Oh shit. I feel a post about my trash baby coming on.
So I’ve been trying to keep this somewhat low-key and I can’t anymore.
Since finally finishing SU, I can’t get enough of it. And I find that it’s the perfect length show to watch when I just need a quick mental break, or like, when I’m putting on my makeup before work or whatever. So I’ve rewatched a good amount and…Amethyst fucking has me. She’s definitely my favorite character to the point where I have a disgusting emotional reaction every time I see her on my screen.
Anyone who knows me knows my obsession with A Song of Ice and Fire is a little too strong. But as a result, my friend theculturalvacuum and I came up with a metric to apply to a character or family called The Martell Criteria. And any character/character’s family coded with these features makes my heart feel like it’s about to burst with pain. Amethyst is the only non-Martell character I’ve come across (in any narrative) who hits 9/9 on this scale.
I just want to talk about the first criterion though: internalized guilt and self-deprecation. As Amethyst outright told us in the episode On the Run, her “entire existence” is characterized by self-loathing and extreme guilt over the Kindergarten. She thinks of herself as “bad” and a “parasite.” It’s clear she’s hurt by Pearl talking about how the Homeworld Gems must never be allowed to restart the program, because it furthers her opinion of herself as a mistake and something the Crystal Gems would rather have not existed at all.
And even though she couldn’t have controlled the events of her existence, her guilt over the “bad program” being where she came from is so much that she openly talks about hating herself and never asking to be made. In fact, she thinks that if Steven understood the full circumstances of Kindergarten, he wouldn’t even talk to her.
Key and Teeth 