“I’ve changed. You changed me.”
She’s still using the exact same tactics to try and pressure Lapis into fusion - isolation, physical force, manipulation (“I’m the ONLY one who can handle your power!”), all to fufill her own need for power than genuinely caring about Lapis.
The only thing that’s changed about her is that she now knows how to say ‘Please’.
She’s absolutely AWFUL Idk how anyone loves this character
its like the people whooping about jasper being ABUSIVE didnt actually watch the show
man i dont even like the show and i can tell you OP and the above response are wrong on just about all the levels they can be wrong
Unfortunately, while ultimately the character is very likely to be redeemed, it is definitely intended to be this way at this point in the story. Jasper is displaying the characteristic behavior of an abuser, a manipulator, and someone that is acting out of their own poor development. This isn’t a mark that she can’t start developing a more healthy psychology, but she’s like a douchebag teenage boy still learning the borders of what ego can get you.
“You’ve changed me. I’ve changed. You can change me.” It’s a typical tactic of abusive partners (male AND female.. in fact, it’s actually interesting this highlights abuse in lesbian relationships. Usually the abuser is male in these moral programs). The person recovering from an abusive relationship wants the relationship, kinus the bad parts. So bad they may go against logic and better judgement if they even see IMAGINED signs their desired beau has changed. It’s how many battered people wind up going back to the people that battered them, just on the hopes they’ll grow up and mature. Psychologically, the abused wants to give them a chance.
She knows she can’t overtly force Lapis anymore, and she’s trying to score points by being diplomatic. Or romantic. She chose to do this away from the Crystal Gems, because she knows they’d be not just moral support, but physical. Just like real emotional and psych abusers, to say nothing of physical.
Jasper is nowhere near emotionally or socially mature enough for the kind of relationship she now desires. She simply isn’t wise enough and hasn’t explored what is involved in relationships. She just remembers how powerful she felt with access to Lapis “wealth” of mystic power and the perverse bondage they shared together. Her violent and sociopathic tendencies are characteristic of someone trained (no less for thousands of years) to kill people.
She wasn’t herself that episode because her mind is coming apart in desperation from what she lost.
oh yeah like, i completely understand the allegory they were going for with jasper. i get it completely. im just saying that to have her painted as the abuser is disengenuous–and this is kind of the fault of the crewniverse–because we all saw the moments leading up to the malachite fusion and we all saw snippets of how that fusion was working out (jasper in chains struggling to be free)
i simply disagree with the characterization of abuser for jasper because she says things an abuser says. because lapis does, too–not overtly the way jasper does, but her schtick is basically “LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO. YOU MADE ME DO THIS” when nobody made her do anything. she willingly fused with jasper. she deliberately tortured jasper while fused. then she turns around and blames jasper for MAKING her abuse her when the fact is: they were both fusing out of selfish, opportunistic needs to throw power around.
Not only did Jasper abuse Lapis, she immediately turned around and started abusing the corrupted gems she captured. She forcibly fused with one, which I’ve heard people compare to raping a mentally ill person. That’s probably overstating it a bit, but it’s still grotesquely unethical in a way no other character on the show has ever been except for the diamonds.
Meanwhile Lapis is forming perfectly healthy relationships with Steven and Peridot and the rest of the gems. There’s a common denominator among the abusive relationships on the show and it isn’t Lapis.
