ART FOR @quags1re ‘s FIC, Accomplishments of a Doomed Crown Prince ITS SO FIRE… life changed when I read their previous phaidei fic and saw that they were cooking up another one.
alright. i know i said previously that i was working on their general relationship analysis, AND I AM! but all of this has been eating at me the entire time i've been composing it and i've been in a dilemma on whether or not to include it in the analysis or make it a whole separate thing because it's really its own other topic. and!!!! here we are. it's a whole separate thing. phainaxa is kind of crazy #tbh
this post can also be titled 'Anaxa Haunts Phainon & The Entire Narrative', and you'll see why very soon.
this post will be tagged with the proper content warning labels, of course, but please be wary that i briefly talk about anaxa and his suicidal/self-harm tendencies in one part of this.
i'm pumping all of this out BEFORE 3.5, so all information here will be things we already know.
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Simulation name meanings
first things first, i want to go over their simulation names: neikos496 and skemma720.
starting with phainon's:
what does neikos mean? does 496 represent anything?
neikos is of greek origin, meaning discord or strife. along with that, tying in with empedocles' famous cosmogonic theory of the four elements, he was also the one who proposed the concept of that in which love and destruction would mix together and separate the elements.
and because i mention empedocles' philosophy and his concept of love and strife dividing and bringing tigether the four elements to maintain balance, i should also mention cyrene's simulation name, PhiLia093; philia, also of greek origin, meaning friendship, and is one of the four types of love in greek language—the others being éros (sexual desire), agapè, (altruism), and storgê (familial).
and we know all the eternal recurrences started with cyrene & phainon—cyrene sacrificing herself so that khaslana would be able to continuously experience the same cycle and collect the coreflames. khaslana kills cyrene during the destruction of aedes elysiae from the black tide so that she'll be able to do what she needs to to keep the cycle going, which is why she says "may this woeld never have need for a deliverer", because she's been aware this entire time, doing this since her and the original phainon put this plan into motion.
until the four millionth eternal recurrence, it is the original phainon/khaslana experiencing the loops—he had killed each loop phainon until that point. the hero within eventually begins to fail within his body, and in order to keep his plan going, he instead has the loop phainons kill him at the end of every cycle now, so that that phainon will inherit the previous coreflames he's consumed and his memories. and because he knows himself, he knows that each phainon will choose the same path as him and become "khaslana."
the number 496 is a perfect number.
phainon has been constantly praised by aglaea and some of the others as being the "perfect" chrysos heir, one without flaw.
(and he's really, truly not, if that wasn't obvious. this, too, actually ties into anaxa, his ideologies, and how he sees phainon, but that will be in my relationship analysis instead because wow. hey!!! they are kind of insane!!! what the fuck!!!)
moving onto anaxa's:
what does skemma mean? does 720 represent anything?
skhema, of greek origin, means something along the lines of form or figure, which could possibly tie into anaxa being the representation of reason and embodying erudition within the simulation.
however, skemma, of old-icelandic origin, means to (usually permanently) damage, to spoil, or to ruin. i mention this particular origin meaning because of anaxa and destruction's relationship, which i'll discuss soon.
as for if 720 represents anything, i'm not too sure.
i do, however, have one idea in mind, but it's not exactly the most obvious or sound.
in geometry, polyhedra/polyhedrons are 3D figures with all straight edges from all vertices connecting to each other. which goes along with the meaning of skhema, being form/shape/figure. 720° is the sum of all defects of any polyhedron.
and what does defect mean? a fault or flaw.
in geometry, an angular defect is the failure of some/certain angles not being able to add up to 360° or 180°.
fault, flaw, and failure, unlike 496, which is a perfect number.
anaxa who is reason and is the simulation embodiment for erudition, being a failure. whereas phainon, who is worldbearing and is the simulation embodiment for destruction, is perfect. irontomb, being a lord ravager of destruction, meant to eliminate erudition.
