#New Crystal Gems as an episode felt a lot like a gigantic missed oppurtunity in that respect

[artbyblastweave]

Your description of yourself is the guy with Opinions on Steven Universe so say what you think of Peridot

Fond of her. I don't think I've got much to say about her that the more singularly fixated SU analysts haven't gotten to. I will say that she's a pretty salient example of a quote-unquote "redemption arc" that's facilitated in large part by the villain being "redeemed" never having actually caused serious, lasting, unfixable harm before switching sides, such that the story being told in practice is the story of an interpersonally unpleasant person working on themselves and learning to be less of a tar pit- jazzed up with ray guns and cartoonish doomsday devices. This is interesting taken on its own terms, but not necessarily morally interesting in the way the phrase "redemption arc" would ideally imply.

Contrast (unfavorably) with Entrapta in She-Ra, where they're clearly chasing a Peridot-adjacent energy, but the narrative treats the conflict between her and the protagonists as a similar kind of souped-up interpersonal miscommunication when no, she's in fact on the hook for very literal war crimes in a way the narrative was never really prepared to weigh seriously due to the use of a handful of Princesses as a metonym for everything meaningful SPOP is interested in trying to say, to the exclusion of more literal, non-metaphorical worldbuilding. Zuko, meanwhile, sits in a happy middle ground where he genuinely is attached to some morally heinous shit that the show is interested in weighing and unpacking, but not so deeply attached as to become synonymous with it in a way that would make his redemption come across as apologetics. (I sort of use these three as reference points when calculating how annoyed to get at the writing decisions of whatever children's cartoon I'm currently watching- this does not translate very well outside of that space methinks)

#steven universe #peridot #thoughts #meta #ask #asks #Also in general I would have enjoyed seeing her in more actual fights #New Crystal Gems as an episode felt a lot like a gigantic missed oppurtunity in that respect #ultimately not that kind of show however #su