The fandom has had a hard time accepting Rose Quartz as the messiah her followers presented her as. Maybe she seemed too perfect to be real, maybe people were too cynical about war to accept she had a perfectly clean record. Whatever the reason, the doubt is there, and has only gotten worse since the release of the extended opening, as many took her sly, eyeless grin as proof that she was a scheming manipulator.

This idea has led to a number of controversial theories centered around Steven (after all, for what diabolical reason would a pink-haired warmonger give up her life to give birth), most notably the idea that he’s a weapon.

I don’t buy this for a minute. If anything, I think Steven was always meant for peace rather than war: After all, there earth would need a protector human enough to act in their best interests and yet powerful enough to fight off homeworld. That, however, is not the reason Rose had Steven, at least not the only one. See, I while I don’t believe Rose is evil, I do believe she’s a sociopath

Okay, this needs some clarification. When I say rose is a sociopath, I have a very strict and clear definition of what it means to be a sociopath: I’m using the classical definition described by Hervey Cleckley in The Mask of Sanity.

According to Cleckly, sociopathy is defined by several key feautres, among them being

Superficial charm and good intelligence

Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking

Absence of nervousness or neurotic manifestations

Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated



Incapacity for love



Charm, intelligence, rationality and confidence? These all fit Rose pretty well, and as we saw in We Need To Talk Rose seemed pretty unconcerned about the affection of those around her until she actually got called out on it, but what’s all this about not being able to love? Didn’t Rose outright say she loved Steven?

“Isn’t it remarkable, Steven? This world is full of so many possibilities. Each living thing has an entirely unique experience. The sights they see, the sounds they hear. The lives they live are so complicated… a-and so simple. I can’t wait for you to join them. *turns the video camera around at her* Steven, we can’t both exist. I’m going to become half of you. And I need you to know that every moment you love being yourself, that’s me, loving you and loving being you. Because you’re going to be something extraordinary. You’re going to be a human being.”



-Rose Quartz, Lion 3: Straight to Video

Not. Quite.

She goes on about how she is going to be loving Steven, but at no point does she say she loved Steven then. Furthermore, in We Need To Talk, Rose claims that she loves humans, but when Greg pushes her she strongly implies she’s never felt love and doesn’t even seem to know what it is

Greg: Have you… loved… other humans?

Rose: Have you?

Greg: Yes.

Rose: Yes.

Greg: Have you ever been… in love… with a human?

Rose: How would I know?

Greg: It’s torture.

Rose doesn’t feel love, so why would she claim to love Steven, and love being him? Because becoming Steven was the only way Rose could learn how to feel love!

Greg saw the world in Rose, he didn’t just appreciate her, or find her interesting, he genuinely loved her on a intimate and personal level. This was something Rose couldn’t understand, something that she claimed to find interesting but couldn’t feel at all.

The ending theme Love like you says this better than I ever could:

If I could begin to be

Half of what you think of me

I could do about anything

I could even learn how to love like you

Rose never felt she was what Greg thought of her, but we’ve seen the world through Steven’s eyes to learn he is everything Greg and Rose’s other followers saw in her. Steven truly is the all-loving her Rose has been presented as, and Rose is half of him.

This is the reason Rose not only didn’t mind giving up her form for Steven, but relished it and loved doing it: Steven was more to her than just a bridge between the human and gem races, he was the only way she could learn how to feel love