Wow, I'm kind of blown away that this was the reaction to that episode. I thought surely the controversy would be "You teased a cool new character and even created scene transitions with her in it to make it look like she was here to stay and then rugpulled us." Which like, I could actually see a little bit. But all this? Sheesh. People really expected Steven Universe to turn into Mobile Suit Gundam.

I appreciate whenever people point out that the war isn't literal. There's a whole song where Steven realizes it also stands in for familial abuse. I can't fault everyone for whom mixing those metaphors rubbed them the wrong way, but trying to pigeonhole it into a single literal reading gives an incomplete picture and shouldn't be the most widespread analysis. Alas, now people have it in their heads that the Diamonds' so-called "redemption" was anything more than Steven tactically dismantling the apocalypse in a way that only makes sense in this specific fictional context

"Thermian Argument" will definitely have to enter my vocabulary. Using that concept in the other direction, though… i'm honestly surprised that more of the show's concept didn't spark debates around that? Like, we have the race- and gender-coding debate, we have the debate over the authorial intent behind the Diamonds. I think those fit into this concept?

It's also canon that, say, most Gems are literally programmed with prejudice and authoritarianism. One of the movie's subplots was an extended joke(?) about Pearl insisting on re-enslaving herself the moment she lost her memories. I couldn't help but react a bit a-Thermianly to that, even though i knew the creators weren't trying to say "People Become Slaves Willingly Because It's In Their Nature" through what they encoded into a dystopia's magic system. After all, the show says plenty elsewhere that even if we do naturally tend toward the Homeworld playbook, that wouldn't make it correct and we're capable of growing beyond it.

But, just, knowing how discussions around the series got, i'm in disbelief that people only ever jumped on the uncharitable reading when debating the power dynamic of Pearl and Rose's relationship?? Blasting to the logical extreme feels like a fan war that would've happened. I guess we should be thankful it didn't

This was a really good read. I've only seen the first half of SU so I DID manage to catch this episode. I've never really put myself in any fandom spaces so I wasn't aware of how it eventually went down... but I do remember thinking at the time that, "The internet is going to argue about this one." XD And from what you've said the reaction was, it looks like that was the case. I think your points are well thought out and I pretty much agree with what you've said. I DO think audiences and the writers of fiction in general need to have a real conversation about the "Three's Company Effect" on characters. Y'know, the thing that means #1: No one will take the time to communicate to defuse any situation and #2: if there IS a misunderstanding that can happen it WILL definitely happen? There never seems to be any characters in popular fiction that are cooler headed and take a moment to communicate and talk things out or make sure they're not having a misunderstanding about something crucial before automatically believing the worst about another character. Not saying Bismuth or Rose would've been that sort of character... Just that there NEVER seems to be a character like that in basically anything. Not a critique about SU so much as a critique about fiction in general. ^u^ I really need to watch the rest of SU at some point, including the movie... 🤔

I think a factor that played into the fandom reaction was the pre-Bismuth episode where Steven learns (to his great distress) that Rose was willing to shatter gems when necessary. Because there was a faction of the fandom that really liked that revelation and were like "yea!! killing evil people is justified!!" and overall interpreted it within the framework of preexisting Leftist Discourse About Political Violence. And those people felt very betrayed when it turned out that wasn't actually what the show wanted to talk about.

Anyway thank you for the post, I love the show and I'm still sad that the online fandom got so weird that it wasn't safe to just like. Have conversations about it while it was actually airing.

I think another issue that got left out of this discussion at the time is that many Homeworld Gems are coerced victims of a fascist state. There's a conversation to be had about whether (outside of a children's cartoon) assassinating the Diamonds is a correct act. But all of the Gems that have appeared on screen at this point, with the exception of Jasper, either have defected from Homeworld society or been abandoned by it. Lapis was an enslaved person, Peridot was an enthusiastic and patriotic technician, the Crystal Gems (except Amethyst) were members of Homeworld society who became rebels, and every corrupted Gem on Earth was a victim of Homeworld war tactics.

The Shattering Point is a bad guerilla weapon for all the reasons you mention, and also because the people it would be used against are demonstrably potential recruits. The vast majority of them aren't devout fascist party members, but people indoctrinated into a generationally-fascist and -imperialist society who, as far as we can tell at this point in the series, are all extremely ripe for recruitment. Bismuth could have designed a weapon that would effectively poof gems en masse, allowing them to be captured and deprogrammed, but instead she makes one that can permanently kill people just like herself, Peridot, or Lapis.

If the Shattering Point had been used against Peridot in "Catch and Release," a season before "Bismuth," she couldn't have explained the Cluster to the Crystal Gems, and it would have already destroyed the Earth.

Great post! I watched the show almost entirely when it was over and so didn't see any of the community reaction. Dipping back into this episode (one of my favorites!) was a good read.

