I think part of the unhealthiness of her “obsession” stems from her losing Rose. Had Rose never met Greg Universe and eventually given birth to Steven, Pearl maybe would've obsessed over Rose in a comparatively “healthier” way—in other words, that obsession would’ve likely seemed more like a huge crush than it does now.
So observation: we know Connie is learning swordplay. We see her having Rose's Sword in the opening sequence. And we know Rose's sword is too big for Steven to handle on his own. So it seems fairly likely that at some point Steven will give her Rose's Sword. We've also seen Steven getting better and better with the shield.
I think this is setting up for Stevonnie to be a series battle asset.
I've long suspected this was the case - it's why she's all about careful practice and technique whereas Amethyst just goes wild with whatever feels natural. She hadto teach herself how to fight from scratch.
>>236230 >Univercest Would make the Stevonnie "waaaay underaged kids engaging in a thinly veiled metaphor for fucking" implications a lot less creepy if they were to throw more nonsexualized fusions into the mix.
>>236229 I'm surprised she'd be able to handle it considering how small, skinny and young she is. And she's just a normal human unlike Pearl and Steven.
>>236236 My guess is that Steven *could* wield Rose's Sword just as well as Connie can (though I wouldn't be surprised if Connie's a bit awkward with it because of its size compared to her--that would justify an even bigger Power Boost when going Stevonnie since she could use Connie's knowledge of swordfighting while wielding it as an einhander then), but Steven just doesn't have the killer instinct to want to put the effort in. That is to say, he's a defender and a healer--a cleric. There's nothing PHYSICALLY stopping him from building up the muscles and skills he would need to wield Rose's Sword, but his personality just isn't the personality of an attacker.
That's assuming the Opening Sequence is really indicative of future developments. Maybe I'm just reading too much into that little detail. But it seems an odd thing to include in the opening sequence if it's not going to be relevant at some point.
>>236223 I really appreciate that the show is so diverse in its portrayal of all kinds of different relationships. Even the most heroic and well-meaning characters aren't immune from forming unhealthy and toxic relationships. They're not always borne out of malice, and anybody can be guilty, whether straight/gay/NB/male/female/black/white/alien/whatever. And it's done in a way that avoids being too preachy.
>>236229 >I think this is setting up for Stevonnie to be a series battle asset.
Oh hey, an excuse to repost this thing Katie Mitroff made.
>>236241 >Even the most heroic and well-meaning characters aren't immune from forming unhealthy and toxic relationships.
Even the other person is actually a decent person themselves who might deserve admiration. Makes me wonder if Rose failed to notice how unhealthy Pearl's mentality was, or just failed to get Pearl to notice it.
>>236227 >and I think peridot is another manofactured gem not made to fight too. Well she did have the ship with its pointer finger cannon, plus a small force of robonoids, and the escape pod, though I don't know if she can do anything herself if she isn't caught off guard. I'm thinking she was mostly made to handle equipment, but also act as a low level commanding officer who's meant to invade of a weak planet and manage the first crop of grunts while the base gets established. Jasper just outranked her because she's had time to get promoted, while Peridot might be fresh out of gem college.
>>236291 Actually, I think it was only the small ones that were made from shards. The rest (like the one pictured) seem like they were made from still-living Gems.
>>236293 If so, broken gems seem to have a lot more of that "partial consciousness" Pearl was talking about than I thought. As if Frybo wasn't fucked up enough...
And dammit there’s a pic of Jasper in a white dress shirt, tie, and slacks that’s REALLY fucking amazing but I can’t find it right now and neither Tumblr nor Google Image Search are helping.
I think I missed it, but was it implied that those gem shards were what remained of the Crystal Gems' comrades who didn't survive? Or were they just a way to recycle corrupted gems when they failed to beat the Crystal Gems?
Apparently there was a leak of "We Need to Talk" https://kat.cr/steven-universe-s02e12-we-need-to-talk-1080p-web-dl-x264-dingo-t10811502.html https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2uf5lo
>>236323 Not really a leak, iTunes/Amazon/etc. just posted the video early because they skipped "Reformed" for unknown reasons, and people ripped them from there.
>>236340 If it's for trying to get between Greg and Rose, that's something she clearly stopped doing years ago. They're actually pretty decent friends now.
