#but then again the goal of aechmea was to help his people

[crazysodomite]

i cant. but how can you call phos selfish when they couldn't have ever known that all these events in their life were constructed specifically to force them into all these horrible positions. did they ever really have a choice

#the 10000 years artbook makes me kind of feel sick #they don't deserve even a passing mention... everyone moved on #of course this happiness is also artificially constructed as part of his plan #they're all happy and get everything they want just so they don't interfere. DAMN #but then again isn't this what phos wanted in the end #everyone got a happy life. even though they were never able to participate or experience it #is it selfish to want to be happy and have your own life not as part of someones plan #you could say it is. in the end they just wanted nothingness #just as planned #being angry. how dare you leave them and forget about them and make them suffer all this time? it IS selfish and vindictive #the greater good is prioritizing the needs and happiness of the many. it all just happens to be part of the carefully constructed plan #i have a lot to think about on artificially constructed happiness #but then again the goal of aechmea was to help his people #but then AGAIN #does the goal justify the means

[houseki-no-suffering]

Why did Aechmea thank Cairn? What do you think he meant by ‘progress is going smoothly’? He’s going to betray the gems, isn’t he?

while he is definitely the shadiest person to have graced HnK’s pages with their presence so far, I don’t think Aechmea is going to betray the gems. Yet. But I guess it also depends on your own definition of betrayal.

The pact between Phos and Aechmea was never built on equal grounds to begin with. Phos arrived on the moon as a captive and that’s the way Aechmea is still treating them. When Phos came up with the idea of betraying Sensei and bringing more gems to the moon, Aechmea’s biggest concern was to keep his upper hand on Phos even as they returned on Earth. That’s the reason he implanted a synthetic pearl eye in Phos: “If you go, I will attach a supervisor to you.”

He says it will help him follow Phos’ actions, but it shows his lack of trust toward Phos and his reluctance to let them go. Aechmea is a controlling man. He likely started scheming about how he could exploit Phos the second they started talking to him. Maybe even before that: like @red-dia pointed out some time ago, Aechmea must have prepared the synthetic pearl in advance. Who knows how many plans and aces up his sleeve he has. 

Phos doesn’t trust him, Cairngorm says they love him, but even they know that Aechmea can be “a scary guy,” they just chose to push the knowledge to the back of their mind for the sake of living their honeymoon dreams. 

Aechmea is still devoted, first and foremost, to his own plan. Everything else comes second. Unlike Barbata, for example, he is not even remotely sorry about grinding to dust and killing thousands of gems for the vague hope of stirring some desire to pray in Sensei’s mind. When Phos collapses after Aechmea took away their eye, Cicada is the one to help them, Aechmea simply walks away.

You can’t expect absolute loyalty from a man like this because he sees people as mere instruments, objects to reach his goal. Not to mention that he still has the upper hand both in his relationship with Cairn and in the pact with the gems. 

The moment killing Phos or ‘betraying’ the gems becomes a more convenient solution to his problems, he will turn his back on them, surprising a total of zero people.

That being said, I do believe that having faith in Phos is his best shot at the moment, so that’s what Aechmea will keep on doing. He is a patient man: what’s a few years, a few centuries, if compared with the eternity that he and his kind have been spending on the moon? 

His line: “progress is going smoothly” could just be his reaction to what Phos said. He is pleased that Phos will try, once again, to speak with Sensei.

On a more conspiratory note, though, we could also suppose that he is moving in several directions at the same time: exploiting his relationship with Cairngorm, using Phos, and maybe even something else entirely that we still do not know.  He is a politician, he’s not going to bet everything on just one horse.

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #hnk #aechmea #meta #Anonymous