Steven Universe: Intriguing beyond belief

Cafe Society
261

And it’s back to theorizing!

I’ve done some Rose Quartz theorizing in the past, but we’ve learned a lot more about Homeworld and Gems since then. Especially since we now know that Rose Quartzes were a (relatively) new line of Gems created by and for Pink Diamond. We also know that each Gem has a specific function or purpose.

So the question is: What was Rose Quartz’ purpose?

Obviously, she’s a Quartz and Quartzes are big, tough warriors and Rose is no exception. However, we’ve met lots of Quartzes and, other than her size and bulk, Rose doesn’t look much like Amethysts, Jaspers, Carnelians, etc. Obviously, there’s a dress and hair, but also her form and features are soft and rounder. Jasper could never be described as maternal, but Rose certainly can be. Not only is she Steven’s mother, but she is also a defacto mother to Amethyst.

Then there’s the matter of her powers. Why would a Gem society that officially disdains emotions create a Gem whose powers depend on her emotions. Obviously, Rose’s healing powers would be a great boon to Gemkind, but to make them so that they will only work when she has strong feelings about the afflicted? Gem society also disdains organic life, so why was Rose given powers linked to organic life?

Rose Quartz was created with powers that depend on her empathy to function and powers that tie her to organic life. Is it any surprise that she developed empathy towards humanity and life on Earth and then decided to take action to prevent its utter destruction? Did Pink Diamond sow the seeds of the Rebellion and her own demise by creating Rose Quartz?

Maybe Pink Diamond, as the “newest” Diamond, saw the cracks in rigidly hierarchical Gem society run by fear-based control and denial of emotions and wanted to try running her court along different, perhaps kinder and familial, principles, thus creating Rose Quartzes? And is it possible that some elements of Homeworld (coughYellow Diamondcough) could have seen this as a threat to the future order of Gem society?

Note: Occam’s Razor still dictates that Rose shattered PD, but the revelations of “The Trial’” seem to indicate that PD might have been set up by a high-ranking Gem for Rose to ambush.

262

I dunno. I see it as us being set up to believe that Yellow Diamond somehow orchestrated PD’s death, possibly creating a purposed Rose Quartz to do the deed (and maybe not for political reasons but out of jealousy since it is clear that BD had particularly strong feelings for PD) but of course that makes me suspect a twist yet to come. WD is still the completely unknown factor. I suspect WD orchestrated the murder of PD (framing Rose) and that YD is more in on the cover up.

But yeah the why the Rose Quartz class was created in the first place, given the strengths of the gem, is a question. Maybe some connection to the depths of BD’s feelings?

When is the next ep?

263

LOL! I missed that. It looks like Blue Pearl has just been phoning it in for a long time.

264

Ok, lets do this:

Suspects:

Rose Quartz
-Admitted to/ did not deny shattering PD
-Ruby (Eyeball) claimed to have seen her shatter PD
-Known enemy of PD
On the other hand
-A known enemy could not have gotten so close to PD
-Her sword could not shatter gems

Yellow Diamond
-Generally unpleasant and hates Earth
-Opposed the trial and eliminated witnesses when the official story was questioned
-Had the authority to meet with PD and cover it up
On the other hand
-Too easy. The most obvious suspect

Blue Diamond
-Nope

White Diamond
-All we know is that she’s the Diamond that controls the most colonies and didn’t attend the trial. Presumably the leader of the Diamonds.
Note that we see a silhouette of White Diamond’s head among the buildings on homeworld- my guess is that it isn’t a statue, but that White Diamond is just that big, dwarfing the other diamonds like they dwarf the regular gems.

Pink Diamond
-She faked her own shattering and framed/was helped by Rose
-Explains how Rose got through security, but was seen attacking PD.
-Works from a story point of view- Rose isn’t an assassin, but still keeps secrets.

Pink Diamond’s Pearl-
-Everyone is surprised when she is mentioned- Where is she now?
-Is she our Pearl?

Any other suspects?

