The Diamonds and the “Self”

Change Your Mind introduced a lot of mind-bending concepts. It also blew a lot of speculation out of the water by delivering to us precisely the most extreme scenarios. Off the top of the list are: showing us Obsidian, the long-speculated Temple Gem Fusion, Lapis and Peridot’s Crystal Gem regenerations, and of course, the age-old, “What would happen if we pulled out Steven’s Gem?”



I want to talk about that last one. To get everyone on the same page, the climax of the movie has the Crystal Gems face off against White Diamond, but she incapacitates them easily with her mind projection powers. More on those powers later.

With ease, White picks up Steven and plucks out his gem, expecting Pink Diamond to reform. Instead, after cycling through the silhouette of Pink Diamond and then Rose Quartz, a pink Steven is formed.

White Diamond is shocked and tries to use her powers on the pink Split Steven, as he was called by Joe Johnston, but he uses his shield against her.

Pink Steven finally makes it to a very weakened human-Steven, and they fuse in what is one of the smoothest animation sequences in the show. Steven re-forms and White throws a tantrum. Steven diffuses the situation and he and Connie laugh at White, causing her to blush and turn pink. This causes White to release her control over the other Gems and shifts the story into the resolution.

A couple of interesting things happen in this scene, and White says some cryptic things. To better understand what on earth happened when Steven’s gemstone was separated from this body, it would help to look at why White, and all the other Gems, had such a hard time wrapping their minds around Steven’s being, well, Steven, and not Pink Diamond or Rose Quartz.

For those who prefer video format, I also sent this script to @thecartoonuniverse and if all goes well I’ll be linking to that video when it’s up.

1. Homeworld’s concept of Identity is tied to the Gemstone

First things first, let’s delve into Homeworld’s concept of identity.



On Homeworld, a Gem’s “Self,” or however you want to call it: their identity, their essence, their being, whatever makes that Gem an individual, is intrinsically tied to their Gemstone. It’s the main reason why Gem address each other by their Gemstone. Calling someone by their name is tantamount to recognising them as a being separate from the rest.

It also reinforces the idea of homogeneity on Homeworld. Every class of Gems is expected to fulfil a particular purpose. As Yellow Diamond said, “From a thin flake of mica to the deepest, hardest stone, we all must make sacrifices for the sake of our perfect empire.”

Early on in the series, we already got the sense from Pearl that Gems were replaceable, but the hints we were getting that this applied even to the Diamonds were finally confirmed in the movie. Even if the Diamonds were all just porcelain figurines speaking on behalf of White, we’re led to believe it wouldn’t have been questioned by the rest of Homeworld.

In short, on Homeworld, identity is tied to purpose, and that purpose is defined by one’s Gemstone. This makes sense as each class of Gems has unique Gem abilities. Rubies can superheat themselves, Sapphires have future vision, Lapis Lazulis have hydro-kinesis, and the like. And these abilities would define what each Gem could accomplish. That’s problematic in itself, and we’ll be talking about that later.

But first, what does this all mean for Steven? In White Diamond’s eyes, no matter what form “Pink Diamond” takes, her Gemstone would remain the same: The Pink Diamond.

That’s why it was no problem for White Diamond to extricate Steven’s Gemstone from the rest of him. White was operating under the notion that everything that was needed to bring back Pink was all there in the Gemstone. She saw Steven as an organic being separate from the Gemstone, much like we would view clothing as something we could freely take on and off on a whim.

And that’s what was so damaging about White’s dismissiveness. She honestly believed Steven was just another one of Pink’s “whims.” Her viewing Steven as nothing more than an organic shell was not out of malice against Steven himself. She didn’t even acknowledge Steven was his own individual from the get-go, because she was incapable of thinking that it was even a possibility.

For millennia, she believed that this one thing was true, and she wasn’t making an effort to understand this new information in front of her as a sign that her worldview should be re-evaluated.

That leads to the next idea.

2. The Diamonds comprise Homeworld’s Idealised Version of the “Self”

Since The Trial, it’s been noted that even among Diamonds, there are differences in Gem abilities. Yellow Diamond could not seem to induce empathy by imposing her emotions on other Gems, and Blue Diamond could not seem to “poof” Gems by disrupting their physical forms.



