houseki no kuni
TW: CSA
I think for me when I read hnk, it was full of regret FOR having thought humanity may be annihilated down to the smallest grain of bone and having been driven to believe humanity is irredeemable bc of the way author retrospectively re-humanizes every one of his victims down to the interiority of the child made a bride kept like a happy canary
who was manipulated to abandon him SPECIFICALLY to isolate him BECAUSE she could have stabilized him and prevented the gem massacre. I think hnk author no longer believes humanity is irredeemable BUT committed betrayal and atrocity in the past due to having once believed it.
but if the author still believed it, there would be a lone planet of desolation so suffocating that the god phos would have been a black hole imploding instead of friendship and deep loyalty (the eye robot and children rocks went back for phos despite him telling them to abandon him to die)
and there would have been no retrospective seeing it didn't have to come to this (the way the gems said phos is better off a slug) (cinnabar blushing and saying if you wanted to pair up... (I would be happy to)) (seeing in horrifying glamorous clarity the child bride plucked so phos would have no stabilizing factor And understanding replicating a perfect imagination of this child's effusive complete devotion trust and joy bc even the man says "because you have a psychological disorder" (so I exploited very iota of it)) just like, if the author still believed there's nothing
in humanity that is redeeming or lovable then his human friends would not have been written with countless opportunities of regret and understanding instead of cruelty and abject condemnation even when writing a record of his own actions step by step until he lost himself and committed a massacre
bc he even says at some point. to euch the gem that wants to make peace. it's too late to go back, I have to see it through. and there would be no moments of gem joy and friendship and acceptance for cinnabar and no even sensei being called by name and loved by children and no criticism of
"why do you just believe what the lunarians say is true?" I feel like hnk is resplendent with self-guilt, regret, wishing, and a reverse humanization of all the gems that had abandoned phos and helped drive him to orchestrate the ultimate annihilation and betrayal, But I think the author once did think there was nothing in humanity that could be cherished and adored without ultimate ugliness beyond it. (the canary.) but I think he sees now that his annihilation of all human beings WASN'T inevitable and could have been stopped if only stupid phos was wise enough to reach for cinnas hand
or yama's hands behind the scenes weren't pulling his heartstrings like a puppeteer to deliberately isolate and intentionally drive him to this. he understands human beings drove him to atrocity, BUT he also understands that there were many opportunities to stop it, though it isn't until the end
that he experiences the loyalty of children and scrap metal servants that talk like vermin bums and he finally understands there's more to humanity than the atrocity he was driven to commit. he understands that the loyalty of children exists, AND implied is that one day the children will grow up
and when the children who were allowed to sing and play grow up there will be human beings again someday, with complex human hearts, and even phos can say now and here there were those among humans with good hearts, and that's why humans should be known about to children (who should be protected)
the ending is a field of flourishing baby gems (bc phos cracked when he made contact) and a ray of hope when he hears the words of the children around him and just. I think that the ending is full of hope for the next generation (of human beings) to grow where they are protecting each other n loyal and playing...
I think it's more than a contextual kernel of hope with an overarching belief in irredeemable evil bc phos, the atrocity god and evil star, was redeemed at the end and changed his stance on if all humanity should die forever including himself. ploop the eyeball only looks like that, not to represent how disgusting human beings are, but to represent a jovial and vermin slang causal bum and severely disfigured man, because his personality and behavior is the warmest in the entire series, and he is the one who goes back for phos who told him to leave him behind
hnk would have been like. oyasumi punpun. or at the very least, not beautiful. it would have been ugly or ended on cold minimalist annihilation vacuum of space hopeless alone on a desolation star until he turned to dust, it could have EASILY been that. but I think instead it bears the sum of regret for having been driven to becoming an atrocity god that committed a massacre forced to believe nothing is left. to understanding it never had to come to that, it was made to (yama), or the opportunities were missed (cinnabar), and it was kongo and not ploop who was sensei even tho they're brothers
and I think it is full of guilt and regret and human love and understanding for killed peers and companions raised in the same buddhist cult bc it imagines all of their interiorities and there's a self-exposure and violent self-condemnation in the body horror depictions of phos barely recognizable
and abjectly monstrous while also understanding he was driven to this, made that way, AND the one person who would not have looked away was remolded into a pet, and it was increasingly and increasingly too late / there was no "changing or going back"
but I think hnk is full of regret for having once believed in the necessity of human annihilation and ultimately harbors love and hope that the next gems to be / that phos this time won't be like the planet (reincarnation cycle) it was before. it would look More like berserk or junji ito in style
instead of something wretched and divine and beautiful, above all things, because it believes there's still beauty in the world... I think hnk author Did once believe the things you despise about it. but I think it's framed as exposing the regrets of a past self who committed atrocity bc he believed and was encouraged and driven to believe it was true
BUT it is not true, there is hope and beauty and worth in the world and the people to abide by these tenets most loyally are not like the man-prince yama but like the disfigured scrap flesh maimed bum eye brother of a respectable monk
and children who don't see him as an atrocity god but as a wise playmate they cherish. with the understanding children grow up to be human beings. but what if these children were cherished and allowed to play and sing from birth... what kind of humanity would that create? things can be different.
I think the end is the belief humanity is not hopeless. it can change. no children have to become phos. it is not inevitable, nor was it necessary.