Putting Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond to Rest
Hello everyone, here’s another script I submitted to @thecartoonuniverse, something like a sequel the last analysis I did on Change Your Mind. The CU turned that analysis into a video, for those who prefer a video format to the analysis :) I’ll be linking the video for this one too when it does come up.
For the purposes of setting the stage for future analysis, I wanted to write this post on where I stand, definitively, on the whereabouts of Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond. These are things I’ve written about before in passing, or as brief answers to some asks, but I wanted to have everything consolidated in one place given the new things we’ve learned from CYM.
One of the most suspenseful scenes in Steven Universe happened in the Change Your Mind special. In what leads to the climax of the hour-long episode, White Diamond plucks Steven off the ground and pulls out his Gem without much resistance. She expects Pink Diamond to reform, because, as covered in the last analysis, she thought Steven was just a human outfit that Pink was hiding in. Much to her surprise, a pink “Gem Steven” reforms, defying White, and eventually fusing with a weak human Steven in a beautifully animated sequence.
This short sequence raises a lot of questions. It had long been speculated what would happen if Steven lost his Gem, or if he could even be physically separated from it. While this scene may have opened a lot of new theories on just how much a Gem and how much a human being Steven is, this video aims to address how Steven is inseparably both and highlight the significance of his self-fusion.
Let’s get right to it then!
1. Steven’s distinct identity
Even before Change Your Mind, theories have long been floating around that Rose Quartz, in some form, was just floating around in Steven’s Gem, and it was a matter of finding a way to interface with it or retrieve the data. These theories would vary in the specifics, but some conjectured that upon Steven’s death, only his human body would die, and the Gem would remain, so Rose could come back. The other end of the spectrum believed that Rose was still conscious and present, but chose to silently observe Steven, which was why he hadn’t heard from her throughout the series.
Some events in the show seem to support this. For instance, in Lion 3: Straight to Video, Rose talks into the camera and says that when Steven loves himself and loves being himself, that’s Rose, loving him too. Or that Steven is able to somehow access memories that aren’t his, those of Pink Diamond in Jungle Moon and Together Alone for instance. White Diamond seems to confirm this in Change Your Mind when she says, “But don’t you know things about her that you couldn’t possibly know?”
And for a moment, Steven seems to believe this as well. He says something about his powers helping him connect to others, and that he’s “Feeling her feelings.” “Her” in this case, being his mother.
Others have said that Rose still exists through her room, and some of that data that makes up who she is or at least her memories must remain there somehow in that tiny whale that speaks to Steven in Rose’s voice.
On several levels, though, the idea that Rose or even Pink Diamond is still around and could come back just does not make sense. So, for those who still aren’t convinced, here are some levels on which it would be inconsistent with the show, and in fact outright contradictory to the story for Rose or Pink to return.
Narratively, the show has slowly been revealing to us how each of the characters has been dealing with grief, and that knowledge has been moving the story forwards. We begin in Beach City, with the Crystal Gems and Greg, who in the first two episodes get emotional because there is an entire storage facility filled with memories of Rose.
By the end of Season 1A, with Lapis’ arrival and the start of Season 1B with episodes like Space Race, Maximum Capacity, and Rose’s Scabbard we see how characters who can live for virtually forever, and have existed for thousands of years, are still mourning. It had been less than two decades since Rose left them, and that span of time is nothing when you’ve spent thousands of years with someone.
Yet, despite the pain that Greg and the Crystal Gems feel, they have to keep moving, keep living, and day after day live in the absence of someone they loved.
By the second and third season, we see grief on Homeworld. Jasper, Eyeball, and other Homeworld gems are still hurt by Pink Diamond’s shattering. They too are grieving because they lost someone important to them, someone they also looked up to and respected.
Something to highlight is that Steven had mourned for his mother as well. Paradoxically, her absence exerted a very strong influence on his life. Many times, he felt the need to have a mother, to have someone who could understand him in a way no one else could, not even Greg at times. Other times, he wanted answers, because he was thrown into a context, he had no part in crafting. Storm in the Room was a very good example of this.
On one end of the “Rose is just here but silent” theories, it’s then very difficult to imagine that Rose was somehow present during this time, and just chose not to say or do anything. It would mean she just stood by coldly while her loved ones, her subjects, and her son, desperately needed her and even called out to her. It’s inconsistent with Rose or Pink’s character to just stand by and watch all of these people suffer when it was perfectly within her abilities to do something about it. It would have been uncharacteristically cruel.
On the other end of the “Rose is coming back in the future” theories, to foreshadow that Rose would return doesn’t make much sense either. To know that her death would mean Greg, Pearl, the Crystal Gems, and Homeworld would be mourning for her as they did, and then to suddenly return, let’s say when Steven decided to let himself age naturally and die of natural causes, would cheapen the grief we saw in the show. It would be tantamount to watching all of these characters struggle to live without someone they cared about and eventually overcome that grief and reach acceptance (which made episodes like Mr. Greg and Change Your Mind so beautiful) only to have the writers say, “well you were emotionally invested in their personal growth but TA-DA they didn’t need to mourn in the first place since she’s back!”
