Ruby has flame powers and Sapphire has ice powers, and combined as Garnet she has electricity powers. We haven't seen a whole lot from Opal other than her weapon. So what powers does she gain when Pearl and Amethyst fuse? Check out this awesome and in depth fan theory to find out!
i’m going to talk about some abilities opal could have as a result of mixing pearl’s and amethyst’s elemental powers.
but first: what powers, right?? so far pearl and ame didn’t rly display much elemental affinity. well, thats not entirely true.
PEARL: SAND
pearl displayed a very weak ability of sandbending. this would point to the idea of her element being sand, much like water is lapis’ element with her hydrokinesis.
i think pearl’s just not skilled in using it much like she’s not skilled in shapeshifting.
i feel like shapeshifting is something she can’t do very well because of her rigid personality, not because of some technical restrictions as a pearl/damage/defect. amethyst mentioned that to shapeshift you gotta ‘flow’ into your new form and let’s be real, pearl is everything BUT flowing. all of her power comes from strict training and perfect technique, she doesn’t do anything by ‘just feeling it’.
i think that’s the reason she acts kinda uncomfortable when shapeshifting comes up - she’s embarrassed she can’t do it. she was told she can’t do anything because she’s just a pearl. she wanted to prove them wrong, she learned so much… and maybe she feels like by failing at something she proves that they were right, that she’s just a pearl… which is of course bullshit. she’s just one person, she can’t be good at everything. she worked her ass off and achieved so much already… she should give herself more credit.
so, maybe theres a similar reason as above for why she can’t use sandbending very well? you could say she’s not like sand, but rather like glass…
there’s another small thing that can support this sand idea - the blade part of pearl’s spear can be made of glass, which is just another form of sand.
the color fits very well - thick glass often is tinted blue/teal:
also, it being made of glass would make the weapon capable of shooting lasers, as glass can focus light, and lasers are made of light.
and of course there’s the obvious fact that pearls are made in water environment which has ton of sand in it. pshh.
AMETHYST: FIRE
there are several reasons why i suspect amethyst has the element of fire.
[putting it under cut for a large amount of gifs]
first we have this attack she used on pearl in ‘on the run’:
in case you have doubts if it’s actually of fire element and not just some energy blast, joethejohnston called it ‘flame whip’ when he posted animatics for this scene.
and now, spin dash:
for a comparison here’s a spin dash from a ‘properly’ grown quartz, jasper:
and her comet charge:
both of these attacks have a yellow/orange fire aura to them. i think amethyst should also have it. it would most likely be purple/pink, like the fire from the whip. i imagine the fire is always similar in color to the gem’s color. this idea is further supported by malachite in super watermelon island: here she is with jasper’s spin attack aura changed to green to match her stone.
i think amethyst is technically capable of using it (peridot said she can do what any ‘normal’ quartz can do) but probably never learned to use it. i think other gems attempted to train her, but failed. i kind of expect jasper to train her when she gets to have her 5 minutes among the crystal gems…
in fact because of amethyst’s emotional nature and approach to things i think very strong emotions would be needed to actually light this fire in her. in fact when she used the flame whip on pearl it felt like ame threw her own anger and hurt at her. (”I’m not gonna let you stand there and remind me of everything I hate about myself!” it’s actually the first line she speaks that openly expresses her self-hate in this scene)
also, this makes me believe that offensive quartzes (or offensive gems in general, like ruby) have fire based abilities. fire is great at destruction, after all.
another point to ame being flame, let’s look at this gif of alexandrite:
she has fire breath! where does it come from? perhaps ruby might seem like an obvious answer as she’s the only confirmed fire gem on the team, but i heavily suspect it’s actually amethyst. (i don’t think amethyst can actually breath fire but maybe? the point is, the flame is in her)
first of all, ruby doesn’t really ‘exist’ as ruby when garnet is fused with someone. garnet acts as one person, even within other fusions. it’s far more likely garnet’s powers would be in alexandrite rather than ruby’s, and those are electricity-based.
