“The Earth. Five thousand seven hundred and fifty years ago.”
I waited over two years to write this review.
This is the point in the show at which I first started writing these posts, in January of 2016, at the onset of a post-season hiatus. The Steven Bomb beginning with The Answer and ending with Log Date 7 15 2 had just aired, Cartoon Network ruined that Lapis would join up in a botched promo, and there were no new episodes on the horizon: the previous hiatus was 81 days long, so I didn’t anticipate anything new for a while and decided to write about the show as a project for the inevitable wait. (The hiatus before Super Watermelon Island would end up being a whopping 125 days, a record that was broken by 2017′s absurd 164-day drought between Lars’s Head and Dewey Wins. Cartoon Network is the worst.)
I’d be lying if I said a major factor in starting this blog in the first place wasn’t this episode. The Answer was immediately and obviously special. The only times we’d seen Ruby and Sapphire up to that point had been catastrophes, but despite the drama of an apocalyptic monster in the future and a rebellion for Earth in the past, and despite the inherent anxiety of any time spent with the sentient boiling kettle that is Ruby, this episode gives us something we haven’t had since Lion 3: a quiet, soothing break. There have been quiet moments, like the snowfall in Winter Forecast, and soothing moments, like Steven hanging with the Cool Kids in Joy Ride, but rare is the full episode that feels like a nice exhale. And importantly, as they showed in Lion 3, this is a crew that knows a calm episode isn’t a boring one.
Let’s start with the visuals, which are so cool. The episode is a flashback that puts all my stylistic qualms with Story for Steven to rest. Lamar Abrams and Katie Mitroff tell an animated story set in the distant past by evoking animation from the distant past (“distant” being relative given the youth of cartoons as a medium). There’s the obvious Disney references (particularly Sleeping Beauty’s woodland waltz and focus on red and blue; my roommate also sees a lot of Robin Hood in the dance), but before the woods there’s the Cloud Arena, and before Disney films there’s Prince Achmed.
And this style fits right into the storytelling. The palette is muted and rigid on the Cloud Arena, with each Gem only displaying basic coloration, and the principal characters only standing out because they aren’t monochrome silhouettes like everyone else. But then an especially colorful rough draft of Garnet changes everything, showing a character that can be two colors at once. And when Ruby and Sapphire land on Earth, the vivid reintroduction of full color is compounded by beautiful nature shots as Ruby and Sapphire fall in love with Earth and each other.
Steven Universe gets a lot of well-earned credit for normalizing queer relationships, but frankly if its only contribution was The Answer it would still be revolutionary, because nothing is more normalizing than a fairy tale. Garnet presents a past so ancient that it might as well be “Once upon a time,” and despite her claim in Love Letters that love at first sight doesn’t exist, that’s pretty much what we see. This is a simple story about a hero rescuing a maiden, told twice and with each lead getting a chance at each role. It uses this fairy tale lens and leans in just a little to the sexism in the passive female role to ultimately subvert it.
Sapphire is essentially a damsel in distress at the beginning of The Answer. She’s introduced as a high-class Gem loyal to a liege (whom we’ll get to, don’t worry), so inactive that she’s okay with getting seriously wounded in an attack without putting up a fight. Erica Luttrell somehow tops her other portrayals of Sapphire’s overwhelming calmness, which is crucial to the character’s serene take on fate. She knows everything will be fine, so there’s no use in worrying about it or being gloomily nihilistic.
Ruby is introduced as part of a trio, and this is the very first time we see multiple identical Gems. Rubies are common, as is implied in past episodes, and it says a lot about them that our Ruby is the reasonable one, mediating between her pugnacious peers. She’s a warrior Gem, but a low-class one whose need for fusion lends some weight to Jasper’s claim that it’s a cheap tactic to make weak Gems stronger. This sense of “cheapness” is amplified when we see what happens when the same Gems fuse: they just get bigger, and size is everything to this culture.
Anyway, the expectations we have from classic fairy tales tell us that Ruby, the fighter, is going to save Sapphire, the damsel. And she does! She defies fate itself to protect her charge, and through some truly magical animation, Garnet is born.
But then, immediately, Sapphire saves Ruby right back. We’re suddenly presented with the story of a noble who must protect a poor maiden from a wicked royal; slightly different structure, but a fairy tale plot nonetheless. It makes sense that Sapphire would be shaken by the sudden interruption of a life dictated by fate, but it says everything we need to know about her that her instinct (probably the very first instinct she’s ever had, given her oracular sight) is to defy her life’s role and save someone who needs help.
