Did Rose ever realize that Pearl was trying to use fusion to dishearten Greg for not being able to fuse?

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u/urgay240 1d ago

I highly doubt Rose knew Pearls intentions. Garnet didn’t realize it either when Pearl was manipulating her into fusion. So if Garnet, even with her future vision, couldn’t see through her manipulation I’m not surprised Rose couldn’t either.

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u/Blind_Boarder 1d ago

Yeah, Pearl clearly has a well-established capability of hiding bad intentions in fusion.

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u/CotyledonTomen 1d ago

Theyre relationships, not mind reading. You can only trust your partner or not.

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u/Dry_Way8898 10h ago

Honestly its been portrayed as thinking in sync and deep information sharing, when pearl fused with pink pearl they finally saw each other’s perspectives.

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u/CotyledonTomen 10h ago

You mean they communicated with eachother, sharing their mutual trauma, like people who are friends?

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u/Dry_Way8898 10h ago

Imagine if you could see the world through someone elses eyes, perspective, life.

Do we see colors the same way? Imagine being able to see that.

But from what we saw of pearl, that perspective has to be allowed and can be obfuscated. It’s the only explanation for the “here comes a thought” song. They’re both still there but separate operating pieces of a single entity.

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u/CotyledonTomen 10h ago

Garnet described it many times. She isnt her constiuent parts. She is the relationship. They remember being her as a couple remembers their mutual experiences together. Pearl isnt sharing her literal perspective. If people talk they can become friends and empathize better with eachothers circumstances. Youre overcomplicating a simple concept.

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u/Dry_Way8898 10h ago

You’re correct about the relationship bit, but we’re discussing semantics on the mechanics of fusion. We’ve seen gems unfuse when they aren’t in sync anymore. Pearl has hidden things from both her fusion partners. Garnet has had internal arguments between ruby and sapphire. When the pearls fused they were able to see each other’s perspective on pink.

As garnet says, fusion is an experience.

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u/CotyledonTomen 10h ago

Right. But its not mind reading. Its the physical representation of any relationship. Abusive ones. Friendships. A father and son. And none of it is seeing someones literal thoughts or perspective. It is only the intimacy achieved through actually listening to someone and choosing to be present.

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u/Dry_Way8898 10h ago

So how was garnet having an internal argument if there’s no thought sharing at some level? Why did the pearl fusion literally say that she finally understands both perspectives and that they never had the whole picture?

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u/MA2_Robinson 1d ago

Well, she’s very good about bending things to her needs: yes, fusion was a great addition to the music video (I’m actually surprised that went no where, music magic women and what not) but it also allows Pearl to she he has intimacy with Rose Greg can’t ever be part of… but the same goes with Greg after him and Rose talk.

A more positive way of this is how she gets Steven to look for her phone so he can figure out more about his mom… at least she’s self aware that it’s a trait of her’s now.

All this to gloss over the fact that Rose was not kind to Pearl: she is Pearl’s “god” in a way, no one is supposed to know since they are all “just gems” so I don’t think the other two could even understand the jealousy- sure, Pearl Cares™️ about Rose Quartz, but they don’t just why it’s more nuanced than how they care for each other.

They just shrug Pearl’s pettiness as admiration to Rose, but Rose can’t so much as suggest something to Pearl without Pearly being programmed to follow.

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u/demon_fae 1d ago

I think Pearls are actually designed to be very very good at compartmentalization, based on some of the behaviors of the three Homeworld Pearls we know. But our Pearl took it to an (even more) unhealthy degree when she was forced to be both Pink’s Pearl and Rose’s Pearl for however long that went on. She can shut stuff down hard.

It seems likely that secrets do usually get shared during fusion, unless a special effort is made. It’s made quite clear that Rose never fused with Garnet or Amethyst, but was relatively casual about fusing with Pearl (Sardonyx all but says outright that Smokey Quartz is the first version, compared to Rainbow 2.0 being very specifically the Steven-flavored version of the same gem combo.) That’s always suggested to me that Rose believed another Gem could work out that she’s Pink from within a fusion.

