flowerapplejacks asked: I want an explanation for Pearl and Amethyst's behavior in Secret Team. Their behavior seems weirdly out-of-character: Why ARE they so afraid of Garnet here? Amethyst even says, "She's gonna kill us!" and Pearl, usually not one for exaggerating (she's ALWAYS corrected others) doesn't correct her or call her out for hyperbole? So we're to believe they were actually afraid to the point of letting Steven take the heat for them! Seriously, this fear is nowhere else to be found in other episodes.

I have some thoughts about this! It’s true we don’t see this vocalised fear in other episodes, but I do think that some of the issues in Crystal Gem dynamics haven’t been completely addressed in the show.

1. There is some disproportionate fear towards Garnet, but not for the reasons we think

Source: SU Wiki

I think the impression most people got from their reaction to Garnet’s possible wrath is that it would be physical in nature. “She’s going to kill us!” sounds like a physical threat and given Garnet is a bigger, physically stronger fusion, it’s possible that conclusions were drawn about how threatening that could be. We learn firsthand from Peridot that Garnet, in the eyes of gems, has the capacity to be a non-stop war machine. It’s intimidating knowing that you’ve done something wrong in her eyes.



But I also think it was established rather early that Garnet isn’t the type to physically be angry. In Cry for Help, when she finds out Pearl was lying to her to fuse, Garnet was incredibly angry and Pearl was visibly frightened. Again, her not correcting Amethyst in Secret Team may be a result of her own fear. But I doubt her fear was towards Garnet’s retaliating in a physical way. The body language of that scene tells us as much.

Source: SU Wiki

In Cry for Help, she’s not shielding herself from some incoming attack. If Garnet were proven to react in a physical way, then she would have done so. But instead she tries to justify herself, tries to make herself small. And we learn why. Angry Garnet directs her focus onto anything except you. She gives a mean cold shoulder and, to Pearl and Amethyst, who look to Garnet for validation and strength, that’s losing a light source in a dark room. In both Secret Team and Cry for Help, notice how Pearl’s body language, stiff with wide eyes, is an indicator that she is afraid. Because we know Pearl struggles with being replaced and forgotten like an object and from Cry for Help, we know Amethyst shares some of that insecurity and feelings of weakness and helplessness.

So their reaction towards doing something wrong is something I interpret as Amethyst’s reacting the way Amethyst usually does, and Pearl frozen in fear, but thinking of a solution as well.

Amethyst: And when Garnet finds out, we’re dead!

Pearl: *calms down slightly* She’s not going to find out… We’re going to catch them— All of them.

Amethyst: You’re right. Every single one— Back in a bubble and back in the basement!

Pearl: Like nothing ever happened.

Steven: And then we tell Garnet?

Pearl and Amethyst: No!

Source: SU Wiki

Because Pearl is the one to first say they’re going to search for the gem shards and put them back without Garnet’s knowledge and Amethyst later jumps on board and agrees.

So I really do think that their fear towards Garnet is genuine, because of how reliant they are on her emotionally. And it’s because there are very few things that can push Garnet into that level of anger. When the other CGs make mistakes, such as Steven in Cheeseburger Backpack or Pearl and Amethyst in Giant Woman, or even Greg in The Message, she’s incredibly understanding about it and moves forward and thinks of solutions. There are few things indeed that would make them fear Garnet’s anger, and that leads me to the next idea.

2. The nature of their playing with gem shards is a huge deal to Garnet

Garnet has very few possessions. Her room is the one opened by Ruby’s and Sapphire’s gems, and it’s referred to as the Burning Room or the Bubble Room.

Source: SU Wiki

There is no furniture in her room. There’s nothing to hide; there’s nowhere to hide anything. It’s not like Amethyst’s or Pearl’s room where there are objects or places to hide them. It sounds redundant but I’d like to make that point.

What is in her room? Bubbled gems, and by the looks of it, there are hundreds.

