#gem memory haze

[geode-musings]

Pearl’s Calling

An interesting thing was said during the “Sworn to the Sword” episode of Steven Universe that aired recently. I do not have the quote but I do remember Pearl said something along the lines of “And while it wasn’t my original purpose, I took to the human practice of Knighthood.” 

“Original Purpose” has an interesting connotation. I think it has been pretty well established that the gems tend to be “purposed” to a certain use. This was more or less confirmed when Jasper referred to Pearl as “a defective pearl.”

I am not the first to speculate on it, but I think “pearl” gems, if they are anything like the Pearl we know, probably tended to act more as maids (very immaculate, tends to organize things to a particular pattern) or even Majordomo’s (Highly mindful of schedules and capable of storing items for long term use). 

I can’t imagine how hard it would be for Pearl, someone who is very mindful of everything’s place in the world, to make the choice to step outside of her bounds, outside of her strict guidelines and clearly defined role, to step into the role of defender to her chosen queen. 

Its interesting, especially to me, that Pearl even started to move towards standing up to, and in front of her chosen’s way, to protect Rose Quartz even against Rose Quartz’s wishes. 

Interestingly, Pearl couldn’t have possible picked up knighthood from humans five thousand years ago. Knights are an affect of the last millennium (roughly 1000 C.E.). I’d think she’d better gather the inklings of “chivalry” from Rome’s legionaries (as early as 100 C.E.) or even from Samurai or Bushido codes of honor and sacrifice. (still only as early as 700 C.E.). 

And my knowledge of historic military elite is very meager going even further back. Remember, the crystal gem wars occurred 5000 years ago. Chinese civilization was just starting, and Judaism wasn’t even 800 years old. Untold amounts of history still hadn’t been written. Think of the ancient armies of the Persians, or the Egyptians, or the Summerians, all of whom Pearl could have found a “knight” parallel in their class and structures *during* the war between gems. And yet, she chose Knights and Chevaliers.

So, I am only going to have to guess that either Pearl’s knightly chivalric attitudes only developed in recent years as the Crystal Gems fought the rogue or corrupted gems still on earth... or Pearl’s memories are not perfect when it comes to humanity, and she may have some issues with blending time periods in human civilization... But more speculation on that will have to belong to another post, as I build more on my Gem Memory Haze series.

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Gem Memory Haze Part 5: Gem Civilization And Speculation

This is my series of musings on why no one is freaking out about the presence of the Crystal Gems and their existence, or why people still live in Beach City even though they are regularly attacked by monsters. My theory is that something about the Gems and their technology makes it hard or impossible for humans to form lasting impressions or memories concerning the fantastic magic and technology of the Gems.

So I don’t know if anything I have posted previously really constitutes much hard fact as much as it seems to be a focus on character musings. Its completely possible that most of the characters in Steven Universe are simply so inured to the Crystal Gems that they don’t register on the weirdness factor of discolored, monster-slaying, inorganic changelings.

I mean, we all get used to that sort of thing eventually... right?

But no, what really clinches the idea that Gems seem to somehow elude human perceptions and memories is their beautiful and massive remains of civilization, untouched for millennia.

How could anyone miss the sprawling vast battlefields where Gems slew each other left and right, covered acres of strawberries? Why had no one spotted the Lunar Sea Spire in all our years imaging the moon and earth via satellite? How is there not a thousand archeologist and tourists coming to Beach City to take a picture of the Crystal Gem Temple?

Why had the Kindergarten lay undeveloped and undiscovered for millennia when a railroad had been built within eyesight of the canyons?

The place would have been scoured for technology if it had been discovered recently. It would have been robbed if it were discovered in old times. I think that something about the gems makes it hard for humans to notice them, and I think the show backs that up a hundred percent.

I can only speculate on why though. I wonder if it has to do with how the Gems are inorganic, and that they clearly have access to extradimensional powers (Pearl’s ability to summon items, their weapons, the room in their temple.) If they are able to use extradimensional powers, then maybe the gems themselves don’t completely exist on our dimension.

When a three dimensional object casts a shadow, the shadow is always two dimensional. Why can’t the Gems and their technology exist as an extension of this idea? What if the Gems are actually four dimensional beings, casting a three dimensional shadow on the world?

That would explain why they can change shape, or access spaces that are impossible for a human. They don’t breath or require any sustenance really at all, just like a human’s shadow doesn’t need anything more than light to exist.

