Garnet’s superior acting skills: a slideshow

@faelapis: #reminder to self: garnet is a little condescending and thinks others can’t see as well as her and can’t get with the program#sees herself as a bit Above other creatures and thus that it’s easy to fool or get ahead of them#there’s a longer post about this somewhere but in any case i like this quirk

I’m not quite sure I read it that way–I almost see it as more akin to Garnet’s general decision to never ask questions. Garnet is so committed to living her truth out in the open, that she never wants to lie or hide, and if she does lie or hide she doesn’t do it well. Even if the lie is a tiny little one, like acting.

Perhaps this could go either way, and I don’t necessarily see it as “Garnet is being condescending” so much as “Others may feel condescended to,” but I think @faelapis might have been picking up on another thing I covered elsewhere--that Garnet legitimately can’t tell how observant others are sometimes because her Future Vision helps her see things they can’t see and sometimes she’s not sure how much of her knowledge is available to others with ordinary perception.

Steven definitely feels that Garnet’s advice is “high and mighty” sometimes, and I’m sure it isn’t intentionally like Garnet really walks around feeling like she’s so much smarter and better than everyone else. It’s that she actually IS greater than the sum of her parts and living that life all the time, and it’s an effort sometimes to figure out how much her companions can understand of a world she’s partial to and they aren’t.

Here’s my GIFset of Garnet saying a variety of VERY obvious things--and my theory that maybe she just doesn’t know that the others already can sense these things.

Partial quote:

That’s my perspective on it anyway. :)

Questions Without Question Marks

You’ve heard before that Garnet never asks questions. Well, that’s not entirely true. Garnet *requests information*, essentially asking questions, but manages to do it without question marks.

Here’s a nice GIF cross section of Garnet asking questions, requesting consent, and seeking further information–but always with declaratives, never interrogatives.

Slick.

I know Garnet comes off as very confident to the point of intimidating, and this is one of the reasons why, but, ‘Garnet can’t ask questions’ is just the tip of the iceberg of her major character flaw.

The flaw with Garnet’s character is that she is physically unable to account for the unexpected. Which is a common flaw to have, but it has been displayed in the most unrelateable way. (Not that there anything wrong with that, she’s literally an alien)

Apart from the last few episodes literally spelling it out for us; this was almost impossible to relate to because with only a few previous instances, Garnet’s always had her future vision to account for it.

Rose told her, “No more questions…” (which she took way too literally) but she had always been equipped to handle not having to ask questions, making her hard to see yourself in, unless it was played on as a major weakness (like the future vision episode, or more recently)

Now that we see her struggling, we can relate to her more too because none of us 'always know what’s going on’ we don’t have future vision; and the only way we can relate to Garnet is like “I got so used to playing with cheat codes, I don’t know how to play without them anymore”

Which I think is pretty cool because I’ve never related to a character like that before 🤔

Yes, very true. I said this in another reblog in response to someone else who said a similar thing to what you've said here, but I'll put it here too: it's definitely a flaw in her character (as a person, not as a badly written character) that she has been encouraged to not seek information from others in traditional ways, relying instead on her own private interpretation of the future even though it's been demonstrated to work less dependably than she sometimes implies.

Garnet's Future Vision is not Sapphire's Future Vision; when she sees herself as a potential active participant in changing and shaping the future, Garnet sees many possibilities, but they are based partly on her limited knowledge and can be affected by her judgment. And Sapphire's Future Vision is far more passive, but even it can be wrong (and Earth is lucky it was; Ruby's impulsiveness altered fate in a way Sapphire didn't even acknowledge as possible). Yes, she's used to navigating the world with the assistance of her "cheat codes," but her access to them also means others depend on her far more and she tries harder to be confident--even when she knows she isn't and even when she knows she CAN (easily) be wrong.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but when you have a character who can see the future, it's not the same as giving them omniscience; it's just giving them an extra sense, which they then use like anyone uses their other senses. They can still screw up using it, and be self-conscious about using it imperfectly, and feel pressure to be impeccable at it since no one else can even do it. But if you were the only person who could hear in your group of friends and none of them had ever gone through life as a hearing person, they might overestimate what that sense can do, expecting you to hear everything correctly the first time, interpret it correctly, be ready to hear anything and everything with no notice, and have all the finer functions. You might hear thunder, tell everyone it's going to rain, and then have everyone mad at you when no rain comes. Maybe it was thunder and you didn't realize it still didn't mean there would be a storm. Or maybe it was something that rumbled enough like thunder to make you think it was thunder and you had no way to be sure. Garnet's Future Vision is a lot like this--she can do things others can't with it, but it's still limited by her ordinary mental abilities like interpreting the data and knowing which direction to look in.