265

I’ve seen speculation that it’s not White Diamond’s head: Blue Diamond has a spaceship that’s a right arm, Yellow Diamond has a spaceship that’s a left arm. White Diamond may have a spaceship that forms Gem-Voltron’s head.

266

This is my pet theory that I was going to mention. I think Rose rebelled on orders from PD. She fell in love with Earth/Earthlings and created Rose Quartz as a sort of response to that. Tho Diamonds seem to have supreme authority over their vassals, they still can’t just do anything they please. Hence secretly fomenting a rebellion while publicly opposing it, in order to go “Hey fellow Diamonds, this earth place isn’t worth the aggravation, I’mma go colonize some other planet, kay?”
So I figure Yellow D cottoned on to what was going on with earth, YD and PD argued about it. And at this point either PD decided the jig is up and faked her death, or the argument with Yellow was so heated she accidentally shattered PD. Perhaps that was the reason for creating the Cluster, to punish the planet for making her kill a fellow diamond, as she saw it.

267

a) Rose Quartz was not created on Earth.
b) Gems witnessed Pink Diamond’s demise. Eyeball may not be the best witness, but I don’t think she would confuse Rose Quartz for Yellow Diamond. I could certainly see Yellow Diamond involved in setting up Pink Diamond and covering it up, but not actually doing the deed.
c) Rose would have no reason to take the fall for Yellow Diamond. YD can certainly arrange for Rose to take the blame on Homeworld, but Rose would have no reason to let Garnet and Pearl think she shattered PD.
d) For your theory to work, it means that Rose is a monster. If Pink Diamond and Rose cooked up the Rebellion together, it means that the thousands of Gems who were shattered in the war died for a ruse. And Rose recruited all these Gems for her army by feeding them a line of hooey

268

The Giant White Diamond in the background on Homeworld in “Off Colors” could very well be a Head/Torso ship. Also, the structure seen in the desert in “Lion 4” looks a lot like part of a pair of pink legs mostly submerged underground.

269

It was pretty striking at the time that Steven seemed to be sorta reverse birthing when he entered. And in his metaphoric womb of origin he found the what if potential of what he would be.

Simple question that there may not be a simple answer to - are Pearls a special class that is just one per Diamond? We’ve seen a Blue Pearl, a Yellow Pearl, and our Pearl who has no clear color with white skin but other colors in her design as well and her diamond in White Diamond’s gem location. Pink Diamond’s Pearl is mentioned but not seen and White Diamond’s is as unseen as White Diamond has been herself. Unless, as commonly speculated, our perfectionistic Pearl is the perfect White Diamond’s Pearl. Signs point there but misdirection must be suspected.

Where do the separate speculations that our Pearl is WD’s or PD’s Pearl each lead us?

Our Pearl can holographically project. Could our Pearl have holographically projected an image of Rose doing the deed? Good enough to fool Eyeball and others from a distance. But why would our Pearl do that and why would Rose allow others to believe she had actually shattered PD if she had not and someone else did (YD … doubt … or WD … less doubt) or if it never actually happened and PD is either actually imprisoned (possible) or hiding (doubt).

And doubling back to why Rose Quartz with a strength of empathy would be created in the first place … it almost has to do something with BD’s power being tied with the strength of her emotions and the strong emotions BD clearly had for PD.

I feel like those questions all tie together somehow but I’m just not quite fitting answers together.

270

No - it’s also possible for other high-caste gems to have Pearls - CG Pearl successfully passed herself off as Sapphire’s Pearl once.

271

Eyeball thought she was going to be awarded a Pearl for killing Rose Quartz.

272

Thank you both. So the Crystal Gem Pearl need not have been a Diamond’s as is commonly speculated. Still it is interesting that we have been told origin backstories for Garnet and Amethyst and how they came to join the rebellion, but not for Pearl … other than that she desperately loved Rose. Is that a dog that did not bark? Is the story of how she came to join the rebellion something yet to be told?

