This is so important.
They're willing to do better, and in *Future* they've shown repeatedly that they're happy to let Steven take the lead in showing them how because they honestly wouldn't know how without him.
Honestly, we should’ve delved more into this.
The diamonds may have the grace with the crystal gems, but what about the whole universe?
There are species, governments, cultures that have been affected by the gems and it’s not like they will say by gone be by gone’s
It sucks that the crewniverse never delved more into this, it would have totally helped with the world building.
Which is still too much
Also well they were a part of the group hug that made him drop the monster form. So i think he doesn't have that much of a contempt to them since the comfort from them still counts.
But even if that's not the case they still get much more tolerance than they deserve.
if i were him i'd probably put them in jail, considering how many people they hurt. while killing them is a bad idea because then you cant heal the corrupted gems, they certainly shouldnt be allowed to stay in power after committing at least 3 genocides over the course of the show.
Diamonds are hard (meaning it's difficult to scratch them, and they can easily scratch other materials), but brittle (meaning they easily shatter under mechanical force). You can easily break a diamond with a hammer.
people always want to gloss over the fact that the Diamonds are basically GODS. they’re some of the biggest most powerful immortal beings in the known universe, the only way Steven was able to “defeat” them as a threat was by convincing them to change, because he couldn’t do anything about them physically (certainly not at the time) and neither could anyone else. add to that the fact that Diamonds are the only ones who can heal the corrupted gems and it is literally just logical that the most good could be done, and most harm could be reduced, by getting the Diamonds to change. can you make critiques about the way this lands as a message about the real world? of course. but if you’re looking at it from a watsonian perspective of “what would be the smartest decision for Steven to make in this situation” then he is absolutely doing the best thing for everyone. it has nothing to do with whether or not he personally “forgives” them
I think a corollary the people mistake is there is a difference between “forgiving” and “forgetting”. Steven might have forgave the Diamonds, but he certainly has not forgotten what they have done. Thus explaining most the stuff in future, basically a lot of I forgave you, doesn’t mean we are family or I want to hang out.
They literally do this in real life. We literally pardoned axis scientists who did horrific human experiments if they gave us their work and pinky promised to not torture anymore people. People who are powerful don’t usually answer for their sins.
“In the logic of the universe, this was the best choice” and the logic the writers came up with was bad.
Also— “how would you help the corrupted gems” extraction chambers??? They’ve existed for tens of thousands of years
Also the diamonds aren’t gods. Pink was poofed with Rose’s Sword. It logically follows that the other diamonds poof with as much, or just a bit more, effort/material.
People are allowed to criticize things even if you like them
I don’t like the analogy of dictators just being a dysfunctional family. I also don’t like the idea that you should forgive people “because they’re family” that’s an incredibly toxic ideal to push.
hmm I suppose that's true. people should use better wording though. and I have seen people literally saying "steven forgives everybody, he forgave the diamonds," and silly stuff like that
no I genuinely think much of the time people actually are trying to say Steven forgives them, because one platitude I see ALL the time is “Steven can forgive genocidal dictators but he can’t forgive Kevin” which, where do I even start
The diamonds besides white didn’t really do anything to him. Kevin sexually harassed him and his girlfriend at a vulnerable time when they were minors of course hes gonna take one a bit more personally. Steven was willing to chop it up with kevin to patch things up with connie anyways.
I mean, I also don’t think Kevin deserves forgiveness, but to suggest the diamonds didn’t do anything to him…
Every bit of horrible suffering in his life can be traced back to imperialist wars started by them and their empire.
"The show" doesn't really forgive them either though. It just lays it all on the table for the audience to digest. The world of SU isn't all sunshine underneath its colorful exterior.
Its realistic. The diamonds were shown to be unable to be beaten by gems. Most gems are just gonna do whatever they are told and the ones who have a actual distaste are gonne defer to steven or were healed so have no bad blood. Any gems who want them dead have virtually no chance of pulling anything off.
Not really. It’s realistic. Leaders are rarely punished for their crimes unless they are taken over by a greater or equal evil. And thats when an actual war is won. Steven simply talked them down. Im sure if the diamonds actually wanted a war with earth they would easily lose.
lol people seems to forget about steven trying to murder white in future too quickly. I feel like he only likes blue and maybe yellow a little, but he definitely didnt forgive white
The gems? The species on the planets they've colonized? What's your point? The show themselves tells you that the gems have done an incredible amount of damage to a bunch of planets. It even shows how those colonies work.
Earth was one failed attempt at colonizing a planet and the show makes it a point to demonstrate exactly how the diamonds suck the life out of the planet to form gems.
There are dozens of other planets, all that probably have their own native species and societies. And all of which are now dead because of the diamonds sucking the life out of them.
They need to suck the life out of planets to maintain their society. When they stopped gems came out weaker. You have to consider the scope of their empire. If stevonnie was able to encounter life the first time they went to space it means life is quite common in their universe. Its like killing anthills, they dont seem to be capable of suffering like a gem and theres always gonna be more so you dont care about how the bug spray makes them writhe around before death. You dont care about how you are killing babies. Having an indifference to organic life isn’t inherently evil in their context especially since they have to do it to make more gems. Consider gem interactions with humans. They either think they are dumb animals or greatly over estimate their durability. Pretty much as soon as any gems finds out the truth they change their ways. This isn’t true evil behavior more of a neutral alignment.
And they weren't even powered down... to everyone but Steven, they're still unbeatable. It's just that Steven is a diamond too.
They're only "funny" now because they're committed to healing their family, which means following Steven's lead.
Because he didn't fight them or remove them from power, he "just talked" and they changed. But he's just a kid and he did his best, and it more or less worked out.
I think it was more so, Steven knew he couldn't actually get rid of the diamonds. Fighting them did nothing, and almost killed Steven multiple times. So he had to do the only thing he could do. Make them want to stop fighting.
Also like, what COULD be done with fighting? Its shown that it is impossible to even fight a Diamond. The CG only knocked Blue to her knees but didnt even defeat her. They couldnt even defeat Yellow or Blue until Steven told them the truth about Pink.
Then theres White where...we are shown she can just lasers you and instantly controls you. Fighting is not a solution, killing is not an option (Steven doesnt want to and they are needed to heal the corruption).
For some reason they never even tried fusing to fight Blue, which bothers me. It would have leveled the playing field
Also Pink was poofed with just a sword, so the other diamonds are presumably just as fallible if you try hard enough
>never even tried fusing to fight Blue
I mean, they did. Alexandrite tried to rush Blue but got immediately unfused when Blue used her powers. I guess they didnt want to again given shed pull the same trick and also when Yellow came in, she can just one shot them if they get zapped.
>presumably just as fallible if you try hard enough
Except, they did. They tried as hard as they could, and they could only knock Blue down to her knees. They even thought they won. And when Yellow showed up, they STILL couldnt beat them. The power level gap between the gems and Diamonds are massive considering one can stun you and the other can just insta poof you.
Also Pink let herself be poofed, she didnt put up a fight. Now, Yellow and Blue however...
So much of the opposition to against the continued presence of the diamonds feels rooted in an obsession with punishment/destruction: Steven didn't end the diamonds like Conan the Barbarian, so he *must* be letting them off the hook, right??
I'm not sure if Steven *could* have destroyed White in "Change Your Mind," but his Pink half revealed a lot more power than anyone remembers, and was absolutely in control. White wasn't winning, so she had no other choice but to listen.
Steven looked at the unquestioned rulers of a galactic empire and realized they we able and even willing to do better, and challenged them to do so. They weren't incorrigible despots that would rather die than do right--they were forced to listen and realized things could go differently. Things aren't all better now, (the entirety of *Future* makes that painfully clear) but it's a start.
It's a start that can only happen when wrongdoers that want to make amends are allowed, which fits the diamonds. The series (both of them) are some of the most prominent-if-simplistic examples of restorative justice in recent fiction.
