What we learned from Super Watermelon Island and Gem Drill

When you wrap up two major plotlines you’re bound to give some good lore out, and fans like us are sure to appreciate it. It’s been quite a while since we’ve done lore implications for weekly episodes, so let’s find out together if we still remember how.

All of them

Based on her appearance in Fusion Cuisine, some people doubted Alexandrite’s combat effectiveness. A major point of the series was showing the frazzled relations to the Crystal Gems, and while things seem to have got better on the team we’ve still seen how unstable fusions with fewer Gems in them are (Opal in particular).

As the Guide to the Crystal Gems says, though, Alexandrite is much more at home on the battlefield. She fought Malachite very effectively, only having one moment where she had difficulty keeping together. While she was out-fought by Malachite, instability had nothing to do with it. Give the Crystal Gems a common purpose and they’ll work towards it to the best of their ability—right now the intra-team strife seems to have been mostly worked out.

Searching

In Rising Tides, Crashing Skies Pearl said that the corrupted Gems were in fact drawn to the Crystal Gems. Because of this, after Nightmare Hospital aired we speculated that the forced fusion experiments could sense Steven. Given what Peridot said about how gem shards will try to seek out the rest of their gem, it sounds like we were right and the monster’s agitation when Steven entered the room was no coincidence.

It also adds even more tragedy to the Crystal Gems’ failure to find the shards of some of their comrades: not only were they used in horrific experiments, but the shards are being forcibly kept apart when rejoining is the only instinct they have left.

Steven’s dream powers

All the way back in Chille Tid we were first introduced to Steven’s ability to communicate through dreams. Now it seems that this power is back, and even more useful—taking control of one of his plant warriors on Mask Island without endangering himself.

At this point the Crystal Gems just take Steven completely at his word that he was there and he saw Malachite—not even Peridot raised any questions about how this could be possible. Of course in an episode packed so tightly with content, it’s entirely feasible that there was no time for anyone to disbelieve Steven’s story, but we noted after Chille Tid that Pearl was rather quick to believe Steven when he said he had communicated with Lapis in his dream.

The ability to project himself out in dreams is, at the very least, one of Steven’s powers. Given his hybrid nature, and the fact that Gems don’t usually sleep, the specific implementation is probably unique to him. Other Gems seem to be able to recognize when it’s him in the watermelon, so something has to explain that. Maybe this sort of projection has been done before in other ways, or perhaps Malachite and the Crystal Gems sensed his unique magical essence the same way the forced fusions and corrupted Gems can sense magic.

Full of surprises

We don’t know for sure what it means (though we are entitled to our suspicions), but Steven appeared to display another power in Gem Drill: he was able to connect with the Cluster, and appeared to feel its pain as Peridot tried in vain to drill through it. The connection itself may be just another manifestation of Steven’s already established dream powers—its first use, after all, was projecting himself into the mind of a fusion. The empathy though? Classic Steven. The way he accrues powers, we may very well be seeing this one again.

7 comments

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    • Something Witty on May 14, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    I’m pretty sure they recognized him right away because he already told them he had been a Watermelon Steven in his dream, then suddenly a random one goes and hugs Pearl, so it’s not that hard to imagine them putting two and two together.

      • gc13 on May 14, 2016 at 2:08 pm
        Author

      Malachite recognized him too, though.

        • Iggy on May 15, 2016 at 2:08 pm

        It could also have been that the Watermelon had the star on its chest akin to Steven’s shirt.

        • Scott on May 16, 2016 at 1:39 pm

        I think it was just that they dressed up their sacrifice watermelon to look like Steven, with the star and the rose garland. I don’t think Malachite fully knew what was going on until after she had broken out of Lapis’s water chains, and this was how the Watermelons were trying to placate her.

  1. no predictions about whats going to happen with japser?

      • gc13 on May 14, 2016 at 5:56 pm
        Author

      That’s tomorrow. Spoiler alert though: no Gems are safe from this potent force. 🙂

    • Iggy on May 15, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    About Steven’s empathy, you guys did state that it happened already in Horror Club, with Steven feeling the pain of the Lighthouse Gem.

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