Fictional Character Musings: Rose Quartz VS Pink Diamond
Which is the real "her"?
This was written on 23 Jun, 2018.
Also, if you haven’t finished Steven Universe, or haven’t gotten to A Single Pale Rose, this post may contain spoilers.
Rebecca Sugar is an amazing writer and storyteller, and she has managed to pack so many issues into this little series that there’s so much we can unpack and discuss with regards to this one small revelation. If I find the time, I’d love to unpack:
Pearl and Pink Diamond: what is love?
Rose Quartz and The Crystal Gems: Responsibilities and expectations
What about Us: audience expectations and emotional journey
But it’ll be up to the above thought bunnies whether or not they make it out of the dungeon…
So back to today’s topic:
The REAL Rose Quartz: an exploration of personal identities
Projection VS Reality?
Up to this point in the show, no one, not even us all-knowing viewers, knew who Rose Quartz truly was. The Rose Quartz whom we have been introduced to thus far have all been people’s impressions/memories of her.
In short, Rose Quartz as a character has always been a culmination of everyone’s projections and expectations.
Which has been slowly breaking down as Steven uncovers more and more of Rose Quartz’s secrets and pasts, leading up to the grand revelation that Rose Quartz is actually Pink Diamond.
As such, in order to for us to piece together who Rose Quartz truly is, we need to first begin with who she was:
Pink Diamond
While we came to know Rose Quartz more through recounts of other characters, Pink Diamond was introduced to us in a deeply personal way.
Through Steven/Stevonnie’s flashbacks.
In contrast to Rose Quartz, who was mostly made up of people’s projections and perceptions of her, the character of Pink Diamond was introduced to us as a person.
A highly flawed person at that.
Compared to the other diamonds, she’s defective.
This is obvious in her comparatively smaller stature. She also lacks diamond-like traits. She’s neither cold, calm, nor ruthless. She also doesn’t carry herself in the same regal and domineering ways the other diamonds do. Now, I will refrain from discussing her maturity because:
It was implied that she is the youngest diamond
People grow, and she seemed to have grown into herself (mostly through being Rose Quartz but more on that later)
If we put the character bio for Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz side by side, it almost seems irreconcilable. How is this immature, hot-headed, attention-seeking jokster the same person as the charismatic, larger-than-life, loving and serene leader of the Crystal Gems?
Despite all the differences between Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz, as it is portrayed in the show, one thing about her remains consistent through the pre-earth and post-Rose Quartz era.
In both forms, she’s always been a curious soul.
Her first reaction when seeing Garnet for the first time was curiosity.
Similarly, her sense of awe and wonder towards humans and earth is a manifestation of curiosity.
This shows even in her very unsightly tantrum in Stevonnie’s flashback. Her face lights up with excitement and curiosity at the sight of the colony.
Retracing the character of Pink Diamond through a more human lens, it almost feels like the image of Rose Quartz that all the various characters have of her is a misinterpretation of who she truly is.
I’m not saying that she isn’t kind or compassionate, but in truth, Rose Quartz has always been more of a curious child than a compassionate goddess. Her love for humans and earth comes from her curiosity, her non-judgmental nature and acceptance of non-conforming gems comes from her curiosity, not some higher form of Agape-like love.
But people’s rose-tinted lenses (pun intended) have caused people to see her as the latter.
But I digress. Back to discussing Pink Diamond.
Pink Diamond - An imposed identity
Pink Diamond was born a diamond. She was born knowing that her mission was to rule over other gems, but she didn’t have the temperament for it. She was curious, and kind.
This difference makes her an outcast.
She was to the diamonds, what Amethyst was to quartzes.
Diamonds are suppose to be perfect, and yet, by diamond standards, she was flawed in every way. Because of it, she was constantly treated like an inferior diamond. Yet in contrast to the condescension she consistently faces, she is also revered by other gems as the perfect gem.
This inconsistency cannot be healthy for a person’s sense of self and overall well-being.
You can say that she is experiencing perpetual imposter syndrome.
Which leads to Pink Diamond’s need and drive to prove her self and be validated as “a diamond, just like you (Yellow diamond)”.
In short, Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz is constantly being told that her authentic self is bad and that she should become someone she is not in order to earn validation and acceptance of her ‘family’ (aka the other diamonds) in order to find belonging.
Here is a summary of traits of who Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz really is, and traits she tried to aspire towards:
WHO SHE IS: Curious, kind, open-minded, non-judgmental, a pacifist, fun-loving
WHO SHE IS EXPECTED TO BE: invulnerable, show no weakness, domineering, superior and arrogant, apathetic, expedient, rigid
It’s easy to see when placed side by side, that Pink Diamond had to internalize values that were completely at odds with her true self. It is a deeply conflicting and damaging state to be in, but there was no other way. Or at least Pink Diamond never knew different.
Until earth.
