Steven Universe

I also liked that all the villains ultimately had some sort of good in them. My only issue is with the pacing and it feeling rushed, but they might be saving a little of the cynicism and the pragmatic consequences for the movie.

Villains are always redeemable these days...

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

Is that really such a bad thing?

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It's pretty lame for someone like me who's pretty disconnected.

I don't exactly care about unfortunate implications, it just ends up being samey.

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

To clarify, what I mean is I don't think it was realistic to expect this show to attempt to give a true to life answer to how you change despots.

I think the plot twist that he actually couldn't just work things out how he normally does, does tackle that you can't always talk your way out of a conflict though. I get Steven insisted to talk with White, and that's misleading, but I don't think that makes it unfair to the viewer or anything. I think that was foreshadowed by Bismuth's talk about going into the Lion's Den.

As an aside I'm really hoping James Baxter does some animation work for the movie.

Edited by xanderiskander on Jan 22nd 2019 at 4:27:21 AM

I actually like how White went down, what irks me is how quickly it happened; she was downright chilling as an antagonist, and now that phase of the character is over before it really even had time to sink in.

Incidentally, I'm quite curious what White Diamond's other powers are; she clearly knew Pink Diamond was Rose Quartz all along, she knows what a mom is, what a child is, and recognized Steven was a hybrid. That suggests some sort of mind-reading or clairvoyance.

I think that in both fiction and real life there's a very strong tendency to act as if the worst despots are completely devoid of any humanity and are just pure-evil monsters just for the sake of it which, as you can imagine, has all sorts of unfortunate and unhealthy implications.

So in that regard, it's definitely a good things are more willing to humanize their antagonists despite their misdeeds, but that goes both ways. Because the approach of "everyone can be talked down if you try hard enough" isn't true either.

If there had to be a choice between the two, the latter is still a better lesson than the former, but neither are particularly accurate.

Of course, this is ultimately a kids show, so it's not particularly surprising they don't do a "realistic" take down of someone like White, I really think the issue there is more time than anything else.

But I can still understand complaining about the whole "Rose shattered Pink Diamond, it was necessary, and Steven has to deal with the fallout of tha- wait, no Rose actually was Pink Diamond!" thing.

Full version of "Love Like You (reprise)"

I think for me it would've been more effective if it took more time for it to sink in with White Diamond. A lot of people need time before their minds change. A single conversation is rarely enough to change minds; in my case, certain attitudes of mine regarding social justice issues required multiple discussions, sometimes over the span of a year or more, before my attitude shifted dramatically.

I just hope that Jasper's redemption is sort of a gradual process rather than her suddenly being cool with the heroes.

I can imagine her feeling betrayed by Pink. Jasper is one of the many soldiers under Pink that fought for her since she was created, suffer in misery after the war, only for it to turn out she and everyone else were bamboozled by Pink.

Additionally, her arc might revolve around her trying to be loyal to herself as a person, rather than only trying to follow the commands of her Diamond.

I mean, that works under the assumption that Jasper will get an arc at all.

Somewhat related, the Crystal Gems are one thing, but I wonder if the ones who were still loyalty to Homeworld just, well, went home?

Edited by LSBK on Jan 22nd 2019 at 4:19:58 AM

Honestly, I'd have preferred they took their time; Blue was the only one who I completely bought; she was already really close to Pink, seemed to at least be trying to accommodate "Steven" despite not really understanding him, and there's already a basis for her being miserable in her position as a Diamond and having a degree of appreciation for "lesser" lifeforms, albeit in a Condescending Compassion sense. Yellow I feel should have been a lot more stubborn, and White should have been all but impossible.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 22nd 2019 at 5:21:43 AM

I can just see Jasper sulking in the corner while they try to coax her out to talk with other gems and she's like humph!

New theme music also a box

I mean, if Homeworld's prepared to accept them even with their flaws, I imagine some of the crystal gems might prefer to go "home", and meanwhile if they're not going to be compelled to return to their role, some of the Homeworld gems might want to stay.

Edit: On a tangent, there is ONE slim hope of us getting villainous White Diamond again, and that's if the antagonist of The Movie comes to be via White Diamond trying even harder to excise herself of all impurity rather than taking the Steven induced epiphany to heart.

