I had an amusing thought, Susan Egan is the voice of Pink Diamond yet she was originally a spoiled brat despite her deep mature sounding voice.
Her sister being shattered and spending millennia mourning her death is what probably did it.
You are now imagining her temper tantrum in "Jungle Moon" in that voice.
edited 8th May '18 7:11:10 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised@54099 Well, yes, there is that, but I feel like we'd be a bit cheated if we just left it at that and never got to see how that developed at all.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Rose didn't plan anything at all, imo. Her biggest flaw, and the reason she fucked so much in her milenia long life, is that she lived in the moment.
She was shortsighted and didn't think of the possible consequences until they bit her in the ass.
Knowing what we do know, I'm positive she legit never expected anything of Steven other than being (and probably finding the thing she was missing that would finally heal the corrupted gems, which I'm sure is his human empathy).
It was the CG the ones that needed him to become a fighter to guide them.
Rose probably thought the war was definitely over. She never expected Yellow's Cluster.
This is what makes this development so great. We've had this whole saga of Rose increasingly being revealed as far from the perfect goddess the Crystal Gems painted her as, and this newest episode is the highest possible culmination of all that.
Rose is responsible for almost every terrible thing that happened in the series, all because she was too selfish and immature to care about what her actions could cause
edited 8th May '18 7:49:42 AM by Proglottid
Something we see in Pink Diamond's Establishing Character Moment in Jungle Moon.
As someone who's an older sibling, that bit where Pink Diamond expressed her belief that the other Diamonds wouldn't care about her death was kind of hard-hitting.
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."Pink wasn't totally selfish. She did want to keep Homeworld off Earth.
In Stevonnie's dream with her she was all happy and climbing up on Yellow's lap playing with her stuff and wanting a colony. It was when Yellow said no that she threw her tantrum.
Her zoo, her fling with Greg...she saw humans mostly as pets until she got pregnant, then she decided to stay with him.
You gotta believe me when I scare you away, all that I wish for is that you would stayYou're throwing her under the bus, Proglottid.
Yes, all of the bad things that happened were the result of her actions.
I find it hard to call her selfish. She legitimately loved Earth, she legitimately wanted the colony to be free, she legimitately loved humanity, she legitimately loved Pearl, she legitimately loved Greg and she most deffinitely wanted Steven to be.
It's just not a love that can easily be measured and understood, because it's through the filter of a milenia old alien mindset.
She never meant for anything of the terrible things that happened, and I'm quite certain she was genuinely hurt by the consequences when they came.
She was just shortsighted and didn't understand.
The way it's been presented, it feels like Rose never really *got* humanity until after she hooked up with Greg
Up until that point the whole thing amounts to "You know I like being in Earth with the silly humans more than with the Diamonds, I'm gonna stay here, the Diamonds don't care anyway"
Except they cared more than she thought and it all just spiraled down to horribleness
edited 8th May '18 8:40:04 AM by Proglottid
She's a good example of how someone can have a Lack of Empathy and not be a totally awful person. She just didn't get humans despite how fond she was of them, nor did she get her sisters' actual feelings towards her.
Disgusted, but not surprisedShe also didn't seem to get Pearl's feelings
Or else intentionally ignored them.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThis whole ordeal just makes me feel a newfound love for Pearl. I mean, I always liked her but man this puts so many things into context. This girl literally did and still does everything for Rose, to the point where she is programmed to preserve her memory and her values. And even after Rose is gone, she's still stuck carrying on her legacy, regardless of if she wanted to or not ("Now I've got to be there for her SON." "Now she's gone, but I'm still here."). It's pretty heartbreaking, and terrible, that Rose constantly left Pearl with her mess to clean up. It also makes this scene even more insane:
It's weird how Steven doesn't even know the depth of how right he is. She was so selfish and a liar, but it makes sense because she's a DIAMOND. She's kind of like the Greek gods in a sense that she's so above it all that she only cared about what she wanted. It makes sense why she was such a great leader to her followers. It makes sense why she was such an individual in comparison to all of the gems. Why she is subtly condescending to humans and gems alike as if she talks down to them. Why she is such an avid supporter whenever someone goes against the norm like Ruby and Sapphire.
