character analysis

Freedom from Identity

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Of the three main Gems, Garnet’s story has always seemed the most muted and hazily defined. If you go back with the understanding that she is trans (as one of many dimensions to the metaphor she embodies), her whole character arc of learning to be honest and open about who she is, embracing her inner complexity and allowing herself to be vulnerable, it takes on a lot more color. It all starts to open up and make sense in a similar way to Amethyst’s and Pearl’s inner journeys.

From the start it’s just taken as read that Garnet is who she says she is. But she asserts this so strongly as to be rigid in her attitudes toward herself and her potential, and as to not let anyone in. She has to learn how to be a verb, and not just a noun. A person, not just an identity.

There’s this sort of fear that letting people know her too closely, or performing outside of this narrow definition she’s made for herself, will negate her identity, cause them to respect her less on her own terms. Which is not an entirely unwarranted fear, as we see in the show.

So her journey is about learning that essential trust in the truth of who she is, so that she doesn’t have to be defensive about it, protect it all the time. So that she can feel free to just live.

All the Tears that She Cried

  • Reading time:2 mins read

So how many times has Greg seen Pearl poofed? He seems to know exactly how it works—using language that suggests first-hand sensory experience that he struggles to articulate—and to know that Pearl’s reboot is unusual for her. 

If we take Pearl’s memory as accurate, both when Steven enters her gemstone and in the later context of musical theater, then she seems to have remained intact from the night she met Greg up until she learned about Rose’s plans for the future.

Then she seems to have regenerated at least once sometime between her initial meltdown over Rose’s pregnancy and what seems to be quite late in the process. 

From there, Pearl keeps the same form through Steven’s childhood (God, her body language in “Three Gems and a Baby”), into season 1a. 

If Greg saw her regenerate—likely more than once, given his familiarity with the process—that would have been somewhere in the few months before Steven was born. That must have been a, uh, rough period for her, huh. 

Dare I say, her regenerated form—after she realized Rose was going to be leaving her—to my eyes it’s coded as markedly less independent than her prior, somewhat with-the-times style. She becomes more, well, Pearlish. More delicate, reverting more to type. So her mental state…

For millennia, Pearl just sort of expected she and Rose would be together forever. Then in just a few blinks of her lifetime, she’s pushed to the periphery and Rose is about to die. And with that, suddenly Pearl takes on more of the appearance of a traditional Pearl: devoted, subservient. 

A Gem’s physical form is a manifestation of how they see themself—so it’s as if Pearl is asking, what did she do wrong? She must have strayed too far from her purpose. She dropped her guard, let a threat in, due to her lack of devotion. 

It’s like her very body is pleading by way of her subconscious, please, don’t go; I’ll be who I was supposed to be, see. I’ll always be here for you.

But it wasn’t enough, because it was never really about Pearl.