Alright, we’ve taken care of the more traditional lore implications. Now it’s time to get weird: what might Future Vision have to say about the future of the series?
I never considered that you would be evil!
Well chalk up another one for the Cookie Cat As The Gems theory. Just as we’ve been getting bits about other Gems in Mirror Gem, Ocean Gem, and Warp Tour this comes along to really drive home what we’ve been thinking: other Gems aren’t good neighbors. We wouldn’t use the word “evil”, though arguing the distinction between “evil” and “purely self-interested” really doesn’t matter to most people when someone is draining your oceans because there’s a tiny chance it might get them home and they don’t care what happens to you.
It’s possible that Cookie Cat’s inclusion in Steven’s list of terrible things that could happen to him was a one-off silly thing, but where would the fun be in that? The Cookie Cat song served as great foreshadowing right in the first episode, and this new evil possibility seems to work with what we’ve seen of the Gems.
Cookie Cat: Deep cover operative?
But wait, didn’t everyone think that Cookie Cat represented the Crystal Gems specifically? It used to be so obvious: if Cookie Cat is a metaphor he’s obviously a representation of the Crystal Gems. A refugee who left his family behind and now lives on Earth? Clearly the Crystal Gems. An evil alien who might zap Steven? Well gee, we always thought that would be Peridot’s job (well, not her—but still, a Gem warrior who also has a rhombus on her chest).
We still maintain that the Crystal Gems are, from the point of view of humans, the good guys. Lapis castigates them for putting Earth above Gemkind; they’re deathly afraid of the homeworld coming to Earth, but certainly this is because they put their martial strength behind their love of the Earth at some point. They may be criminals to other Gems, but only because they’ve protected us in the past.
Remember: Cookie Cat comes from an entire race that, when drawn simply (like in a ice cream sandwich advertisement) all look the same. How would we know our Cookie Cat from another cookie cat from the homeworld? Steven is still having trouble telling friend from foe, and still seems to regard other Gems as friendly even though the Crystal Gems were terrified when Peridot arrived. He still thinks all Gems are the same, so all cookie cats are Cookie Cat to him too.
What would it take for the Crystal Gems to be evil?
There are still people who think that the Crystal Gems might turn out to be “the bad guys” in all of this. That’s certainly a tall order given everything we’ve seen about them: they capture monsters that could otherwise go on the rampage, keep powerful artifacts out of the hands of people who would probably use them to advance their own ends, and generally keep their nose out of humanity’s business. They even explicitly say they protect humanity, which would require them to be lying to Steven.
Lapis said she never believed in Earth—but someone did. That someone was probably the Crystal Gems. We can only hope that at some point we’ll know what about Earth there was to believe in, but until then we can always believe in the Crystal Gems and, as always, Steven.
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