It's vanity. They follow her image and her ideology. She's literally above them! The only seemingly good thing about any of what she's doing is that she's protecting humanity but somehow...it's still kind of terrible. Rose is still pretty terrible.
Man, I love this show.
edited 8th May '18 8:49:05 AM by deuteragonist
I think part of the problem with Pink Diamond is that we've seen a couple of key moments caught in amber, so to speak, but we're not seeing the Character Development that led to those. Because honestly, in "Jungle Moon," PD really does seem like the selfish Spoiled Brat that only thinks of herself. The kind of person who'd just gather humans up and make a zoo for them for her own entertainment. That's radically different from the impulsive-but-much-more-well-meaning Pink Diamond that we saw that basically abandoned her old life so completely that her one retainer who knew of it was compelled to never speak of it again. And even that is much different (though obviously closer than what we saw in "Jungle Moon") from the still-impulsive-but-focused-completely-outward Rose Quartz that fell in love with Greg..
This is why I think we're likely going to have another episode with a similar conceit to "A Single Pale Rose" - there are two ways that I think we could see what connects those "moments in amber", and seeing Pearl's memories of them seems like the more consistent choice. Steven could also potentially access more memories via dreaming, but that's much more scattershot, and that seems to always raise more questions than answers.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.As far as where we go from here, I still think Pearl was originally white Diamond's, and given to Pink as a gift upon taking the reigns of her colony, and furthermore that White Diamond knows what actually happened to Pink via some sort of Manchurian Agent setup allowing her to spy on Pink via Pearl, with neither of them being the wiser, with the Cluster being a long term way of eliminating a potential threat in a way which wouldn't arouse suspicion or undermine the Diamonds' appearance of invincibility by implying some of the crystal gems survived the corruption attack and went on to live peacefully on Earth as they'd always hoped rather than being crushed for aspiring to exist outside of the hierarchy of the Gem Caste system.
In one sense it was basically the only way for Pearl to be truly free; whereas the other crystal gems followed her out of their own free will, Pearl was doing precisely what a proper gem was expected to do, obeying the orders of her superior without question.
edited 8th May '18 9:19:23 AM by CaptainCapsase
And the sad thing is that Lack of Empathy is kind of understandable. Just look at her role models. Being raised by Yellow Diamond and pre-Character Development Blue Diamond...
Admittedly, having a Lack of Empathy is arguably a good thing when your main job consists of sucking the life out of entire planets, killing everything and everyone on them.
Which makes her still being bound by the last order she was given extra harsh.
edited 8th May '18 9:05:21 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedI mean, the CG themselves have shown a lack of empathy in the past.
A lot of their actions and feelings are genuine, but in the past we were shown seveal points where its evident they dont understand humanity and points of view different than theirs.
This is the core flaw of the Gem race. Some characters like Peridot are blank pages ans develop really quickly, others like Lapis are just stuck in place.
The CG just very recently through Steven had began to look beyond the big picture.
Rose only really began to understand when she met Greg.
It took Pink's death for Blue to began to even perceive beyond her caste.
I guess this is why I'm bothered by so many people single out Rose as a monster in light of this reveal.
And she still found a way around it.
Pearl's dependence on Rose is the last bit of character development she will have to work through. That's probably the idea behind S.
I personally would prefer her finding new love in Ame.
edited 8th May '18 9:12:53 AM by MrSeyker
I actually love Rose. Honestly, rewatching Pink's shattering (for the 20th time)...I feel like that's maybe what the writers want us to feel. It's another red herring. Rose's decision is impulsive, but maybe it looked like it was taking place during a battle...which means that they were already in the midst of fighting before Pink's shattering. I'm guessing the Diamonds wanted to do something with Pink's colony and the conversation in Can't Go Back was her trying to protect it peacefully. It seems like she was trying to leave the Earth alone. I guess her living her life as Rose and faking her death was the only way to stop them.
