Topic on User talk:NoxiousSludge

Shattering Pink Diamond was a bad thing for the same reason Bismuth's plans for Home World were a bad thing - it's a horrific form of Gem murder, and Steven had always believed that Rose was far above taking lives in order to solve problems. But not only did Rose take a life, but sure enough it did not solve anything and in fact has only made things worse since all the major villains now (Jasper, Yellow Diamond, Blue Diamond, even that Mook Squad of Rubies) took Pink Diamond's death as motivation for their horrible actions in the name of vengeance for her and spite towards Rose. That's the issue Steven takes with this whole Pink Diamond thing. Taking the life of another living sentient being is bad by sheer principle unless it is in self defense or absolutely warranted, and so far nothing has convinced Steven that the situation with Pink Diamond made murder necessary.

Well if you don't like being challenged that way, sure. I personally think it's clever writing to show us horrible things done by these individuals who make up "the enemy" that make us perceive them as "evil galactic conquerors" and nothing more, but then throw a curve ball at us by showing that they're, for lack of a better term, human too and have reasons for their actions that we might not have ever considered before, all while not trying to make us think that their actions are in any way okay and they don't need to be stopped - they aren't and they do, no question. They're still the bad guys, but not everything about them is 100% bad just like far from everything about Rose Quartz was 100% good.

As for Jasper, she did have two Even Evil Has Standards moments - expressing disgust that Rose would hide herself in a human child, and calling Lapis a "monster" for being far more brutal in her violence towards her than she'd been towards her when they were inside the Malachite fusion - and everything about her character was written as a hardened, embittered warrior Gem whose life was war and nothing else, with all her talk about the battles she'd been in before and how she didn't understand the point of fusion beyond being "a cheap trick to make weak Gems stronger". In fact, once she finally experienced fusion herself, she had virtually no handle on it because it requires an actual working relationship rather than just fighting and thus her only takeaway from it was how much stronger the abusive dynamic with Lapis made her, which made her whole "take me back, Lapis!" pleading in Lost At Sea extra pitiful. She wasn't trying to manipulate Lapis - she legitimately felt that way about their Malachie fusion and was blind to what about it was so wrong and unhealthy. (Which actually does show her feelings of self-loathing since she so easily got so discouraged in her own strength that she became reliant on something or someone else to power her up). The last of her sympathetic qualities couldn't be revealed 'til the end because it'd spoil the Pink Diamond reveal, but I think Jasper was painted as a Tragic Monster successfully. If she'd been redeemed in that last episode it'd be another matter, but she wasn't - she couldn't be saved from her own self-destruction and got the Alas, Poor Villain treatment instead.

I can understand your position, but I just don't agree with it. It's pretty clear to me that a lot of what's going on in the show now was planned from the start - Steven Universe was never meant to be a show with a simplified "Heroes fighting in the name of Big Good Rose Quartz VS completely, utterly evil Big Bad Diamond Authority" conflict. The truth was always to be more complicated, and while the crimes committed by the enemy do not cease to be heinous, the enemy themselves aren't simply cartoonish evildoers - they're people with a different point of view in which Rose Quartz is their story's Big Bad and are dealing with their problems in entirely wrong ways. It's not a perfect show, but I don't think it's become a poorly written one. I honestly have more issues with the writing on the later seasons of Adventure Time than I do the later seasons of Steven Universe.