She could have done it before ‘shattering’ and then even after shattering she had plenty of time, she just spent it being excited with everything and hoeing lol, but she could forgot about it tho.. Still, she was taking humans away from Earth as trophies. It was Pink Rose Diamond Quartz
How was she supposed to free them without making the other Diamonds
suspicious? If Pink said it was because she didn’t want the humans
anymore, the other Diamonds might have chosen to just kill them. Pink had to rescue the humans as Rose Quartz
But the rebellion didn’t have any way of travelling to the colony,
especially not after the Diamonds final attack. If they stole a ship before then,
they would have been chased by the Diamonds’ fleet and fired upon, risking the capture and
shattering of so many gems,
not to mention of the high amount of Amethysts (soldiers) overseeing the zoo, meaning that the resistance would need to bring an army to rescue all the humans.
Also, we don’t know where the idea of the humans being trophies came from. It could have been an assumption by the rebellion, or something Rose herself said to further villify Pink Diamond, but judging from the way the humans were treated, kinda like a mixture of pampered pets and small kids, it doesn’t strike me as trophies. I’m not saying the way the humans are treated are the best thing ever, but if they were supposed to be trophies, wouldn’t they be put in the human equivalent of a bubble to be displayed?
Remembering the tale of the Buddha Siddhartha, at least, from my high school world religion class, he was a prince who walked out of his castle, and his luxurious life for the first time in his twenties, and immediately, understood human suffering, because he had never experienced it before.
This is what I see when I look at Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond. She was someone who was born into power, and thus, was not allowed to wield it. Finally, she was given a colony, and in that moment, saw the beauty of organic life. It’s intricacies, its joys, its simplicity. Most importantly, it’s growth. It was then she knew she couldn’t destroy it, nor could she simply run away and abandon it, for it was still in control of the gem empire.
She had one confidant. One person who would never, ever betray her. A custom made gem, meant to be her’s, and her’s alone. A Pearl. So, when Pink Diamond began a double life as both the Tyrannical ruler of a colony on earth, and a charismatic rebellion leader, she was able to play both sides as well. She could make outlandish claims like Pink Diamond laughing in Rose’s face when Rose begged and pleaded for them to spare organic life, or say that Pink was a coward when she called for the help of Yellow and Blue. This event was especially important, because it solidified in the resistance that the diamonds are not all powerful, and must call for help at times. Everything Rose and, by extension, Pink did was to empower the rebellion, further recruiting more gems who wished to be free, by showing that these “all powerful” diamonds are not as omnipotent as they say.
In face, you can see this in Message Received, where a diamond that was paraded to Peridot as being all knowing and the most logical has emotional cracks that break through this facade, and instantly, Peridot has the courage to rebel against her.
Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond may have started out as a brat, but she grew in maturity and scope after seeing either, and wanted to protect it, along with the gems. She saw the capacity for… everything, to change and grow. Gems and Society alike. This is also why she stopped Bismuth. Rose/Pink saw life as precious, and wanted to save it where she could. As far as we know, neither Rose nor Pearl has ever shattered a gem, where Bismuth, in the pursuit of freedom, created a weapon specifically for it. I can even believe that the reason Rose created Steven was to create a being of growth and life and of gem kind in order to show the Diamonds that there is a way for everyone to change and grow, and even turn them to her side.
I’m tired, and rambling, admittedly, but I loved the reveal in A Single Pale Rose, and I love what it means for both the future and the past.
Thanks for Listening.
Listen to Four Out Of Five in the new album by the Arctic Monkeys by the name Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
“pink diamond faking her death caused a war which made countless of gems get shattered! ”
Zircon said that rose quartz was a known treat for 700 years before the shattering. Her faking her death was something she thought was going to end this war, not to start it.
“why didn’t she try to change things from the inside? Why didn’t she try to convince the other diamonds?”
