which isn't even true, as Lucretia proves with her staff in the end, despite the fact that that declaration comes out of her mouth the most. But it's what Lup believes — because when Lup doesn't yet see the way the shield plan could actually work, all she sees with the Grand Relics are a way to doom one world, no matter how many more worlds will be saved from the Hunger. And to Lup, and what she believes in? That isn't doing good. It's unjustifiable. And letting the thrall trick you into thinking it's good? That only brings about even more suffering.
She designs the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet such that if it must exist, no one will repeat her mistake. No one will think that they're doing good with it, either.
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