Harsher In Hindsight / Steven Universe

• "Gem Glow" starts the series off with the Crystal Gems fighting a swarm of Centipeetles invading Steven's house, preparing you for one of many kinds of crazy adventures fighting monsters that are attacking people. And then it's revealed that all the monsters they've been fighting used to be gems just like the rest of them. It's especially hard to rewatch this knowing that Centipeetle still remembers the events of the war, and the "Corrupting Light" that forced her to change into a monster.
  • It's even worst after "Growing Pains", where Steven getting attacked by the Centipeetle was only the start of a long, long list of traumatic events that gave him Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
• After the reveal that all Gem Monsters are in fact Gems trapped in a different form, "Monster Buddies" just got a whole extra layer of Tear Jerker. Mmm, bittersweet. Then Steven manages to partially heal Centipeetle, who reveals through drawings how she got Corrupted. Steven helps her reunite with her crew, but feels guilty that he can't heal them fully.
• Steven's quote in "Onion Trade" is meant to be a Spoof Aesop about creating new memories and not clinging to the past. Fast-forward to Season 3...
  Steven: It was more about the memories than the toy. Now I have new memories! Horrible, horrible memories.
• Amethyst's complaints in about Pearl and Garnet being "on [her] back all the time", like in "Tiger Millionaire", have a lot more weight after "On the Run" reveals how Amethyst joined the Crystal Gems.
• "Coach Steven":
  • Pearl breaks down in tears because she isn't strong enough "to do anything." In Season 2's "Sworn to the Sword", it was shown that Pearl constantly tried to protect Rose in battle, but was always defeated due to being weaker.
  • When Lars and Sadie laugh off Steven's seemingly minor bruise under its disproportionate amount of bandaging, Steven claims the damage is mostly internal to save face. Come Steven Universe: Future episode "Growing Pains", we see the claim is more accurate than even Steven realizes.
  • Pearl suggests that Garnet fuse with her instead of Amethyst. "Cry For Help" reveals that Pearl is addicted to the power high she gets from fusing with Garnet.
• In "Rose's Scabbard", when Pearl is on the cliff. It was already harsh but the revelation that Rose was Pink Diamond the whole time with Pearl being the only one in on it from "A Single Pale Rose" makes it one of the most devastating lines on the show:
  Steven: Rose kept secrets from everyone.
  Pearl: But not from me!
• Also from "Sworn to the Sword", Pearl tells Connie and Steven that she got through the war by thinking about the life that she and Rose will have afterwards. Flashback to "Rose's Scabbard"...
  Pearl: Everything I ever did, I did for her. Now she's gone, but I'm still here.
  • Even worse, "Friend Ship" has Pearl having a breakdown after admitting to Garnet that she tries to be strong because no matter how hard she tries, as a Pearl she feels lost without someone telling her what to do.
  • Pearl training Connie to be fanatically devoted to Steven in "Sworn to the Sword" was disturbing in itself, but it's even more disturbing with the revelation that back on Homeworld a Cult of Personality exists around the Diamond Authority. Especially more so when it's revealed that Pearl belonged to Pink Diamond, Pink Diamond was Rose Quartz, and thus Pearl was programmed to serve her even when Pink gave her autonomy and free will, unlike with Yellow and Blue Pearl.
• In "Warp Tour", Peridot contemptuously crushes her damaged robonoids underfoot, establishing a distinct lack of empathy for her minions. Cut to "Keeping it Together", where we see what Homeworld does to broken things (specifically Gems) and this scene starts to come across in a different light. Specifically, The Reveal that shattered Crystal Gems were buried inside the Injectors and left to fuse over thousands of years until they became an abomination of body parts that seems to be aware of what the experiments did to them. Checking on the experiments' progress was Peridot's entire mission for going to Earth, and despite many setbacks, her primary mission has been accomplished. If this is indicative of how coldly Homeworld thinks of fusion, this lends a lot of context to Jasper's own initial contempt for fusion. And makes it all the more unsettling, that she would then embrace fusion for the sake of beating the Crystal Gems.
• The long-anticipated arrival of Sardonyx isn't all that hyped anymore thanks to the rift Pearl caused in the group because of it.
