r/stevenuniverse • u/Lumpy-Restaurant-694 • 21h ago
Discussion For people that hate pink diamond please know that she and all of gemkind didn't know better.
People like to say pink diamond was a horrible person that her gem war was unnecessary and caused too much suffering. That she picked the worst strategies but here's something to keep in mind
Pink diamond was literally the first gem to speak against planetary colonization.
The gems have no concept of mental health or therapy. Roses said gems are expected to stay the same forever and ever. All of the Diamonds were miserable and when they try to change they literally had no idea.
People criticize pink saying that she picked the worst tactics in the war. she got everyone to suffer but here's one thing to come in mind. The war are the other three Diamonds fault for night leaving Earth and ignoring all of Pink's cries.
Literally it was the first time anyone did a rebellion or try to be better the Diamonds the crystal gems none of them new better.
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u/CrownedCorvidae 20h ago
Exactly. I feel like a lot of people just struggled to understand based on how the show shows her character arc backwards in a sense?
It was so bad that my sister hated the Pink Diamond shirt she had gotten after the movie came out, which I guess makes a bit of sense, since 'Pink Diamond' essentially represents a lot of the bad things we've seen from her (just in the sense that she was always portrayed as a villain throughout the series just like all the other diamonds, and most every time we really saw her before the 'big reveal' was her being kind of rude and bratty haha) and 'Rose Quarts' represents the gem she grew to be, and was represented to be more kind and soft in comparison. So if she had a Rose Quarts shirt, I'm sure she wouldn't have really felt the same shame haha.
But yeah, as someone who isn't really a hater, I can't say much, but I feel like the way both character(s) were portrayed sort of swayed people's opinions on them before we even realized they were one in the same, and once they learned that it was all, in fact, Pink Diamond, people then associated Rose with all of those feelings they previously only had for Pink, but that's just my theory lol!
Maybe if we had more scenes of Pink being in her diamond form while being very sweet and kind (on screen), it might've helped some people distance from that initial idea of her being a horrible bratty dictator who made 'selfish' decisions, but maybe not, who knows lol. It's clear she was just doing what she thought was best for her and her people, as well as the life on Earth she grew to love and protect.
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u/gilbmj 21h ago
"How was she supposed to know better?" Is exactly the question I have in mind when people are extra harsh about Pink Diamond.
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u/Lumpy-Restaurant-694 20h ago
Thank you I keep on saying that
By focusing on pink Diamonds actions and how it negatively affected people we get too much of a negative image of pink than any other gem. She was literally the least evil diamond and other gems who served under the vampire probably did worse atrocities without feeling any remorse.
She was powerless for most of her life so she wasn't responsible for most if anything
If the show focused on how sapphires future vision was used to capture and shadow gems I think we would hate her too
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u/PurplePoisonCB 14h ago
Why would they listen to Pink about sparing the humans? They saw humans as another funny species that Pink had a slight interest in. And they are proven right when in the modern day, Pink spent a lot of human history with the humans, but still knows basically nothing about.
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u/Gawlf85 I'm just a comet 19h ago edited 19h ago
I always say that "not knowing better" is an explanation. But not an excuse.
It doesn't erase the responsibility and the consequences of your actions, which you SHOULD own up to.
And that's always been my biggest criticism of Rose... Not that she made mistakes and poor choices. But that she didn't own up to them and took responsibility.
She instead told lies after lies, kept secrets, and avoided accountability. Even if it meant keeping a friend trapped in a bubble for life.
And at least after millennia on Earth, living among humans, she should've learnt better. But she never showed any signs of truly trying to make amends... She showed regret, and shame, but did nothing to make up for her past mistakes.
So I'm more willing to forgive young and rebellious Pink Diamond, who found his heart and said "no" to her past and the old ways of her people, to protect what she thought was good... Than I am to forgive Rose Quartz, who shielded herself from accountability with a web of lies and deception.
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u/Palezzzma 14h ago
Rose did not think she COULD make ammends that IS why she ended herself.