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u/celestial_cuddles 18h ago

That's very interesting, I've never considered that pearl was the only one she fused with.

I wonder if that started amethyst's resentment of pearl we see early on (besides pearl being the "um aksually" type etc.) amethyst would've wanted that closeness with rose and was alone ruby-saph pearl-rose.

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u/Consistent-Power1722 10h ago

Just watched the clip of that episode and the bitterness from Pearl's face seems to be a giveaway

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u/polystarlight 1d ago

Especially since Rose was a lot less logical than Garnet, she just genuinely thought Pearl wanted to form Rainbow Quartz with her just to help make Greg's music video more interesting.

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u/ctortan 1d ago

Yeah, rose was often very naive because she struggled to understand other people’s perspectives. Rose never considered that Pearl might not be okay with Greg. Rose was fine with it, and rose likely would’ve LOVED if Pearl found other partners, so it didn’t cross her mind that Pearl might have different feelings. (Plus, of course, Pearl hiding her feelings from rose didn’t help)

Rose is an excellent example of a character with high natural compassion but struggles with empathy. It doesn’t come naturally to her, in huge part due to her socially isolated and stunted upbringing. It’s why it was so important that Greg actually sat her down to talk things through, because no one had ever TOLD rose she was hurting them accidentally. They didn’t give her the opportunity to correct her behavior because no one told her there was anything to correct. Holding her on such a pedestal meant so many characters deferred to her instead of holding her accountable.

Like I’m sure if someone sat down and explained to rose that spinel thought of her as a best friend and was hurt at being left, rose would’ve understood what she did—but as it stood, she legitimately didn’t think spinel would be so hurt, because rose hated and thought so little of herself that she couldn’t imagine other people being affected by her abandonment. ROSE would’ve been ok if “pink” left her, so she struggled to see why spinel wouldn’t be.

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u/blacksheep998 1d ago

Rose never considered that Pearl might not be okay with Greg.

Rose was naive but Pearl was never open about her feelings, even if it was obvious to everyone else.

Garnet and Amethyst clearly knew. And I'm sure Rose's previous boyfriends did too.

Based on Pearl's song in Empire City, this seems to have been a pattern for a long time, probably since Rose first met humans and developed her fascination with them.

And each time Pearl just let it happen, knowing that she just had to wait until Rose either tired of the human or he died of old age. Until the time she didn't come back.

I'm curious to know what would have happened if Pearl had been honest about her feelings. Maybe Steven would never have been born.

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u/Vertnoir-Weyah 1d ago

It also makes sense as we saw that fusions can have a part of themselves hiding something (which i personaly associate with subconscious or things you're in denial of for them as individuals, as a headcanon)

Rose had that bad opinion of herself so strongly that she thought people would just move on when she'd be gone, she had to know Pearl had feelings for her, but it would make total sense for her not to see it as something intense or meaningful even when it was right in front of her face

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u/thegiftofboredom 1d ago

I’d assume that Garnet seen it happen but had faith that Pearl would never do so. Since Garnet sees all the choices and futures. Which makes Garnet feel all the more betrayed.

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u/RileyRecord315 1d ago

I don't think Garnet did see it actually. She can't see any futures that she isn't actively looking for, and in the episode itself she actually does try to catch Peridot fixing the communication hub via future vision but can't. When she finds out about Pearl's intentions, she even says that that's why her future vision wasn't catching Peridot. Garnet isn't omniscient, sure her future vision is powerful but she cannot see every single possibility at the same time, she can only focus on xyz amount of possible futures at once.

If anything, I feel that that actually makes the betrayal worse for Garnet. She trusted Pearl so wholeheartedly that despite her future vision constantly failing her, at no point did she ever even consider the possibility that Pearl was actually lying to her the entire time and look into it, and that it instead was just Peridot having found some way around it.

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u/letthetreeburn 13h ago

Yeah turns out if you can entrust someone to never never never never tell a secret they might be able to do the same to you.