(By the way, my favorite Miyazaki movie is Castle in the Sky, so this whole escape sequence is pretty great for me.)
Garnet’s narration starts to slow down as Ruby and Sapphire are allowed to talk to each other. Rain introduces two more foreign Gems to an unfamiliar world a la Peridot, and we get a nice moment with each of their elemental powers. When the weight of indecision makes Sapphire freeze, Ruby yanks her back into the present. When Ruby’s attraction to our favorite cyclops makes literal sparks, they use it to stay warm. Their fire and ice aren’t just symbolism of their characters, but are used to bring them closer together. We’ve got eleven minutes here, it’s all about efficient storytelling.
That efficiency allows for a prolonged silent moment of reflection by the fire, focusing on their gems with flashes to Garnet before their conversation really gets rolling (during which Luttrell gives Sapphire a more emotional range and Charlyne Yi lets Ruby be confused and antsy without being angry about it). And, of course, it builds to a song:
I mean, what is there to say that you don’t know? It’s hesitant and gorgeous and just plain romantic, and then it pulls an emotional fast one by having their slow fusion dance introduced by a harmonized humming of Stronger Than You’s melody. Maybe this isn’t love at first sight, maybe this montage took a while in real time, but despite the whole point of the episode, these two certainly seem fated to be together.
And then right away we get an Aivi and Surasshu classic, the aptly-named The Answer. All it takes is those first four notes on the piano to send a chill down my spine. We only see a sword, but Pearl is so tied to piano music that we instantly know it’s her, and that’s all thanks to these composers putting in the work on character theming. The shot of Garnet looking up at her with that piano, alongside Estelle’s brilliant narration, manages to make us believe that this is a terrifying renegade.
We meet Rose Quartz, gem-first as usual, as Stronger Than You continues to subtly play in the background. All three of them look frightened by each other, but Rose prioritizes how Garnet feels over what other people might think. Regardless of Rose’s intentions, what matters to Garnet is that somebody accepts her for who she wants to be.
(The only real criticism I have of the episode actually comes right after; the beauty of The Answer and Garnet’s story is so obvious that Steven’s “Wow!” feels self-indulgent to me. Like, I get it, this was great, you don’t need to tell me it was great, especially because Steven didn’t get the visual treat we just did. We could’ve just stopped at “Love” and left it at that.)
Another similarity between The Answer and Lion 3 is that while both zero in hard on the emotional element of the story they’re telling, we get heaps of lore in the background that are hard to ignore. A big part of that is the reveal that Garnet is actually the first heterogem fusion (again, I love the irony that same-Gem fusion is actually the only acceptable version to Homeworld), but the biggest plot development we get is clearly Blue Diamond.
We’ve only heard of Yellow Diamond until now, and seeing another Diamond raises more questions than ever about how exactly Homeworld’s leadership works. Blue Diamond is kept painfully mysterious, hiding under a veil within a palanquin, with Estelle providing her voice. We do eventually see the bottom half of her face, but that’s about it. We know that she’s huge, and that if she’s not overtly cruel, she at least sees rubies as expendable pawns to be destroyed at whim, which also sucks. Her cold authority heavily contrasts with the broken Gem we’ll meet in Steven’s Dream, and prepares us for the menace of Yellow Diamond in a few episodes.
And just listen to this theme. The Diamond Themes are a wonder of musical engineering, created by putting harmonette and strings through a synth to create an intentionally alien sound. It somehow manages to be chill and chilling at the same time, and its variations will continue to impress as we see more of Blue and her sisters.
(Also, I’ll never forget the astonishment I felt in my first watching when I realized that, holy shit, the Gem standing at her side is another pearl.)
Erica Luttrell and Charlyne Yi do great work here, but Estelle once again knocks it out of the part, showing her widest-ever range in her portrayal of two very different Garnets. The storyteller is the one we know well, imbuing a solemn but not unfeeling authority to her tale. But we also see her geek out with Steven in the very beginning in a way we rarely experience, highlighted by her glasses-free smile. It’s weird to think of Garnet as “adorable,” but that pretty much sums her up here.
What’s weirder is thinking of Garnet as timid; even when she’s scared or confused, she projects an aura of self-assuredness in the present. But her awkward first steps are scary and new, and frankly Garnet would be a pretty boring character if her behavior from the beginning of her life was identical to her behavior thousands of years later. Estelle sells her wondrous confusion during her first fusion with barely any lines, and scrambles over herself trying to get a clear answer about what’s happening to her from Rose. The animation and music of Steven Universe is always impressive, but they couldn’t do half as much without such an incredible cast.
