| “ | Just can it, won't ya?! You can't just make everything better by singing SOME STUPID SONG! | „ |
| ~ Spinel fighting Steven in Steven Universe: The Movie. |
| “ | All that stuff's easy for you to say! When you change, you change for the better! When I CHANGE, I CHANGE FOR THE WORSE! I used to be just! Not! Good enough! JUST! NOT! GOOD ENOUGH FOR PINK! But now... Now... I'M NOT GOOD AT ALL! That's funny, right? At least you found me entertaining. You actually... liked me... didn't you? What am I doing? Why do I wanna hurt you so bad? I'm supposed to be a friend! ... I just wanna be a friend... | „ |
| ~ Spinel's emotional breakdown. |
| Spinel | |
|---|---|
 213x240 | |
| Series | Steven Universe |
| Age | 6,000 years old |
| Birthday | Unknown |
| Sex | Genderless, identifies as female |
| Species | Unknown |
| Height | Unknown |
| Weight | Unknown |
| Alignment | Chaotic Neutral |
Spinel is a major character in Steven Universe. She serves as the main antagonist of the 2019 Cartoon Network animated television film Steven Universe: The Movie and a supporting character in the limited series, Steven Universe Past.
Background[]
Spinel was created thousands of years ago to comfort the lonely Pink Diamond. The two would play every day in Pink Diamond's Garden until Pink was finally given her own colony. At that point, Pink outgrew Spinel, and abandoned her under the guise of playing a game by having Spinel stand alone for thousands of years; Pink never came back. After discovering her abandonment through Steven's universe-small message, she went to Earth seeking revenge, and attempted to destroy all life on the planet. After making amends with Steven and the Crystal Gems, the Diamonds took her back to Homeworld to live with them.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Elasticity: Seemingly looking like an new-fashioned cartoon, Spinel's attack drip and movements are akin as well. She is extremely elastic and malleable, able to stretch her limbs and torso to great lengths and inflate body parts to strengthen her attacks. She uses this to increase the range of her attacks, able to reach enemies from a distance. She can also coil her extended limbs to form a spring with an inflated fist at the end. She even displayed the ability to become as flat as the ground and slither across it, in an almost semi-liquid like state. She's even able to coil one of her fingers into making a type of horn that activates and deactivates her injector. There appears to be no limit as to how far she can stretch.
- Twister Dash: She has the ability, when dashing at Steven, to dash in the style of a twister due to her elasticity and physiology similar to rubber or putty.
- Figure-Eight: In "Homeworld Bound", she is shown to be able to run incredibly quickly, making her legs look like a figure eight, similar to the "Super Peel Out" from Sonic The Hedgehog CD.
- Spin Dash: In "Homeworld Bound", she's able to dash similarly to Amethyst and Jasper.
- Levitation: When Steven sang "Change", she is seen to be able to levitate in the air for a while.
- Limb Separation: Spinel is shown to have the ability to separate her limbs. When she does this, she still has control of them and can even make them float.
- Scythe Proficiency: The non-summoned weapon Spinel wields is a Gem Rejuvenator that has the appearance of a scythe. Spinel was adept enough at wielding it that she was easily able to defeat three of the Crystal Gems with one strike. In conjunction with the weapon, Spinel's ability to stretch works greatly in her favor as it allows her to greatly increase the range of the scythe, allowing her to swipe at many different angles and increase the power behind it when she stretches far enough allowing the recoil to strengthen the attack made by the weapon.
Equipment[]
- Gem Rejuvenator: She obtained this via access to Blue Diamond's armory and used it against the Crystal Gems until it was destroyed by Steven. This weapon will revert any gem getting hit by it into their original programing from once they emerged as well as cripple Steven's powers to beginner levels.
Feats[]
Strength[]
- Picked up Steven and threw him extremely high into the sky, above the clouds, and jumped up with him.
- Grew her fist and coiled her arm into a spring, and smashed Steven into her injector, creating a crater.
- Smashed Steven's shield hard enough to send cracks throughout her injector.
- Punched Steven hard enough to make his nose bleed, although this was before he regained his powers.
- Matched punches with Steven.
- Smashed a boulder into Garnet.
- Quickly jumped to the top of her injector.
- Clashed with Garnet.
- Destroyed a communication computer made of stone.
- Can restrain Steven and the other Crystal Gems all at once.
Speed[]
- Dodged Garnet's punches.
- Quickly moved from Pearl to Amethyst.
- Slid quickly from Amethyst to Garnet.
Durability[]
- Was fine after getting kicked by Amethyst swung by Garnet.
- Survived getting slingshotted hard into her injector.
- Can withstand the force of her own and Steven's attacks.
Skill[]
- Destroyed her building-sized Injector.
- Nearly destroyed all life on Earth.
- Effortlessly defeated the Crystal Gems in their first encounter.
- Stood in place for 6,000 years.
- Managed to redeem herself after realizing how far she had fallen and how monstrous she had become, remembering that all she wanted was to be a friend.
- Helped comfort Steven and return him to normal after he had transformed into a giant monster.
Weaknesses[]
- Gem physiology
- Sufficient damage being dealt to her physical form results in being poofed into her gemstone.
- A cracked gem results in having less stamina, tiring out easily and glitching from time to time.
- Both of the flaws above make said gemstone vulnerable to being shattered if her combatant considers doing so, or is capable of.
- Her regeneration is limited; high type applies to reforming from being poofed, while low-type applies to healing from physical damage. However, reforming takes much more time than physical harm.
- Emotionally fragile.
- Gem Rejuvenator only affects Gems, so it’s pretty powerless against most other beings.
Fun Facts[]
- In gemology, spinels represent positivity, wealth and happiness.
- For this, her gem is in the shape of a heart. The most common spinels are shaped as a water droplet. In order to be heart-shaped, both spinels are joined together side by side.
- Her appearance was based on Jenny Wakeman/XJ9 from My Life as a Teenage Robot and Dee Dee from Dexter's Laboratory.
- Spinel is the only Gem, aside from Pink Diamond, who had rotated her gemstone.
- It is unknown why Pink abandoned Spinel after instigating the rebellion. Either Pink completely forgot about Spinel as she focused on the rebellion or left Spinel behind as an act of mercy from the horrors of the Gem War.
- Blue Diamond stated that Spinel is one of Pink Diamond's lost treasures which means that there might be other Gems out there like her.
- In a way, she actually serves as the deuteragonist of the film. She was the one that ultimately funded a way to revert Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl to their original selves. Sure, she was angry at some parts, such as her screaming "NO!" at Steven when he said that she had to stay with the other gems. Thankfully, she reverted back to her happy self after Steven said she can go with him. Thus, she should be considered the true deuteragonist of the film and not the rest of the main Crystal Gems (Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl), since they were not as their original selves for most of the film.
- Despite not appearing in the main series, Spinel is seemingly one of the most popular Steven Universe characters amongst fans.
- Tragically, it is noted that throughout the entirety of the main show's timeline, she was still waiting for Pink Diamond in the garden offscreen.