Still thinking about the Steven Universe movie

[conuly]

Read a review which said that Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond was now revealed as the true villain all along.

Bit of a simplistic take, but okay. We've known for a while that Rose could be incredibly selfish - heck, a huge part of Pearl's character development was acknowledging this fact. And that's definitely part of what happened here. She didn't think of Spinel as a person whose feelings mattered, more like a toy she'd outgrown, and so she told Spinel to wait for her.

But I think the other half has to do with what we see in our very first non-fairytale scene. The Diamonds want nothing more than for Steven to live in the palace forever so they can adore him (their words) and, in his words, smother him with attention. And he does that thing where he sets a boundary - yes, it's great that they did those things he wanted, and they should keep doing them, but that doesn't mean that they get to dictate where he'll live. Obviously he visits them, but they're not the center of his life and never will be.

It scary saying that to the Diamonds. They are really terrifying. Much earlier in the series it was shocking and sobering to see the Crystal Gems, generally competent badasses, hiding behind a rock when Peridot showed up.

But at any time, Pink Diamond could've said that to Spinel. "Hey, Spinel, you're great but I'm going off to Earth and I don't think I'll have much time for goofy fun for a while. I'm gonna take a break on this for a while." Spinel would've been upset and maybe confused, but she would've known what happened.

Except that Pink would've had to deal with those messy emotions. Spinel couldn't've done anything to her, not like the Diamonds - couldn't make her cry, couldn't lock her in her room - but she would've been upset, and in the end it was easier to just put her in the toybox and forget about her. Easier for Pink, anyway, though even she doesn't seem to be quite selfish enough to have literally never thought about her again. (She remembered to go pick up Amethyst eventually, didn't she?)

That's Pink Diamond's fatal flaw right there. Not that she was selfish, though she was, but that she would always rather avoid an unpleasant conversation when it was easier to pretend that other people's feelings didn't matter. That's what she did to Bismuth too - she could have told her the truth, but it was easier to bubble her and shove her inside Lion's mane and pretend, for the next few thousand years, that she had no idea what happened. It was easier to fake her own death than to really stand up to her family. (I'm with her on this one, but this one only.) It was easier to order Pearl never to say anything about the truth than to just trust her to keep the secret.

It must have been almost a relief to do whatever she did to kill herself and make Steven in her stead. For all that talk about how humans grow and change, she could've grown and changed. She could've made up her messy emotional interpersonal mistakes, one person at a time. She just chose not to. That is not ever Steven's flaw. He has all the messy emotional conversations.

Which makes her something less than a hero, but she's not quite the real villain either. I don't think there is a real villain other than the criminal lack of mental health support among all the main characters.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I haven't seen the movie yet but I'm with you on the analysis of Pink Diamond.

[conuly]

Mmm. And she paid the cost in the fact that she pretty much never had a real conversation or relationship with anybody ever, because she had all those secrets and lack of trust and occasional abandonments hanging on her. (The Diamonds, Bismuth, and Spinel paid a much higher cost.)

[erinptah]

I'm with you on Bismuth and Spinel, but wouldn't say that Pink had the least suffering out of all the Diamonds.

Someone on Tumblr pointed out that we got Rose's character arc in reverse -- at first we know her as this transcendent loving hero, and then we start finding out her past mistakes, culminating in the worst of her teenage flaws. If we saw her life in chronological order, it would be received as a much more standard "character starts off as a shallow, privileged youth, then learns more about how the world works and starts standing up for the oppressed" story.

[conuly]

Okay, I'll give you the other Diamonds. They're all toxic, even now. It's only too clear that they seem to think, like so many people, that their good behavior is some sort of credit card - they put minimally civil actions in, and they're supposed to get affection from Steven out in response.

[conuly]

(And relatedly, I'm not entirely sure that Spinel living with the Diamonds is a move that's going to be good for any of them. Oh well, at least right now they're all getting what they think they want. Unconditional love for the Diamonds, loads and loads of attention for Spinel.)

[frith]

Pink Diamond was also immature and treated as such by Yellow Diamond (and perhaps the others as well). Her role models, the other diamonds, weren't exactly shining examples of dialog and respect between leaders and servants. I'm not surprised that her journey from rebel and hedonist to revolutionary to finally, egalitarian, was a long one.

[conuly]

Pink was, frankly, emotionally abused by the other Diamonds. This isn't a novel take. The fact that her default response to other people's emotions was "no, don't" is not really surprising. Actually, the fact that she stood up to the Diamonds in her persona as Pink at all is something that must have represented a lot of character growth and bravery.

But she was also, like the rest of us, complicated.

[erinptah]

On top of all this, people seem to keep glossing over the fact that for most of those 6,000 years, Pink/Rose had no access to off-planet warp technology.

(I guess they could've tried to rebuild it, but that would've put all life on Earth at risk. Which is also why the other Crystal Gems worked so hard to keep Peridot from doing it.)

For all Pink's issues, I don't think she had any way to handle this better. And we don't know that she would've still done the same thing if the circumstances were different.

[conuly]

Yeah. After the conclusion of the war, even if she'd been particularly willing to have the tough "Listen, I'm Pink Diamond" conversation with the Crystal Gems, any one of them would've pointed out that it's a risky rescue mission when, for all they know, the other diamonds already went and fetched her better.

