Discussion WMG / StevenUniverse

I think we should change "Steven and Gems" to "Steven and the Crystal Gems", because "Steven and Gems" sounds like it talks about all Gems, not just the Crystal Gems.

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This page probably needs a split. Is there a hard limit where new text can't be added at all? Because I tried to edit and it's not working for me.

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I find the idea that "Alone Together" was an allegory for exploring gender identity in childhood/adolescence to be really cool. Stevonnie is pretty androgynous and is confirmed to use gender neutral they/them pronouns, and replacing "fusion" with being trans or non binary fits almost too well.

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Until the WMG page gets updated, I guess I'll write my guess about the Gem hierarchy here. This is basically my breakdown from the facts that we know on what the Gem society could be like:

The Gems originally evolved/were created without the strict social order they now exhibit, as evidenced by their physical ability to empathise with others and grow beyond their "programming". These early Gems had strong, broad-scoped and unique abilities that surpass those exhibited by the newer models by an order of magnitude. But their formation depleted the minerals of the Homeworld, resulting in increasingly weaker and smaller Gems being born with more limited abilities. So the early Gems decided that the new generations would have to become more specialised to be any good at anything. This was the start of the caste system. They were divided into aristocrats, who handled the decision-making, and had the greatest amount of resources expended in their creation, warriors who were physically strong but less versatile and prone to single-mindedness, and workers, who physically weak and specialised in highly specific tasks that they were supposed to follow for the rest of their lives.

But even this system didn't stop the decline of the planet's condition. New generations of aristocrats and warriors were increasingly weaker than their predecessors, and so the Gems decided to expand their territory by colonising an xenoforming new planets for their needs. The Gems produced on other planets relied increasingly on mass production, with thousands or millions of nigh identical Gems being made to serve the needs of the expanding empire. And so the Gems became the mechanistic, rigid culture that we know today, run by narrow-minded drones who can't see beyond the duties of their own caste, while whatever aristocrats remain have fallen out of the loop and just live in luxury on the Homeworld, pretending that nothing has changed from the past.

In this WMG Rose Quartz, Lapis Lazuli and Sapphire are aristocrats, signified by their more humanoid anatomy and dress-code, Amethyst, Jasper and Ruby are warriors, and Pearl and Peridot are ofcourse workers, albeit from highly different specialisations. Ruby and Sapphire were among the last non-worker Gems produced on Homeworld and are stunted and (relatively) weak because of it, which is also probably what originally gave them common ground in spite of their very different castes. Rose Quartz is unique and from the ancient stock, not a later specialised model Gem. The same may or may not apply to Yellow Diamond.

So, if we're just adding new theories here for now, I have one that's pretty much been at the back of my mind since I saw "Monster Buddies".

-Theory on the origins of the corrupted gems/how a gem becomes corrupted-

Now, I'm not fully caught up yet (just watched "Reformed"), so forgive me if this has already been explicitly confirmed/Jossed, but I have a theory on exactly how Gems become corrupted: Death trauma.

When Gems are "killed" and must regenerate within their gemstones, they obviously remember the pain and shock of whatever "killed" them, right? But long term, after hundreds of these "deaths", it would follow logically that there would therefore be an extensive psychological effect. The shear shock of being able to remember the feeling of your organs and bones being devastated over and over again, and the fear and panic that the moment of "death" would bring would be bound to drive a Gem who had been through the process many, many times somewhat insane. After a long enough time, Gems begin to lose their minds somewhat and become more unstable as a result of this. And of course, their bodies change to represent their mental concept of "self", so it only makes sense that their appearances would reflect this change.

During the Wars on Earth, so many Gems fell and rose again so repeatedly, over the course of, I assume, centuries, that many of them lost themselves completely, devolving to a vicious and feral mental state and becoming unable to tell Friend from Foe from Family from Food. Naturally, their bodies changed to reflect this, and they came to appear as vicious monsters, with their elaborate powers being replaced by simpler, more primal and damaging attacks, like the Centipeetle's acid and the Pufferfish's airblast. Because of the aftereffects of the War, many of these monsters were left scattered across the Earth, so after the Homeworld Gems were (I assume) driven off, Rose, Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst's mission became rounding them up and protecting people. This adds extra dimension to Rose's attempts (and failure) to heal the poor creatures: their problem is not physical, but instead something that would take centuries of intense therapy to overcome, and for all her compassion, Rose simply didn't have the patience or ability (imagine her gradually growing more and more frustrated and hopeless, eventually resigning herself to the reality that they simply needed to be bubbled.).

This could also have been a secondary motivation for birthing Steven, beyond simply wanting to have a child with Greg: given her love and respect for humanity, perhaps Rose reasoned that a human-gem hybrid, equipped with gem immortality and human empathy, could have a better chance at healing the "monsters".

I would also posit the possibility that the many battles that this would mean the gems had with hordes of dangerous gem monsters thousands of years ago could serve as an in-universe explanation for why human mythology and folklore is so full of tales of great heroes and wizards defeating terrible creatures.

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Uh. Is this the new WMG now?

Anyway, remember in "Steven the Sword Fighter" where right before Pearl takes on a new form she goes through outlines of her previous forms first? I was rewatching "Mirror Gem" and Lapis Lazuli had no previous form and was maybe solely an object up until the time she was separated from the mirror.

My theory is Lapis didn't even have a body and was installed right into the mirror. Which was why the Crystal Gems were alarmed when the mirror was sentient and Pearl said "it shouldn't be able to do that, it should only be following orders"

Lapis is probably the oldest of the gems we've seen so far.

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In the section for Confirmed theories, I'd like to point out that Ronaldo was also right about the Homeworld Gems hollowing out the Earth. As of "When It Rains", it's been confirmed that the Cluster is a massive gem cluster lying dormant in the Earth's core, with catastrophic consequences should it awaken. That sounds like hollowing out the planet, if you ask me.

Here's a big one to remember for when the long overdue page split is done:

• Amethyst and Jasper are related.
  • The guide has a "gem type" line in character profiles. Most of them are obvious, except Amethyst and Jasper who are both listed as quartz (and presumably Ruby and Sapphire have the same gem type, I can't personally confirm), which is true of their mineral namesakes. It's possible the guide only mentions gem types at all for the purpose of pointing out such a similarity.
  • In "When It Rains", Peridot assumes Steven was made in a kindergarden on Earth because he looks like a quartz. Could that mean all Gems made there were quartz? Could Jasper have fought in the Gem War because she was literally made for it?

New Theory: Garnet/Ruby&Sapphire invented/discovered Fusion.

Firstly, it seems that Garnet has the greatest level of skill and understanding in the process. She's almost the Fusion guru. Secondly, it doesn't seem like Gems are much for dancing, but Ruby might have seen humans dancing and decided it looked fun. Sapphire would've looked into the future and seen that it could bring them closer together and agreed.

I know that it's locked now, but I wanted someone else to put it up because I'm new here and I'm having a hard time working out how to do all the format coding.

In the meantime where do we go to move some theories into the "confirmed" section?

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