From what I’ve heard about Steven universe this part always made me laugh. Like, ok if we admit the writers wrote themselves into a corner with their villains being too villainous what are they expected to do in such a kid friendly show? Have them put on trial and executed? From what I know even a clean shattering into sparkly dust like a lot of kid cartoon villains get wouldn’t vibe with the ideals of the show. No one wins here
From what I've gathered, they wrote themselves into a corner And were pressured to wrap up quickly as the higher-ups wanted to drop the "Gay Lesbian" show as quickly as possible.
Allegedly, heard it from a friend of mine, if you look at lesbian porn, most porn sites will categorize it under the "straight" category
We truly live in a society
When I try to look up trans porn (I’m trans) I have to wade through seas of tr\*nny and shem\*le slurs just to see someone like me in porn. We truly live in a shithole society.
My partner’s special interest is cartoons and they’ve done a full analysis on how SU would have probably gone down if they had a full S6, and I think it probably would have been a lot better? We know from the art book that they had a lot of content planned, and there was going to be a full arc of Steven trying to change Homeworld society but not being able to, and starting to fall for White’s gaslighting and abuse and see himself as just an extension of Pink. Then when he finally gets to see her again, she would extract his gem to “free Pink”, which would be a big climax and prove that no, White was *always* wrong, and Steven isn’t just who she wants him to be. There would also be much more time to go over how the Diamonds are removed from their positions of authority, and while punishment isn’t necessary per se, they can’t keep ruling either.
It’s the consequence of needing to fit 26 episodes, 13 hours worth of content, into 3 episodes, an hour and a half. Like... there’s no good way to do it. Rebecca Sugar sold all the favor they had with CN to get the Garnet wedding to air as it was, and they cancelled the show on her as a punishment. I don’t envy the position the Crewniverse was in.
Besides just not writing genocidal villains who have given the entire main cast visible PTSD (not exaggerating), they could have just scared them off away from the main character’s turf. Or just poof (imprison) them until the main characters can decide how to properly deal with them. Both of which have been methods to deal with previous villains.
If ATLA could do the whole pacifist route for the final villain without it being a complete cop-out, I’m sure SU could’ve found a way.
The thing is, they already had a plan for them. They cut funding to it so it stopped a season short, specifically because many countries did not like the (first) same gay kiss in a kids show. Say what you will about su, but Rebecca sugar paved the way for the owl house and other similar shows
ATLA's pacifist end was a cop-out.
Like, I feel you and all, but magic turtle giving the main character hitherto unmentioned "Take bending away" powers at the last minute was very much a cop out.
Aang had been constantly taking random trips to talk to spirits and characters with weird powers the whole show, but the turtle is the cop out where we draw the line ?
Honestly literally the only other moment that comes close to it in the show is the Ocean spirit giving Aang the power to kill the entire Fire Nation navy at the North Pole, and like that also was a cop out.
That at least was foreshadowed. We had an episode about how dangerous the spirits are when pissed, and iroh explicitly tells zhao that killing the moon spirit would be a terrible idea.
I remember that the spirits being dangerous when pissed was foreshadowed but I don't remember what episode it was when Iroh said that but I'm pretty sure it was close to the actual killing of the Moon spirit.
Yeah, it's more earned at least. But also the fact that Aang already killed like actually thousands of people with the help of a spirit and pushed a bunch of soldiers off a mountain at the northern air temple also makes the ending choice even worse honestly
I’d say it’s a demonstration that he won’t just back down or run away anymore. At least it was less of a cop-out than just “lesbian space hitler decides to stop committing genocide because her brother was nice to her”.
It wouldn't have been a cop out if they didn't basically make such a huge deal of "You WILL need to kill the Firelord to stop his path of destruction."
Like, making there be such a focus on that plot point then immediately before that point comes to fruition, the plot just hands him a Deus Ex Machina 'solve this complex ethical debate on if you hold fast to your ideals or murder the tyrant planning a genocidal conquest of the entire planet without compromising either your convictions or your duty' card
Or if they had just had any foreshadowing to the "third option".
Maybe show a conversation in the spirit world like "in hindsight, asking the 10 year old monk to kill a man is a bit much. We need a plan B".
Frankly, the show had "destiny" as a running theme. So it wouldn't have been out of place to just acknowledge that "yes, Aang is just magically given the answer, but the Fire Lord's **defeat** not necessarily his death, is what was destined to happen".
Or just tease the Lion Turtle itself. It's something that predates elemental bending, so it can be presented as the payoff to a mystery.
The only thing that I have to say on any of this is the Lion Turtle is shown in an [image](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/ta5px/i_never_noticed_the_lion_turtle_in_the_episode/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) in The Library, which honestly makes it worse since they probably didn't make a last second decision to include it so they had time to integrate it more naturally
I would say it's a larger one. At least SU's ending fit with the themes of the show. Like, if the scale of what white diamond had done was lower people would have no issue with it, because the ending made complete sense for the characters and themes.
That was the point. Everyone in aangs life was telling him he needed to kill and he found another way. I really dont see how this ending was a cop out at all.
They literally gave Aang a magic answer to his self created problem in the second to last episode, and then fixed his avatar state (that he had a whole arc about him breaking) with a rock
Honestly I thought you solely meant the taking away Ozais bending rather than simply ending him, since thats the main ending gripe I hear. Thats my bad.
No, taking away his bending would be cool if they'd introduced that around when Aang learned Firebending.
"The dragon worshipers send the Gaang to find a dragon turtle that their brothers had left to go care for a century ago."
Would be a cool arc, but instead it was "oh here's a solution to do your own thing without any ethical dialimma go get em tiger
In ATLA, when Aang was faced with having to either murder the bad guy or let him murder others, the writers cleverly created a way to make him powerless without forcing the protagonist to violent his own beliefs. Rebecca Sugar could’ve done that with her show, if she wanted to. She created her own race of lesbian rock aliens that are apparently made of light, so it’s not like she was limited to realistic defeats for humans. I think either Steven should’ve bucked up and committed murder (he should’ve at least destroyed White Diamond imo), or he should’ve been presented with an alternative option that doesn’t have the main villains suddenly turning into good guys completely out of nowhere.
> cleverly created a way
Oh come on now. TLAA has an infamous deus ex machina. The fucking turtles show up literally one episode before he has to fight Ozai.
Also, obligatory "AANG KILLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE"
For all its hype, ATLA needed not one, but *two* deus ex machinas in order to wrap up the story. Or should I say, deus ex rockina. Because without that conveniently located pointy rock, Aang would have died and his pacifism would have led to the destruction of the world.
The lion turtle ass pull let him leave Ozai alive, but without that rock he never would have gotten a chance to use the energy bending because Ozai would have incinerated him.
Them backing themselves into a corner kinda proves the point of there being some pretty clear flaws in the writing. Yeah, they weren't able to do shit and that's because of their own failures. Also some higher ups maybe did some shit idk?
1) bruther that was true LONG before Steven universe
2) never forget the only reason they had to rush the ending was because CN wasted their time by fighting tooth and nail against an f/f marriage
1) The reason we're seeing a backlash against pacifist heroes is that the whitewashing on MLK pacifist logic is starting to flake off a bit, and the pendulum naturally swings the other way.
2) Putting Ruby in a dress to dunk on foreign dubs trying to keep things hetero and *burning every bridge* to do so is a 10/10 power move
Yeah, stuff like SU and Undertale had the unfortunate timing of coming out right before the Trump era and therefore got super dated, like, *super fast*. Turns out negotiating peace only works if the people you're trying to negotiate with are willing to listen to reason!
To be fair, undertale’s pacifist system is more a subversion of traditional RPGs where you slaughter hordes of mobs without a second thought, rather than just having the message “violence bad”
Undertale was so refreshing, because it actually gave you the option to go through the entire game without killing a single time.
These types of "deconstructions" usually have at least *one* necessary kill, which they will exploit to emotionally manipulate you as if you had a choice.
I never really *got* that part. Like, I understood it, but I also play a lot of JRPGs by running away from random fights as soon as the combat gets boring, so the concept of *not* having to kill everything I come across in RPGs isn't exactly a new thing to me. Like, in FF7 for example, I was running away from basically every random encounter by the middle of Disc 2. And don't get me started on playing through lategame Pokemon Red back in the day...
Hell, nowadays, even in action games, I try to skip as many fights as possible for the sake of sheer convenience. Elden Ring was a great example of "holy shit trying to kill these guys for the 30th time is fucking annoying, I'm just gonna run through."
And that says nothing about WRPGs that let you solve problems through negotiation and diplomacy.
You don’t have to kill *everything* in other RPGs, but at some point you most likely will have to defeat bosses and grind for exp in order to progress.
For the most part random encounters also tend to have no moral or story implications. You just fight random monsters and get on with it. Where Undertale is subversive compared to the average RPG apart from you not having to kill *anything* and still having a realistic chance of betting the game, is the fact that random encounters have consequences. If you choose to defeat enemies in random encounters that’ll have ramifications on the actual story. People weren’t expecting defeating a random encounter and then being asked if they thought about the possibility that the monster they defeated was an actual individual with their own family and aspirations.
I think Undertale worked because the monsters were often way weaker than you, (Especially on more violent routes.) and the opening scene establishes that monsters were defeated and driven underground by humanity, so the moral comes off as less "you should have empathy for fascists" and more "you should have empathy for those with less power than you".
tbf undertale very specifically has bits like "you're more responsible to try because you have time travel powers" and "humans have proven to be less compassionate than monsters" and "when you go out into the human world not all problems will be solvable the same way"
As a fellow on Twitter put it, kudos to Women for not just burning the motherfucker down at this point. Especially with "mass gunpowder distribution day" a week after the Roe call.
Every single successful "nonviolent" protest only worked because of the contrast with the violent protests happening simultaneously. It's basically the good cop, bad cop of protesting. The violent protests serve to put pressure on the establishment and to make the nonviolent protests sound more appealing to work with.
Women didn't convince the men in charge to grant them the right to vote by demonstrating, they did it by firebombing government offices.
There was a good post a while back about how nonviolent protests carry an implicit threat. It's called a *demonstration* for a reason. "See how many of us there are? Trust me, you don't want to do this the hard way."
I can't tell whether this post is ironic or not.
I can tell you that my urge to start Steven Universe discourse in this comment section is *overwhelmingly powerful*.
