Rewatching Steven Universe is such a surreal experience, because there’s tons of little stuff in the earlier episodes that makes so much more sense later on.

Like, for example, in Sworn to the Sword, the audience is learning that Pearl and the other gems have the power to reform if they get stabbed, but also, Steven himself is learning the very important lesson that just because someone looks exactly like Pearl doesn’t mean they equate at all.

He spends the entire episode trying to get this perfect image of Pearl to act like Pearl, until he finally not only accepts that it won’t ever be able to replace Pearl, but that it’s an enemy that he needs to fight.

Once we realize that he’s eventually going to end up going to Homeworld and he’ll probably be seeing a ton of gems that look exactly like his friends, this makes a ton of sense. Itll be easy to believe that he won’t mistake these new identical gems as having the same motivations and personalities as the Crystal Gems.

And that’s just one example of something I noticed. I just love how much detail goes into shows like this.