Pink Diamond

Pink Diamond "No one can ever find out we did this. I never want to look back. So, for my last order to you as a Diamond, please, let's never speak of this again. No one can know." *Forces her closest companion to bottle up her emotions with a single concern about how that may affect her later on* - Rose Quartz, the "all-loving freedom fighter". Gender: Female Type: Hypocritical Fascist Species: Gems Portrayed by: Susan Egan Status: Alive Media of origin: Steven Universe

Pink Diamond (also known as Rose Quartz) is a character from the American animated series Steven Universe. She was a Homeworld Gem and a member of the Great Diamond Authority turned Crystal Gem Leader, the former two of which continued to rule over the Gem race in their absence. She is voiced by Susan Egan.

Why She Ought To Have Disappeared To Make Way For Steven

1. For all of the series, she (as Rose Quartz) was painted as this flawlessly perfect and wise leader who fought for the equality of all gems. Later, it was revealed she "shattered" Pink Diamond to liberate the Earth, and bubbled Bismuth for trying to do the same thing. But this all traced back to how sometimes in life, tough decisions had to be made for the greater good. Then season 5 came along, and undid all of that by completely replacing her with Pink Diamond. Meaning that the development behind Rose's entire character (and that was also important to Steven's character development), never actually happened.
2. Instead of starting as a leader who believed that all life was worth protecting and fought for the equality of others against a Fascist Empire, she was just one of the fascists who also happened to be a spoiled, self-entitled brat who threw strops over wanting a colony.
3. Remember the war between the Earth and the Empire? That means she was deliberately tricking her subjects into killing each other and saw nothing wrong with that.
4. Hypocrisy: She said she was fighting for the equality of all gems, but remember those off-colors, the gems that were forced into hiding because they were deemed as defective and would be shattered otherwise? And how there are thousands of them? Did Pink just not care about them?!
   • She was also always telling others they had the right to be themselves and not what the Empire wanted, but considering she was one of them disguised as a rebel, she wasn't even being herself!
     • This is not considering, however, that Pink could never really be herself in the first place, and that her real self was a person who was constantly belittled and mocked by the other Diamonds. So in this sense, she's encouraging them to be themselves in a way that she never could as Pink Diamond.
   • And to add icing to the unfortunate mix, the last thing she did before faking her shatter was ordering Pearl to keep it a secret and never tell anyone, meaning that despite saying she was fighting for the equality of all gems, she was still abusing her power over her Pearl.
5. Yes, the Diamonds were genocidal tyrants who abused Pink if she messed up, but that didn't excuse Pink for faking her death and traumatizing them. She knew them better than anyone and just how they would react, but she still did it anyway.
   • This overlooks how genuinely awful they treated Pink for the simplest of mistakes. Given how Rose and Pink reflect upon their time and how she regrets leaving Garnet with Blue, the most outwardly sympathetic Diamond, it shows how Pink regarded Blue as more of a tyrant than a family member. Because of this abuse and lack of respect, it's hard to blame Pink for believing that the Diamonds truly loved and cared about her as an equal.
6. Speaking of Pearl, well, to add salt to the wound, not only was her forcing the latter to bottle up her emotions clear hypocrisy, but you can see just how badly Pearl was affected by that (something that Pink never considered for a second would happen when forcing her to keep what they did a secret). It's clear to see just how guilty Pearl felt for the war and all the gems who were shattered/corrupted during it (many of which being Crystal Gems, who originally fought alongside and were loyal to them), and on top of it, she isn't allowed to talk to anyone about it because it was a direct order from a Diamond, who's her master. Cause remember? Pink Diamond's the most human character in the show and she's misunderstood and her actions are justifiable.
   • And in case that wasn't enough, the twist reveals that Pearl was a slave falling in one-sided love with her owner. And they're should seriously be no need to explain what's wrong with that.
     • And as the cherry on top, the revelation that Rose was Pink, the person who Pearl was created to serve, completely ruins Pearl's arc about not belonging to or serving anyone because she was still working for Pink until she gave birth to Steven, which was longer after the war ended and the Crystal Gems were formed in the first place.
7. Idiot Move: After faking her shattering, she didn't consider how likely the possibility of the Diamonds retaliating was. How did she think the other Diamonds wouldn't do anything in retaliation after she was supposedly killed by a member of the Rebellion for the Earth?
8. She didn't even bother to help Amethyst with her insecurities about being a product of the homeworld gems using Earth's resources to create gems, although she knew about it.
9. Remember how she bubbled Bismuth away and lied to the other Gems about what happened to her? Well, now it wasn't because she was an extremist taking her rebellious nature too far. Now, she had her bubbled because it would've blown her cover.
10. As the movie revealed, even before all this, she still abandoned her playmate Spinel in the floating garden for 6,000 years. Why? Because she simply outgrew her like a toy and, because she never considered anyone's feelings other than her own, just abandoned her. And no, this isn't excused by "she was never taught kindness, just selfishness", because if she was able to see that colonization was wrong, then she would be able to see the problem with abandoning someone and lying to them about it being a game for what would've been forever if not for Steven's message. And even if she saw Spinel as a replacement for her Pearl after she was taken from her by White who simply tried to cheer her up all the time and didn't realize when she needed more than that, none of this was Spinel's fault (she was only doing what she was created for, playing with Pink, she wasn't created to sit down and listen to her master's problems, and White was the one who took away Pink's Pearl). And it doesn't let her off the hook for her actions, because, as previously stated if she could recognize that the other diamonds colonizing planets and ruling Homeworld with an iron fist were wrong, that she knew that abandoning Spinel was wrong too. And even if she genuinely did want to go back for Spinel after faking her shattering and creating a new identity for herself (which is unlikely), she still shouldn't have done it in the first place.
11. Changing her identity didn't change this either. When Greg asked to fuse with her in a flashback, she simply laughed in his face. Meaning while she did like humans, she didn't respect them, so she was the equivalent of the other Diamonds.
12. This also isn't excused by statements like "She's just flawed, and that makes her more human and interesting", or "It's the other Diamonds' Fault, cause they never taught her kindness, just meanness!" Because there's a BIG difference between being flawed and being completely unlikable to the point of doing truly irredeemable things. Everyone makes mistakes, but the things Pink Diamond did are much more than mistakes. She was already flawed as Rose, but overall, still tried her best to make the right decisions for and protect the people around her. Then season 5 came along, and, you all already know.
    • Not to mention how having a crappy backstory doesn't justify her doing bad things. As it wasn't the fault of the people she was wronged that she had a tragic backstory. And if she could see that what the other diamonds were doing was wrong, then she knew that her actions were incorrect as well. Making her an even bigger hypocrite. Besides, she continued her awful behavior even literally thousands of years after escaping the other Diamonds and removing herself from said bad environment. So that's in no way an excuse for her horrible actions.
13. She'll never be held accountable for her actions or face any sort of repercussions since she was dead before the series even began. This is why she's a karma houdini.

