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GC13 finishes out the Summer Adventure solo, discussing the last episodes: Beta, Earthlings, Back to the Moon, Bubbled, Kindergarten Kid, and Know Your Fusion. Oh yes, and plenty of discussion of Pink Diamond Theory (don’t believe what you’ve heard—it’s more true than ever now!).
This week had some heavy stuff, but it had some fun stuff too. We’re into season four (or three), so watch out for the Richingtons! (We’re going to keep mentioning this until it happens, because it needs to happen so very much.)
Now that the Summer Adventure event is over we have weekly premiers to make episodes about. Once those are done, however, we’ll get to doing individual episodes about each episode of the Summer Adventure.
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Your theory only works if the possession power is transferring consciousness and not just remote controlling. We don’t know which it is yet. If Steven was actually transferring his mind where is body was dormant, wouldn’t his body be dead? And if PD is in the drivers wheel of a RQ soldier, what happened to the mind of that RQ? I think it would make PD/RQ character worse because she hijacked someone’s body and so now there are 3 people sharing Steven’s body? Steve, PD and the original RQ?
I don’t know, this makes it contrived, confusing and overly complicated. SU has always been about simple reveals. The show has also never been that sneaky about said reveals. It feels like a Shamylan twist, which I won’t like about the show. Can’t we can’t take what the characters said at face value? That Rose killed Pd to free Earth?
Exactly. It’s the exact kind of thing that feels appropriate in establishing Rose’s flaws. She wasn’t able to resolve something peacefully and resorted to a horrible act. By making that act secretly a scheme by PD to make the war fought for slightly different reasons undermines the gravity of it and why it’s important for Steven’s development.
It also feels like the fandom is over compensating. Some got flatfooted by the Garnet = Fusion reveal so now everyone is looking for the ultimate reveal, even if it ruins the narrative structure of the show.
Author
If you go back through the archives you can tell pretty clearly that I wasn’t flatfooted by the Garnet reveal at all. 😛
I think it’s actually different. I was someone who thought the Garnet reveal seemed so obvious that it felt like it must be something we wouldn’t see coming. I think many people are having a similar reaction to Rose and Pink Diamond. It seems too simple that Rose would just be a regular but exceptionally powerful Gem. The big question though is what was Pink Diamond like. Considering how they went to the trouble of having Eyeball emphasize that she was there when PD was shattered, it leaves me to believe there’s more going on than we know. I still think Rose actually shattered PD, but there is most likely details about what led up to it that we don’t know yet. We’ve seen Garnet’s first meeting with Rose, but I get the feeling that Rose’s first meetings with Pearl and Amethyst, as well as the moment that she decided to start the revolution, have some serious spoilers tied to them. There’s also her motivation to give up her form and have Steven, since we see her in advanced pregnancy and the incident in “Greg the Babysitter” that probably gave her the idea to have Steven.
Thank you, you hit the nail right on the head. Fans can’t believe the reveal is so simple so what we still don’t know they fill with complicated theories even though the show has always done things simple. There has never been a wierd, complicated lore dump; its just not in the show’s DNA
I was flatfooted by that reveal mostly because I was only half-paying attention to the previous hints (which in retrospect made it seem stupidly obvious that Garnet was a fusion).
As far as Rose killing Pink Diamond though, I was surprised to see Pink Diamond become canon during Earthlings, so there’s that. But also, given the events of Bismuth where Rose apparently lied about what happened to Bismuth (shattered rather than just bubbled inside Lion), it isn’t as straightforward as some think it would be. Why wouldn’t Rose also have lied about shattering Pink Diamond?
Especially when the eyewitness we have is Eyeball who saw her shatter PD with her sword, though Bismuth pointed out that Rose’s sword couldn’t shatter Gems, just break their physical form. (Also Eyeball isn’t exactly….intelligent).
They never say Rose used her sword to shatter PD. Also, Rose most likely kept Bismuth’s fate secret because Rose didn’t want her ideas to propagate among the rest of the Crystal Gems, who were likely becoming desperate as the war went on since they were outnumbered and less well armed. We saw how much Pearl and Garnet missed her, so much that they didn’t think to question why she had been bubbled, so it would have been a moral blow to the Crystal Gems if word of Bismuth’s betrayal had spread during the war. With what we’ve seen there is a motivation for Rose keeping Bismuth a secret, there isn’t a motivate we know of for not shattering PD. Everything we’ve learned about Rose makes it seem she honestly believed in helping Gems decide their own destinies, and everything we know about the Diamonds fits with PD being a tyrant that couldn’t be reasoned with. Until we learn more about Pink Diamond and Rose prior to the rebellion, this theory that Rose lied about PD as well and that PD is actually Rose has few if any legs to stand on. Just because Rose kept some secrets doesn’t mean everything we hear about her is secretly something else she lied about.
Okay, I have several issues with Rose being bodyhopped PD.
There is no indication that the mind transfer is permanent, it would be pretty hypocritical for PD to sacrifice a loyal soldier in the name of saving other Gems just to make the war a rebellion and not a civil war, and whether it’s a civil war or rebellion wouldn’t really change the fact that Gems would be fighting Gems. We already know that Gems are able to think for themselves, so it’s not like PD leading the war would be like mind control, since the Gems would still be fighting against the other Diamonds, and we know from Peridot that all the Diamonds are respected, even the ones a Gem doesn’t directly belong to. PD being the leader of the rebellion undermines the whole point of Gems being self determining. Also, just because Lars doesn’t have a gem doesn’t mean a Gem to Gem mind hop would transfer abilities. Steven is an entirely new consciousness separate from Rose and PD, yet he seemingly retains those powers, so it’s evident that powers are tied to the physical gem and not the mind the Gem.