It would make their grief unnecessary and remove all the stakes from the show with regards to character development and the ultimate message that yes, in life people do leave and cannot return. But it’s okay, because life goes on and just because they are no longer around, it doesn’t mean the love and memories weren’t real. They mean just as much, and we can continue to live on in that love, spreading that love in our own lives.
That message is beautiful, and it’s one of the subtexts of the show. Rarely do we have serialised cartoons that deal with death and grief and actually stick to it, without retroactively resurrecting the characters or creating some sort of loophole that allows them to return. Steven Universe as a show, has explored the heck out of this. And this leads to the next level of analysis.
Thematically, Steven Universe has highlighted the differences between Pink Diamond, Rose Quartz, and Steven himself. Pink and Rose had a particular operating procedure. They were known to run away, to leave all of these loose-ends. They kept secrets and didn’t communicate openly, which caused a lot of heartache for the people around them who just wanted to understand them and know them. It dragged out a lot of interpersonal conflict, and cause Rose herself a lot of intrapersonal stress.
Bismuth is a great example of this. Rose didn’t know how to deal with the rift that had formed between her and Bismuth over the use of the Breaking Point. She had kept her history as Pink Diamond from all of the Crystal Gems, but she still wanted to save her relationship with Bismuth. Not knowing what to do, she kept her bubbled and hidden in Lion’s pocket dimension, where even the other Crystal Gems couldn’t find her.
All of Homeworld was a loose-end for Pink Diamond. As Steven said in Change Your Mind, she ran away. She hoped that the Crystal Gems could live in peace after the war and just forget Homeworld ever existed. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. As devoted as Pearl was to Rose, she still missed Homeworld. Many times, Gems like Pearl, Garnet, Peridot, and Lapis, despite their ambivalent feelings towards Homeworld, still referred to it as “Home.”
Enter Steven, and his approach is completely different. Steven is a pacifist, who doesn’t believe in fighting and physical confrontation. He always chooses talking it out as the first course of action. No matter how difficult, he tries to understand the other’s point of view before jumping into action. And Steven always, always wants to help. Faced with what was the biggest threat to the planet, the Cluster, Steven resolved the conflict not by destroying the Cluster, but by talking to them, befriending them, and offering support so they could stay bubbled.
Something very poignant is when he’s asked by Peedee why he chooses to be a hero, and he tells him his reward is the smile on people’s faces. He wants people to be happy and though sometimes he gets ahead of himself, as he did in Barn Mates when he tried to get Lapis and Peridot to get along before the two were ready, he does it with good intentions.
How he operates is completely different from Rose or Pink, because he believes everyone can change for the better. In Greg the Babysitter, Rose told Greg she was amazed that human beings could change, without realising how much she and the Crystal Gems had themselves changed. It’s that awareness that Steven brings with him, and it’s affected all of his interactions and decisions in the show.
The loose-ends left by Rose and Pink were resolved because it was Steven approaching the problem in a way only Steven could, because Steven’s way is different. And this leads to yet another level of analysis.
In the show, Steven’s character development has always been geared towards becoming his own person. He started out wanting to join the Crystal Gems because of his mother.
The first few seasons, he tries so hard to prove he can be a Crystal Gem too, and that he belongs with the other Gems. Cheeseburger Backpack, Serious Steven, Giant Woman, Coach Steven, these episodes stand out against episodes like Frybo, Cat Fingers, Together Breakfast, and Tiger Millionaire because they highlight how Steven felt like he needed to earn his place as a Gem.
As he started learning more about Rose and the Crystal Gem’s side of the Rebellion, he tried to fill in Rose’s metaphorical shoes. The first version of the “We Are the Crystal Gems” theme song even has him saying “I will fight to be everything that everybody wants me to be when I’m grown.”
This culminates in I Am My Mom, when Steven goes off to Homeworld in a self-sacrificial manner, letting Aquamarine and Topaz think that he is Rose Quartz.
Even in the Season 5 episodes, when Steven first arrives on Homeworld, he at first tries to fill in for Pink Diamond, following everything the Diamonds expected of him.
That is where the latest episode enters. Change Your Mind began with Steven’s changing his own mind. The expectations to be like Rose or like Pink were crushing him, and he not only wasn’t doing as well as when he was just being himself, he also wasn’t happy. On some level, he knew that being himself was what had got him this far, but this may have been the moment he could explicitly tell himself he was not Pink or Rose, and he would never be. That’s why the first major dialogue we hear next, when Blue Diamond confronts Steven, shifts the tone of his interactions with the Diamonds. Steven does not feel any of Rose’s or Pink’s guilt. This is not like The Trial. Steven is Steven, and even though he wasn’t responsible for any of what had happened in the past, he does want to help fix it.
