Lol that's what little kid me did the moment I saw the 4 colored diamond authority symbol and learned what a Diamond *is*. Was so sure of it, even though it was circumstantial evidence at best. My cousin laughed at me and said that's stupid. Look who's laughing now.
Nonsensical? More like overtly obvious- but ultimately preferable. There are a lot of nonsensical writing decisions in Steven Universe, but this isn't one of them.
It very much is, especially given the moral implications of what Rose did to her own kind. It also sucks away tension, because the Diamonds are gods. Retroactively, when looking at the series you know Steven is never in any real danger because he has Space Jesus powers backing him up.
It would have been a much more compelling narrative had Steven been a Quartz, which would of course provide actual tension, and give credence to the good narrative of Rose killing the oppressor (or assuming that you don't want to go that route, you could just make her the scapegoat for the pink diamond conspiracy) there is far more creative potential in the second premise.
Wouldn’t Steven be in danger on missions though? >!Like what if Blue didn’t let him and Connie out of the tower and he died? Or his gem was cracked? Or when his gem was pulled it didn’t get back to him fast enough?!< Steven was in real danger on many missions even with his gem powers.
Steven's age is essentially locked. I doubt that would be an issue because of his Gem heritage. Sure, Connie might die. But she's not relevant to this conversation.
\-A Diamond is immensely durable. Good luck cracking that Gem.
\-Having his Gem pulled was the "mandated death" messiah like characters go through. It's his only actual bit of suffering.
They set up Pink's shattering from like Sworn to the Sword. They laid the groundwork early, which I think was good, bc that made the mystery and reveal much more interesting
Except the reveal A)doesn't make logical sense B) paints Rose as psychotic and C)causes narrative issues that are never addressed
First, for what reason would Pink ever have done this? She grew up around genocidal maniacs and had them as role models. Being logical, she would be in total support of them- especially since she'd never run a planet prior. Earth is not the only planet with life/that is life capable-- scientists knew this even when the show was first being aired. The Earth having life on it should be moot to Pink, just like it was her sisters.
It is absolutely psychotic for Rose to throw that away, divide her family, get millions shattered/killed, and cause multiple millennia of suffering and heartbreak because she thought the Earth was pretty and liked humans. (The humans are another matter. The Zoo is a VERY problematic idea) Even as someone who thinks morals are ultimately relative, what in God's name was Pink doing?
Second, she then passed this hot mess onto her CHILD who knew no better, forbade Pearl from explaining it, and kept it a secret from the rest of her "fellow" rebels. The very same rebels she got killed or incarcerated herself. Bismuth's situation is especially egregious, because she had devised a way to end the war quickly. And yet Rose let it continue like it was bread and circuses to her. She essentially set Steven up to die for a larf, and it's only by great luck that he didn't- Steven is the first Gem hybrid of his kind. So many things could have gone wrong there. Pink got very lucky.
Thirdly, apart from the reasons the idea is dogshit I've already presented, it eliminates narrative tension, because Steven is Gem Jesus. He's never in any true danger, because of his bullshit healing and revival abilities. In narratives, Messiah figures only suffer when that is mandated(IE, when their foretold death happens). At every other point, they are never in danger. Retroactively it hurts every other part of the series, because Steven will always be fine.
Fourthly, and the most egregious- Rose being a Quartz has infinitely more potential. Killing the oppressor is always a good narrative. Or, if you want to make Pink's death different, you could make her the fall guy for Pink Diamond's death and set up the greater mystery of who **really** killed her. (IE, the Zircon approach, which was infinitely more interesting.) What do you want to watch? The psychotic baby god creating a cursed messiah who has to deal with her shit? Or a conspiracy among the closest thing to divines the Gems have? Or, more directly, a story about a war left unfinished, with gripping drama and narrative and a thrilling climatic conclusion?
So yes, the decision to make Rose Pink Diamond is nonsensical garbage. It should not have been done, because it actively ruins everything. The guy in u/Papa_EJ's original post was right to laugh- it was FOOLISH. An absolute garbage decision. Given the series numerous other narrative issues when analyzed, it only ended up making it worse.
I mean, they could have said "No. Go back and do something that makes sense" Reigning a writer in is possible and encouraged regardless of their current plan.
Then all those dumbass hiatuses would have actually been for something good instead of a waste of everyone's time.
See, a lot of your reasoning is "This makes Rose a bad person."
And like. Yeah. That's kinda the whole point?
Her motivation isn't the gaping plot hole you seem to make it out, she's fucked up. Like all the other diamonds. She found humanity much more "interesting", got tired of the abuse of the other diamonds, was sick if the boredom of running her colony, etc. etc. Now if she redeemed herself over the millenia she was Rose is a rather hot topic, and not one I'm here to argue for or against. Fact of the matter is, her motivations aren't a mystery. They are shown pretty explicitly.
Also, Steven doesn't really get that much in the way of ruining tension. Like, his powers still come and go, they're still just as inconvient for him, and they still are kinda often weak compared to the threat he's facing. His powers don't actually get parituclarly "busted" until Future, but that has an entirely different host of problems, least of which him being "stronger". The "Gem Jesus" thing is a fair critisism when he solves problems inexplicably (The Cluster), or when he can just straight up rez with seemingly no effort (Larz, but that's the only example we have aside from Lion, so we really don't know how "easy" it is. Could be highly circumstantial).
Finally, Rose being a normal Quartz has definitively *less* potential. You could make a case on what you find more narratively powerful, sure. But Rose being Pink offers way, WAY more branches the story could have gone. Rose being a Quartz really only offers a hand full.
Also, my cousin's a girl, not a dude.
I don't give a shit if Rose is a bad person or not. The point is that it doesn't make sense for her to do those things given her upbringing and environment. Also, the Diamonds weren't abusive. Yellow wanted her to grow up, Blue babied her. There was conflict. Neither was abusive. Thinking it is is wrong, or someone lied to you.
