Yellow Pearl, Personal Secretary to Yellow Diamond

I’m a little bit curious as to what Yellow Pearl’s characterization means for what Yellow Diamond is actually like.

On the one hand, we see that YP is visibly intimidated by YD, and doesn’t want to incur her anger. This suggests that perhaps a) YD’s scary when she’s mad, b) YD’s been walking a tightrope when it comes to managing her own emotions and has been prone to outbursts recently, or c) making YD mad leads to bad things happening for the person who made her angry, as we’ve seen with how she treated Peridot. It’s clear that the balance of power between YD and YP is extremely uneven, to the point where YD towers over YP physically, and can verbally cancel out any decision that YP makes.



On the other hand, what we know of the role of Pearls on Homeworld, especially by looking at Blue Pearl, is that they’re essentially living decorations. Blue Pearl didn’t even perform any servant functions, she just stood around looking nice. However, Yellow Diamond has actually given her Pearl something resembling a real job. YP is responsible for fielding YD’s calls and deciding whether one of YD’s subordinates deserves an audience with her, and for relaying information and reports from further down the chain of command. YP is probably trusted with a lot of sensitive and confidential information, and her control of access to YD gives her a certain degree of authority over Gems who would normally be considered higher-ranking than her. YP seems to relish this position, tenuous though it may be, if her facial expressions at Peridot are any indication. YP is also a lot less submissive than Peridot’s general opinion of Pearls seems to suggest, not just going away when Peridot demands to see YD the way that Peridot expected our Pearl to when she tried to send her away at the barn by clapping at her. YD speaks to YP not as an object, but as a subordinate in her employ, which is probably more than can be said for Blue Pearl, who didn’t even get to speak to anyone. This might imply that YD is more pragmatic than BD, and is more likely to bend the rules of the caste system if she sees that someone can be made useful to the Empire. If YP is anything like our Pearl, she’s probably very good at gathering, remembering, and utilizing information and keeping things organized; skills which would be very valuable for a secretary to have, but would be wasted if she was only expected to stand around like BP. YP’s proximity to YD also raises the possibility that YP is privy to a side of YD that very few Gems get to see.



I’m just very curious about YP and the power and interpersonal dynamics between her and her boss. I also want to see more of YD, because I know that there’s more to her than what we saw over the telecom.