Earth gave her the answer she was seeking all along. That there is a different way of life. One where you could explore the possibilities of yourself and be whoever you want to be.
This was the answer Rose needed all along.
She has always wanted more in life, but she didn’t know what that ‘more’ was or could be until she saw earth. Until she saw life, saw the possibilities of evolution and growth
The gravity of this revelation probably seems very light to you and me, but to gems, to a diamond, that’s huge. Gems live very rigid and set lives.
As Rose shared with Greg, “When a gem is made, it’s for a reason, they burst out the ground knowing what they’re supposed to be and that’s what they are, forever.”
Pink Diamond had thought she’d be a failure of a diamond, a defect, failing her sole purpose, forever.
Growing and changing as a concept don’t exist to gems, or at least it doesn’t come easily to them. Even Garnet admitted her future vision ‘broke’ because it didn’t take into account Steven’s growth.
And so, it took her a millennia to begin to wrap her head around the idea that she could be a different version of herself, that she could grow. Granted, there were limits to how much she could grow and change, but point was, she aspired to become human (which we may talk about in a another post). Or at the very least, she aspired to become a better version of herself, to become the person she always COULD be.
Rose Quartz
A chosen identity, her true self
You’d might have noticed that with the exception of talking about her past as Pink Diamond that I refer to our main character for this post primarily as Rose/Rose Quartz instead of Pink Diamond. This is intentional.
Rose was born Pink Diamond, but she chose to become Rose Quartz, leader of the Crystal Gems. And I respect the person she chose to become, which is why I refer to her as Rose as opposed to Pink Diamond.
Just like how most of us would use our friends chosen names and pronouns instead of given ones. Because identity should be a choice rather than an imposition. (At least that’s my view of it.)
To me, this was one of the most powerful scenes in Steven Universe, and I suspect it might be something the transgender community would resonate strongly with.
Just like many who are transgender, Rose always felt like she was born into the wrong body. Remember, for a gem, their ‘body’, aka type of gem that they are is this assigned identity/being of what they are supposed to be.
So for Rose, who never felt like she was truly what a diamond should be, being Rose Quartz is far more comfortable and feels more ‘right’ to her.
This scene is so significant because Rose never felt like a diamond and she can now finally become her true self, Rose Quartz, forever. I’d wager that it’s a pretty similar feeling for transgender individuals who finally get to officially transition.
So in reality, neither ourselves nor the other gems were lied to.
To say that Rose was lying about who she really is is like saying someone who is transgender is lying to us about their gender when all they were doing was just showing us their authentic selves all along.
Rose wasn’t being a hypocrite when she told Garnet and other gems to be who they are and be true to themselves, because that’s exactly what she did. Be her true self.
Of course, Sapphire did not see it this way, and neither did most of the audience. In fact, I find that our reaction as the audience very similar to when Caitlyn Jenner came out. And our reaction actually says more about us than it does them.
It’s not that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond all along, but rather, Pink Diamond was Rose Quartz all along.
Rose Quartz was the diamond she always could be
But none of this explains why I saw that Rose Quartz is ‘the diamond she always could be’.
I use the term ‘diamond’ here as a synonym for leader, and a great one at that. Because at its core, that’s what diamonds are: respectable leaders.
Rose Quartz was the kind of leader (diamond) Pink Diamond always could have been but wasn’t able to be because of all the baggage she had.
Rose is Pink Diamond without her baggage, without the chains and toxic values of homeworld holding her back.
What made The Crystal Gems rebellion so impressive, and a testament of Rose’s leadership and charisma was that the gems who followed Rose chose to follow her. They rose up against diamonds whom they were made to obey and follow. You could argue that it’s because she was secretly Pink Diamond and maybe on a sub-conscious level that played a part, and well, maybe you are right. But I maintain that Rose Quartz had leadership and charisma that was powerful enough inspire gems to go against their nature and purpose, and choose to defend earth.
To put this into perspective, Peridot said in one episode on the moon that: ‘We’re a space-faring race designed to conquer other worlds.’
Conquering vs Protecting
What a change.
The rebellion demonstrated that Rose possessed all of a diamond’s leadership without any of the authority. That alone put her above all the other diamonds. But realistically, that wouldn’t have been possible if she stayed as Pink Diamond
What if she chose to rebel as Pink Diamond?
A popular argument online is that all this tragedy, including the equivalent of a nuclear event that took place on earth wouldn’t have happened if Rose Quartz remained as Pink Diamond and led the rebellion that way.
Here’s why I think it wouldn’t have worked out.
Lets’ say Rose chose to use her status as a Pink Diamond to protect earth and lead a rebellion against homeworld (a popular argument). It wouldn’t have worked out for several reasons.
First, I doubt the gems would have been inspired to fight for earth as valiantly as they had for Rose because it would have been an order. It would not be because they loved earth and was fighting out of their own conviction.