>>236340 Yeah. She's kind of a possessive asshole and I really hope her feelings were one-sided now. Lately I've completely 180'd on the Rose/Pearl pairing.
I've always sort of had trepidation about Rose/Pearl, just because Pearl always seemed to have little hints of this unhealthiness to her psyche that makes me feel like her being in a romantic relationship--especially with someone like Rose--would be bad for the person on the other side. I mean I love Pearl, and I'm sure Rose loved her in a non-romantic way as well, but Pearl's got this weird....I know people throw around the "autism/aspergers" moniker a lot with fictional characters, and I don't necessarily mean to say Pearl's autistic, but she's got that sort of energy about her, of someone who doesn't really relate to other people in the way people normally do and that forms unhealthy attachments to the few people she *does* relate to.
I kinda wonder if the SU Crew has plans to further explore that part of her this season. Exploring why Pearl crushed (and still crushes) on Rose so hard could make for some excellent character development.
>>236348 The way she acted with Connie was still pretty fucked up and shows that while she's made some progress she hasn't completely learned her lesson.
>>236356 Lets not forget the fact she was so delusionally obsessed with the idea of just fucking off into space with Steven she nearly got both of them killed.
>>236359 No, yeah that was all prog rock stuff. Greg's clearly into that jazz (-influenced genre.) I'm glad they didn't go with anything obvious like Run, No, Exodus or King Cyan or such.
>>236368 Both pronunciations have been used commonly in English for quite. It's possibly a loan word from French, but that doesn't mean the French pronunciation is the only one that's right.
>>236370 And Chico is pronounced "Cheek-o" commonly in English, too. I'm just saying that if you're going to be pedantic about pronunciations, you're going to be here for a while.
>>236393 Yeah, pretty unquestionable at this point.
But when you think about it, it would be hard to imagine gems *not* being gay. As a single-gendered species, any romantic relationship they had would be gay. If anything, Rose is the queer one from the gems' point of view.
>>236395 >>236393 What are you talking about? Its clear she just ADMIRES and RESPECTS Rose the way a soldier does a general or an apprentice a MENTOR. My waifu can't be gay!
Looks more like obsessed reverence to me. I don't doubt that gems are naturally attracted to each other. But what Pearl has doesn't strike me as romantic. She's referred to herself as a knight. She constantly put herself in harms way to seek her favor. She's obsessed with the notion that she was the closest to Rose. It's not the same kind of love Garnet has. It's blind worship. And I think that's something worth exploring.
>>236395 I wonder how common romantic relationships are among Gems in general. The way Garnet is implies that the homeworld culture is very Brave New Worldy in that people have lots of sex but it usually maxes out at friends with benefits and there's not much in the way of true love.
>>236398 >She's referred to herself as a knight. She constantly put herself in harms way to seek her favor. She's obsessed with the notion that she was the closest to Rose. It's not the same kind of love Garnet has. It's blind worship. And I think that's something worth exploring. While all that's true, that's a big part of *why* I see it as romantic interest on her part. Like think of all the nerds you know who have had crushes but are bad at social interaction. Isn't that exactly how they handle it? Put the object of their affection on a pedestal, act as though they are "protecting" them meanwhile obsessing over them and never having the courage to actually say anything? And I'm pretty sure a lot of them would jump at the chance to call themselves the object of their affection's "knight."
>>236392 It's more that she thinks everything is her fault even when it isn't, taking full responsibility for Jasper even though all she did was show up at Homeworld. Also, that she's protecting Steven by not letting him help even though she can only delay Jasper's attack.
Also, I don't think Peridot actually made those shard fusions. Those cylinders they were in was what she was about to investigate when she was stopped before, and she arrived too recently to have hidden anything "all this time", since there were thousands of years between the battle and her appearance.
>>236395 >>236396 They only have sex organs if they specifically make them, so there really isn't a "gay" or "straight" or any classification of sexuality. Functionally it's more like they're all bisexual and just have personal preference of masculine or feminine features (in humans or other gems). For Rose it seems to be either, Garnet it's neither, and for Pearl seems to be feminine.
So yeah, Pearl is gay is anything but a needlessly technical sense.
>>236397 Kind of, minus the part where interbreeding amongst themselves makes crazy vampires aliens.
>>236398 I kind of thought the same after "Rose's Scabbard", but the way Pearl got jealous of Greg and her dream makes it pretty obvious that she wants/wanted Rose's physically, not just emotionally. For Christ's sake, Pearl imagines herself clinging to Rose from the back while holding her arms up.