273

??? We literally saw Pearl holographically re-enact her joining Rose Quartz in the Rebellion at the very start, when it was still just a notion in “Rose’s Scabbard”

We know that: a)She was Rose’s Pearl at the time. b) She was already devoted to Rose, implying that they had been together for a while. We don’t know what Pearl was doing before she was Rose’s Pearl.

274

The recent episodes brought to mind an old theory about Lion being Pink Diamond. Perhaps Rose arrived to the scene after Pink Diamond was already shattered, and resurrected her as Lion similarly to how Steven resurrected Lars. The gems who were present might have mistaken this as Rose being responsible for shattering her.

275

My memory may be faulty but I remember that as Pearl being with Rose, clearly being in love with her, and pledging her loyalty before the big battle, but not being Rose’s Pearl. I could be remembering incorrectly to be sure. Maybe she was Rose’s Pearl but I am thinking both that Rose would not have ever been interested in “having a Pearl” and that there may be more of a story to how she came to be there than Rose being granted a Pearl to have of her own based on her high status is PD’s court.

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Rose literally addresses Pearl as “my Pearl” during the speech. If she wasn’t Rose’s Pearl at that time, the only other possibilities are if she was Pink Diamond’s, or another Gem in PD’s court, as that would be the only way Pearl could have the opportunity to get to know Rose well enough to fall in love with her.

Also, the speech is not before the big battle at the Strawberry Battlefield, but it’s when Rose decided to commit to leave Homeworld’s service and fight for the Earth.

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This scene is actually the strongest argument against that.

Rose tells her that if she doesn’t want to stay and fight, she can go back to Homeworld.

Given the Homeworld attitude toward Pearls - they’re not just cogs in the society, like all the other gems, they’re property - why the hell would Homeworld let Rose’s Pearl return, under any circumstances other than bringing the shattered remains of Rose’s gem with her?

At best, she’d be punished in Rose’s stead, at worst, she’d be assumed as a traitor still loyal to her owner.

This is not supported by the text. You need look no further than the Diamonds we’ve seen so far to find counterevidence. (They actually seem to embody emotions - Blue: sadness, Yellow: anger. Pink was probably love or compassion, under this paradigm, based on her zoo.)

What they have is a contempt for certain expressions of attachment (hmm…does this remind you of anything?).

278

You heard that as an expression of ownership? Okay. My ear heard it as an expression of endearment.

Only? I don’t know. The most logical and likely to be sure, but an origin story that reveals things of significance to the larger arc might be able to have some other twists in it. This show is good enough to not always go where we expect them to go and sometimes with good writers expecting something makes it a better bet that they will go a different direction.

Or not!

279

I missed this when making my earlier post.

I call my girlfriend ‘my <her name/various terms of endearment>’ all the time, and vice versa. Neither of us considers the other her property.

280

Responses, yay!

Are you and your girlfriend part of a repressive, caste-based society? :wink:

Rose absolutely was using it as a term of endearment, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t using it literally. Also, remember that “Rose’s Scabbard” appeared well before we found out what Pearls were made for. It’s only in later re-viewing that you pick up the implications of “my Pearl”. Also, there would have been a difference in how Rose and Pearl acted in public and Rose treated her in private. (I imagine that’s actually common in Gem society.)

I agree that Rose probably didn’t want a Pearl and wasn’t the kind of gem who would aspire to wanting a Pearl. However, she either was given a Pearl by someone she couldn’t refuse (coughPinkDiamondcough) or she intervened to protect a Pearl who was dismissed from service or facing punishment.

If Pearl wasn’t Rose’s Pearl, then you have to answer two questions: Who did Pearl belong to? How did Rose and Pearl get so close if Pearl’s owner wasn’t Rose? The second questions kind of limits the first. Looking at Yellow Pearl and Blue Pearl, does it seem like either of them get much Alone Time away from their Diamonds? How would a Pearl even be able to start a relationship with another Gem? The only possibility is if Pearl belonged to Pink Diamond, as she and Rose would have been in the same court and had opportunities to interact. That kind of fits other info, such as Pearl’s Pink Diamond spacesuit and the fact that she has been to the Zoo.