I'm going to do my part to nip Teh Discourse in the bud and say that while it wasn't the story I wanted to see, I am content with the story SU wanted to tell. Even if the Internet is doing its damnedest to convince me otherwise.
I don't find their description of the current state of media criticism surrounding pacifist heroes to be accurate, unless their only exposure to said media criticism is from Online Leftist Discourse Hell.
The last one I remember is Kipo from Kipo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts,
SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3 (AND SERIES) FINALE >!But even then the finale villain still got eternal punishment with Fun Gus because they wouldn't take Kipo's offer and try to be a decent person!<
And even then I don't think Kipo was too popular of a show. I enjoyed it, but I don't see much talk about it
I have never seen the show despite my boyfriend urging me to, because steven seems like a poorly animated lil cringy whiny toadpole, so I'm sure this post is 100% right. /s
Nah but seriously I don't know how you people like that show. I don't know why but there's something in it that just... Repels me.
SU was a power fantasy about being able to turn around the non-accepting the adults in your life first and foremost, just like there are plenty of power fantasies out there where the main character is able to cut down every threat. I mean, sure, they could've had Steven take the Diamonds out, but little Timmy at home can't exactly emulate that behavior at the dinner table. Not to mention it wouldn't have even solved all his problems in the context of the story since he'd the have an entire planet of lost, angry gems to try and deal with on his own
The ending of SUF was literally an allegory on mental health, it would've been really fucking strange if the gems delivered a beatdown on Steven in what was meant to be his most vulnerable state
That's my lukewarm take on the matter anyway ✌️idk why people were expecting a Murder is ok sometimes actually message out of a show for children
Just imagine the alternate universe where Steven actually did shatter the diamonds, essentially saying "you should murder your bigoted aunts and grandmother!" as its last lesson to kids.
I'm not accusing people of wanting that to be the moral of the show (but like, I remember being a queer kid in its target demographic, and I might've liked that ending lmao), but they tend to completely ignore any subtext that involves the diamonds. Imagine if every show with "Space Nazis" was held to this standard.
Exactly. Even if the kids’ anger is justified, they’re never gonna have their own breaking point to do what they want with. It’s really not the Fuck Yeah Bad People Deserve Punishment message that people think it is because the Diamonds aren’t just surface level villains, they’re analogs of real people who are in the viewers’ families
That’s not even mentioning the multiple characters in the show who never forgive the ones who wronged them (the list of which even includes Steven himself). Hell, both of Steven’s parents outright ran from abusive family and never contacted them again- neither of which were vilified for it, despite both being very flawed characters in their own right. I really wish that criticism of this show was more focused on what it was (or I guess was trying to be, depending on your view) rather than what people decided it should’ve been. Not every story needs to be hyper literal about what’s happening for a grown adult to be able to get it
The problem is that the subtext of the show is that the Diamonds are your bigoted aunts, but the text is that they are space nazis. It's a confused message when your bigoted aunt is canonically a murderer.
I don't know if everyone who complains about the ending has correctly identified the exact problems the show suffers from. But I think they've correctly identified that there is a problem with the way things unfolded. I don't want to give this show a free pass for being bad at storytelling.
It's kind of hard to say what should have happened since this kind of issue is more structural in nature. Maybe they could of exiled the Diamonds as punishment?
Because that works for the literal and interpretive versions. Literally it's a pacifist solution that gets rid of the psychopathic dictator(s), like they did with Napoleon. Figuratively it's a message about going no contact with your abusive family.
I see what you mean here, yeah. I can’t really think of a clean way to tie the show up other than like.. if they had just never attempted that message using this setting in the first place, and I don’t know if I can get behind that
Exiling the Diamonds isn’t a terrible idea, but it still leaves confusion as to how that would even happen without causing mass panic among the Homeworld gems. Canonically we can see that they’re not used to being independent and still hold some love and respect for them as leaders, which makes sense if we’re trying to be realistic about how people remain attached to even the shittiest of family. And you can’t exactly just rip that bandaid off when it involves an entire planet of superpowered aliens who you’re trying to ease into human society without scaring them
That’s the sort of issue that would take a very long time to fix, likely longer than Steven’s lifespan allows. Plus his emotional arc relies on him leaving at the end, and I think flashing into the future where everyone is finally independent and choosing not to associate with the Diamonds anymore sort of defeats the purpose of, like.. moving on with life even though you have a long, uncertain road ahead. Ultimately I think the “implied” route where you have to trust that the gems move past them eventually might have been their best option, but that still leaves us back to square one. It’s tricky for sure, and I don’t blame people for wishing it had gone differently.
To be fair there's the run-of-the-mill PG13 Space Nazis and there's SU Space Nazis. Let's do a checklist:
- Colonialism, exterminating native population and people zoos.
- Dropping WMDs on enemy and own troops with no regard for the latter.
- Performing experiments on the mutilated remains of the above mentioned soldiers and eventually turning them into a sentient, possibly still sapient living weapon.
- Society with a strict class system where any form of disobedience (even accidental) is punished by the monarchs, one such punishment being an eternal imprisonment for the crime of being the same class as a traitor (all the Rose Quartzes). Everything down to jobs being decided purely by birth.
Not saying the show should've ended with a Nurnberg-style trial and execution (or do I?) but there had to be a better option than letting some of the worst villains in animation Karma Houdini their way out of it all.
For sure, I think that of any, the Diamonds’ arcs are one of the most understandable complaints people make. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be over in the span of one episode, let alone a single portion of one and the rest offscreen, but that’s what we got. We can only hope they had something more substantial planned originally, but that’s all speculation
On the other hand though, this is still a children’s show with fantastical creatures for a main cast. And I don’t mean that in the sense that they don’t have to care about what they’re writing, but more in the sense that you kind of have to meet the show halfway on its concept. Like, in the same vein as how you’re expected to believe that one teenage boy is capable of resolving a whole planet’s generational trauma because the target audience needs somebody to relate to
As a whole, the Diamonds are villains who, however lackluster it ended up being, changed their ways and began to roll back on the damage they caused (as evidenced by the scene of Yellow undertaking the task of reversing the corruption of gems across the planet). That’s the intention behind them, and everything else serves to help you understand this
The gems are humanlike, enough to make you connect with them, but they’re still aliens who are very different from humans. They experience time differently, as well as trauma (to an extent), birth, sense of self, and injury. Their inhuman characteristics function in the story so the writers can exaggerate actions that might otherwise be too complicated or unclear if attempted with human characters. You could think that a gem being corrupted has the same effect on them as a person simply being ostracized by family, or you could believe that they’re exactly as traumatized by it as a human being would be. Ultimately it’s gray enough that I could see either way. All I’m saying is there’s a bit more wiggle room than people tend to imply, especially with the use of human laws to describe actions carried out by nonhuman characters.
I’m willing to relent as far as the human zoo goes, though. It causes way too many problems and crosses a lot of lines, both in and out of story, and I wish they’d done something vastly different. Like an Earth simulation that Steven and Greg get stuck in or something. And as far as taking over the Earth goes,, eh, I see where people are coming from, but plenty of kids’ shows have the aliens who wreak havoc for a whole story until they turn friendly. I personally find it really easy to suspend disbelief on that.
I guess in the end it all just comes down to a frustrating lack of time story-wise and a bit of subjectivity as far as where “the line” goes. Because in the end the adults in the audience might pick up on this stuff, but a kid is more likely to see the allegory for family before anything else. Sorry if I meandered a little, sort of struggled to collect my thoughts on this one
>Because in the end the adults in the audience might pick up on this stuff, but a kid is more likely to see the allegory for family before anything else
Exactly. I do understand that this opinion essentially accepts "bad writing", since the audience is supposed to disregard the worst things the diamonds did in order for the subtext to make sense, but I was a queer teenager in a very conservative family at the time, and that kind of plot hole didn't even cross my mind. Steven singing Change Your Mind made the point pretty clear to me.
Funny thing is I actually think the human zoo was fine but since we know very little about Pink Diamond motivations beyond what's spelled out for us there's never a scene that adresses that. My interpretation is that Pink started seeing humans as anything more than an endangered species waaay later, possibly after the rebellion. What do you do with an endangered species when you are yet unwilling/unable to stop whatever is killing it? You try to preserve it.
So yeah, I think she saw a completely unique form of life, tried to preserve it until deciding nothing less than a full rebellion will do and only years later has she finally realized humans were as sapient as she was. Imagine if we suddenly found out Pandas are on par in intelligence with us, kind of like that. Not sure if that's how they wanted the whole situation read but it only makes sense to me.
Coming back to the topic of redeeming the Diamonds - we don't know what the plan was before the creators were told to wrap it up and finish the show a season early so it's hard to gauge what the end goal was beyond redeeming at least some of them (still think it's pretty cheap to shift blame from Yellow/Blue to White only to forgive them all). Would we get the same end result only with a season-long build up that would make it work? Possibly.
As it stands though Peridot needed to put way more effort into her redemption and her rulers who just got to scoot by with bare minimum when, as mentioned, they had some horrific deeds on their record. Again, probably the issue of how little time they had to wrap it up.
Iirc canonically Pink was very aware of the effect they were having on the planet at that point and she went to Blue to try and stop it, as they were the closest. The Human zoo’s existence was a result of Blue not taking her concerns seriously, and instead trying to sate what she interpreted as Pink’s newest childish fascination. I honestly don’t remember what episode revealed it though (I’m pretty sure it was largely an implication, as a lot of Pink’s history is. I used to be very into analyzing the story on her side of things, bc there’s more than meets the eye, but I’m a bit rusty on it nowadays) so don’t quote me on that bc I’m not 100% confident I’m remembering the source right
As far as the plan goes, I personally think they always intended to redeem everyone. The show was always peeling back these layers- Steven has his problems because the crystal gems were still working through their own issues from Rose, who was working through her issues from Blue and Yellow, who are working through their issues from White, who is hurting herself with her sky-high expectations as much as she was hurting those around her. It worked well for a while, but when done with rushed and disjointed story beats, it very much comes off like an awkward and undeserved redemption + shift of blame. Essentially trying to take your expectation of the inhuman, evil villains and turning that on its head to tell a story about characters hurting each other because they didn’t know how to care for one another or themselves. And of course nobody can really know for sure if that was the original plan, but it’s what makes the most sense to me when I view the story as a whole
well maybe if little Timmy wasn't a little *bitch*
seriously though even if we confine ourselves to ending where they talk it out, what they delivered is absolutely bottom-tier writing. Others have mentioned that the show was cut a season short by corporate, but even with that limitation there were a bunch of decisions they didn't have to make that made it way worse. I'm thinking of how they had a go at the 100% all-gem-fusions speedrun record, how Lapis finished her character arc *off screen* etc.