The climax of Change Your Mind has Steven’s Gem half responding to White Diamond’s “Where is Pink?” by saying “SHE’S GONE.” It is the only thing Pink Split Steven says, and that’s significant. It shows that he has nothing else to prove and nothing else to say. He doesn’t need to defend himself and he doesn’t need to explain anything about his existence.
Throughout the series, Steven has been grasping for words to describe who he is and what his relationship to his mother is. Oftentimes, those explanations were a product of how Steven saw himself as well. What this scene shows us is that Steven is no longer bothered by those things. It may take a lifetime to explain the sci-fi and magical process that went into conceiving Steven, but Steven himself isn’t losing sleep over it. He will figure it out as it comes. For now, he’s happy being himself.
While they fuse, the Split Stevens are holding onto one another, and after re-fusing, Steven is hugging himself. It’s a wonderful visual metaphor for self-love and acceptance of identity that Steven had been struggling with throughout the show.
2. Connections with Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz
All of these points debunking the idea that Steven is in some way Pink Diamond or Rose do not discount the strong connection he has with them. There’s no doubt they have similarities, but it’s the same way parents and children can be similar without being the same person.
When Steven is “accessing” Rose or Pink’s memories to some that’s seen as proof that the latter must still be present in this same reality. Steven’s ability is to walk through dreams, as we have seen in Chile Tid, Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service, and Steven’s Dream.
Two caveats to this. First, it could be the dreams of the other Diamonds that he’s seeing. Gems don’t necessarily sleep, but it doesn’t stop Steven from being able to walk in their mind space. Lapis could not have been sleeping when she was trying to hold Malachite together in Chile Tid, and Blue Diamond was clearly awake for the duration of Steven’s Dream, but Steven was still able to walk through their thoughts. For instance, in both Jungle Moon and Together Alone, Yellow Diamond appears in the dream. In the last video it was mentioned that if Yellow’s supposed soft spot is Blue, and Blue’s is Pink, then Pink’s soft spot might have been for Yellow, which may also be why they have a lot of memories together. Also, the dream in Together Alone also had White Diamond in it. When White says that there’s no way Steven could know about some things Pink Diamond, he flashes back to that same dream sequence. It wouldn’t be a stretch that the all-powerful White was aware that Steven was walking in her dream. There’s a possibility then, that at those times he was looking into the dreams of Yellow and White Diamond, respectively. (Pink Pearl is also a possibility here, and since White was suppressing her mind, she would have been aware as well).
The other caveat is that we don’t give Steven enough credit. When he comes up with all of these connections and realisations about Rose and Pink, it’s easy to label them as being inspired from the Gems in question themselves. But Steven is his own individual who can also come to conclusions on his own, and sometimes unknowingly project his feelings and biases into those conclusions. We saw as much in Open Book and Storm in the Room, when he almost fooled himself into coming up with the Connie or Rose that he wanted to have. The same can be said in Familiar. He was prompted only by the drawing of the four Diamonds on Pink’s vanity, but because of his own experiences and his perception, he was able to deduce the feeling of isolation thank Pink had.
Steven would have his own dreams and those dreams would be coloured by his feelings and concerns. Some of the sequences we see in the Rose/Pink dreams may also be a product of his own thought processes consolidating memories and hunches as he sleeps, which is what many have deduced is the function of dreaming.
We have to give Steven some credit for being able to piece together information on his own, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes in the form of dreams. The truth is likely closer to a mix of both of these possibilities.
Interesting also was the cycle in which Pink Split Steven re-forms from Steven’s gem. We see the silhouettes of Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz briefly before Steven appears.
For other Gems, the silhouettes prior to their newest regeneration cycle through their previous forms. It was what led us to speculate how they looked and dressed. This may be another justification for some theorists that Steven is just another one of Pink’s forms as White believed, and Steven is Rose, or that at least Rose is still somewhere in there. Even the other Crystal Gems believed that at some point, when in Three Gems and a Baby, Pearl wondered what would happen if the Gemstone were removed from Steven’s navel.
But aside from Pink Split Steven’s very loud and clear statement that Pink is gone, there’s something else about Pink and Steven’s relationship. Steven is her son.
That’s an unprecedented relationship on Homeworld. Before Steven, the other Gems had no idea of the concept of progeny in the way we understand it. Heredity means there are some traits we do inherit from our parents. Some part of us will always be anchored to them, and we will be predisposed to certain things because of their genes.
Rose carried Steven the way a human mother would. That much is clear, because in Lion 3, we get a wide shot of Rose and Greg and the former is seen to be pregnant. Somehow, she passed on her genetic material to Steven. While most of the time it manifests as Steven’s Gem powers, this regeneration cycle could also be a physical sign of that. It is much the same way people can inherit their parents’ or even grandparents’ physical traits.
In short, the climax of change your mind both explicitly and implicitly reasserts Steven’s individuality. It reminds us that some of the biggest revelations and developments in his character are a product of his efforts, and not some deus ex machina by Rose or Pink. That scene should lay to rest once and for all that Rose and Pink are truly gone, and that, like the rest of the characters, it’s time for the audience to move forward as well.