Second, I doubt Rose would have been able to commit to her cause. Her baggage would have caused her to falter and give up the moment one of the diamonds acted condescendingly towards her. That’s how trauma works.
Finally, the other diamonds wouldn’t have taken her seriously. They would probably pat her on the head and thought she was being (1) petulant (Yellow Diamond) or (2) cute (Blue Diamond) and proceed to override her orders and strip her of her army/gems.
And we are forgetting the most important fact here. Rose wanted to protect earth, not overthrow the diamond authority. There’s a huge difference between these two goals.
Rebelling as a diamond is VERY different from liberating earth as a colony.
As an audience, it can be easy to forget that despite their poor treatment of her, the other diamonds are effectively Rose’s sisters. She never wanted to overthrow her sisters or destroy homeworld, she just wanted to protect earth.
Which meant finding a way to avoid direct conflict with the diamonds.
Being Rose Quartz made that possible as well.
The existence of Rose Quartz allowed her to create a narrative that earth was ‘too difficult to colonize’ so she (as Pink Diamond) wants to give up on it. Her plan capitalized on the other diamond’s perception of her as immature and lazy to liberate earth. It meant willingly subjecting herself to the ridicule and condescension that had wounded her for centuries just to free earth from the diamond authority without additional conflict. That is a really brave thing to do, given her history.
Of course as we all know, that didn’t work. And we see in the show that her final conversation with Blue Diamond seeded an idea that would eventually result in the tragedy as we know it.
Hind-sight is 20/20. In that moment, in the midst of all that chaos, could we really blame Rose for thinking that everything would be resolved if she, Pink Diamond, died?
Blue Diamond basically insinuated that as long as Pink Diamond existed, the rebellion would eventually fall in line. By logic, this means that shattering Pink Diamond would end the colonization. This also gave her a way to leave her life as a diamond behind and become Rose Quartz for good. It seems like the perfect plan.
Was it naïve of her to think that the death of a diamond would be the end of things
Yes.
But you have to realize that in Rose’s mind, she didn’t think that she was important enough to the other diamonds for them to seek retribution over her.
She didn’t know how much the other diamonds cared.
Why would she given how they’ve treated her over the millennia?
Rose genuinely thought that Pink Diamond was so unimportant and such a failure of a diamond that the other diamonds wouldn’t give a shit if she was shattered. And since Pink Diamond is insignificant, Pink’s play-colony would be equally insignificant.
She didn’t see how politically, the shattering of a diamond meant breaking the illusion that diamonds were all powerful and cannot be defeated. But if politics was her strong suit, she wouldn’t have struggled as a diamond in the first place.
All this just showed us that Rose’s biggest “mistake” was not thinking like the other diamonds. I’m not sure how that’s something to fault.
Besides, if Rose did think like the other diamonds and avoided the tragedy…well…we wouldn’t have a show to watch would we?
TLDR;
Earth was attacked to be made example of and It.Wasn’t.Rose’s.Fault.
There were a million other ways to for the diamonds to respond to Pink Diamond’s death. They chose violence, and that can’t be pinned on Rose. I also don’t think their their grief was the only reason why the other diamonds chose to resort to nuking earth and the crystal gems.
While Blue Diamond’s grief was real, I believe the attack on earth was more of a ‘How DARE these lowly gems shatter a diamond, they need to learn that this is unacceptable’.
Imagine being a diamond, a superior being that to your knowledge is impervious to all forms of harm from beings lesser than you. To learn that a lowly gem can shatter a diamond must have stirred up some very real fear in the other diamonds.
Suddenly, they weren’t safe anymore.
They used to think that all gems were born devoted to their diamonds, but the Crystal Gems showed that a rebellion was still possible. Gems outnumber diamonds. In reality, the diamonds know that if all the gems rebelled, they can very well be overthrown. Then if you look at the level of fear homeworld gems live in, and think about how much injustice and abuse they must have endured, how much dissent and anger that is subconsciously kept at bay through pure fear, you will understand the diamonds had to quell any seed of rebellion before it is even sowed.
But getting back on track.
My main point is: that how other gems/diamonds react is completely out of Rose’s control.
As such, it is not healthy for us to say that Rose should have known better and should have acted otherwise. Because this thought process insinuates that the reaction of others is our responsibility.
Rose’s intentions were to make sure as little people got hurt as possible, how is that selfish?
Wanting to be Rose Quartz instead of Pink Diamond can be seen as self-serving, but are we saying that pretending to be someone you are not is more honest and selfless?
Are we saying that it was better to have a sub-par diamond (by homeworld standards) than to have Rose Quartz?
Because, Rose being her true self is what inspired Garnet to exist. It is what inspired gems to go against what they were ‘made’ to do, and gave them a chance to grow beyond what they were made to be. I think that is an infinitely beautiful and irreplaceable outcome.
And none of it would have been possible if Rose Quartz did not exist.