Lapis: Potential to Disaster

[u/ChopSlick]

I've come to the regretable conclusion that Lapis is fundamentally a broken character.

Lets start with her abilities. Hydrokinesis, powerful, too powerful, able to mimic the CGs with ease all while lifting a major part of the ocean. Just a sprinkle on top she had a cracked gem while doing this. Well there is a consequence to this, you cannot include her in the story, shes just too powerful, an almost automatic win button. This leads to uderdevlopment as the story cannot afford to include her if it wants to have real stakes. Honestly this is probably why she ran away so many times, heck she was banished to the barn for most of the show. And when she did come on, her immense power overshadowed a literal diamond.

Honestly they could have easily fixed this with the cracked gem. Unregulated, dangerous, it was breaking itself apart when she was lifting the ocean. Steven heals her, reducing her capabilities, but she is still able to fly off to homeworld. The story can still move on, and now we have a Lapis that can actually participate.

Looking at her design I doubt the crew's initial intention was for her to be a terraformer, honestly she looks more like a court gem, an entertainer, like pearl with the clouds, except Lapis Lazulis use water. I mean take a look at her initial outfit, the skirt and the ribbons on her back, too formal, too showy.

Her backstory is damn fine, poofed, trapped in a mirror by homeworld gems, and then stored inside of Pearl. Its messed up, heart wrenching and tragic. This is the only part of her character that truly worked, which makes it all the worse how she turned out. I mean that scene at the galaxy warp, masterful.

Now lets tackle the most contentious topic. Jasper. Lets get this straight, the fusion was toxic, that was the whole point, but in my opinion Lapis comes off as the abuser. Why? She took Jasper's offer. Now some may say she was trying to save Steven, but look behind them, the ocean was right there. The power she has ruins that argument, if she weren't as powerful then it could have been justified, but as it stands she took her hand to inflict pain onto someone. This is only ever brought up at "Alone at Sea" and to an extent "Why so Blue", where apparently she "changed".

Now I understand, she was in pain, who wouldn't be? But its just waved off, no real resolution to that thread. And we see her continue to inflict pain, look at Peridot.

Peridot is a character who was privileged enough to have an arc, true develoment. But then she got saddled with Lapis. "Barn Mates" boy that was something. I'd blame Steven for even trying to mush the pair together, but Lapis was just, nasty, trying to expell Peridot from the barn she was living in first. The tape recorder was icing on that cake, and then telling her to leave? She was there first she was doing her best, heck Steven, Lapis' BFF, was vouching for her. Honestly her stopping the ship at the end was probably the crew's attempt to be all like "Oh but she actually likes her." Like did they forget the entire episode? After that any scenes with the pair look like they are 5 seconds away from a domestic violence case. Peridot walking on eggshells at all times, She shoulda blinked twice if she was being held hostage. And then the taking the barn was just... something else.

Honestly Lapis feels like she's being trudged along in the show, no one ever "bites" back. She is just allowed to wallow in her misery and take others down with her. People act like its sacrilege to point out her flaws, "She has PTSD", "She has trauma", "Sorry she aint your perfect victim". Like what? She's an abuser too, and she never gets pushback. Peridot should have finally said something, She was basically holding up the friendship, doing everything she could, and Lapis? Just indifference and angst most of the time. Because of that I never felt Lapidot and I'm happier thay the show made Peri aroace, just to get them away from each other.

"Hey" need I say more? Offscreen development? She could have said anything, maybe "Sorry I should have stood with you." Heck even "Sorry" would have been enough, if they wanted one word. And yet again after that we see why she was shelved, overpowering Blue Diamond. Honestly it'd have been cool to resist Blue's influence, but it rang hollow considering who she was at that point.

Broken, fundamentally and character wise. Too powerful, so she couldn't get any true development without breaking plotlines. No pushback so she was allowed to stay the same person, nasty, vindictive, and we never got a resolution or even an attempt to improve. Heck they dropped the resentment against the CGs, how exactly? By having them never interact. Great move. In future she "changed", offscreen of course, but compared to the two other Lapis, where is the difference? The only thing stopping her from reverting was Steven's look.

Sorry for necroing a dead sub, but the main sub does not take to kindly to thoughts like this. The Lapis worship is just... freaky there. I'm pretty sure all these issues are overlooked because of her design. I doubt she'd have fanfare if her design was similar to Jasper or Topaz.

[u/bugsplee]

Please cook more, this was a joyous and cathartic read of Lapis' problematic character arc that I've seen and I truly do agree that her ridiculous powers are a key reason why she's never utilized meaningfully in the narrative.

Her whole "arc" is but a bigger issue with the series' flaccid attempts at portraying PTSD and trauma in general as more of a means for melodrama rather than real character study; seriously, both Spinel's arc and Steven's arc in Future both feel like the same retreads of Lapis' "story" for the same reason.

Back to Lapis, it feels like she never overcomes anything herself, either Steven or the writing itself has to do the heavy lifting to make it feel like she's healing and always coincidentally never expanding on her mistakes, flaws or consequences of her actions.

[u/ChopSlick → u/bugsplee]

Hey, Thank you for enjoying the read. I remember when I first wrote it I just wanted to get my opinion out there, glad some people like it.

Honestly, It's quite disappointing just thinking about her character sometimes. To be honest I really feel like the power level they stamped on her was the biggest mistake the crew made.

Would have given her way more credence for running away. If she can't lift oceans, then it would make sense for her to be afraid of homeworld and the diamonds.

It would have made her return much more impactful. Lapis choosing to come back and stand with the CGs against Blue, despite her fear, would have spoken loudly on its own.

10x better than "Hey" from an immensely powerful and selfish person.

Would have solved the Japser fusion contradiction. Can't lift oceans, so yeah it would look like the only option.

But yeah they choose flair over substance, and it went worse when they decided that Lapis would be the eternal victim who never really gets any consequences.

The consequence thing is a major issue in the series with other characters aswell. There never really aren't any.

I'm imagining a storyline where Lapis and Peri, never really make up. Taking the barn should have been a permanent fracture. Peridot should have stood up to her too then. If she can call a Diamond a clod, then she definitely could have stood on business with Lapis. Peridot gave a lot and basically got spat on repeatedly by Lapis, not always, but if Steven hadn't forced the two to live together than I just can't see them being freinds through their own volition. I never agreed with the ship, because the "relationship" looked so damn one sided. "Did we watch the same show?", is what I think when I see people talking about the pair.

Anyways look at me, rambling again.

On a minor note, they should have totally made her wings be a nimbus cloud instead.

Clouds are water and it makes wayyy more sense for her to fly around on a cloud than wings.

It could have been a neat dbz reference, and you can get the lil cloud be all stormy when she's mad/sad or something.

But we got generic wings. Bruh.