A Single Pale Rose [Steven Universe] · 4:50pm May 9th, 2018
WARNING: Blog contains spoilers for Steven Universe Season 5 Episode 18: A Single Pale Rose. DO NOT read this until you have watched the episode.
Seriously, you DO NOT want this episode spoiled.
Well.
...
That happened.
Good afternoon, my good ladies and gentlemen, on this passable Spring day. I hope to find you well.
Well then, A Single Pale Rose. Synopsis:
Steven helps Pearl find her phone.
The writers must have been laughing their arses off when they posted that one. It is technically correct. Last Spoiler chance.
To get to the meat of it: Rose is, and always has been, Pink Diamond.
This does explain some things:
We now know why Rose was (and Steven is) laughably overpowered compared to other quartz gems.
We now know why Rose had a wildly different personality to other quartz gems.
We now know why Rose was much more independently minded than other gems in general.
We now know why Rose was against shattering Homeworld Gems.
We now know why the show was reluctant to show other Rose Quartzes.
We now know why Pink Diamond set up her human zoo. (It was a last resort back up plan to save humanity if her other plans failed).
We now know why the rebellion actually happened.
We now know what became of Pink Pearl.
We now know who actually shattered, or didn't as the case may be, Pink Diamond.
A hell of a lot happened in five minutes. Quite a few people are now crowing about how they called it.
Needless to say, this changes a great deal about how we look at Rose's character. It also changes a great deal about how we look at Pearl. It turns out that their relationship was even more unhealthy and unbalanced than we had all thought. And that took some doing.
"Well, you know Rose. She always did what she wanted."
Of course she did. She's Pink fucking Diamond. When we first saw her (as Pink), she was a spoilt brat. I don't think much changed; she just became a more eloquent and sophisticated spoilt brat. Much of her life was spent making mistakes whilst trying to fix, and / or run away from, her last round of mistakes.
I think her key moment of character growth was when Greg plainly called her out on her tendency to see other people, particularly humans, as pets. Pink was much more benevolent and emphatic than her fellow Diamonds, but until that point, she was still very much a diamond, even as Rose. It's plain that she never stopped to think about what effect keeping her big secret would have on Pearl.
There's a lot to discuss here. I look forward to your thoughts, my good ladies and gentlemen.
Edit: A thought occurs to me about Steven's trip through the layers of Pearl's psyche, with regards to how this relates to what a pearl is: layer upon layer deposited around an initial irritant; a succession of layered shell's built around a trauma.
Great episode, and a really interesting revelation for the series.
Sadly, the inconsistent release schedule has mostly robbed me of my ability to be invested in the series to any level of depth. I still watch the episodes, but at this point even this revelation only warrants an "ooh, neat", followed by me forgetting about it for another 4 months or so.
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It is a big problem. I find it best to leave it a while and then binge watch a bunch of episodes. It makes it easier to get back into it. Still a pain though, and I would prefer it if CN didn't try to choke the life out of it's own shows.
H o l y S k i t
While this still does leave holes for me (if it was her world, couldn't she have done what she wanted anyway? Why did the Crystal Gems become a thing? Did Rose/Pink actually form this rebellion against herself?), I have enough confidence in the show to believe they'll sort it out.
....In 3 months, but I can always re-watch the Infinity Train pilot and pray they make it a series until then. >_>
Some comments about narrative and good writing - I actually figured out (sort of - honestly, I only suspected, and wasn't entirely convinced) this plot twist in the flashback episode to her youth (Jungle Moon), because of narrative rules. There didn't seem to be a great reason for such a flashback, especially since they never showed what she was like while interacting with Rose - which led me to conclude that Pink Diamond's personality was directly important to the Crystal Gems. The next episode threw me, because it explicitly showed Rose shattering Pink Diamond, but then the fact that it was a narrated story by Garnet gave it a little leeway for inaccuracy.
When Steven started suspecting Pearl of shattering Pink Diamond, my suspicions returned in full force, because suddenly all the main plot holes in my pet theory evaporated. Gems could shapeshift. Pearl was supremely loyal to Rose, and would have done it for her. What I didn't know was whether the other Crystal Gems were in on it - apparently they weren't.
Incidentally, I don't understand this sense of triumph (crowing, as you say) about having your fan theory confirmed - I make a lot of theories, and many don't end up being canon. But the thing is, I am right a lot - so much that I've long ago gotten used to it. This sort of thing is strongly foreshadowed - as a writer, you need to place all the appropriate Chekov's Guns while actively misdirecting the audience, or you look like you pulled it out of your ass. Often, the writers have to give away just a little too much, because otherwise those who aren't very observant will end up thinking you pulled it out of your ass.
Also, in a TV series (less so in a movie, where there is less long-term emotional investment in characters) you have to do this while catering to the audience's impression of the characters - if you reveal an unpalatable fact about a beloved character, the fandom may turn on you. By watching the subtle, sinister notes revealed (in order to prevent the audience putting heroes on a pedestal), the audience can often figure out some of these plot twists.
Surprisingly, I am finding that this is somehow best pulled off by the writers of cartoons. There doesn't seem to be anything restricting live-action from having this quality of writing, but unfathomably so much of live-action TV is incredibly banal and formulaic. Right now, Dan Harmon, who did my much-beloved Community is making a cartoon (of which the major incoming plot twist, about Evil Morty, seems too obvious - but Dan was never all that subtle, nor do I believe he ever intended to be).
FYI, ABG, I once told you that Steven Universe is, in my humble opinion, the best cartoon out right now (even above MLP). Putting aside the general plot and interesting characters, I cannot tell you how much this show resonates with me. A female-centric show filled to the gills with lesbian relationships? Is there even another show in all of history that has this? The relationship between Rose and Pearl especially, speaks to me, because I sympathize very strongly with Pearl. Her character development, through the series, is easily the most profound (at least to me) and her own growth just, to put it mildly, great to watch.
I admit that I cried during It's Over Isn't It, the song where she danced on a balcony in a tuxedo. I'm not certain if my own perspective translates to straight audiences, but being in desperately in love with someone of the same sex, who sadly prefers hetero relationships - this is something that touched me deeply.
I've been waiting for this since Bismuth, honestly.
The big smoking gun was Rose bubbling Bismuth. No matter how mercurial she was, if she had made the call to shatter Pink Diamond there was no way that she'd leave Bismuth in her weird sub-dimension. If Rose didn't want to shatter gems, she wouldn't have shattered Pink Diamond. She's that impulsive. Rose-is-Pink-Diamond has been my running theory for a while, and I couldn't have asked for a better reveal.
Also this continues the trend of every Pearl character focus episode being perfect.
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Poor Pearl. I suspect that the next few episodes will not be fun for her.
One thing that I have enjoyed is how the show has slowly expanded upon Rose's character. To begin with, she was introduced as a perfect flawless paragon. Which is a bit boring. But we've got to watch that halo slip as Rose became more nuanced and developed, and it's been quite a fun ride.