>>236404 I kinda wonder why her dream used pizza the way it did. I think it's related to how Pearl doesn't want to eat, with food in Pearl's mind representing something different from what it is to humans.
>>236405 No, gems have shown they can have romantic relationships (both emotionally and physically). But they can't technically have sexual orientations if they don't physically have sexes. The staff have even said gems besides Steven don't even self-identify as having genders.
>>236404 So much for her getting over Greg getting with Rose. Even if she doesn't outwardly show it she still seems to resent him which is kinda shitty of her when it seems like Rose Quartz didn't even reciprocate her feelings the same way, but it makes for interesting plot potential.
>>236415 Speaking of gem language, I've wondered if they magically pick up every language the way Peridot just showed up speaking in English. Specifically, if they can all understand Onion's language. As an aside, him kicking the microphone was pretty cute, and quite possibly the least unsettling thing he's done so far.
>>236426 Not really. Her feelings are more like a super obsessive infatuation, and that isn't usually considered proper love no matter how intense or long-term it may be.
>>236499 In all likelihood they weren't reciprocated, definitely not with the same intensity. Rose loved Pearl the same way she loved everything, and she didn't seem to understand Pearl's intentions any more than she could understand Greg's. She actually seemed like a very distant person before she met him, jolly and full of compassion but not really on the same level as other people.
>>236500 Yeah, I get the same impression from Rose as well. That or she knew about Pearl's feelings, and let her get as close as she did to humor them but purposely kept some level of distance, probably because she felt it was for her own good.
I have to agree with the people saying Rose and Pearl were never "together" despite Pearl's clear and blatant obsession, Rose valued her deeply and quite likely had her as a confidant (telling her many things she never told others as Pearl claims, though as the episode showed not telling her absolutely everything) but the way Pearl has always been portrayed and personally acts so far really makes it seem like they were never equal partners in that kind of relationship as much as Pearl would have wanted them to be. There's a big difference between the two gems in a romantic gem-kind relationship shown in the series and Pearl worshiping Rose.
The Rainbow Quartz fusion was pretty cool, I wonder if we'll ever see what the Garnet and Pearl fusion looks like? Since we've already seen what happened when Amethyst & Pearl or Amethyst & Garnet fuse (with the latter even having Pearl and Garnet fusing being referred to).
>>236510 I feel Rainbow Quartz having four eyes shows that the fusion wasn't as complete as some of the other forms. Especially since they clearly had different emotions when looking at Greg.
I think Pearl needs some talk time with a nice human woman. In part because I doubt any other gem would help her behavior about Rose.
>>236511 Yeah, it's kinda telling to me that the one other fusion that has this future is Malachite. Also perhaps Alexandrite, but since she was really unstable the point still stands.
Don't get me wrong, I want the show to have a proper finalé and all, but I'd rather wait to see how it ends than speculate wildly about what we might get and have my hopes/expectations dashed.
Doug and Rob Walker have started their episode-by-episode vlogs for Steven Universe.
A bit of a rocky start since they were going by the numbering on the DVD, which is missing a lot of episodes and has the rest in a weird semi-random order. They've since learned of the mistake and will use the correct episode order for their future viewings.
>>236917 Did you mean "seem to cure cracks"? Rose specifically couldn't cure gem corruption, even though she tried. And yes, the spring was full of Rose's stockpiled tears.
guys, I looking for the song stronger than you in other languages, I already have foud it in spanish and brazilian portuguese on youtubbe, so, if someone have in another language please share with me. thanks
You may have heard that, last year, Sugar sang part of a longer version of the theme song, but left out some of the lyrics.
Well they've also shown a clip, apparently from one of next week's episodes, of a full version that transfers into the second opening. None of the lyrics are spoilers now (the were a year ago), but the content of the video one might consider a minor spoiler.
>>237045 We already knew that. //youtube.com/watch?v=--iXWcdeHmk I think this was the first episode I watched in english ever... First "real" time was on swedish CN at my parents house.
Well this was completely entertaining. I'm pretty sure that cactus was actually Peridot in a makeshift disguise, but Steven and Amethyst both failed to consider how unlikely is is for one to grow like that. Lion snapping at the sparkles was a nice touch.