My bet is that Rose Quartz is unique because she was grown on Earth. Also, we have seen other examples of Gems with abilities seemingly uncommon to their type, like how Peridot treats her metal powers as a unique thing and not something Peridots have, and how it’s odd for Pearls to use weapons, so why would Pearl be able to summon a weapon? Also, from an old Matt Burnett tumblr post we know that the bubble room is a common room similar to the Temple’s heart, so it’s not tied to Garnet. Also, it makes perfect sense why Smokey Quartz has a Yoyo, since Steven points out how it’s both a weapon and a toy, and Steven and Amethyst’s relationship compared to the other Gems is defined by them having fun together.
…I don’t see how at all anything makes sense other than the information that has been given to us. You’re severely overcomplicating things by thinking Rose was Pink Diamond’s mind in a Rose Quartz soldier. Why can’t it be as straightforward as “Rose killed the bourgeoisie for the sake of the rebellion”?
Yeah, this is a really ridiculous theory. At this point I feel you’ve fallen victim to the backfire effect. I’m sure there’s more to the story then simply Rose shattering Pink Diamond, after all we’ve only been told things so far so who knows what the full story might be, but Rose being Pink Diamond? It’s just not likely. And any reason i’ve heard for how and why, yours especially, have all been ridiculous.
Author
Fair’s fair I suppose. I kind of consider all other explanations for Rose Quartz’s powers and all of the narrative hints, or the comfort with not having an explanation for them, to be kind of silly too.
We will get the rest of the story 1. The lore has always been given to us piecemeal and 2. The devil is in the details. If RQ is powerful, there is a reason and we will find out but all the evidence points to that her being PD is not the reason
I still don’t buy the “Gems are software” theory that so many others believe. They act too physical and too humanly emotional to be just a sophisticated computer, even if Gem damage leads to them spazzing out like a computer. I’m more in the camp that can turn themselves into light when need be (which is Eric Thurm’s contention as well) and can shape shift into solid matter elsewhere.
Also, I don’t want to believe they’re software either, because that means that Greg mated with a computer and Steven is half-computer, which is just cringeworthy.
Computers themselves are already made mainly of inorganic materials found in the earth, same as gems, and just because they might be computers doesn’t mean their inhuman robots. They could easily be computers of the “sufficiently advanced technology appears similar to magic” variety. Also, we know that they are created with specific purposes in mind like computers are. I don’t see how Greg mating with a computer is more weird than him mating with a rock.
Please stop trying to revive pink Diamond theory it’s dead, time of death last Monday at 7. You are just cooking a corpse with a defibrillator at this point, a corpse that is older than you realize since Ian JQ killed the theory a long time ago. This theory can be disproven simply by now Steven switches back in New Lars, he slaps his original body, that means damage would cause him to switch back so if PD did this she would just be killing herself. Also gems have no concept of sleep. And do we even know if Rose had this power? Could be Steven only. More true than ever? It couldnt be more dead, this is moron level denial at this point. IT’S. DEAD. LUNAR. SEA. SPIRE. DEAD.
The weird thing is when this power is introduced in Chille Tid, Pearl and Amethyst don’t talk about how Rose had this power like they do when Steven discovers plant powers, healing powers, and his shield, yet at the same time they seem not that surprised by it. We do know from Pearl in that same episode that “sleep” is technically possible for them, so Rose could have gone into Gem sleep to use this power.
Simpler version Rose-as-Pink-Diamond theory: Instead of body hopping, suppose it’s just the same lie Obi Wan Kenobi told Luke? “She ‘killed’ her.” as a metaphor for betrayal. Requires less stretching of the imagination.
Not that I really think that’s likely, but it is simpler.
Not really simple because you have to explain how a Diamond became a Quartz. Diamonds are a specific shape and every gem we know that has seen Rose or Steven has called them a Quartz. So, you’d have to come up with some weird, complicated way to explain that without messing with the already established rules of this universe.
True enough. It does get rid of any concerns about there being another gem involved, though (in other words, the soldier this hypothetical Pink Diamond would have hijacked)
This is more a specific criticism of the use of the body-hopping version of this as opposed to trying to save the Rose-as-Pink-Diamond thing from its flaws. My own opinion is that it went down as told: Rose shattering Pink Diamond, infuriating those who were still loyal to PD.
You 100 episode is GC talking to himself?
LSSP, you know I love you, but I love you for your fascinating discussions and debate! GC could /probably/ debate himself if he needed too, but I’d rather an episode be late rather than a solo show. Solo shows are the worst – with no offence to GC – because there’s nowhere for ideas to bounce off of other than the solo host’s own brain.
100 episodes, guys! 100 episodes!
Great episode GC13! I’m usually skeptical of podcast episodes that contain only one person, but you gave nice recap while also giving your opinion in a good, steady pace.
This is just me adding something, but Jasper getting bubbled reminded of a point brought up in another podcast discussing week 3 of Summer of Steven and how the show wrote itself into a corner regarding it. If you would like to listen to it, here it is (you can stop at the 40 min. mark): https://youtu.be/5P6n3BZUZPY?t=37m43s