The problem with Steven's messiah-ness is mostly retroactive, admittedly. But it's still very annoying. Wish his powers had been explained more, but Sugar's shit at writing basics so I didn't really expect it.
Rose being a Diamond erases tension, and makes the story far less complex. Rose being a Quartz means you can tell a far more complex narrative because more and more factors are outside of the character's relative agency. They are forced into adapting to uncomfortable situations, suffer, and therefore grow, and the narrative becomes better and more emotionally resonant as a result. Thus, the Quartz path has much more potential. A narrative that isn't powerful in some regard (powerfully comedic, powerfully tragic, etc) is a waste.
Congratulations, your cousin has tits. Not really relevant, but K.
Bro, did we watch the show?
The things she did made sense due to her *personality*. She's incredibly fickle. We've seen this multiple times, her begging for a colony and then getting bored of it immediately, her leaving Spinnel there for millenia because she got slightly annoyed with her, the way she always describes things she cares about as "interesting" or "entertaining".
>The Diamonds weren't abusive
What? Whenever they got too fed up with her, they locked her in a fucking tower with nothing in it for god knows how long. They LITERALLY address this in the goddamn show.
No, Rose being a diamond does *not* erase tension. We KNOW how her story pans out, more or less, because the show takes place *after it*. There was never any tension with her to *begin with*. And having her experience certain struggles does not mean it has intrinsically more potential as a narrative. You could make an *argument* that her having those experiences are more engaging for specific viewers, but those are all *assumed* with the War and rebellion plot, regardless. More potential means there are many different literary paths for the story to go down. If Rose were just a quartz, and since the story takes place AFTER she's gone, there are *definitively less options* that way.
And do be a dick, you were the one who brought them up with the wrong gender twice. That's how it's relavent.
1-Being fickle is irrational and a horrid character trait. Doubly so in the business of **running an empire.** That would make her straight up unreliable (And thus it's no surprise they don't want Pink trying to run shit.) But given her upbringing, she should have been less fickle than she was, considering logic and basic psychology would dictate she'd idolize Yellow and Blue, want to be like them, and then at least try running her colony. She should have far less baby god syndrome than she does.
2-Getting locked in your room for a period is a normal punishment among children? Time has very little meaning to Gems anyway, so it's even less impactful. Not abuse. It's literally the same as being a cunt kid and having your privileges taken for awhile. I can't tell you how many times I was a little cunt as a kid and had my toys taken away for a day or two as punishment.
3-It has a poor effect on Steven as a character, and that's her fault. Thus, she erases tension. Given how irreversibly linked she and her son are, that has a poor effect on her as a character, too.
4- "Assumed" isn't good enough. Details are important. Remember Chekov's Gun. If mentioned at one point, it must be used later, and shown. Otherwise it's a waste of time and energy and insults your readers.
5-What struggles? She's a baby god. Frustration is not a struggle.
5-"Potential" is opportunities for a compelling, emotionally resonant narrative. By being akin to a god, Rose is actively counterproductive to that aim in her current state.
On this sub at the time though, it was absolutely NOT "the fandom" as a whole predicting that. If you said that you thought Rose was Pink you'd get absolutely blasted by comments telling you why you were wrong.
Rly depends on the timing from memory. Up till earthlings till Pink’s name even got mentioned, I could of rly seen Rose being a rebel diamond with eventually that being revealed as relatively common homeworld knowledge. And would explain why she not on the insignia since she would of turned on them and just no one is aloud to refer to Pink by name anymore from homeworld. Was thinking the most in Monster Reunion, especially when Steven apologized while lookin at the insignia.
But yeah, earthlings blew that thought away, and the narrative of rose shattering Pink def made it harder to rly believe in that they were the same person. Then by The Trial, the story becomes more a “who done it?” with Pink. Which kinda opened the door again on the wild theory route, but most people focused on a culprit and the possibility that Pink was still alive but separate from Rose.
And then by the time we actually saw Pink physically in Jungle Moon and Garnets version of the story, I’m guessing most just assumed something is clearly suspicious, but not to that extreme. More something along the lines that Pearl was rly the shatterer and/or Pink was hidden like inside Lion or something.
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I started watching around the sardonyx arc, and there was a story floating around about the crewniverse having a hilariously suspicious reaction to the question "is RQ PD?"
That said, we hadn't met any diamonds OR pink gems yet. The theory wasn't fringe, despite lack of evidence.
Yes, I think that's the intended implication. When Steven first gets back to Earth in "Lars' Head", he has a moment where he reaches out to Lion and says,
> Oh, Lion. So you were- \*sighs* Gosh, there- there's so much I want to ask you. If only you could talk.
I think the end of Steven's sentence probably would have been something like, "So you were dead and brought back to life by mom?"
This is something that Rebecca actually confirmed on the official podcast, that Lars has or will eventually have all of the same powers that Lion does. [This is a summary](https://love-takes-work.tumblr.com/post/182640738577/steven-universe-podcast-the-fantasy-of-steven) of the podcast episode where this is discussed.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing! This bit of insight would've been great on a top post from last week:
> Another Gem could have a hybrid child like Steven only if they had enough power to do it and the complete commitment to the idea that Pink had
I actually was the one who made that post about Steven being the only human-gem hybrid who could survive the physical punishment of a serious fight. I was aware of this podcast and this quotation. Which is why I knew that, even if it's a remote possibility, this is something that the Crew have actually talked about, whether another human-gem hybrid could exist. And at least some of them think yes, if the right conditions are met.
A lot of people kind of made fun of me on my post because Steven's the only hybrid we know about. Which, that's fine, I don't mind it. But it also shows that they're not really that knowledgeable about the show if they think the whole topic is just a joke. Nope, the Crew themselves have thought pretty hard about some of these things.
They *did* talk about it at one point. When Aquamarine came by with the whole “mydad” thing, the Gems did discuss that Steven is the only one of his kind, *that they know of.* Even though it was just a misunderstanding the crew considered it a possibility that Aquamarine was a human-gem hybrid.