We saw her trying to convince them to leave Earth in the dream flashback in “can’t go back”. It didn’t work. Every time we saw pink trying to convince the other diamonds to do something they refused to listen and instead treated her like a child despite the fact that gems born adults. She thought that starting a rebellion would make them decide to leave Earth and when that didn’t work, she came up with the fake death solution. As far as she knew, the diamonds didn’t care about her and won’t miss her. There was no way she could have predict the curroption, which she tried to cure countless times later.
“Rose never really cared for Pearl, she just used her for her own selfish purposes”
Pink Diamond owned Pearl. She was born into a society where Pearls are serevent and their only purpose was to obey higher authorities. But despite that gems aren’t supposed to change, she meneged to unlearn this entire message she got since birth and instead treated Pearl as her equal and even fought so Pearl and other gems can live freely on Earth. In Pearl’s homogram flashback in “Rose’s scabbard” she gave her the choice to join her and also warned her about the risks, she didn’t want Pearl to sacrifice herself for her like she did in the war and even her “last (terrible) order as a diamond” was for her and Pearl to leave this power imbalance behind them.
Everything Rose did was what she thought would help other gems the most but had consequences far worst than she could have ever imagined. She never stopped regretting it, she even tried to come clean to Greg.
A lot of suffering was caused from her actions but she wasn’t the villan, just a flawed person who tried their best but messed up badly.
How DARE the crewniverse make a character we knew next-to-nothing about into a flawed, heck, even outright BAD person?? Rebecca you will hear from my Lawyer!
Now that it’s canon that Homeworld has a very strict class system on par with Transformer IDW’s functionism – can we please discuss how painful Rose and Pearl’s relationship must have been?
Pearls as ornamental pets. Pearls as less than labor, less than personal assistants – Pearls literally objectified. The Pearl we know, as Rose’s own ornamental Gem. A being created as a vanity object, whose sole function (according to Peridot and presumably the rest of Homeworld) is to look pretty and obey their owner’s orders.
Rose eventually realizing that this power imbalance is wrong – but also realizing that this is the only way of living that Pearl knows.
Rose tries to tell Pearl to make her own decisions. Rose is, after all, rebelling against Homeworld, presumably for freedom and choice and all that good stuff. She knows that Pearl will follow her because Rose owns her – not just because Pearl loves her. If Rose even recognizes that as love. From Rose’s position, this Gem she has owned for who knows how long (thousands of years probably, if Pearl has traveled through space with her) is devoted to her… but then, aren’t all Pearls devoted to their owners?
Pearl imagining the life they’ll have together after the war, when castes don’t matter any more, when Homeworld laws don’t tell them what is and isn’t proper. Pearl not daring to voice the hope that Rose will be able to love her like she loves Rose – all while knowing that they can never be equals, because how could they be? Pearl’s own conditioning working against her, dragging her self-worth back down to its “proper place” even after the war is over, even when Rose is no longer a Diamond but just a simple Quartz, please. Pearl has spent so long serving, worshipping, accenting – she doesn’t know how else to be.
Pearl slowly, slowly realizing that the life she imagined will never come to be. The harder she tries to be pleasing, the more Rose pushes her away. Pearl not understanding why Rose looks so sad when she smiles at her Pearl.
Because Pearl is still Rose’s Pearl. Rose only tried to tell her she was free, that Rose did not own her, once – and couldn’t bear to see the pain written so plainly on Pearl’s face, not so soon after the pain and loss of the war with Homeworld. Rose knowing that, to Pearl, ownership is her only valid connection to Rose. Rose knowing that severing that tie, as terrible as it is, will only ever cause Pearl pain. Rose can’t bear it.
Every “my Pearl” makes Pearl shiver in pleasure. It’s a reaffirmation of belonging. Every order followed unquestioningly makes Pearl more confident and happy, even as it makes Rose sick to her stomach.
