Spoiler I was doing the pointless wondering about how Spinel got a lethal planet injector, filled it up, and drove it to earth in the timeframe that the movie supplies for us, and the only conclusion I’ve come to so far is I have to face the fact that the injector may be her gem weapon, since the Rejuvenator was not. Of course the injector didn’t disappear when she was poofed but maybe this is like a Lirael situation where the longer you take to manifest your powers the more absolutely bonkers they are
Spoiler I also wonder where she learned to fight like that. she really did kick everyone’s ass up and down the block that first encounter, and they were a little out of practice yeah but she’d been sitting completely still for 6000 years. it’s possible she could have called a rescue ship, hijacked it, and stolen the injector and rejuvenator in the right timeframe, but how did she get that training? especially since her original function was essentially court jester. Spoiler: suicide-ish mention? also, it was pretty strongly implied that she poofed herself after seeing Steven’s message, yeah? that’s the impression I got, anyway. I don’t know how else she could have changed forms stuck alone on that garden.
Spoiler: spoilery reply to vuatson's nested spoiler I interpreted it as sufficient emotional distress being enough to poof a gem under the right circumstances. So she poofed, but it wasn't necessarily her idea, as it were.
Spoiler I think Spinel is also just... a lot smarter and more talented than other gems credit her as being. She's goofy and silly, so Pink gets tired of her and clearly assumes she can't really change... but rubber hose animation physics are hard to handle, to say the least. Heck, I don't think she loses a single fight she gets into the entire time. May well have been meant to double as a secret bodyguard for Pink, on top of everything else. To me, the timeline also implies that the garden is pretty close to Earth. Maybe that's part of why it was chosen as a site for Pink's first colony?
Tbh most of her fucked up choices were done in the interest of permanently distancing herself from an abusive family that were also authoritarian immortal queens and said actions kind of make sense in that light. And completely destroying one of those awful god queens even if it was the one that happened to be her. Rose Quartz is a case of not expecting model victims to me. Spoiler: Suicide mention She did top-of-the-line horrible things to accomplish that. And she eventually chose to, as the kids say, literally kill herself, so I’m pretty sure she knows she did some bad things.
Spoiler: response to above i mean, okay, i think actually the single worst thing she did, out of any of this, was die and leave steven to deal with it like, idk, everyone else in the show is given the opportunity to learn, and change, and heal, and become better but it's like. no one gets any of that until she dies, and steven is old enough to unpack her shit she never even gets that chance, because she's dead! my tone might read as angry here? i'm not, just impassioned my initial post was glib, and i don't really... well, no, i definitely do blame her for what she did, because we clearly see through the other gems in the story that gems can change, but i'm not unsympathetic to the fact that abuse and trauma can result in a fucked up person who does fucked up things it is lowkey frustrating sometimes, in a story where literally everyone else gets to change, but for it to happen like this, she never can and then again, we're probably brushing up against my "not strictly against suicide, but sure am against suicide as a form of atonement" idk
Spoiler man Pink/Rose is one of the most uniquely 3D characters I’ve seen in a good while, it’s hard to even talk about her because there’s so much going on with her. The best thing about her is how much she just Loved everyone and the worst thing is how little the fuck she cared if she happened to not Love you. Tons of compassion, little to no empathy. Not a lot of permanence. Things seem to stop mattering if they’re not immediate or she can ignore them. In the end the best thing she did was be something for Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven to believe in. Did she really make peace and equality on planet earth? Idk. Did her convictions create the best defenders of peace and love on Earth? In summary, “Wow, you’re Rose Quartz?? I LOVED your work on Garnet.”>u< Just awful as a partner. Couldn’t depend on her in a personal relationship. Made a beautiful leader who championed the right things for everyone to follow, didn’t quite live up to it herself. I’m afraid I’ll chicken out on any more serious discussion on her choice to die, it turns out it hits close to home for me too -u-; Except that yes, the shittiest consequence was absolutely leaving that mess for Steven, who doesn’t deserve this. though what a coincidence that it all comes to a head right after his birth after 6000 yrs of not doing that. Ouch, Stu.
Spoiler and Much Love for my girl Spinel who didn’t make us go through proving that Steven isn’t Pink Diamond again. Very refreshing that she started out accepting that.
Spoiler: pink, suicide, abuse Honestly, one of the great things about this show is that it is, at its core, about a bunch of deeply messy people. I think Pink really exemplifies that. On the one hand, what she did to Spinel was inexcusable. Her treatment of Pearl (and the whole love triangle)? Also not great. Neither was the whole “faking her death” thing, although it’s hard to say whether or not there was any other option there. She had a marked tendency to not think things through, very low empathy, and a great lack of emotional maturity, and she did some deeply fucked up shit. Rebecca Sugar even said that she wasn’t an especially good person. At the same time...she was fleeing abuse. She had noble intentions, at least for the Earth. I don’t think she was evil, or a villain per se. I do think a strong argument could be made that she’s the biggest antagonist in the series, but that’s not the same as being a villain. As for Steven’s birth/her death, I know there’s always been debate as to her reasoning, but I think there are two core reasons she chose to die: a desire to run from the consequences of her actions, and genuine suicidal despair. I really think both were factors there. Idk if I’m making a lot of sense here, but tl;dr Pink was a veeeery complicated character.