And if humans are really just looking at the shadows or bare fractions of a much larger or more more complicated being than they could possibly perceive, then it sort of makes sense why no one freaks out when they see Pearl summon spears from her head, or when they spot Amethyst change shape, or watch Garnet lifting something physically impossible. Its because they don’t exactly see the whole shape. They are seeing just a shadow of a much more complicated being.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my crazy theories! Feel free to ask if you want me to speculate on more crazy stuff! I will be chilling with Ronaldo, swapping theories, probably.

[geode-musings]

Gem Memory Haze Part 4: Connie Maheswaran

Connie Maheswaran is another human, just like the rest of the residents and visitors to Beach City. By all rights, she shouldn’t have any better distinguishing the Crystal Gems as being unique or interesting… except she barely meets the Crystal Gems. Instead, she spends most of her time with Steven, a half-human.

Connie spent most of her first experience with the paranormal trapped at the bottom of the sea with Steven for at least a couple hours. Well-versed in magic and having to deal with Steven on a far more personal issues. She interacts with the Crystal Gems for less than twenty seconds in “Bubble Buddies” and doesn’t seem to talk to them much personally.

The Crystal Gems seem to have a pretty strict “hands-off” policy when dealing with Connie at first, because Connie spends most of her time alone with Steven, listening to his stories. Already well versed in fiction and fantasy from her books, and not fighting the effects of the memory haze induced by the Crystal Gems and the other gem technology, she is rapt with Steven’s stories, when everyone else dismisses them as boring or un-noteworthy. She saw the truth in his words, and then when they shared that fateful kiss in the titular episode “An Indirect Kiss”, she was cured by Gem powers. She no longer had any trouble seeing the gem world, because she was part of it.

This is extremely apparent when we meet the rest of the Maheswarans in “Fusion Cuisine”. At the dinner party, we get what shows the perfect reactions to show how humans can’t really see the Gems as they are.

Alexandrite is a thirty foot tall monster that would fit into the Kaiju lineup with very little issue. She is rather monstrous, with eight limbs, two mouths and, well, she’s thirty feet tall. I don’t think anyone could miss this.

Greg plays along, acting as if he was married to a thirty foot tall woman. He doesn’t seem to question the plan of trying to pass off Alexandrite as a normal human woman.

The Maheswarans, very particular and particularly careful about whom their daughter associates with, does seem to think that a monstrously tall purple humanoid is a little strange, but not extraordinarily so.

Connie sees Alexandrite and immediately shakes her head and sighs, realizing this should never work. She plays along when her parents don’t freak out, but she obviously sees Alexandrite as she is, a thirty foot tall gem person. When Steven and Connie both get chased by Alexandrite, she is understandably freaked out.

Connie hears Steven’s story of the invasion and jailbreak by the other gems in “Full Disclosure” but understands the danger and the story perfectly. She knows how much danger he is in all the time, and doesn’t panic at the truth of it, partly because of how close she is to Steven, and, I think, because of her ability to actually see and understand the Gems when most humans are averse to them.

I like the idea that the Crystal Gems are not quite scruitable to the human perception, it allows for a lot of freedom, and gives agency and power to characters like Connie and Greg, who aren’t ignorant of some or all of the truth, and thus they can act accordingly. At the same time, the rest of Beach City can be used for characters that don’t flee and abandon the city the first time there is a giant monster attack, let alone one that happens every few weeks.

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Gem Memory Haze Part 3: Ronaldo

My favorite part of the “Keep Beach City Weird” episode is the build up. You get all these slight call backs to past episodes, as Ronaldo tracks through this building climax of revelation. Snake people. Snake people drilled holes in the stone. Snake people grew crystal protrusions from the earth. Snake people are responsible for the strange ivy near the car wash.

And Steven believes it for a little while. Not because Steven is dumb, but because he is very trusting and is taken easily in by others’ stories and beliefs.

My favorite line is when Steven exclaims incredulously, asking, “Are the the Crystal Gems responsible for everything paranormal around Beach City?!?”

Pretty much, yeah.

When Steven is told this, he is surprised. His whole world is the Crystal Gems. He has absolutely no scale for what is strange in the world, so he had to take Ronaldo’s world for it.

What’s more interesting is Ronaldo’s reaction. When confronted with the truth that the Crystal Gems did it all, he breaks down, accepts it immediately and gives up on his dreams.

He doesn’t ask anything about how the Crystal Gems did it. He barely acknowledges the Red Eye that nearly destroyed the town. He just gives up because for him to investigate further would mean that he would have to research the Crystal Gems, which are completely boring, mundane, forgettable things.