Damn and I just went on a whole rant about how Rose was terrible. Man, I love this show.
edited 8th May '18 9:21:48 AM by deuteragonist
Anyway, building on my speculation about how things go forwards from here, this isn't to say I expect White Diamond is going to be a purely one dimensional villain; I doubt that very much considering how every other villain has been, but I'd love an enemy whose depth went beyond simply being pitiable and affable, ie a Well-Intentioned Extremist with a well developed (but of course not entirely compelling to either the audience or the characters) argument for why the tyranny of the Gem Empire is necessary.
Gem Society already bears a striking resemblance to the World State from Aldous Huxley's Dystopian classic Brave New World, and the famous scene where the main characters debate the World Controller about the relative merits of the Post-Discontent society he oversees would be my preferred blueprint for how to characterize White Diamond, and many of the (surprisingly strong given we're talking about a Dystopia) arguments he raises against self-determination and free will could readily be transferred to White Diamond.
edited 8th May '18 9:35:07 AM by CaptainCapsase
I mean, its so understandable that people would have such varied reactions to this. People identify strongly with many aspects of the story and Rose.
Like I said previously, I never cared about the perfect Rose the CG sold Steven, and even when the revelations began and she became more flawed and gray, it still didn't do much.
But this finally makes her a character I care about.
Okay, considering the plot twist surrounding the episode, how does Divine Date not apply to anyone in any romantic relation with Rose Quartz or Steven?
I mean, the laconic wiki for Divine Date is being in a romance with a god, and Rose Quartz, as Pink Diamond was basically the Gem equivalent to a Physical God, yet Divine Date was taken out of Greg's entry because, if I'm reading it right, Pink Diamond wasn't the type of god that most think of, the type that the Judeo-Christian God is.
So, I ask it to all of you, does the following entry:
- Divine Date: As it turns out, Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond under a psuedonym. That said, he was married to her, and Diamonds, in general, are revered as Physical Gods.
apply?
Since the Diamonds are troped under God-Emperor, I think it applies.

Going back to "Can't Go Back"... I'm a bit colored by the fact that Lapis is still my favorite character, admittedly, but I just felt like this cemented her The Woobie status. The show is probably never going to come out and say it, but Lapis has perhaps the longest-running case of PTSD possible. Appealing to the things she likes, the people she wants to be close to... all of that just serves to torture her more, because of a psychological block that she literally cannot surmount on her own. Given how long it was going on, who knows if it's ever possible to overcome for her, even if she did get professional help. Lapis is probably the clearest case of the limits to just what Steven could do. He means well, and he does help Lapis as much as he possibly can... but he has his limits. Someone being the best friend they could be for a year is not going to heal millennia of trauma.
I guess I like Lapis best because, despite how fantastic the circumstances are behind her, she feels the most real to me. Even her faults and failings (like her impatience and fear leading to Poor Communication Kills) echoes all too real to me.
I still feel like she's got her part to play in what comes next, but yeah, we're going to unfortunately have to put her on the backburner for a bit.
One thing I don't think has been discussed enough about the episode though was Blue Diamond's appearance in Steven's dream/memory. For a while, I had been wondering if BD's first major appearance in Garnet's flashback about Garnet's origins was just heavily colored by Garnet's natural issues with BD. However, listening to BD's advice to PD was eye-opening... I'm starting to think that Garnet was not exaggerating BD's cruelty and coldness back in the days of the rebellion. There was some sort of massive change that resulted in the BD we know today.
I strongly suspect that we're going to get at least one more episode with a similar conceit to "A Single Pale Rose" - Unless it turns out that Steven can rescind the last Pink Diamond order, Pearl still couldn't talk about Pink Diamond's past and development into who would become Rose Quartz. If they want to depict how the bratty PD of "Jungle Moon" transitioned into the woman who'd become Steven's mother, I think more dives into Pearl's memory are the only way to show that.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.