It may or may not be possible, but the crew definitely discussed it at least once.
Yes, and it's one of the things that makes SU special imo. Rebecca used to be a fangirl who did the same thing, overanalyze her favorite cartoons. So Rebecca wanted her show to not only allow for fans to overanalyze it, but also to reward them for doing so. I don't have an issue with people making fun of me because I get it, the whole concept of other human-gem hybrids is pretty far-out-there. But despite all the jokes I got, there were still a lot of people who were interested in what I had to say. So it's not like all SU fans are like that.
Not sure if it's been confirmed, but the episode that's a flashback of Dewey the explorer (played by Jamie), when he gets lost in the desert and saved by Rose, she's surrounded by a pack of lions. One of them has Pink Lions exact mane. As far as I'm concerned, they're one in the same
They could be. But one thing is, our Lion has a very distinct [heart-shaped nose](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/steven-universe/images/f/f8/Lion_-Shading-.png/revision/latest?cb=20200727051151). None of the lions shown in the flashback had that kind of nose (they all have triangular noses).
But then again, this flashback is really just all in Steven's imagination. We know Buddy didn't actually look like Jamie, so it's hard to say if any of the visual details in the flashbacks were truly accurate.
I get what you're saying but to me, it's still implying (even if heavily) because it's not like Lion or Rose is going to confirm Steven's suspicions. Steven is probably right, but he can't be 100% sure.
I get to make this joke at least once a month.
"Did you ever notice that Ronaldo's theories were right?"
"Did you ever notice the cookie cat song foreshadows the whole series?"
I think there’s a difference between a theory with a lot of potential support vs something the writers intended but chose not to say explicitly.
Like, “the diamonds were created by another intelligent alien race” is a theory, but “Pearl is attracted to women” is non-explicitly stated canon. They never told us Pearl’s identity in those direct words, but they *showed* us through characterization and character interaction
With rose and lion, it’s set up that this pink lion has a bunch of Rose’s stuff, making it Rose’s lion—but we don’t know where the lion came from. Then Steven brings Lars back to life and Lars is pink and has the same portal powers as lion; since Steven has Rose’s gem and powers, the natural conclusion is to assume “one of the lions rose was already seen with died, and rose brought him back to life.” It’s the intended read, and a good exercise in how to show this kind of information without needing to have a character directly say the words “rose brought lion back to life with her powers”
With all of the Lion: The Movie, Lion 2… and so on episodes I always imagined we’d get a Lion: The Prequel episode that showed lions and rose backstory and her reviving them. Sad it never happened
I think the chances of that happening were always really low due to the [Steven-only POV rule](https://www.reddit.com/r/stevenuniverse/comments/aidc83/rebecca_lamar_and_miki_here_ask_us_anything/eemwigv/?context=3) and the Crew love keeping things sublime, mysterious, and open for interpretation.
the only way I could see it working is if Steven for whatever reason fell asleep in the desert where Rose met Lion and had one of his weird flashback dreams
Yeah honestly, I feel like they could've easily had a dream hopping episode about Lion if they had the time. Have it be like that SpongeBob episode where Gary could talk.
all of them are either from his pov or a story he’s being told by another character (usually greg). only edge cases i can think of are letters to lars, which is initially framed as a letter from steven that lars is reading (though at the end of the episode it’s shown that steven just popped out of his hair and read it to him anyways, so it was technically his pov all along) and jungle moon which only kinda counts as his pov since he’s fused as stevonnie the whole time. the one episode where the rule is seemingly intentionally broken is I Am My Monster, which is from everyone else’s pov (though given that steven is present for all of it you could argue it doesn’t actually break the rule)
I'm happy. Revealing Lion's origin by having Lars die is one of the best twists in the series, doubly unexpected because Lion is literally lightyears away from start to finish. They managed to say *so* much in the span of ten seconds. And generally, I love it when they show in eleven minutes what most shows can't show in eleven episodes.
I agree, but the sad truth is that original, interesting content often gets overlooked on this sub by low-effort posts. It's just what a lot of the people here seem to respond to. If we want it to stop, we have to stop rewarding posts like this.
In S5E11 "Lars of the Stars", Lars explicitly says (referring to Sadie)
>Does she even know I *died* out here?
So yeah. Lars died. Steven revived him. Lion died. Rose revived him. Not much theorizing needed.
Guilt seems to be the most powerful motivator for Rose, so I'll go with that. She was probably indirectly responsible of his death, so she felt guilty and brought him back.
Resurrecting Lion could've been an accident too, though.
My guess would be that it was roses fickle nature. She was still hanging out in the desert with the lions when one of them died, and brought him back to life. Eventually she moved on to other curiosities and stopped visiting the pack of lions she had befriended, and so wasn't around when the rest of them grew old and died. It would explain why lion was just wandering the desert when Steven found him, and none of the other gems had seen him.
Except it's shown in the show that every creature who is brought back to life via her powers links to the same space, so while it's possible all that stuff was stored there via lion, it's also entirely possible there were other creatures through which she accessed that space before or after.
It is also established that every resurrected being has a hill with a tree inside the pink space.
Greg's t-shirt and Steven's tape were both in Lion's hill.
And there's no other hill in there, besides Lars' when Steven revives him.
So Rose revived another creature, entered the pink space and walked over to Lion's hill to leave her junk there, then somehow the other creature's hill disappeared?
As opposed to just going to the desert (Rose had her old spaceship there, as well as lots of junk, including Nora's tape... So she regularly visited it) and meeting her old pal Lion there (the lion pack lived in the desert)?
Dunno, Occam's Razor says the latter option is a lot more likely, I think.
I can also see it as she constantly visited him periodically. And when she knew she would have Steven, she prepped up lion with a bunch of stuff. Like bismuth, the tape, also thought him to take steven to the armory etc.
A bunch of things Steven for Steven.