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Anaxa & Destruction
now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get into the relationship between anaxa and destruction.
starting off with anaxa's past and character stories—all of his character stories are presented to us in a way that tells us that the form of media it was previously was already destroyed, forgotten, or never found.
in character story 1, cerces is flipping through his past memories before being promptly shut out by anaxa. and post 3.2, cerces is dead, having died alongside anaxa when he took the coreflame out of his chest at the very end.
in character story 2, we read the contents of a parapsychology experiment log anaxa had conducted. however, the original copy had already been destroyed.
in character story 3, we are shown a speech anaxa had improvised during a meeting between the sages of the grove. with the grove now destroyed and it being from just a simple meeting out of many, it's already been forgotten.
and finally, in character story 4, an echo in anaxa's memories had been made by him after the grove fell, but no one discovered it, so it vanished.
along with all of that, we really know nothing about anaxa aside from his ideals and personality—his backstory is never explored within the trailblaze quests, his sister is only mentioned in passing, his parents only ONCE, and his mentor, who we did see in a flashback, but has been dead pre-canon timeline. his mentor's name was also empedocles.
his parents, his sister, his mentor, and cerces, who had inhabited his body for that short time—they are all dead.
his previous home before he was able to leave to the grove was never named and was destroyed pre-canon timeline, and we witnessed the aftermath of the grove after it had fallen—both of his homes destroyed.
aside from that, anaxa had a grave that he would regularly clean and take care of, as if he was already anticipating his death.
i do not think i've ever talked about this in other posts, but i think that anaxa was definitely suicidal but not ready to actually take action to kill himself properly, instead resorting to harming himself repeatedly during his experiments, to the point where empedocles had told him to stop and never again harm himself once he had found out. anaxa had promised him he wouldn't anymore, but after empedocles had passed, that promise was soon broken.
anaxa is self-destructive and self-sacrificial—his body is littered with spells and markings from experiments. not only that, but when he had conducted his experiment to be able to see his sister one last time, we know that he carved his own left eye out as a sacrifice for the process. he also carved out his own heart as a sacrifice to make the stone tablet that would be able to guide castorice on her journey to find thanatos.
cerces themself even asks him at one point in 3.2, "why are you always trying to find ways to die? isn't it good to be alive?"
anaxa dies in Every Single eternal recurrence. not once does he survive, unlike the others who have all survived various times across multiple eternal recurrences.
not only that, but his body is eerily similar to flame reaver/khaslana's—both are void-like, cracked, and on the brink of destruction.
and he haunts the narrative without fail. he is brought up continuously in 3.4 by khaslana AND lygus. he seems to always be the last one shown when we're peering into khaslana's memories of past recurrences. his teachings still hold dear to hyacine and phainon both, even though he's been gone.
he is the only one we really know nothing about, and yet he hangs over everything like a looming shadow.
and the way anaxa not only haunts the entire narrative, but literally khaslana himself as well—looming over him, inside his thoughts and actions, consuming him. not to mention, every time worldbearing is somewhere, of course, reason is not too far behind, even in the game mechanics. same with destruction and erudition when it comes to amphoreus.
anaxa's golden boons within the divergent universe primarily have to do with Destructible Curios. which really makes me crazy, because again, he who is reason & erudition, seems to always be destroyed in one way or another, except by the one who is meant to be molded into something that destroys, and that is khaslana.
anaxa's as i've written/divergent universe art is of him depicted upside down and hanging, referencing odin in norse mythology and the hanged man tarot card (since tarot cards are cyrene's thing, especially with her connections to oronyx and time.) he is the hanged man tarot card in cyrene's deck.
what's important about that?
the story of odin in norse mythology is that he hung himself upside down from yggdrasil for nine days and nights to obtain knowledge of other worlds and to understand the runes.
before doing that, odin had sacrificed his eye into mimir's well and then pierced himself with gungnir, his spear. all of this was considered something of a ritualistic suicide.
as for what the tarot card symbolizes; the hanged man in tarot readings means ultimate sacrifice and surrender. shifting your perspective to give in to time so that things may unfold naturally—a pause in action.
and all of this fits quite well with anaxa.
his as i've written log also explains that his survival priority approaches zero. (which. what the hell. cmon anaxa stay alive for once)
because he is the first individual to uncover the truth of amphoreus, his evolution rate is stated to be extremely unreplicable. along with that, his behavior demonstrated the possible self-destructive inclinations of erudition.
