fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3529 ]

[ SECRET POST #3529 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3529 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Luther]

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03.

[Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Sean Astin]

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04.

[Supernatural]

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05.

[Ane Brun- "Do You Remember" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lI30Qw69AQ)]

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06.

[The Pillars of the Earth miniseries]

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07.

[Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #504.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Can you clarify what you mean by protagonist-centered morality? I think the show does a pretty good job with moral ambiguity and showing different sides of issues. The recent events with Bismuth and Jasper have made it pretty clear that both characters are meant to be sympathetic, despite respectively being an antagonist and fundamentally disagreeing with Steven/Rose's approach to the war. Plus there's the fact that Steven himself does try his best to understand and empathize with his enemies, even when they're straight-up trying to kill him.

Is Steven ever wrong? I didn't watch the whole thing, but the way that he always seemed to be right, even when he was being stupid and willful annoyed me no end.

Yeah, there are quite a few episodes early on where he makes a mistake or fucks up somehow, makes a huge mess and then has to figure a way out of it. In later episodes that sort of plot isn't so common, but what happens instead is you see him starting to question things he's been brought up to believe about his mother, the crystal gems, the nature of the gem war, and all that. And he's beginning to see through the idealized, sanitized vision he and the other Crystal Gems have made of his mother, Rose Quartz. It's actually some of the most subtle and interesting character development I've seen in a show aimed at kids.

He messed up a mission as early as Cheeseburger Backpack (the third episode) -- the Gems aren't particularly hard on him about it, but we find out later that they have plot-based reasons for that.

There are a bunch of episodes where the point is for him to learn a Valuable Lesson. From the first season, Future Vision, Winter Forecast, Secret Team, and Open Book all count.

And there are plenty where he messes up or needs to be saved at some point throughout the story. Serious Steven, Joking Victim, and Steven the Sword Fighter all have some of this.

He gets a lot better at being smart and thoughtful over the course of the series. It's honestly some really satisfying character development to watch.

Almost every time he interferes with Sadie and Lars he's in the wrong.

That is an excellent example.

But he never really sees any consequences for it. When he was possessing Lars' body and went invading his and Sadie's private life (and in a pretty skeevy way, too, it was seen as no big deal. The one who got left with all the fallout for that in the end was Lars (I don't even like that character, but that episode was fucked up).

I think Steven gets treated like a charming toddler who can do no real wrong, but he's far too old for that.

that one time Sadie did get upset about the pop star performance (where Steven and Sadie's mom wanted her to perform on a stage) and Steven realized he fucked up, big time

he's like a little kid, and the show portrays him as such
he gets into trouble and sometimes understands what he did was wrong, usually because he sees how it affects others
so to me it makes sense he doesn't realize what he's done if he doesn't see the consequences

he's not a particularly smart kid, but he's not selfish either
he's more like a morality pet, not "main character who's always right"

Even if it were true that Steven is always right (not so, as mentioned by the others), that wouldn't be protagonist-centred morality - that would be an intelligent and moral protagonist (possibly one that's boring, but that's a whole different criticism).

Protagonist-centred morality is when what the protagonist does is right, simply because it's what they did. To keep this to SU, let's use the Sadie/Lars example others have brought up - if Steven's meddling had worked, or if Sadie and Lars's reaction was treated by the narrative as incorrect, rather than how Steven learns his lesson...that would be protagonist-centred morality.

Edited 2016-09-02 00:38 (UTC)

Yeah, this. The show has mostly avoided "bad things are okay when the Designated Heroes do them, for no other reason than that they are the Designated Heroes."

The only times it's failed at that, that I can think of, are a couple of the Lars episodes. Which are obnoxious, but don't overshadow the whole rest of the series.

I thought with at least some of the Lars and Sadie eps, as an anon pointed out, he's shown to be in the wrong.

It's not so much "he's treated as being right" as "his wrongness doesn't get the weight that it should."

For Steven specifically, The New Lars is the worst offender. He suppresses someone else's consciousness and takes over their body, and it gets laughed off as Wacky Shenanigans, with only minor scolding? Eugh.

Compare that to the guy who hit on Stevonnie. The show treats him as the creepier one, even though when it comes to boundary-violation, Steven's human-puppeting is in a whole other league.

I agree with that. I understand why they played up the humor at the end, but I do agree that for a show given a lot more depth they should have addressed it better.

Of course, part of it is that I found Steven's actions in that ep so fucking cringeworthy that I probably just imagined a level of rebuke that wasn't actually there...seriously I love Steven but man did he fuck up in that one

I think the key is that Steven didn't try to enter Lars' body, he just ended up there, and he did what he thought Lars would have done in that situation, he just happened to be really bad at it.

It's not really fair to judge him for something that he didn't do on purpose, and that he acted entirely in good faith.

...other than going to someone who would understand (probably not his parents, but maybe either Sadie, or the Gems, or Lars in his own body) and explained what happened and tried to figure out how to fix it ASAP?

And even if for some reason that wasn't an option and he HAD to keep it a secret, it's really not appropriate to like, make grand love confessions to someone under the guise of being someone else.

Of course he meant well, and I don't think he's a terrible person (quite the opposite!) but he did really fuck that one up, and I wish he'd been shown to learn from it a little more.

Oh man, The New Lars was awful. I'm only a casual watcher, but that one really made me uncomfortable with just how skeevy it was to have Steven running around in Lars' body and doin gwhatever he wanted, and how there were basically zero consequences for it.

I mean, I may be alone in this, but I also thought that the guy who hit on Stevonnie was... while a bit out of line, he wasn't actually that bad. It was clear that Stevonnie was uncomfortable with being in a sexual situation, but part of that was because Stevonnie went into a sexualized space, and Stevonnie does look physically mature.
To me, the difference is that the Stevonnie thing is probably meant to more clearly reflect a real-world situation, and is giving a very clear real-world message. However, waking up in somebody's body is a violation that most kids won't actually experience, haha. So while I watch it an am horrified, it probably looks way different to kids, and because it's blatantly unreal it can be set aside as "shenanigans".

He did learn from it, at least. When he found out he'd been in Kiki's head, he apologized immediately and profusely.

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[ SECRET POST #3529 ]

Spoiler warning for season 3

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