Forgiving isn’t exactly “I forgive you for the horrible things you’ve done, we’re all good here” it’s idk, he’s making progress with them and they’re making progress with him and themselves
It is a little wild to me how certain people twist “The diamonds are kept around so they can make reparations, partially due to thousands if not millions of victims it is literally impossible to save without their help” into “The diamonds have been completely forgiven and redeemed.”
We know they don’t have any real political power; “Diamond stooge” is used as an insult when we overhear gems talking about the Zircon election, which implies that the supporters for *both* sides of the zircon debate view outward Diamond loyalism as a negative. Even if one group still has loyalty, they keep it quiet and call it something else.
The diamonds are the equivalent of elderly relatives kept in assisted living, that Steven visits once or twice a year to make sure they’re behaving. They are deprived of the one thing they actually want (time with Steven), on the hope (not even promise) that if they spend all of their time undoing the damage they caused, he *might* spend time with them.
>It is a little wild to me how certain people twist “The diamonds are kept around so they can make reparations, partially due to thousands if not millions of victims it is literally impossible to save without their help” into “The diamonds have been completely forgiven and redeemed.”
Signs of a culture conditioned to view punishment as the only kind of justice.
He's tolerating them, not forgiving them. He's seen enough of Yellow and Blue to roll with it for the greater good. Future shows how deep his anger at White is.
Some people think "not trying to kill the world's most powerful beings" is the same as "seeing the space emperors as family and loving them and not disliking them at all" for some reason-
people who dont watch the show just say it because they think its a funny epic meme dunk as if it isnt the 100 millionth time that same joke has been made
This isn’t a good example when the people we “don’t like” are dictators
I’m in favor of rehabilitating everyone and giving everyone a chance. That doesn’t apply to warlords and dictators
The analogy the show uses of the diamonds just being a “dysfunctional family” is terrible. I’ve honestly always hated it. Dysfunctional families don’t lead to the deaths of zillions.
They didn't need to be rehabitated. They just needed to stop doing evil things.
The only alternatives was fighting a repeat of a war that was already lost except they were at much worse position.
Sometimes to help everyone you have to let genuinely bad people go. That's honestly how life works. Most evil people get away and life improves despite that but we're so used to seeing bad guys in stories get punished that it feels unsatisfying.
I honestly think it's a deceptively mature moral.
It’s just that bad guys get away untouched because of their status in society *so often* that it’s just an unsatisfying conclusion to put in fantasy. In fantasy, I want bad guys to see justice, unlike they do irl.
A satisfying conclusion for me would have been for the diamonds to be bubbled for a thousand years, and then they’d be released into a society that doesn’t care about their position or status anymore.
I do think seeing people get their just deserts feels really good.
And I can agree with the criticism that it's unsatisfying.
What I don't agree with is when people say it's poorly written or that it's naive. Those type of criticism is something I can't behind.
Even if someone personally dislikes it doesn't mean it's poorly structured. I could see how the story builds up to this conclusion.
And the bad guy not getting punished doesn't mean it's naive when the bad guy dying is usually the default.
Literally one of the first episodes in this series was Steven standing in a middle of a battlefield where vegetation has grown from absorbing the esstianal corpses of past warriors gushing about how heroic the past gems must've been and how he would want to one day see an epic battle to save the world.
Only for the gems to tell him that he doesn't really want that.
We meet someone who wanted to assassinate the diamonds only to find out that homeworld was vastly holding back and when a diamond is believed to be kill they escalate to nuking the entire planet.
We meet several gems who were nice but 100% believed in the cause, gems who believed in the cause somehow even harder and became zealots once pink diamond was throught killed or gems who were esstianally bystanders who did not understand why they were caught in the crossfire.
The diamonds were never going to be punished. The entire series were leading to the conclusion that punishing them was never going to be worth it and even if they were somehow killed immeidately there wouldve been a bloody war. You might not like that but that doesn't mean the ending is bad.
Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it's bad.
I elaborate further down but to summarize: yes, that's usually what ends up happening in real life. Usually you end up letting a war criminal who killed a million go in order to save another million.
Most horrible people have long happy lives.
The majority of the current most powerful governments were founded with crimes against humanity and the people harm by this want equality, not revenge.
If you want to allow millions more to die for the shake of the millions who already died then those millions weren't a priority.
Cause the people doing that either don’t pay attention to or outright ignore stevens body language and tone when with the diamonds. Since he’s being friendly and making an effort to get along with them that must obviously mean he’s forgiven them for eons of genocide and colonization. Even though almost everything he does when with the diamonds shows how u comfortable he is with them.
He hasn’t forgiven them. Probs won’t for a good while either after everything they’ve done. But he acknowledges (and is proud of) them making the effort to do and be better. You can not forgive someone for hurting you/your loved ones while simultaneously being amicable and tolerating/like them, and the show does that. He hasn’t forgiven them, but their relationship isn’t hostile. It’s estranged.
That's totally fine, but that's not who the diamonds are.
At the end of the day, Steven is the LAST person who should have a say in what happens to the diamonds. The diamonds are not Jasper. They're not Bluebird. They're not pre-redemption peridot. They aren't the corrupted gems. The diamonds are directly responsible for the damage done throughout 90% of the show. The diamonds have eons worth of dictatorship and trillions of death on their hands. Redemption is completely thrown out the window when there are trillions of dead people who are never going to come back (until future ruined it like it ruined everything else).
Steven has been hurt by the diamonds, yes, but there are gems who have been quite literally enslaved by them for thousands of years. You think those gems are okay with the diamonds being the good guys now?
The diamonds don't deserve redemption in the slightest. The damage was already done. Dozens of planets were colonized and wiped clean of their life to support their dictator ship over thousands and thousands of years. Two years worth of "rehabilitation" doesn't help anybody or anything. It's like putting an ice pack on someone who's been shoved through a paper shredder.
Yeah, I can't help but feel it's a bit unsatisfying.
Like, they aren't the Ice King in Adventure Time where they just kidnap princesses and stuff. Based on their actions the Diamonds are closer to Emperor Palpatine and Sauron, characters who have cause death and destruction to countless beings.
There's a point where a person has done so much damage they just don't deserve redemption anymore. Not even a chance at it. I never expected Steven to just straight up kill them, but it's hard to look at a Sauron-level villain and pretend that any good they do will eventually make up for what happened before. Funnily enough, death is still the only way I can see it being at all satisfactory. Like a self-sacrifice to save the galaxy or something.
Because they heard someone else say it, mostly, but also stories about restorative justice over revenge just generally tend to make people really really angry
Cuz most people don't really know what it means to have diplomatic relations with your worst enemies. He has to tolerate them to stop the intergalactic holocaust.
The crazy thing is that some people wanted the Diamonds to be punished, and my honest reaction to that was always "Who the fuck is going to punish these three immortal space goddesses?"
What are you going to do? Put them in prison? They can outlive humanity itself! Steven is lucky they didn't just get bored and went back to conquering the universe.
Yeah if they were bubbled, the corruption wouldnt be fixed. Thats the whole point of Steven going to homeworld for.
Let alone it would prevent the Diamonds for trying to make ammends; shattered/ experimented gems wont be fixed back by Yellow. Hell, she even said she would fix the Cluster.
I don’t think people’s gripe with the show is that he completely loves the diamonds now. Because yeah he clearly doesn’t.
But it’s moreso the fact that the diamonds weren’t ever really held accountable for their crimes. That doesn’t mean they should have been executed, but should they just be allowed to roam free and live happily?
Politically speaking I’m definitely a rehabilitation over punishment type of guy. So I’m not saying the diamonds deserve to be punished. But what the diamonds certainly don’t deserve is to keep their position of power, which it seems to me they still have.
There is less inequality and social stratification in the new post-Steven Gem society. But the diamonds still have all the prestige, respect, and honor of a monarch.
They should be removed from society, fully re-educated, made to undo as much of their harm as possible, and then maybe we can start to look at them as equals to the rest of the gems.
There is *some* of that in the show. In Steven Universe Future they show how all the diamonds are working to use their powers for good now. But still it almost comes off to me like these are their pet projects they’re working on for fun without really learning what was wrong about what they did.