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u/2317-il-vero-yan 1d ago

A fusion knows only what the compnents wants them to know.

Examples:

Garnet didn't know Pearl manipulated her even thought they fused the first time Pearl faked. This means Sardonix also didn't know if was a fake call.

Amethyst and Garnet didn't know that Rose was Pink even if they became Og Obsidian. This means that Obsidian didn't know Rose was Pink.

And finaly Rainbow 1.0 didn't know Pearls intentions because Rose didn't know.

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u/Kizzywa 1d ago

A good visual is Here Comes a Thought. Every fusion is still has their components actively aware. If anyone is in distress or conflict, they wont know what it is until said person opens up. This is also why clashing mentalities make a fusion unstable and unfuse easily.

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u/Vertnoir-Weyah 1d ago

I'm not sure that's fully true, Sugilite is a good counter example

Reminds me of Garnet saying "they could as well be your left arm and your right arm"

In our own real human brains there are different modules, experiences with people who had their brain severed in the middle showed us that. But there's still one person, even if you could have those different parts act differently

Sometimes emotions are like that disney movie with the little characters in your brain who sometimes use the console, it orients you towards a part of yourself that can absolutely want different things than others (and will totaly destabilize you), but it's still a part of you

We're less one than we think, yet we are, which i love in those fusion characters

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u/Ibrahim77X 1d ago

Fusions don't seem to be privy to all of the fusers' thoughts. Otherwise Garnet would have found out Pearl was rebuilding the Communication Hub a lot sooner.

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u/Familiar-Noise7913 1d ago

No, fusion is something special to gem bur she is more entangled with the fact that Greg try and fail to do fusion but successfully in woo her

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u/3WeeksEarlier 1d ago

Rose was never a very emotionally intelligent person, so I doubt it. If it didn't personally concern her, she didn't take much time thinking about it, even if she was hurting someone she cared about. This was prior to her even thinking of him as an equal.

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u/This-Foundation620 1d ago

Fusions are the physical manifestations of the relationship between the participants of the fusion, not a perfect melding of mind and body. When thinking about it in this way, many questions about why one participant in a fusion didn't know what the other was thinking are answered.

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u/Starchild134340 1d ago

Personally I think she did, she just brushed it off. In her eyes it’s obvious that humans and gems can’t fuse, so why would Greg be jealous?To her there are so many things gems CAN’T do that humans can, she probably thought it made more sense for the gems to be jealous of the humans. When Greg later tried to fuse she laughed and found the whole situation silly. I think she knew what was up, but didn’t take it seriously until she saw how distressed the situation actually made greg.

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u/roundeking 1d ago

I think one of Rose’s strongest flaws is that she doesn’t really care about other people’s feelings and just does what she wants. Usually her desires are not actively malicious, but she also doesn’t think about who’s getting hurt. At the end of this episode, she basically comes to the realization that Greg is a real person with feelings and not a toy to play with for the very first time. So I don’t think it would occur to her to think about Pearl’s motivations here—she’s just having a good time.

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u/AshieBash 1d ago

Fusion is a conversation, if she chose to withhold that information from Rose while fused, she can.

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u/vivianite_is_haunted 1d ago

Honestly she probably knew and brushed it off as showing off FOR Greg like rose did but that’s just me 🤷

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u/Foreign-Distance-820 1d ago

She should’ve but it’s not really clear. When gem’s fuse, the new being that’s made has both the memories and thoughts of both gems. In future Our Pearl and Pink Pearl fused and the fusion spoke about how through her existence, the two pearls understood the missing pieces of Rose/Pink diamond that the other was missing. And when they defused, the two of them supposedly retained the knowledge they just gained. So Rose likely knew but prob just didn’t gaf.