• When Sugilite appears in "Coach Steven", her first line is "I forgot how great it feels to be me!" When "Cry for Help" reveals that Pearl and Amethyst get a Power High from fusing with Garnet, this line, along with Sugilite's refusal to defuse, get an extra layer of painful. Not to mention Amethyst's song contains the line "I forgot how great it felt to be us, guess I got carried away..."
• "Why would I ever want to go home if you're here?" at first simply shows Pearl's deep devotion (and feelings) for Rose, but after "Back to the Barn" confirms Pearl's status as a Servant Race back at Homeworld, it then implies that Pearl wanted to escape what could have been an abusive past. It's actually revealed that she was given to Pink Diamond, who wanted a friend and not a slave, and encouraged her to think for herself. Which means Pearl for millennia couldn't figure out how to make her Diamond happy until Pearl suggested that Pink go to Earth disguised as a Quartz, and they both developed a deep bond, as well as a determination to fight to save the Earth from colonization.
• Jasper forcefully unfusing Garnet into Ruby and Sapphire in "The Return". In "Too Far", we learn that back on Homeworld, Garnet is considered a freak for being a permanent Fusion, and would not be allowed to exist. Which makes Garnet's solo spot in the extended theme: " I will fight for the place where I'm free, to live together and exist as me!" even more heartwarming than heartbreaking in hindsight.
  • Also, Steven's horror and fear on seeing this forcible unfusing is downright Tear Jerker in "Three Gems and a Baby", where, due to babies not having object permanence Steven thought Garnet had disappeared when she unfused, and he got upset.
  • In "Jail Break", when Sapphire asks Ruby if she's fine, she replied with "Who cares?" In "The Answer", when Sapphire points out that coming back to Blue Diamond's court would result in Ruby's gem being shattered, killing her off for real, she replies with "Who cares? There's tons of me!".
• Pearl demanding that the mirror show her the Galaxy Warp in "Mirror Gem" becomes harsher when you learn that the Galaxy Warp was where Lapis was broken and abandoned for thousands of years, and she was so shaken by the mere sight of it that she nearly dropped Steven into the ocean. No wonder she didn't obey Pearl!
• While Homeworld's experiments with forcible fusion of shattered Crystal Gems from the war was already horrific in its own right, the revelations surrounding Lapis' backstory in "Same Old World" actually manages to make it even worse. Specifically, the revelation that Lapis was a non-combatant that was accidentally caught up in the fighting and forced back into her gem by an attack and was then placed into the mirror as a means of interrogating her. All under the mistaken belief that she was a Crystal Gem. This suggests that the Homeworld has never been one to actually do much to confirm that captured Gems are actually who they think they are before subjecting them to terrible things. How much more difficult would it be to sort Crystal Gem shards from the shards of Homeworld gems? How many entirely loyal Homeworld Gems were utilized in Homeworld's horrific Cluster experiments and the like without anyone even being concerned that they might have been tormenting their own?
• Lapis' initial hatred of the Crystal Gems is first presented as a misunderstanding, as they simply didn't know she was trapped in the mirror and didn't bother to find out who she was. Then it's revealed it actually was a Crystal Gem (Bismuth, to be exact) who poofed her in the first place, albeit Lapis doesn't know this since she was grabbed from behind.
• Jasper referring to Yellow Diamond by name rather than referring to her as "My Diamond" (a huge sign of disrespect among Homeworld Gems) and causal disregard for Yellow Diamond's orders for a personal grudge against Rose takes a more tragic turn after "Earthlings" and "Back To The Moon", where in the former it is revealed Pink Diamond was Jasper's original Diamond and in the latter we find out Rose personally shattered Pink Diamond. And then it's made worse as of Season 5's "A Single Pale Rose", where it's revealed that her enemy is the very same person she's fighting for. So, in a way, Jasper was fighting her ruler this whole time.
• The fight between Rose Quartz and Bismuth over the conception of Breaking Point and the morality of shattering their enemies becomes this when you find out in "Back to the Moon" that everyone on Homeworld believes Rose shattered Pink Diamond. It becomes worse when we learn that Pink faked her death and became Rose Quartz permanently, meaning Rose actually had a good reason for not wanting to kill anyone.