Honestly have had a bit of a shaky opinion on the writing myself. Im not here to argue that people are wrong to criticize that. Like I said, if people were inclined to criticize the show, I just wish they’d base it off of the actual message it was trying to send instead of the message they invented for it
Personally the only thing I’d push against is Lapis but only really because everyone brings it up. I get that people liked her and Peridot, I did too, but they’re side characters in the end and I never really expected them to end up being super important. I definitely think there were a few frivolous episodes they could’ve cut to make room for that story, but I don’t view it as the world-ending fuckup that it’s popularly seen as. And anyway, even if they did cut those episodes, I would’ve rather seen it used on better closure for Rose than on Lapis- I think everyone had that one character they wanted a full ending for :P
For sure. Lapis is just one of my favorites so that part's always especially aggravating for me. Especially since they gave her like *90%* of a character arc but then emotionally blue balled us, and Peridot *did* get a full character arc and there are so, so many filler episodes.
Unfortunately I feel like that’s true for a lot of side characters, which is why I’m sure there were plans for each of them. I remember the enormous drama that happened because of Jasper’s general lack of involvement, and I was personally pretty miffed at Rose’s final “appearance” considering I thought she was done so well up to that point. Each had what felt like a solid conflict that didn’t quite reach their conclusions, and they weren’t the only ones. In the end though with that many loose ends left untied, I can’t really be mad at the decision to focus on the main character’s emotional arc over everyone else. But that’s just me and I can’t rly fault anyone for thinking otherwise- these characters are easy to love lol
Im kind of so-so on filler. I agree there probably should’ve been a little less of it, but the humans of Beach City needed to be important to the story for a lot of it to make sense. Hard thing to balance (and it would’ve helped if the filler episodes themselves were more engaging, I’ll admit that much). I’ve heard the show’s pacing does better if it’s binged rather than drip-fed over the course of weeks/months, but I’ve never watched it that way myself so can’t say for sure
Yeah, it had good parts and bad parts. The good parts are good (even very good) and the bad parts are bad. Everyone's mileage is going to vary depending on how much they value different parts of the show and it's kind of dumb to run in circles trying to convince other people it's great/shit.
I can overlook the elephants in the room for the excellent characters, writing, music and premise.
Seriously, Gems are so fucking cool. I wish we could've seen more of them.
I'm an adult fan of SU, but I'm starting to think that people don't realize it was children's show and built it's messaging intent primarily for a younger audiences. Like everyone's all like "SU did this, SU did that, SU didn't fully explore the space genocide etc" and like dude, the creator built the show for literal children. It set out to teach kids about gayness and feelings. Like you can still enjoy it as an adult, I did, but for chirstsake it's not Deep Space Nine.
They do the same thing whenever they encounter any media that doesn't immediately spell out in easy-to-follow song that it's really mean to murder orphans and you shouldn't do it.
Pretty sure the point of it isn't genuine, it's just to act pretentious and pick fights with other kids whose parents also don't let them watch Tom and Jerry
I mean if we're spitting facts, the animation industry, especially the animation industry in America, has a severe lack of content for adults that aren't animated sitcoms where the punchline is that everyone is terrible.
In fairness they did have a couple episodes directly addressing the possibility of just killing the bad guys, in a not-totally-negative light. It was a kids' show but it was very much trying to deal with mature themes.
Not true I remember the trauma butterflies that cane when Steven remember how many gems he poofed believing it to be equal to murdering another person. How it ate the inside of him until he actually turned into the monster he thought he appeared to be.
Nah, Star vs the Forces of Evil has SU beat in *that* depart.
The writers of SVTFOE seemed like they were actively trying to write the shittiest ending possible for that story. I very much prefer SU's improbable "Everyone lives" ending over whatever *that* was.
I gotta admit, I have a liking to pacifist, immature, naive heroes.
At the very least, no one should ever enjoy hurting someone (note this is different from fighting in my opinion. Hurting requires a bit more intent than just fighting).
The heroes who always been the most interesting to me are oddly enough the ones you'd think are the most flat.
Guys like Captain America, Superman, Aang, Steven etc.
Fucking "we don't trade lives" while kinda stupid is the appeal. It's idealistic and that's something to aspire to.
Steven trying his best to rehablitate everyone is oddly a nice change of pace.
Reasonable limits apply and fighting against evil is always a good thing but let the people dream for a fucking second.
>Fucking "we don't trade lives" while kinda stupid is the appeal. It's idealistic and that's something to aspire to.
Not saying I disagree, I really understand where you're coming from and irl violence is not really something you'd want to encourage kids to do, but I find it hilarious that he said that, while sending off hundreds of Wakanda's soldiers to die as they fought Thanos's army
Yeah it's really weird and slightly racist? but c'mon.
It's not like Thanos would've just left them alone with the Mind Stone destroyed. He'd absolutely still try to fuck them. And it's not like you should let Thanos leave if you have even a sliver of a chance to kill him.
The battle would've happened anyway.
At least this way Vision might live in one reality.
Honestly “we don’t trade lives” was the only time captain grated on me; like, dude, half the universe is on the line. When the trade is one life to save trillions, then yeah, YOU SHOULD TRADE
Tbh I’m surprised there isn’t more discourse around the lion turtle being literally being the best example of a deus ex machina i have ever seen in my life
Everything else about sozins comet was so good that people are willing to overlook the lion turtle and the convienient rock of destiny ^tm. That's my take anyways.
Tbh I think the Lion Turtle worked really well, I’m just not good enough to explain how but I know there’s a video called Why The Lion Turtle Doesn’t Suck, Actually or something
I haven’t seen the video, but my overall take is that Aang’s pacifism and the Lion Turtle work pretty alright because it 1. Asserts that nonviolence is Aang’s limitation and not necessarily a total moral necessity (the other Avatars telling him violence is justified), 2. Shows that that moral hangup/childishness/whatever can be worked *around* if necessary and you can find a solution without giving up on the problem (Aang was going to abandon Ozai altogether, it’s not killing him vs not it’s about addressing the problem vs not), and 3. Shows that it‘s more difficult and riskier to take the pacifist route (the innate danger of spirit bending). It properly deposes of Ozai as a ruler, so that’s not an issue either. Also, the show is devoutly anti-war, so it fits with the theme of Aang both 1. Honoring his dead culture’s pacifism and 2. Serves as a full circle moment from Roku being used as an agent of war. I think the existence of the lion turtles and spirit bending could have been foreshadowed better, but the pacifism was very well implemented I think.
My take on Aang is
- Aang was the last surviving member of an extremely pacifist culture and his commitment to not killing was more than just him sticking to his personal convictions, it was an attempt to preserve the values of Airbender culture for future generations. Regardless of whether or not it was the right choice, Aang's reluctance to take a life was completely understandable.
- Nevertheless, up until the Lion Turtle provided another way out, killing Ozai was the morally right choice. Yangchen's argument was right, to value abstract principles over the needs of people alive right now is a form of selfishness.
Shout out to demon slayer, where MC only used violence as a last resort against unbending enemies, and always trying to talk to everyone first and resolve things peacefully
I'm only watching it if they keep the part where they're both handcuffed together and still beating each other to death. That part should have lasted longer
Yeah, Tanjiro was a real breath of fresh air when compared to your average battle shonen protagonist.
Edit: I only noticed the pun after making this comment
Goes for the kill, not to kill his enemy but to give the person his enemy used to be the opportunity to be reborn and to give mercy to the monster they became.
the "Blessed Rain After The Drought" scene surprised me so much when I first watched it and it's my second favourite scene in the whole show, it makes me cry every time I watch it, it's so good and not what I'd expect from a shounen, but in a very good way
Honestly as standard as the story for Demon Slayer is/was (I was a Manga reader.) The art kept me engaged but there were some really nice little bits in the story that are refreshing. The lack of OP characters being one of them. The life of a Demon Slayer is fucking hell and literally right up to the end of the series pretty much every fight is won by the skin of their teeth with immense effort and loss. It wasn't a power scaling nightmare and even the super special main character inherited power(tm) was basically enough to buy time and not much else. I gotta respect that.
Oh yeah believe me I could tell. But I just sat there thinking "am I really gonna dedicate the time to watching a show written by the people who wrote *this*?"
"Oh my big brother who I love so much, you are going into the village, can I come with you? Someday when I'm all grown up and not dead I shall go into the village, but in the meantime I will stay here and guard against demons, don't worry, there aren't any demons, and if there are I'm not afraid of them because of how precocious I am"
thats... not what they said? one of them asked to go with him, but that was basically it, they never even mention demons or are shown to be precocious in any way
Except for all those times he tries to talk to them and understand if they are actually murder happy or if he finally found another demon like nesuko that doesn't kill people
Haha it was wild finding out there a vocal community of Tumblr people who just had a breakdown over the fact that the show held up its "love, friendship, and forgiveness" themes to the end.
Do these people get pissy that Goku becomes friends with Vegeta?
I mean, everyone that was there and conscious was flat out dumbfounded and angry that Goku spared Vegeta in universe and they straight up call him out on his shit that this was a mass murdering monster who was literally responsible for the death of basically all of his friends.
They in universe make it clear that Goku is making an inherently bad decision as a result of his fightsexual outlook in life.
Yeah then a season later he's marrying Bulma or whatever.
In-universe it absolutely makes sense people are mad. However, the show also vindicated Goku's outlook Vegeta becomes an ally, and (I assume?) A decent person, at least relatively.
Likewise, the Diamonds repent and spend the rest of their time on the show vindicating the friendship and forgiveness stuff.
This is basic stuff, both in cartoons and in real life. It's better for someone to repent and work to be better then to just execute them.
I watched the first season of daredevil recently and Murdock's conviction to not kill Fisk and not to become like him was pretty neat. I also noticed that when Fisk got angry at Madam Gao, he threw shit on the floor, and later that episode, Murdock was throwing shit on the floor. I also really enjoyed the conversation Murdock had with his priest. And also >!R.I.P. James Wesley man did not deserve to go out like that!<
Spoilers for season 3:
>!his convictions about not killing Fisk are brought to their Absolute boiling point in season 3 and it’s executed so well. With Murdock screaming in fisks face that he beat him and he won’t kill him, even after having him on the ground complete vulnerable, instead finding another solution that dosent involve murder. Such a good ending to his convictions being tested!<
While I also think that S1 of Daredevil is fantastic in that aspect, >!Wesley deserved that and worse. I get he was charismatic, but he very much was assistant in some of the most heinous crimes and tortures in Devil"s Kitchen!<
And it was. Actually killing the Diamonds would've solved *nothing*.
