![]() Pearl doesn’t seem to get that you don’t treat people that way no matter how lonely and bereft you feel. Pearl comes off more sorry that Garnet is mad at her rather than realizing she’s committed a serious violation against someone she’s supposed to care about and respect. We get to see Garnet’s sense of betrayal, so strong that it disrupts Garnet’s stable fusion and splits her into Ruby and Sapphire. The show’s implication that Rose Quartz rescued Pearl from literal slavery (the Pearl gems are created to serve) makes this even worse. The connotations of using a body coded as black for its strength are staggering in their insensitivity. Amethyst even backs Pearl up in her contention that fusion makes them feel stronger. ![]() The white-or-Asian-coded character gets to do whatever she wants to the black-coded character without even considering the consequences of using someone she calls a friend as well as someone she looks up to. Garnet, in the episode that introduces Sardonyx, is treated like an appliance for Pearl so she can feel like the strong one and feel the sense of intimacy she’s lacked ever since Rose went away to birth Steven. She is tidy, fastidious, and a literal performer whose fusion outfit is a tuxedo of sorts, while Sugilite is the worst of Garnet and Amethyst (the Latina-coded character) magnified. Sardonyx, which is the black-coded Garnet fused with the white-or-Asian-coded Pearl, is a “much cooler” character, more poised, with more self control, and who sneers “playfully” at Sugilite. Sugilite is messy, violent, and out of control to the point that Garnet thinks it’s a bad idea to fuse as her again. The ugly and rather unevolved appearance of Sugilite was explained as Garnet and Amethyst not being in sync with each other mentally, so the fusion manifests that way physically, with the less controlled qualities being amplified. Most of the other fusions have real, put-together outfits, but not Sugilite. Her sense of “style” had elements of Garnet and Amethyst’s outfits, only shredded and ripped up haphazardly. She reveled so much in her strength that she looked for fights and refused to stand down. Sugilite was an ugly, multi-eyed neanderthal-browed monstrous creature. This fusion is not unearthly beautiful like Opal before her, Garnet, or Rainbow Quartz. The first time was the appearance of Sugilite, voiced by special guest Nicki Minaj. Steven Universe, for all the good it does with the racial coding, occasionally missteps, so this wasn’t the first time we’ve seen a race issue treated ham-handedly. That they get so much right is why it’s a major shock to the system when they get things as astonishingly wrong as they did with this episode. That the creative team gets so much right is why it’s a major shock to the system when they get things as astonishingly wrong as they did with this episode. No one person is ever just one thing and heroes are flawed, even the beloved and compassionate Rose Quartz. It strongly illustrates post traumatic stress and places a bold underline beneath the saying “War Is Hell.” It is about trust and making new companions, but also about misunderstandings, broken friendships, distrust, and sad partings.Īll of these topics are dealt with in the usual sensitivity by the Steven Universe team. It is about the grief, guilt, and rage in Bismuth from not being there to fight or fall with the Crystal Gems. It is the story of a war veteran discovering that many of her friends had lost their lives in the war she never got to see the end of. On the surface, the episode tells a multifaceted story about a joyous reunion among long parted friends. The Story Bismuth reunites with the Crystal Gems. It was a painful blow to watch “ Bismuth,” which was a fine episode, but the problematic elements prevented it from being a truly great one. It is now several weeks and a few episodes later and my feelings of profound dismay remain. I brought that same enthusiasm into the 100th episode “ Bismuth,” and after viewing it, I stepped back from my immediate reaction. Naturally, I was as excited as any devoted viewer when Cartoon Network announced the “Summer of Steven” in which we’d get at least two weeks of nightly episodes, including a couple of 22 minute specials. Since season one, I have waved the flag for Steven Universe, going so far as to introduce it to my WWAC co-writers.
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