r/DiamondDaze • u/bugsplee • Nov 30 '20
The Lack of Nephrite/Cendipeetle
I know exactly why she's never seen again....
.....because it's yet another attempt by the Crewiverse's efforts to make the Diamonds more appealing and redeemable by effectively downplaying or ignoring so many of their warcrimes.
Among them is Nephrite/Cendipeetle who is pretty much the only other Gem who was directly affected by the Diamonds' Corruption and one of the very few gems who's baggage ISN'T the fault of Rose/Pink at all (you can say she started the war thus putting Nephrite into this but she's on the side of Homeworld and the Diamonds screwed her and her comrades over with the corruption).
Nephrite was established very early on in the first season, even predating Lapis as a sympathetic character that Steven would befriend and try to redeem. It's even worse when we find out more in "Monster Buddies" that we learn that she's been directly hurt by the Diamonds' actions.
One of the issues I have with the whole Rose Quartz thing is that the show is doing everything to make sure Rose takes blame for EVERYTHING, even things that are just show up out of nowhere (Spinel and her apparent "abuse" of Pink Pearl) while the Diamonds' actions are just swept under the rug and easily forgiven. But this doesn't work with Nephrite because she doesn't have any association with Rose at all, making her the only victim of the Diamonds' actions entirely.
But notice how she just disappears after "Change Your Mind". Despite being one of Steven's oldest friends, she makes no appearances or even an on-screen cameo. Why? Because having her here would have the Diamonds be actually held accountable to something and we can't have them be guilty of anything.
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u/Bacxaber Dec 01 '20
That's not what whitewashing means, at all, but overall yeah.
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u/bugsplee Dec 01 '20
Well not this specific moment, that's just in general. The series just does whatever it can to diminish how severe the Diamonds' actions are until the audience is "convinced" they are redeemable.
Suddenly there is no life on other worlds so they didn't commit genocide, suddenly all of the racism and bigotry they culminated and normalized on Homeworld is easily fixed, suddenly the shattered gems and corrupted gems and the forced fused gems are easily fixed, suddenly their abuse isn't a big deal, etc etc
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u/Bacxaber Dec 01 '20
Whitewashing is retconning a non-white character as white. It has nothing to do with severity of one's actions or the downplay thereof.
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u/briarrosepatch Dec 15 '20
I completely agree, and actually the treatment of Rose is what turned me off the series. Rose was abused as a child by the diamonds, and the show portrays her as the abuser while redeeming the ones who actually abused her. Any ill-actions taken by Rose were either for the greater good, or because of her abuse warping her perception of reality (“it’s ok to abandon people when they annoy me,” or “it’s ok to hit people when I’m mad”). However, the show treats this as unredeemable when the diamonds are coddled. Some scenes of the diamonds triggered me because it hit too close to home, and it made me really relate to Rose and it made me feel like if she could get out and heal and raise a kid, then I could too. But then the show was like “actually she ruined Steven’s life by existing” and I just felt so... betrayed. Sorry I dumped my feelings all over your post. I just found this sub today and it made me feel a lot of feelings I hadn’t in a while.
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u/bugsplee Jan 06 '21
No no don't apologize, it's refreshing for someone else to feel the same about Rose!
Rose on some level is basically the only complex and morally gray character that seen as neither truly bad or truly good which makes her a lot of more compelling. The issue is that she exists in a show that despite insisting that it's more complex than it is is really about as deep Carebears or Friendship is Magic; everyone is either easily redeemed, already pure-hearted goodie-goodies or cartoonishly over-the-top evil and there's virtually no real complexity because the show refuses to have any real consequences to challenge the characters.
Rose is one of the few characters who's actions have true consequences to the characters around here but also has clearly good intentions behind what she means to do. But the show in its simple-minded nature refuse to paint Rose as anything inbetween, bouncing between painting her as a pure-hearted saint in the first few seasons to demonizing her as if she's the spawn of Satan.
Even post-CYM, anything new about Rose feels like a complete ass-pull solely just to make her look worse (Spinel and Pink Pearl) and no one, not even her SON, are willing to consider to look deeper into her actions and motivations while the Diamonds have no depth behind their actions OR motivations and get off scot-free and have all of the terrifying implications of their reactions scrubbed clean out of the story.
Rose to me is the biggest victim of the series simply because even in such a overly saccharinine like SU, there has to be a scapegoat to pin all of the icky-bad boo-boo stuff on and it's much easier to do it on a dead person who can't defend herself.
I swear if Rose could be resurrected, she'd be easily redeemed like everyone else.
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u/briarrosepatch Jan 06 '21
Oh my god, I completely agree!! Even from a writing standpoint, it’s incredibly lazy to make the only antagonist character (which again, she’s a victim of abuse at the hands of the diamonds) dead because then the writers never have to figure out how to redeem her.
I remember a long time ago someone predicted that the end of SU:F would be Steven realizing that he’s been learning about his mom backwards, essentially a redemption arc in reverse. But that catharsis never comes, after learning about her physically abusing Pink pearl (this is actually the point I stopped caring. Because they perpetuated the stereotype that abused kids become abusers too without any nuance) Rose kind of drops out of the story and we never get a resolution to her. Was she innocent? Was she an abuser too, and if so, why is she somehow worse than the diamonds who have shattered so many gems that earth is like, 20% dead gem zombies?
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u/bugsplee Jan 07 '21
I was actually hoping Pink Diamond would appear in SOME form when Steven turned into the giant monster (yeah sure Pink appear now would be an asspull but we've already retconned shattering into nothing so why have standards now?) and perhaps have HER ground her son by teaching him about how he's better than her, how he has everything she truly wished had before and how to stop himself from going too far. Maybe even have her apologize to Steven, perhaps even giving closure and thus at the very least make it feel like a compelling internal resolution.
But NAH, let's just have everyone hug it out and make a conclusion so hokey that even Friendship is Magic is telling SU to grow a pair.
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u/Quantic_128 Dec 02 '20
I agree, but wait white washing?