Child of the Air (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
child_of_the_air) wrote2019-01-24 07:26 am
child_of_the_air) wrote2019-01-24 07:26 am
Thoughts on "Steven Universe: Battle of Heart and Mind"
On Monday night, some friends and I got together to watch the Steven Universe Season 5 finale, "Battle of Heart and Mind" / "We Need to Talk" (link full of spoilers). The episode was...a lot, and I feel like I need to try to put together some of my thoughts about it on here. The following is cut for spoilers:
That episode was...a lot. It was also the most intense episode of Steven Universe I've seen, I think...there were at least two points (Steven's Pink Diamond nightmare at the beginning, and when White Diamond pulls his gem out) that nearly made me scream.
And, honestly, it really seemed like it was meant to be the series finale, although we still have the movie coming, and several sources seem to think that a Season 6 is promised as well. Apparently, though, while it may not be the end of the show, it is the end of the original arc and set of episodes that Rebecca Sugar pitched to Cartoon Network in the first place. Which leaves it a bit unclear what the movie and remaining season will be about, with so many plot threads resolved. But also means it makes sense to talk about this as an ending.
This wasn't really the ending I was hoping for: I don't really like the trope of having everything come down to the struggles of one royal family, who on some level are the only people who matter. This is one of my big complaints about George Lucas's conception of Star Wars, and it seems to apply here, as well—all of those gems on both sides shattered during Rose's Rebellion, all the off-colors who have tried to rebel by existing over the years, and all the suffering of the corrupted Crystal Gems—none of their sacrifices really seem to matter in the end. Instead, the solution to White Diamond's eons of fascist rule, and the implied source of liberation for the Gem Empire, seems to be White Diamond's daughter rebalancing power dynamics among the royal family of diamonds.
All that said, I think that this ending was well done, and the story Rebecca Sugar was trying to tell, about abusive family dynamics and coming out as queer and trans, is an important story, and I'm really glad to have gotten to see it. And, well, even if victory fundamentally depends on royal family dynamics, we do get to see a meaningful victory for the other main characters, too. (And in the case of Pearl, it's not just that she finally gets to go home: her new form with a padded-shoulder jacket in place of the skirts she's been wearing since she was created to be a slave for diamonds, strikes me as a sign of her final liberation from being who she's ordered to be, or who she thinks Rose wants her to be, to getting to be herself, for herself.
Perhaps not surprisingly, my feelings on this seem to mirror those of Oathkeeper of Tarth, the one Steven Universe fan blogger I've been following regularly since I started watching the show.
And well, in terms of what I want to see in the next season, and the movie: the obvious is something of a denouement of how the Gem Empire turns into something that isn't a fascist dictatorship. But I also really want to see more about Pearl and about Pink Pearl...who is Pink Pearl, and how is she going to handle her return to freedom? And how exactly did Pearl become the one who sparked the Rebellion? I worry that the latter is going to be just that Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz/Steven liberates everyone she comes in contact with, and not really Pearl's doing. But, well, Pink Pearl belonged to Pink Diamond first, and she didn't start a rebellion. (That we know of?)
That episode was...a lot. It was also the most intense episode of Steven Universe I've seen, I think...there were at least two points (Steven's Pink Diamond nightmare at the beginning, and when White Diamond pulls his gem out) that nearly made me scream.
And, honestly, it really seemed like it was meant to be the series finale, although we still have the movie coming, and several sources seem to think that a Season 6 is promised as well. Apparently, though, while it may not be the end of the show, it is the end of the original arc and set of episodes that Rebecca Sugar pitched to Cartoon Network in the first place. Which leaves it a bit unclear what the movie and remaining season will be about, with so many plot threads resolved. But also means it makes sense to talk about this as an ending.
This wasn't really the ending I was hoping for: I don't really like the trope of having everything come down to the struggles of one royal family, who on some level are the only people who matter. This is one of my big complaints about George Lucas's conception of Star Wars, and it seems to apply here, as well—all of those gems on both sides shattered during Rose's Rebellion, all the off-colors who have tried to rebel by existing over the years, and all the suffering of the corrupted Crystal Gems—none of their sacrifices really seem to matter in the end. Instead, the solution to White Diamond's eons of fascist rule, and the implied source of liberation for the Gem Empire, seems to be White Diamond's daughter rebalancing power dynamics among the royal family of diamonds.
All that said, I think that this ending was well done, and the story Rebecca Sugar was trying to tell, about abusive family dynamics and coming out as queer and trans, is an important story, and I'm really glad to have gotten to see it. And, well, even if victory fundamentally depends on royal family dynamics, we do get to see a meaningful victory for the other main characters, too. (And in the case of Pearl, it's not just that she finally gets to go home: her new form with a padded-shoulder jacket in place of the skirts she's been wearing since she was created to be a slave for diamonds, strikes me as a sign of her final liberation from being who she's ordered to be, or who she thinks Rose wants her to be, to getting to be herself, for herself.
Perhaps not surprisingly, my feelings on this seem to mirror those of Oathkeeper of Tarth, the one Steven Universe fan blogger I've been following regularly since I started watching the show.
And well, in terms of what I want to see in the next season, and the movie: the obvious is something of a denouement of how the Gem Empire turns into something that isn't a fascist dictatorship. But I also really want to see more about Pearl and about Pink Pearl...who is Pink Pearl, and how is she going to handle her return to freedom? And how exactly did Pearl become the one who sparked the Rebellion? I worry that the latter is going to be just that Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz/Steven liberates everyone she comes in contact with, and not really Pearl's doing. But, well, Pink Pearl belonged to Pink Diamond first, and she didn't start a rebellion. (That we know of?)