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Emotional Labor, Magical Consequences.
What happens when a peace maker forgets to make peace with himself? Steven Universe is a cartoon series made by Rebecca Sugar in 2013. From the art style to the themes it presents, it’s become a show that shaped many childhoods. In the start of the series we meet the Crystal Gems: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, and Steven! Garnet is the current leader of the Crystal Gems. She is a fusion of two gems who are so in love with each other they formed a single being and stay that way for most of the series. Amethyst is a gem that came out of her hole in the Kindergarten, the place where gems were produced, late, making her what the Homeworld gems would call defective. She joined the Crystal Gems after the war and is left in the dark a lot, which makes her angry and constantly pick fights with Pearl. Pearl used to be one of the main servants of Pink Diamond, but betrayed her and became a rebel, though we later find out that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond and had planned the whole thing to save the Earth. And of course we have our protagonist, Steven. Steven is a half-human half-gem hybrid, which makes him a sort of misfit. He lives in a small town called Beach City where there aren’t a lot of kids his age, so he would mostly be alone since the gems would be on missions. Because of this, when he meets new people, he immediately gets attached to them. He cares a lot about the gems and what they think of him. Unfortunately, the gems, while they do love him, pressure him to be like Rose, his mom. Due to this pressure, he tries really hard to be like her, unlocking her powers to make the gems proud. This brings us to episode 38 “The Test”, in which Steven finds out the mission he went on with the gems was a test for him, and he failed it. He begs the gems to make him a new test, to which they oblige. The test they make for him consists of three stages, each designed by one of the gems to test his skills so far. He gets through the first two stages, but when he reaches the third stage, he realizes that the entire test was rigged so he would win. He overhears the gem talking and finds out that they don’t know what they’re doing and that they hoped that with this test they could boost his confidence. Steven walks through the test, ignoring the obstacles knowing they were fake. He reaches the end where the gems were waiting for him. A shadow covers half of his face in that scene, which makes the audience believe he’s going to snap at them, but instead, he pretends to not know it was rigged. He pretends that he went through the whole test, talking about how he completed each stage excitedly and complimenting the designs. This reassures the gems and makes them glad that they’re plan “worked”. Steven puts the gem’s feelings first, causing this to become a reoccurring thing, and is one of the main reasons for his eventual breakdown.
He puts the gem’s feelings before his own. In episode 38 “The Test”, as explained above, Steven finds out that the gems rigged the test so he would win, but did it to boost his confidence. Even though he’s clearly disappointed and hurt by this, Steven chooses not to express his feelings. Instead, he reassures the gems by pretending to be happy, saying, “…You guys are the best. Thank you so much for doing this for me. This was just what I needed.” Another example of this particular behavior would be episode 45 of season 1, “Rose’s scabbard”, where Steven tries to cheer Pearl up when she's upset about Rose keeping secrets from her. Even after she yelled at him and the other, and ran off, he decided to go after her, ignoring the words screamed at him. There is also episode 8 of season 2, “Keeping it Together”, where Steven witnesses the horrifying sight of gem shards being forcibly fused, and while he’s clearly disturbed, he focuses on Garnet’s reaction and supports her emotionally. His concern is immediately for Garnet, even though the scene traumatizes him as well. And this doesn’t only happen when the gems are involved, as seen in episode 24 of season 1, which is before “The Test”, after Amethyst gets injured, Steven sees how upset Connie is and tries to cheer her up by healing her with his spit. He doesn’t really process his own fear of not being able to help people — he just focuses on making her feel better. There are many more examples of this behavior, and it becomes a tendency for him during the rest of the show. After suppressing his emotions like this, the question is; how does he deal with them?
This self sacrificing tendency and its consequences start to take a toll on his mental health, causing him to resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms. Ever since he was little, he's tried to be helpful for others, and not just in the sense of doing chores or helping people in town. Most of his help is emotional support. He's probably heard enough problems from other people to fill a book. Whether it’s with a song, listening to them, giving them perspective or helping them through it, he always managed to help them in the end. So what happens when everything is fixed?
This is one of the problems Steven faces in Steven Universe Future, a sequel to the series and movie. He, with the help of the gems and his dad, creates a place called Little Homeworld for gems and humans alike to interact. Running the place keeps him busy for a while, but he decides to retire after a rather tense graduation party (episode 9 “Little Graduation”). He finds a plant hobby, but that quickly goes downhill when he accidentally uses his magic spit on a cactus he was venting to, who learns how to talk the next day and starts repeating everything he told it. He tries to keep himself busy to fill the void left by the lack of other people’s problems that require his attention. He fears that if he’s not useful, people will abandon him, which actually sort of happens. He tries very hard to avoid topics related to his problems, stating repeatedly that “He’s fine”. He doesn’t allow himself to linger on what happened to him and tries to convince himself that it wasn’t as big of a deal as it actually was. We see this in episode 14 of Steven Universe Future, “Growing Pains”, where Steven goes to the doctor for the first time. Mrs. Maheswaran, Connie’s mom and the doctor Steven sees, asks him if he remembers “anything bad in his childhood that particularly stuck with him” and he recalls events such as episodes 6 (Cat fingers) and 52 (Jailbreak) from season 1, though there is uncertainty in his tone, as if he’s unsure whether those events were as bad. This only gets worse after episode 15 (Mr. Universe) as his frantic attempts to push down his feelings or seek help from those around him fail. We see him snap in episode 18 (Everything is fine) where he tries to help everyone but accidentally makes things worse. This goes to show how damaged his mental health is and how unequipped the adults in his life are to help him.
Finally, all this comes crashing down in the form of Steven’s powers reacting to his deteriorating mental health throughout “Steven Universe Future”. Steven learns many abilities during the main series, some of those being his healing spit, the shield, making bubbles and phytoanimation, which is his ability to grow sentient plants. In “Steven Universe Future” however, he obtains more abilities, specifically related to his diamond side. These new powers are harder to control, not just because he just discovers them, but because they are directly connected to his emotions. They appear when he experiences strong emotions like anger, excitement, or most commonly, distress. In episodes like “Growing Pains”, where his powers affect him and his body swells when he feels the slightest distress, or like "Fragments" and “Homeworld Bound” where they affect others because of his emotional strain. The biggest example is the actual breakdown he has that starts at the end of “Everything is fine” and continues on episode “I Am My Monster”, where he transforms into a pink kaiju-like creature and rampages on the beach. He is unable to control this form and attacks anyone that gets too close. This loss of control shows how much Steven’s emotional struggles have affected him, turning his powers into a reflection of what he’s going through inside.
In choosing to spare the gems’ feelings rather than confront them, Steven set a pattern of self-sacrifice that would ultimately lead to his own emotional collapse. He focused on the state others around him were, even if he was in a similar or worse one. Even he ran out of problems to fix, he didn’t allow himself to process what happened to him. And because of all this, his powers acted out and affected him and others. He absorbed everyone’s problems and fixed them, but had no one to support him, and this caused his emotions to overflow, which in turn caused his powers to act up. And once he finally broke down, everyone realized something was wrong with him. These kind of people are actually very common in real life. They are often known as “people pleasers”, people who do anything for others or to make others feel better. They are often used and manipulated, which causes them a lot of mental and emotional damage, and Steven’s transformation can be seen as a metaphor to what happens to these people.
References
Darth4212, AnimationFan15, Finn 18, Fionna20, Flambot, Killer365, Toxictown, etc. (2014, April 22). Steven Universe. Fandom.com. https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/I_Am_My_Monster/Transcript