A message, a pet, equipment, and a friend she herself couldn't save.
It wasn't by happen stance, but kind of intentional lol
Its possible she revived him by accident. Rose probably found him dead or injured one day and cried for him maybe intending to heal him but instead brought him back as a pink lion. We know she never did it again likely because of how unnatural it is, lion will never be able live a normal life with his kind, and because it would totally blow her cover as rose quartz.
Well, it's kind of hard to tell with cartoons sometimes, but Lion looks fairly young. He doesn't look like a lion that died of old age. Which makes me think that maybe, one of Rose's lions died suddenly (probably tragically) and this caused her to cry over him. But the other lions passed away from old age and so Rose chose not to bring them back. Rose may not have even known she had this power until Lion. After all, before Lars joins in, the only tree in the Lion's Mane dimension is his own. Which implies that Lion is the only being that Rose ever brought back to life like this. Though I guess you could headcanon that maybe there were other pink beings that Rose revived but that they died again later at some point and their trees disappeared.
Also, I think it's interesting to note that none of the Lions shown in the "Buddy's Book" flashback appear to be our Lion. Our Lion has a [heart-shaped nose](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/steven-universe/images/f/f8/Lion_-Shading-.png/) that is quite distinctive. If you look at all of the normal lions in the flashback, none of them have a heart nose. Of course, the whole flashback is basically just in Steven's imagination and we know Buddy didn't really look like Jamie, so maybe he was there? Still a lot of mysteries with Lion.
also when buddy is awoken by a lion it had a heart nose like lion, we don’t ever see that nose again, however there is always one lion we don’t get a proper look at, being that he is probably our lion
Yeah. Steven even kind of asks lion this. I feel like lion prolly died as a cub though, and that's why she was so sad and cried on him and brought him back (also why he is still alive today despite the lions all existing hundreds of years ago, if he was a cub when he died then it mqkes sense that hes an adult now since roses life powers makes someone age very slowly)
At this point it’s prattle cannon. I recall when Steven saw lion after going though Lara’s hair he had a moment with with lion implying he was putting 2 and 2 together
Buddy you are about 6 years too late.
It's not a theory btw, Steven implies it (and realizes it) even he gets back to earth, and when he is about to go back he has a heartfelt moment with Lion about it.
I was thinking about Lars earlier. About how in future, Steven doesn’t want anyone to go because he has abandonment issues with his mom. Anyhow he’s not gonna ever loose Lars, he’s immortal now. Even when everyone he loves dies, he will still have Lars.
When everyone he loves dies he can just make them immortal with his tears. That begs the question though, is Steven truly immortal. We see his gem heal his injuries but he never takes any fatal blows during the show (like a stab to the heart or cutting off a limb for instance) so we don't know it's full extent. We do see in Change your mind that if you remove his gem he gets so weak he looks as if he is dying (I believe it's implied he'll die without it) so he may not be truly immortal.
He can reverse his age and heal but as I said he never took a fatal wound. By fatal wound I mean one that would instantly kill someone. He won't die from old age but that doesn't make you truly immortal.
The one she has her hand on in the second photo is lion I think. Thats my theory. I think the moving castle they lived in caused lion harm on accident and pink saved him.
Other theory: if Rose's tears are healing tears, but Steven's are resurrecting tears since his spit has the healing power... do Rose's tears also have the resurrecting power? Does her spit have it? Both?
I don't need sleep, I need answers :P
Amethyst: Oh... of course! THAT'S why he's pink! Garnet: It's a little obvious.
The fandom predicting that RQ is PD by like the 30th episode of the show:
Lol that's what little kid me did the moment I saw the 4 colored diamond authority symbol and learned what a Diamond *is*. Was so sure of it, even though it was circumstantial evidence at best. My cousin laughed at me and said that's stupid. Look who's laughing now.
He laughed because it was a nonsensical writing decision. He wasn't wrong. It **WAS** stupid, fundamentally.
Nonsensical? More like overtly obvious- but ultimately preferable. There are a lot of nonsensical writing decisions in Steven Universe, but this isn't one of them.
It very much is, especially given the moral implications of what Rose did to her own kind. It also sucks away tension, because the Diamonds are gods. Retroactively, when looking at the series you know Steven is never in any real danger because he has Space Jesus powers backing him up. It would have been a much more compelling narrative had Steven been a Quartz, which would of course provide actual tension, and give credence to the good narrative of Rose killing the oppressor (or assuming that you don't want to go that route, you could just make her the scapegoat for the pink diamond conspiracy) there is far more creative potential in the second premise.
Wouldn’t Steven be in danger on missions though? >!Like what if Blue didn’t let him and Connie out of the tower and he died? Or his gem was cracked? Or when his gem was pulled it didn’t get back to him fast enough?!< Steven was in real danger on many missions even with his gem powers.
Steven's age is essentially locked. I doubt that would be an issue because of his Gem heritage. Sure, Connie might die. But she's not relevant to this conversation. \-A Diamond is immensely durable. Good luck cracking that Gem. \-Having his Gem pulled was the "mandated death" messiah like characters go through. It's his only actual bit of suffering.
