Originally Posted by
BobbysWorld
My ideal take on this would be to reveal this is literally WHY Phoenix hosts exist. Jean discovers in the WHR that the Dominion & other similar forces have been TRYING to accelerate her transcendental ascension into the Phoenix, because as a multiversal entity existing across all time and space, there's an inevitable shift in perspective that accompanies that kind of existence. Put simply, Jean as Phoenix on that level simply is not going to care about the same things Jean the mortal does, and the big picture perspective on the state of the universe, and particularly the state of mutantkind & humanity, let alone individual beings....makes it a lot easier for the Dominion & other cosmic players to slip things past the Phoenix's defenses, especially if they're focused on mutantkind....because the framing of events, consequences, etc, on THAT kind of scale is bound to have the full transcendental Phoenix LESS likely to fight her enemies in defense of one single life, or even one single planet....with the same intensity that Jean the mortal in her first 100 years of existence would.
I'd go with the idea that that's what the Dominion's game is in terms of Jean. Trying to fasttrack her ascent to godhood in ways that leapfrog over ways a Jean pacing herself through her apotheosis might come up with to retain her human perspective alongside her broadened awareness.
Thus, I'd build to the idea that the reason the Phoenix 'shattered' - is because Jean did it HERSELF. It was done from the WHR, by Jean, as her loophole to the Dominion's agenda here. Because shattering her most transcended self in a way that forced the Phoenix to seek out mortal hosts throughout time & space and arrive at some kind of symbiosis with them....necessitates pairing the Phoenix's immortal omnipotence WITH a mortal perspective & emotions in the driver's seat. Which acts as a tether helping the transcendent Phoenix remember & reconnect with her own mortal beginnings & priorities, and helps pave the way for Phoenix work throughout time & space to be done without the mortal perspective being left out of the how and why of it all.
And having Jean understand and realize this, and BE the one to shatter herself in the WHR essentially pivots her character journey away from an endgoal that's impractical to ever arrive at from an out of universe perspective (Jean fully transcending as the Phoenix once and for all, her shattered essence restored to one omniversal being), to one where readers get the fulfillment of that storyline by reframing it as her character herself determining it not to be HER preferred endgoal. This, IMO, works out better for Jean both narratively and from a character perspective...she achieves clarity of identity and a full big picture view of her 'destiny' and takes control of it by shattering herself in order to create one that works better for her....one wherein she can continue to live her mortal life comfortably with her friends & family and retain her mortal perspective as long as possible, while being content that she's not denying the universe the important Phoenix work she feels she should be doing as the Phoenix....because that was the point of setting things up so the Phoenix Force has to work WITH mortal hosts. The work will continue, it just doesn't all have to be on her or her alone.
She's delegating, yes. But not without giving up her own seat at the superhero table in the here and now. She's the Phoenix. She can do it all.
And optimally, because I do prefer an eventual progression of all the mutant omegas to focus more on cosmic adventures and big picture universal threats rather than continuously getting nerfed the latest time Marvel wants to present some bigot with a gun or his pet robot as the ultimate unbeatable adversary, able to stump even planet-breakers with ease.....a Jean in her omega era, post-Shattering-herself-in-the-WHR storyline retains her awareness of how the WHR works, WHY she shattered herself, and thus is perfectly positioned to go to and from the WHR as needed and from its central point in existence peer across time and space and see where and when Phoenix work most needs doing, and like....search among the locals of that area/era for whom she thinks is the most suitable partner for one of her Phoenix fragments, steering events from the WHR so that she basically picks her own hosts for reasons that fit her current agendas and mortal perspective, before clocking out and going back home to her friends & family.
She doesn't ever permanently embrace the full state of existence as the Phoenix (at least not in the next 100 years from an in universe perspective, or ever, from ours) because she's unwilling to also embrace the perspective that would come with that, or what she'd lose in the process....but via this narrative mechanism, she doesn't HAVE to either, while still being able to assemble other aspects of herself, call upon other hosts from throughout time and space to help her defeat current threats, not unlike how Ewing had Thor call upon the Thor Corps in Immortal Thor. The Phoenix parts of all of them are still all Jean, and their hosts are all the people she personally handpicked to WORK with all those different pieces of herself.