Beta & Earthlings (Steven Universe) – Overly Animated Podcast #227
By: Dylan Hysen
We discuss the August 8th episodes of Steven Universe, “Beta” and “Earthlings”!
Appearing: Dylan Hysen, Delaney Stovall, Justin Cummings, and Michelle Anderer.
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Dylan Hysen
Dylan is a software developer from the DC area who hosts the Overly Animated podcast discussing everything animation.
8 Comments
The more I think about, the more I think this doesn’t mean Rose killed Pink Diamond. I am thinking more of Rose convinced Pink Diamond to leave the Earth alone, the other Diamonds got mad, they killed her and took off the Diamond symbol and Jasper blamed Rose for that. What Rose “did to my (Jasper) Diamond is brainwashing to betray the Diamond Authority and get shattered for it.
So who had Peridot delivering Jasper’s death blow?
Well I feel some sympathy for Jasper, even though it is all her own fault, kind of like Azula descend into madness.
I feel the Lapidot, if not at the very least they are like siblings, Lapis and Peridot have some of kind of bond, either romantic or like a family.
The inherent sadness in her saying that everyone that fuses with her leaves isn’t them actually leaving. That is to be expected and is deserved beaded on her actions. The sad part is that she doesn’t understand why Lapis and the corrupted quartz left. That it was due to her actions but she lacks the emotional tools to recognize this.
When we first met Peridot the first thing that came to mind for me was definitely that she was going to turn Greg’s barn into into a modern art studio. I mean how else would a character like her turn out.
Seriously though I loved the resolution to this Amethyst/Steven co-arc. Amethyst will never be what Homeworld intended her to be but ultimately that’s not important. She’s got friends and family that have her back. Plus with Steven she had somebody that can really understand what she is going through. I hope she keeps talking with him about this stuff. It’s so much more healthy then her usual process of just internalizing ask if these feelings until they blow up in everyone’s faces.
What I noted was that Jasper wasn’t just made on Earth, it’s that she was made in a hurry. They rushed production in that region. So I wonder how that factors in to her mindset. I don’t think gems come out fighting the second they were born like she and the other gems from her Kindergarten did. I’m of the mind that Earth was mainly for Quartz production now that we have 3 quartz from Earth, and they’re only ones we know.
And Jasper is as close to any sort of redemption as she’s gonna get. Which is not close at all, but better than she was episodes ago. I can see them actually doing something with that now 50 episodes from now or something. What I really got away from this episode is that she has no concept of anything honestly. She has all this free will on Earth but no understanding of how people feel or react to how they feel. But it’s much more dangerous than Peridot’s lack of understanding.
You’d think it’d be obvious that if you force someone to do something they don’t want to, that they’ll leave. What kind of hellish environment does she come from that her thought process is I’m Strong-I want something-I demand it-The receiver should want it too and do what I say? It’s sad, in a pathetic way, not really a way that inspires a lot of sympathy from me. And it makes me wonder even more about Homeworld.
Also it’s not an Amy-Lappy-Peri love triangle. It’s polyamory like you said! We just need Amethyst and Lapis to truly interact and I’ll be good.
On another note I was looking forward to seeing Lapis and Peridot get to this point. I feel like I’ve been robbed of some good relationship building between them, relationship building we’ve gotten for pretty much every other major relationship in the show. So it’s hard for me to care beyond ‘they’re really cute’ with no real substance if that makes sense. I don’t require something deep but I feel like we missed out. It just really stuck out to me, especially after Earthlings and we get the culmination of episodes worth of material for Amethyst and Steven. Limits of the show putting those two in a barn/Steven being the narrative lens.
I also want to see other storyboarders on Peridot episodes more. It’s weird to me that you have two people who pretty much own a character. Even thought they both love Lapis a lot too, I never feel like they have this large input on her character over everyone else. That’s the best way I could think to phrase it.
To clarify: when I say Jasper redemption what I really mean is, when Steven inevitably figures out how to heal corrupted gems because that’s the type of show this is, he’ll heal Jasper. And she won’t be trying to kill them at every opportunity.
Yeah I kinda wish we got more lapidot build up. And yeah good point all of Beta Kindergarten seems rushed so she’s probably different than the Amy Prime one.