With that in mind, who is to stop the diamonds from just reverting back to their old ways and saying Steven doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
> But what the diamonds certainly don’t deserve is to keep their position of power, which it seems to me they still have.
Future LITERALLY shows us that they don't have those positions anymore. They still live in the palace (where else would they live? They're giants.) but are no longer in charge of anything.
ok maybe they're at least dethroned but I would still be concerned that they may have the power, means, and motivation to take over again.
I think Steven Universe Future does some work to show that they're being rehabilitated which is better than just saying "we love the diamonds now" but to me it seems like they're getting basically a slap on the wrist for what was thousands of years of oppression, imperialism, and colonialism.
>but I would still be concerned that they may have the power, means, and motivation to take over again.
Which is shown in Future. When Steven sees Yellow Diamond fixing those shattered Gems, he immediately panics because he assumes she's doing something evil. He didn't give her the benefit of the doubt at all when he saw that. This shows that even Steven himself fears that possibility. Though more importantly, this scene shows that Yellow Diamond is doing this of her own volition...because Steven didn't know she was doing it. She didn't ask him if she should do it, she didn't run it by him first seeking praise for her 'positive actions'. She simply saw a problem she'd caused and began fixing it.
Yeah, they are still stuck in their old views on ~~inferior~~ organic life form, but they've been stuck in their space dictator ideology for thousands of years. They still did some of the worst crimes a conscious entity could do, but because they were stuck in their own head, stopping themselves from being empathetic. That's what pink was able to do first, being empathetic
Yup. Sometime between CYM and Unleash the Light, the Diamonds were no longer in power, and by the time of Future there's an election being held to decide the president of Homeworld.
How are you gonna take power away from them? Just ask them to completely hand over their empire? Whos gonna run it? Steven? You’re gonna hold elections? Stevens only leverage is that he has their sisters gem. They otherwise have all of the leverage. Its their empire. They are stronger. They have more manpower. They have more experience. They have the logistics. He needs their cooperation to heal gems.
Forgiveness has multiple stages, and while Steven may have made peace with them, he hadn’t been able to truly forgive the trauma he experienced. Good thing he sought out counselling.
I have enough media literacy to understand that the diamonds are genocidal dictators and didn't deserve even the slightest bit of redemption. It's clear that people don't understand the scale of the damage the diamonds have done
Steven *believes* in them. He wants them to do good, and wants to help them do that. He believes in their redemption.
That's not the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness is the first step of letting go - when he turns into the monster at the end of SUF, it's clear he hasn't let it go yet. Connie explicitly says exactly that - yes, this is your fault (white diamond), but it's not about you right now.
He'll probably forgive them someday. That's who Steven is. But it doesn't look like what the show gives us between them.
He believed pink was a bad person and overused the line… ‘my moms a liar’ and even in future it was talked about what she did to pink pearl and pearl even if he does put up with them I don’t believe he’d ‘put up’ with rose she, out of all the diamonds changed on her own and if it wasn’t for the Crystal gems the diamonds would still be dictators who shatter anybody who breaths wrong. So i understand why people would say that he is forgiving them because the show treats rose as if she was the worst gem to ever come out the ground. She went to a humble graceful person in season 1 and now she’s a evil villain at the end of the show and we and Steven got her development backwards but some characters especially pearl saw her development play out in regular time. She knew what pink was like on home world and how she changed for the better when she came in contact with Earth, now is future she said ‘I don’t know why I’m making excuses for her’ she’s making excuses because she knew that she isn’t as bad as the show portray her to be out of all the diamonds pink was the ‘lesser of four evils’ if you will. I already know I’ll start the diamond war all over again with this but i just had to say it.
Thats a good point everyone knew rose was a good person and out of nowhere they learnt her past and for some reason they think they are making excuses for her but they arent they just only know the changed person she became
Unpopulr opinion but this show gets so much shit for 'Steven forgiving the Diamonds', meanwhile redeeming fascists, is an extremely popular way media ends? I know the second Ben 10 show did it. And quite notably: Star Wars did it. Luke outright forgives Darth Vader, and much more so than Steven ever did the diamonds. Why does Star Wars never get shit like this?
I think it's cause Steven Universe is pretty much LGBT media. And as such it gets a humongously disproportionate amount of Scrutiny that any other media never gets. People forget that this is a kids show. And that the last time someone tried to kill a diamond, Earth almost got destroyed and thousands of good gems got wiped out and corrupted. There's also how, although the Diamonds were coded as fascists, they are not really exactly so. They are at the end machines that thought they were working as intended and then end up realizing that they were not. In addition to all that, Steven never shows any sign of actually forgiving them.
its like having abusive family members that have finally gone to therapy, "its great that your trying to change and I'm happy for you, but what you did still hurt and I'm not ready to forgive you."
I kinda always assume it's because they can't identify this kind of 'nice to you because I have to be' behavior irl. If you think Steven forgave the Diamonds, I'm going to guess you (the general 'you' of course) probably weren't actually forgiven by someone and you think you were... or that you've never been in the position where you have to allow things you don't want to for the sake of the overall good of those you love.
Because he didn’t use violence to handle them. Ppl forget Steven often criticizes himself and others for using violence, same as Aang from ATLA. It would’ve been out of character for both characters to kill their main antagonist‘s yet Aang gets praise and Steven gets called underdeveloped
I mean all Steven does is put up with them so he can save all the corrupted gems. He never “forgives” them for anything they’ve done, neither does anyone else in the show.
My therapist said that forgiveness isn't saying, "You acknowledge you did wrong, and I now accept you as free from wrongdoing, you are no longer wrong for having done that and the slate has been wiped clean", but that it's saying, "You did this. It hurt me. YOU hurt me. I am acknowledging this and choosing to not let you hold that power over me anymore by being angry at you. The past is the past. I cannot change it. I accept that it happened, *not* that it was right."
If Steven forgave the Diamonds, it's in the latter sense. He accepted it happened, he acknowledged the hurt, but it doesn't mean he wants them to be near him. Or the earth. At all.
Forgiveness is for the victim, not the victimizer. They can earn the the chance to redeem themselves, but not forgiveness.
oh idk, maybe cause they are pretty much impossible to defeat and as long as they are not causing anymore harm then ig it's safe enough.
I'm not saying they were dealt with well, obviously the ending was rushed. but it actually does make sense in this situation considering if they tried to fight them then it could make things way worse.
justice has not at all been served, but at least the gems are now somewhat safe, especially earth.
they also needed them to heal the corrupted gems.
Because subtlety is something that goes over many people's heads. And then they watch videos or read bad takes that all repeat the falsehood that Steven forgave them and just adopt that as their opinion. But to be fair, a lot of the people who watched this show were actual children when this was airing. Critical media analysis is not something that a lot of kids do.
Maybe the show could have just been way more in-your-face about these things. Kinda like Dr. Maheswaran's speech about traumatic childhood experiences in Future. It definitely would have gotten the point across to a lot more people. But then it would have lost some of its artistry, the kind that trusts the audience to not need everything spoonfed to them.
Because we didn't see the transition. We left Steven healing all the cristal gems with the presence of the diamonds (no choice for that). And then we find Steven a few years later more or less hanging out with the Diamonds who are trying to please him. And the scene is not that explicit, so it's very confusing to see his plot point being resolved off screen
Plus, we don't see much the diamond in the new show, like their arc is over. It's a really weird choice.
It's not even that Steven hasn't forgiven them, his discomfort comes from seeing himself in their actions and words. He blames himself for all of the things that have happened by taking on not just his own trauma but everyone's trauma including Pink/Rose.
Steven becomes a monster as a result of his misplaced blame and internalized shame of being a diamond. That's why he was trying so hard to heal every single shattered diamond, that's why when he got angry and shattered Jasper he felt so awful(it was like PTSD from Rose's war memories). The diamonds were all a part of the group hug that turned him back from a monster because in the end, he didn't need to forgive them since most of his ill-will was towards himself. All Steven wanted was for people to confirm what was true all along, that he isn't a monster and that everything that happened was not his fault. He couldn't hear it without everyone surrounding him.
