Steven is a hybrid, NOT a fusion
So this is just an essay to this topic I really wanted to make:
Steven is a hybrid, not a fusion. I think this is very important to Steven's identity and the message of the show as a whole.
Not only that, this is actually confirmed by the Crew, that Gem Steven and Human Steven aren’t full beings of their own, but just two halves of a whole.
One of the core themes of SU is identity. Every character has something in their arc to do with their own identity, either finding it, or accepting it, or fighting to have it be accepted after being denied it.
Identity is so ingrained into SU that its main antagonists, Homeworld, the Diamonds and especially White Diamond, their ideology and society are literally the anti-thesis to identity and individuality. The whole reason Peridot defected is that she was just another number to them, but to Steven she was a person. Every gem is just a cog in the machine, and even the Diamonds themselves are not exempt from this as White treats every one of them in the roles she sees them fit to be.
Blue laughs at Garnet calling herself a Garnet, Amethyst is reduced to just being a defective gem and a mockery of a Quartz, and Pearl is just a Pearl, an objectified servant who is only as important as the owner she belongs to, bereft of her own identity.
And no one has been denied their identity as much as Steven has.
Not only on the Homeworld side but also among friends and family.
There is obviously the whole Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond thing, either being treated as her or having to live up to her or just being an extension of her.
There are also his family and friends who deny Steven's gem or human side, only seeing him as one of them and not the hybrid he is. His dad treats him like a gem, which neglects him in the human department. And his mom only considers his human side, which makes her blind to all the gem stuff he has to deal with that she inadvertently leaves him with.
The Crystal Gems veered into only seeing him as the human, making him feel left out of their group to the point of crying about the idea the gems would abandon him of he didn’t prove his useful worth as a gem, to then veering into seeing him only as the gem he was later on, making them blind to the human neglect that caught up to him later on as we see in SUF.
And in CYM, White treated him just like a gem embedded onto a human child, as two separate people.
Ironically, it’s White Diamond in SUF that actually has Steven the most spot on. When the Diamonds changed their ways, White actually sees Steven as the hybrid he is, “Half a Diamond, half a creature of earth, in all the universe there's no one else that could know what you’re going through”. He is one of a kind hybrid.
This only further highlights the importance of that scene in Change Your Mind (CYM).
With identity being so central to SU and White Diamond and the entirety of Homeworld’s ideology being the anti-thesis of identity, it’s no wonder that the most crucial scene and theme in CYM has to do with the identity of the protagonist himself, the one who’s been struggling with identity the most.
The whole point of CYM is that Steven's identity has been denied for so long, which is why Gem Steven screams at White who's trying to deny him being anything other than Steven. Steven literally says "I'm me, I've always been me" after becoming whole again.
Steven is Steven. Him being anything else, a fusion, having a brother, having this separate Pink Diamond gem attached to him is so wrong and goes against everything the scene stands for, and by extension what Steven Universe stands for.
Gem Steven and Human Steven are two halves of a whole hybrid, not a fusion or anything else. They’re not meant to exist separately, they’re not two individual beings.
Split Steven is a shattered Steven.
This is why that scene in CYM is so important, because Steven was forcefully split apart—essentially shattered because White denied his identity. Shattering has been shown to be essentially the worst offence one could do.
Which also fuels why Steven has such a visceral reaction to WD in SUF compared to anyone else, even Spinel who almost killed his entire planet and reset the gems he didn't have that visceral reaction to. Treating him like a fusion would take away the sheer violation of being a whole being shattered in two that he experienced in CYM.
As we see when split, the two halves act like they’re shattered where the pieces are still conscious but can only focus on becoming whole again, as we’ve seen is the case for shattered gems. And the way Steven’s parts “fused” back together, works just like how the shattered gem parts “fused” back together after Yellow Diamond put them back together.
This is actually confirmed by the Crew, specifically Joe Johnston, the one who wrote and storyboarded this very scene in CYM and is a director on the Crew:
Question: "If gems can’t fuse with humans how did Steven’s gem fuse back with him?"
Answer: “Think of the split Stevens like they’re two halves of a whole. The two Stevens are each only half of a being, they can’t not fuse back into a full Steven. If you kept them apart they would only ever be focused on becoming whole again, seeking their other half. A little like two magnets that get close to one another and then snap together.“ - Joe Johnston
We see this in action during CYM.
A heart without body, a body without heart
Both Human and Gem Steven are lacking what a full human and gem is, and both their body and mind seem to not be fully there. They’re obviously not fully functional beings of their own, but are missing what the other has, because they’re one full being split apart, like bones without muscle, heart without body.
The show makes it especially clear with how the PoV was literally cut in half in that scene.
Another way they make it clear is showing how both halves are lacking vital parts on their own.
Gem Steven struggles to be animated like a normal gem with his face mostly blank, unblinking and has very mechanical movements. He also almost looks like a hologram instead of a proper light form as the gems have. Meanwhile Human Steven obviously can't even walk and is very pale and weak.