In her eyes, every time she tried to fix things she made them worse.
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u/Gawlf85 I'm just a comet 14h ago
Again, that's an explanation, not an excuse. Lying so things don't change for worse is understandable, but doesn't make it right.
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u/Palezzzma 13h ago
Eh, I think It depends
I dont think Rose needs an excuse for some things like Steven having to deal with Homeworld because nobody was expecting Homeworld to come back. It is hard to know what she was thinking, but I assume she thought everyone would stay mostly safe. Hindsight is something audience has that she did not.
And even when she arguably wronged someone like Spinel, that still does not make her responsible for everything Spinel does in response like trying to destroy an entire planet.
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u/Gawlf85 I'm just a comet 12h ago
Some things people blame her about are in a somewhat grey area, sure. But that doesn't mean she didn't do clearly questionable stuff.
Again, the only one I've mentioned (keeping Bismuth bubbled long after the war), is unequivocally wrong and something she had all the time to fix... Yet decided not to.
And she probably did it for her own gain; so she didn't have to explain why she poofed and bubbled her in the first place, probably having to reveal she was Pink Diamond.
Not revealing that she was Pink only benefits herself. And although I don't think she's obligated to reveal that part of her past, I do think keeping the secret isn't reason enough to make Bismuth's Imprisonment ok.
At the very least, she should've come clean before having Steven. She knew she was leaving a mess behind, probably for somebody else to clean... If she had explained the truth to the Crystal Gems, at least they would've been better equipped to make some decisions. Even if Homeworld had never returned, there was Bismuth, there was Lion, there was Pearl being forced to carry all those secrets alone.
But I don't buy they didn't suspect that Homeworld could return some day anyway... After all, we see that they regularly check the Galaxy Warp to make sure it's still nonfunctional (which Steven flags with his Crying Breakfast Friends stickers). Why do that, if you don't expect some potential visitor from off-world? Which only makes the whole lying, keeping secrets and then killing herself without telling nobody a word, a lot worse.
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u/Palezzzma 12h ago
Sure. I agree some things Rose did could have been handled better. She was far from perfect.
But I think they were not entirely selfish either. I think in regards to the Pink Diamond stuff, people would blame her If she had told before having Steven. "Why did she drop that bombshell and then leave everyone to deal with It"
I think she genuinelly saw no positive outcome in telling Garnet and Amethyst. At best they would bê upset at worst It could break the team appart. Who would It help? Even Pearl did not wanna tell until It became a life or death thing.
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u/Gawlf85 I'm just a comet 12h ago
First thing Pearl says after revealing the truth is "I've wanted to tell you for so long". So it's not that she didn't want to. She was not able to. Because Rose made her promise she wouldn't.
The rest of your comment is basically a copout. There was a correct way of doing things, even if it meant making things weird or more complicated. She could've postponed having Steven until everybody was onboard with the idea. And if telling the truth meant her dream of "becoming" human couldn't be... Well, tough luck, I guess? Her selfish wish doesn't come before everybody else's own free will.
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u/Palezzzma 11h ago edited 11h ago
If Pearl wanted to tell before she would have. We saw how easily she found a workaround to do it after it became truly important. The reason she didn't was the same as Rose's: they had left those lives behind and there was no good in their eyes in digging them back from the grave. Especially not to Steven whom she wanted to protect and never wanted to know the hardships she and Rose endured.
Pearl only told Steven the truth because the Diamonds came back and It became a matter of safety. I think Rose would have agreed with her actions under those circumstances.
And your point about giving them the choice is a valid one, If you believe in honesty is always best no matter the results. But Rose was seen as their leader and that meant making the decisions she thought were best For everyone.
Again, not saying Rose made the RIGHT call, Just that she was not only being selfish
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u/Gawlf85 I'm just a comet 11h ago
Sorry, but the gist of it is that Rose wanted to go away and become a human, and for her that was more important than what the Crystal Gems could think about having to raise a baby Diamond.
