#ask to tag / i know this is a wild multifandom post with too many focal points

[faelapis]

there seems to be a lot of people talking past each other in wwdits fandom right now. some seem to think the reason fans are upset is because nandor did a bad thing, and that they're just too stupid to realize its supposed to be a bad thing he has to learn from.

given my own history of defending steven universe when the fandom is upset about characters doing bad things, you'd think i would side with the people defending the show, but... no? not this time.

there's a pretty big difference between "characters doing something bad" and "other characters (namely, marwa) only being treated as props in that arc rather than getting character arcs, agency or focus of their own."

now. some who know me from SU may protest that i defended SU despite how, for many, it felt like jasper in SU future was used as a prop for steven's development - even being brutally murdered so that steven could angst about it. isn't that the same thing?

and i totally get that argument. but i think this is a great teaching moment to talk about the difference between what "seems" like similar instances of characters getting screwed over for another's development.

because i don't actually think that's what happened with jasper. at least, not to the same extent. i think the scenes between steven and jasper serves them both and gives them what they "need", not what they "want": brutal awakenings that how they've perceived themselves, others and the world is wrong.

steven wants to help others. he wants to see himself as a good, helpful person. someone who is heroic and guides others to the correct path in life. he wants, in essence, to be a "good" diamond, even if he doesn't realize that's what he's trying to be.

in his interactions with jasper, he is confronted with that reality - when she sees him as a diamond, he's forced to realize that that's the logical end point of his desires: trying to be the perfect hero who controls, guides and leads others. this is then reinforced in the next episode, where he's terrified of seeing a version of himself in white diamond. it also shows that he can straight up do bad things, not being the perfect helper boy he thinks he needs to be.

for jasper, she is given what she "wants" temporarily - a brutal, overpowering diamond who dominates her and so earns her loyalty through violence and might.

but then, after her symbolic rebirth, that is taken away. that might seem like a bad thing for her, but that's what she really needs - being confronted with the fact that she can't rely on a diamond to give her life meaning. he can abandon her, he is not beholden to being her worship object. she can't chase that fantasy anymore. so in the last episode, she has to let steven go and seek help at little homeworld.

would i want jasper to have more focus? sure. but she was brought back from the dead for a reason. she was given a symbolic second chance to start her life fresh, and chose to go to little homeworld. steven didn't tell her to do that, he just told her to find something better to do with her life. and that's what she's trying to do.

its not a perfect ending for jasper, no. i would've liked to see more pathos and an onscreen moment of healing, but like... its clearly not just about stevens arc. if it was, why revive jasper at all? steven would've still felt like a bad person if she was dead-dead, arguably even moreso. no, she's revived because she was symbolically dead long before that became literal - sitting alone in her empty, tomb-like cave without ever daring to move forward. its about her being confronted with having to live without a diamond. starting her life over. trying to make the best of it.

in short, even if you can criticize SU for its treatment of jasper, i think there is a real effort to give her something she "needs" independent of stevens arc. jaspers been chasing her past all her life, now she's forced to look towards the future.

looping back to marwa - her "want vs need" doesn't matter at all. because it can't. she's not herself, she is a prop manipulated by nandor into being whatever the story demands. even if nandor learns from it, even if he realizes what he did was bad, its very possible marwa will get nothing out of that.

the reason i think so is because the ending of freddie frames itself like marwa being "happy" now. like both guillermo and nandor "letting go" of freddie/marwa and letting them be "happy" together. her total lack of agency is lampshaded as a bad thing earlier in the episode, but ultimately, both main characters come to the conclusion that as hard as it is for them, they need to let them go, to live their bliss as copies of the same white dude.

which is kind of fucked up, if you ask me!

its not marwa living her bliss. even if you argue it "fits" her, that someone curious and scholarly would like to travel the world, ending up with someone intelligent who appreciates art and history... its not really her. its her being in the sunken place, a passenger to a totally new personality thats overtaken her body.

yes, they might fix it in the finale. yes, i'll gladly eat my words on this. but right now, it really, really looks like the narrative frames this as a happy, or at the very least bittersweet, ending for marwa. sure, she may not be herself, but she's "happy" and away from nandor, so its fine, right? right?

to which i say no. its not fine. and no amount of nandor's potential character development will change that.