Steven Universe S04E02, "Know Your Fusion"

[kate_nepveu]

Well, that was meta!

I thought Sardonyx forcing them to test whether they had every other fusion's powers was a little obvious and nonsensical: Sardonyx doesn't have any of the other fusions' powers, after all. (Apparently her ability is rotating her body very freakily?) So that started to wear down the enjoyment of the meta, less in a "I'm uncomfortable along with Smoky Quartz because this is uncool" way (though it was that to start) than a "this is not really working as characterization" way.

I did like that Sardonyx eventually realized what she was doing and felt terrible, but I would've liked an actual apology for that, you know, and a little more underlining that Steven and Amethyst's fusion power wasn't inferiority or insecurity, but fun and unpredictability.

I thought Garnet saying she couldn't ask was a joke about future vision and spoiling the surprise for herself, but apparently it's more meta than that: Garnet canonically never asks questions, per this interview that the AV Club commenters linked to.

Finally, of course fusions have their own rooms in the temple, because Garnet has one, and yet it seemed surprising still.

Comments

[avram]

I wonder if Ruby and Sapphire have their own rooms, too. Possibly never used.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm sure they do, there are five individual gems on the door, after all!

[sovay]

I'm sure they do, there are five individual gems on the door, after all!

The door was the primary way I realized Garnet was a fusion: there were too many individual gems for the number of Gems in the temple, but it made perfect sense if two of them were the same person.

[kate_nepveu]

What a good eye! But it's nice that SU lets people figure things like this out early if they're watching but doesn't require them to have done so, that things do get explicitly revealed in a way that, I suspect, lets people feel satisfied by the confirmation if they'd already known but surprised if they hadn't picked it up.

[avram]

I noticed the number of gems, but figured maybe someone had left or gotten killed off or something.

[mneme]

I did catch on very early (pretty much as fusion was presented), but not because of Amethyst's third eye, or two gems (both of which had already appeared before we saw a fusion); instead when they talked about how a fusion was very tall and powerful and cool and collected, I exclaimed that Amethyst was already all of those things [including twice as tall as most of the other gems], and could she be a fusion? Which of course she was, but there were plenty more clues than just those.

[skygiants]

I too wish that we'd gotten more of Smoky Quartz's positive combo powers as well as the negative reinforcement, but thinking about it, it is kind of interesting how the recent Amethyst --> Smoky Quartz plotline does allow the show to highlight more of Steven's insecurity issues. It's sort of easy for me to forget about them in a lot of the day-to-day episodes because he generally presents as fairly well-adjusted and carefree and with the expectation that people will like them (in contrast to Amethyst, who wears her issues right out there on both sleeves); like, I can't imagine Steven himself coming out and saying a lot of the things that Smoky Quartz says, even though it's clear that he definitely does think them.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, it was definitely useful to have that line from the extended intro get re-highlighted, about all the expectations he has inherited from his mother, both externally with so many Gems refusing to believe he's not Rose and internally.

[mneme]

It's true; as much as we keep getting hit with "Steven is insecure because he's not Rose Quartz and gems keep expecting him to be", that's a nice mirror to Steven keeping getting hit with it, as gem after gem treats him like his mother when he can't be her, as much as this is clearly unprecedented; he can only be himself.

What we've seen of Smokey Quartz's personality and style does seem to combine the best aspects of Steven's and Amethyst's personality and fighting style; unpredictability, fun, improvisation and creativity. We saw pretty much all of this in the fight against Jasper, of course, but it was frustrating that Sardonyx, despite saying straight out that every fusion has a unique new ability or weapon, ignores SQ's claim that the yoyos were her (interesting, there; Stevannie is very clearly non-binary, but SQ seems more of a "her" as presented; never mind that gems are pretty much always non-binary and use "her" by default and because of their default presentation) big thing and instead proceeded to test her for every other known fusion's unique ability (and as the combination of Pearl's analytical mind and Amethyst's futurevision, that seems remarkably short sighted).

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, I really don't know what Sardonyx was thinking--enthusiasm carrying away doesn't seem sufficient--so like I said, it detracted from the episode for me.