![]() at the beginning of the episode, Pearl is sad that she’s trapped on Earth without Rose to stay with anymore. Two versions of this exchange bookend the episode, and that’s done intentionally for contrast. Pearl: You know…I think I’d rather be here on Earth. Steven: I’m sorry I couldn’t help you go to space. Her dream to explore the galaxy with Steven really is with Steven, not Rose: she wants to show Steven, she wants to teach Steven, she wants to experience all space has to offer again with Steven, who’s experiencing it for the first time, and bond with him through it.īut to follow up on that, the episode ends with Pearl accepting that she still has a reason to stay on Earth, even without Rose, because she has Steven. if Steven is Rose, then Pearl still wouldn’t have had any reason to leave, because “Rose” is still there with her on Earth. See, Pearl recognizing Rose’s absence also hinges on Pearl believing that Steven and Rose are two separate people. My post-“Rose’s Scabbard” interpretation of “Space Race” is that it depicts the moment that Pearl becomes cognizant of the fact that her reason for remaining in exile on Earth–“Why would I ever want to go home if you’re here?”–no longer exists, and that she can act on that absence by building a spaceship to show Steven what she loves about the galaxy. Steven also widens the gems’ empathy, and not just for other humans either: Lapis and corrupted gems like Centipeetle come to mind. ![]() Steven being Rose’s son and having her gem were the point of entry for Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst to start caring about him–and while that remains important to them–it did not limit how they came to love him as his own person: as their teammate, and as their kid. none of the crystal gems would particularly care for or about Steven if he was just another ordinary citizen of Beach City, but that’s the point. ![]() None of the crystal gems really get involved with humans unless Steven has something to do with it: Garnet completely ignored Kofi when she broke his sign in “Beach Party”, and none of the crystal gems were interested in making amends with the Pizzas until Steven pressured them into it Pearl openly mocks and behaves condescendingly toward Mayor Dewey and Ronaldo, and Amethyst joined her in making light of humans’ existential crises in “Keep Beach City Weird” when the three of them had their way, they put up a fence to keep humans away from the temple–even when Rose was around. Would Pearl care for Steven if he wasn’t Rose’s son? I think we can all answer that with a pretty emphatic no…but the exact same thing can be said for Garnet and Amethyst. that Pearl has ever shown Steven as “really toward Rose, because Pearl doesn’t REALLY see Steven as his own person.” but there’s a fine line between appreciating how Pearl’s love for Rose informs her behavior toward/parenting of Steven and using what Pearl has said or done while in the thick of her grief to recontextualize every bit of affection, care, concern, love, pride in, etc. Ofc, finding out that Pearl was and still is in love with Rose, and that she believes that Rose is a part of Steven (…which…she actually is…), will recontextualize a lot of Pearl’s behavior. it happened after “Jail Break” with Ruby and Sapphire, where it seemed like the fandom combed through every single one of Garnet’s actions to determine whether it was Ruby or Sapphire doing it, or how Ruby and Sapphire felt about it.Īnd that’s mostly harmless, I think, but the version of the recontextualization effect that happened after “Rose’s Scabbard” is extremely harmful. Do you think it's evidence that Pearl only sees Steven as an extension of Rose, or that it's actually showing that she sees him as his own person? What are your thoughts?įandom has a habit of recontextualizing everything a character has ever done after a new and significant detail about them comes to light. Anonymous: The parallels between 'Rose's Scabbard', when Pearl tells Rose that she will stay and fight on Earth for her and 'Space Race', where Pearl tells Steven that she would rather be on Earth with him, never get talked about.
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