You might also want to consider that Gems are expected, as a race, to be static characters. We've seen them grow, learn, and change when influenced by humans, but overall we've seen Gems presented as resistant to change. Garnet has repeatedly seen her Future Vision fail her, but her Sapphire stubbornness tells her she should still use it and have utter confidence in it, and once she fixates on an outcome, she's prone to digging her heels in until she can't anymore. (To her credit, she doesn't deny it anymore once she's proven wrong, and has apologized on multiple occasions, but I think she believes she needs that stoic front for others to trust her judgment.) 

She also made it clear that she perceived Steven as a child who wouldn't make the independent decisions he did make, and instead of realizing that human kids change really quickly as they mature, she thought her ability itself was off.

(As for "now we can finally relate to her," personally, I have always found Garnet to be the MOST relatable character in this show, right from the beginning, but explaining why would require a lot of personal babble I'm not prepared to put on this blog. But I know exactly what you mean by most people finding her unrelatable because of her confidence and supernatural levels of independence.)

Garnet: the burden of leadership, self-restraint, and longing for connection

post-“Jail Break”, a lot of us rather inevitably and understandably started using its ‘Garnet is a fusion of Ruby and Sapphire’ revelation to both interpret Garnet in subsequent episodes and to recontextualize her admittedly stoic, withdrawn behavior throughout Season 1.

this sort of ‘recontextualization effect’ encouraged some funny fandom trends–like figuring out what Ruby and Sapphire were feeling/thinking during moments like Garnet’s infamous telephone conversation with Dr. Maheswaran in “Fusion Cuisine” or the duration of Garnet’s fusion with Amethyst in “Coach Steven”. and those were mostly harmless, but allowing Ruby and Sapphire’s love to determine our understanding of Garnet as a wholly happy, healthy relationship–even over behavior that suggested something deeper and different–really does Garnet a huge disservice.

Garnet isn’t just Ruby and Sapphire in a trench coat, or Ruby and Sapphire copiloting Garnet’s body.

Garnet embodies Ruby and Sapphire’s love, and she’s a gestalt–her own, distinct person, with her own personality and experiences, who’s quite literally greater than the sum of her parts.

during The Week of Sardonyx, a lot of us–including myself–noted that, because she embodies Ruby and Sapphire’s loving relationship, Garnet couldn’t really comprehend the depths of Amethyst’s and Pearl’s loneliness, insecurity, self-loathing, and lack of self-esteem… 

…and while there’s definitely more to it than I originally understood before my Garnet-targeted canon rewatch, I still believe that point has a little merit. while Amethyst and Pearl once had Rose to help them work through their issues and remind them that they were valued and loved, Rose ultimately abandoned her physical form to have Steven–and even before that, it was impossible for Rose to always be there for Amethyst and Pearl in the same way that Ruby and Sapphire are for one another, because they’re “always together”. like Pearl, it’s very likely that Ruby and Sapphire experienced marginalization and oppression on Homeworld…but by fusing out of love, they’re able to lend each other constant, unconditional support and achieve a transcendent sense of togetherness.

that unconditional love, constant support, and transcendent togetherness of Ruby and Sapphire’s fusion are the foundation of Garnet’s very being. in her own words, Garnet has told Steven on two separate occasions that being a fusion makes her feel like she’s never alone…

…and the relative emotional stability and security she feels because of that–along with her unique abilities and amplified strength as a fusion–are probably the qualities that made her the best candidate to step up as the Crystal Gems’ new leader after Rose gave up her physical form.

but–and I cannot stress this enough–none of those qualities preclude Garnet from longing for significant connections with others, experiencing loneliness, or having her own insecurities. Ruby and Sapphire may always be together, but Garnet is her own person with her own feelings, thoughts, emotional needs, and relationships with the others. Garnet’s needs are different than Amethyst’s and Pearl’s, but hers are just as valid as theirs. 

in fact, Garnet’s behavior and interactions with the other Crystal Gems throughout the series establish that she wants connection keenly…but deliberately distances and holds herself back from her teammates emotionally, hence her ‘stoic’ and ‘put together’ exterior.

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