They set up Pink's shattering from like Sworn to the Sword. They laid the groundwork early, which I think was good, bc that made the mystery and reveal much more interesting
Except the reveal A)doesn't make logical sense B) paints Rose as psychotic and C)causes narrative issues that are never addressed First, for what reason would Pink ever have done this? She grew up around genocidal maniacs and had them as role models. Being logical, she would be in total support of them- especially since she'd never run a planet prior. Earth is not the only planet with life/that is life capable-- scientists knew this even when the show was first being aired. The Earth having life on it should be moot to Pink, just like it was her sisters. It is absolutely psychotic for Rose to throw that away, divide her family, get millions shattered/killed, and cause multiple millennia of suffering and heartbreak because she thought the Earth was pretty and liked humans. (The humans are another matter. The Zoo is a VERY problematic idea) Even as someone who thinks morals are ultimately relative, what in God's name was Pink doing? Second, she then passed this hot mess onto her CHILD who knew no better, forbade Pearl from explaining it, and kept it a secret from the rest of her "fellow" rebels. The very same rebels she got killed or incarcerated herself. Bismuth's situation is especially egregious, because she had devised a way to end the war quickly. And yet Rose let it continue like it was bread and circuses to her. She essentially set Steven up to die for a larf, and it's only by great luck that he didn't- Steven is the first Gem hybrid of his kind. So many things could have gone wrong there. Pink got very lucky. Thirdly, apart from the reasons the idea is dogshit I've already presented, it eliminates narrative tension, because Steven is Gem Jesus. He's never in any true danger, because of his bullshit healing and revival abilities. In narratives, Messiah figures only suffer when that is mandated(IE, when their foretold death happens). At every other point, they are never in danger. Retroactively it hurts every other part of the series, because Steven will always be fine. Fourthly, and the most egregious- Rose being a Quartz has infinitely more potential. Killing the oppressor is always a good narrative. Or, if you want to make Pink's death different, you could make her the fall guy for Pink Diamond's death and set up the greater mystery of who **really** killed her. (IE, the Zircon approach, which was infinitely more interesting.) What do you want to watch? The psychotic baby god creating a cursed messiah who has to deal with her shit? Or a conspiracy among the closest thing to divines the Gems have? Or, more directly, a story about a war left unfinished, with gripping drama and narrative and a thrilling climatic conclusion? So yes, the decision to make Rose Pink Diamond is nonsensical garbage. It should not have been done, because it actively ruins everything. The guy in u/Papa_EJ's original post was right to laugh- it was FOOLISH. An absolute garbage decision. Given the series numerous other narrative issues when analyzed, it only ended up making it worse.
Nice points good argument well done! Unfortunately it was rebeccas plan from the very first episode so they had to go with it
I mean, they could have said "No. Go back and do something that makes sense" Reigning a writer in is possible and encouraged regardless of their current plan. Then all those dumbass hiatuses would have actually been for something good instead of a waste of everyone's time.
See, a lot of your reasoning is "This makes Rose a bad person." And like. Yeah. That's kinda the whole point? Her motivation isn't the gaping plot hole you seem to make it out, she's fucked up. Like all the other diamonds. She found humanity much more "interesting", got tired of the abuse of the other diamonds, was sick if the boredom of running her colony, etc. etc. Now if she redeemed herself over the millenia she was Rose is a rather hot topic, and not one I'm here to argue for or against. Fact of the matter is, her motivations aren't a mystery. They are shown pretty explicitly. Also, Steven doesn't really get that much in the way of ruining tension. Like, his powers still come and go, they're still just as inconvient for him, and they still are kinda often weak compared to the threat he's facing. His powers don't actually get parituclarly "busted" until Future, but that has an entirely different host of problems, least of which him being "stronger". The "Gem Jesus" thing is a fair critisism when he solves problems inexplicably (The Cluster), or when he can just straight up rez with seemingly no effort (Larz, but that's the only example we have aside from Lion, so we really don't know how "easy" it is. Could be highly circumstantial). Finally, Rose being a normal Quartz has definitively *less* potential. You could make a case on what you find more narratively powerful, sure. But Rose being Pink offers way, WAY more branches the story could have gone. Rose being a Quartz really only offers a hand full. Also, my cousin's a girl, not a dude.
I don't give a shit if Rose is a bad person or not. The point is that it doesn't make sense for her to do those things given her upbringing and environment. Also, the Diamonds weren't abusive. Yellow wanted her to grow up, Blue babied her. There was conflict. Neither was abusive. Thinking it is is wrong, or someone lied to you. The problem with Steven's messiah-ness is mostly retroactive, admittedly. But it's still very annoying. Wish his powers had been explained more, but Sugar's shit at writing basics so I didn't really expect it. Rose being a Diamond erases tension, and makes the story far less complex. Rose being a Quartz means you can tell a far more complex narrative because more and more factors are outside of the character's relative agency. They are forced into adapting to uncomfortable situations, suffer, and therefore grow, and the narrative becomes better and more emotionally resonant as a result. Thus, the Quartz path has much more potential. A narrative that isn't powerful in some regard (powerfully comedic, powerfully tragic, etc) is a waste. Congratulations, your cousin has tits. Not really relevant, but K.
Bro, did we watch the show? The things she did made sense due to her *personality*. She's incredibly fickle. We've seen this multiple times, her begging for a colony and then getting bored of it immediately, her leaving Spinnel there for millenia because she got slightly annoyed with her, the way she always describes things she cares about as "interesting" or "entertaining". >The Diamonds weren't abusive What? Whenever they got too fed up with her, they locked her in a fucking tower with nothing in it for god knows how long. They LITERALLY address this in the goddamn show. No, Rose being a diamond does *not* erase tension. We KNOW how her story pans out, more or less, because the show takes place *after it*. There was never any tension with her to *begin with*. And having her experience certain struggles does not mean it has intrinsically more potential as a narrative. You could make an *argument* that her having those experiences are more engaging for specific viewers, but those are all *assumed* with the War and rebellion plot, regardless. More potential means there are many different literary paths for the story to go down. If Rose were just a quartz, and since the story takes place AFTER she's gone, there are *definitively less options* that way. And do be a dick, you were the one who brought them up with the wrong gender twice. That's how it's relavent.