Source: SU Wiki

And there’s a reason for that. Garnet gives so much importance to her friends and being responsible for them. She keeps the bubbled gems in her room so she can always keep an eye on them and keep track of them, because she has been keeping track. In Keeping It Together, she has a nervous breakdown after finding out what happened to the gems she wasn’t able to recover.

Garnet: They were forced together… They were forced to fuse! This is wrong! Uh, uh, I’m sorry.

…

Garnet/Ruby: So this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion!

Garnet/Sapphire: We couldn’t have known they would do this…

Garnet/Ruby: This is where they’ve been. All the ones we couldn’t find. They’ve been here the whole time!

Garnet/Sapphire: Rose couldn’t have known.

Garnet/Ruby: This is punishment for the rebellion!

Garnet/Sapphire: *sobbing* It’s not our fault!

Source: SU Wiki

Garnet feels guilty. Out of the three senior CGs, she feels the most responsible for finding the fallen Crystal Gems. Amethyst would have never met them, and Pearl answered directly to Rose, but Garnet would have been much closer to the gems on the ground and would have got to know many of them. In fact, Rose may have given her responsibilities on the battlefield and it enabled her to become closer to the other CGs.

At that moment she feels that if she could have found them sooner, then they wouldn’t have forced fused in this manner. She thinks she could have prevented them from suffering this fate. So when the micro cluster is reaching out to her, she has nothing to offer except her apologies.

That Pearl would have picked up a bunch of these shards “just to see what they would do” shows an insensitivity to those fallen gems. They’re fallen comrades and she wants to study them. That’s not inherently wrong in itself, because doing studies to understand them is what could unlock curing them. But the fact that Pearl had to take it in secret shows that she knew Garnet wouldn’t be okay with it.

Pearl: I… just wanted to see how the shards are reacting to Rose’s bubble. And it’s none of your business. Amethyst: I think it’s Garnet’s business.

Source: SU Wiki

And they know that it’s a big deal to Garnet. If not, Amethyst wouldn’t have said immediately that it was Garnet’s business. The fact is Garnet is fiercely protective of her friends, including the fallen ones. Considering that this was one of Rose’s bubbles, that also means these shards were obtained while Rose was still around. That increases the personal value of that bubble and those gems. So both Pearl and Amethyst knew very well that Garnet would be very, very, very angry or upset in this case. They were hitting a very vulnerable spot of hers. It’s also personal. Those bubbles take the place of any personal effects Garnet might have. But I think Secret Team was significant in making Garnet realise that fear existed.

3. There is a lack of communication among the older CGs that make it difficult for this problem to be addressed

Steven approached Garnet personally and informed her about Secret Team. And she didn’t react angrily. She was upset, but she said that between teammates, there should be no secrets, and by extension, no fear to prevent them from telling each other the truth.

Source: SU Wiki

And she goes along with the plan to form a new Secret Team and take Pearl and Amethyst by surprise. After her stern lecture, there’s no cold shoulder and no further discussion on the matter. I really feel this was a wakeup call to Garnet, that proceeding in the way she did, without telling her teammates what bothered her specifically about their actions and without sharing what she felt, was becoming detrimental to not only their functioning as a team but also their friendship.

It’s not fun being the friend everyone is afraid of. Really. And what I like is indeed that this reaction from Pearl and Amethyst never reveals itself until Cry for Help. And Cry for Help in turn shows that changing old ways is a difficult, messy, and relapse-laden process. In Secret Team, Garnet addresses the general issue, but in Cry for Help, she goes into her feelings and her thoughts on the mater. She relapses again in It Could’ve Been Great, letting her emotions get in the way of clearing things up with Peridot, but we know that before that, she really tried to get her message across as we’ve seen in Log Date 7 15 2.

It’s really a process and I’m rather glad that we’re seeing it unfold. These changes aren’t as pronounced as the character arcs we’ve seen from Pearl or Peridot, but to me that just makes it mirror life better.