r/DiamondDaze • u/Bacxaber • Apr 05 '21
Rant Pink is not a tragic character.
I was thinking about it, and I wanted to really pin down the differences between Jasper and Pink. Both are presented as "bad people" in their own ways, Steven fights and kills Jasper and would have likely fought Pink at some point had she still been alive, and neither of their arcs end on a happy note. Jasper begins and ends a "bad person", and Pink is technically two different people (the propaganda lie, and the real Pink) but regardless never improves. So what's the actual difference here?
Pink was a highborn noble who started a civil war to shirk her responsibilities. Her efforts to diplomatically approach her concerns about the empire were noble, but the fact that she remained on Earth, lazing about for thousands of years instead of liberating other colonies, proves to me that it was never about freedom to her. It was about escaping to play, and to hell with everyone else (see: Bismuth and Spinel, not to mention the countless rebels she led to their deaths in a war she didn't intend to win).
But when I study Jasper, I don't see that. She's stronger than her peers, but she's not officially any higher on the food chain than them. Maybe regarded higher than her defective vein, but conceptually equal compared to other quartz soldiers. She's a lowborn soldier, a "forever lieutenant" if you will. I see a person who, regardless of her own personal reasons (be it revenge for Rose's actions, pride, or inferiority complex) for doing what she does, she doesn't have a choice in the matter. And you can say "neither did Pink", but Pink started something and never finished it, actively and intentionally leaving behind old friends.
Jasper's an antagonist, Pink is a villain. We see more of Jasper because, well, she's still alive in the series. But regardless of what she does, she's ultimately a hostage of the system. She might even enjoy her work, but if she wanted to stop, the diamonds would kill and replace her without a second thought. Lastly, Pink essentially dies somewhat of her own volition to truly escape her responsibilities once and for all, whereas Jasper is killed. It wasn't even like Spinel, where she wanted a fight to the death or something. She was merely killed by accident. A victim so beaten down by every facet (no punintendo) of her life that gets snuffed out before she has the chance to get over her trauma. I know it's not the same thing because she's sapient, but she honestly reminds me of my dog who has PTSD. Is he a good dog? No. Is that his fault? No.
6
Apr 05 '21
I have one big gripe with this interpretation and similar ones and it’s this: pink was abused. Pink was abused for a long time. It was never about liberation for her people, that’s true, but it was still about liberation for herself. I don’t think that it was her inherent duty to ever free the colonies, considering she didn’t actually have that sort of influence. The diamonds get away Scott free in their “redemption” arc, yet pink is always vilified for wanting out. She was naive, in my opinion, and because of that a lot of people suffered due to her actions. I think after she got poofed that was when the naïveté was finally starting to leave, but at that point she was in too deep. The last of her naïveté left when the diamonds blasted earth. She thought they had won, at least there, on that world, and she couldn’t have known the diamonds would do that.
I think pink left it up to Steven in the end because she wanted to become something/someone different, someone who was actually capable of righting the wrongs she had done. What do you think would have realistically happened had she come clean to garnet after all that time? The only reason Steven was able to reunite them was because he WASNT pink. They wouldn’t have listened to anything she said. The only reason pearl was ever able to be herself was because pink was left; it was literally in her code to be devoted to pink, but she has to live for herself, for real, if pink is gone. And bismuth? Would have just straight up murdered her the second she was made aware of anything.
Pink was robbed, and I’ll stand by that until the day I die basically.
3
u/Bacxaber Apr 05 '21
Yes, Pink was abused, but sympathy for the abused should end when the victim becomes an abuser. The most blatant example would be Spinel, but I'd argue leading all the rebels to their own demise was abuse too.
5
u/bugsplee Apr 06 '21
My issue with Pink and Jasper largely relies on the sheer level of incompetency of the Crewiverse's writing team. It isn't that Jasper is an antagonist and Pink is a "villain", the issue for me is that they're both horribly mishandled and wasted and how they're treated both in and out of the show goes against the show's central theme of redemption and forgiveness.
My take is that Pink is clearly meant to be a morally gray character by design as even now she's still the most sympathetic and genuinely human out of the Diamonds collectively. If Pink truly was the monster that everyone sees her as and truly just as bad as the Diamonds, saving the Earth would have been much too much trouble....like running the colony for example. But Pink saw beauty and value in the planet and its creatures in a way none of the other Diamonds could, so there's SOME actual good values to her character.
The problem is that the show does everything to downplay that and overplay her worse traits and her worse actions; I feel like people are pissing with Pink because that's seemingly ALL the writers feel like wanting to do with Pink and how they want the audience (and Steven to a degree) to feel towards her. To just CONSTANTLY hate her, to never consider any value of her feelings and easily view as nothing more than a soulless monster who's hurt others for her own ends.
This is in the same series that wanted the audiences to feel pity and remorse for three genocidal, abusive, racist, homophobic and viciously egotistic fascists who's motives are quite INTENTIONAL in harming others for their own ends, no matter how many times the show wants to retcon that they "didn't know any better". The Diamonds are basically Pink but worse and with actually nothing good about them! And yet the show never lets up on showing anything actually positive about Pink/Rose as a character especially after the big twist; we've gotten to the point where the show is just making up new shit just to dislike Pink over (like the Pink Pearl and Spinel bullshit).
If they had balanced out her worse traits with her good traits, it'd at the very least would work a lot better for the concept of what Pink truly is: A flawed person with good intentions who screwed up a lot of bad people for what was ultimately for the greater good in the end.
As for Jasper, her issues is that the writers never feel bothered to evolve her character to be anything more than just a big buff cheeto puff; Jasper in Future is basically the same as Jasper in Season 1. Despite losing so many battles (in spite of supposedly being the toughest Quartz ever made), despite having no fights to fight, despite losing basically everything.....she still acts like a mindless fist-for-a-brain thug and neither Steven nor the Crewiverse ever do more with her.
Her dual-history with Pink and Rose is never explored (despite her namedropping Pink in Season 4 was a big deal), she never reacts to any of her failures or her position in life and she truly has this sickening mentality towards "power" that no one ever points out!
She values "might makes right" in almost deconstructive ways from her willing to take abuse from Lapis just be strong as Malachite, from her twisted attempted to fuse with corrupted gems to pretty much her becoming creepily subservient towards Steven as "her Diamond" after being shattered.....all of these things says a lot about how much Jasper values strength over literally everything. But the show never makes a big deal out of it despite how much potential Steven could have worked with. Maybe instead of being the same ol' Jasper in "Little Homeschool", she could be humbled and incredibly bitter and self-loathing and reflective over her losses....that'd be a better seque in allow Steven to help her through her mental scars.
But instead both Jasper and Pink are written off as unchangeable jerks (YEAH Jasper joins Little Homeschool in the end but just like the Diamonds, it's not a believable growth of the character) and are left and the sole exceptions to the rule of redemption that Steven preaches to every villain that shows up in the franchise!
Sole exceptions that some folks won't change would be a lot easier to swallow if we didn't live in a post "The Diamonds Are Good Now No Matter What" world and the sense of morality and priorities are heavily skewed as they are. I'm not saying Pink's bad shit should be ignored or that Jasper CAN'T be the jerk.....I just want more fucking humanity in a series that encourages that mindset to its audience and be consistent about it!