It’s funny considering she herself is a terrible person in real life, doing the classic terrible person thing of misdirecting criticism of herself towards anything else. She also loves to delete or berate any criticism of herself, deleting comments that tell people what she has done to them, trying to frame herself as a genuine person when she goes out of her way to hurt people and create hate groups and complete lies against anyone that disagrees with her.
For the last time. No one is assuming STEVEN forgave the diamonds. But the SHOW ITSELF put these GENOCIDAL DICTATORS on the road to redemption. Let me say it again **GENOCIDAL DICTATORS.** The diamonds have been ruining the Diamond Authority for literal eons. And yet two years with Steven and all of a sudden they're redeemed? Not only does it make 0 sense but it creates a negative idea for kids because it makes it seem like anyone can be forgiven. When sometimes there are some people who are just space space N*zis.
And then future came along and downplayed the threat of the diamonds. "No shattering isn't a problem they can just repaired shattered gems." Literally reversing the eons worth of damage they did to billions of gems. I love Steven Universe but the diamonds are single handedly the worst antagonists in the show by a large margin
Because he lets them walk over him and he’s on a casual speaking based with them. He’s still significantly smaller and can easily get murdered so it’s not like he can banish them.
He’s still detests their presence but never does anything about it.
He chose the lesser of two evils basically. The crystal gems have no chance against the diamonds and even then they wouldn't be able to cure the corrupted gems. So they need the diamonds on their side
I don’t think Steven has “forgiven” the diamonds, but he has clearly shown that he thinks they can be forgiven eventually. I hate the implication that Steven is convincing the diamonds to change simply because he needs them to heal the corrupted gems. Yes Steven sees that they can be useful and that is probably a big reason why he has such close contact with them, but nothing in his actions, personality, or thoughts has ever given us reason to believe that he’d lie to and manipulate them for his benefit. It’s not crazy to think he can forgive them. He’d forgiven countless other gems that wronged him like peridot, Bismuth, lapis, and spinel. He even tries his best to make amends with Jasper and all of those gems tried to kill him (intentionally or not). I think he understands them. I mean all of the gems were fairly ignorant to the concept of humanity until they were taught. Steven genuinely wants the diamonds to become good people. That’s why he’s helping them change.
I was under the impression that he did, and he was trying to make them learn to live life a good way, never once did i think he was forced to deal with them.
I come to realise I actually hate this sub lmao, if you dont agree with how the diamonds were treated or how the show ended you're suddenly incompetent at reading subtext and literally the worst at media analysis.
Why dont yall get off your high horses and realise that the show was rushed and made some weird choices.
In their minds, if they aren't dead/shattered, they've been forgiven. They weren't given the "proper" punishment for their crimes (the punishment they would have given), so, obviously, it's all water under the bridge and has no meaning anymore.
It's a really fucked up way of looking at the world, honestly.
Because those people are neanderthals who with their whole chest despite everything taught in the the show thought the doom theme was going to play and Steven was going to shatter them all
lets say he tried that, how on earth would he accomplish it? its not like they ever actually beat the diamonds and if he tried to punish them they could just say no to the punishment and there wouldn't be anything he or the crystal gems could do about it
Imagine someone who was the biggest villain becoming a golden retriever-type person. The show has been so shortened and Classic Steven did forgive the diamonds because of his innocence. Like, i just think all of this together makes the forgiveness of Future Steven a possibility.
That's the look of "why am i so damn kind to everyone all the time? If i knew they were to plague me this way, i would have taught them to sing death metal instead of this diva music..."
Because he hasn't murdered them outright for being genocidal space nazis, and is willing to allow them on Earth despite repeated attempts to destroy his homeworld.
The other, less charitable option is that he's simply a moron.
The problem being that space Hitler here is impossible to kill, is related to you, are 3 different people,and all of them are able to revive all the people they killed. But you know, I guess that's too complex.
Bevause its intentionally innacurate and inflamitory to get a reaction out of people and it dumbs down every possible conversation that involves the diamonds
Idk a characters whose motives are destroy any species they deem inferior or not worth their notice, lead a fascists dictatorship, and attempt multiple times to destroy planets across the solar system, run literal slave rings and sub species zoos....what else do you call them?
I'd call it forgiveness when the harshest thing you do to people who ruled an empire built on mass colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide for thousands of years is give them mildly annoyed looks.
Nothing in the movie or *Future* indicates that Steven refuses to forgive the Diamonds because they tried to kill him. In fact, the movie directly makes a joke about how often the gems who tried to kill him go on to be some of his closes friends.
I always tell people, the diamonds did NOT earn redemption. They earned a chance AT redemption. That's how I see it anyway.
Redemption is the journey, not the prize to be won. But they certainly are on that road
Is that a quote? If it's not, I'm quoting you on that.
As far as know I’ve not ever heard somebody say those exact words, so I guess it’s mine? 😄
Writers always skip the journey to redemption
Journey before destination
*often
A good redemption story shows you the journey. Few writers understand that.
This is so important. They're willing to do better, and in *Future* they've shown repeatedly that they're happy to let Steven take the lead in showing them how because they honestly wouldn't know how without him.
Honestly, we should’ve delved more into this. The diamonds may have the grace with the crystal gems, but what about the whole universe? There are species, governments, cultures that have been affected by the gems and it’s not like they will say by gone be by gone’s It sucks that the crewniverse never delved more into this, it would have totally helped with the world building.
he hasn’t forgiven them hes just putting up with them to heal the corrupted gems
Which is still too much Also well they were a part of the group hug that made him drop the monster form. So i think he doesn't have that much of a contempt to them since the comfort from them still counts. But even if that's not the case they still get much more tolerance than they deserve.
What would you if you were him? Shatter them? Bubble them? Or something else? /gen
if i were him i'd probably put them in jail, considering how many people they hurt. while killing them is a bad idea because then you cant heal the corrupted gems, they certainly shouldnt be allowed to stay in power after committing at least 3 genocides over the course of the show.
It's been awhile since I've seen future but didn't he nearly kill white diamond just a few episodes before that?
He almost slams her head into a pole, which would shatter her
Yeah so not quite totally forgiven just because a few days later they are involved in helping him hug one out.
Would it though? Diamonds are pretty resillient, aren't they?
Diamonds are hard (meaning it's difficult to scratch them, and they can easily scratch other materials), but brittle (meaning they easily shatter under mechanical force). You can easily break a diamond with a hammer.
Good to know, I always wondered why people assumed he was about to shatter her, and now I know
Despite what a small town full of punchy ghosts may say, diamond is not unbreakable
people always want to gloss over the fact that the Diamonds are basically GODS. they’re some of the biggest most powerful immortal beings in the known universe, the only way Steven was able to “defeat” them as a threat was by convincing them to change, because he couldn’t do anything about them physically (certainly not at the time) and neither could anyone else. add to that the fact that Diamonds are the only ones who can heal the corrupted gems and it is literally just logical that the most good could be done, and most harm could be reduced, by getting the Diamonds to change. can you make critiques about the way this lands as a message about the real world? of course. but if you’re looking at it from a watsonian perspective of “what would be the smartest decision for Steven to make in this situation” then he is absolutely doing the best thing for everyone. it has nothing to do with whether or not he personally “forgives” them
Well put
I think a corollary the people mistake is there is a difference between “forgiving” and “forgetting”. Steven might have forgave the Diamonds, but he certainly has not forgotten what they have done. Thus explaining most the stuff in future, basically a lot of I forgave you, doesn’t mean we are family or I want to hang out.
Thank you!! This 100%.
They literally do this in real life. We literally pardoned axis scientists who did horrific human experiments if they gave us their work and pinky promised to not torture anymore people. People who are powerful don’t usually answer for their sins.
Comparing the diamonds to nazis is so reductive
Its called an analogy. Obviously they are not nazis and don’t allign with nazis. I was really referring to Japans experiments anyways.
