Lion

"Does Lion have something to do with Rose?"

Lion is a magical pink lion befriended by Steven that occasionally assists the Crystal Gems. Once a normal lion (presumably owned by Rose Quartz in the Desert hundreds of years ago), Lion eventually died through unknown means. Rose Quartz was able to resurrect Lion through her healing powers, giving Lion pink skin and magical abilities. After being entrusted with many of Rose's belongings, Lion roamed the Desert alone following Rose's departure until eventually being found by Steven.

Lion's mane contains a pocket dimension that houses many of Rose's belongings (and, formerly, Bismuth's bubbled gemstone). The pocket dimension also connects to multiple entrances, such as the one within Lars Barriga's hair.

Appearance
Lion has round ears, pink fur, black eyes, a soft light pink star-shaped mane, and a dark brownish-magenta heart-shaped nose. When Lion uses his magical abilities, his eyes and mane emit a white glow. There is a tuft of soft pink fur at the end of his thin tail.

Personality
Lion is an enigmatic creature whose sentience and sapience is somewhat questionable. However, he seems to act like a typical house cat, doing things like chasing butterflies in "Rose's Scabbard" and snapping at the dragonfly-like lights created by Sardonyx in "Cry for Help". Much like a normal animal, he rarely changes his expression and for the most part, he is quiet and docile. Though he is considered a "pet" for Steven, Lion looks after himself and often sees to his activities. While Lion does not seem to acknowledge Steven most of the time, he does appear to understand Steven to a certain extent, responding whenever Steven needs him in mysterious ways. "Lion 2: The Movie" shows this understanding when he takes him and Connie to Rose's Secret Armory. Steven remarks how Lion is not "trained very well", and in "Lion 3: Straight to Video", Lion nearly smothers Steven's face to show him the dimension in his mane when Steven said he wanted to know more about his mother.

Abilities

 * Concussive Roar: Lion has a loud, powerful roar that sends pink rings to destroy/knock down structures. Examples include knocking down multiple sand constructs in "Steven's Lion", pushing the remains of the Gem Warship in "Jail Break", and trying to defeat Lapis' water clone of Steven in "Ocean Gem". In "Crack the Whip", his roar sends the Snow Monster flying.
 * Dimensiokinesis: Lion can manipulate dimensions with relative ease.
 * Portal Creation and Manipulation: Lion's roar can also open up pink portals, connecting two non-adjacent areas. "Lion 2: The Movie" first shows this when he takes Steven and Connie to Rose's Secret Armory, and additionally when going to the Gem Communication Hub in "Cry for Help". He also uses this ability to bring Connie and Steven to the Maheswaran residence in "Nightmare Hospital" and when Lion, with Connie on his back, rescue Steven in "Ocean Gem". Lion also uses this power to find and bring Steven to Pearl in "Rose's Scabbard". Lion can create portals that help him cover enormous distances as shown in "It Could've Been Great" when he creates a portal from Earth to the Moon in mere seconds. This does leave him fatigued afterward, possibly due to carrying Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl on his back and Steven and Peridot in his mane while traversing the portal.
 * Acceleration Portal: Once inside his portal, Lion can create multiple portals that cause him to accelerate with each pass on an individual portal. This trick is likely done to increase speed and distance traveled, As seen in the episode "It Could've Been Great".
 * Pocket Dimension: Like Pearl, Lion has a pocket dimension that is currently only accessible through his mane as well as Lars' hair after his resurrection. This dimension is a vast pink savannah that now includes two grassy hills, one with an acacia tree and another with a tree resembling an oak. As shown in "Lars' Head," Steven (and presumably others) can travel through one entrance and exit through the other.
 * Dimensional Storage: Rose stored some of her most cherished and important belongings inside of Lion's mane for safe keeping.  These include a variety of items, such as her sword, a photo, and videotape of her and Greg, a treasure chest, the Mr. Universe Shirt Greg gave her when they first met, a tattered flag with Rose's symbol, and Bismuth's gem. It also contains some of Steven's belongings such as his bike, helmet, some magic trick paraphernalia, soda, and probably much more. Thus far, Steven is the only one who can directly access Lion's dimension, as we see when Pearl touched Lion's mane with little success.
 * Supernatural Stamina: Lion has incredible stamina, as shown in "Ocean Gem" where Lion kept pace with Greg's Van for an entire day while carrying Steven and Connie. He also demonstrates the capability to leap far distances. However, his stamina does have limits, as in "Cry for Help" when after carrying all three Crystal Gems with Steven in his pocket dimension, he shows signs of fatigue. "It Could've Been Great" further shows this limitation since the strain Lion feels is directly proportional to the distance traveled;  making a portal from the Earth to the moon was enough to make him collapse and breathe heavily.
 * Water-Walking: Lion can walk on water, as seen in "Lion 2: The Movie" when he takes Steven and Connie to Rose's Secret Armory. He shares this ability with Lapis Lazuli, Opal, and Pearl.

Trivia

 * Lion appears to like Lion Lickers, as shown in the episode, "Lion 3: Straight to Video", when he presses his face against the glass of the freezer holding the Lion Lickers. This attraction could just be because he is a lion.
 * In "Nightmare Hospital", Steven gives Lion Lickers to Lion to get him to stay in the Hospital parking lot. Lion seems enthralled by them, frantically attempting to reach the treat before the plastic is even off, to which Steven remarks about the animality of doing so.
 * Rebecca Sugar's pet cat is also named Lion.
 * Lion's ability to teleport might explain how he manages to follow the Crystal Gems back to the Temple in "Steven's Lion".
 * Lion usually sleeps near the house of the temple, as shown in "Fusion Cuisine" and in "Steven the Sword Fighter", when he is seen resting underneath the house.
 * In "Lion 3: Straight to Video", Steven allows Lion to sleep in the house in a bed he made for him.
 * One of the concepts designs considered for Lion is an "unsettling, silent caricature of a lion", like an "old medieval heraldry image. His face frozen into an uncertain grin except for his eyes which would follow Steven around while he creeped out the other Crystal Gems. He might not be pretty and actually kinda suspicious, but Steven loved him!".
 * As revealed in "Rose's Scabbard", Lion can restrict who can enter his mane. Pearl is rejected initially in "Rose's Scabbard"; Pearl makes no further attempts since.
 * It should be noted that after reaching the Moon Base in "It Could've Been Great", Peridot can be seen sharing space with Steven and stepping out of Lion's Mane.
 * It is unclear how far Lion can teleport, but the furthest he has teleported so far is to the Moon while carrying Steven, Peridot, and the Crystal Gems. The jump to the Moon required several portals to stay open and is shown to exhaust Lion.
 * Steven states in "Lion 2: The Movie" that Lion "does his own thing most of the time".
 * Lion's portals are in the shape of diamonds and his teleportation theme features distorted accordions, the same instrument used in the theme songs for characters of the Diamond Authority.
 * When Lion saves Steven from the sandstorm in "Steven's Lion", Lion's color scheme changes and resembles the male Lions seen alongside Rose Quartz in the episode "Buddy's Book". His mane becomes darker than his body fur, changing from pink to cream-colored.
 * In the episode, "Lars' Head" we see that Lars develops an ability to allow Steven to travel to Lion's head, indicating a connection to how Lion's ability and fur color formed.
 * He is similar in some respects to the Marvel Comics character Lockjaw.

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