By the end of the show, when Ronaldo’s confidence is regained, he barely acts like he just got beaten up by the Crystal Gems. Because he found a new puzzle piece for his conspiracy. That’s right, polymorphic sentient rocks.

Not Gems. Not Steven or his family. A completely distinct, sort of close but not right, solution. His mind grasped for any sort of answer and found… something almost correct.

This episode happened after Steven turned his fingers into cats, by the way. Which made it onto the Keep Beach City Weird blog. But which doesn’t have anything to do with Steven or the Crystal Gems.

It just doesn’t seem natural that someone seeking the bizarre would miss researching the obviously unnatural right before them. It’s down right paranormal.

But then, pretty much everything paranormal in Beach City has to do with the Crystal Gems, yeah?

[geode-musings]

Gem Memory Haze Part 2: Greg

So I sort of introduced the idea that there is something strange when it comes to human memories when it comes to the Crystal Gems here. 

I kind of want to explain what I mean by going through concept by concept. 

Greg Universe is really a great place to start, because he is so prevalent throughout the series, and yet, he doesn’t quite seem to grasp the gravity of everything that Steven does with the Crystal Gems. 

When he first meets a Crystal Gem in “Story for Steven”, he meets your every day average eight foot tall woman. He doesn't question this, which, hey, maybe he thought she was wearing heels on the beach, and he does have a thing for larger women. It’s plausible that he thought she was just a big lady, and didn’t want to question any of it. 

But the second time he meets Crystal Gems, he finds himself talking to an owl, a full conversation. Why doesn't he ask “Hey, how does this owl talk?” He continues the conversation, only slightly startled, even though we have no indication that magic or fantasy or science fiction exist in the rest of the world. 

How could he talk so casually with an owl, unless his mind wasn’t quite able to put his finger on what the owl was? Obviously, I think that there is something about the Crystal Gems or Humanity that make it very hard to impossible for real memories to be created, or something that causes a complete suspension of disbelief when the two interact. 

Greg is frequently shown as sort of casually confused and ‘hands-off’ when it comes to Crystal Gem stuff. I think he literally states once: “Hey, Steven, you know I don’t really understand this Gem stuff.” Greg spent at least a couple years with the Crystal Gems when he was with Rose Quartz, and Greg never really acts like a disinterested father. It’s not that he doesn't want to understand Steven’s problems. It’s that he can’t. He literally looked at the giant, gravity distorting Red Eye in “Laser Light Canon” and says, “Oh, that doesn’t look good.” 

When human beings look at giant glowing massive red eyes that are slowly approaching the planet, they don’t go, “Oh, that doesn’t look good,” then continue going about their business.

In my mind, he really acts like he doesn't understand it like some people doesn't understand complex math or don’t understand heavily laden philosophic discourse. Greg simply cannot comprehend the details involving the Gems’ lives and work. They are incomprehensible, even though we the audience can easily grasp the concepts and their basic mission. 

Of course, Greg has also had some of the longest and strongest exposure to Crystal Gems, so when things get very rough, he does remember and realize what is going on. Two episodes that this is perfectly apparent in: “The Return” and “Full Disclosure”. 

In “The Return”, he has started to remember it all, what the gems are and what he’d been told he they were capable of. He uncharacteristically shouts at Steven in agitation, about how the Gems are aliens, and that they were trying to conquer Earth, and that they were all very dangerous. 

In “Full Disclosure”, he learns what happened when the invading Gems come from Steven goes into a severe panic. By the end of the episode, he is comically better, acting like he doesn’t quite recall all of the details, or all of the issues that Steven had to deal with. 

I might come back to Greg later, as I do have more to say, but there are other ideas I want to hit and I don’t want to wear out this topic yet. 

[geode-musings]

Gem Memory Haze

Over time, I am going to discuss a little about Steven Universe's oddities, one of which is the memory haze that seems to surround the Crystal Gems and all the gem technology and monsters.

I never see anyone else talking about it, but has anyone else noticed that humans don't seem to understand or really grasp the Crystal Gems. In any other situation, why would people generally ignore the purple skinned young woman that seems to love changing shapes? How could you forget that seven foot tall woman with shades punched a monster into pieces on the pier? How about the woman with the stone embedded in her head that can summon spears? No reaction? Really?

I think something about the Crystal Gems makes them partially inscrutable to the human mind. The evidence is everywhere. From the untouched vast reaches of battlefields and Kindergartens, to a complete lack of being phased by giant monsters every couple of weeks.

I think this will be a series over time, just because I have so many thoughts on this, since no one else has really talked about it.