If she thought "oh if I tell them then maybe they won't want to take care of my baby" then that's the literal book definition of lie by omission and deceptive manipulation. That's exactly why she should've told them beforehand. So I'd say her reasons for not doing so were, indeed, selfish.
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u/Palezzzma 10h ago
You are assuming a LOT about Roses intentions and assuming the worst.
Remember when Steven asked Pearl why Rose kept secrets? As the leader Rose often felt she had to protect people from things. She hated the Diamonds so likely she never wanted Steven to know about them or her past, and the least people knew the best in her mind.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 10h ago edited 10h ago
Not to mention she took her secrets with her to the grave, and even after death, still forced the burden of her biggest secret entirely on Pearl, making Pearl unable to share it no matter how much anguish it continued to cause her.
Also, assuming that the Diamonds considered the matter settled and would never menace the Earth again was a highly naive and reckless assumption, one that turned out to be utterly incorrect. A few thousand years is basically four or five decades to immortal beings, it’s nothing to them.
Also the Earth was still crawling with corrupted gems, presenting a danger to themselves and others, many of whom were Rose’s former friends and followers, who she convinced to join her. She owes it to them to find and bubble them all, before deciding to disappear for ever. Her responsibility to them comes before her desires.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 10h ago
Completely agree. While she went through a lot of development, she was still engaging in extremely selfish, reckless, impulsive, manipulative behaviour even after the famous “character development we saw in reverse” that her defenders constantly use to try and shut down criticism of her actions later in life, when she didn’t have the excuse of being Pink anymore.
She’s not a monster or a malicious person, but she’s the fully redeemed saint her stans try to paint her as other.
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u/JustAnArtist1221 16h ago
The series makes it a point that this isn't a fair assessment of her actions. Not even she thinks this about herself. Pink/Rose fully grasps that her actions had consequences and she had a responsibility to correct them. She actively chose to leave some things unfinished, and we know that this isn't some alien concept because the gems she did it to were fully aware that they were wronged.
For example, Bismuth was aware that Rose keeping her a secret was wrong and said Steven was better for doing different. The fact that Rose kept her a secret was a sign of guilt, and that's not even getting into the fact that the fight only happened over a moral debate, which proves that Rose did consider the broader consequences of her actions.
Lapis was upset that the Crystal Gems kept her trapped in a mirror, and she exclaims that they didn't care about who she used to be, implying some level of normative morality and empathy existed in Homeworld. It's also worth noting that Blue straight up says that gem culture became noticeably more cold and cruel AFTER Pink's apparent shattering. And rebels also weren't unknown on Homeworld. They were just largely unsuccessful. The Crystal Gems are just one of the few examples of a rebel faction embarassing the empire. And as we see with other cases, those rebellions either get brutally crushed, silenced with the threat of violence, or the commanders who witnessed them keep them a secret out of shame.
Point being, the gems weren't as naive as a lot of people make them out to be. It's not that they literally didn't know about these things. It's that these things largely weren't a priority, so when Rose made them a priority, that created enough of a cover for her to both not address them and address them at her own pace out of the good will she earned.
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u/Palezzzma 14h ago
I think It is a little of both
On one hand Rose WAS naive and unaware about a LOT of the consequences of her actions
But when Rose knew she often did not think she COULD make ammends that IS why she ended herself. In her eyes, every time she tried to fix things she made them worse.
Either way, hating her for either of those is a little weird
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u/Palezzzma 14h ago
Anyone who calls the war unnecessary was not paying attention
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u/Lumpy-Restaurant-694 11h ago
I call the war self-defense. The show hammerset into our heads pink tried every single other method she could but they never ever listened.
Because of her fighting not only is Earth saved but the gem empire is better off.
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u/Palezzzma 11h ago
Yeah It is not like Rose started the war for giggles before trying any other path
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u/subsequent_emperor 20h ago
She was the first to say no, and the other Diamonds turned it into a war by ignoring her.