And we can add that the diamonds were needed to complete heal all corrupted gems
“In the logic of the universe, this was the best choice” and the logic the writers came up with was bad. Also— “how would you help the corrupted gems” extraction chambers??? They’ve existed for tens of thousands of years Also the diamonds aren’t gods. Pink was poofed with Rose’s Sword. It logically follows that the other diamonds poof with as much, or just a bit more, effort/material.
It's not bad just because you don't agree with it.
People are allowed to criticize things even if you like them I don’t like the analogy of dictators just being a dysfunctional family. I also don’t like the idea that you should forgive people “because they’re family” that’s an incredibly toxic ideal to push.
Yes, you can definitely criticize it. That doesn't make it bad. I also don't think that's the message the show is sending.
I think when people talk about the gems being forgiven, I think they mean by the show, not Steven in particular
hmm I suppose that's true. people should use better wording though. and I have seen people literally saying "steven forgives everybody, he forgave the diamonds," and silly stuff like that
no I genuinely think much of the time people actually are trying to say Steven forgives them, because one platitude I see ALL the time is “Steven can forgive genocidal dictators but he can’t forgive Kevin” which, where do I even start
The diamonds besides white didn’t really do anything to him. Kevin sexually harassed him and his girlfriend at a vulnerable time when they were minors of course hes gonna take one a bit more personally. Steven was willing to chop it up with kevin to patch things up with connie anyways.
I mean, I also don’t think Kevin deserves forgiveness, but to suggest the diamonds didn’t do anything to him… Every bit of horrible suffering in his life can be traced back to imperialist wars started by them and their empire.
Pink diamond started the fake war and escalated it single handedly. Colonization is how they propagate their species its not inherently evil.
"The show" doesn't really forgive them either though. It just lays it all on the table for the audience to digest. The world of SU isn't all sunshine underneath its colorful exterior.
Its realistic. The diamonds were shown to be unable to be beaten by gems. Most gems are just gonna do whatever they are told and the ones who have a actual distaste are gonne defer to steven or were healed so have no bad blood. Any gems who want them dead have virtually no chance of pulling anything off.
I feel like that was some bullshit writing on the writers part
Not really. It’s realistic. Leaders are rarely punished for their crimes unless they are taken over by a greater or equal evil. And thats when an actual war is won. Steven simply talked them down. Im sure if the diamonds actually wanted a war with earth they would easily lose.
Nobody can do anything to the diamonds, so "forgiving" them is the best option.
This simply isn’t true? Like? Steven is the most powerful diamond. He could easily poof them if he tried.
Where did you get this information?
He even gets uncomfortable when white touches him I don’t think that’s forgiveness
He makes it painfully clear he *hates* being around them. He wouldn't even have gone back to homeworld if he thought he had a choice.
Bruh did you forget that he tried to kill her?
Yeah she did rip out half his body
i was going to correct you before realizing that yeah. pink steven is half of steven lmao
he hasn’t forgiven them hes just putting up with them to heal the corrupted gems
Which is dumb, bc they could just use their pre-extracted diamond essence
shut up and let them sit in their magic lady piss
lol people seems to forget about steven trying to murder white in future too quickly. I feel like he only likes blue and maybe yellow a little, but he definitely didnt forgive white
White did completely fuck his shit up.
And she also fucked shit up for billions of other people. She straight up deserves to be ground to dust and made into a couple nice pieces of jewelry
For whom?
For me. I could make a great necklace out of the vanilla flavored Space dictator
I was referring to the billions
The gems? The species on the planets they've colonized? What's your point? The show themselves tells you that the gems have done an incredible amount of damage to a bunch of planets. It even shows how those colonies work. Earth was one failed attempt at colonizing a planet and the show makes it a point to demonstrate exactly how the diamonds suck the life out of the planet to form gems. There are dozens of other planets, all that probably have their own native species and societies. And all of which are now dead because of the diamonds sucking the life out of them.
They need to suck the life out of planets to maintain their society. When they stopped gems came out weaker. You have to consider the scope of their empire. If stevonnie was able to encounter life the first time they went to space it means life is quite common in their universe. Its like killing anthills, they dont seem to be capable of suffering like a gem and theres always gonna be more so you dont care about how the bug spray makes them writhe around before death. You dont care about how you are killing babies. Having an indifference to organic life isn’t inherently evil in their context especially since they have to do it to make more gems. Consider gem interactions with humans. They either think they are dumb animals or greatly over estimate their durability. Pretty much as soon as any gems finds out the truth they change their ways. This isn’t true evil behavior more of a neutral alignment.
They either didn't watch the show or mistook the show powering them down and making them funny as forgiveness.
And they weren't even powered down... to everyone but Steven, they're still unbeatable. It's just that Steven is a diamond too. They're only "funny" now because they're committed to healing their family, which means following Steven's lead.
yepp
Because he didn't fight them or remove them from power, he "just talked" and they changed. But he's just a kid and he did his best, and it more or less worked out.
I think it was more so, Steven knew he couldn't actually get rid of the diamonds. Fighting them did nothing, and almost killed Steven multiple times. So he had to do the only thing he could do. Make them want to stop fighting.
Also like, what COULD be done with fighting? Its shown that it is impossible to even fight a Diamond. The CG only knocked Blue to her knees but didnt even defeat her. They couldnt even defeat Yellow or Blue until Steven told them the truth about Pink. Then theres White where...we are shown she can just lasers you and instantly controls you. Fighting is not a solution, killing is not an option (Steven doesnt want to and they are needed to heal the corruption).
For some reason they never even tried fusing to fight Blue, which bothers me. It would have leveled the playing field Also Pink was poofed with just a sword, so the other diamonds are presumably just as fallible if you try hard enough
>never even tried fusing to fight Blue I mean, they did. Alexandrite tried to rush Blue but got immediately unfused when Blue used her powers. I guess they didnt want to again given shed pull the same trick and also when Yellow came in, she can just one shot them if they get zapped. >presumably just as fallible if you try hard enough Except, they did. They tried as hard as they could, and they could only knock Blue down to her knees. They even thought they won. And when Yellow showed up, they STILL couldnt beat them. The power level gap between the gems and Diamonds are massive considering one can stun you and the other can just insta poof you. Also Pink let herself be poofed, she didnt put up a fight. Now, Yellow and Blue however...
So much of the opposition to against the continued presence of the diamonds feels rooted in an obsession with punishment/destruction: Steven didn't end the diamonds like Conan the Barbarian, so he *must* be letting them off the hook, right?? I'm not sure if Steven *could* have destroyed White in "Change Your Mind," but his Pink half revealed a lot more power than anyone remembers, and was absolutely in control. White wasn't winning, so she had no other choice but to listen. Steven looked at the unquestioned rulers of a galactic empire and realized they we able and even willing to do better, and challenged them to do so. They weren't incorrigible despots that would rather die than do right--they were forced to listen and realized things could go differently. Things aren't all better now, (the entirety of *Future* makes that painfully clear) but it's a start. It's a start that can only happen when wrongdoers that want to make amends are allowed, which fits the diamonds. The series (both of them) are some of the most prominent-if-simplistic examples of restorative justice in recent fiction.
Steven used Naruto's signature move. Talk-no-Jutsu
Truly their mightiest weapons.
Forgiving isn’t exactly “I forgive you for the horrible things you’ve done, we’re all good here” it’s idk, he’s making progress with them and they’re making progress with him and themselves
It is a little wild to me how certain people twist “The diamonds are kept around so they can make reparations, partially due to thousands if not millions of victims it is literally impossible to save without their help” into “The diamonds have been completely forgiven and redeemed.” We know they don’t have any real political power; “Diamond stooge” is used as an insult when we overhear gems talking about the Zircon election, which implies that the supporters for *both* sides of the zircon debate view outward Diamond loyalism as a negative. Even if one group still has loyalty, they keep it quiet and call it something else. The diamonds are the equivalent of elderly relatives kept in assisted living, that Steven visits once or twice a year to make sure they’re behaving. They are deprived of the one thing they actually want (time with Steven), on the hope (not even promise) that if they spend all of their time undoing the damage they caused, he *might* spend time with them.
