What do you know about the Cartoon Network show "Steven Universe?" You might know that it was created by Rebecca Sugar, the first female showrunner in the network's history. You might also know that since it's inception in the summer of 2013, the show has been lauded for its handling of topics of gender, relationships and love. The show gathers a cast of well-rounded characters who maintain depth while existing on a level younger audiences can understand, and uses them to promote positivity and health in all parts of life. In last Thursday's new episode, "Mindful Education," the show tackled another very human topic with poise, grace, and song. Caution: spoilers ahead.
"Mindful Education" does what a hefty handful of "Steven Universe" episodes have managed to do by now: handle something pretty serious. The episode is all about dealing with guilt, and more specifically with self-blame. It's a heavy topic to talk about to kids, but one that the show immediately succeeds in. The episode centers around the titular Steven and his friend Connie, who discover new obstacles as they magically fuse.
...Okay, I suppose we should back up. For the uninitiated, "Steven Universe" uses magical fusion powers as a way to explore relationships. Whether it's romantic or platonic, healthy or abusive, fusion is about closeness. When two people are close, what either one brings in will affect both, a fact as true in any real life relationship as it is within the show. There have been monstrous failed fusions used to represent unhealthy and even abusive relationships, but Steven and Connie's fusion - a tall and limber swordfighter named Stevonnie - is, at her best, a representation of the joy and wonder both young characters find in each other and their world. "Mindful Education" begins with Connie trying to train alongside Steven while clearly upset about something, a fact she tries to conceal until they fuse. It's revealed that Connie accidentally hurt someone at school, and is carrying around teh guilt produced by something she didn't even mean to do.
The character who steps in here is Garnet, another fusion, whose status as such was a big reveal at the end of the show's first season. Garnet is a fusion of two characters who have been together for literal thousands of years, and as such, tends to be authority on fusion for the uninitiated (which usually just means Steven). Garnet steps in to talk to the two young heroes about guilt, and what happens when one tries to ignore it.
The beautifully-animated message is clear, and enforced throughout the rest of the episode. This scene does a wonderful job of enforcing just how important it is that we don't, in Garnet's words, let these things "be how we fall apart." After this, Connie is able to reconcile with the fellow student she hurt, and makes a friend in the process. Steven, on the other hand, realizes that he, too, has some pretty serious things to sort through.
Let's be real here, folks. The last season of "Steven Universe" has put young Steven through some really harrowing stuff, especially when it comes to not always being able to save those he wants to. Of the three figures Stevonnie is confronted by, two were taken out in self-defense, while the third was corrupted by her own design, with Steven unable to do anything to help. All three are very specifically cases where Steven is carrying intense guilt over things that were not his fault, things in which he really didn't have a choice.
And then the three disappear, in favor of this.
What Stevonnie is seeing here is a vision of Rose Quartz, Steven's mother, a character who he himself was never able to meet. Despite this, Steven has grown up hearing about his mom throughout his entire life, from fond memories from hearts still broken, to war stories from those who fought alongside her. Steven has been learning some things more recently that paint Rose in a slightly less savory light, but that information is only the tip of the iceberg.
The real message here is one that can be felt by anyone who carries something with them that they aren't responsible for. Whether it's ridicule for something your parents did, or some kind of standard you're expected to live up to, it can be terrifying and painful to go through life being compared to someone that existed before you.This part isn't about guilt, so much as it is about fear; fear of not measuring up, fear of the thing you idealized not being what you thought it was, and fear of becoming that very thing yourself.
If fear and guilt appear so readily and interchangeably, that means the path to working through both is similarly paved as well; acknowledge what has happened or is happening. Don't bottle it up, don't think that it will somehow just magically go away if you refrain from thinking about it. Steven Universe's writers want us to remember that we can survive anything, all so long as we take some time to step back and center ourselves. Flexibility, love and trust.
