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Spoilers for ‘A Single Pale Rose’ and whatnot here on out so beware

So after binge-watching all of Steven Universe within the span of two weeks, I have not been able to get this character analysis out of my head. Rose Quartz is such a multi-faceted character with so many layers and secrets that we still have yet to discover. That being said, after the latest episode, there are quite a few observations about Rose that I have made and would like to point out.

As we all know, Rose is quite far from perfect. In fact, she is extremely flawed.

And at the core of her flawed nature lies her selfishness. Everything that happened with the Crystal Gems, the rebellion, and even Steven himself, stemmed from Rose’s endless selfishness.

We get a first-hand look at how selfish and greedy Pink Diamond was in the episode “Jungle Moon”. Stevonnie has a flashback/dream as Pink Diamond, talking with Yellow Diamond (who is in the form of Connie’s mom).

Stevonnie, as Pink Diamond, continuously whines and complains to Yellow Diamond. Pink Diamond quote from the episode- “You have so many worlds, and I don’t even have one. It’s not fair! I. Want. One! I want my own army! I want my own planet! I deserve it!”

Of course, in this particular flashback/dream, a lot of Pink Diamond’s behavior comes from the fact that, by gem standards, she is a very very young gem. We already know that gems do have a perception of age to some degree, based on their mental state. Amethyst in flashback scenes and Steven have proven this to be true. Their mental age can affect their physical forms. Likewise, Pink Diamond is much smaller than the other diamonds and they clearly treat her as much more inexperienced.

You might say, “Yes, Pink Diamond used to be like that, but she changed! That’s why she became Rose Quartz!”

Yes, we are then told that she received Earth as her very first colony from the other diamonds. And that then she fell in love with humanity, and decided to become Rose Quartz to protect humanity instead.

I disagree with this, however. I think her reasons to become Rose Quartz and protect the Earth came from a very selfish place. Yes, Pink Diamond became enthralled by humans and their capacity for growth and change. She found life on Earth interesting and worth preserving. But by discovering this, she also ended up wanting to desert her responsibilities as a diamond.

In “A Single Pale Rose”, Pink Diamond tells Pearl that Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond don’t care about Earth, and to an extension, Pink Diamond herself. She wants to escape the diamonds and be free of her responsibilities as a diamond, and live on Earth with the humans.

While Pink Diamond’s scheme works out for Earth and humanity, many gems end up paying a heavy price. Because Pink Diamond takes on the guise of Rose Quartz, all of the Rose Quartzes get bubbled away. Hundreds of gems end up dying during the rebellion and even more become corrupted.

The only gems that survive? Of course, the two gems closest to Rose- Pearl and Garnet.

Speaking of friends, lets talk about another friend of the Crystal Gems- Bismuth. Rose had bubbled Bismuth away without telling anyone, not even Pearl. We know that she got bubbled away because of the Breaking Point, but we all assumed that was because Rose was against shattering any gem, including the diamonds.

To some degree, that’s correct. But the reason why Rose was against shattering the diamonds was not because she was against the shattering of gems, but because she never planned to take the rebellion to Homeworld in the first place.

Now that we know Rose was actually Pink Diamond, we can also assume that Rose didn’t want the Breaking Point used because Bismuth shattering diamonds = bad news for Rose who is actually a diamond. But the only gems who knew the fact that Rose Quartz = Pink Diamond was Rose herself and Pearl. But Pearl can’t spill this secret, because Rose commanded her to never speak of it again. Unless Rose was going to tell Bismuth herself, Bismuth would have no way of finding out the secret.

So the only logical reason behind Rose bubbling away Bismuth without a trace is that Rose never wanted to go to Homeworld to fight the diamonds.

Bismuth and the other Crystal Gems believed the rebellion to be Rose Quartz leading them to fight for their freedom. Bismuth thought the end goal was to liberate all gems from the rule of the diamonds. But really, the rebellion was just Pink Diamond wanting escape from the diamonds. She never planned to liberate all gems and colonies.

All Pink Diamond wanted was to keep her safe haven (Earth) and herself away from the diamonds.

Everything Pink Diamond did wasn’t for humanity or gemkind, but for herself. She sacrificed the lives of countless gems, Homeworld gems and Crystal Gems alike. She burdened Pearl with a secret for thousands of years. She had Pearl go through so much trauma by asking her to ‘shatter’ her.

Then the ultimate act of selfishness- having Steven.

Before you say anything, hear me out. I love Steven; he’s a fantastic character. But Rose’s motivations for having Steven isn’t what we all thought it was.

From the beginning of the show, Rose was painted to be this amazing gem who loved and empathized with humankind more than anything. Yes, Rose herself has stated that she loves humans.

But that doesn’t mean she had any empathy for humankind. This can be seen in the episode “We Need To Talk” in Season 2. Greg wants to fuse with Rose because he wants to connect with her, but Rose just isn’t getting it. She finds his attempts at fusion amusing, and when he asks her to treat him like a real person, her response is confusion- “But I’m not a real person”.