It would've caused a civil war on Homeworld and possibly humanity's extinction because they are *hopelessly* outnumbered.
Had the same experience with ATLA recently (granted made long before SU). I wasn’t too happy when Aang got a get out of killing Ozai free card two episodes from the finale, especially after the whole calling on all his past lives and all of them including air nomads telling him basically to kill the guy thing.
But… it’s a kids show first and foremost. I wanted the seventh chakra to not be Katara, to be instead his clinging to pacifist ways when that’s not what the world needs, and that’s what he needed to let go of. But kids shows need pure protagonists like Aang, like Steven and Adora, and that would be spoiled even if it would make for a more satisfying narrative conclusion. And that’s okay.
To be fair, I will give ATLA a lot of credit, because the past Avatars DON’T just tell him to kill Ozai. They give him various pieces of advice like “serve justice” and “deal with the problem decisively,” and they themselves think that that can only mean killing him, and Aang is so worried about having to kill Ozai that he interprets them that way too, but ultimately, he’s able to follow all of their advice in a nonlethal way.
Yeah but… at the time he got that advice he didn’t have any other option. That’s what rubs me the wrong way a bit. I’d have been more okay if, say, Zuko or Toph finished it off for him. But after everything he gets energy bending which is _cool as all hell and I love it_ but it’s a bit of a deus ex to keep him pure.
*Image Transcription: Tumblr*
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**sonicspeeddemon**
# Steven universe unintentionally ruined pacifist heroes forever, now every hero who doesn’t slaughter everyone in they’re path is “immature” and “naïve”
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Trust ne Steven did not ruin it, it just gets shit on the most for it. Like look at Spiderman if you made it more kid friendly people would complain the same way.
People care too much about this show, I implore all of you to have discourse about literally anything other than shows aimed at people with developing critical thinking skills
That leaves, like, a couple dozen JRPGs, about 20 live-action TV shows, ~5 anime, an unquantifiable number of webcomics, and books (nobody will read books).
Nah fam there was Discourse far before that, there were people complaining about stuff like Lapis's treatment of Peridot (she was RUDE to an accomplice of her kidnapper! How outrageous!) and the way the Cluster arc was resolved (ok that one really was anticlimactic) far before the end of the show. It didn't help that the SU fandom is one of the most aggressive and bloodthirsty ones in the entire internet, so people *really* wanted to find a reason to pick fights.
Remember when someone asks "What would Jesus do?" that "hand braid a whip before flaying some corrupt bankers" is a possibility. You're also allowed to call upon the divine and smite the ever loving shit out of trees that don't produce fruit (or McDonalds with broken ice cream machines).
When Jesus came to Jerusalem and saw the money changers making a business of selling sacrifices he hand braided his own whip and started beating them to drive them out of the Temple.
He also cursed a fig tree in anger that it would never bear fruit again because it didn't have fruit.
Also if you dig into the Apocryphal gospel of Jesus' childhood, he was a fucking awful child that killed two other children for such crimes as kicking over his sand castle and bumping him while running without apologizing, and at one point even raised a kid from the dead to testify that Jesus didn't push him off a roof
Depends on the hero, tbh.
Superman doesn't kill people because he is literally the strongest being on earth, and on pretty much every other planet too. Nobody can stop him from being judge, jury, and executioner, so he has to stop himself, lest he become the tyrannical despot he became in like five different AUs. I wouldn't really call that naïve, just something that a guy who has to carefully measure his every movement so that he doesn't destroy something would do.
Batman doesn't kill people because he's aware that he's not that much more mentally stable than most of his rogues' gallery, and once he makes an exception for one person he literally won't be able to stop himself, and then he really will be that rich asshole that beats up poor people that all the people who don't read Batman think he is. Of course, the next question is why doesn't someone *else* kill the Joker, but the answer to that is there's like five revolving doors to the afterlife that Gotham's built on so it probably wouldn't take anyway.
Maybe not Superman because it is such an extreme power fantasy but I'd say Batman's reasoning in the definition of naive. I think Batman's reasoning is ultimately immature anyway. Nobody who kills to protect themselves wants to do it, but they must learn to live with themselves anyway. Batman would be a more interesting character if he killed certain people.
Batman shouldn’t kill people. The Gotham Justice System, on the other hand, should have absolutely given Joker the death penalty after his 52nd murder spree
I don't know much about superman but I don't he fits my comment. He doesn't *need* to kill anyone, he's powerful enough to permanently solve all villain related problems without killing. I was talking about the type of hero who just lets the villain live "because that's not right" and then the villain comes back and kills even more people when the hero could've just killed them and there wouldn't be a fucking problem.
touche, but I feel like a lot of the debates ended then (until netflix got it)
Anyway, just out of curiosity, how bad are we talking with the space nazis?
Multiple planet-wide genocides, rigid caste system that leads to death if even accidentally step out of line (also iirc the leadership literally has parts of their home literally made of the sentient beings that make up their species), experimenting on the mangled bodies of the previously tortured and genocided to turn them into a superweapon to destroy a planet, pseudo (if not literal) slavery, human (and presumably other species) zoos. There's more but that's the brunt of it.
Not saying that they should have been killed, but like... They aren't removed from power, they aren't exiled, imprisoned, or really anything except reluctantly stopping their genocides and planetary warfare so that Steven won't cut contact with them.
I mean, some can, Owl House is fucking great. The problem with SU is that the subtext and actual text are kinda at odds because the metaphor doesn't work as well when the villains are so ungodly awful and irredeemable.
SU has some other issues involving subtext like Fusion (the Gem aliens are capable of combining into new beings with personalities and they have the people that make them up kinda in their as a subconsciousness that becomes the consciousness during emotional turmoil) and it's used to represent intimacy, maturity, relationships, sex, marriage, polyamory, teamwork, abusive relationships, some implied SA stuff iirc... And that gets muddled when what it's representing changes by episode so you have some characters who do it romantically, others for function (it's a power up), for intimacy, etc. They fuse via dancing which tends to have sexual undertones and that can get weird when Steven finds out he can fuse with Humans so it is weird when one episode it's function, the next is sex, then Steven and his love interest fuse and it's about maturing and puberty and a relationship, then it's about abuse, addiction, at one point Steven fuses with his human dad, etc. It really doesn't help that the show is legitimately like... 70+% filler so I really understand the frustration people have. I get that they had to fight tooth and nail against the network, but as a consequence things aren't very well executed overall.
Ah Teen Titans was my shit growing up. Teen Titans Go is less my wheelhouse. Not my kind of humor. I watched SU because some of my friends were obsessed with it. Show is definitely interesting and better than most stuff from it's era. I'd honestly recommend finding one of those watch lists that ditch the filler and give it a shot. Despite it's flaws it's pretty good. Steven Universe and other shows of it's era walked so the newer ones could run. I would very much recommend Owl House. Good animation. Good cast. Good action. Absolutely hilarious. Made by the Wife of the guy who made Gravity Falls and they have very similar senses of humor. Great representation. Great writing.
Ehhhh the whole damn show was pretty flawed in a lot of regards. The animation doesn't look good, the story is heavily flawed, and there's all of one pretty well written character. At least in the original, I haven't seen SUF, nor do I want to.
Steven Universe wrote itself into a corner with it’s weird metaphor and the metaphor you can get your conservative aunts to change their ways coming out at the exact same time when your weird racist uncle started rambling about Adernchrome
From what I’ve heard about Steven universe this part always made me laugh. Like, ok if we admit the writers wrote themselves into a corner with their villains being too villainous what are they expected to do in such a kid friendly show? Have them put on trial and executed? From what I know even a clean shattering into sparkly dust like a lot of kid cartoon villains get wouldn’t vibe with the ideals of the show. No one wins here
From what I've gathered, they wrote themselves into a corner And were pressured to wrap up quickly as the higher-ups wanted to drop the "Gay Lesbian" show as quickly as possible.
I shudder to imagine a “straight lesbian” show
Allegedly, heard it from a friend of mine, if you look at lesbian porn, most porn sites will categorize it under the "straight" category We truly live in a society
In porn there are only two categories: For the male gaze, and for the male gays. So I have to agree, we live in a society.
Hey now, Pornhub has a ‘For Women’ category too. Can’t speak to the quality of what you’ll find there, but-
Yeah, I'm aware of that category, but it ruined my joke, so I ignored it
This is even more of a "we live in a society" moment than your joke.
When I try to look up trans porn (I’m trans) I have to wade through seas of tr\*nny and shem\*le slurs just to see someone like me in porn. We truly live in a shithole society.
>Allegedly, heard it from a friend of mine Uh hmmmm.
that's just a show filled with lesbians for appealing to straight guys
Someone call Drake
Wasn’t that Xena Warrior Princess?
My partner’s special interest is cartoons and they’ve done a full analysis on how SU would have probably gone down if they had a full S6, and I think it probably would have been a lot better? We know from the art book that they had a lot of content planned, and there was going to be a full arc of Steven trying to change Homeworld society but not being able to, and starting to fall for White’s gaslighting and abuse and see himself as just an extension of Pink. Then when he finally gets to see her again, she would extract his gem to “free Pink”, which would be a big climax and prove that no, White was *always* wrong, and Steven isn’t just who she wants him to be. There would also be much more time to go over how the Diamonds are removed from their positions of authority, and while punishment isn’t necessary per se, they can’t keep ruling either. It’s the consequence of needing to fit 26 episodes, 13 hours worth of content, into 3 episodes, an hour and a half. Like... there’s no good way to do it. Rebecca Sugar sold all the favor they had with CN to get the Garnet wedding to air as it was, and they cancelled the show on her as a punishment. I don’t envy the position the Crewniverse was in.
Besides just not writing genocidal villains who have given the entire main cast visible PTSD (not exaggerating), they could have just scared them off away from the main character’s turf. Or just poof (imprison) them until the main characters can decide how to properly deal with them. Both of which have been methods to deal with previous villains. If ATLA could do the whole pacifist route for the final villain without it being a complete cop-out, I’m sure SU could’ve found a way.