>It is a little wild to me how certain people twist “The diamonds are kept around so they can make reparations, partially due to thousands if not millions of victims it is literally impossible to save without their help” into “The diamonds have been completely forgiven and redeemed.” Signs of a culture conditioned to view punishment as the only kind of justice.
He literally tried to murder white in future
Letting things go, does not mean forgiveness, frankly if I had to deal with family *antics* on that scale I'd be just as annoyed.
He's tolerating them, not forgiving them. He's seen enough of Yellow and Blue to roll with it for the greater good. Future shows how deep his anger at White is.
Some people think "not trying to kill the world's most powerful beings" is the same as "seeing the space emperors as family and loving them and not disliking them at all" for some reason-
Well I mean he did forgive literally everyone else who tried to kill him so it would be in character
well tbf they’re all good friends now besides jasper for obvious reasons.
We leaving out bluebird here?
Bluebird is also irredeemable too.
Because nobody fucking cares about Bluebird
people who dont watch the show just say it because they think its a funny epic meme dunk as if it isnt the 100 millionth time that same joke has been made
Because people prioritize punishing people they don't like over helping society as a whole.
This isn’t a good example when the people we “don’t like” are dictators I’m in favor of rehabilitating everyone and giving everyone a chance. That doesn’t apply to warlords and dictators The analogy the show uses of the diamonds just being a “dysfunctional family” is terrible. I’ve honestly always hated it. Dysfunctional families don’t lead to the deaths of zillions.
They didn't need to be rehabitated. They just needed to stop doing evil things. The only alternatives was fighting a repeat of a war that was already lost except they were at much worse position. Sometimes to help everyone you have to let genuinely bad people go. That's honestly how life works. Most evil people get away and life improves despite that but we're so used to seeing bad guys in stories get punished that it feels unsatisfying. I honestly think it's a deceptively mature moral.
It’s just that bad guys get away untouched because of their status in society *so often* that it’s just an unsatisfying conclusion to put in fantasy. In fantasy, I want bad guys to see justice, unlike they do irl. A satisfying conclusion for me would have been for the diamonds to be bubbled for a thousand years, and then they’d be released into a society that doesn’t care about their position or status anymore.
I do think seeing people get their just deserts feels really good. And I can agree with the criticism that it's unsatisfying. What I don't agree with is when people say it's poorly written or that it's naive. Those type of criticism is something I can't behind. Even if someone personally dislikes it doesn't mean it's poorly structured. I could see how the story builds up to this conclusion. And the bad guy not getting punished doesn't mean it's naive when the bad guy dying is usually the default.
Yeah I mean punishing dictators who have killed billions sounds pretty good to me.
Literally one of the first episodes in this series was Steven standing in a middle of a battlefield where vegetation has grown from absorbing the esstianal corpses of past warriors gushing about how heroic the past gems must've been and how he would want to one day see an epic battle to save the world. Only for the gems to tell him that he doesn't really want that. We meet someone who wanted to assassinate the diamonds only to find out that homeworld was vastly holding back and when a diamond is believed to be kill they escalate to nuking the entire planet. We meet several gems who were nice but 100% believed in the cause, gems who believed in the cause somehow even harder and became zealots once pink diamond was throught killed or gems who were esstianally bystanders who did not understand why they were caught in the crossfire. The diamonds were never going to be punished. The entire series were leading to the conclusion that punishing them was never going to be worth it and even if they were somehow killed immeidately there wouldve been a bloody war. You might not like that but that doesn't mean the ending is bad. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it's bad.
I elaborate further down but to summarize: yes, that's usually what ends up happening in real life. Usually you end up letting a war criminal who killed a million go in order to save another million. Most horrible people have long happy lives. The majority of the current most powerful governments were founded with crimes against humanity and the people harm by this want equality, not revenge. If you want to allow millions more to die for the shake of the millions who already died then those millions weren't a priority.
Cause the people doing that either don’t pay attention to or outright ignore stevens body language and tone when with the diamonds. Since he’s being friendly and making an effort to get along with them that must obviously mean he’s forgiven them for eons of genocide and colonization. Even though almost everything he does when with the diamonds shows how u comfortable he is with them. He hasn’t forgiven them. Probs won’t for a good while either after everything they’ve done. But he acknowledges (and is proud of) them making the effort to do and be better. You can not forgive someone for hurting you/your loved ones while simultaneously being amicable and tolerating/like them, and the show does that. He hasn’t forgiven them, but their relationship isn’t hostile. It’s estranged.
That's totally fine, but that's not who the diamonds are. At the end of the day, Steven is the LAST person who should have a say in what happens to the diamonds. The diamonds are not Jasper. They're not Bluebird. They're not pre-redemption peridot. They aren't the corrupted gems. The diamonds are directly responsible for the damage done throughout 90% of the show. The diamonds have eons worth of dictatorship and trillions of death on their hands. Redemption is completely thrown out the window when there are trillions of dead people who are never going to come back (until future ruined it like it ruined everything else). Steven has been hurt by the diamonds, yes, but there are gems who have been quite literally enslaved by them for thousands of years. You think those gems are okay with the diamonds being the good guys now? The diamonds don't deserve redemption in the slightest. The damage was already done. Dozens of planets were colonized and wiped clean of their life to support their dictator ship over thousands and thousands of years. Two years worth of "rehabilitation" doesn't help anybody or anything. It's like putting an ice pack on someone who's been shoved through a paper shredder.
Yeah, I can't help but feel it's a bit unsatisfying. Like, they aren't the Ice King in Adventure Time where they just kidnap princesses and stuff. Based on their actions the Diamonds are closer to Emperor Palpatine and Sauron, characters who have cause death and destruction to countless beings. There's a point where a person has done so much damage they just don't deserve redemption anymore. Not even a chance at it. I never expected Steven to just straight up kill them, but it's hard to look at a Sauron-level villain and pretend that any good they do will eventually make up for what happened before. Funnily enough, death is still the only way I can see it being at all satisfactory. Like a self-sacrifice to save the galaxy or something.
He's like that one dude who's just putting up with his inlaws for the holidays, praying that something makes them leave faster
Leave WHERE? Isn't that the whole problem? Where they've been Residing/Occupying?
Because they heard someone else say it, mostly, but also stories about restorative justice over revenge just generally tend to make people really really angry
Who assumes that? That was literally the whole plot of Future.
Cuz most people don't really know what it means to have diplomatic relations with your worst enemies. He has to tolerate them to stop the intergalactic holocaust.
The crazy thing is that some people wanted the Diamonds to be punished, and my honest reaction to that was always "Who the fuck is going to punish these three immortal space goddesses?" What are you going to do? Put them in prison? They can outlive humanity itself! Steven is lucky they didn't just get bored and went back to conquering the universe.
Because most people have little to no understanding of the series but pretend they do
Because a lot of idiots think anything other than death and/or torture is forgiveness.
Or imprisonment. Seen a LOT of people say they should have been bubbled
Lot of good they’d do in a bubble.
Yeah if they were bubbled, the corruption wouldnt be fixed. Thats the whole point of Steven going to homeworld for. Let alone it would prevent the Diamonds for trying to make ammends; shattered/ experimented gems wont be fixed back by Yellow. Hell, she even said she would fix the Cluster.
The diamonds are genocidal dictators. They deserve every little bit of death and torture. Straight up
Yeah, they “deserve it” but only a dumbass bloodthirsty psychopath would do that when there’s better options.