You can love a toy, but that doesn’t mean you will start to understand what it’s like to be the toy or understand the toy’s feelings. Humans were just toys to Rose. New. Interesting. Fascinating. Entertaining. She never really understood humans.

However, I do think she wants to understand them. Because she finds them so entertaining. She finds the way that they change and grow fascinating, because gems don’t do that.

So how does she go about learning that?

You guessed it.

By having Steven.

Rose literally becomes Steven. She and Steven cannot exist at the same time, so she gives up herself to become half of Steven. In the episode “Lion 3: Straight To Video” she literally tells Steven- “I’m going to become half of you. And I need you to know that every moment you love being yourself, that’s me, loving you and loving being you”.

By having/becoming a part of Steven, she is removing herself even further away from the diamonds. And through Steven, she is able to experience the human change and growth that always fascinated her.

By having/becoming a part of Steven, she also ran away from all the problems she caused. She broke all the promises she made to Pearl and left her in shambles. It’s still very clear that Pearl hasn’t gotten over Rose’s decision, and Pearl’s self identity is still very much tied to Rose.

I’ve disliked Rose Quartz from Season 1. But I still felt the blow when Rose was revealed to be Pink Diamond and what that could all mean. The crewniverse spent all that time in the past seasons building Rose up and portraying her as this all good, caring being who only knew how to love. Then they just tear that image down and begin to show us what Pink Diamond was like, who Rose was like in the past and who Rose might have been up until now. Her character is just so fascinating. I cannot wait to see where the crewniverse takes her character and backstory, and at this point, I can even see the theories of Rose Quartz becoming the main antagonist actually coming true.

We all know the gems are genderless. Most of them identify using she/her pronouns. And all the gems portray masculine and feminine characteristics to varying degrees.

Here we see Amethyst and Pearl, who we can say (in terms of outward appearance) are portrayed more femininely, wearing traditionally masculine suits. Looking fly as hell! (I’m so happy Pearl in a bowtie made a comeback)

Here is Peridot, a character many people assume to be more masculine than feminine, wearing a traditionally feminine dress! (And looking dAMN CUTE MIND YOU)

Here is our beautiful bride Sapphire, who many people consider to be the more feminine half of Garnet, rocking a tux and looking GORGEOUS AS HECK!

AND HERE IS OUR CUTER-THAN-EVERYTHING-IN-THE-ENTIRE-WORLD RUBY, WHOM EVERYONE THINKS IS MANLY AND MACHO AND SOME COUNTRIES EVEN GO AS FAR AS CHANGING HER TO HIM (SHAME ON THEM) LOOKING SO FUCKING ADORABLE AND HAPPY IN HER WEDDING DRESS!!!!

Pink took Pearl’s hands, crossed them one over the other, and said, “Let’s never speak of this again.” After this, Pearl was literally incapable of talking about what she did.

In The Answer, Rose took Garnet’s hands, crossed them one over the other, and told her, “No more questions.”

Luisa: Isabela, no.

Camilo and Mirabel: Mistlefoe.

The point was they all had generational trauma, and it broke the family. It was the reason Bruno left, Alma held on so tight to the miracle, Mirabel had a rocky relationship with her family etc.

Isabela Madrigal – voiced by Diane Guerrero

Camilo has to eat twice as much as normal and sleeps a ton because of all the energy shapeshifting needs. He also has to carry around a picture of himself, since he forgets what he looks like.

Isabela doesn't do well in the dark. She's slow and tired, and while she doesn't need to eat much she does drink a lot more than anyone else.

Dolores gets overstimulated super easy, that much is obvious. After being overstimulated, however, everything goes completely silent. She can't hear anything. Even years after it started happening she still panics.

Julieta can't feel pain. She'll be cooking for hours and come out of it with burns on her hands and wrists, unable to feel it. Her own cooking also doesn't work on her as well as it would someone else. While another person's cut will dissapear completely with her food, if she had the same cut it would simply scab over.

Bruno gets mini visions throughout the day, just small flashes of a possible future or action. He's physically incapable of telling the difference between these mini visions and real life. He'll be going to ask Abuela a question only to see a mini flash or her getting upset and he gets upset in turn, only for it to turn out he still had yet to ask his question. He also has frequent migraines

Pepa is physically incapable of feeling anything mildly. For her emotions it's either all or nothing. She can't feel just a little upset that her favourite dress has a new tear, she's devastated to the point that everything's flooding. She can't be just a bit happy with the gift a family member has painstakingly made her, she's overjoyed to the point the encanto experiences a mini drought.

Luisa doesn't feel tired. Whether it's the fatigue from working/exercising or even just generally feeling tired at the end of a long day, she doesn't feel it. It's resulted in multiple pulled muscles and passing out from lack of sleep.