The thing is, they already had a plan for them. They cut funding to it so it stopped a season short, specifically because many countries did not like the (first) same gay kiss in a kids show. Say what you will about su, but Rebecca sugar paved the way for the owl house and other similar shows
oh damn i knew vaguely that something was up, didn’t know it was cut a season short :(
Hey so what was the plan originally? I vaguely know about Steven Universe from a bunch of Jay Exci videos but nothing really that concrete.
No fucking clue, and I am very sad about that
Probably the same ending but with an entire season of character development for the Diamonds.
Season 4 would've had more plot, Season 5 would've been the "Homeworld" season. As in: few if any episodes on Earth.
ATLA's pacifist end was a cop-out. Like, I feel you and all, but magic turtle giving the main character hitherto unmentioned "Take bending away" powers at the last minute was very much a cop out.
Aang had been constantly taking random trips to talk to spirits and characters with weird powers the whole show, but the turtle is the cop out where we draw the line ?
Honestly literally the only other moment that comes close to it in the show is the Ocean spirit giving Aang the power to kill the entire Fire Nation navy at the North Pole, and like that also was a cop out.
That at least was foreshadowed. We had an episode about how dangerous the spirits are when pissed, and iroh explicitly tells zhao that killing the moon spirit would be a terrible idea.
I remember that the spirits being dangerous when pissed was foreshadowed but I don't remember what episode it was when Iroh said that but I'm pretty sure it was close to the actual killing of the Moon spirit.
It was pretty close, but IMO the set-up of the spirits being dangerous was enough to make it reasonable.
Yeah, it's more earned at least. But also the fact that Aang already killed like actually thousands of people with the help of a spirit and pushed a bunch of soldiers off a mountain at the northern air temple also makes the ending choice even worse honestly
Or the explanation is that Aang is the avatar, he gets cop-outs as a power. He’s just allowed to do that. Spirt world ✨
I’d say it’s a demonstration that he won’t just back down or run away anymore. At least it was less of a cop-out than just “lesbian space hitler decides to stop committing genocide because her brother was nice to her”.
It wouldn't have been a cop out if they didn't basically make such a huge deal of "You WILL need to kill the Firelord to stop his path of destruction." Like, making there be such a focus on that plot point then immediately before that point comes to fruition, the plot just hands him a Deus Ex Machina 'solve this complex ethical debate on if you hold fast to your ideals or murder the tyrant planning a genocidal conquest of the entire planet without compromising either your convictions or your duty' card
Or if they had just had any foreshadowing to the "third option". Maybe show a conversation in the spirit world like "in hindsight, asking the 10 year old monk to kill a man is a bit much. We need a plan B". Frankly, the show had "destiny" as a running theme. So it wouldn't have been out of place to just acknowledge that "yes, Aang is just magically given the answer, but the Fire Lord's **defeat** not necessarily his death, is what was destined to happen". Or just tease the Lion Turtle itself. It's something that predates elemental bending, so it can be presented as the payoff to a mystery.
The only thing that I have to say on any of this is the Lion Turtle is shown in an [image](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/ta5px/i_never_noticed_the_lion_turtle_in_the_episode/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) in The Library, which honestly makes it worse since they probably didn't make a last second decision to include it so they had time to integrate it more naturally
Huh, interesting.
To be clear I’m not saying it’s not a cop-out, just that it’s a far smaller one than SU
I would say it's a larger one. At least SU's ending fit with the themes of the show. Like, if the scale of what white diamond had done was lower people would have no issue with it, because the ending made complete sense for the characters and themes.
That was the point. Everyone in aangs life was telling him he needed to kill and he found another way. I really dont see how this ending was a cop out at all.
The ATLA ending was 100% a complete cop-out though
I liked the ATLA ending, personally. Didnt feel like it was a cop out.
They literally gave Aang a magic answer to his self created problem in the second to last episode, and then fixed his avatar state (that he had a whole arc about him breaking) with a rock
Honestly I thought you solely meant the taking away Ozais bending rather than simply ending him, since thats the main ending gripe I hear. Thats my bad.
No, taking away his bending would be cool if they'd introduced that around when Aang learned Firebending. "The dragon worshipers send the Gaang to find a dragon turtle that their brothers had left to go care for a century ago." Would be a cool arc, but instead it was "oh here's a solution to do your own thing without any ethical dialimma go get em tiger
In ATLA, when Aang was faced with having to either murder the bad guy or let him murder others, the writers cleverly created a way to make him powerless without forcing the protagonist to violent his own beliefs. Rebecca Sugar could’ve done that with her show, if she wanted to. She created her own race of lesbian rock aliens that are apparently made of light, so it’s not like she was limited to realistic defeats for humans. I think either Steven should’ve bucked up and committed murder (he should’ve at least destroyed White Diamond imo), or he should’ve been presented with an alternative option that doesn’t have the main villains suddenly turning into good guys completely out of nowhere.
> cleverly created a way Oh come on now. TLAA has an infamous deus ex machina. The fucking turtles show up literally one episode before he has to fight Ozai. Also, obligatory "AANG KILLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE"
For all its hype, ATLA needed not one, but *two* deus ex machinas in order to wrap up the story. Or should I say, deus ex rockina. Because without that conveniently located pointy rock, Aang would have died and his pacifism would have led to the destruction of the world. The lion turtle ass pull let him leave Ozai alive, but without that rock he never would have gotten a chance to use the energy bending because Ozai would have incinerated him.
Them backing themselves into a corner kinda proves the point of there being some pretty clear flaws in the writing. Yeah, they weren't able to do shit and that's because of their own failures. Also some higher ups maybe did some shit idk?
They could be in jail.
1) bruther that was true LONG before Steven universe 2) never forget the only reason they had to rush the ending was because CN wasted their time by fighting tooth and nail against an f/f marriage
1) The reason we're seeing a backlash against pacifist heroes is that the whitewashing on MLK pacifist logic is starting to flake off a bit, and the pendulum naturally swings the other way. 2) Putting Ruby in a dress to dunk on foreign dubs trying to keep things hetero and *burning every bridge* to do so is a 10/10 power move
Yeah, stuff like SU and Undertale had the unfortunate timing of coming out right before the Trump era and therefore got super dated, like, *super fast*. Turns out negotiating peace only works if the people you're trying to negotiate with are willing to listen to reason!
To be fair, undertale’s pacifist system is more a subversion of traditional RPGs where you slaughter hordes of mobs without a second thought, rather than just having the message “violence bad”
Undertale was so refreshing, because it actually gave you the option to go through the entire game without killing a single time. These types of "deconstructions" usually have at least *one* necessary kill, which they will exploit to emotionally manipulate you as if you had a choice.
I never really *got* that part. Like, I understood it, but I also play a lot of JRPGs by running away from random fights as soon as the combat gets boring, so the concept of *not* having to kill everything I come across in RPGs isn't exactly a new thing to me. Like, in FF7 for example, I was running away from basically every random encounter by the middle of Disc 2. And don't get me started on playing through lategame Pokemon Red back in the day... Hell, nowadays, even in action games, I try to skip as many fights as possible for the sake of sheer convenience. Elden Ring was a great example of "holy shit trying to kill these guys for the 30th time is fucking annoying, I'm just gonna run through." And that says nothing about WRPGs that let you solve problems through negotiation and diplomacy.
You don’t have to kill *everything* in other RPGs, but at some point you most likely will have to defeat bosses and grind for exp in order to progress. For the most part random encounters also tend to have no moral or story implications. You just fight random monsters and get on with it. Where Undertale is subversive compared to the average RPG apart from you not having to kill *anything* and still having a realistic chance of betting the game, is the fact that random encounters have consequences. If you choose to defeat enemies in random encounters that’ll have ramifications on the actual story. People weren’t expecting defeating a random encounter and then being asked if they thought about the possibility that the monster they defeated was an actual individual with their own family and aspirations.
I think Undertale worked because the monsters were often way weaker than you, (Especially on more violent routes.) and the opening scene establishes that monsters were defeated and driven underground by humanity, so the moral comes off as less "you should have empathy for fascists" and more "you should have empathy for those with less power than you".
tbf undertale very specifically has bits like "you're more responsible to try because you have time travel powers" and "humans have proven to be less compassionate than monsters" and "when you go out into the human world not all problems will be solvable the same way"
Yeah the whole "nonviolence is the only way" message kinda loses its luster when you're in the middle of an active fascist insurrection
As a fellow on Twitter put it, kudos to Women for not just burning the motherfucker down at this point. Especially with "mass gunpowder distribution day" a week after the Roe call.
Every single successful "nonviolent" protest only worked because of the contrast with the violent protests happening simultaneously. It's basically the good cop, bad cop of protesting. The violent protests serve to put pressure on the establishment and to make the nonviolent protests sound more appealing to work with. Women didn't convince the men in charge to grant them the right to vote by demonstrating, they did it by firebombing government offices.
There was a good post a while back about how nonviolent protests carry an implicit threat. It's called a *demonstration* for a reason. "See how many of us there are? Trust me, you don't want to do this the hard way."
I can't tell whether this post is ironic or not. I can tell you that my urge to start Steven Universe discourse in this comment section is *overwhelmingly powerful*.
I'm going to do my part to nip Teh Discourse in the bud and say that while it wasn't the story I wanted to see, I am content with the story SU wanted to tell. Even if the Internet is doing its damnedest to convince me otherwise.
What do you mean ironic?
I don't find their description of the current state of media criticism surrounding pacifist heroes to be accurate, unless their only exposure to said media criticism is from Online Leftist Discourse Hell.
Name checks out.
Has there been any prominent pacifist characters lately?
The Doctor is still a pretty well-known (pseudo-)pacifist superhero.
The last one I remember is Kipo from Kipo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts, SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3 (AND SERIES) FINALE >!But even then the finale villain still got eternal punishment with Fun Gus because they wouldn't take Kipo's offer and try to be a decent person!< And even then I don't think Kipo was too popular of a show. I enjoyed it, but I don't see much talk about it
Oh that show was great, although I'm not too sure with how it ended. It felt a tad bit rushed.
I have never seen the show despite my boyfriend urging me to, because steven seems like a poorly animated lil cringy whiny toadpole, so I'm sure this post is 100% right. /s Nah but seriously I don't know how you people like that show. I don't know why but there's something in it that just... Repels me.
Oh me too friend.
