Where Are You Going With This, People?
The Lars/Sadie relationship arc in Steven Universe has upset me for a long time. Whenever a new episode dealing with it ends in a way I’m less than happy with, I just tell myself things will start improving next time. Well, there’s been several next times, and if anything it’s gotten worse. Now, I’m not criticizing the show or the people who make it. If anything Steven Universe is one of the best modern examples of depicting healthy, loving, mature relationships, and because it’s firstly for kids I think that makes it an objective good. I’m merely questioning why when they seem to hit it out of the park in just about every other area, in this one they’re striking out. With that being said, let’s look at the Lars and Sadie episodes:
-“Joking Victim” sees Lars pawn all his work off on Sadie by faking an injury. That’s bad enough, but throughout the episode it’s highlighted that Lars generally treats her pretty badly, making her feel like she’s not important to him. We also learn he’s only affectionate when convenient to him. The episode avoids acknowledging any of this though because Lars is hurt in Sadie’s prank. Yes, that’s bad. I’m not saying Sadie is without fault. But all the blame is shifted off of Lars.
-”Island Adventure” is another mixed bag. It’s shown that Lars is capable of being good-humored and opening up, but that’s only when he’s given literally no other option. Once again though, Lars’ continuous bad behavior is ignored by the narrative to focus on a single mistake made by Sadie, ie hiding the warp pad from Steven and Lars. But even that was at least done in an attempt to help Lars learn to enjoy life. But because of Sadie’s technical betrayal, the episode ends with both characters being back to square one in terms of character development.
-”Horror Club” doesn’t offer much more. We learn Lars was very insecure as a child. Alright, fine. But he also let his insecurities destroy his friendship with Ronaldo, and he never makes amends for it; not even in the present. As the episode wraps up Ronaldo shows genuine concern for Sadie, and Lars simply tries to one-up him with a half-assed parroting of Ronaldo’s sentiment, at which Sadie smiles like it makes everything okay. And then Ronaldo tries to have a regular human conversation with Lars about their falling out, only for Lars to flail and belt out that he doesn’t care. Yeah. If anything this episode offers backwards progression.
-And finally there’s ”The New Lars.” The premise is that Steven accidentally inhabits Lars’ body and gets to spend a day in his shoes. We see that just about everybody in Lars’ life, from his friends to his own parents, are at the very least put off by his toxic behavior but too polite to say anything. They’re also shown to prefer Steven in Lars’ body, a fact which upsets the actual Lars. And then it almost, ALMOST seems like Lars is going to have a genuine moment of introspection and reassess what kind of person he is. But then Steven tells him Sadie prefers the real him, which isn’t even entirely accurate, and suddenly that makes everything okay in Lars’ mind. As long as Sadie will still put up with his jerky, toxic personality then there’s no need to change!
Can you see why I’m worried about this? Again, I’m not criticizing or attacking the people behind Steven Universe. @rebeccasugar has has spoken a fair bit about healthy relationships and countering abuse. Look up her comic “Margo in Bed” for just one example. The @crewniverse is made up of some of the most insightful, respectful, forward-thinking people in the industry. That being said, I still have faith this is going somewhere satisfying. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still be concerned. These people beautifully demonstrated what an abusive relationship looks like in a clever way in the Malachite storyline, and we got to see Lapis trying to come to terms with it. We saw what ignorance and discrimination can look like with Peridot, and more importantly we saw Peridot learning to overcome these things and grow as an individual.
Why can’t we see either Lars learn to be a more empathetic and considerate person, or Sadie learn that her feelings have value and that if Lars refuses to change he doesn’t deserve her? Is it because they’re humans? Are you worried we’ll be disinterested with a human story now that we have such advanced lore to entice us? Because I’m telling you right now we won’t be. Steven Universe has taught a whole generation of young adults wonderful things about life and their emotions, and hopefully it’s doing the same thing for younger viewers as well.
Please don’t give up on the main thing that made us love the show in the first place: the human element.
@gracekraft
