ding-dong-damnation:

I think I know the secret to healing the corrupted gems???

Okay in the episode garnet mentions that the gem’s MIND has been damaged, which is why steven’s powers can only partially heal them.

Now at first this episode seems a little out of place with the others we’ve had. Most of the recent episodes have been pretty lighthearted episodes focusing entirely on the residents of beach city, so suddenly having a heavy episode focusing on gem mysteries and lore seems a little weird at first, but then i realized something: a lot of the episodes focus on two things:

1.) Steven’s ability to heal and cope with emotional pain and conflict (he heals the relationship between pearl and greg, helps kifi and fryman get along again and end their war, helps kiki stand up to her sister and heal her stress, helps lars realize how he is more likeable when he is nice)

and more importantly

2.) Steven’s ability to enter the minds of others.

I think the second ability supplemented by the first is the key to healing the corrupted gems. He can enter their minds to help them work through their trauma and heal them from the inside.

We’ve already seen the beginnings of this in the series. Steven was able to enter the mind of Malachite to talk to lapis and jasper individually, but wasn’t able to do much as his powers were still developing at this point. More recently, steven was able to enter the collective mind of the cluster and bring it to peace, calming the individual shards.

It comes back to what I think rose’s plan was for steven in the first place, and what “Love like You” is actually about: steven is capable of empathy in a way rose just isn’t. In the series, rose is portrayed as very kind, caring and compassionate but she also is shown completely disregarding the feelings of others quite often. Perhaps rose knew that this empathy was the key to helping the gems finally heal, which is why she chose to give birth to steven.