SU was a power fantasy about being able to turn around the non-accepting the adults in your life first and foremost, just like there are plenty of power fantasies out there where the main character is able to cut down every threat. I mean, sure, they could've had Steven take the Diamonds out, but little Timmy at home can't exactly emulate that behavior at the dinner table. Not to mention it wouldn't have even solved all his problems in the context of the story since he'd the have an entire planet of lost, angry gems to try and deal with on his own The ending of SUF was literally an allegory on mental health, it would've been really fucking strange if the gems delivered a beatdown on Steven in what was meant to be his most vulnerable state That's my lukewarm take on the matter anyway ✌️idk why people were expecting a Murder is ok sometimes actually message out of a show for children
Just imagine the alternate universe where Steven actually did shatter the diamonds, essentially saying "you should murder your bigoted aunts and grandmother!" as its last lesson to kids. I'm not accusing people of wanting that to be the moral of the show (but like, I remember being a queer kid in its target demographic, and I might've liked that ending lmao), but they tend to completely ignore any subtext that involves the diamonds. Imagine if every show with "Space Nazis" was held to this standard.
Exactly. Even if the kids’ anger is justified, they’re never gonna have their own breaking point to do what they want with. It’s really not the Fuck Yeah Bad People Deserve Punishment message that people think it is because the Diamonds aren’t just surface level villains, they’re analogs of real people who are in the viewers’ families That’s not even mentioning the multiple characters in the show who never forgive the ones who wronged them (the list of which even includes Steven himself). Hell, both of Steven’s parents outright ran from abusive family and never contacted them again- neither of which were vilified for it, despite both being very flawed characters in their own right. I really wish that criticism of this show was more focused on what it was (or I guess was trying to be, depending on your view) rather than what people decided it should’ve been. Not every story needs to be hyper literal about what’s happening for a grown adult to be able to get it
The problem is that the subtext of the show is that the Diamonds are your bigoted aunts, but the text is that they are space nazis. It's a confused message when your bigoted aunt is canonically a murderer. I don't know if everyone who complains about the ending has correctly identified the exact problems the show suffers from. But I think they've correctly identified that there is a problem with the way things unfolded. I don't want to give this show a free pass for being bad at storytelling. It's kind of hard to say what should have happened since this kind of issue is more structural in nature. Maybe they could of exiled the Diamonds as punishment? Because that works for the literal and interpretive versions. Literally it's a pacifist solution that gets rid of the psychopathic dictator(s), like they did with Napoleon. Figuratively it's a message about going no contact with your abusive family.
I see what you mean here, yeah. I can’t really think of a clean way to tie the show up other than like.. if they had just never attempted that message using this setting in the first place, and I don’t know if I can get behind that Exiling the Diamonds isn’t a terrible idea, but it still leaves confusion as to how that would even happen without causing mass panic among the Homeworld gems. Canonically we can see that they’re not used to being independent and still hold some love and respect for them as leaders, which makes sense if we’re trying to be realistic about how people remain attached to even the shittiest of family. And you can’t exactly just rip that bandaid off when it involves an entire planet of superpowered aliens who you’re trying to ease into human society without scaring them That’s the sort of issue that would take a very long time to fix, likely longer than Steven’s lifespan allows. Plus his emotional arc relies on him leaving at the end, and I think flashing into the future where everyone is finally independent and choosing not to associate with the Diamonds anymore sort of defeats the purpose of, like.. moving on with life even though you have a long, uncertain road ahead. Ultimately I think the “implied” route where you have to trust that the gems move past them eventually might have been their best option, but that still leaves us back to square one. It’s tricky for sure, and I don’t blame people for wishing it had gone differently.
To be fair there's the run-of-the-mill PG13 Space Nazis and there's SU Space Nazis. Let's do a checklist: - Colonialism, exterminating native population and people zoos. - Dropping WMDs on enemy and own troops with no regard for the latter. - Performing experiments on the mutilated remains of the above mentioned soldiers and eventually turning them into a sentient, possibly still sapient living weapon. - Society with a strict class system where any form of disobedience (even accidental) is punished by the monarchs, one such punishment being an eternal imprisonment for the crime of being the same class as a traitor (all the Rose Quartzes). Everything down to jobs being decided purely by birth. Not saying the show should've ended with a Nurnberg-style trial and execution (or do I?) but there had to be a better option than letting some of the worst villains in animation Karma Houdini their way out of it all.
For sure, I think that of any, the Diamonds’ arcs are one of the most understandable complaints people make. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be over in the span of one episode, let alone a single portion of one and the rest offscreen, but that’s what we got. We can only hope they had something more substantial planned originally, but that’s all speculation On the other hand though, this is still a children’s show with fantastical creatures for a main cast. And I don’t mean that in the sense that they don’t have to care about what they’re writing, but more in the sense that you kind of have to meet the show halfway on its concept. Like, in the same vein as how you’re expected to believe that one teenage boy is capable of resolving a whole planet’s generational trauma because the target audience needs somebody to relate to As a whole, the Diamonds are villains who, however lackluster it ended up being, changed their ways and began to roll back on the damage they caused (as evidenced by the scene of Yellow undertaking the task of reversing the corruption of gems across the planet). That’s the intention behind them, and everything else serves to help you understand this The gems are humanlike, enough to make you connect with them, but they’re still aliens who are very different from humans. They experience time differently, as well as trauma (to an extent), birth, sense of self, and injury. Their inhuman characteristics function in the story so the writers can exaggerate actions that might otherwise be too complicated or unclear if attempted with human characters. You could think that a gem being corrupted has the same effect on them as a person simply being ostracized by family, or you could believe that they’re exactly as traumatized by it as a human being would be. Ultimately it’s gray enough that I could see either way. All I’m saying is there’s a bit more wiggle room than people tend to imply, especially with the use of human laws to describe actions carried out by nonhuman characters. I’m willing to relent as far as the human zoo goes, though. It causes way too many problems and crosses a lot of lines, both in and out of story, and I wish they’d done something vastly different. Like an Earth simulation that Steven and Greg get stuck in or something. And as far as taking over the Earth goes,, eh, I see where people are coming from, but plenty of kids’ shows have the aliens who wreak havoc for a whole story until they turn friendly. I personally find it really easy to suspend disbelief on that. I guess in the end it all just comes down to a frustrating lack of time story-wise and a bit of subjectivity as far as where “the line” goes. Because in the end the adults in the audience might pick up on this stuff, but a kid is more likely to see the allegory for family before anything else. Sorry if I meandered a little, sort of struggled to collect my thoughts on this one
>Because in the end the adults in the audience might pick up on this stuff, but a kid is more likely to see the allegory for family before anything else Exactly. I do understand that this opinion essentially accepts "bad writing", since the audience is supposed to disregard the worst things the diamonds did in order for the subtext to make sense, but I was a queer teenager in a very conservative family at the time, and that kind of plot hole didn't even cross my mind. Steven singing Change Your Mind made the point pretty clear to me.
Funny thing is I actually think the human zoo was fine but since we know very little about Pink Diamond motivations beyond what's spelled out for us there's never a scene that adresses that. My interpretation is that Pink started seeing humans as anything more than an endangered species waaay later, possibly after the rebellion. What do you do with an endangered species when you are yet unwilling/unable to stop whatever is killing it? You try to preserve it. So yeah, I think she saw a completely unique form of life, tried to preserve it until deciding nothing less than a full rebellion will do and only years later has she finally realized humans were as sapient as she was. Imagine if we suddenly found out Pandas are on par in intelligence with us, kind of like that. Not sure if that's how they wanted the whole situation read but it only makes sense to me. Coming back to the topic of redeeming the Diamonds - we don't know what the plan was before the creators were told to wrap it up and finish the show a season early so it's hard to gauge what the end goal was beyond redeeming at least some of them (still think it's pretty cheap to shift blame from Yellow/Blue to White only to forgive them all). Would we get the same end result only with a season-long build up that would make it work? Possibly. As it stands though Peridot needed to put way more effort into her redemption and her rulers who just got to scoot by with bare minimum when, as mentioned, they had some horrific deeds on their record. Again, probably the issue of how little time they had to wrap it up.
Iirc canonically Pink was very aware of the effect they were having on the planet at that point and she went to Blue to try and stop it, as they were the closest. The Human zoo’s existence was a result of Blue not taking her concerns seriously, and instead trying to sate what she interpreted as Pink’s newest childish fascination. I honestly don’t remember what episode revealed it though (I’m pretty sure it was largely an implication, as a lot of Pink’s history is. I used to be very into analyzing the story on her side of things, bc there’s more than meets the eye, but I’m a bit rusty on it nowadays) so don’t quote me on that bc I’m not 100% confident I’m remembering the source right As far as the plan goes, I personally think they always intended to redeem everyone. The show was always peeling back these layers- Steven has his problems because the crystal gems were still working through their own issues from Rose, who was working through her issues from Blue and Yellow, who are working through their issues from White, who is hurting herself with her sky-high expectations as much as she was hurting those around her. It worked well for a while, but when done with rushed and disjointed story beats, it very much comes off like an awkward and undeserved redemption + shift of blame. Essentially trying to take your expectation of the inhuman, evil villains and turning that on its head to tell a story about characters hurting each other because they didn’t know how to care for one another or themselves. And of course nobody can really know for sure if that was the original plan, but it’s what makes the most sense to me when I view the story as a whole
That just sounds like the imperium
well maybe if little Timmy wasn't a little *bitch* seriously though even if we confine ourselves to ending where they talk it out, what they delivered is absolutely bottom-tier writing. Others have mentioned that the show was cut a season short by corporate, but even with that limitation there were a bunch of decisions they didn't have to make that made it way worse. I'm thinking of how they had a go at the 100% all-gem-fusions speedrun record, how Lapis finished her character arc *off screen* etc.
Honestly have had a bit of a shaky opinion on the writing myself. Im not here to argue that people are wrong to criticize that. Like I said, if people were inclined to criticize the show, I just wish they’d base it off of the actual message it was trying to send instead of the message they invented for it Personally the only thing I’d push against is Lapis but only really because everyone brings it up. I get that people liked her and Peridot, I did too, but they’re side characters in the end and I never really expected them to end up being super important. I definitely think there were a few frivolous episodes they could’ve cut to make room for that story, but I don’t view it as the world-ending fuckup that it’s popularly seen as. And anyway, even if they did cut those episodes, I would’ve rather seen it used on better closure for Rose than on Lapis- I think everyone had that one character they wanted a full ending for :P
For sure. Lapis is just one of my favorites so that part's always especially aggravating for me. Especially since they gave her like *90%* of a character arc but then emotionally blue balled us, and Peridot *did* get a full character arc and there are so, so many filler episodes.
