...Back to Character Hub

Jewel Man

Jewel Man is a Robot Master from the Classic Mega Man series. Originating from the game Mega Man 9, he's joined the ranks of the boss characters in the Mega Man franchise.

Thanks to roleplaying, fanfiction, and other fandom means, he's become one of my personal favorite Robot Masters in the series. This fan page is a showcase of both canon information as well as a hub for various headcanons, concepts, and other meta I have for him.

Canon Information

Jewel Man is one of the many bosses for the Mega Man series. (Robot Masters in English, Numbers in Japan. This page will freely switch between the two terms.) For his home game of Mega Man 9, he is joined by the other Light Numbers of Concrete Man, Tornado Man, Splash Woman, Plug Man, Hornet Man, Magma Man, and Galaxy Man.

In the series canon given with the supplementary material books of Mega Man: Robot Master Field Guide and Mega Man Official Complete Works, Dr. Light had created Jewel as a gemstone processor for diamond mines. He's described to cut and polish gems with "skilled hands".

In Mega Man 9 proper, though Jewel isn't given any specific dialogue or quotes thanks to the game's simplistic, NES-era style of storytelling, the plot greatly revolves around him and his linemates. Planned obsolescence by government law, Jewel and the 9th line were given expiration dates that have passed before the events of the game.²

Happening to find the 9th line before they were scrapped, Dr. Wily used the situation to his advantage by feigning concern for their plight. Telling them that they had every right to live and that he could help, Wily manipulated the 9th line into reprogramming where they took to causing chaos in order to frame Dr. Light, their creator, for Wily's own actions. In the ending credits, Jewel and the rest of the 9th line are seen rebuilt with Jewel showing a gem to Roll. It's presumed that they no longer have an expiration date and are able to live freely after the events in Mega Man 9.

Personal Interpretation

Headcanons based on canon

My main headcanon for Jewel (as well as for the majority of Robot Masters but especially the 2nd, 9th and 10th lines) is just how much trauma he has. While both the fandom as well as the series itself tends to dance around the subject matter, the fact is that the entire plot of Mega Man 9 hinges on government enforced deaths of fully autonomous and sentient beings. (To the point where, despite Wily obviously not truly caring about the 9th line, even phrases it as them "having a right to live".³) There's a lot to read into this plot point.

One particular part is Dr. Light and his role. Considering Dr. Light's consistent attitude towards wanting robots to have the same equality as humans do, I highly doubt that this was something he approved of or ever wanted to allow. There's two options I can think of in this case: he either tried to fight against the 9th line's destruction, but wasn't able to appeal by the time their expiration came around or was legally incapable to go against government law. Either scenario is likely and both are unfortunate due to Light always showing a fatherly care to any and all robots. It's hard for me to imagine that Light ever wanted to fully accept the law.

Judging by the 9th line's interaction with Wily, it's clear that they weren't all that happy with the arrangement either. What makes things interesting is that the scene with the reveal of their expiration dates imply that the 9th line quietly accepted their fate if Rock's words are anything to go by.⁴ That, along with their silence to Wily's appeal asking weren't they angry at the injustice they were facing, gives me the impression that whatever objections they might have had with their upcoming deaths, they didn't voice it out loud. It's a somber idea, but it's very juicy fuel for ideas because of the various possibilties to explore.

Another part of it is Wily's role and interaction that fills me with plenty of potential possibilties. Mega Man 9 is vague on the exact details of when the law of robot expiration dates passed. If there was an interview or something that gave any details, I couldn't find any. At the very least, with Mega Man 9's script detail of Rock "haven't done this in a while" as well as the ending, there's an the implication that there's been a considerable time gap between Mega Man & Bass and Mega Man 9. So that does give me a few ideas in that regard.

One is a totally massive implication that it's Wily's fault for the robot expiration law to begin with. Whether or not you use Mega Man 8 or Mega Man & Bass as the ultimate catalyst, to me it seems like the law began after either of those two games as the Robot Masters were actively working and on duty before Wily (and/or King) had them act as bosses for you. So either after the Evil Energy incident or King trying to conquer the world with a robot-supremacist society, it seems that the robot expiration law passed thanks to those games' events and Wily's actions.

This then leads to the 9th line's interaction with Wily before they were supposed to be scrapped. The 9th line don't seem to either recognize Wily or know who he even is. The text given has them refer to Wily only as "you".⁵ Meta-wise, it's meant to play up the 'reveal' that Wily was behind the events of the game. In-universe, however, the explanation is a little more interesting to me narrative-wise. With Wily being a notorious criminal at this point, it's strange for the 9th line to not even acknowledge that even with the circumstances of their impending scrapping. So this gives me the idea that the 9th line were considerably rather young if they apparently had no idea who the strange man giving them the opportunity to live was.

