As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- Aside from gameplay reasons, the reason the Room forces you to refight the Corrupted Gems is because Steven is trying to misguidedly "protect" the gems from the idealized versions of them that he doesn't want them to see, because he feels horrible and disgusted that the worst aspect of himself would be controlling enough to force the Crystal Gems to change on his terms.
- If Steven was trying to protect the Gems from him, it would make sense that the room rematches still give EXP. From a gameplay perspective, it prevents an Unwinnable by Mistake situation by giving the party just enough EXP to have them gain a few levels. From a story perspective, Steven needs the Crystal Gems to get stronger so they can free him from his corruption.
- During the final dungeon, Lapis isn't a party member and yet her corrupted form (The Drowned) gets a rematch while inversely Jasper is a party member yet her corrupted form isn't fought at all throughout the game. It makes sense once you consider that Steven doesn't see Jasper as a Crystal Gem and fears her due to their past animosity, hence why Rose-Steven doesn't have an idealized Jasper puppet available.
- Despite the final dungeon's premise of the Diamond Days arc being Steven's coping fantasy, it's Rose who represents Steven's corruption and not Pink Diamond or Greg. Rose Quartz's gem is a part of Steven, and Rose's legacy is where most of Steven's expectations of her originate, along with his fear that the gems blame him for Rose's death. Additionally Roon Rose represents Steven's desire to be like his mother while also resenting her for not being the perfect figure he believed her to be. Steven has never met Pink Diamond and has no personal connections to her, and Steven has nothing against his father, leaving only Rose to be a viable candidate to represent his worst aspects.
- There are hints that Steven doesn't really believe that Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond are the same person. When confronted on how little sense RQ = PD is, Rose-Steven backpedals repeatedly and changes the subject. When Steven finally corrupts, he's described to have Rose Quartz's pink hair but none of Pink Diamond's traits. Lastly the Pink Diamond part of the Perfect Crystal has none of Rose Quartz's attacks during the fight with it unlike Stevonnie.
- The final battle is different from all other fights because using the Talk function is important and that the wrong decision will cause you to become debuffed. In other words, it's a fusion between the regular battle system and the healing sequences which is fitting considering that Steven is a fusion of a human and Rose Quartz's gem.
- If the boss refights represent Steven's idealized versions of each Crystal Gem, what does the Perfect Crystal represent? A mixture of his experiences with Blue and Yellow Diamonds, Rose's memories of the Diamonds and Steven's own expectations of the Diamonds (having never met White and Pink Diamonds personally) and his guilt for their deaths. Rose-Steven's attempts to dissuade the party represent an attempt to dissociate from the guilt and pretend that everything is fine. Defeating the Perfect Crystal is Steven showing that he's strong enough to face up to his guilt and his corruption, even if needs help to overcome it.
- The Perfect Crystal being a shard fusion of the Diamonds makes sense; being a manifestation of guilt, it's portrayed as a fragmented mess. Further still, it drops a Flawed Crystal which implies its "perfection" is an illusion; if it really was perfect, it would be a Paragon and not a shard fusion.
- The Perfect Crystal is portrayed as using phantoms of each Diamond to attack the party. Pink Diamond using Rose Cut is supposed to tie into Steven's fantasy of Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond being the same person and her attacks only exist to support the others, Yellow Diamond's attacks being named after math terminology represents Yellow's logical perspective of other gems and represent her being the main opposing force, Blue Diamond's attacks represent her sorrow and supporting Yellow by debuffing your party and White Diamond's attacks represent her sheer power compared to all other gems and her tendency to rarely step in herself.
Fridge Horror
- If all of Homeworld has been corrupted by the shattering of all 3 Diamonds, then it's likely that the planet has been overrun by corrupted gems and that civilization there has been irreversibly destroyed. It's likely that not even Steven could heal them all even if he wanted to.
- The Homeworld ending implies that Steven is becoming corrupted and that his intention to save the corrupted gems there are anything but noble. If the game's main ending is any indication of what Corrupted Steven is like, it's possible that he'll become another White Diamond-like figure.
- One of the bad endings has Steven bubble all of the Crystal Gems, keeping them safe forever. If they're trapped in Rose's Room forever with a now Corrupted Steven and nobody can leave, then it's likely that Connie's days are numbered since he no longer needs her because he considers himself "perfect".
- Assuming that Spinel does exist in this universe and her backstory is similar to canon, was she affected by the Diamond's corruption of Homeworld? And if she wasn't, how would she react to finding out that the Crystal Gems were responsible for shattering her Diamond (and by extension, the others)?
