Re: Crystal Gems having Manton protection from Shatterbird, remember Weld has certain power immunity: (from 9.1) “In addition, his biology fell into some optimal middle ground between organic and inorganic. For those whose powers affected only living things, he counted as inorganic. The opposite was also true.” So it depends on how the powers see their gems.
That is a good point, though it’s worth noting that in SU canon, Gems are explicitly inorganic life (which hits a weird spot with the Manton effect, since whether it operates on “organic vs inorganic” or “alive vs lifeless” seems to vary). But who knows if the power will see it that way?
By the way, while we’re on the topic of SU and the Manton effect: I think it’s in effect
along the “alive vs lifeless” axis for one of Steven’s powers, but the characters don’t realize it.
Steven has the power to heal, but for a while he’s presented as having “lost” this ability due to lack of confidence in it after Greg pretended it didn’t work. I think that’s bullshit and conclusion jumping on the characters’ part – his healing power not working for a while is far better explained by him not trying to use it on anything he perceived as alive between “losing” the power and “regaining” it, nor have we seen the reverse outside this period.
It didn’t work to heal a crack in a giant stormy rock that wasn’t a living being like the Gems and humans are (the power works on both Gems and humans, so it’s not an “organic vs inorganic” thing), so he concluded it had outright disappeared.
(He does discover that “it’s back” by way of accidentally healing a teddy bear, to which you could argue that it isn’t alive, but I think MC Bear Bear is alive to Steven.)
I think what rubs me most the wrong way about the whole thing is that if I’m right about this and Steven couldn’t heal lifeless things in the first place, taking away the healing power he only unlocked three episodes earlier didn’t even serve any narrative purpose beyond the (mediocre at best) episode it happened in.
</rant>
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