So all these factors together with Dr. Light not wanting them to die in the first place, them being fairly young with an extremely limited lifespan with a planned death date because of the government placing that law on them thanks to the very man promising them a second chance at life, and them INHERENTLY wanting to be helpful to others...⁵ Needless to say, it's hard for me to imagine that any of the 9th line would be mentally sound after that.

For Jewel's specific case, I imagine he has rather severe PTSD/C-PTSD with all the mental and emotional problems that come with it. He tends to be both conflict-avoidant and avoidant of any sensitive subjects. He's also easily driven to cry and breakdown. In this same vein, Jewel also tries to make a lot of self-improvements and is constantly giving in hopes to redeem himself for the atrocities he's committed under Wily. While I'll go further into this in the other sections, part of trying to redeem himself is heavily restricting using his Jewel Satellite to help polish stones. Even as a last resort, Jewel refuses to use his Satellite for anything other than pure self-defense where it's to protect himself or others.

Headcanons based on supplementary material and offficial content

This section revolves around headcanons based on canon information, but from supplementary material as well as official content such as beta content so the "canonicity" status of the information is dubious. I figure to make this its own section because we don't truly see Jewel's personality and the like in Mega Man 9 itself, but Capcom does evidently have specific ideas of what a Robot Master's personality and role are like thanks to Mega Man & Bass' CD Database⁶ and Mega Man 11's gallery⁷. Mega Man 9 was created after Mega Man & Bass so we don't have anything of the sort for the 9th line and beyond. However, we do have the Robot Master Field Guide and Mega Man Official Complete Works to collect small bits of information from. (There was also Capcom Unity/CapcomUSA news, but while I could thankfully find info on Mega Man 10 archived⁸, I couldn't find anything for Mega Man 9. If there was information that ever existed, it's unfortunately gone now.)

In terms of the Robot Master Field Guide, we get very basic information that's already been stated. For our purposes here, I'd like to explore some of those ideas presented. Let's start with Jewel's reason for being created in the first place: diamond processing. The description of "grind and polish the rare rocks with his skilled hands" gives me the idea how meticulous and delicate Jewel is to be able to process something as hard as diamonds. So I headcanon that Jewel's "skilled hands" can be used for various other means than just cutting and polishing diamonds. I'll give an example later in the fandom exploration section. Coupled with the description of him being a "showoff"¹, I imagine that he likes getting praised for a job well done. I feel like Jewel would have a bit of a childish streak of "I did a good job so I want you to see it and tell me how good of a job I've done!" even before Mega Man 9. That attitude just twists into a need of reassurance after Mega Man 9 and his trauma manifests into his new daily life.

The next part comes from the 25th Anniversary version of the Mega Man Official Complete Works art book. While it also doesn't have a lot of information with Jewel, the small bit of information there opens up fun some very fun possibilties. The ones most important are as follows: the use of a specific Japanese term and the book calling Jewel a "Gemini type".

Let's begin with the Japanese term. There's no getting around it, what was used to describe Jewel is a slur. I don't feel like I have the place to name it, but those who are aware know that it is a derogatory phrase in Japanese. This word is an umbrella term that makes no actual distinction between effeminate gay men, crossdressers, drag queens, and trans women, typically grouping all these parties together. As I'm not Japanese, I don't know the exact nuances of reclamation to damnation that the term has with affected marginalized groups. I'm open for discussion about it, but for this case, I want to be respectful as possible by avoiding using the word in regards to Jewel. Capcom as a company, though improving as time goes on, is notorious for initially having fairly disrespectful attitudes towards groups such as LGBT+ people. So the word is used in a fairly flippant manner in this regard. It's to the point where the English version of the art book mildly censors the phrase by instead calling Jewel (in his original version) a "feminine male".

With that being said, though the use of the phrase is not great, it does make it clear that Jewel's design is queer/queer-coded in nature. So I have some very specific headcanons with this. To start is Jewel's gender. While I've used "he" as a shorthand throughout this page, I headcanon that Jewel is actually genderfluid. With Jewel's gender nonconformity, I figure Jewel would be explorative with gender switching from male, female, and non-binary freely using he, she, and they. In my mind, Jewel likes the freedom of being femme but not having a fixed gender. Sometimes she wants to be referred to as a girl. Other times they feel like being neither is more fitting. Either way, the most important thing is to Jewel is that he looks fashionable and cute no matter what gender he currently is. Jewel has tried and is open to use other pronouns, he/she/they is simply the "immediate" ones. The only pronouns that Jewel would rather not use at all are "it/its".