There are just so many things to love about this episode. I love how Rose and Pearl manage to turn “We are the Crystal Gems” from theme song lyrics to a badass introduction. I love our little blip of a lapis lazuli (perhaps our Lapis Lazuli?) in the audience. I love that Ruby moves first to save Sapphire, but Sapphire takes the lead when it comes to the dance. I love how unfinished the original Garnet looks, down to her different-toed feet. I love seeing Rose float in a way that seems stylistic but actually becomes a power for Steven. Heck, I love that the show takes seriously Garnet’s joke line that they were going to tell Steven about Ruby and Sapphire on his birthday, and that the next episode is about said birthday.
I never get tired of watching The Answer. It works so well on its own that it almost makes me forget how well it ties into Garnet’s arc of dealing with misunderstandings of fusion. Like, the episode is all about that, but sometimes arcs and plotting just take a backseat when the episode speaks for itself.
That is, until you realize just how important this episode actually is to the history of the planet. It’s hard to watch The Answer in the same way after A Single Pale Rose.
As it turns out, our terrifying renegade Pearl isn’t a renegade at all, and Blue isn’t the only Diamond that changed Garnet’s life here. Because at this point, unbeknownst to the Garnet in the past and the Garnet telling the story, Pearl is doing exactly what she was made for, and the heartwarming advice about never questioning herself was given by a serial liar.
The fairy tale feel of The Answer adds the perfect punch when Pink’s secret is revealed, as Sapphire realizes that her storybook romance is tainted by the truth. The Answer is simple, but love is not, and it’s telling that the immediate fallout to A Single Pale Rose is a five part sequel to this episode. Here we see Rose as an altruistic and purehearted rebel leader, and learning that neither adjective is totally true is shattering. But context does more than cast Pink as selfish and manipulative: she was sincerely moved by Garnet’s fusion, and it redirected her mission from saving Earth to saving outcast Gems as well. As we’ll see time and time again from Steven Universe, you’ve gotta take the good with the bad.
The power of this story is not diminished by the true version of events. Ruby and Sapphire are still perfect for each other, Rose and Pearl really were glad to see Garnet again, and it’s not like the amazing art and music go anywhere. But it’s so gratifying to see a continuation of this fairy tale in the real world, to show that even when the illusion of simplicity is wiped away, love is still the answer.
Future Vision!
- I mean see the last few paragraphs for that. Heart of the Crystal Gems is a full sequel to The Answer, complete with Garnet finally getting to talk back to Blue Diamond.
We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!
The only reason The Answer isn’t my favorite episode is that Steven Universe is such an amazing show that it’s even managed to make episodes that are better than The Answer.
(And yes, one of them is Steven and the Stevens, fight me.)
Top Fifteen
- Steven and the Stevens
- Mirror Gem
- Lion 3: Straight to Video
- Alone Together
- The Return
- Jailbreak
- The Answer
- Sworn to the Sword
- Rose’s Scabbard
- Coach Steven
- Giant Woman
- Winter Forecast
- When It Rains
- Catch and Release
- Chille Tid
Love ‘em
- Laser Light Cannon
- Bubble Buddies
- Tiger Millionaire
- Lion 2 The Movie
- Rose’s Room
- An Indirect Kiss
- Ocean Gem
- Space Race
- Garnet’s Universe
- Warp Tour
- The Test
- Future Vision
- On the Run
- Maximum Capacity
- Marble Madness
- The Message
- Political Power
- Full Disclosure
- Joy Ride
- Keeping It Together
- We Need to Talk
- Cry for Help
- Keystone Motel
- Back to the Barn
Like ‘em
- Gem Glow
- Frybo
- Arcade Mania
- So Many Birthdays
- Lars and the Cool Kids
- Onion Trade
- Steven the Sword Fighter
- Beach Party
- Monster Buddies
- Keep Beach City Weird
- Watermelon Steven
- Open Book
- Story for Steven
- Shirt Club
- Love Letters
- Reformed
- Rising Tides, Crashing Skies
- Onion Friend
- Historical Friction
- Friend Ship
- Nightmare Hospital
- Too Far
Enh
- Cheeseburger Backpack
- Together Breakfast
- Cat Fingers
- Serious Steven
- Steven’s Lion
- Joking Victim
- Secret Team
- Say Uncle
No Thanks!
5. Horror Club
4. Fusion Cuisine
3. House Guest
2. Sadie’s Song
1. Island Adventure
Steven, Universally 