Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-26864837-20150812012435/@comment-24155515-20150819064238

Gerginater wrote: Here's my theory; Steven doesn't retreat into his gem. He goes through the same situation as any other human because he's half human. But, because he's half gem, he's able to heal and possibly regenerate the same way as other gems do, just without the retreating process.

This is my personal theory (though I have a few macabre scenarios to go with it that I won't mention here). If it's a mortal injury that would make any other gem poof, his gem half would retreat and his human half would either die or be saved because modern medicine has advanced to a stage that it's probably possible to treat (or at least sustain life) for an injury that would make a gem poof. If he died, he wouldn't be Steven anymore; she'd be Rose. If his gem half retreated, I get the feeling that his human half would become even weaker in the case of an injury and thus be harder to sustain even with modern medicine, which means there would be a very real possibility of him dying even when they're doing everything they can. I'm not sure the show would ever quite go that dark... but then again, they have touched upon the finality of death and trying to prevent it before...