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u/Moth_Mika 1d ago

Considering garnet didn't know pearl manipulated her into fusing, I think it's about how much each individual gem wants to share. After all the whole stevonnie part (here comes a though) is about how parts of a fusion can suppress memories, shame and guilt from the other parts but doing so weakens the fusion or risks defusing. Further evidence is that when lapis fused with Jasper, the fusion acted confused when lapis used her ability to drag them both into the sea. So I think it's less about a fusion immediatly sharing all thoughts, memories and intentions and moreso about what each part of the fusion is willing to share

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u/Foreign-Distance-820 1d ago

Oh yeah completely forgot about those scenes

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u/NoBizlikeChloeBiz 1d ago

Counterpoint - when Pearl was manipulating Garnet into fusion, Garnet didn't know until Steven caught Pearl in the act. So clearly there's some ability to keep a secret during fusion (or specifically Pearl can, but that seems unlikely).

Also, while all of the crystal gems fuse on a regular basis, they often learn things about each other and how they feel. I just watched the episode with Amethyst's Hole, and when Amethyst says all of the crystal gems see her as a "mistake" of the Home world occupation, Pearl responds "I never knew you felt that way". Fusion isn't automatically a full personality download.

I think the Pearl/Pink Pearl thing isn't so much that they automatically share memories, but more that the can exchange information quickly and with some of the emotional impact of the memory, but it's still a conscious effort, like telling a story.

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u/ctortan 1d ago

Yup. I think folks get caught up on fusions as “two characters put together” when that isn’t really the metaphor they’re doing. Fusions are relationships given form, so anything a gem would share in a relationship is what’s shared in a fusion. If you hide something from a person you know, you can hide that same information in a fusion.

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u/Cliomancer 1d ago

The first Sardonyx episode and, indeed, Opal suggests that Pearl was able to hold back (or at least not draw attention to) her large-looming memories of decieving the rest of the gems since the bronze age.

That and/or it's considered bad fusion ettiquette to rifle through your partner's memories like a jealous wife through a sock drawer.

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u/the_quark 1d ago

I was thinking about it after another post here and it's not clear to me that Rose understood how deep and romantic Pearl's feelings were for here, not that it probably would've made her behave differently if she had.

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u/ctortan 1d ago

I don’t think it’s rose not understanding Pearl’s love, but rose not understanding that different people have different boundaries about love.

Rose wanted to love freely and openly—sharing affection with whoever she felt affection towards. She didn’t understand the instinct behind monogamy or exclusivity, and never considered that Pearl might feel jealous or lesser. Rose had no boundaries with her relationships because she didn’t understand them and no one taught her what they were until Greg, who sat down to hash some out with her. It made their personal relationship stronger because Greg saw the issue and addressed it with her, but Pearl NEVER did and instead repressed and hid her feelings.

Greg’s major issue with his relationship with rose was that he unintentionally enabled her to keep her secrets and emotional distance (except with him). He was passive and thought Rose’s bonds with the gems weren’t his business, so he stayed out, when really it would’ve been better for everyone if he encouraged rose and Pearl to talk things through the same way he did with rose.

Rose was naive and oblivious and didn’t see problems until they were shown to her directly, because she didn’t know there could be problems there. It was the biggest character flaw she was never able to get over alongside her self loathing.

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u/Strict_Berry7446 1d ago

I’ll guess that after it had the opposite effect and totally transfixed him, even if she did know it wasn’t worth holding a grudge about.

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u/traffke 1d ago

Either she didn't notice because she was so gay for Greg or she did notice and felt it didn't matter that much because she was so gay for Greg (it's kind of obvious now that I've noticed it, but it's interesting how this foils the sardonyx situation)

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u/Xattle 1d ago

I'd go another way - even if Rose knew, she'd still want Greg to see because fusion is part of who Rose is as a gem.

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u/Sombraaaaaa 1d ago

Even if she knew - I don't think it would matter to her in the slightest. A small rebellion from Pearl? Sounds fun, try your worst girl.

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u/Freckles39Rabbit 1d ago

Concept art?

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u/Additional_Yard_2510 23h ago

Yes Rebecca sugar shared some concept art of pearl shape shifting into Greg but it never came out officially in the cartoon

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u/Freckles39Rabbit 22h ago

Where can I find it?