Redeeming Qualities

1. It can be negotiated that she did have good intentions with saving the Earth from colonization, but that doesn't change how unjustifiable her actions were.
2. For Point #3, though people argue that Pink's decision to fake her identity as Rose Quartz and lead the Gems into killing each other was wrong, they fail to consider how limited her options were. Even if she chose to rebel against the Diamond Authority as herself and protect the Earth, she would've undoubtedly failed, given how much more resources and power Blue and Yellow Diamond had with their hundreds of colonies and gems, while Pink only had a single colony and a handful of soldiers. For Point #4, while claiming Pink was a hypocrite for not helping the off-colors, this isn't taking into account that she couldn't have helped even if she wanted due to the lack of resources to rescue them. The Diamonds would have merely treated Pink as throwing another tantrum, locked her up as they had done many times before, and taken over the colony themselves, which would have ended up destroying Earth. Given how Blue and Yellow Diamond initially treated Steven when he went to Homeworld and how quickly they resorted to locking him up when he did something wrong, it shows how limited her power was within the Diamond Authority. While it does not justify the secrets she kept from the other Crystal Gems about her identity, Pink had very limited options and only led to war when it was clear neither Blue nor Yellow Diamond would listen to her or treat her with respect.
3. Her character design is creative and kinda cute.
4. Her backstory of being abused and shunned by the other Diamonds somewhat sympathetic, but it still doesn't justify her actions.
5. Susan Egan does an awesome job voicing Pink Diamond.

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