A pretty lengthy theory, and it's pretty hit or miss as to whether this could be canon or not. Read the theory after the break and decide for yourself if there are plot holes, or if it's totally plausible!
So in the spirit of PearlRose Week, I will redo this theory, now with images and more details (besides I was stupid and deleted the original post by accident).
After “Back to the barn” three major things were revealed that directly affect the relation between Rose Quartz and Pearland gve a lot of hints about how homeworld works:
- The notion that gems are not unique, there are many individuals of the same kind with different established roles each, like Peridots are engineers.
- There’s several social classes on home world, a hierarchy that differentiates the status of higher gems from lower ones.
- Pearls are a symbol of high class, so superior gems own them as servants that look pretty.
Now given this information everyone jumped to the conclusion that Rose was the former owner of Pearl, thus explaining once and for all the relationship between them, Rose owned Pearl and that’s why Pearl worships her. But what if it’s not as simple. The show has proven that not all is what it seems and things rarely are as simple as they are portrayed at first. What if Pearl belonged to some other high class gem?, let’s see how this might work.
From Peridot’s line we know even among pearls, Pearl is of very good quality, she most likely was at the service of a really high class gem, (another diamond even). Pearl fulfilled her role, she is useful and devoted but she exhibits some “defective features” she asks too many questions, she is curious about things and she shows desires to learn and do different things from what she is supposed to.
Obviously the unyielding rules of homeworld frowned upon this behavior, something need to be done, and they planned to dispose of her. Now, about Rose, we know she became the leader of the rebellion so it is safe to assume she was against many of the ideals and methods of homeworld even before the war on earth started, one of them being, forcing gems to do certain tasks based just on their origins completely ignoring their feelings. Rose could have easily developed an interest for Pearl, seeing how unique she was, was the proof that homeworld ways are just wrong.
Now back to Pearl, how does home world planned on getting rid of her? The same way they had dealt with other defective pearls, Cluster experiments.
That’s right, in “Kepping it Together” we see one of the artificial fusions is made out of pearls, at this point homeworld is already on earth, exploiting its resources and investigating forced fusion. One scene I find interesting is on “The Return” upon arrival Jasper immediately acknowledged Pearl as “some lost defective Pearl”, It is clear she knew who was on earth, after the war homeworld labeled them as traitors, they could easily have files on the survivors, including one about the “defective Pearl” who joined Rose Quartz.
Back to the story, Rose then finally had enough of all this homeworld garbage, and started the rebellion, one of her first acts of “treason” being saving Pearl. They fought the war and eventually drove homeworld forces away.
Now think about Pearl, how many years the war lasted, how difficult it was for her adjusting to her new life, how many times did the old habits came back and she tried to go back to her former owner just because it was on her nature, how long it took Rose to heal her, to convince her she was not “just a Pearl”, that “she was everything” The episode “Sworn to the sword” gives us a ton of clues, Pearl said that Rose shouldn’t had fought she was “too important”, she was the symbol of the rebellion, all the gems rallied at her side, she was changing the status quo for the good, it is not just mindless devotionwhat drives Pearl forward, is the ideal they shared, is what Rose made her feel.
Now let’s discuss the “My Pearl” line, many said that’s the proof this was an owner/property relationship, but I believe it is quite the contrary, if Pearl belonged to someone else, then Rose calling her “My Pearl”, was a challenge to homeworld, to what Pearl was supposed to be, it’s like in “You are not hers, no one owns you, you are with me now, you are free, you are not just a pearl, you are my Pearl”, So now, “My” does not mean property, or possessiveness, it means, endearment, caring, love.
Steven Universe is indeed a great show, that has taken all the fans on a ride quite interesting and exciting, is not just how smart, thought-provoking, beautiful, emotional the series is, the love the whole crewniverse has put into it is as clear as daylight, and its magic can be felt just as clearly. No matter what comes in the future, weather this or many of the other theories are proven right or wrong, the Steven Universe ride will always be fun.
Sorry if this post got really big, but as Rose said once
Twitter: Emerald