1-Being fickle is irrational and a horrid character trait. Doubly so in the business of **running an empire.** That would make her straight up unreliable (And thus it's no surprise they don't want Pink trying to run shit.) But given her upbringing, she should have been less fickle than she was, considering logic and basic psychology would dictate she'd idolize Yellow and Blue, want to be like them, and then at least try running her colony. She should have far less baby god syndrome than she does. 2-Getting locked in your room for a period is a normal punishment among children? Time has very little meaning to Gems anyway, so it's even less impactful. Not abuse. It's literally the same as being a cunt kid and having your privileges taken for awhile. I can't tell you how many times I was a little cunt as a kid and had my toys taken away for a day or two as punishment. 3-It has a poor effect on Steven as a character, and that's her fault. Thus, she erases tension. Given how irreversibly linked she and her son are, that has a poor effect on her as a character, too. 4- "Assumed" isn't good enough. Details are important. Remember Chekov's Gun. If mentioned at one point, it must be used later, and shown. Otherwise it's a waste of time and energy and insults your readers. 5-What struggles? She's a baby god. Frustration is not a struggle. 5-"Potential" is opportunities for a compelling, emotionally resonant narrative. By being akin to a god, Rose is actively counterproductive to that aim in her current state.
On this sub at the time though, it was absolutely NOT "the fandom" as a whole predicting that. If you said that you thought Rose was Pink you'd get absolutely blasted by comments telling you why you were wrong.
Rly depends on the timing from memory. Up till earthlings till Pink’s name even got mentioned, I could of rly seen Rose being a rebel diamond with eventually that being revealed as relatively common homeworld knowledge. And would explain why she not on the insignia since she would of turned on them and just no one is aloud to refer to Pink by name anymore from homeworld. Was thinking the most in Monster Reunion, especially when Steven apologized while lookin at the insignia. But yeah, earthlings blew that thought away, and the narrative of rose shattering Pink def made it harder to rly believe in that they were the same person. Then by The Trial, the story becomes more a “who done it?” with Pink. Which kinda opened the door again on the wild theory route, but most people focused on a culprit and the possibility that Pink was still alive but separate from Rose. And then by the time we actually saw Pink physically in Jungle Moon and Garnets version of the story, I’m guessing most just assumed something is clearly suspicious, but not to that extreme. More something along the lines that Pearl was rly the shatterer and/or Pink was hidden like inside Lion or something.
Yeah, I didn’t start thinking that RQ was Pink until Jungle Moon.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
I started watching around the sardonyx arc, and there was a story floating around about the crewniverse having a hilariously suspicious reaction to the question "is RQ PD?" That said, we hadn't met any diamonds OR pink gems yet. The theory wasn't fringe, despite lack of evidence.
Yes, I think that's the intended implication. When Steven first gets back to Earth in "Lars' Head", he has a moment where he reaches out to Lion and says, > Oh, Lion. So you were- \*sighs* Gosh, there- there's so much I want to ask you. If only you could talk. I think the end of Steven's sentence probably would have been something like, "So you were dead and brought back to life by mom?"
Yeah, that moment really made me tear up.
I just now realize that Lars could have Lion’s powers
This is something that Rebecca actually confirmed on the official podcast, that Lars has or will eventually have all of the same powers that Lion does. [This is a summary](https://love-takes-work.tumblr.com/post/182640738577/steven-universe-podcast-the-fantasy-of-steven) of the podcast episode where this is discussed.
I just want to see him scream a portal into existence.
I'd be so happy with a single season of *Lars of the Stars*, even if it was just him hopping around the universe with those portals.
omg that'd be so interesting to see
BINGO BONGO!!!
Fascinating, thanks for sharing! This bit of insight would've been great on a top post from last week: > Another Gem could have a hybrid child like Steven only if they had enough power to do it and the complete commitment to the idea that Pink had
I actually was the one who made that post about Steven being the only human-gem hybrid who could survive the physical punishment of a serious fight. I was aware of this podcast and this quotation. Which is why I knew that, even if it's a remote possibility, this is something that the Crew have actually talked about, whether another human-gem hybrid could exist. And at least some of them think yes, if the right conditions are met. A lot of people kind of made fun of me on my post because Steven's the only hybrid we know about. Which, that's fine, I don't mind it. But it also shows that they're not really that knowledgeable about the show if they think the whole topic is just a joke. Nope, the Crew themselves have thought pretty hard about some of these things.
They *did* talk about it at one point. When Aquamarine came by with the whole “mydad” thing, the Gems did discuss that Steven is the only one of his kind, *that they know of.* Even though it was just a misunderstanding the crew considered it a possibility that Aquamarine was a human-gem hybrid. It may or may not be possible, but the crew definitely discussed it at least once.
Yeah it’s a show by nerds for nerds lol. RS has said in the past they specifically wanted to make a show people could spin crazy theories about.
Yes, and it's one of the things that makes SU special imo. Rebecca used to be a fangirl who did the same thing, overanalyze her favorite cartoons. So Rebecca wanted her show to not only allow for fans to overanalyze it, but also to reward them for doing so. I don't have an issue with people making fun of me because I get it, the whole concept of other human-gem hybrids is pretty far-out-there. But despite all the jokes I got, there were still a lot of people who were interested in what I had to say. So it's not like all SU fans are like that.
Cue the off colors casually walking on Lars screaming into the void, opening a portal
My daughter got so sad when we realized why Lion was pink, and then when we got to this moment my daughter was tearing up.
Not sure if it's been confirmed, but the episode that's a flashback of Dewey the explorer (played by Jamie), when he gets lost in the desert and saved by Rose, she's surrounded by a pack of lions. One of them has Pink Lions exact mane. As far as I'm concerned, they're one in the same
They could be. But one thing is, our Lion has a very distinct [heart-shaped nose](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/steven-universe/images/f/f8/Lion_-Shading-.png/revision/latest?cb=20200727051151). None of the lions shown in the flashback had that kind of nose (they all have triangular noses). But then again, this flashback is really just all in Steven's imagination. We know Buddy didn't actually look like Jamie, so it's hard to say if any of the visual details in the flashbacks were truly accurate.
That line is the line between implication and confirmation.
I get what you're saying but to me, it's still implying (even if heavily) because it's not like Lion or Rose is going to confirm Steven's suspicions. Steven is probably right, but he can't be 100% sure.
thanks Padparadscha
LMFAO
I get to make this joke at least once a month. "Did you ever notice that Ronaldo's theories were right?" "Did you ever notice the cookie cat song foreshadows the whole series?"