While this already foreshadows how the Diamonds cannot live in the perfect system where the individual is suppressed in favour of one’s Gem class, there other implication is that the Diamonds each have a dimension of the Self that corresponds to their abilities, and, as the movie shows us, their identities.

Yellow Diamond is the physical dimension of the Self. Her lightning can disrupt the manifestation of a Gem’s physical form. It was her powers first that caused Centi to return to her Nephrite form.



Narratively, Yellow Diamond was the first face we’d seen of the Great Diamond Authority. It is her presence that informed us, for a long time, what Homeworld was like: logical, efficient, utilitarian. When in fact it turns out that these were agenda coming from White and her notion of who a proper Diamond should be. Similar to the way the first thing we observe about someone else is their physical appearance, if only because it’s the first thing to notice.

Yellow Diamond was, by all appearances, perfect at her job. She conquered more planets than Blue, and we were led to believe took over most of Blue’s responsibilities when the latter went into mourning.

But that was just the surface. In the scene we’re analysing, White says that Yellow is so strong, but weak when it comes to Blue. Yellow was suppressing her emotions. In “What’s the Use of Feeling (Blue)?” she tried to put aside her grief for Pink instead of dealing with it. Emotions are her weakness, not because she’s incapable of feeling, but because she’s terrible at dealing with those feelings.

Blue Diamond is the emotional dimension of the Self. This is evident in her powers. We know at this point that “using her power” on someone means having them feel the way she feels. In Legs from Here to Homeworld, Centi was able to vocalise her emotions, more than the screeches and clicks she had been using to communicate until then.



Moreover, Blue was the most visibly emotional about Pink’s death. She openly mourned for her, and it was something that the other Diamonds were well aware of.

In White Diamond’s words, Blue “thinks she needs” Pink, because her colour soaks up the warmth. Before getting to that, let’s talk about White Diamond.



When the Diamonds were trying to heal Centi, with Steven, they were unsuccessful, because it wasn’t sustainable. Yellow says, “How long do you expect us to hold her together?” And this sparked the entire endeavour to try involving White Diamond and going to Homeworld in the first place.

White Diamond is the mental dimension of the Self. Just as Blue is able to project her emotions onto other Gems, White projects her mind. When White uses her power, the Gems affected act as her mouthpieces, and she speaks and moves through them.

By no means does this mean that White is “controlling” their minds though. Earlier in the movie, Blue uses her powers on Steven and despite his tears, he’s laughing. He doesn’t feel sad or guilty, and so even though Blue’s powers affected him, they could not conquer his true emotions.



Similarly, it is not without strain that White Diamond is able to use her powers. After turning the Crystal Gems white, she says, “I’d rather not spread my uninhibited self so thin, you know.”

It’s not that she has changed their minds. She has suppressed their minds in favour of her own. White’s power is dangerous because in our modern society, we often put the mind on top of everything. Many today claim that the seat of the soul or the self is the brain.

We tell ourselves “Mind over matter,” or “Don’t be so emotional, be rational.” We put such a premium on the mind that the other dimensions of the Self are often neglected. In the same way, White has locked herself in her own head, both figuratively and literally (because she’s in a Head Ship). She has deduced that her worldview about the roles of Gems is the most rational, and as the most rational, she has put her own opinions above those of everyone.

3. Pink, the fourth dimension of the Self

When White says that Blue’s weakness is Pink, she’s talking about everything Steven represents throughout the show. Steven has shown time and time again that open communication is the key to resolving conflict. He trusts his gut feel, that some new enemy cannot truly be bad and cannot truly be an enemy. His person both relies on others and pushes them be the best they can be.

Pink represents the social aspect of the Self. That feeling of warmth that White described that Blue needed, exists in between individuals.

Pink Diamond had a less-than-professional relationship with Pink Pearl. She wanted to spend time with her Quartzes. But in the end, she ran away from the social relationship that needed to be mended the most.

Rose Quartz saw the individuals in each of the Crystal Gems. She believed in everyone’s ability to change, though she couldn’t see it in herself. Though she engaged the Diamonds, the relationship was destructive, and she fought them.

The social Self is fully realised in Steven. Rather than completely ignoring the relationship with the Diamonds, or engaging them in a destructive way, he chose to reconstruct their relationship.

