BITTER PEEPS

Yeah, that line is cringy now x_x

Anyway, my thoughts on the “there’s always another way than killing,” message. It works for certain characters. It definitely doesn’t work for tyrannical dictators.

It works for Batman because the show already established his no killing rule. It works for Avatar The Last Airbender because Aang was raised by monks and learned about their ideals and morals. Plus the show and characters addressed and acknowledged that Fire Lord Ozai is bad and must be stopped.

While Aang didn’t kill him, he did made him weak by stripping him of his bending. Ozai was then locked behind bars to rot to attone for his crimes.

In SU….not so much. In the beginning of the show he was all about fighting. He loved how the Gems fought corrupted Gems. He loves how Opal fought, he loved how violent Sugilite was. When Lapis told him that they can’t fight Peridot and Jasper Steven was like, “No, that’s why we HAVE to fight them!”

He learned about the Diamonds. He learned that they don’t care about the Earth. He learned that they want to destroy it. He acknowledged that they are bad people.

But now when he comes face to face with the Diamonds, he doesn’t want to fight them? He wants to talk to them? Despite learning about the horrors they’ve done? Steven, these people colonize planets and kill their own people for being different. Why do you think the Off Colors were hiding?

Where did his spark to fight back go? Where did this “Let’s talk it out” attitude come from? What happened to Steven?

This whole “I don’t want to fight the Diamonds, I’d rather talk it out/we’re family” is just so sudden and out of place for a show that started out with Steven ready to throw hands.

Like imagine if at the end of That Will Be All, we get a cutaway just for a few seconds of the Diamonds telling two silhouetted gems that their mission is to retrieve the listen humans from Earth. Or at the end of Gem Drill we cut away for a few seconds, a slow zoom in on a crack in the ground. Jasper’s hand reaches out suddenly and the episode ends. TENSION IS CREATED because we now KNOW that Jasper is out there somewhere plotting something. What if we saw Sugilite realise that Pearl had left her behind, and see her RIGHTLY get mad about it. The audience knowing things that the characters dont works GREAT sometimes. Like Gravity Falls, when we had that whole episode where Dipper and Mabel question Stan’s trust, and finally come to the conclusion that they’re just paranoid and nothing’s up. Then we see Stan opening a secret door in the Mystery Shack and disappearing. THAT was a great moment because WE knew that Stan was up to something, but Dipper and Mabel didn’t. Dramatic irony, it works.

When the whole show revolves around Steven, we can’t see anything but his view. If something happens and he’s not there, we don’t see it. It’s not the worst narrative choice in the world, but it would really pay off if we just didn’t have to focus on Steven ALL THE TIME. We could have episodes that explore the dynamic of characters without Steven being there. Like, what if Reformed just focused on Garnet and Amethyst and didn’t include Steven at all? It’d be better imo, ‘cause really what purpose did Steven serve in that episode?? None. At all. What if Gem Hunt focussed on Connie and Pearl without Steven there?

of course u can dismiss critiques of a kid’s show with “well it’s a children’s show it doesn’t have to be perfect” but when you keep in mind that the racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, etc that can be found in some kids shows is going to shape these kids’ view of themselves and the world around them it puts a lot of stuff into perspective