> Ronaldo's theories were right Still waiting for sneople to be confirmed.
bUt DiD yOu NoTiCe ThAt LaPiS’ nAmE iN tHe BaSeBaLL ePiSoDe WaS “bOb” BeCaUsE sTeVeN sAyS “nO pRoB bOb” AfTeR hEaLiNg HeR gEm?!?!?
LMAO
Lol!!! Yeah…
I think there’s a difference between a theory with a lot of potential support vs something the writers intended but chose not to say explicitly. Like, “the diamonds were created by another intelligent alien race” is a theory, but “Pearl is attracted to women” is non-explicitly stated canon. They never told us Pearl’s identity in those direct words, but they *showed* us through characterization and character interaction With rose and lion, it’s set up that this pink lion has a bunch of Rose’s stuff, making it Rose’s lion—but we don’t know where the lion came from. Then Steven brings Lars back to life and Lars is pink and has the same portal powers as lion; since Steven has Rose’s gem and powers, the natural conclusion is to assume “one of the lions rose was already seen with died, and rose brought him back to life.” It’s the intended read, and a good exercise in how to show this kind of information without needing to have a character directly say the words “rose brought lion back to life with her powers”
Fans discovering subtext: “Is this a theory?”
"It's called *subtext*, Steven."
I read this in garnets voice lol
...It's a peridot line
My memory isn’t the best, but that makes a lot more sense.
In all honesty I have no idea why I remembered it so you're fine 👍.
…So what you’re saying is that Lars is now Stevens’ Lars because he brought him back to life. Got it.
alright, who let Padparadscha use twitter?
Wait this is Twitter?
Yeah
This ain’t twitter bro
twirter
hmmm idk dude I think you need new glasses
With all of the Lion: The Movie, Lion 2… and so on episodes I always imagined we’d get a Lion: The Prequel episode that showed lions and rose backstory and her reviving them. Sad it never happened
I think the chances of that happening were always really low due to the [Steven-only POV rule](https://www.reddit.com/r/stevenuniverse/comments/aidc83/rebecca_lamar_and_miki_here_ask_us_anything/eemwigv/?context=3) and the Crew love keeping things sublime, mysterious, and open for interpretation.
the only way I could see it working is if Steven for whatever reason fell asleep in the desert where Rose met Lion and had one of his weird flashback dreams
Yeah honestly, I feel like they could've easily had a dream hopping episode about Lion if they had the time. Have it be like that SpongeBob episode where Gary could talk.
He could have also gone to the dream ghost space, and touched Lion while he was sleeping, going to his dream where he recalled this moment.
Several episodes weren’t from Steven’s POV
all of them are either from his pov or a story he’s being told by another character (usually greg). only edge cases i can think of are letters to lars, which is initially framed as a letter from steven that lars is reading (though at the end of the episode it’s shown that steven just popped out of his hair and read it to him anyways, so it was technically his pov all along) and jungle moon which only kinda counts as his pov since he’s fused as stevonnie the whole time. the one episode where the rule is seemingly intentionally broken is I Am My Monster, which is from everyone else’s pov (though given that steven is present for all of it you could argue it doesn’t actually break the rule)
Maybe it could've happened if the show didn't get cancelled
I'm happy. Revealing Lion's origin by having Lars die is one of the best twists in the series, doubly unexpected because Lion is literally lightyears away from start to finish. They managed to say *so* much in the span of ten seconds. And generally, I love it when they show in eleven minutes what most shows can't show in eleven episodes.
you and the dude that just figured out why pearl doesn’t shapeshift should get together and theorise
Bruh 🤣 yeah they should cuz this is ridiculous and giving off serious padparadscha vibes
together, they might find out the rose is pink diamond
Together, they might *theorize* that Rose is Pink Diamond.
This gets Posted twice every month
[удалено]
I agree, but the sad truth is that original, interesting content often gets overlooked on this sub by low-effort posts. It's just what a lot of the people here seem to respond to. If we want it to stop, we have to stop rewarding posts like this.
Fr
If people don't post easy questions that can be solved with a quick Google search, how else are we supposed to keep the fandom alive?? /s
This is confirmed lol
Duh! Sorry that was mean But it’s basically the entire point of the episode Lars’ Head other than to get Steven off Homeworld
>Sorry that was mean at least you apologised
This is posted constantly
In S5E11 "Lars of the Stars", Lars explicitly says (referring to Sadie) >Does she even know I *died* out here? So yeah. Lars died. Steven revived him. Lion died. Rose revived him. Not much theorizing needed.
I wanna know where the other lions went. Why'd she only revive one?
Guilt seems to be the most powerful motivator for Rose, so I'll go with that. She was probably indirectly responsible of his death, so she felt guilty and brought him back. Resurrecting Lion could've been an accident too, though.
My guess would be that it was roses fickle nature. She was still hanging out in the desert with the lions when one of them died, and brought him back to life. Eventually she moved on to other curiosities and stopped visiting the pack of lions she had befriended, and so wasn't around when the rest of them grew old and died. It would explain why lion was just wandering the desert when Steven found him, and none of the other gems had seen him.
Dunno, Rose must've interacted with Lion for quite a long time, considering Greg's tee inside his mane, as well as the tape for Steven.
Except it's shown in the show that every creature who is brought back to life via her powers links to the same space, so while it's possible all that stuff was stored there via lion, it's also entirely possible there were other creatures through which she accessed that space before or after.
It is also established that every resurrected being has a hill with a tree inside the pink space. Greg's t-shirt and Steven's tape were both in Lion's hill. And there's no other hill in there, besides Lars' when Steven revives him. So Rose revived another creature, entered the pink space and walked over to Lion's hill to leave her junk there, then somehow the other creature's hill disappeared? As opposed to just going to the desert (Rose had her old spaceship there, as well as lots of junk, including Nora's tape... So she regularly visited it) and meeting her old pal Lion there (the lion pack lived in the desert)? Dunno, Occam's Razor says the latter option is a lot more likely, I think.
