Don't forget the Crystal Gems basically being Rose's Disciples and having her picture and statue as if they worship her. Also, I always found Rose and Pearl's relationship to be extremely similar to Jesus' relationship with Peter.
edited 14th Jun '17 5:08:41 PM by deuteragonist
I don't think humanity is exactly the same. The constant Weirdness Censor the residents of Beach City have and the abnormal alien design say that a lot is in fact different, we just don't get to know about those differences because from Steven's perspective they're normal and he doesn't question them.
Oissu!Y Ou know the religious aspect is something I've thought about before, but it never really occurred to me that it could be an actual thing in the show.
Bide your time, and Hold out Hope — GANKUTSUOU Just because it's irrational, doesn't mean it's not real.For one thing, dialogue has mentioned the concepts of angels and demons, both figuratively* and literally*
Religion is just as present (i.e. unspecified) as other cartoons of this time, place, and demographic, even the ones mundane or Mundane Fantastic enough where religion would logically be the same.
The problem isn't that humans accept Gem stuff as normal, it's that they rarely react at all. Even if the rebellion was 5000 years ago, people should still know about it. That kinda stuff gets passed down orally. Maybe as myths. And even if it wasn't, historians and archeologists would have at least figured out the alien invasion part. I doubt a little danger would keep people away; most gem monsters are not much more dangerous than a mammoth. Except for the respawn bit.
Even if Steven knows little, someone like Connie would research it. Maybe the humans get stuff wrong, but they should know something. Instead, most outside of Beach City never heard of the gems, and Beach City ignores them.
I normally wouldn't mind, but the show puts so much effort into world building for the gems, but ignores the humans.
edited 14th Jun '17 5:47:13 PM by SilentColossus
Aspects of the show resemble those of real life religions/mythologies, but I wouldn't necessarily say that reflects something about the religions in the show's world. There is No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus, after all.
I mean, if I saw evidence of hyper-advanced alien technology laying around Earth, I'd scavenge/outright steal that shit, even if it's almost completely indecipherable to me and will probably give me cancer.
CN posted a video preview of Save the Light from E3. I haven't watch the whole thing yet, it's a half hour long, but the character and environmental art/animations looks pretty freaking sweet.
Unfortunately, despite a comment from that video about a PC version apparently made in error, the devs has specified
it's only currently planned for PS 4 and XBONE.
Yeah. I realize it's probably another downside to the show's 11-minute format, but as I've said before, the whole Alternate History aspect of the series seems completely superfluous.
Adventure Time is a show that always made me wonder how much was planned and how much was made up as they went along. Certain plotlines were set up way in advanced, but with some things the payoff takes so long that it seems like they only decided to expand on it later on. Sometimes it seems like they have too many ideas and they don't always know what to do with them.
I think you can explain this attitude to an extent. To the humans, the Gems have always been around. They might not understand them, but the situation isn't like it would be if aliens just randomly dropped out of the sky. Unfortunately, Connie's parents not reacting to Alexandrite or the mutations took this attitude too far for me to find plausible, and I think those instances would've been more fitting for a show that takes itself less seriously than Steven Universe.
I do feel there's potential in exploring how humans view Gems. "Rising Tides, Crashing Skies" is pretty much the only episode where anyone bothers to ask "Why are you so cool with all this weird stuff happening?" I still wonder if Ronaldo's documentary will ever come back into play. The episode ends with the Crystal Gems noting that no one else seems to have seen the video, which seemed like a signal that it's going to become relevant in the future. But given how little interest the show has in exploring human and Gem relationships, it might not.
Given that the Gems' battle fields seem to have been untouched until that explorer dude found them, it made me wonder if the Gems had an agreement with all human governments to not mess with their stuff. I doubt it'll ever be addressed, but I could see Rose trying to work out an arrangement to minimize humans accidently causing problems by interacting with Gem tech or creatures.
edited 14th Jun '17 6:27:34 PM by thatother1dude
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Adventure Time started off with them making it up as they went along, then they began planning out each season as they started production on them. Even then, you can tell it's largely unplanned and suffers from the Chris Carter Effect. The entire idea of Ooo being post-apocalyptic Earth wasn't even intentional, it was originally a joke from the Business Time episode. The whole "foreshadowing" about Finn's arm more than likely was originally them making a joke. Hell, Marceline and the Ice King having a dark and emotional past and Ice King's cursed crown was retroactively added in because the characters hadn't interacted at the time and they needed an explanation for Ice King's constant forgetfulness. You can tell because in one early episode, Ice King literally says that he made the crown himself. It was retconned in that the crown was an ancient artifact.
Compare to Steven Universe, where even the original pilot from before it was ever picked up in the first place foreshadowed Garnet being a fusion in the first few minutes, where the first episode foreshadows the Gems being alien refugees who turned their back on Homeworld with the Cookie Cat song, and where the huge temple and mural from Serious Steven was foreshadowing the Gem War and the Diamond Authority and Rose shattering Pink Diamond. They planned a lot more than Adventure Time ever did and it kinda shows when you go back and watch the early episodes.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?That works because the Ice King was crazy anyway...and it was made the exact way he said he made it.
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Despite my bias, I'd like to think anything not related to Character development wasn't planned.
Who was around 5 millenia ago again? Like, the Egyptians? If Gems were around since back then, I would figure the whole "Gem War" thing was literal ancient history and is just a part of general public consciousnes. How often do we really see stuff about, say, Ancient Mesopotamia IRL, without actively looking for it? Never. Same thing here. Like, even Andy didn't seem to care that all the Gems had weird colors, just that they were screwing with the barn.
edited 14th Jun '17 6:39:54 PM by SalFishFin
I will point out that the gems' origin was first planned to be very
◊ different, and much of season 1a would be the same (even the subtler hints could be taken different ways). I still think SU is much better at planning out plot twists and especially character backstoriesExample , but the idea of gems being aliens was written in a similar way to Ooo being Earth All Along.
Ironic, considering gems even being aliens is like Robert Patrick's character in Terminator 2 being a robot sent by Skynet, while the T-800 is actually the good guy—it's been spoiled so hard it goes past It Was His Sled, and now people don't even realize it's a plot twist as they watch it.
Point is, with a long production cycle like this, you can add a lot of foreshadowing very late in. The amount in the opening of Over the Garden Wall is just freaking crazy, but they could do that because it was literally the last thing in the show they made.
> Who was around 5 millenia ago again? Like, the Egyptians?
According to the wikipedia I just glanced at the people there would be the earliest people to inhabit Egypt and settle along the Nile,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_millennium_BC
edited 15th Jun '17 1:59:27 PM by Ultimatum
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverThe news on Save the Light is disappointing; I don't have any of the latest-gen consoles. Only a 3DS and a PC.
Me and my friend's collaborative webcomic: Forged Men

Either way, while you can find the show to be wasting narrative potential with its Alternate History, the original statement was that human society being functionally identical to real life is proof the whole show "makes no statement whatsoever". As if a story can only convey a message through its setting, not plot or characters.
And really, the main reasons humanity is basically the same is because the gems are the aliens. To make human culture more different than real life is to diminish the alien aspects of gem culture.