Theories about "reset" Steven

I have seen a theory about Steven’s “reset” in the movie and I want to talk about it.

Steven was hit several times with the Rejuvenator, which, as we see with the Gems, has the consequence of setting the Gem characters back to how they were made. The effect it had on HIM, however, was different; he was set back in a different way: the way he was before he changed and developed his powers.

It was some people’s opinion that Steven was unnecessarily cold to Spinel even after he understood her trauma. That he should have been kinder and warmer, that he should have hugged her, that he should have adopted her with open arms and understood that all her attempts to steal his friends from him and wipe out his species were just the illogical actions of a hurt person who needed love to heal.

And because of that perception, some folks have even said maybe Steven was “set back” to Pink Diamond’s levels of selfishness. That the way he treated Spinel was a manifestation of it. That he “wasn’t himself” during much of the movie and that this behavior represents a regression.

That really upsets me. I have a real problem with it. Here’s why.

First, nuts and bolts:

As FIRMLY established in “Change Your Mind,” Steven is Steven. There is no “going back” to being Pink or Rose. In discussions during the official podcast, they even had a grim conversation about when Steven dies–and no, Steven’s mother does not return even when he does finally die. She is gone and that fact has been done (and memed) to death.

When Steven was reduced to HIS beginnings, that meant struggling with his powers and lacking control. The organic half of him was not reduced to a previous incarnation at all, and his memories were intact.

Pink Diamond (and Rose) was never shown to struggle with powers. Setting him back to struggling with his abilities is absolutely a Steven thing.

Furthermore, Steven’s child self was also empathetic. Even more so than now, sometimes; he had few boundaries and responded to pain by trying to offer healing, regardless of danger and regardless of how much the hurting person wanted to that pain on.

Steven was also not shown to demonstrate any reduction in warmth toward his existing friends. He was a little businesslike because of, you know, a ticking clock dragging him toward the death of the entire planet, but there was no callous behavior toward his family or friends.

I honestly think the writers would have been more explicit if they were going for that. They may have had Pearl or Greg react to him like he reminded them of Rose’s selfish “she always did what she wanted” mentality. They may have turned his Gem sideways. They may have had him say lines she said to emulate what we know of her. Drawn some kind of explicit connection between his behavior and hers, and shown it to be truly odd in the eyes of everyone else.

They did not do this. Because the way Steven treated Spinel was his choice.

I want to be very explicit here in saying that Spinel deserves so much love. She deserves “a better friend,” as Steven said. She deserves to be important to others and she deserves some self care and some healthy coping mechanisms and, I don’t know, the Gem equivalent of a hundred years of spa days. I want so much for her to be happy.

Steven isn’t the right person to give that to her.

She deserves to be respected and cared for, but she doesn’t “deserve” friendship from a person whose life she tried to destroy in the wake of her own pain, and Steven should be allowed at this point to take a hard stance against inviting more relationships that were spawned explicitly because of how dysfunctional his mother was. At some point, avoiding the cycle of abuse is best accomplished by looking for people with different history.

And furthermore, Steven is also still growing, still a teen, still an immature person despite having saved the galaxy and having an above-average understanding of how to handle himself. It’s realistic for him to want stability–especially in this “happily ever after” context where he really just wanted a breather and a pause from all the stress, not eternal preserved utopia–and it would be perfectly understandable for him to be somewhat self-focused for a while, even if I would never call that selfish here. He needs “me time.” Spinel stole that from him AND then thought her story was grounds for a fast-tracked friendship. It wasn’t.

So Steven, as one of his new human powers, has learned a few things about boundaries. Oh, sure, he still listened to Spinel’s awful story of trauma and followed her up a skyscraper-sized injector risking life and limb and let her burn out her anger on his shields, but he wouldn’t accept that she should be allowed to hurt him or possess him or isolate him from his important relationships, and he wouldn’t accept that she deserves HIM just because she does deserve better treatment.

And I gotta say, it’s painful to see that some people think protecting himself first is so unlike Steven that he must actually be channeling his mother.

That people are so used to him burning and cutting and breaking and smashing himself to save others that the first time he doesn’t do it, they think he isn’t even himself.

Comion DOES NOT HAVE TO LOOK LIKE SELF-SACRIFICE.

And Steven is not being a SELFISH, COLD, UN-EMPATHETIC, OBLIVIOUS JERKWAD because he chooses to engage with Spinel with his shields up.

Spinel was not under the mistaken impression that Steven was his mother. She came after him and his friends with full understanding that they were not responsible for anything she went through, and even though it surely hurt to know his friends spent so much time in the presence of the one she was missing, THEY did not choose to leave her. Pink did.

Steven also never met Pink. And regardless of the (very sad, very touching) reason why Spinel was so heartbroken, she chose to ruin lives on purpose, with no purpose.

Steven invested in her a surprising amount considering she deliberately tried to murder strangers, with NO benefit. The fact that he was not inspired to revenge and still cared what happened to her is a testament to the size of his heart. He does not have to offer friendship if he knows their traumas are too linked and he can’t or doesn’t want to offer what she needs. She needs to heal on her own , but not at the expense of his.

So yes. Seeing Steven suspected of demonstrating the callousness of Pink Diamond as soon as he protects himself from more trauma has really bummed me out.