Rose loves Earth. Rose loves humans. And that’s ok, Pearl reasons every time she wants Rose to look at her with a burning need that feels so ugly that Pearl has to meditate to calm herself into serenity again. That’s ok, Pearl repeats as a mantra for 50 years or so, because after 50 years or so the human is dead and rotting – and Pearl would never leave Rose like that. It hurts Rose so much every time. Pearl would never abandon her like that. Pearl is too faithful to die.
Pearl, the lowest of the Gems, looking at humans and feeling good about herself for the first time in her life. Here is something lower than her. She may be just a Pearl, she may be nothing to the Gems or to Homeworld, but at least she’s better than these.
Somewhere, Pearl picks up the idea of knighthood. During the war she flourished under Rose’s careful manipulation, turned into almost her own Gem when she decided that she wanted to be useful and not just pretty.
But she is still Rose’s Pearl. Just… a better one.
And Rose can’t bear to be the person she was before, no matter how much Pearl expects it or craves it. She wishes Pearl would defy her, would decide on her own. But Pearl only looks to her for guidance, for orders, for everything, and Rose loves to nurture but she cannot separate Pearl’s desires from Homeworld’s social conditioning. It’s wrong, she thinks, to take advantage of her Pearl’s infatuation.
Because it’s clear to everyone that even if Rose is willing to cast aside ranks and all be equals, Pearl is not. And she might not ever be.
So all Rose can do is smile sadly and nudge Pearl in the right direction, encourage any independence she can. And all Pearl can do is try to please Rose.
But in the end, Rose is gone… and Steven is all Pearl has left.
tbh I haven’t had this much fun about a theory being confirmed true since the gravity falls “does stan have a twin” days and like, I love this I’m having the time of my life really
So the reveal that Rose is Pink Diamond was pulled off masterfully. Not going to front there. But there are some issues I want to point put
Pearl/Rose already had this uncomfortable dependency dynamic. Now it’s worse.
Pink Diamond. Started a rebellion. Against. Herself.
She could have just least tried to go “actually I like the organics on this planet I don’t want to hollow it out.”
That whole human zoo. That’s mostly Black and Brown folk. Is still out there. She ain’t even try to bring it back first
Bismuth is even more screwed over by the narrative
Steven is now Super Duper Space Jesus, Prince of Homeworld
Hi, I hope you don’t mind that I give my two cents about some of these points:3
1. I think it’s on purpose that Rose and Pearl’s relationship is kind of bad, and it’s probably the reason why it didn’t work out; now that we know that Rose was Pink Diamond, we might get more info on that, but I think at the end of the day that Rose hated how Pearl couldn’t let go of their old dynamic. You can see traces of that in Rose’s Scabbard where the holo!Rose almost begs Pearl not to go through with it, but Pearl responds: “But I want to.”
2 & 3. I really don’t think that would have worked out. A lot of people have already talked about this, how if Pink Diamond tried to rebel like that, the other Diamonds would just take over the Earth colony and finish the job while keeping Pink locked away.
4. The human zoo was probably established before Pink started the rebellion, probably because she wanted to preserve some piece of humanity when she thought she had to destroy the Earth for her colony. Since it was at least five thousand years ago, most humans at the time were black and brown. The few humans there with blond hair and blue eyes are probably the result of a mutation. Pink couldn’t just stop her zoo without the other Diamonds getting suspicious; after all, the rebellion didn’t have ships so the zoo wasn’t in danger, and Pink was still being forced to go through with the colony plans, so why would she suddenly decide not to preserve those humans?
Maybe Pink thought after the Diamonds had fled, they would abandon the zoo, allowing her to sneak in and free the humans. Or maybe she wanted to rally her army and free them by force. But the Diamonds didn’t abandon the zoo, most of the rebellion was wiped out, and Pink had no other way to get to the zoo than wait for human space travel to advance far enough, so she was kinda stuck in a corner there.
I have nothing to say on 5 & 6, other than I agree with you there, especially on 5.
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