what’s more, i talked about this before but the lower mouth in alexandrite is actually dominated by amethyst, while garnet and pearl seem to ‘occupy’ the upper mouth. it’s visible when they start to desynchronize:
so this leads me to believe the fire really comes from amethyst. and this made me wonder about this power in 2 other fusions amethyst is in: opal and sugilite.
with sugilite i imagine she has an extremely similar form of what this attack might look like in alex: she just spits purple fire, like a fucking dragon. savage. how fitting for her!
as for opal? i think she would have a bit more……careful, controlled version of it. more below.
OPAL: FIRE, SAND and OPALITE
now, let’s talk about how those powers could show up in opal. since there’s not much canon opal appearances it’s going to be mostly deduction, speculation and imagination.
first let’s look at the flames. chances are you’ve seen naruto in your life. given that steven universe already made references to anime i feel justified in the following choice. i present to you, gay fire breath no jutsu:
now that’s what i call flamboyant!
the amount of hands she would use and the gesture she makes itself is up to debate, i went with a heart for shits and giggles. but there’s actual logic behind why she could use the flame in this manner.
opal’s dynamic is as follows: amethyst is the energy and pearl is control. her bow even reflects that, with the glass-like limbs being made of pearl’s spear and amethyst’s whip being the sting itself. while the limbs hold the string in place giving it stability, the string is providing the energy to the shot.
speaking of that dynamic, did you know that sand is actually mostly made up of quartz? i just think it’s funny how pearl has sandbending abilities, sand is mostly quartz and pearl is the one who provides control to opal…
so, much like in this dynamic, opal could use amethyst’s flame to it’s full power, but in a controlled manner that pearl provides. so rather than just spewing it all out like sugi, she could precisely aim with it and control how much power it has.
the other power opal could enhance is the aforementionedsandbending. i think amethyst’s influence loosens pearl’s stiffness and it could result in opal being able to use this ability much more. there’s not much else here to say, it would look pretty much like lapis’ hydrokinesis, but sand.
as for just how much powerful it would be, i’m not sure. while i don’t think it would be as op as lapis’ hydrokinesis, it would still be a very useful ability, especially as manipulation of the environment, for example to get to a higher place and gain strategic advantage. alternatively it could be just as powerful, if not more! she’s 2 gems after all. maybe opal could learn to use it better and better in time?
and now for the third ability, mixing those 2 things together.glass. or to be more precise, opalite. as you probably know, glass is made of melted sand, while opalite is just opalized glass. rainbow colored, just like opal herself and her hypothetical breath.
wouldn’t it be cool if opal could create rainbow colored glass with her rainbow colored breath? like, her breath could immediately opalize the glass, giving it it’s pretty color. it’s even called opalite! come on.
as for how it would work: opal breaths on the sand to melt it and manipulates it while it’s still hot and liquid. now, this can have both offensive and, bear with me… artistic possibilities.
the offensive idea i had is trapping your enemies in glass. either just throw the hot mass at them (burning them while at it) and when it rather quickly cools down and solidifies, their movement is crippled, if not halted completely. another possibility is trapping their legs alone, like so:
pardon the improvised visual. anyway i think it would be harder to get out of, and also could make it very easy for opal to charge her arrow and aim at the enemy with no hurry. but those are just examples, this technique can have a lot of uses, depending on situation in a fight.
and now… the artistic part. now, i don’t know in what situation this could happen, but imagine opal just… making art. opalite sculptures. maybe just for fun? opal IS the stone of creativity and inspiration after all! you know, actually i lied, i have an idea about the situation this could occur in. tweak this a little and voilà .
wouldn’t it be really sweet if they kept small opalite figurines of each other that opal made? it might sound silly, but… given that their actual voice actors kinda did something like it it’s not this unreasonable, you know. except here it would be, you know. gay.
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