Steven Universe first season was the best to me. It was whacky and whimsical. Rebecca Sugar was just bad at pacing and writing a coherent story. I remember hearing they added on a writer to help with the series and they wrote the first depictions of the diamonds. And then Rebecca grabbed the handles halfway, hit the brakes hard, and rewrote the diamonds to be depressed individuals not liking what they were doing. They are tyrants. There is no one above them forcing them to be the genocidal maniacs they are. It's like trying to make Hitler relatable.
I think my biggest gripe with the show is how Steven went from fighting for what is right to just a hardcore pacifist. Steven and the gems get kidnapped at the begining. He says 'They're bad and hurting people and need to be stopped.' And then fast forward to the end of the series and this army of war gems with their megalomaniac dictators finally stop their vicious thousands year conquest because a little boy wants 'peace and love' It just doesn't work that way.
There are ways to find an approach to what they wanted, but they just phoned it in. Aang from the Last Airbender had to confront the FireLord, but everyone expected him to kill the leader, which went against his whole life as a monk. To take a life. He finds another way to kill the villain by stealing the energy that makes bending impossible. Is it a great way? Probably not, but it's better than if Aang just sat down and had tea with the Firelord and suddenly this warmonger had an epiphany from good tea, said he was sorry, and went back home.
Peridot's transformation from villain to one of the good guys works great because they took the time to make it work. Five seconds towards the end of the show just isn't going to cut it.
It's really clear that the crew and Sugar didn't have an endgame in mind, let alone a consistent story. And they changed their mind on plots and how things should be perceived all the time. I almost wonder if they used their hiatuses to observe everyone's feedback and rework their story based on what was received negatively/positively
Rose was supposed to be some amazing woman that everyone glamoured about, but throughout the show's progression you realize she's a horrible person.
And the sad thing is that this was never Sugar's intention.
Which would make for a different story, but it could work well. Not who she seems. From hero to villain. She's seen as a majestic hero, who liberated gems who didn't want to serve a totalitarian regime. Rose apparently liberates Pearl from her master so she can live her own life however she wants. But Rose is actually one of the diamonds in disguise. So she never left her master. And yet this is seen as romantic.
Rose also ends up 'killing' one of her rebellion friends and putting her in a suspended animation as thousands of years go by, because she created weapons that would easily kill the gem army. That was her job as a weapon-smith. Yet, Rose does not have any qualms puppeteering two armies to lay waste to thousands of lives.
I ended up losing interest during the Steven Bombs. They just dumped them at random and if you didn't catch it, oh well tough luck.
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