Edit 2: Now that Homeworld is at peace with the Crystal Gems and Earth, you think they'll repair the Homeworld warp for real this time?

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 22nd 2019 at 5:50:29 AM

I think the main issue is that SU, while idealistic, is usually pretty on the ball with its outlook on life and relationships and it even goes into some surprisingly uncomfortable territory.

I think it's great that the Diamonds turned out to be complex characters who were ultimately able to turn around, but the thing is that this doesn't change the fact that they led an empire that likely destroyed countless worlds and lives. To put it mildly their misdeeds, to me, are genuinely unforgivable. To me it's fine if steven still cares about them because they're his family in a way, but it feels like the show should have done a better job of emphasizing that the Diamonds have a lot of blood on their hands and have done a lot that cannot be undone. To me, they should realize that and have to live with it going forward.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 22nd 2019 at 7:24:59 AM

How much can you fit in a 44 minute episode though?

Oh really when?

Sure.

I loved this episode. It was everything. It all made sense. And Bashful White is the best thing, right after Tantrum White. Villain White was good enough, but it was undermined by her being wrong. Usually when villains give a Breaking Speech, they're either correct, or maliciously and knowingly misleading. But being wrong while being so incredibly smug and self-assured makes you look like a Smug Snake. Her Pride made her Pitiful, even as she was still frightening.

At least I'll give her props for being rational enough to admit the plain truth before her, instead of pulling some delusion or mental gymnastics. A lot of gems couldn't manage that. A lot of people, too.

There's a lot of loose ends to wrap up. It's gonna be like Babylon 5.

Damn, that was a good show.

I love the message of the show, and I love how it delivered An Aesop in the aesopiest way possible: by summarizing it in a short piece of verse.

I respect me. I love me. And if you'd get out of your head, you could know me.

Thank you, Crewniverse. This show has actively been making my life better for years. It may have saved my life. I'll never forget that. I'll always love you for it.

Do they have an address for fan mail? Twitter seems petty.

Enough serious tk. Time for some shitposting:

Edited by Oruka on Jan 22nd 2019 at 3:48:12 AM

I just remembered I was going to ask about Blue's accent, but it is already up on the trope page. It's a lot more pronounced than it was before.

It's been fun.

I do think White's redemption was a bit rushed, but I'm not convinced that's the last we'll see of the fallout from that, or even the last we'll see of White facing consequences/the Diamond Authority continuing to try to fix her problems. Considering this ep only had them just start to acknowledge that there was something to work on.

Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.

I was convinced for a moment that White was going to respond to Steven's point that she needs to get out of her own head by leaving her post and walking the universe, but the denoument was pretty fast paced so I guess the question of "what are these space conquerors going to do now" is a bit glossed over.

If there really are more episodes coming, they could certainly be used to transition all these different characters into new stages of their lives. Go back to being episodic for a while, each focusing on a different person Steven needs to help.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Guys, there is no point in using spoiler markers now, there have been multiple pages of posts since the episode came out.

I'm assuming it's just Hannigan's natural accent at this point. Honestly, I wonder why she bothered affecting an American one in the first place—there were already multiple gems with non-American accents.

She also had an intimidate knowledge (and very warped interpretation) of all the Crystal Gems, though that could just be because she had taken over them (in which case, she can read minds really fast).

Technically, she could have learned this stuff from mundane surveillance (i.e. looking up the data on Earth life and eavesdropping on the Crystal Gems while they were staying), but you know, magic.

Not like anyone is gonna be lost without her guidance.

She could learn a lot just by going amongst her subjects for once, but non-gems would somewhat less likely to crap themselves (metaphorically) in terror.

---

I wonder why Lion stayed on Earth, especially after he seemed ready to help Bismuth.

It's been a very long time, but did they ever address what the spinning octahedral white gem in the middle of the Moon base was?

Yeah I don't get why they wouldn't just have Hannigan speak in her natural accent from the start.

"Can't Go Back" showed it was a surveillance device.

Maybe it was her idea—she could have even assumed the voice director wanted an American accent, and learned later it wasn't a problem.

Edited by thatother1dude on Jan 22nd 2019 at 9:57:18 AM