>people are playing the "if you have any dislike for Pearl you're ABLEIST!!!1!" card on Tumblr right now Can we PLEASE not do this? People can have intermediate opinions you know. You can dislike a character's actions while still finding them sympathetic at the same time and the same goes in the opposite direction. FFS I have Aspergers and I think Chris-Chan is a complete chode even if it's true he's playing some of it up. Pearl lied to Garnet and it's not unforgivable (so the rabid Pearlhaters can also fuck off) but she still did wrong, and Garnet (and the audience) have every right to be mad at her for it.
>>237115 Tumble really likes projecting onto Pearl and they can't handle criticism of her at all without feeling personally attacked. It happens with a lot of communities.
>>237115 Yeah. I don't really get the extreme hate or defense either way. Pearl's been shown to be a good person and she's made a stupid and a bit twisted mistake. That neither makes her a saint or a devil.
Makes her a person, which is a good thing when writing stories. Wanting characters to be 100% flawless and have no negative character traits is something best left to bad fanfiction.
I'm kind of getting bored with all these episodes about Pearl and her issues. Sworn to the Sword was all about Pearl's issues, We Need to Talk prominently featured Pearl's issues, Chille Tid turned Pearl's issues into a gag, and now we have yet another episode where Pearl's issues cause problems for somebody else. At least this time Amethyst's reaction implied that this is more of a Crystal Gem issue than a uniquely Pearl issue.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, Steven knows less about Pearl than either Garnet or Amethyst, so it makes at least some sense to focus on her. For now, that focus helps flesh out her character and gives us some insight into why she acts how she does, both around the other Gems and around Steven. And as you mentioned, the fusion thing might become more of a broader issue with the Gems than simply Garnet getting mad at Pearl. (If it makes you feel better, today's episode supposedly focuses on Garnet/Ruby and Sapphire in the aftermath of yesterday's episode.)
>>237123 Yeah, I'm glad they've been shifting into Garnet more too but Amethyst is feeling especially neglected in terms of screentime and development lately. The "Pearl does stupid shit" plotline could be spaced out a little better.
>>237125 This show certainly went a long way towards helping me acknowledge my bisexuality, even if it's not necessarily in the way the creators may have intended.
>>237121 And Pearl is super flawed. Kinda why I just want them to get her someone to cuddle. Also Amy's face when she got what Pearl was doing and for what. I feel she's done stuff like this before. A few times.
>>237130 I'm not sure Pearl's done this stuff before. Amethyst was able to recognize what Pearl was doing because she could empathize with wanting to fuse with Garnet. She was able to understand Pearl's motives because she has a lot of the same problems, just shifted towards being a monster instead of being 'defective.'
We've got previews for the next three episodes, from the show's on-demand : Onion Friend: http://t.kazy.in/post/124104918855/steven-universe-old-friends-preview Historical Friction: http://t.kazy.in/post/124104726563/historical-friction-preview Friend Ship: http://t.kazy.in/post/124104810812/steven-universe-friend-ship-preview
So who wants to take bets on which members of the Fish & Chips family made all those paintings of Amethyst?
>>237144 >>237146 I think Onion actually is the one who made those, but he's obsessed with her because her magic alien language powers (which I presume she has since Peridot knows English) made her the only person outside his family who could understand his speech. And based on that, I'll further guess that her influence is why he's such a scoundrel.
>>237147 I know they're actually just small for their species and really thousands of years old, but goddamn it still gives me a little bit of the heebie-jeebies seeing them get intimate like that.
>>237157 The in love part isn't what's iffy, it's the fact that they're pushing towards second base and on when they look like children that's a little squicky. Stevonnie doesn't get as explicit but it's just as creepy since the characters involved really are children having implied sex and they don't have the excuse of being ancient space rocks.
>>237158 >Better relationship then most adults in "adult" shows by far. Lotta feels in this thing.
>Ruby burns with generic rage >Saphire is completely detached from the present >oh but we made Steven feel bad! Guess whatever we were arguing about doesn't matter lol let's neck in front of him!
I'm not entirely sure I get the appeal of these characters. There's no "feels" here, they have barely enough to them to be called character archetypes, let alone characters. They aren't fleshed out at all beyond their relationship with each other, and they certainly haven't done anything individually to warrant any kind of emotional investment. Maybe if we saw how these gems interacted with people other than just themselves they'd feel more legitimate, but right now I can't help but roll my eyes.
