Fridge / Land of the Lustrous

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

---

Fridge Brilliance

• Some of the Lustrous' personalities fits with the purposes of the gemstones that they're made from in surprisingly fitting ways.
  • Diamond: Why is Diamond so prone of Thinks Like a Romance Novel, to the point it borderlines Shipping between two gems? Well, what is the most common gemstone used for engagement and wedding rings alike again? This also explains why Diamond is so feminine as well, as Diamonds are most often associated with Femininity.
  • Bort: The no nonsense attitude and serious demeanor displayed? Well, bort in general is only used for heavy industry-related purposes, specifically, drill bits. No wonder they're so dead serious all the time. Bort even made a spinning drill-move of their own, using their hair, against Ventricosous when she appeared for the first time.
  • Yellow Diamond: Depending on the demand, a yellow diamond is actually worth a lot less than a colorless diamond if they have the same carat to them. However, depending on the hue of the yellow, they can either be the most prized gemstones on earth or the most overlooked one due to their impurities. In particular, if colorless diamonds are at the top of the scale, the fancy vivid yellow diamond is at the bottom. No wonder Yellow Diamond's self-confidence is so low despite being loved by the other Lustrous, particularly Zircon. They're an impure diamond.
  • Red Beryl: Why is Red Beryl the one most obsessed with clothes and fashion and decorations? Well, beryl in general, through history, has been mainly used as decorative jewelry for clothing.
  • Morganite: Morganite is haughty and sees themselves as "cool and cute". The gemstone of morganite is named after J.P. Morgan, well-known successful financier that is said to be America's "greatest banker", though ultimately and ironically, he wasn't rich himself. Morganite isn't as awesome as they claim, since it turns out that they were taken to the moon during the Time Skip.
  • Goshenite: Goshenite is said to be the purest beryl, which may explain why they're known for being gentle and kind.
• The above also extends to the gems job roles, based on what the materials are used for for certain gems:
  • Obsidian is in charge of designing and crafting the weapons used by the gems. This is because Obsidian material is used by blacksmiths for crafting weapons such as knives, arrowheads and various other types of weapons.
• Why Phos is so fixated on Cinnabar, even though the latter actively tries to stay away from all of the gems? Cinnabar has Mohs hardness of 2.0, even lower than Phosphophyllite.
• Why can Phos understand the speech of the ice-floes? Well, the ice-floes themselves are micro-organisms from the ocean, floating up to the surface, and what exactly happened to Phos' original legs before winter arrived? Add to the equation that Phos' inclusions seems to adapt and spread to anything they get attached to and it's no mystery what's going on between them and the Ice-floes. It's practically Telepathy between pieces of themselves.
• Phos' first time with the gold transplants comes off as bizarre at first, but in reality, does reflect the gem's desires perfectly. Its golden cube shape is simply a representation of Phos' comfort zone, who not long ago told Antarcticite about the ease of sticking to familiar things rather than trying something new, which also shows how restricting this mindset really is as the cube also serves as a cell for Phos through this mindset (Ex. Thinking outside of the box).
  • The lotus-shape it assumes right after serves as symbolism for Phos' newfound enlightenment and awakening as a person to break free of their comfort-zone and leave it behind for good.
• Probably unintentional, but the Gems' obsession with softness and fluffiness of animals could be justified by lack of mammals on the surface world.
• Phosphatic fossilization is the process of artificial fossilization by scientists so that they can preserve high-resolution microfossils for safekeeping and later observations. Part of what Phos wants to do is discover the truth, and throughout the story, their life is adjusted with body parts that aren't theirs.
• Phos' consistent losing of his limbs overtime may seem random and pointless to some, but it's actually a reference to the Seven Treasures of the Lotus Sutra. Phos loses their legs, and they are replaced with agate. Phos loses their arms and they are replaced with gold. Phos loses their head and it is replaced with Lapis Lazuli. They lose an eye and it is replaced with a pearl. This carries on the underlying Buddhism theme within the series and symbolizes Phos' growth as a character as they learn more about the world around them and tread on their path to wisdom.
  • Along with this, Phos seems to be undergoing what the seven treasures represent in Buddhism: perseverance (highlighted after they get their Agate legs), sense of shame (they gain this after getting their gold & silver arms after Antarc is taken), wisdom (Phos becomes manipulative when they get Lapis's head)...
• Why is Lapis Lazuli used to replace Phos' head? Phosphophyllite is related to another phosphate mineral known as lazulite.
• Why did the Prince insert a surveillance camera in Phos' eye-socket after their deal had been made? Well, considering how the last time the Lunarians made a deal with someone of another species (which resulted in a complete loss for them and two freed hostages) went, it's no mystery that they wanted a real reassurance that the deal goes through this time around.
  • Their oddly eager willingness to even make the deal at all with Phos and their ease with accepting the gem's demands even if the latter fail make a darker turn as it is eventually revealed that their endgame would result in the complete annihilation of all species of humanity and not just them. Essentially making all of their promises post-deal as empty and hollow as the clouds they're composed of. They never planned to honor any of their deals from the get-go.
• Padparascha up and giving Rutile their central filling makes for a great double meaning: for one, it's a great distraction for an obsessive and cracked Gem and a slap to the face showing them that they could have never managed to do what the Lunarians accomplished. For another, Padparacha had to break off a few parts of their body to do this action; it was literally breaking their heart to see Rutile this unhinged.
• It's unsurprising that the Admirabilis ended up as the "flesh" of humanity and were implied to hold similar time frames to them. They live swimming in the literal remains of humanity, after all.
• Aechmea being of a higher caste than the rest of the Lunarians directly parallels the figures the Lunarians are visually based on: bodhisattvas delay their achievement of nirvana in the interest of helping others reach it. Aechmea refused to move onto the "Other World" before helping the Lunarians of Kubera.
• Many have pointed out that the Lunarians have names referring to bugs or plants, which corresponds to Buddhist beliefs that insects and plants were the lowest a reincarnation could go. This naming scheme works for the Lunarians since all of them are supposed to be the absolute lowest in the overall Lunarian moral caste system.
• The way the Lunarians are ultimately able to pass on accurately reflects the caste they originated from. While the Lunarians before them were higher up in the caste system—and therefore more innocent—they got the least morally heinous method. The Kubera residents, those who were deemed irredeemable and the lowest rung, needed murkier methods to finally ascend.

