I think the single pale rose reveal put the entire ‘terrifying renegade pearl’ thing into a new perspective.

Because it’s very clear that Pearl does like being the renegade. If she didn’t love the idea, if she didn’t love Rose and all that then she probably would have told the other Diamonds what was going on.

And I think a lot of people had been under the impression that Gems knew where Pearl had come from. Maybe not every gem, it may not have been common knowledge, but if she had been White Diamonds (I still maintain she has some connection to her but that’s another post) then at least the Diamonds and their Pearls would have know the Renegade was White’s Pearl. Same if she had belonged to Pink without the whole Pink/Rose thing. We had assumed that at least Garnet would have known where Pearl came from.

But this is what made the entire 'Terrifying Renegade’ thing so terrifying.

Pearls are made to order. Every Pearl has to belong to someone, that’s how it works.

But no one could figure out where the Renegade came from.

No one would know who she had belonged to. Even if the Diamonds had tried to figure out who had lost track of their pearl like that, no one would have been able to come forward (even if someone could, let’s be real no one’s going to admit that). Even if someone noticed hey, the Renegade kinda looks like Pink Diamond’s Pearl, she can’t be Pink Diamond’s Pearl, Pink Diamond’s Pearl is right there. With Pink Diamond. Obviously.

So not only is Pearl a gem horror story because she’s basically a fancy vase suddenly slaughtering armies, but because she just came out of nowhere.

When Garnet says 'the pearl who belonged to no one’ Garnet didn’t mean that Pearl had freed herself- she had of course- but the fact that Pearl had been able to create a persona where it was as though she had never belonged to anyone in the first place.