Fusion isn't sex. It can serve as a metaphor for sex because there's a degree of intimacy involved and requires trust in one's partner, but it isn't sex or sex hidden from the network's prying eyes under a different name. I mean, unless you'd think a father's reaction to having his twelve-year-old son pork his twelve-year-old best friend right in front of him would be excitement instead of horror.
>>237171 >>237173 >dancing at arm's length with your clothes on >whoops, laughing put you in synch to well and now you're magically having sex out of nowhere
>>237171 At this point it pretty much is a metaphor for sex or at least the kind of intimate romance that usually includes sex, compared to early Season One when it was a little more ambiguous. I'm of two minds about that because on the one hand the show doesn't have to beat around the bush to make a message about those kinds of relationships for all the sexually active people watching the show, because goddamn there are a lot of them. On the other hand it risks turning the show into a big K-drama when there's plenty of other completely nonromantic and nonsexual close relationships like siblinghood and platonic friendship that fusion can be used to explore too, rather than just CS Lewis's Eros.
>mom who hides in the garage corner for people to come in >noodles and butter for dinner >Dad home so infrequently there's a "Dad's home" calendar on the wall >power flickering thanks to 2huge sound system >that birthday video >all on top of seemingly no one really spending time with him Wow, Onion sure had a stable upbringing.
Onion's mouse stunt at the end serves the double purpose of being both incredibly creepy and an act of kindness towards Steven. He saw how troubled Steven was by the mouse being fed to the snake, so he set it free instead.
>>237183 that was clearly coded to be considered porn. The overall message was it was a risque thing either way but the audience was def supposed to think that.
>>237188 You might be making assumptions based on your own perspective. Because "birth video" was definitely my first thought, rather than porn. Possibly just because I know they wouldn't play even audio clips from a porn video on a cartoon network show aimed at children during the day, but either way.
>>237191 Yeah, I did. And my first thought was "Oh man, is this going to be a video of his birth?" Clue one: it's a children's show on cartoon network. Clue two: most people don't make homemade porn in hospitals, and literally the first thing they said in it was that it was taking place in a hospital, and Vidalia was the "star."
>>237194 I don't think it's a problem he sticks to his job, but I am glad Steven's spending time with Onion now because no one else is. I don't know if he's even seen a video game being used as something other than a synth, and visiting the temple will probably lead to another Rose's Room episode and generally a lot of new stuff for him. Speaking of which, it's funny that his first appearance was in Connie's introduction episode, and they haven't shown up together since or directly interacted ever.
>>237208 I wonder why Pearl doesn't make clones of herself for actual combat situations. Are they that bad at enemy/ally distinction? I wonder if she could make hard light mech suits for humans.
>>237221 I think it's all four of the Crystal Gems. It looks a lot like the temple, which several people have theorized to be the Alexandrite + Rose fusion.
>>237223 >>237224 Fusions work pretty weird, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the larger ones somehow had less parts instead of more, with Rose reigning in the arm count. Speaking of fusions, I think the general consensus of /co/ had a pretty good idea what Sadonyx would look be like.
Also, come on Steven, you couldn't help Jamie recruit actors? Connie would probably be up for it, and Ronaldo jumps at the chance to put on a show for people.
>>237232 No weapon was mentioned in the play, either for budget reasons or the giant just using her fists at the time. Either way it doesn't show her *not* being able to make a giant pizza cutter. Dunno if Amethyst was involved or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if all the others were as>>237230 says.,
>>237253 I think they did. It was a pretty big pile of rubble that Peridot pushed together. Everything could've been in pieces and Peridot roughly put stuff together like the communication tower. Or we never actually saw the Gems succeed in doing so. It might've exploded mid-warp like Pearl feared.
>>237254 I don't think so. Pearl said that, if it exploded mid-warp, it would keep exploding in warp space forever. Seems like they'd notice a huge explosion right in the warp stream.
when peridot say this planet have expiration date, Im not sure if shes talking about the sun exploding, pollution or stuff like that. And now the gems have a spaceship to go to the homeworld, I really want to see how the gems live, you know, besides fighting wars and invading planets.
I was hoping we can go from bombs back to weekly episodes soon (it's been great, but mentally exhausting), but it seems a hiatus separate even from that is inevitable.
