Something I’ve found kind interesting is the general fandom opinion (as in, what’s the popular interpretation) regarding Blue Pearl and Yellow Pearl. In general, folks like both of them but view them very differently. The average opinion toward Blue Pearl is sympathetic, people feel sorry for her, want to rescue her, view her as someone who desperately wants to get out of the situation she’s in. By contrast, the average opinion of Yellow Pearl is that she’s smug, superior, content and proud to be working for Yellow Diamond. There’s comparatively few people who feel Yellow Pearl needs to be rescued from the situation she’s in than those who feel Blue Pearl needs(or needed) to be rescued.
But, objectively speaking, we have more evidence that Yellow Pearl is in an abusive situation than Blue Pearl. We’ve only seen a little of both of them, but with Yellow Pearl we have several instances of flinching and cowering, something we don’t get with Blue Pearl. Mind you, they’re both in abusive situations and I’m in no way suggesting that one ‘has it better’ or worse than the other. I just find it interesting that despite Yellow Pearl displaying some of the more classic signs of abuse, most people more readily read Blue Pearl as an abuse victim than Yellow Pearl, due to the perceived personalities of the two characters
I think certain types of behaviors reduce our inclination to be compassionate towards a person. We have a model of what a sympathetic person is in our heads, its generally someone quiet, meek, sad, subdued. We have an expectation for what a person who has had a trauma, has been abused, is like. When people deviate from that, our ability to sympathize with them reduces. More than anything, people cannot stand aloofness or an air of superiority or smugness. We feel compelled to want people who exhibit these traits to ‘be taken down a peg’, because we hate the idea they think they’re better than us (a really disturbing amount of kids movies support this, I mean how many school-centered stories have a popular kid who eventually gets dragged through the mud by the end?). We tend to not view people like that as people with any sort of bad things going on with them and we think that no one in a bad situation could be smug or act like they’re superior
and its unfortunate, because that sort of behavior is a pretty common response to anxiety and trauma. Aloofness is a very common response to anxiety, smugness/superiority is often a result of feeling inferior in certain parts of our life. People respond to trauma in different ways. We respond and adapt to the situation we’re in, and we can take pride in the little victories or things that make us feel like we’re not the most worthless/disliked person in the room. It might not be a sympathetic trauma response, but it is one. There’s a lot of behaviors like that, that deviate from the sympathetic model of a victim people have in their heads. And its unfortunate, since it causes a lot of people to write off people who exhibit these traits as ‘not a victim’ and in some cases actively punish them for these behaviors.
I’m not chastising anyone who viewed the characters this way, I totally get it, and Yellow Pearl was definitely acting smug. We’re meant to notice and respond to this aspect of her character. There’s a lot of neat art and interpretations of her as having genuine pride in her job, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just think about it a lot whenever I see fandom stuff about her. I feel like this is what the show is going for, to present the character in a way that’s unsympathetic (her being combative with and smug toward Peridot, a character we know better and thus are more likely to sympathize with in general) and then have us learn more about her to demonstrate that first impressions can be deceiving. They very deliberately paid attention to showing her fear of Yellow Diamond, so it really does seem like something they’re going to expand upon in the future. Perhaps it might even help some folks realize there are other, less sympathetic responses to trauma (maybe just wishful thinking there, though)
This is an excellent post, and something that’s been on my mind a lot since we saw Yellow Pearl, especially after reading the original writers’ outline for Message Received, in which the opening of the communication channel goes quite differently:
The projection shows an empty room with A PEARL inside,
going about her mundane business. The Pearl suddenly realizes she’s on
screen. Alarmed, she rushes out of the room. A voice off screen yells
in disbelief: “It activated?! That’s impossible! You probably made it
go off!”
A Gem storms into the room – it’s YELLOW DIAMOND.
Yellow Diamond clearly has a pretty nasty temper, and the implications present both here and in Yellow Pearl’s demeanour and reactions in the final version of the scene in the actual show are not pleasant at all.
I mean she’s flinching away and obviously terrified every time Yellow Diamond so much as acknowledges her presence or comes near her, and it only gets worse as Peridot “questioning authority” progresses.
I’ve said this before, but I’m very uncomfortable with some of the things about Yellow Pearl I’ve seen thrown around, and I feel it’s important – and a good opportunity is presented here – to make the point that you don’t have to deserve being treated decently, like an actual person, with basic safety and freedoms and rights. It’s not something you “earn” by being polite to people and having an agreeable attitude or what have you.
TL;DR: Freedom for all pearls, they’re all having a crap time of it and they all deserve better, no exceptions.
Yea, the outline makes it even more obvious that Yellow Pearl is in a bad situation, and really adds to why she was so quick to emphasize how Peridot calling the Diamond Line was not her fault and she was already dealing with it, since it seems like its pretty normal for Pearls to be blamed for things not going according to plan (because they’re always around, I’m sure, so they’re always a convenient scapegoat for anomalies)
and the way they rewrote the scene for the episode is even more terrifying, imo. In the outline, Yellow Diamond is enraged the whole time, so its easy to see why people are afraid of her (one could also possibly interpret the Pearl’s fear there as being because she thought she did something wrong, rather than fear of Yellow Diamond in general). But in the episode itself, Yellow Diamond very calmly says “Pearl” and Yellow Pearl immediately flinches and pulls away and makes placating gestures. She’s not responding to Yellow Diamond’s anger, but Yellow Diamond herself. Like you said, Yellow Diamond addressing her at all terrifies her and triggers a fear response. Peridot angering Yellow Diamond just made it worse but even when it started calmly Yellow Pearl was terrified. There’s not a single frame where she’s looking at Yellow Diamond where she doesn’t have lines under her eyes to indicate stress, which to me tells me the show is very much implying Yellow Pearl’s situation is horrendous.
And its a distressing thing to think about, because she’s Yellow Diamond’s Pearl, from what we’ve seen a Gem’s Pearl is always by their side. She’s always with Yellow Diamond and has a fear response whenever Yellow Diamond addresses her (even calmly) or moves near her. She’s literally always around her and therefore always terrified and always expecting some kind of punishment or otherwise negative action to be taken, not because of anything she did (though that would also be terrible) but just for merely existing, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time
also, I have nothing to add here, I just want to emphasize this thing you said because its important and thus bears repeating:
you don’t have to deserve being treated decently, like an actual person, with basic safety and freedoms and rights. It’s not something you “earn” by being polite to people and having an agreeable attitude or what have you.
ugh 