It was the fun episode, the silly little documentary Ronaldo slapped together (as well as his main portfolio piece for the position of inter-species negotiator). A couple of brief pieces of dialogue, delivered by Pearl, were still enough to give us some interesting facts:
- Monsters are drawn to the Crystal Gems
- The temple, though extra-dimensional, still exists in proximity to Beach City
So let’s start our analysis of #StevenBomb2.0 with the simplest entry we’ll have: considering two facts that have just been added to what we know about the Crystal Gems.
Magic beings are indeed drawn to us
This is an old idea. Even back in the pilot episode the idea that magical beings could detect and follow magical stuff was introduced. The very first episode, Gem Glow, had the Crystal Gems assuming that the centipeetle mother was trying to get into the temple. In Beach Party the puffer fish was definitely being attracted to either the Crystal Gems or the temple.
The nature of this attraction could be the subject for speculation but there’s not much to go on. Now that it’s been clearly established that this is happening, though, we can start to watch out for hints about why the corrupted Gems seek out the Crystal Gems and their temple.
We’ll have to move all the bubbles
This bit of information, that moving out of Beach City would also mean relocating the things inside the temple rather than simply moving the door, was very new. The temple is very much a mystery, with not much information at all being revealed about it. (It was a big enough deal to see the large expanses of solid rock in Reformed.)
When The Test aired we wondered whether the space inside the temple was finite or not and it seems that the answer is probably yes: if the areas inside the temple are all inter-connected and the temple intersects with the area around Beach City then there is probably a limit to the amount of space inside (though you could create universe geometries where the space inside is still infinite).
There is obviously at least some allowance for variance on the entrance: the same door can lead to various rooms, far distant from each other, inside the temple even though it occupies a single point in Beach City.
Probably the most telling thing, however, is what Pearl didn’t say. Her objection wasn’t that they couldn’t protect the bubbles without a temple, merely that they would have to move them. Assuming that Pearl wasn’t simply stating the first part of the problem (with an unstated “and we have nowhere to move them to”), that leaves us with two big possibilities that both mean the Crystal Gems are just fine with regard to potential bases: either there are other protected sites already around that they know of and could move into, or the Crystal Gems retain the ability to make a new extradimensional residence should the need arise.
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Maybe the Temple can just get up and walk away… o.O
Also, isn’t there another Temple door in the Ice Mountain? I thought I saw one in the background.
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I think it’s just a regular door. There’s a seam down the middle, whereas the temple door is seamless.
Besides, if the temple statue could just get up and move they wouldn’t be moving the bubbles (which Pearl is worried about as its own thing). If it’s even possible doing so would probably move the door out of range of the temple (which is the basic assumption this article makes).
I think the corrupted Gems are attracted to the CGs and the Temple because it’s their last resort. A majority of the corrupted Gems’ being may be taken over, but their “attraction” to the CGs may just be a final cry for help. It’s heavily implied if not confirmed all the way back in Ocean Gem that the corrupted Gems are former Crystal Gems.
If that is the case, then these corrupted Gems, with their last tug on the line of hope, search for the remaining Crystal Gems through their sensing of other gems in hopes of finding not only any CGs, but Rose Quartz too.
We just might have to wait until Steven regains his healing spit in order to see if this is truly evident.
Author
Healing spit isn’t going to cut it: Rose Quartz had healing powers, and even made a healing fountain, and was never able to do anything to really help the corrupted Gems.
The Geode Beetles might be Crystal Gems, as they seemed quite docile, but I’m not quite sure if the hostile creatures are former allies (unless it was the final Homeworld bombardment that unleashed the corruption, in which case that would make sense).
Even considering Rose’s inability to help the corrupted gems, it’s possible they knew/still know to some degree that the Crystal Gems were more likely to bubble them instead of outright shattering them- assuming the corrupted gems we’ve seen were indeed former Crystal Gems, anyways. The Centipeedle Mother intentionally(?) regenerated into a smaller, less menacing form after defeat, too, which gives me the impression that they knew who captured them- Getting /smaller/ in response to getting beaten so brutally definitely doesn’t seem like “vengeful monster” behavior, but I guess we won’t know until we see more captured monsters regenerate.
Or maybe it’s a mix of former CGs and Homeworld Gems making up the monster population, if the retreating Homeworld army left behind some of its own forces as a diversion? Corrupted Homeworld Gems would have an obvious grudge against the last of Rose Quartz’s army, explaining the monsters that directly seek them out (Pufferfish/Watermelon Tourmaline, the giant enemy crab, starfish-drill monster, etc), but the other more docile/defensive monsters could be former Crystal Gems still trying to tend to the duties they had in life.
The icy golem gem from Monster Buddies looked like it was protecting the Shooting Star (clearly located in a temple of some kind), and the Giant Bird could have been the Sky Spire’s former protector, but the mass number of bubbled gems & gem weapons in the latter’s stomach messes with that theory a little. Corrupt CG trying to recover fallen allies, or Corrupt Homeworld Gem that raided the CG’s bubble storage in the past somehow? Monster that was preying on corrupt gems by itself for some reason…?