The Diamonds and the “Self”
Change Your Mind introduced a lot of mind-bending concepts. It also blew a lot of speculation out of the water by delivering to us precisely the most extreme scenarios. Off the top of the list are: showing us Obsidian, the long-speculated Temple Gem Fusion, Lapis and Peridot’s Crystal Gem regenerations, and of course, the age-old, “What would happen if we pulled out Steven’s Gem?”
I want to talk about that last one. To get everyone on the same page, the climax of the movie has the Crystal Gems face off against White Diamond, but she incapacitates them easily with her mind projection powers. More on those powers later.
With ease, White picks up Steven and plucks out his gem, expecting Pink Diamond to reform. Instead, after cycling through the silhouette of Pink Diamond and then Rose Quartz, a pink Steven is formed.
White Diamond is shocked and tries to use her powers on the pink Split Steven, as he was called by Joe Johnston, but he uses his shield against her.
Pink Steven finally makes it to a very weakened human-Steven, and they fuse in what is one of the smoothest animation sequences in the show. Steven re-forms and White throws a tantrum. Steven diffuses the situation and he and Connie laugh at White, causing her to blush and turn pink. This causes White to release her control over the other Gems and shifts the story into the resolution.
A couple of interesting things happen in this scene, and White says some cryptic things. To better understand what on earth happened when Steven’s gemstone was separated from this body, it would help to look at why White, and all the other Gems, had such a hard time wrapping their minds around Steven’s being, well, Steven, and not Pink Diamond or Rose Quartz.
For those who prefer video format, I also sent this script to @thecartoonuniverse and if all goes well I’ll be linking to that video when it’s up.
1. Homeworld’s concept of Identity is tied to the Gemstone
First things first, let’s delve into Homeworld’s concept of identity.
On Homeworld, a Gem’s “Self,” or however you want to call it: their identity, their essence, their being, whatever makes that Gem an individual, is intrinsically tied to their Gemstone. It’s the main reason why Gem address each other by their Gemstone. Calling someone by their name is tantamount to recognising them as a being separate from the rest.
It also reinforces the idea of homogeneity on Homeworld. Every class of Gems is expected to fulfil a particular purpose. As Yellow Diamond said, “From a thin flake of mica to the deepest, hardest stone, we all must make sacrifices for the sake of our perfect empire.”
Early on in the series, we already got the sense from Pearl that Gems were replaceable, but the hints we were getting that this applied even to the Diamonds were finally confirmed in the movie. Even if the Diamonds were all just porcelain figurines speaking on behalf of White, we’re led to believe it wouldn’t have been questioned by the rest of Homeworld.
In short, on Homeworld, identity is tied to purpose, and that purpose is defined by one’s Gemstone. This makes sense as each class of Gems has unique Gem abilities. Rubies can superheat themselves, Sapphires have future vision, Lapis Lazulis have hydro-kinesis, and the like. And these abilities would define what each Gem could accomplish. That’s problematic in itself, and we’ll be talking about that later.
But first, what does this all mean for Steven? In White Diamond’s eyes, no matter what form “Pink Diamond” takes, her Gemstone would remain the same: The Pink Diamond.
That’s why it was no problem for White Diamond to extricate Steven’s Gemstone from the rest of him. White was operating under the notion that everything that was needed to bring back Pink was all there in the Gemstone. She saw Steven as an organic being separate from the Gemstone, much like we would view clothing as something we could freely take on and off on a whim.
And that’s what was so damaging about White’s dismissiveness. She honestly believed Steven was just another one of Pink’s “whims.” Her viewing Steven as nothing more than an organic shell was not out of malice against Steven himself. She didn’t even acknowledge Steven was his own individual from the get-go, because she was incapable of thinking that it was even a possibility.
For millennia, she believed that this one thing was true, and she wasn’t making an effort to understand this new information in front of her as a sign that her worldview should be re-evaluated.
That leads to the next idea.
2. The Diamonds comprise Homeworld’s Idealised Version of the “Self”
2087
vaporwave
pixelskylines
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
kaledo-art
discoholicmusic
kianamaiart
tangentwithtanner
