Some Thoughts: Pink Diamond

I’ve looked over all the suggestions for what to write about, particularly from the three-parter (Beta, Earthlings, Back to the Moon). After re-watching the episodes, I find myself intrigued and wanting to process PD’s character and story. So with that, here it goes.

Just as an introduction, I have my own thoughts as to how Homeworld works, and I’ve written multiple posts about it from everything we’ve seen.

In short, the present Homeworld functions on a very utilitarian basis. Nothing should go to waste. Not gems, not resources, not time and effort. Because Homeworld is going through a resource shortage, it’s actions are dictated by what is available and efficient. The ideal Homeworld features each gem in a particular place, doing a job, being taught and socialised by its own kind. Each stratum has its own rules, both formal and informal, culture, and expectations. From Pearls, to Quartzes, to Diamonds, no one is exempt from this system. And it is this system that insidiously, and sometimes overtly, encourages collectivist thought, putting the good of all above the good of the self.

A system like this sets limitations on everyone, even the Diamonds. As much as gems would like to believe them as god-like and perfect beings (Peridot, Message Received) or faceless members of the upper class (Bismuth, Bismuth), they are still individual gems with their own motives and their own relationship dynamic. This is something I’d like to keep in mind as the PD post goes on, because it is the foundation underlying everything that’s about to be said.

Because we are increasingly seeing the Diamonds have very individualistic reactions and feelings. Yellow Diamond in Message Received showed that beyond her role as a leader, beyond having to be the “Decider,” and beyond knowing she’s responsible for a Homeworld in crisis, she still chooses to shun Earth. She loses the objective and logical views she is known for. It was personal. There is a fallible, imperfect, tired, and frustrated person underneath all the expectations to be otherwise. So let’s apply that to PD.

1. Earth was PD’s first colony but not for the reasons we think

From the depictions of the Diamond mural, we see that each of the Diamonds have several small circles that they’re holding. And some of these circles have even smaller circles. It’s clear from the mural that these represent the colonies of the different Diamonds.  Some of the planets even have rings around them, much like the rings of Saturn or Uranus. Many of the planets have satellites orbiting around them, some more than others.

Something I want to get out of the way is the idea that Pink Diamond was “given” Earth as a colony, or that she refused to gain a colony until this time. Because it doesn’t fit in with what we’ve consistently been seeing from Homeworld. What we know is that Homeworld is a conquering space race, because they cannot reap the resources of a planet without degrading life on it completely. They cannot reuse a planet; everything is drained. 

That is their motivation for expansion and colonisation. Not because it’s “fun” or they feel like it. Each time they colonise, they’re using up precious resources that are exhaustible and irreparable. Even at the height of their civilisation, what seemed like the Golden Age before the war, they were still wary about a wanton use of resources. In The Answer, the first thing Blue Diamond does is to run. Not engage the rebels or fight them. And this is accepted because in gem society she is irreplaceable. The entire idea of poofing your enemies before shattering them stems from the fact that gems are a precious resource. Shattering was reserved for only the absolute worst crimes, and on this blog on multiple occasions we’ve talked about why BD chose to shatter Ruby at that moment in particular.

Even perceived enemies like Lapis were used for information rather than outright destroyed, both during and after the war. And Homeworld made sure to evacuate as many of their forces as they could before deploying the Light Bomb. 

What then becomes consistent about Homeworld is that they try to be as efficient with their scarce resources as possible. Two other issues that play into PD’s first colony have a lot to do with recent episodes we saw:

First, that quartzes rank much higher than do ordinary gems, and second, that Earth was a huge battleground in which Homeworld tried everything to take back the planet.

To engage the latter point, it seems very out of character for a culture that prides itself on weighing harms and benefits to stubbornly try to take back a planet, leading to the loss of many gem lives, knowing that their chances at winning were slim to none. Going back to the events in The Answer, we see that Homeworld likes winning and being able to predict the outcome of the battle. They want to be assured victory because it just makes more sense to invest in something that guarantees returns.

Yet they fought for Earth, which means that there is something intrinsic to this planet that Homeworld deemed important enough to continue fighting for: The minerals. Earth is an environment conducive to creating quartz gems. We see it in the Kindergartens, specifically the Alpha Kindergarten. It’s tinged with pink hues. SU associates colour with characters very frequently, and this shows that the Quartzes and their Kindergartens, belonged to Pink Diamond. 

This is why the characters talk about Rose, Amethyst, and Jasper, the “Quartz Gems” as belonging to PD. And we can clearly see that PD’s influence is present at times and absent in others. The Alpha Kindergarten contrasts sharply with the Beta Kindergarten.

Source: SU Wiki

And it seems odd, because they should all be quartz soldiers coming out of there. But Peridot explains that the Beta Kindergarten was a last ditch effort to create more soldiers as Homeworld had begun to lose the war. It’s likely that PD had already been taken out at this point in the timeline, and that the other Diamonds had to assume her duties. Much like how Peridot now claims that YD is in charge of all Homeworld’s military in Hit the Diamond, even though what’s been consistent about her character is the motif of technology.

Source: SU Wiki

This tells us several things. First, that PD was indeed in charge of the military on Homeworld. She would be the one managing quartz gems. In that regard, it wouldn’t be strange that she didn’t have colonies of her own. Because we’re led to believe that the battle for Earth is the first big war Gemkind had to engage in. A military commander wouldn’t really be managing a colony of civilians. 

As such, Earth is an ideal colony for someone like PD, because quartzes can be made abundantly on its soil. PD would oversee their training, their growth and socialisation. 

And this engages the earlier point. Why are quartzes so important that even after the technological boom on Homeworld, they would still expend precious resources to recover one Jasper?