Being a part of the fandom when this episode came out, and watching it all but burn itself down in the months that followed, has left me with a pit in my stomach that's made it hard for me to dive into the show and its themes ever since it ended. There was always this air about it, this...pervasive sense that, in the spaces that had been so formative for my political views, Nothing You Like Can Ever Be Good, with this show in particular as a highlight of that; Bismuth happened, and afterward was a constant spiral of snark about everything from frankly-silly ideological flaws failing to take the scope of the narrative into account (the person - I'll grant they didn't/don't know me - who got me onto Tumblr and then got me into SU made a whole side account that really felt like their complaints boiled down to "they should have rescued the Homeworld Rubies they left stranded in space"...y'know, the secondary-character one-off-episode squad) to endless, endless snark about color palettes and off-model character scaling.

That's more than enough of my own grievances aired here; the long and short is I really appreciate the nuance you've put into this, because it puts the conflict both within the show and without it into a markedly more digestible frame. Thank you.

The resurgence in interest got me to do a rewatch and actually finish Future (fell off a few eps in the first time around), been enjoying seeing people doing retrospectives and analysis.

For me, at least, Bismuth felt like a one-to-one copy of Daisy Fitzroy in BioShock Infinite a couple years prior, so the whole episode just put me in a bad mood. It was difficult to engage with it in a vacuum when it seemed to be pulling art a lot of really tired "enlightened centrism" tropes.

Interstellar war is a component factor in the narrative, but if you actually expected a children's television program intended for an audience of 8 to 14 year olds to openly advocate for the wholesale slaughter of your ideological opponents, I think you might need to recalibrate your expectations.

this is one of the best things i have ever read tbh (edit: the entire take, to be clear, but that line in particular stood out)

Oh, wow. I watched Stephen Universe when it was airing and really enjoyed it, but never interacted with the greater online fandom. I only heard about people getting really mad about it years later, and never knew quite why until now. I completely agree with your essay here; thank you for writing it up!

thanks for standing on bismuth.

I don't have a detailed response, but this was a really interesting read. Thank you for sharing it again!

there was so much shit happening around 2016-2017 that i think really amplified what went wrong with the online discourse around the show. bismuth had uncharitable readings, sure, but the episode where the clueless incompetent male candidate loses to the competent female candidate? right as trump was getting elected? and the show takes sympathy with the guy? and then the one-two punch of it airing around the same time as the 'sympathy for the racist uncle' episode? holy shit one billion casualties

finding out why certain entities acted certain ways made for a better story, a lot of the characters are complex in ways that real shitty people are not

Just to chime in on the thing about the Breaking Point; we do see White Diamond's response when Pink gets 'shattered', which was to immediately unleash an indiscriminate attack with the intention of killing everyone. That kind of escalation could be what Rose was trying to avoid, although we can argue that is undercut by her then faking her own death, which escalates things anyway.

I avoided most of the commentary and fandom meltdowns because I watched most of SU late, but the impression I get is that (like other shows) there is a form of weak or bad faith analysis that doesn't engage with the elements of the work 'in situ'.

I'm so glad theres pushback against all the bad faith nonsense that got slung at this show for 4-5 years.

I heard rumblings of the Bismuth discourse when this episode aired but didn't really think it was the point where the fandom started tearing itself apart but I think I get it now. No wonder people like Lily Orchard got Weird about the show from this episode onwards. It's wild that they still genuinely thought the show would become a full-on War story when Greg outright said early on in the show that there's no such thing as a "Good War" and this episode really hammers it in.

Understood. Steven and Rose are traitors to the revolution and would 100% snitch on anyone under fascism a la George Orwell. /jk

This is good stuff and also makes me glad I was tuned 100% out of SU fandom stuff, cause every time I hear about it in retrospect I have to wonder if I was watching a different show.

I just wanted to say I've never seen Steven Universe (other than like, few seconds of it here and there online) but found this really interesting to read through! I think you did a good job explaining the situation where I felt I could still follow along with almost no background info

I've not seen the original episode in about a decade--and essentially am a different person then when I did.

But its kind of funny having come back to the show and immediately get an episode whose opening thrust was "Bismuth was right" (kind of).

I only saw this show a few years ago, I think, and I'm GLAD I missed on all the online business.

I love Bismuth. She is tied with Garnet for my favorite character. I own a teeny tiny WATERCOLOR PAINTING of Bismuth! I love her design, I love her motivation, I love her tragedy (though I do wish she'd gotten to do more).

I wasn't totally happy with how the show ended... but also oh my god, this is a cartoon for literal children. I saw this with Avatar: the Last Airbender too, it's like, "Guys, you realize cartoons for children won't have the hero commit murder, right? You realize we don't want to teach children it's okay to murder your enemies, right?"