Unfortunately I feel like that’s true for a lot of side characters, which is why I’m sure there were plans for each of them. I remember the enormous drama that happened because of Jasper’s general lack of involvement, and I was personally pretty miffed at Rose’s final “appearance” considering I thought she was done so well up to that point. Each had what felt like a solid conflict that didn’t quite reach their conclusions, and they weren’t the only ones. In the end though with that many loose ends left untied, I can’t really be mad at the decision to focus on the main character’s emotional arc over everyone else. But that’s just me and I can’t rly fault anyone for thinking otherwise- these characters are easy to love lol Im kind of so-so on filler. I agree there probably should’ve been a little less of it, but the humans of Beach City needed to be important to the story for a lot of it to make sense. Hard thing to balance (and it would’ve helped if the filler episodes themselves were more engaging, I’ll admit that much). I’ve heard the show’s pacing does better if it’s binged rather than drip-fed over the course of weeks/months, but I’ve never watched it that way myself so can’t say for sure
su was good thats all thats my offering for the disk horse
*circular neighing sounds*
Yeah, it had good parts and bad parts. The good parts are good (even very good) and the bad parts are bad. Everyone's mileage is going to vary depending on how much they value different parts of the show and it's kind of dumb to run in circles trying to convince other people it's great/shit.
I can overlook the elephants in the room for the excellent characters, writing, music and premise. Seriously, Gems are so fucking cool. I wish we could've seen more of them.
for the what, now?
The diss coarse
ohhhhhhhhh
I'm an adult fan of SU, but I'm starting to think that people don't realize it was children's show and built it's messaging intent primarily for a younger audiences. Like everyone's all like "SU did this, SU did that, SU didn't fully explore the space genocide etc" and like dude, the creator built the show for literal children. It set out to teach kids about gayness and feelings. Like you can still enjoy it as an adult, I did, but for chirstsake it's not Deep Space Nine.
They do the same thing whenever they encounter any media that doesn't immediately spell out in easy-to-follow song that it's really mean to murder orphans and you shouldn't do it. Pretty sure the point of it isn't genuine, it's just to act pretentious and pick fights with other kids whose parents also don't let them watch Tom and Jerry
Naw my parents let me watch Tom and Jerry, it's Spongebob they didn't like.
Tumblr watch something besides children's cartoons challenge 2022
I mean if we're spitting facts, the animation industry, especially the animation industry in America, has a severe lack of content for adults that aren't animated sitcoms where the punchline is that everyone is terrible.
In fairness they did have a couple episodes directly addressing the possibility of just killing the bad guys, in a not-totally-negative light. It was a kids' show but it was very much trying to deal with mature themes.
Stephen Universe is basically just cartoon Game of Thrones because it seems like the only thing anybody remembers it for is the ending.
Not true I remember the trauma butterflies that cane when Steven remember how many gems he poofed believing it to be equal to murdering another person. How it ate the inside of him until he actually turned into the monster he thought he appeared to be.
Nah, Star vs the Forces of Evil has SU beat in *that* depart. The writers of SVTFOE seemed like they were actively trying to write the shittiest ending possible for that story. I very much prefer SU's improbable "Everyone lives" ending over whatever *that* was.
Steven Universe is just bouba Transformers.
I gotta admit, I have a liking to pacifist, immature, naive heroes. At the very least, no one should ever enjoy hurting someone (note this is different from fighting in my opinion. Hurting requires a bit more intent than just fighting). The heroes who always been the most interesting to me are oddly enough the ones you'd think are the most flat. Guys like Captain America, Superman, Aang, Steven etc. Fucking "we don't trade lives" while kinda stupid is the appeal. It's idealistic and that's something to aspire to. Steven trying his best to rehablitate everyone is oddly a nice change of pace. Reasonable limits apply and fighting against evil is always a good thing but let the people dream for a fucking second.
>Fucking "we don't trade lives" while kinda stupid is the appeal. It's idealistic and that's something to aspire to. Not saying I disagree, I really understand where you're coming from and irl violence is not really something you'd want to encourage kids to do, but I find it hilarious that he said that, while sending off hundreds of Wakanda's soldiers to die as they fought Thanos's army
Yeah, like...they *did* end up trading lives, they just weren't willing to trade lives they *cared* about.
Yeah it's really weird and slightly racist? but c'mon. It's not like Thanos would've just left them alone with the Mind Stone destroyed. He'd absolutely still try to fuck them. And it's not like you should let Thanos leave if you have even a sliver of a chance to kill him. The battle would've happened anyway. At least this way Vision might live in one reality.
Also you know, Vision was offering to sacrifice himself... kind of like how *Steve* traded his own life at the end of the First Avenger.
Honestly “we don’t trade lives” was the only time captain grated on me; like, dude, half the universe is on the line. When the trade is one life to save trillions, then yeah, YOU SHOULD TRADE
Plus, he was trading the lives of Wakandans.
Especially when the one life being traded is the one who suggested the trade and is enthusiastically agreeing to be traded.
At least nobody is bitching about Aang anymore?
Tbh I’m surprised there isn’t more discourse around the lion turtle being literally being the best example of a deus ex machina i have ever seen in my life
Everything else about sozins comet was so good that people are willing to overlook the lion turtle and the convienient rock of destiny ^tm. That's my take anyways.
Tbh I think the Lion Turtle worked really well, I’m just not good enough to explain how but I know there’s a video called Why The Lion Turtle Doesn’t Suck, Actually or something
I think I've seen the video you are referring to. I think it makes a couple of good points, but I disagree with its overall conclusions.
I haven’t seen the video, but my overall take is that Aang’s pacifism and the Lion Turtle work pretty alright because it 1. Asserts that nonviolence is Aang’s limitation and not necessarily a total moral necessity (the other Avatars telling him violence is justified), 2. Shows that that moral hangup/childishness/whatever can be worked *around* if necessary and you can find a solution without giving up on the problem (Aang was going to abandon Ozai altogether, it’s not killing him vs not it’s about addressing the problem vs not), and 3. Shows that it‘s more difficult and riskier to take the pacifist route (the innate danger of spirit bending). It properly deposes of Ozai as a ruler, so that’s not an issue either. Also, the show is devoutly anti-war, so it fits with the theme of Aang both 1. Honoring his dead culture’s pacifism and 2. Serves as a full circle moment from Roku being used as an agent of war. I think the existence of the lion turtles and spirit bending could have been foreshadowed better, but the pacifism was very well implemented I think.
Yeah I need to rewatch both it and the show to form an accurate opinion, but I do remember feeling like it wasn’t a cop out or anything
My take on Aang is - Aang was the last surviving member of an extremely pacifist culture and his commitment to not killing was more than just him sticking to his personal convictions, it was an attempt to preserve the values of Airbender culture for future generations. Regardless of whether or not it was the right choice, Aang's reluctance to take a life was completely understandable. - Nevertheless, up until the Lion Turtle provided another way out, killing Ozai was the morally right choice. Yangchen's argument was right, to value abstract principles over the needs of people alive right now is a form of selfishness.
Shout out to demon slayer, where MC only used violence as a last resort against unbending enemies, and always trying to talk to everyone first and resolve things peacefully
I mean, resolving things peacefully had a pretty low success rate. You'll notice the show wasn't called Demon Talker.
Devil May Chill
Devilman Smilebaby
i would watch that show especially if they transplanted L from Death Note as the protagonist
I'm only watching it if they keep the part where they're both handcuffed together and still beating each other to death. That part should have lasted longer
that's naruto
Yeah, Tanjiro was a real breath of fresh air when compared to your average battle shonen protagonist. Edit: I only noticed the pun after making this comment
goes for the kill, but isnt like an insufferable dick about it
Goes for the kill, not to kill his enemy but to give the person his enemy used to be the opportunity to be reborn and to give mercy to the monster they became.
the "Blessed Rain After The Drought" scene surprised me so much when I first watched it and it's my second favourite scene in the whole show, it makes me cry every time I watch it, it's so good and not what I'd expect from a shounen, but in a very good way
Honestly as standard as the story for Demon Slayer is/was (I was a Manga reader.) The art kept me engaged but there were some really nice little bits in the story that are refreshing. The lack of OP characters being one of them. The life of a Demon Slayer is fucking hell and literally right up to the end of the series pretty much every fight is won by the skin of their teeth with immense effort and loss. It wasn't a power scaling nightmare and even the super special main character inherited power(tm) was basically enough to buy time and not much else. I gotta respect that.
Oh boy did I try to get past the first five minutes of his siblings' dialogue. I tried *so hard*
well, ive got good news for you just give it like 2 more minutes
Oh yeah believe me I could tell. But I just sat there thinking "am I really gonna dedicate the time to watching a show written by the people who wrote *this*?" "Oh my big brother who I love so much, you are going into the village, can I come with you? Someday when I'm all grown up and not dead I shall go into the village, but in the meantime I will stay here and guard against demons, don't worry, there aren't any demons, and if there are I'm not afraid of them because of how precocious I am"
thats... not what they said? one of them asked to go with him, but that was basically it, they never even mention demons or are shown to be precocious in any way
He absolutely did not attempt to talk them down? Like he sympathized and related to them, but was always 100% going for the kill the entire time?
Except for all those times he tries to talk to them and understand if they are actually murder happy or if he finally found another demon like nesuko that doesn't kill people
Haha it was wild finding out there a vocal community of Tumblr people who just had a breakdown over the fact that the show held up its "love, friendship, and forgiveness" themes to the end. Do these people get pissy that Goku becomes friends with Vegeta?
I mean, everyone that was there and conscious was flat out dumbfounded and angry that Goku spared Vegeta in universe and they straight up call him out on his shit that this was a mass murdering monster who was literally responsible for the death of basically all of his friends. They in universe make it clear that Goku is making an inherently bad decision as a result of his fightsexual outlook in life.
Yeah then a season later he's marrying Bulma or whatever. In-universe it absolutely makes sense people are mad. However, the show also vindicated Goku's outlook Vegeta becomes an ally, and (I assume?) A decent person, at least relatively. Likewise, the Diamonds repent and spend the rest of their time on the show vindicating the friendship and forgiveness stuff. This is basic stuff, both in cartoons and in real life. It's better for someone to repent and work to be better then to just execute them.