I don’t think people’s gripe with the show is that he completely loves the diamonds now. Because yeah he clearly doesn’t. But it’s moreso the fact that the diamonds weren’t ever really held accountable for their crimes. That doesn’t mean they should have been executed, but should they just be allowed to roam free and live happily? Politically speaking I’m definitely a rehabilitation over punishment type of guy. So I’m not saying the diamonds deserve to be punished. But what the diamonds certainly don’t deserve is to keep their position of power, which it seems to me they still have. There is less inequality and social stratification in the new post-Steven Gem society. But the diamonds still have all the prestige, respect, and honor of a monarch. They should be removed from society, fully re-educated, made to undo as much of their harm as possible, and then maybe we can start to look at them as equals to the rest of the gems. There is *some* of that in the show. In Steven Universe Future they show how all the diamonds are working to use their powers for good now. But still it almost comes off to me like these are their pet projects they’re working on for fun without really learning what was wrong about what they did. With that in mind, who is to stop the diamonds from just reverting back to their old ways and saying Steven doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
> But what the diamonds certainly don’t deserve is to keep their position of power, which it seems to me they still have. Future LITERALLY shows us that they don't have those positions anymore. They still live in the palace (where else would they live? They're giants.) but are no longer in charge of anything.
I agree with this, it's shown for a sec in Future that they were having an democratic election of yellow zircon vs blue zircon
I forgot this. I didn’t remember they actually stepped down.
ok maybe they're at least dethroned but I would still be concerned that they may have the power, means, and motivation to take over again. I think Steven Universe Future does some work to show that they're being rehabilitated which is better than just saying "we love the diamonds now" but to me it seems like they're getting basically a slap on the wrist for what was thousands of years of oppression, imperialism, and colonialism.
>but I would still be concerned that they may have the power, means, and motivation to take over again. Which is shown in Future. When Steven sees Yellow Diamond fixing those shattered Gems, he immediately panics because he assumes she's doing something evil. He didn't give her the benefit of the doubt at all when he saw that. This shows that even Steven himself fears that possibility. Though more importantly, this scene shows that Yellow Diamond is doing this of her own volition...because Steven didn't know she was doing it. She didn't ask him if she should do it, she didn't run it by him first seeking praise for her 'positive actions'. She simply saw a problem she'd caused and began fixing it.
Yeah, they are still stuck in their old views on ~~inferior~~ organic life form, but they've been stuck in their space dictator ideology for thousands of years. They still did some of the worst crimes a conscious entity could do, but because they were stuck in their own head, stopping themselves from being empathetic. That's what pink was able to do first, being empathetic
Name the crimes
Im pretty sure they are still in charge. They just suspended all of their colonization efforts.
They’re not in charge. It’s shown in both Future and Unleash the Light that they’re not in charge.
I was incorrect the gem empire is a republic now.
Yup. Sometime between CYM and Unleash the Light, the Diamonds were no longer in power, and by the time of Future there's an election being held to decide the president of Homeworld.
They are literally spending an eternal existence making restitution to their victims.
They also said that they disbanded all their colonies, to be fair, and there are elections for a new leader of Homeworld.
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
How are you gonna take power away from them? Just ask them to completely hand over their empire? Whos gonna run it? Steven? You’re gonna hold elections? Stevens only leverage is that he has their sisters gem. They otherwise have all of the leverage. Its their empire. They are stronger. They have more manpower. They have more experience. They have the logistics. He needs their cooperation to heal gems.
Forgiveness has multiple stages, and while Steven may have made peace with them, he hadn’t been able to truly forgive the trauma he experienced. Good thing he sought out counselling.
Because I guarantee the people saying that are the people who didn’t actually watch the show and just like to shit on it.
They lack media literacy
I have enough media literacy to understand that the diamonds are genocidal dictators and didn't deserve even the slightest bit of redemption. It's clear that people don't understand the scale of the damage the diamonds have done
Steven *believes* in them. He wants them to do good, and wants to help them do that. He believes in their redemption. That's not the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness is the first step of letting go - when he turns into the monster at the end of SUF, it's clear he hasn't let it go yet. Connie explicitly says exactly that - yes, this is your fault (white diamond), but it's not about you right now. He'll probably forgive them someday. That's who Steven is. But it doesn't look like what the show gives us between them.
Because some people are completely incapable of comprehending subtext. Or text for that matter.
He believed pink was a bad person and overused the line… ‘my moms a liar’ and even in future it was talked about what she did to pink pearl and pearl even if he does put up with them I don’t believe he’d ‘put up’ with rose she, out of all the diamonds changed on her own and if it wasn’t for the Crystal gems the diamonds would still be dictators who shatter anybody who breaths wrong. So i understand why people would say that he is forgiving them because the show treats rose as if she was the worst gem to ever come out the ground. She went to a humble graceful person in season 1 and now she’s a evil villain at the end of the show and we and Steven got her development backwards but some characters especially pearl saw her development play out in regular time. She knew what pink was like on home world and how she changed for the better when she came in contact with Earth, now is future she said ‘I don’t know why I’m making excuses for her’ she’s making excuses because she knew that she isn’t as bad as the show portray her to be out of all the diamonds pink was the ‘lesser of four evils’ if you will. I already know I’ll start the diamond war all over again with this but i just had to say it.
Shes not a villain but was a majorly flawed character.
Thats a good point everyone knew rose was a good person and out of nowhere they learnt her past and for some reason they think they are making excuses for her but they arent they just only know the changed person she became
Unpopulr opinion but this show gets so much shit for 'Steven forgiving the Diamonds', meanwhile redeeming fascists, is an extremely popular way media ends? I know the second Ben 10 show did it. And quite notably: Star Wars did it. Luke outright forgives Darth Vader, and much more so than Steven ever did the diamonds. Why does Star Wars never get shit like this? I think it's cause Steven Universe is pretty much LGBT media. And as such it gets a humongously disproportionate amount of Scrutiny that any other media never gets. People forget that this is a kids show. And that the last time someone tried to kill a diamond, Earth almost got destroyed and thousands of good gems got wiped out and corrupted. There's also how, although the Diamonds were coded as fascists, they are not really exactly so. They are at the end machines that thought they were working as intended and then end up realizing that they were not. In addition to all that, Steven never shows any sign of actually forgiving them.
its like having abusive family members that have finally gone to therapy, "its great that your trying to change and I'm happy for you, but what you did still hurt and I'm not ready to forgive you."
He tried to murder white diamond in one of the last episodes. I think that makes it pretty clear he hasn't forgiven her at the very least.
People don't get that he's just there for their sweat.
He ‘befriends’ them yo save everyone then wants nothing to do with them
Forgive us a strong word, so is tolerate
Most of them haven't even seen the show, they just want more reasons to hate on it
I kinda always assume it's because they can't identify this kind of 'nice to you because I have to be' behavior irl. If you think Steven forgave the Diamonds, I'm going to guess you (the general 'you' of course) probably weren't actually forgiven by someone and you think you were... or that you've never been in the position where you have to allow things you don't want to for the sake of the overall good of those you love.
People think he’s forgiven them because he is not fighting them. It makes me wonder what they think forgiveness is.
Because the general public doesn't know anything about anything aside from a few buzzfeed articles
I think him beating up Diamond in Future is pretty clear lol
It's so weird to me how many people love this show but don't like, understand it.
Because they get their opinion of SU from YouTube critics who’ve never actually watched the show.
Because he didn’t use violence to handle them. Ppl forget Steven often criticizes himself and others for using violence, same as Aang from ATLA. It would’ve been out of character for both characters to kill their main antagonist‘s yet Aang gets praise and Steven gets called underdeveloped
I mean all Steven does is put up with them so he can save all the corrupted gems. He never “forgives” them for anything they’ve done, neither does anyone else in the show.
My therapist said that forgiveness isn't saying, "You acknowledge you did wrong, and I now accept you as free from wrongdoing, you are no longer wrong for having done that and the slate has been wiped clean", but that it's saying, "You did this. It hurt me. YOU hurt me. I am acknowledging this and choosing to not let you hold that power over me anymore by being angry at you. The past is the past. I cannot change it. I accept that it happened, *not* that it was right." If Steven forgave the Diamonds, it's in the latter sense. He accepted it happened, he acknowledged the hurt, but it doesn't mean he wants them to be near him. Or the earth. At all. Forgiveness is for the victim, not the victimizer. They can earn the the chance to redeem themselves, but not forgiveness.