Quartzes aren’t easy to make and the resources to make them are few and far between. Notice that in the interactions with current Homeworld soldiers, we’ve seen only a squad of Rubies. Quartzes rank highly because, similar to the argument made for BD in The Answer, they are rare and incredibly difficult to replace. That’s why Homeworld fought for Earth as hard as they did. 

Earth is PD’s first colony likely because prior to Earth, there was no need for such a wide scale military effort in the past. So when the opportunity arose such that there was a planet where quartzes could just pop out of the ground like daisies, Homeworld, being the efficient civilisation it is, seized it accordingly.

2. There’s no evidence the Diamonds had an asymmetric distribution of power

Source: joe the johnston

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[Addendum]: I want to reblog this post because of some of the questions that I’ve received about it. I find the entire idea of placing Jasper within the PD-shattering timeline very interesting because either way we end up with a character whose context is very very interesting. 

In my original post, I talked about how it’s likely that the Beta Kindergarten was put into place closer to the end of the war, and doesn’t have the pink touches that we see in the Alpha Kindergarten. Some of the comments I saw and the two asks above open up a really nice question, so here I’ll talk about what the implications are for either case.

The thing I want to clear up first is that I wouldn’t say the anchoring basis for Jasper’s being created before PD was shattered is that she’s upset by her death. Jasper is clearly caught up about it, and it’s something that appears to be very personal to her. But we do know that one doesn’t necessarily have to meet someone in order to feel this kind of emotional attachment. Case in point: Steven. 

Steven has never met Rose. All he knows about her are stories from the gems and from Greg. But he feels a deep affinity for her. He feels sad that he’ll never get to know her. He’s sad that she’s gone. He doesn’t mourn the way the other gems do, but he’s mourning nonetheless.

In this manner, we can see why Jasper would be angry and upset with the gems based on her belief that Rose shattered PD. Because Rose would be the direct reason Jasper would never have met PD, would never have had the chance to serve under her and be recognised and validated by the one gem who mattered. Every time I do an analysis of Jasper, one thing I bring up is the idea that she’s holding herself up to a standard and always trying to prove she deserves it. 

Gems are incredibly loyal to their Diamonds because they identify with their factions. It is where they feel they belong. For Jasper, knowing that the chance to have that belonging was taken away from her, even after she fought her way to freedom, surpassing the odds that were stacked against her; it feels bitter and incomplete.

Recall that Jasper is the gem no one expected to succeed. Just by being created in the Beta Kindergarten already set an expectation for a low-quality, quickly made gem. Yet Jasper, against all odds, forced her way out of her hole. She fought until she could be recognised. And even though she wasn’t a big name during the war, she wanted to be because some small part of her felt she deserved it after everything she’d been through.

I mention in the PD post that YD has assumed the role of the military, when really, her niche has been shown to be technology and research. The Kindergartens themselves are clearly the work of YD. The control room in the Alpha Kindergarten has her yellow aesthetic and is somewhere a technician like Peridot feels familiar. Yet Peridot does note that YD commands all of Homeworld’s military now. In this way I think what was left of PD’s court after the war had to be divided and split up among the Diamonds, and the soldiers were assigned to YD.

And that hurts. It’s similar to having your society just relocated or demarcated without attention to culture or any other nuance. It’s an act of efficiency, but it doesn’t make it feel right for the individuals experiencing the relocation.

Which is again why Jasper would be understandably upset at how things had changed. She was created during a very tumultuous time in Homeworld’s history, and looking at it from this perspective, she never had the chance to finally settle down, because there was no place for her because there was no PD.

This is the narrative I like a lot, because it draws parallels between Steven and Jasper. It’s especially relevant because at the moment Steven feels very alienated from Jasper, that they don’t have a common experience to humanise the other. So I think this angle is both feasible and potentially enriching.

But I think that the alternative can also hold true, for other reasons. Eyeball’s comment of “Where were you when it happened?” could be a genuine question. I feel that Eyeball knows enough about Jasper to have a rough idea of when Jasper was created and Jasper’s triumphs during the war. Then again, during the war, resources were very thinly spread out and I doubt there were chroniclers following everyone around, which is why the possibility for either scenario still stands, in my eyes.

If this were the case though, then Jasper’s character arc would have more parallels to Pearl’s. She would have been someone who fought for her Diamond specifically. And in her context, as someone born directly into war, created for the sole purpose of being a reinforcement in a battle she had no say in joining, this would have been the seed of her code. The idea that she had to stand for something greater than herself, and be strong for her Homeworld and for all the “failed, defective” quartzes would come to fruition sometime during the war. She may never have actually met PD, but the idea that she wanted to, that she wanted PD to recognise her one day and validate her existence as more than a Beta is something that I find significant and a believable angle of her character.

Throughout the series, especially of late, we see a Jasper who is searching for affirmation. A reaffirmation of her strength, as seen in her first appearances, and later of her intrinsic worth, as seen in her interactions with Lapis after their unfusion. 

So to have PD shattered along with all of the possible feelings of fulfilment, victory seemed hollow. And that would be why Jasper was so keen on defeating Rose Quartz. I mentioned before that Jasper seemed more taken with the idea of defeating her than with the actual idea of the battle, but in that light, it’s clear why. Jasper wants closure, and she thinks the only way to do that is by being stronger than the one who defeated her personal model of strength.

One interesting thought this brings up is something I’d broached earlier but thought was disproven: The idea that Jasper isn’t as happy or as high up on Homeworld as she feels she deserves. And now this may be true because of her status as a Beta Kindergartener. So in light of all the new things that have come up, I’m more than excited to see what the past was like and what’s in store for her in the future.