Spoiler: continued suicide talk and also spoilers yeah, that definitely makes sense too. maybe for gems there isn’t much difference, because any distress severe enough to make them want to poof would poof them regardless? kind of brings new meaning to “loving you, and loving being you,” huh
also here’s an excellent and nonspoilery post about Rose perpetuating patterns of abuse without realizing it
Spoiler First, I have to admit some serious bias here. I love Pink. She's my absolute favorite, and the more I learn about her the more I care about her. I don't think she was a bad person. I think she was really screwed up. Years and years of dealing with an abusive family will do that to you, I and several others here know. Most of her harmful actions stem from either a desire to escape her situation, a lack of any practical experience, or not thinking things through. Repeately acting out until her first Pearl was taken away and brainwashed by White- trying to bring some fun into an awful, sad, dysfunctional family. Forcing Pearl to keep silent regarding her true identity, forcing Garnet to never ask questions- trying to escape her past as Pink Diamond and the reality that she did some screwed up things. Faking her own death with Pearl's help- not thinking more about the situation and realizing that despite their behavior, the other Diamonds still love her. Leaving Spinel alone in the garden- not thinking things through and trying to escape herself, regardless of who she has to leave behind. But despite all that? She really, truly wanted to be a good person and do good things. Even if she didn't understand other Gems because she was so distant from them as a Diamond, she cared about them in ways the others never did. She even cared about organic life, completely outside Gem society. She sacrificed her life, her status, her family, and surely many of her friends to become Rose Quartz, rebel against Homeworld and keep earth free. And she saw something in humanity, in Greg, that she didn't see in herself- the ability to grow and change. And in the end she sacrificed herself completely to bring something new into the world- to change into something else. Steven. I can't bring myself to think badly of her. And I won't think of her sacrificing herself to create Steven as just an escape from the consequences of her life.
Spoiler: About Pink, and also S I feel that Pink didn't see a way for her to change. Whether she thought other gems could or not, she didn't seem to think she could, not in the same fundamental way she wanted to. Was she right? I don't know. We know others did, but also Pink's interactions with humans, in retrospect, are kinda similar to how she was shown interacting with Spinel. Like, she framed humans as being so funny, and fun, and enjoying playing with them, and it took until Greg for her to really seem to get how that wasn't the whole of it. I don't think she was running away so much as seeing no other way forward, and right or wrong, that's what she chose to do. That being said? Spinel absolutely could've changed and made the transition to Earth with her, I think, if Pink had known to treat her any differently, to let her know that the way she tried to make Pink smile got tiresome. I don't think Pink really trusted others, really, to listen to her seriously. But Spinel was clearly designed to be more than just a fun-time friend. But I can't see Pink realizing that there was more to her than met the eye, not when she hadn't really been taught to do that with other gems, and certainly not when what was on the surface was also real, just not the whole of who Spinel was.
Spoiler: more thoughts Also, it's not just Pink/Rose that underestimated Spinel. Like, when Pearl says "It really is her, but she can't be serious." I don't think she was meaning about the attack. I think she kinda meant it in general. There are a couple other points, too, IIRC, where she just discounts Spinel's ability to be serious, to not be playing around, for there to be more to who she is than she ever showed before. Pearl has that problem, sometimes, and she had little reason to question it. Heck, she didn't even know what Pink did to Spinel, she easily could have assumed Pink gave her away or left her behind in a less horrifying way. It's the only way her brushing six thousand years alone makes much sense in-character, if she didn't realize Spinel was literally abandoned and left alone for all that time. It's not like she hasn't met Lapis, or been horrified at the realization that Lapis had been stuck like that. EDIT: Spoiler: also I... like that they made old Spinel obnoxious, in the way that kid characters tend to be in other shows. Like, with the squeaky shoes and all. It's nice to be able to get why Pink might have discounted her or grown so very tired of her antics, even if that doesn't excuse what happened. But even then, it's obvious there's more to her (just like there was more to Steven) when she's the one that figures out how to restore their memories in the first place.
Spoiler I’m really starting to wonder what a ‘role’ of a Spinel is, since every gem type has a thing they do in Homeworld. Role, purpose, function. And I wonder if Spinel was chosen by... Yellow? White? As a distraction/playmate/present for Pink because of a side effect. Maybe Spinels are tough. An 8 on the hardness scale, which is rare. Not that much weaker than her, a flawed Diamond, by the numbers. Maybe, whatever Spinels ‘are,’ whatever their role is, they’re known for being hard to break. Which she IS. Spinel endures. Steven had a damn hard time with her. The Diamonds misunderstood Pink as a spoiled, tantrum-throwing child. A misunderstanding a lot of people believed. We saw her breaking mirrors, having fights, trying to hurt; maybe the Diamonds chose her a Spinel to play with because it was less likely than a typical servant gem to break and be replaced. We’ll get you a Spinel, they’re high quality. They last. You shouldn’t be able to break it. (‘Clumsy. Careless. Don’t appreciate what you’re given. This is why we can’t trust you.’) Especially if this happened after the Pink Pearl fiasco, since Free Pearl knew her. Speaking of, who finds it cute that Pearl kept her default Pearl outfit/coloration until they were free on Earth? That means that when freshly-born Pearl asked Pink Diamond what to be/look like, Pink didn’t tell her anything. She either said some flavor of ‘I don’t care,’ perhaps grieving her last pearl, or ‘just be yourself.’ A request she would bot take back, ever. Anyway, wonder what Spinels are ‘supposed’ to be. Hmmmmm. Stretchy, tough, tenacious, cheerful and gung-ho....
Spoiler Although looking at Pink from a different perspective: when you are raised in an area where all you know is wrong, how do you know what's right? Pink knew the situation was bad enough to escape, yet Pink's upbringing gave her little to no sense of right or wrong. She had to dig hard to find exactly what's right and wrong. What she did in her mind was justified. It doesn't make it right to people who know better, and Pink evidently didn't know it was wrong.
Spoiler Sure, but if Spinel and Pearl are both on Earth with Rose, Pearl reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally has her work cut out for her to win that unofficial contest for Rose’s attention. >u< That’s a triangle. ...Jokes aside, I wish they would have Pearl speak positively about Rose again. Have someone show they don’t all hate her now.
