(Everything here is just my opinion, take with a grain of salt.)
Stevenbomb 2 starts and ends with these two for a totally coincidental reason.
Nah, I’ll drop the sarcasm for this post. You guys all see the similarity. The staff on this show don’t fuck around with dialog, every word means something. There you have it. Pearl and Lapis have something in common.
You guys all dwell on that for a second.
This is what interests me more:
(And where were Steven and the CGs while Lapis was trapped?)
The funny thing is, she’s not wrong. He TRIED to find Lapis; they all did. And they couldn’t, and she’s been fighting all this time since Jailbreak.
He can’t solve everything perfectly, not even if he IS in the battlefield. With Lapis things might still work out in a later episode, of course, but that doesn’t change that she’s been going through a beating.
Now, the REALLY impressive thing about Stevenbomb 2 is that us laughing at Pearl and calling her salty, jealous, and whatever – MIGHT BE DELIBERATE.
If we look at how we’re expected to think of Lapis, we’re SUPPOSED to think something along the lines of, shit, won’t someone save her, she’s so damn trapped, and trying so hard, and is so precious, and doesn’t deserve any of this shit she’s been through.
If we look at how we’re expected to think of Pearl, we’re mostly supposed to laugh at her, or find her annoying/petty for being so jealous, or whatever. Just look at Amethyst laughing at Pearl’s dream.
But the last laugh goes to the story, because it’s framing two characters who, at their core, have the same intentions and the same trapped situations (Pearl too is trapped on Earth, trapped in circumstances beyond her control, trapped in the past, and probably fucked in the head from all the war she’s been through) – framing these two characters so wholly differently that they get opposite treatments.
What I’m saying is, they’re both in very bad situations but one gets the sympathy and the other gets the laughs/hatred/annoyance. Possibly framed on purpose by the storytelling.
This is because Steven doesn’t know the whole damn story, and when he does, it’s likely going to be a hell of a wham like the other revelations. The truth is, this Stevenbomb HASN’T told us anything about Rose’s relationship with Pearl. We don’t know how she handled the whole knight thing, or if there’s more to it that we don’t know. Like the rest of what we know of Pearl, it is not the core of her. It’s not her origin story, it’s not something fundamental to her. We don’t know what she is, where she came from, or why she’s defective.
I’m impressed at the storytelling. I’m impressed that two characters doing the same thing get different reactions. I’m impressed that the show is sneaky like that. It’s a lot of fun.
I’m not going to guess what that later revelation regarding Pearl is. But Pearl’s been through hell and back, and isn’t shitting around.
A peek at the disaster 