Gem Steven is pragmatic in his thinking, while the human side is very empathetic. Human Steven gets concerned when Gem Steven pushes White back along with his controlled friends and shouts “don’t hurt them”, but Gem Steven isn’t hurting them or shows any interest in engaging with them but sees pragmatic side of stunning them so White doesn’t keep attacking which delays Gem Steven’s movement to reach Human Steven.
Both have emotions still, as we see Gem Steven’s anger at White denying his identity, which is an anger that has been building up for so long as nearly all of Steven’s trauma comes to this, and him being denied being Steven ended up with Steven essentially being shattered.
Gem Steven seems to be fast to act on his defensive reflexes when attacked by WD but struggles with his mind on the finer details. Human Steven is the opposite. We see how Human Steven is the first to reach out and crawl to his gem, and it’s only when Human Steven falls that Gem Steven seems to realise what’s going on, since he’s not used to operating on half a brain.
When Gem Steven screamed, he didn’t realise it also hurt his human side and it’s only when he sees him crying that the camera pans to the gem’s face like an “oh” realisation.
It’s only when they’re united again, Human and Gem Steven in physical contact that they gain what they’re missing. Gem Steven becomes more animated, able to smile and blink, and Human Steven gains more energy and is livelier, able to keep up with the dance.
They're literally missing pieces of themselves which is why each half doesn't function properly.
Shattered like a heart ripped from the body, or like a brain cut in half with a right brain and left brain. There is no separate gem and human consciousness when they are whole, there is only Steven.
If you try to separate him, it’s creating an artificial divide. It’s like when you cut a brain in half irl (yes that’s a medical practice that existed); so yeah the two brain halves will act differently when split, but they’re not meant to be split in the first place. And when whole the brain will not even consider there being two separate parts.
This is why it’s wrong to treat Steven as two separate individuals.
What fusion are and what Steven is not
The show has also made a very clear distinction what a fusion is.
A fusion is a relationship between two or more individuals, separate beings with identities of their own. And as we've seen with Garnet's arc, it's important that fusions aren't co-dependent, something Rebecca Sugar herself talks about and the components are still allowed to be individuals of their own outside that relationship. Garnet makes it very clear that Ruby and Sapphire are their own people.
That's why it's very wrong to treat Steven as two separate people as that would basically nullify the meaning of Steven saying "I'm me, I've always been me", in response to seeing his gem side being actually Steven and no one else or external entity, it's just him.
It would also go against what fusions stands for, because even a “permafusion” like Garnet had to go through an arc of recognising the components as their own individuals who should be allowed to explore themselves who they’re outside of their fusion.
Another thing that we see about fusions is that they are a conversation between two people. Steven doesn't have that, he doesn't have a mental plane with a human and gem Steven because he's just Steven. He can't "unfuse" from mental disagreements since there are no two people arguing, he's just one person.
And he can't "unfuse" by taking damage either. He can only be forcefully pulled apart like ripping a heart out of a body or cutting a brain in half, not meant to exist without the other.
Unlike fusions, he can’t exist being split apart; he is only half a human and half a gem when split, not two whole functional human and gem. Again, stated as canon by the Crew.
Identity and the neglected hybrid
SU is inherently a very queer show with queer themes interwoven into it (heck, it was the whole reason the show got cancelled, since the wedding happened and Rebecca didn't want Ruby and Sapphire's relationship denied).
And the same goes for identity.
The core message of the show is identity and Homeworld its anti-thesis.
Pink and Rose got to choose her identity outside of the Diamond she was expected to be, Pearl chose hers to be more than a servant, Ruby and Sapphire became Garnet, Amethyst is not defined by her "defectiveness", and lastly we have Steven, someone who has been denied his identity the whole franchise, which is why it's so powerful to say Steven is Steven.
And we know the show is called Steven Universe and we see things from his PoV. Which makes sense why his identity is central to the show.
SU was about Steven being denied even being Steven, while SUF is him knowing he is Steven Universe but struggles to figure out what Steven Universe even is, as most of this identity has been built in the shadow of constant conflict and the neglect he inadvertently encountered.
I don’t think I can write this section without also writing a whole essay and analysis on Steven’s perspective in SUF to really understand what he’s going through.
But I’ll at least say this.
Steven being a hybrid is so central to Steven’s character. He’s one whole being, one person going through all of this chaos, trauma and neglect. And this trauma and neglect stems from his hybrid nature and how no one really knows how to accommodate him.
This is why it’s so important that Steven is a hybrid, not a fusion or anything else. Because acting like his gem is a separate entity to him really takes away the pain and identity struggles that Steven goes through.
Steven in SUF never treats his gem as a separate being to himself (neither his human side either). His frustration with his family, as we saw with the argument in the van, is that they only see one side of him.
And it’s ironic that being blind to his human and hybrid side is exactly what causes his gem powers to act up. The feeling of being brushed aside, unheard, blind to his pain and needs. Meanwhile in contrast we saw that someone like Priyanka, who actually treats him as a human and gem is the one who manages to help him. Acknowledging that the very human experience of his trauma and stress response is what causes his gem powers to act on that stress response.
This is why it's important that Steven is Steven, not two people in a trench coat.
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