>>237250 Makes her relationship with Rose Quartz make a lot more sense in context now. Even if Rose didn't necessarily /love/ her (which I don't think she did) she was the first person to treat Pearl like a person rather than a tool and that's what made Pearl develop her obsession for her.
Yeah, let's be real here for a moment: Peridot has managed to eclipse all the other gems. Including Garnet and Amethyst, the previous holders of "best gem" title.
I hope she never leaves Earth. I hope she is around forever. She is the best character in the show.
>>237262 >(which I don't think she did) Whether or not Rose loved her romantically, I think saying there was anyone Rose didn't love in one sense or another is describing a Rose we have yet to see in this series.
>>237270 Getting a bit of a Dr. Crygor vibe here. Also, having guns for fingers plus the lost foot strongly suggests they're her summonable weapon. If she used one hand as a gun while flying with the other it could be pretty OP. I'm curious to see if that foot is something she can easily replace, or if it's actually equipment she'd need to find a substitute for.
>>237276 Something interesting to me here is that painting. At first the wall painting seemed to be just there an an arbitrary environment texture. Then I realized Rose is the only gem we know who would make a painting like that.
>>237279 >If she used one hand as a gun while flying with the other it could be pretty OP. Her left hand had that gravity gun and could electricity things. She didn't use them against Steven, but I think that was just because she's not used to using them and forgot.
You know what I really like though? Peridot is discovering she's actually very competent at combat, this was the first time she tried directly fighting them and was even shocked at her cannon's own power.
>>237284 "Actual" arms and legs would be projections of her gem, which would disappear when discarded and she'd be able to regenerate. Lacking those ability is probably more than made up for by the other advantages--she literally brought a laser gun to a sword fight.
It's also possible that they are projections, but they work and look different because of her gemstone itself being augmented.
>>237292 Gems are the same sizes as Evangelions. Which is to say: however they need to be in that particular shot. Their relative sizes compared to one another seem to be pretty steady. Opal is bigger than Steven and Pearl and Amethyst, and probably Garnet, but we don't know how big she is compared to Rainbow Quartz. I would probably guess she's bigger than Rainbow Quartz and smaller than Malachite, but it's hard to be precise on these things.
>>237289 Her head is about the same size as Steven's body, but the staff have admitted to not using a fixed scale beyond a "height order". You can expect any of them to vary by like a factor of one-and-a-half.
I'm pretty sure we'll eventually see Peridot fuse with Amethyst, just because the sheer level of resulting immaturity sounds like it'd be too ridiculous to pass up.
>>237298 Amethyst has been a lot more mature lately. But it's true that fusing with someone immature would probably cancel out her own personal growth.
>>237303 Wish she'd get more solo eps. Lately the series has been Garnet + Pearl's issues.The Onion one was the most focus she's got in a while but it's still more about Onion and Steven than her.
>>237304 well dude, was the week of sardonyx. But there's a lot we dont know about the gems. I am very interested in the animal behavior that amethyst has, which is much more evident in the Greg stories.
>>237301 I think that can be attributed to her constant frustration with her attempts to get off failing and her annoyance at the Gems for constantly attacking her and wrecking her plans. She is not having a good time.
>>237296 One of my favorite descriptions for Gamagori came from the Kill la Kill TV Tropes page which stated that his only consistent size was "bigger than you."
>>237308 >>237314 I loved the bit in "Historical Friction" where she called to Steven during the play. I like Pearl a lot more when she plays the part of Steven's doting, worrisome pseudo-mom.
>>237308 I think the trick she pulled at the start of the week was the only really awful thing she did. Rest of the time she was either hanging out with Amethyst, being completely absent, rewriting a play or being confused and desperate because Garnet accidentally put too much emphasis on their time being wasted when that wasn't what really bothered her.
The bomb overall had a neat structure to it: All of them were in the two episodes on each end, and the three in the middle each gave a different Non-Steven crystal gem focus.
One of the things I really like about this show is every now and then they produce a contextualizing episode. At first I wasn't overly fond of Historical Friction, but then I realized it was meant more to shine a light on Pearl than stand on its own.
They're basically directly addressing the issues fans had been complaining about with this sort of demonstration that Pearl had flaws and it was starting to bother them. Which, honestly, is fairly clever story telling in its own right, but still, it made me develop a further appreciation for what they're doing.