Pink had a better way to handle this before her supposed shattering. And it would have been better if she had. But afterwards, she was stuck.

[erinptah]

Honestly, the fact that the other Diamonds never went and picked up Spinel is weird. It's one of the things I'm surprised didn't get called out in the movie. Blue, in particular, was so conscientious about taking care of Pink's former things.

(Granted, sometimes "taking care of" means "keeping sentient lifeforms in a zoo", but.)

And I'm not sure Pink's options were that great at any time. In roughly chronological order, she could have...

- Told Spinel to wait in someone else's care, instead of waiting alone. But whose care? One of the other Diamonds? Heck no, not in that era, not after what they did to her first Pearl. And who else would Pink have known and trusted at that point? Better to just have Spinel wait somewhere safe until Pink comes back. At this point, she assumes she will come back.

- Brought Spinel to Earth, and sent her away when the war started. That only kicks the "where do I put her until I can come back for her" can down the road.

- Brought Spinel to Earth and kept her around for the war, or brought her there during the war but before Pink's "death." I think Pink would've seen this as putting Spinel in unreasonable danger, since she's not a Gem designed for fighting. (We know now that she adapted pretty well when motivated by 6K years of abandonment issues, but Pearl sure didn't see that coming. And it turned out Spinel didn't like what she'd become, in the end.)

Some of these paths could've turned out better, if they got lucky and things went just right. But there's no obvious "Pink should've been selfless enough to do Thing X, then everything would've been fine."

[conuly]

Of course, it's not clear that the Zoo inhabitants know that they're imprisoned.

Blue did refer to Spinel as one of Pink's "lost treasures" - maybe they just didn't know where she'd stashed her? You'd think they would have checked in on the Garden at some point, even in the middle of their grief. Even for gems, 6000 years is a LONG time. Of course, there are lots of people who refuse to enter their deceased child's bedroom for years, maybe not visiting the Garden was like that?

And I'm not sure Pink's options were that great at any time. In roughly chronological order, she could have...

She could've asked Pearl for advice. Pearl's pretty smart, and especially then she was extremely motivated to help Pink. (Then again, she might also have had jealousy issues, but it still would've been worth a shot.)

She could have, at any point, confided in the other Crystal Gems and asked their opinion. (See also: Bismuth.)

At the very least, she could and should have told Spinel that she did not want to play with her for a while. Spinel would not have taken that news well, might not have even understood the reason, but she at least would have not have stood perfectly motionless for thousands of years wondering what had happened.

But, as I said, that would have meant dealing with Spinel's feelings and the consequences of her own decisions. Given what happens every time the other Diamonds had feelings about her behavior, I understand why Pink was so quick to avoid dealing with this with anybody else (and that's before you add in the propaganda that a. gems don't change and grow and b. diamonds are superior to all other lifeforms who might not even have real feelings), but that doesn't make it right.

[erinptah]

I rewatched that bit of the garden scene -- we don't hear any of what Pink says before "let's play a game," all we see is her gesturing for Spinel to stop following her, and Spinel keeping it up anyway.

So I do think Pink tried a more straightforward "I don't want you to come with me," and when Spinel didn't respond to that at all, she switched to "this is a game where you don't come with me."

It would be the same pattern as all the times when she pleaded with the other Diamonds to stop destroying the organic life on various planets, and they just wouldn't budge, until finally she switched to an elaborate hoax. And, once again, that's what worked! The Earth and all its humans were saved!

Don't get me wrong, I agree she should've confided in the other Crystal Gems eventually. But I can understand how she got the idea that, on top of being personally difficult for her, it genuinely wouldn't do any good, either.

...and for all the good it could've done, I'm not convinced it would've made anything better for Spinel in particular.

[conuly]

I suppose it depends on exactly how clueless Spinel was at that point.

[erinptah]

Yeah. I'm inclined to think she really couldn't conceive of Pink not wanting to play with her, but who knows.

(I've seen viewers saying "oh, geez, #relatable, I used to be the friend who was too excitable and overbearing and forced people to make up ways to ditch me because I couldn't figure out that sometimes they needed space." Not exactly the same without the alien-rock-caste power dynamics, but I'm assuming that kind of experience inspired the writers.)

It also depends on Pink's exact approach -- did she make an exhaustive effort to get through to Spinel, like she did with the other Diamonds? Or did she give up quickly because she was anxious to get on with her colony? I could believe just about any point on that spectrum.

[conuly]

I kinda think that if at any point Pink had said "No, I don't want to play with you. Hang out here or at the palace until I get back from earth" Spinel probably would've been every so slightly less blindsided by the announcement that she'd been abandoned.

[conuly]

I mean, it might still have ended badly. We really have no way of knowing how much of this is Spinel and how much was the 6000 year old simmering abandonment issue.

[gingicat]

I agree.

[conuly]

:D

Also: Steven is uncommonly stable, but his fatal flaw is exactly 100% opposite his mom's - he's way too willing to put his needs aside to talk to people and empathize with them and help them out, whether or not an objective observer would think that they deserve this forgiveness.