Next is Jewel's orientation. With Mega Man as a franchise starting in 1987, it tends to be a bit of a boy's club with having "male" as the default. Even now there are a grand total of four female characters in the Classic series with Roll, Kalinka, Splash Woman, and Plum. While it would be easy to default Jewel as "gay", especially with the phrase used, I feel like Jewel's orientation would be slightly more nuanced. In my mind, Jewel's main concern with a potential partnership is having mutual care and respect for each other. Otherwise he'd be very open regardless of what gender they may be. That being said, I feel like having a partner is something Jewel would fantasize about, but would be fairly scared and detached from in practice. It's a factor that deepened with Jewel's trauma as he would doubt anyone would really want to pursue a relationship with him in that way. While I use "demi-pan" in an attempt to label it, "panromantic greyasexual", "demisexual", and other similar terms could be used.

The last, but certainly not least for this section is the description of Jewel being referred to as a "Gemini type". Now I have access to the English version of the art book. What was written down in the original Japanese is unknown to me as I haven't found anything online or otherwise to show the text. If it says anything different or further about Jewel being a "Gemini type", I'm unfortunately unable to confirm or reference it. However, that description is huge to me as I'm also a Gemini Man fan. This headcanon leans more into fandom exploration side, but the fact that the art book directly refers to Gemini in regards to Jewel has me put it in here. So with the real world comparison and inspiration, that gives me the headcanon that Gemini's design influenced Jewel's creation similarly to the various 2 Numbers were inspired by the first line. (Elec to Quick, Guts and Bomb to Crash.)

While not intending to come across as such, that influence gives Gemini the impression that Jewel is a "replacement" for him in the same way that Blues/Proto Man thought the same for Rock/Mega Man. In my mind, Dr. Light didn't even consider that a possibility when creating Jewel, but it nonetheless makes Gemini hate Jewel's very existence. Jewel for his part greatly admires Gemini and wishes he could be like him. I think it makes for an awkward, but very fun dichotomy between the two traumatized robots. While my headcanons for Gemini's particular perspective can be found here, Jewel's side hopes that Gemini can join in with the Lights to be a family. He wants Gemini to be able to live without Wily being any sort of influence on him. Jewel can especially understand what it means to living in fear of the one that hurts you.

Headcanons from fandom exploration

Now this is where we get into headcanons that are just my personal interpretation, ideas, and other such that, while maybe inspired by canon, is completely based on nothing but my own vibes and "what if it was like this" scenarios. (AKA, I pulled them out of my ass.) With Jewel being a very minor character in the grand scheme of things, it's why a good portion of this page is extrapolating information from the official material as much as possible. Even with this section still extrapolating, it mainly comes from my own ideas for Jewel that I feel is the most appropriate to "I just think it's neat". So I hope you'll entertain me with the various concepts I've come up with for Jewel if you haven't already with the previous headcanons.

The first part is Jewel's general personality. I know it's odd to talk about that now after all the previous heacanons and information, but Jewel's exact personality is fairly undescribed with only the Robot Master Field Guide giving an extremely vague description of him being a "showoff".¹ A good portion of the 9th line are in a similar situation where their personalities are not highly defined. (Tornado Man gets it worst with not even having any hobbies or small quirks listed to even help with any sort of characterization ideas.) So I have a few ideas thanks to the previous headcanons, Jewel's appearance in Mega Man 9's ending, and canon with the other Light Robot Masters.

I personally like to imagine that Jewel is a very sweet robot who wears his heart on his sleeves. He's always willing to help others and make friends. Thanks to the ending implying that he was giving Roll the gem he was showing off, it gave me the impression that Jewel's a "spoiled sweet" type of character. (Think of Lottie from Princess and the Frog or Momo from Hero Academia for a quick comparison.) With how both the Light Numbers are typically portrayed as hard-working as well as Mega Man 9 itself showing that the 9th line still wanted to aid people, I feel that Jewel would be considerably less selfish and more giving than what's "typically" expected. Even before his trauma, I imagine that Jewel would be the type to support others. These traits just became more exaggerated after Mega Man 9.

Due to his deep emotional and mental problems, Jewel tries to mask it by being cheery most of the time. It's something he does want for himself and others, but the mask comes and goes because of his trauma. Light and the rest of the Light family do try to help him and each other with it so Jewel's suffering alone. He just feels ashamed because he feels like a burden for not only listening to Wily in the first place, but his family helping him for what he feels like is his own fault. Another aspect to this is Jewel being extremely hypervigilant to other people's emotions. He's gotten very perceptive and good at reading people out of an unconscious survival instinct if there was ever another situation like Wily again.