Fridge Horror

• Come the end of Chapter 95, almost all Gems, some captured even before the series properly starts, are all Lunarians. Despite Aechmea's assurance that they'll live in their own paradise, he and Barbata have mentioned before that even the Lunarians of higher, and thereby more moral, castes eventually got tired of being forever young. Considering Yellow already cracked under the mental weight of 220 years, how's 10,000 years going to affect all of them? How will Gems long captured take the revelations of the past 95 Chapters of the series?
  • There's probably Gems that never let go of their hatred for the Lunarians even after coming back to life. Figuring out they've been forcibly revived as their enemies might even dredge up some harsh self-loathing, or even make them fear that the fact that they're alive now means they "owe" the Lunarians.
  • If being on the moon with limited contact with Earth made the moon Gems forget, imagine what 10,000 years with no reason to go back down will do.
    • The Moon Gems at least were all gradually convinced or individually chose to go to the moon, and thereby were a lot more receptive to the Lunarians gradually assimilating them into their culture and society. Aechmea's wording seems to imply that the Gems will be largely allowed to isolate themselves— meaning things like Alexandrite forgetting their burning hatred might end up being a lot less common in the long run.
  • Gems from past and present are getting revived. This potentially includes Ghost, whose existence gave Cairngorm some pretty dire identity issues. After being convinced that Ghost (or at least their remains) is nothing but a parasite on their own will and shaping their own identity away from their life on Earth, what's Cairngorm going to do now that Ghost is physically their own person again?
• Everything Phos contributed to would never earn them credit from either the Lunarians or the Lustrous because of how Aechmea frames the outcomes. The Lunarian/Gem alliance? A result of Cairngorm falling in love with Aechmea and agreeing to the political marriage, rather than Phos cooperating with Aechmea prior to the first Night Raid. The Lunarians holding a ceasefire for 200 years? Nothing to do with losing their observation Gem, as nobody on Earth thought Phos had a hidden camera. The Gems being revived? They're revived as Lunarians rather than Gems, Aechmea takes all the remaining Earth Gems behind Phos' back, and Phos is deliberately kept away from everyone. Anything Phos has done (or attempted to do) is covered up and diverted elsewhere, leading to them pulling more desperate maneuvers to finally get a personal goal achieved.

Fridge Logic

• Why didn't Rutile ever use Padparadscha's hair to fix the holes in their body? They have a lot of it and we've seen a gem's hair used for repairs twice in the show, so it's not an unknown thing.
  • It's possible that Padparadscha requested against it or Red Beryl refuses for this to happen. Another reason could be that it's because the holes are simply that numerous and that massive— Gem hair, while mineral, apparently has the consistency of human hair (or at least in the example of Lapis Lazuli's head), meaning that it could be difficult to work with in terms of plugging up Padparadscha's body. Phos's damages were relatively minor cracks the first time around, and still used up a considerable amount of their hair. Finally, simply put— Gem hair has very scant amounts of inclusions in it, and for Padparascha, who has deep holes in their body, they need all the inclusions they can get.
  • It's later revealed that Rutile's attitude towards curing Padparadscha's affliction was less about Pad's wellbeing and more because of Rutile feeling entitled to being the only one to fix them. It's quite possible that Rutile didn't use the hair because the solution both wouldn't have been satisfying, and because Rutile didn't want to find a solution too soon.
• If the Lunarians can convert the Gems based on their inclusions, it makes sense for the remaining Admirabilis to be converted as well. But when they're gathered to beg to Phos Admirabilis that were very old and long since dead show up in the crowd, such as Ventricosus and Veriagatus. How would the Lunarians be able to revive them as Lunarians, given that their remains should have been gone for hundreds of years by the time conversion was possible?