sedorna:

I’ve come to realize that there’s a large portion of the Steven Universe fandom that doesn’t want character redemption, even if they say they do. Because there’s a similarity in the characters they’ve decided are deserving of redemption.

Blue Diamond, as of the Answer, was considered a horrible dictator at best. But then the whole zoo arc and the trial happened, and now there are a few people who have decided that she deserves redemption. And that redemption can be defined as joining the Crystal Gems to fight against whoever really shattered Pink Diamond.

But Blue Diamond is still a Diamond. And she has never once shown any sympathy to anyone or anything that is not related to the other Diamonds, especially Pink Diamond. But since she mourns in a socially acceptable way, she’s considered deserving of redemption.

And let’s look at the rubies. Up until Room for Ruby, both Navy and Leggy were the rubies that deserved redemption. They were sweet. They were innocent. They weren’t really bad. And after Room for Ruby, Navy went immediately to the completely irredeemable pile, leaving Leggy as the lone redeemable Ruby. Why? Because she’s too young and naive to know any better. Rubies are stupid. Once Steven is nice to her, she’ll run to the Crystal Gems.

And even when a character does have her redemption arc, where she grows and develops, fandom pretends it never happened. I am, of course, referring to Peridot. I can’t count the times I’ve seen people say that Peridot only ever attacked the Crystal Gems because she was alone and scared on Earth. But that ignores that Peridot tried to smash “the Steven” because she thought he was nothing more than an infestation. It ignores that Peridot was perfectly fine with the Cluster destroying the Earth, and only opposed it to save her own gem. No, they’ve decided that Peridot was always good, and that’s why she got redeemed.

Same with Lapis. She did terrible things, for selfish reasons. She dragged Jasper under the sea in order to have a scapegoat for all her pain. But she’s grown. She doesn’t like that part of her. She doesn’t want to hurt others. But so many in this fandom act like she’s sweet angel who did it only to protect Steven. That she’s the eternally suffering, abused victim.

To them, Lapis and Peridot are both characters who were always sweet and good and never once intentionally hurt anybody who didn’t deserve it. They weren’t selfish. They were noble, and eager to learn and grow. But they don’t want either of those characters to grow. They want them to have always been good.

And that’s it. It’s always the characters who were “nice” who deserve to be “redeemed”. But the nastier characters don’t deserve it. Jasper doesn’t deserve to be redeemed because she’s a bully, who deals with her pain by putting others down. Eyeball doesn’t deserve to be redeemed because she tried to kill Steven even though she thought she was attacking Rose. Yellow Diamond can’t be redeemed because she grieves angrily and wants to destroy anything that reminds her of her pain. They’re not “nice”. They’re not “good”.

And there’s the rub. This lovely little hellsite doesn’t like change. If you’ve done, or even thought, something problematic even once, that’s what you always are. So gems like Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, or even Blue Diamond were really always good. And Jasper, Eyeball, and Yellow Diamond always were, and always will be, bad.