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Phainon & Erudition
moving on, with phainon & erudition, it's not as blatantly laid out like anaxa & destruction—much of phainon's connections with erudition are sourced through anaxa himself, because anaxa is Reason.
phainon's dream, before being roped into a hero because of the prophecy and destruction of aedes elysiae, was to be a scholar.
when aglaea had sent him to the grove to study, originally, he applied for a different school but admittedly got reassigned to anaxa's nousporism.
anaxa and phainon's relationship is important for a multitude of reasons, but for now, let's focus on one particular aspect of their dynamic while phainon was in the grove—anaxa and peace to phainon.
like i had just stated, phainon's dream was to be a scholar. when studying in the grove, he was able to do just that. but it's VERY important to know this while also remembering the fact that anaxa is the only one who sees him for Phainon and not the prophesied Deliverer.
anaxa is constantly addressing him as only Phainon or Phainon Of Aedes Elysiae, never hero, or worldbearer, or deliverer, etc... phainon struggles with seeing himself past the role he was forced to be and continuously thinks everyone around him really only sees him as such as well, so he doesn't try to think otherwise because he assumes this is all he is meant to be.
him being able to live his dream of being a scholar, paired with the fact that anaxa views him for Him, instilling his sense of self once more, is what gave phainon peace.
the average student takes about 4 years to complete their studies and graduate the grove, but phainon took much longer than that—up to 5 to 10 years instead.
and phainon isn't stupid by any means—he is one of, if not the most, exceptional student anaxa has ever had, stated by anaxa himself. he is extremely good at debating, has earned consecutive wreaths for it, and is a fast learner.
him taking 5 to 10 years instead of the normal 4 could very well likely be due to the fact that he did not want to leave the peace he felt while in the grove and with anaxa—he was free of weights there, able to be himself, rather than the Worldbearer.
and anaxa never did anything about it either; it's never stated that he tried to get phainon to leave back to okhema after the 4 year mark, and that is something anaxa would never do anyway.
phainon is just as important to anaxa as anaxa is to phainon. phainon is one of the few people anaxa allowed himself to be close to, and i won't dive into this too much since i think it would be a better fit for their general relationship analysis, but phainon was constantly trying to break down the barrier between them of teacher/student, whilst also trying to respect anaxa as a person he admires.
in the original cn text, phainon uses informal terms towards anaxa, and anaxa doesn't make any effort to correct him—this is because despite phainon trying so hard, he never really had to in the first place.
compared to others, when phainon addresses anaxa as Anaxa and not anaxagoras, rarely, if not ever, are there instances where anaxa corrects him, instead, letting it slide.
phainon has never had to try as hard as he thinks because anaxa was already letting him in.
he keeps anaxa's teachings dear to him, remembering them even if he graduated so long ago.
khaslana, while experiencing the loops before having to change his methods of obtaining the coreflames, never had to worry about anaxa being one he would fight with or have to kill. anaxa was willing to help him regardless, despite not being able to fully believe his words and what he would tell him.
and what's more is that, before the four millionth eternal recurrence, khaslana always killed the loop version of himself when he had to kill cyrene—anaxa, of all those loops, had never meant the phainon in any of the other loops.
but khaslana had told him that he was once his pupil, and anaxa let him in regardless. he helped him despite it all.
and we know, in the 134th loop, anaxa confronted him on his methods as well, being Reason and trying to get khaslana to turn back, because not only was he hurting the humanity he swore to protect and love, he was hurting himself too.
again, anaxa had never met phainon. but he still did all of this. and not once had khaslana try to destroy him—not even during 3.1 when they were all fighting against him. he attempted to go for the coreflame in anaxa's chest, had tried to, for once, harm anaxa because it was the only way, and yet, when anaxa instead took the coreflame of time from him, he only tried to yank back the ceremonial blade instead of killing him then and there.
and khaslana has never truly lost himself because of Reason—anaxa has always haunted him.
one who is destruction finds peace within the thing he is born to destroy.
along with all of this, phainon's BP lightcone, A Dream Scented in Wheat, is an erudition lightcone.
wheat being the symbol of aedes elysiae, his home, and it being an erudition lightcone amongst all else—yet again, the peace phainon desires.
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Conclusion
dude i'm gonna be honest. i actually have no idea how to finish this off, but do you see it all now. how fucking crazy they are. how utterly intertwined they are.
they're quite literally programmed to go together in one way or another—within amphoreus, destruction & erudition are always hand in hand some way, somehow, like worldbearing & reason.
and them also having SO MANY references and callbacks to kevin & su. a bit crazy!
considering phainon, cyrene, & anaxa are the only ones amongst the heirs that have multiple callbacks to kevin, elysia, and su, respectively, it was bound to be this complex.
i'd really like to talk about phainon being the sun, cyrene the moon, and anaxa being the stars, along with the anaxa-march connections but. again, i feel like that's a whole new topic for a separate post (<- guy who says this and she's going to take 6000 years to finish it), and i still haven't even finished my phainaxa relationship analysis.
OKAY..... ANYWAYS. THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR.... IF YOU DID..... #PHAINAXA4EVER