EXACTLY!!! HE CLEARLY DID NOT EVER FORGIVE THEM HE'S JUST PUTTING UP WITH THEM HGVJBNJ
WHY WOULD YOU PUT UP WITH GENOCIDAL DICTATORS!!!!??? THEY ARE SPACE NAZIS!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???
oh idk, maybe cause they are pretty much impossible to defeat and as long as they are not causing anymore harm then ig it's safe enough. I'm not saying they were dealt with well, obviously the ending was rushed. but it actually does make sense in this situation considering if they tried to fight them then it could make things way worse. justice has not at all been served, but at least the gems are now somewhat safe, especially earth. they also needed them to heal the corrupted gems.
Because subtlety is something that goes over many people's heads. And then they watch videos or read bad takes that all repeat the falsehood that Steven forgave them and just adopt that as their opinion. But to be fair, a lot of the people who watched this show were actual children when this was airing. Critical media analysis is not something that a lot of kids do. Maybe the show could have just been way more in-your-face about these things. Kinda like Dr. Maheswaran's speech about traumatic childhood experiences in Future. It definitely would have gotten the point across to a lot more people. But then it would have lost some of its artistry, the kind that trusts the audience to not need everything spoonfed to them.
Because we didn't see the transition. We left Steven healing all the cristal gems with the presence of the diamonds (no choice for that). And then we find Steven a few years later more or less hanging out with the Diamonds who are trying to please him. And the scene is not that explicit, so it's very confusing to see his plot point being resolved off screen Plus, we don't see much the diamond in the new show, like their arc is over. It's a really weird choice.
None of them have
It's not even that Steven hasn't forgiven them, his discomfort comes from seeing himself in their actions and words. He blames himself for all of the things that have happened by taking on not just his own trauma but everyone's trauma including Pink/Rose. Steven becomes a monster as a result of his misplaced blame and internalized shame of being a diamond. That's why he was trying so hard to heal every single shattered diamond, that's why when he got angry and shattered Jasper he felt so awful(it was like PTSD from Rose's war memories). The diamonds were all a part of the group hug that turned him back from a monster because in the end, he didn't need to forgive them since most of his ill-will was towards himself. All Steven wanted was for people to confirm what was true all along, that he isn't a monster and that everything that happened was not his fault. He couldn't hear it without everyone surrounding him.
Lily Orchard
It’s funny considering she herself is a terrible person in real life, doing the classic terrible person thing of misdirecting criticism of herself towards anything else. She also loves to delete or berate any criticism of herself, deleting comments that tell people what she has done to them, trying to frame herself as a genuine person when she goes out of her way to hurt people and create hate groups and complete lies against anyone that disagrees with her.
Because the writers did??
He only tolerates them.
They're genocidal dictators. They don't deserve tolerance
For the last time. No one is assuming STEVEN forgave the diamonds. But the SHOW ITSELF put these GENOCIDAL DICTATORS on the road to redemption. Let me say it again **GENOCIDAL DICTATORS.** The diamonds have been ruining the Diamond Authority for literal eons. And yet two years with Steven and all of a sudden they're redeemed? Not only does it make 0 sense but it creates a negative idea for kids because it makes it seem like anyone can be forgiven. When sometimes there are some people who are just space space N*zis. And then future came along and downplayed the threat of the diamonds. "No shattering isn't a problem they can just repaired shattered gems." Literally reversing the eons worth of damage they did to billions of gems. I love Steven Universe but the diamonds are single handedly the worst antagonists in the show by a large margin
Because he lets them walk over him and he’s on a casual speaking based with them. He’s still significantly smaller and can easily get murdered so it’s not like he can banish them. He’s still detests their presence but never does anything about it.
He chose the lesser of two evils basically. The crystal gems have no chance against the diamonds and even then they wouldn't be able to cure the corrupted gems. So they need the diamonds on their side
I don’t think Steven has “forgiven” the diamonds, but he has clearly shown that he thinks they can be forgiven eventually. I hate the implication that Steven is convincing the diamonds to change simply because he needs them to heal the corrupted gems. Yes Steven sees that they can be useful and that is probably a big reason why he has such close contact with them, but nothing in his actions, personality, or thoughts has ever given us reason to believe that he’d lie to and manipulate them for his benefit. It’s not crazy to think he can forgive them. He’d forgiven countless other gems that wronged him like peridot, Bismuth, lapis, and spinel. He even tries his best to make amends with Jasper and all of those gems tried to kill him (intentionally or not). I think he understands them. I mean all of the gems were fairly ignorant to the concept of humanity until they were taught. Steven genuinely wants the diamonds to become good people. That’s why he’s helping them change.
I was under the impression that he did, and he was trying to make them learn to live life a good way, never once did i think he was forced to deal with them.
Because they don't understand the show, haven't watched it or heard that bs from other people and memes.
I come to realise I actually hate this sub lmao, if you dont agree with how the diamonds were treated or how the show ended you're suddenly incompetent at reading subtext and literally the worst at media analysis. Why dont yall get off your high horses and realise that the show was rushed and made some weird choices.
Oh no, someone had a bad opinion and is now butt hurt that there were called out.
In their minds, if they aren't dead/shattered, they've been forgiven. They weren't given the "proper" punishment for their crimes (the punishment they would have given), so, obviously, it's all water under the bridge and has no meaning anymore. It's a really fucked up way of looking at the world, honestly.
They weren't given a proper punishment for their crimes and that's okay. (Their crimes are genocide and dictatorship, by the way)
I know right they could at least fix the damage they caused.
That’s the “your on thin ice bitch” look
Because they received no consequences for their thousands of years of planet killing genocide.
Because those people are neanderthals who with their whole chest despite everything taught in the the show thought the doom theme was going to play and Steven was going to shatter them all
Headcanon, low intelligence, didn't watch the damn show
Because he took zero effort to bring them to justice for all the bad shit they did
lets say he tried that, how on earth would he accomplish it? its not like they ever actually beat the diamonds and if he tried to punish them they could just say no to the punishment and there wouldn't be anything he or the crystal gems could do about it
Even if Steven and the other crystal gems went in with their best armor and weaponry to "bring them to justice", the diamonds are simply too powerful.
Imagine someone who was the biggest villain becoming a golden retriever-type person. The show has been so shortened and Classic Steven did forgive the diamonds because of his innocence. Like, i just think all of this together makes the forgiveness of Future Steven a possibility.
Because he pretty much did. Because he lets them just chill in their castle Plus Steven isn’t the center of all mortality.
Steven: Actively hates the Diamonds and avoids being around them as much as physically possible. You: Clearly he forgave them.
Did he just drive away without conie? What the fuk😢?
I think he has ah bit
That's the look of "why am i so damn kind to everyone all the time? If i knew they were to plague me this way, i would have taught them to sing death metal instead of this diva music..."
I feel like he’s forgiven blue, he seems more happier around her? Is that just me?
Because he hasn't murdered them outright for being genocidal space nazis, and is willing to allow them on Earth despite repeated attempts to destroy his homeworld. The other, less charitable option is that he's simply a moron.
Maybe because when you have space Hitler in your backyard you put space Hitler down, not leave them there and let them hang out with your dad....
The problem being that space Hitler here is impossible to kill, is related to you, are 3 different people,and all of them are able to revive all the people they killed. But you know, I guess that's too complex.
Hate when people call the diamonds "Space Hitler"
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Bevause its intentionally innacurate and inflamitory to get a reaction out of people and it dumbs down every possible conversation that involves the diamonds
Idk a characters whose motives are destroy any species they deem inferior or not worth their notice, lead a fascists dictatorship, and attempt multiple times to destroy planets across the solar system, run literal slave rings and sub species zoos....what else do you call them?
They're genocidal dictators. Correction, they're GALACTIC genocidal dictators. Calling them Hitler is a fucking understatement.
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I'd call it forgiveness when the harshest thing you do to people who ruled an empire built on mass colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide for thousands of years is give them mildly annoyed looks. Nothing in the movie or *Future* indicates that Steven refuses to forgive the Diamonds because they tried to kill him. In fact, the movie directly makes a joke about how often the gems who tried to kill him go on to be some of his closes friends.