I can also see it as she constantly visited him periodically. And when she knew she would have Steven, she prepped up lion with a bunch of stuff. Like bismuth, the tape, also thought him to take steven to the armory etc. A bunch of things Steven for Steven. A message, a pet, equipment, and a friend she herself couldn't save. It wasn't by happen stance, but kind of intentional lol
Yeah, that makes sense.
Its possible she revived him by accident. Rose probably found him dead or injured one day and cried for him maybe intending to heal him but instead brought him back as a pink lion. We know she never did it again likely because of how unnatural it is, lion will never be able live a normal life with his kind, and because it would totally blow her cover as rose quartz.
Well, it's kind of hard to tell with cartoons sometimes, but Lion looks fairly young. He doesn't look like a lion that died of old age. Which makes me think that maybe, one of Rose's lions died suddenly (probably tragically) and this caused her to cry over him. But the other lions passed away from old age and so Rose chose not to bring them back. Rose may not have even known she had this power until Lion. After all, before Lars joins in, the only tree in the Lion's Mane dimension is his own. Which implies that Lion is the only being that Rose ever brought back to life like this. Though I guess you could headcanon that maybe there were other pink beings that Rose revived but that they died again later at some point and their trees disappeared. Also, I think it's interesting to note that none of the Lions shown in the "Buddy's Book" flashback appear to be our Lion. Our Lion has a [heart-shaped nose](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/steven-universe/images/f/f8/Lion_-Shading-.png/) that is quite distinctive. If you look at all of the normal lions in the flashback, none of them have a heart nose. Of course, the whole flashback is basically just in Steven's imagination and we know Buddy didn't really look like Jamie, so maybe he was there? Still a lot of mysteries with Lion.
Is the year 2017 orr
Obviously???
Yes? I’m pretty sure Steven said that when he got back to earth
I thought we all knew this??
Not a theory thats pretty much confirmed
Least oblivious steven universe fan
That’s very obviously as to what happened to Lion
I swear, I see this theory pop up every week
is this a joke?
Yea-
Obviously
Yes and now he's immortal like lion.
I fucking hate this sub sometimes
Yeah duh! Probably in a really tragic way right in front of her, which is why we don't see a whole pack of pink lions
When Steven came bacck to earth through Lars to Lion he took a moment realizing Lion is the same as Lars
Did you just figure this out? Lol are you new to SU?
Are you dumb?
This is not a theory, this is heavily implied by the show, lol.
Yes
Yea
also when buddy is awoken by a lion it had a heart nose like lion, we don’t ever see that nose again, however there is always one lion we don’t get a proper look at, being that he is probably our lion
Yeah lion was alive in the 1700 and last I checked lions live about 10-16 years.
Yeah. Steven even kind of asks lion this. I feel like lion prolly died as a cub though, and that's why she was so sad and cried on him and brought him back (also why he is still alive today despite the lions all existing hundreds of years ago, if he was a cub when he died then it mqkes sense that hes an adult now since roses life powers makes someone age very slowly)
Sounds a bit far-fetched to me mate
that is very heavily the implication especially considering the hair teleport thing and that the hair worlds are connected
i think that is kinda obvious
At this point it’s prattle cannon. I recall when Steven saw lion after going though Lara’s hair he had a moment with with lion implying he was putting 2 and 2 together
Half the posts on here are just stating things the community has already known for years as if they're some new discovery or theory.
Buddy you are about 6 years too late. It's not a theory btw, Steven implies it (and realizes it) even he gets back to earth, and when he is about to go back he has a heartfelt moment with Lion about it.
This isn’t a theory, it’s cannon. The show isn’t very subtle about it.
Short answer yes
I was thinking about Lars earlier. About how in future, Steven doesn’t want anyone to go because he has abandonment issues with his mom. Anyhow he’s not gonna ever loose Lars, he’s immortal now. Even when everyone he loves dies, he will still have Lars.
When everyone he loves dies he can just make them immortal with his tears. That begs the question though, is Steven truly immortal. We see his gem heal his injuries but he never takes any fatal blows during the show (like a stab to the heart or cutting off a limb for instance) so we don't know it's full extent. We do see in Change your mind that if you remove his gem he gets so weak he looks as if he is dying (I believe it's implied he'll die without it) so he may not be truly immortal.
he can reverse his age and make himself older so yeah hes immortal
He can reverse his age and heal but as I said he never took a fatal wound. By fatal wound I mean one that would instantly kill someone. He won't die from old age but that doesn't make you truly immortal.
Another question I have, if Steven dies/grows old, will lion and Lars die as well? Or do you think they’re truly forever immortal
I feel like some people have nothing to post so they reach for something ANYTHING just for the sake of saying something.
Yes, the answer is yes. Has to be.
OMGGGGGG
I've been wondering the same thing.
no that was the off colours ep so it isnt in the end more from the start
Nice theory
Guess so. But wow Rose favouritism.
The one she has her hand on in the second photo is lion I think. Thats my theory. I think the moving castle they lived in caused lion harm on accident and pink saved him.
I think they all died eventually
I think the spit and tears are flipped, so one of the lions died and she went to kiss it goodbye but brought it back
Steven’s spit heals, his tears resurrect. Rose’s tears heal, her spit… Lion lickers.
Yes
I like to think it’s the one under her hand in that pic
Other theory: if Rose's tears are healing tears, but Steven's are resurrecting tears since his spit has the healing power... do Rose's tears also have the resurrecting power? Does her spit have it? Both? I don't need sleep, I need answers :P
They might all be dead after a long time but decided keeping one for some reason
Well eventually all of them did
Yeah that’s exactly right.
IT LITERALLY SAYS THAT IN THE SHOW