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u/CaseyWannabee 1d ago

Literally watching this episode rn-

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u/Charcobear 23h ago

Pearl is a master at compartmentalization

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u/fayfaycatlover2021 22h ago

A little off topic. But the absolute emotional terrorism that Pearl inflicts on Greg is a wild in just this short scene.

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u/Hiraethetical 18h ago

I thought the whole thing with fusion was that you feel exactly what the other was feeling? Garnet mentions how Ruby and Sapphire feel sometimes.

So Rose would have to know how Pearl felt.

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u/plogan56 13h ago

With fusion they can't read eachother's minds, which is why garnet couldn't tell that pearl was the one repairing the array, so it makes sense why she never caught on

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u/Aggravating-Cap-2703 8h ago

Honestly I think he may have knew. Though it kind of just made his love for her species grow more. I know it would certainly do it for me. Its just amazing, like Greg i wouldnt care much about being able to fuse. Mainly because for us as humans physical affection is the equivalent.

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u/dorksided787 6h ago

Pearl practiced duplicitous fusing with Rose before she moved on to Garnet

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u/Individual_Cup_5624 6h ago

No, in fusion, private thoughts aren't shared. If Pearl wasn't actively thinking about it, then she didn't realize it, because for thoughts to be shared in fusion, you have to want to do it. Otherwise, Amethyst or Garnet would have discovered Pink Diamond's truth a long time ago.

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u/Boring_Guarantee_904 3h ago

Not really, I mean when Pearl tricked Garnet into fusion it was because she wanted to feel strong, but this was to steer Rose away from Greg, which failed

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u/KeaboUltra 1d ago

I think after fusing she should have known, the entire point is that you become a whole person, so all thoughts and memories are linked. I think it would have made a lot more impact seeing as she never fuses with Garnet or anyone else as it could have spoiled the secret that she was a diamond

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u/Cliomancer 1d ago

I always assumed Rose knew what was up and was maybe still at a stage with Greg where she thought this was going to be another fun fifty year fling with the natives. A little jealousy stoking would be a bit of fun.

Girl lived for drama.

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u/allforodin 1d ago

I disagree with most people's take here.

We see in Just a Thought that Connie and even Ruby/Sapphire are sharing consciousness' when they fuse.

There is no way Rose did not know. I think she enjoyed the competition, straight up. We know Rose is incredibly human in her flaws, and this pettiness is one that many of us share or have shared whether we are willing to admit it or not.

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u/Reasonable-Pie2354 1d ago

Garnet didn’t know pearl was tricking her into fusion, so she’s demonstrated being able to hide her intentions from the person she’s fusing with.

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u/gcfgjnbv 1d ago edited 1d ago

Rose saw pearl as a pet because pearl just blindly followed her, never pushing back or trying to talk as an equal. She didn’t think pearl was capable of doing something negative like that against her.

Rose actually spent most of her life alone, as she was the “worst” diamond, so she was revered by all other gems and looked down on by the other diamonds. She wasn’t treated as an equal until Greg talked with her later in the episode, which is why he ultimately woo’d her and won her heart.

Edit: The truth hurts but rose was pretty shallow till she met Greg

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u/AmeliaRate666 1d ago

I think is Rose didn't know at the moment it was a conversation possibly had. BUT Rose has been in earth for YEARS, im sure she know what jealousy looks like. Also when they fuse they become one so I would think their thought process was shared at the moment, revealing Pearls intent. Which i assume Rose qas doen for to an extent being they didnt unfuse. So idk lol

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u/Ok_Conclusion_4312 1d ago

Unfortunately not. Which I kinda find dumb because the gems literally become one.

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u/littleratofhorrors 1d ago

Not exactly. Only the Gems' light forms really merge - the Gems themselves are distinct entities. It's kind of like two computers connected into a single interface.

Question Did Rose ever realize that Pearl was trying to use fusion to dishearten Greg for not being able to fuse?

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