Something Everyone Probably Realized but I Wanna Talk About It
So, in Steven Universe Future, the Diamonds all show off their new powers. We also learn that Pink Diamond’s powers of healing are coupled with the power of destruction, and those are manifesting in Steven.
Except, none of them have new powers. The Diamonds all have their own unique gifts, that’s true. But in SU Future, they’re not exercising new ones. It’s just their powers in reverse.
Pink Diamond’s powers seem to have been, at first, all destructive.
Volleyball tells us that she knew Pink as a force of fury, so much so that it traumatized her to the core. She had a sonic scream, released bursts of destructive energy we see both Pink Steven and Future Steven using after Connie rejects him, she breaks things, she throws temper tantrums. But consider, what’s the opposite of destruction?
Obviously: creation. Healing. Restoration.
Pink Diamond, and thusly Steven, don’t have both the power to destroy and to heal. The powers are just two sides of the same coin, for lack of better metaphor.
Pink Diamond didn’t change her power at all. She just channelled the same power in the opposite direction. She changed her physical appearance to reflect that, of course, assuming the role of Rose Quartz to manifest that growth of power and character that she underwent. Even the protective shields are sort of a “reverse” mode of the explosion of energy she and Steven had/have.
Blue Diamond is more obvious.
Considering Blue’s change is actually what made this so clear to me. We meet Blue and her power is that she can affect the emotional state of gems. In her own words, she projected her pain on the other gems (and even Connie) because she wanted them to hurt like she did.
The flip side of sorrow and pain?
Again, it becomes so obvious: joy. Laughter. Love.
Blue Diamond is still projecting her emotional state. It just happens that, instead of feeling bad, she feels happy! Content! She wants to be surrounded by gems who laugh and sing, not crush them with her pain.
Yellow Diamond’s is a bit more subtle.
Yellow has always had power over a gem’s physical form. In the past, though, she believed that she needed to be the powerhouse of the Diamond Authority and that meant she ruled with an iron fist. She and Blue both punished usurpers physically, but Yellow’s power made it less about shattering and more about breaking down the physical form and then bubbling them.
But when Yellow makes Garnet a giant, and when she alters the physical state of gems in her workshop, she’s still doing the same thing she was before; yet, again, she’s changed her power over the physical form to not be destructive, but instead to be constructive.
White’s power is actually presented by Spinel and White as being the opposite. Instead of taking over the minds of other gems, she lets them project on her.
White Diamond’s power is a little harder to define. It’s not something that really manifests physically, unlike the other three Diamonds. Pink breaks or heals, Blue makes them cry or laugh, and Yellow changes their form. White Diamond, I believe, has control over a gem’s mental state and consciousness. Thinking of it that way, we can put it on an either-or scale.
What’s the opposite of overpowering a gem’s conscious thoughts?
Taking on the conscious thoughts of the gem herself!
White harmonizes with the gem instead of forcing the gem to be harmonized with her. We know that White’s power is very strong because she’s able to keep it up for at least 8,000 years, and she can hold it over multiple gems at the same time.
That’s great, but what does it mean?
This means that, like almost all things gem-power-related in Steven Universe, these are a reflection of the characters’ emotional states and their willingness to change and grow.
What- or wherever the Diamonds come from, it seems that they’ve always had these powers. Likely, the powers manifested the way they did for the entirety of Eras 1 and 2 because of how they decided to structure their kingdom and hierarchy. No questions allowed.
Until they realized that, through sheer force of will and by thinking about themselves and their roles in the universe differently, they can do different things with their same gifts.
The Diamonds did not get new powers. The Diamonds just exuded their power in an opposite or different direction. They grew, they changed, but they did not gain or lose anything. So, as far as their powers go, it’s about choice. They can choose to be destructive, and they can choose to be constructive.
And, if you think about it…
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