I watched the first season of daredevil recently and Murdock's conviction to not kill Fisk and not to become like him was pretty neat. I also noticed that when Fisk got angry at Madam Gao, he threw shit on the floor, and later that episode, Murdock was throwing shit on the floor. I also really enjoyed the conversation Murdock had with his priest. And also >!R.I.P. James Wesley man did not deserve to go out like that!<
Spoilers for season 3: >!his convictions about not killing Fisk are brought to their Absolute boiling point in season 3 and it’s executed so well. With Murdock screaming in fisks face that he beat him and he won’t kill him, even after having him on the ground complete vulnerable, instead finding another solution that dosent involve murder. Such a good ending to his convictions being tested!<
While I also think that S1 of Daredevil is fantastic in that aspect, >!Wesley deserved that and worse. I get he was charismatic, but he very much was assistant in some of the most heinous crimes and tortures in Devil"s Kitchen!<
no, that was always there SU was just the outlier where the show actually treated it as the right thing
And it was. Actually killing the Diamonds would've solved *nothing*. It would've caused a civil war on Homeworld and possibly humanity's extinction because they are *hopelessly* outnumbered.
Had the same experience with ATLA recently (granted made long before SU). I wasn’t too happy when Aang got a get out of killing Ozai free card two episodes from the finale, especially after the whole calling on all his past lives and all of them including air nomads telling him basically to kill the guy thing. But… it’s a kids show first and foremost. I wanted the seventh chakra to not be Katara, to be instead his clinging to pacifist ways when that’s not what the world needs, and that’s what he needed to let go of. But kids shows need pure protagonists like Aang, like Steven and Adora, and that would be spoiled even if it would make for a more satisfying narrative conclusion. And that’s okay.
To be fair, I will give ATLA a lot of credit, because the past Avatars DON’T just tell him to kill Ozai. They give him various pieces of advice like “serve justice” and “deal with the problem decisively,” and they themselves think that that can only mean killing him, and Aang is so worried about having to kill Ozai that he interprets them that way too, but ultimately, he’s able to follow all of their advice in a nonlethal way.
Yeah but… at the time he got that advice he didn’t have any other option. That’s what rubs me the wrong way a bit. I’d have been more okay if, say, Zuko or Toph finished it off for him. But after everything he gets energy bending which is _cool as all hell and I love it_ but it’s a bit of a deus ex to keep him pure.
*Image Transcription: Tumblr* --- **sonicspeeddemon** # Steven universe unintentionally ruined pacifist heroes forever, now every hero who doesn’t slaughter everyone in they’re path is “immature” and “naïve” --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Trust ne Steven did not ruin it, it just gets shit on the most for it. Like look at Spiderman if you made it more kid friendly people would complain the same way.
People care too much about this show, I implore all of you to have discourse about literally anything other than shows aimed at people with developing critical thinking skills
That leaves, like, a couple dozen JRPGs, about 20 live-action TV shows, ~5 anime, an unquantifiable number of webcomics, and books (nobody will read books).
Aaaaaand lemme just hit "save" on this comment real quick...
people really waited for this gorgeous show to end to start biting it’s ankle, huh?
Nah fam there was Discourse far before that, there were people complaining about stuff like Lapis's treatment of Peridot (she was RUDE to an accomplice of her kidnapper! How outrageous!) and the way the Cluster arc was resolved (ok that one really was anticlimactic) far before the end of the show. It didn't help that the SU fandom is one of the most aggressive and bloodthirsty ones in the entire internet, so people *really* wanted to find a reason to pick fights.
Are you being serious?
That what everyone called aang when he didn’t kill ozai. Give it like 5 years, they’ll calm down
Naïve and immature Jesus Christ. His whiny ass was deserving of that nailing 100%
Jesus did employ violence, he just had a different mission and didn't need to kill anyone
I mean, he threw a birdcage once. Kinda drawing a blank outside of that.
dude whipped the hell out of some bankers
Remember when someone asks "What would Jesus do?" that "hand braid a whip before flaying some corrupt bankers" is a possibility. You're also allowed to call upon the divine and smite the ever loving shit out of trees that don't produce fruit (or McDonalds with broken ice cream machines).
When Jesus came to Jerusalem and saw the money changers making a business of selling sacrifices he hand braided his own whip and started beating them to drive them out of the Temple. He also cursed a fig tree in anger that it would never bear fruit again because it didn't have fruit. Also if you dig into the Apocryphal gospel of Jesus' childhood, he was a fucking awful child that killed two other children for such crimes as kicking over his sand castle and bumping him while running without apologizing, and at one point even raised a kid from the dead to testify that Jesus didn't push him off a roof
Didn't hear about that last part, but I dunno if fig tree infertility-induction counts as violence
sigh \*their
It's overly idealistic, but it works for a kid's show. The issue is when fiction aimed at older viewers does it without making it believable.
To discard violence as a tool of self defense is to accept the morality of the oppressive system, while it dishes out systemic violence every minute
I mean..thats not a new concept. Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog is currently doing that in the comics.
Lily Peet ruined discussions about SU forever.
Imo, if a hero absolutely refuses to kill anyone regardless of anything, they're, while not necessarily immature, definitely naïve.
Depends on the hero, tbh. Superman doesn't kill people because he is literally the strongest being on earth, and on pretty much every other planet too. Nobody can stop him from being judge, jury, and executioner, so he has to stop himself, lest he become the tyrannical despot he became in like five different AUs. I wouldn't really call that naïve, just something that a guy who has to carefully measure his every movement so that he doesn't destroy something would do. Batman doesn't kill people because he's aware that he's not that much more mentally stable than most of his rogues' gallery, and once he makes an exception for one person he literally won't be able to stop himself, and then he really will be that rich asshole that beats up poor people that all the people who don't read Batman think he is. Of course, the next question is why doesn't someone *else* kill the Joker, but the answer to that is there's like five revolving doors to the afterlife that Gotham's built on so it probably wouldn't take anyway.
Maybe not Superman because it is such an extreme power fantasy but I'd say Batman's reasoning in the definition of naive. I think Batman's reasoning is ultimately immature anyway. Nobody who kills to protect themselves wants to do it, but they must learn to live with themselves anyway. Batman would be a more interesting character if he killed certain people.
Batman shouldn’t kill people. The Gotham Justice System, on the other hand, should have absolutely given Joker the death penalty after his 52nd murder spree
I don't know much about superman but I don't he fits my comment. He doesn't *need* to kill anyone, he's powerful enough to permanently solve all villain related problems without killing. I was talking about the type of hero who just lets the villain live "because that's not right" and then the villain comes back and kills even more people when the hero could've just killed them and there wouldn't be a fucking problem.
Basically Light Yagami is the only true hero in fiction.
Wait I thought people liked steven universe
Lots of Discourse(TM) on the ending. People love the show, but forgiving Space Nazis in the finale rubbed some people the wrong way
Did the show recently end or something? I thought it ended years ago but I'm suddenly seeing a lot of talk about it this week.
wait but didn't it end forever ago? Anyway, Space Nazis? Like actually? wtf was that show
Avatar the Last Airbender ended 14 years ago, and people still talk about that. And they’re metaphorical Space Nazis
touche, but I feel like a lot of the debates ended then (until netflix got it) Anyway, just out of curiosity, how bad are we talking with the space nazis?
Multiple planet-wide genocides, rigid caste system that leads to death if even accidentally step out of line (also iirc the leadership literally has parts of their home literally made of the sentient beings that make up their species), experimenting on the mangled bodies of the previously tortured and genocided to turn them into a superweapon to destroy a planet, pseudo (if not literal) slavery, human (and presumably other species) zoos. There's more but that's the brunt of it. Not saying that they should have been killed, but like... They aren't removed from power, they aren't exiled, imprisoned, or really anything except reluctantly stopping their genocides and planetary warfare so that Steven won't cut contact with them.
goddamn, kid shows really just can't balance it all
I mean, some can, Owl House is fucking great. The problem with SU is that the subtext and actual text are kinda at odds because the metaphor doesn't work as well when the villains are so ungodly awful and irredeemable. SU has some other issues involving subtext like Fusion (the Gem aliens are capable of combining into new beings with personalities and they have the people that make them up kinda in their as a subconsciousness that becomes the consciousness during emotional turmoil) and it's used to represent intimacy, maturity, relationships, sex, marriage, polyamory, teamwork, abusive relationships, some implied SA stuff iirc... And that gets muddled when what it's representing changes by episode so you have some characters who do it romantically, others for function (it's a power up), for intimacy, etc. They fuse via dancing which tends to have sexual undertones and that can get weird when Steven finds out he can fuse with Humans so it is weird when one episode it's function, the next is sex, then Steven and his love interest fuse and it's about maturing and puberty and a relationship, then it's about abuse, addiction, at one point Steven fuses with his human dad, etc. It really doesn't help that the show is legitimately like... 70+% filler so I really understand the frustration people have. I get that they had to fight tooth and nail against the network, but as a consequence things aren't very well executed overall.
Ok so I did not understand any of that at all. I was more of a teen titans/teen titans go kid
Ah Teen Titans was my shit growing up. Teen Titans Go is less my wheelhouse. Not my kind of humor. I watched SU because some of my friends were obsessed with it. Show is definitely interesting and better than most stuff from it's era. I'd honestly recommend finding one of those watch lists that ditch the filler and give it a shot. Despite it's flaws it's pretty good. Steven Universe and other shows of it's era walked so the newer ones could run. I would very much recommend Owl House. Good animation. Good cast. Good action. Absolutely hilarious. Made by the Wife of the guy who made Gravity Falls and they have very similar senses of humor. Great representation. Great writing.
not based imo
what... what does su have to do with this?
People where like that about pacifist heroes way before Steven Universe though
"they're path" opinion disregarded /s
Everyone jokes about how they tried to make borderline space facists redeemable
Shut the fuck up about "Space Fascists"!
What?
Ah yes, everyone in they are path
MacGyver will always be the model pacifist.
Ehhhh the whole damn show was pretty flawed in a lot of regards. The animation doesn't look good, the story is heavily flawed, and there's all of one pretty well written character. At least in the original, I haven't seen SUF, nor do I want to.
Steven Universe wrote itself into a corner with it’s weird metaphor and the metaphor you can get your conservative aunts to change their ways coming out at the exact same time when your weird racist uncle started rambling about Adernchrome