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I’m going to be completely honest with you guys. The ending of Steven Universe was not good. It was pretty heartbreaking to watch the show start to crumble towards the end of season 4. Everything about it just started to feel off, from the voice acting, to the pacing, to the awkward dialogue until it began morphing into something that hardly resembled itself. It’s like the first couple seasons of the show had a completely different tone. Yeah it was light hearted and wholesome, but the undertones were heavy and laced with dread. The Crystal Gems were literal war veterans struggling with PTSD and left to pick up the pieces of a war they lost, seeing the familiar faces of beloved friends and comrades twisted into monsters and lost to insanity. The early seasons of the show were dark and they were atmospheric. They felt grounded and real. But the last seasons just felt like this disgusting overly sentimental and vapid garbage that was a fever dream dressed up like a Disney Princess movie.
The problem wasn’t the Pink Diamond reveal. It was the way that it was handled. It’s the character of PD herself and the horrible way that she was written. They could have done it without completely ruining Pearl’s character and invalidating all of her character development. They could have made it to where PD starts out as an immature brat and what begins as childish curiosity about her subjects evolves into true love and understanding for her colony and life on earth. She could have matured and learned to see her subjects less as playthings but more as people with their own autonomy and their own desires. She could have learned to see Pearl as an equal, a comrade, and someone worthy of her respect instead of being completely blind to Pearl’s utter enslavement. We could have seen PD mature into Rose, someone who is deeply flawed, but someone who genuinely understands the value of freedom and individualism and who is willing to stand her ground and fight against the Diamonds, not like an insolent child rebelling against her parents, but like a mother willing to make great sacrifice in order to protect the planet and the colony that she cares about more than anything.
They should have never redeemed the Diamonds and I honestly think it was such a wasted opportunity. Since the Diamonds are meant to be a metaphor for having an abusive and parasitic family, they could have taught a lesson about how it’s ok to cut toxic people out of your life, even family. They could have taught that it isn’t your responsibility to take care of narcissists and manipulators that drain you emotionally and mentally abuse you. They could have taught that, idk, maybe fascist genocidal dictators aren’t deserving of second chances? Like obviously they wouldn’t have shattered the Diamonds on screen, but they should have been poofed and bubbled or somehow imprisoned for what they’ve done.
By making Steven sympathetic to them, it kind of knocks him down to their level. It makes me feel distrustful and alienated from his character. If he’s so selfless and so empathetic, how could he forgive the Diamonds so easily after the endless torment they’ve inflicted on their own people? Do the corrupted gems forgive the Diamonds for what they’ve done? What about the countless gems that were shattered on the basis of being defective?
What about what they did to Garnet? To Lapis? To Pearl? Aren’t these people Steven’s real family?
I don’t know man. There were some truly special moments in these final episodes. I loved watching Ruby and Sapphire get married. Seeing Amethyst’s development wrap up was immensely satisfying and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the entire team fight the Diamonds as one unit. There were some really great songs too, but there were also so many weird fucking choices made by the writers and episodes that just felt totally wrong. Like Lars of the Stars and Pool Hopping, both episodes with janked voice acting, awkward AF dialogue, god awful pacing. The list goes on. I honestly sort of reject the ending of the series as being canon because I would much rather accept a different version of it as being reality. You know, something that doesn’t have to cannibalize it’s own identity to exist.

Description

I’m going to be completely honest with you guys. The ending of Steven Universe was not good. It was pretty heartbreaking to watch the show start to crumble towards the end of season 4. Everything about it just started to feel off, from the voice acting, to the pacing, to the awkward dialogue until it began morphing into something that hardly resembled itself. It’s like the first couple seasons of the show had a completely different tone. Yeah it was light hearted and wholesome, but the undertones were heavy and laced with dread. The Crystal Gems were literal war veterans struggling with PTSD and left to pick up the pieces of a war they lost, seeing the familiar faces of beloved friends and comrades twisted into monsters and lost to insanity. The early seasons of the show were dark and they were atmospheric. They felt grounded and real. But the last seasons just felt like this disgusting overly sentimental and vapid garbage that was a fever dream dressed up like a Disney Princess movie.
The problem wasn’t the Pink Diamond reveal. It was the way that it was handled. It’s the character of PD herself and the horrible way that she was written. They could have done it without completely ruining Pearl’s character and invalidating all of her character development. They could have made it to where PD starts out as an immature brat and what begins as childish curiosity about her subjects evolves into true love and understanding for her colony and life on earth. She could have matured and learned to see her subjects less as playthings but more as people with their own autonomy and their own desires. She could have learned to see Pearl as an equal, a comrade, and someone worthy of her respect instead of being completely blind to Pearl’s utter enslavement. We could have seen PD mature into Rose, someone who is deeply flawed, but someone who genuinely understands the value of freedom and individualism and who is willing to stand her ground and fight against the Diamonds, not like an insolent child rebelling against her parents, but like a mother willing to make great sacrifice in order to protect the planet and the colony that she cares about more than anything.
They should have never redeemed the Diamonds and I honestly think it was such a wasted opportunity. Since the Diamonds are meant to be a metaphor for having an abusive and parasitic family, they could have taught a lesson about how it’s ok to cut toxic people out of your life, even family. They could have taught that it isn’t your responsibility to take care of narcissists and manipulators that drain you emotionally and mentally abuse you. They could have taught that, idk, maybe fascist genocidal dictators aren’t deserving of second chances? Like obviously they wouldn’t have shattered the Diamonds on screen, but they should have been poofed and bubbled or somehow imprisoned for what they’ve done.
By making Steven sympathetic to them, it kind of knocks him down to their level. It makes me feel distrustful and alienated from his character. If he’s so selfless and so empathetic, how could he forgive the Diamonds so easily after the endless torment they’ve inflicted on their own people? Do the corrupted gems forgive the Diamonds for what they’ve done? What about the countless gems that were shattered on the basis of being defective?
What about what they did to Garnet? To Lapis? To Pearl? Aren’t these people Steven’s real family?
I don’t know man. There were some truly special moments in these final episodes. I loved watching Ruby and Sapphire get married. Seeing Amethyst’s development wrap up was immensely satisfying and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the entire team fight the Diamonds as one unit. There were some really great songs too, but there were also so many weird fucking choices made by the writers and episodes that just felt totally wrong. Like Lars of the Stars and Pool Hopping, both episodes with janked voice acting, awkward AF dialogue, god awful pacing. The list goes on. I honestly sort of reject the ending of the series as being canon because I would much rather accept a different version of it as being reality. You know, something that doesn’t have to cannibalize it’s own identity to exist.