And following the logic that the “impurities” in each of the three Diamonds absorb the light of another, Pink’s weakness would be Yellow. This is clearly seen in her smaller physical stature compared to the other three Diamonds.

Going back to Blue feeling as though she needed Pink, it’s true. When Blue feels emotional, her tendency is to seek company and release her stress. Yellow said that when they lost Pink, Blue would often use her powers on her. Without Pink, Blue must have felt more alone and overwhelmed.

There may be some doubt regarding how quickly White changed her mind after blushing, but there are a number of factors that tell us it was an organic response to the events that had happened.



First, blushing is perceived as a social symbol. Anthropologists have long studied why we blush, and more often than not, it comes out as a social signal that we have done wrong and are showing that we are aware of it. That would be the subtext of the scene. By becoming off-colour, White was truly engaging with the social sphere around her for the first time in millennia. She was pulled out of her own head, and even calls to Blue and Yellow for help.

Second thing of note is what White says when she realises, she’s turned pink. She insists that “I’m in control.”

When we involve other individuals, other “Selves,” we can never fully predict how they will act. Other beings are always a wild variable and outside our locus of control. That’s why Steven was so effective against White Diamond’s rhetoric. Mind over matter failed.

In their confrontation earlier, White was rationalising Steven’s actions, causing him to doubt himself. Telling him he was surrounding himself with inferior Gems to feel better about himself, asserting that there was no way he could know things about Pink Diamond without her still being in his Gem, these were attacks on the mind.

In other words, White was saying, “what logical reason would you have to surround yourself with Gems who were defective, or of lower standing? What use could they have?” which is the mantra of Homeworld, utilitarianism being a directive coming from White. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, the only thing he could be getting out of it was the satisfaction of knowing he were superior, that he was helping those who could not help themselves.

White says at much when she dismisses Steven. She says, “It’s a pity, the way you bring out the worst in others. See how you’ve encouraged their deficiencies? It’s written all over their gems: insecure, dependent, obsessed.”

Later she tells him to “Please stop helping them. You’ll only make things worse. That’s what you do. I make things better.”

White’s point is that according to Gem logic, Gems of the same class should be behaving the same way. They should be similar in all respects because their gemstones, their identities, are the same.

She applies this logic to Steven himself, when she takes the Gem from him. Much as most people today view the mind as the seat of the self, White believed earnestly that the gemstone was the seat of the Gem-self.

What she forgets is that we are never just individuals in a vacuum. All of us exist as an individual among individuals. If we take into account recognising a “Self” in everyone, then Pink, Rose, and Steven’s actions take on a new meaning.

We hear these examples coming from Blue, that back then Pink would make White angry by doing things like naming Pyrite “Fool’s Gold,” something other than their Gem name.

The Crystal Gems were inspired by Rose because she told them to be who they were.

Steven takes this one step further. He found uniqueness within Gems of the same class and called them by name, as he did with the Ruby Squad. He recognised the differences in the Diamonds instead of calling them a nebulous “they.”

He tried to rebuild a broken relationship and he didn’t do it alone. He wouldn’t have been anywhere close to accomplishing this without the Crystal Gems, Connie, the citizens of Beach City, and the other Diamonds.

That is the why Steven was so effective against White. The latter prides herself on being logical and rational. But staying in her own head had made her reach certain conclusions without taking in all of the information.

When Steven put things into context, when he brought her back into the greater context, that logical self of hers saw there was something missing. She became conscious of herself not only as a disembodied consciousness, but also as someone in front of others. The exchange implies that as much as we develop ourselves and try to progress in the world, it means nothing if we lose sight of other people.

To impose ourselves on others, and to deny individuality, also causes us to lose a part of ourselves. If the Diamonds were to represent a whole, then narratively, Pink’s disappearance would be the best metaphor. The Diamonds suffered in silence for so long because they trapped themselves within themselves, following White’s mandate of “Mind over everything.” It was only through communicating with each other that the door finally opened. And this is just the start.

There were a lot of themes in Change Your Mind that I really enjoyed and I’m excited to talk about them at length. This was one of them. I’m really interested in talking about the Self in relation to the Other, and I felt a lot of that in the undertones of the film.

As always, stay tuned :)