In a related note, I headcanon that Jewel has taken a new job to work at a jewlery store. While the ending of the game makes it clear that all of the 9th line are allowed to live, it's vague if they they were able to return to their original jobs. I feel like even if they wanted to, a good portion of them would not feel comfortable coming back and would be worried that their experience would affect the performance of their duties. That's not even getting into the psychological toll it would have on them or if their original employers would even let them come back after what happened. For Jewel, I think a jewelry store would be the best middle ground as he'd be able to work with gemstones like he normally would, but in a much more low-key environment. I think Dr. Light and Rock, having concerns for Jewel's well-being, personally helped vouch for him to ensure that he would be able to work in this less stressful job.

Also, while Jewel hates his Satellite for the potential harm it poses and has already done, it being the best shield weapon in the franchise gives me the idea that it helps strengthen already strong gems like diamonds. So Jewel found new applications to use the Satellite for less harmful means by strengthening any and all gemstones for the jewelry he makes. It can easily still be used as a weapon, but Jewel massively prefers to not do so. He desperately wants to show himself as not a threat to humans as possible. So he would want to be able to prove that by solely using the Satellite to help polish stones.

More habits born from his trauma is an unhealthy reliance on makeup and fashion. While Jewel always enjoyed these things, he's developed a complex fearing that if he was anything less than "pretty" would make people hate, fear, and reject him. So he's constantly trying to make himself look appealing in an attempt to make him look better to himself and others to the point where he gets anxiety when he doesn't have makeup on. If he has a breakdown, he feels ugly and disgusting with him trying to hide himself.

In spite of all of his trauma and understandable hatred for Dr. Wily himself, Jewel holds no ill will towards any and all Wily Numbers. Jewel actually has a great deal of pity for them. He believes it's not really their fault for their anti-social behavior if they had to have Wily as their creator. He was reprogrammed by the old doctor. He could only imagine how stressful it would be to constantly be under his thumb. While obviously well-meaning (and correct depending on the Wily bot), this attitude of Jewel's is unintentionally condescending as well. Regardless, Jewel does hope the best for Wily bots and hope they could live freely without having to worry about their terrible creator.

Another aspect, as previously mentioned, is Jewel's aforementioned "skilled hands" that he uses to process gemstones. I imagine Jewel has taken those skills for many other things, whether it's recreational, therapeutic, or even other occupational means. For example, an idea I had was Jewel taking up paper mache as a low-stress, inexpensive therapy where he can be allowed to make it imperfect. He's created various paper mache figures with his favorite being his first one, a maneki-neko. While this is just one specific idea, I imagine Jewel's dexterous hands are able to work in other scenarios.

For the last few parts of this headcanon page, this will be an unsorted assortment of ideas. One is that Jewel has a liking for sweets. While obviously not requiring to eat like a human would, Jewel takes recreational pleasure in eating sweet things. He's open to any type and while he does occasionally other things, sweets are by far his favorite. I also imagine that, as Dr. Light tries to make his robots as human-like as possible, Jewel has hair under his helmet. It's a light pink color that he tends to style in a type of medium quiff. When not styled, it's naturally soft and puffy. Jewel also has a physical tic/habit of twiddling his thumbs.

Trivia

• Jewel's aforementioned beta version is called Diamond Man! Jewel/Diamond went through a few design changes, but they're notably not as drastic as the other 9 Numbers' beta designs.
• In the same vein, the Mega Man Official Complete Works artbook also points out that Jewel's helmet and bracelets are based off rings while his chest plate is modeled after a necklace. Isn't that so cute?

Citations

1. Robot Master Field Guide. The exact text given is "Jewel Man is a showoff who adores shiny objects".
2. Mega Man 9 game script.
   Auto: "I've figured out something from the product code on that piece of scrap Mega Man picked up. That robot's period of use had expired, and it was scheduled to be scrapped."
   Roll: "I feel bad for those robots, but their expiration dates are decided by law."
3. Mega Man 9 game script.
   Dr. Wily: "Just because you reached some arbitrary expiration date doesn't mean you should be scrapped! You're all still quite useful! You have a right to live! I'm going to help you. Together we'll show the world how useful you all still can be!"
4. Mega Man 9 game script.
   Mega Man: "They were supposed to be scrapped? So why are they going crazy?"
5. Mega Man 9 game script.
   Robot: "So what are you trying to say?"
   Robot: "Hmm... perhaps you're right. We still want to be of use to people. Can you repair us?"
6. Mega Man & Bass CD Database
7. Mega Man 11 Gallery by ShadowRockZX
8. CapcomUSA's Presenting The Mega Man 10 Robot Masters