• Peridot asking Pearl who she belongs to, along with Pearl's response of, "Nobody!" becomes this when it's repeated word-for-word with Bismuth. When the latter asked, it was playful and obviously meant to give Pearl a moment to reaffirm her status as a free Gem rather than somebody's servant, and the way it's played out gives the impression that they went through the exchange frequently. It must have stung Pearl horribly to be reminded not only of her supposed "purpose" in Gem society, but also of her old friend - who, as far as Pearl knew at that point, she might never see again.
  • And "A Single Pale Rose" makes it even harsher. Up until Steven was born, Pearl did belong to someone. She belonged to Pink Diamond. But now her Diamond is gone, and we've seen just how much this has dislocated Pearl's life.
• In "Steven Floats", Steven can't use Rose to give himself positive emotions to stop his falling as "those feelings are complicated". Season 3 would go on to complicate his feelings about his mother even further, ultimately leading to his falling from a fatal height again, this time risking Connie's life as well.
• Garnet (and Ruby and Sapphire) initially not telling Steven she's a Fusion until "Jail Break" makes more sense after "Three Gems and a Baby", where it's shown that the first time Garnet unfused in front of Steven, he started crying. Granted, he was upset because he was not old enough to realize Garnet wasn't gone and just "not here right now", but it clearly left the three of them very startled and confused.
• Pearl's verse in the extended theme ("If you could only know/What we really are/When we arrived on Earth/From out beyond your star") is a Heartwarming Moment where she promises that the Gems will protect the Earth, its humans, and Steven. It becomes a Tear Jerker when Pearl sobs in the season four finale where the Gems fail to save the humans captured, and Steven gives himself up to keep his friends from being taken to Homeworld. The Gems are unable to protect the Earth, or Rose's son. Then we learn in Season Five that Rose Quartz is actually Pink Diamond, and faked her death, meaning Steven was turning himself in based on the lie that his mother was a murderer, and Pearl, being ordered by Pink to never tell anyone, couldn't do anything to stop him.
• Pearl's tic of covering her mouth becomes this when we learn it was part of a Geas that Pink Diamond put on her, to never reveal that Rose Quartz was once Pink Diamond and that Pink and Pearl worked together to fake Pink's death. And it's even worse when Pearl says she wanted to tell Steven for so long, but was unable to thanks to the order until her subconscious stole her phone.
• Jasper mistaking Steven for Rose seems like an understandable mistake, since Jasper is a galactic Child Soldier that doesn't have much knowledge about humans. Then it turns out she's not the only one who makes that mistake: Bismuth, Eyeball, and even the Crystal Gems when Steven was a baby have mistaken him for Rose. Rose also has garnered a reputation as an intergalactic criminal that has done some terrible things, to protect the Earth and her friends, while also hurting them by disappearing. It's also not wrong, since Steven has Rose's gem and her powers. It's come to a head where Steven admits he's Rose Quartz to save his friends, and after finally meeting face-to-face, the Diamonds don't seem to realize that Steven is a human-Gem hybrid. And, even worse, it turns out he is Pink Diamond, the one they're trying to avenge.
• "Alone at Sea": One of Jasper's lines comes off as a bit ironic, but no less harsh, considering that Steven does that exact thing to her in Future.
  Jasper: This is your fault. *growls* I'LL SHATTER YOU!
• "Greg the Babysitter":
  • Rose's speech about Gems being created already knowing their purpose, and her seeming envy of the human ability to change and reinvent themselves. Takes on greater meaning when you learn she's none other than Pink Diamond, who "reinvented" herself by creating Rose Quartz as an alter ego, leading a rebellion against her fellow Diamonds, and then faking her death and living as Rose permanently when she wasn't allowed to abandon her purpose.
  • Vidalia’s little "you better pray your space goddess can bring back the dead" threat becomes this when we learn that her powers can revive the dead. How is this under Harsher in Hindsight? Well, Lars had to die for us to learn that.
• All of Pearl's memories with Rose that we see, as well as her song in "Mr. Greg" become this with The Reveal that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond, and Pearl was her Pearl. Pearl was made to love her, literally. As Jasper put it, a Gem's purpose is to serve their Diamond, and we've seen how Jasper has become vengeful on Pink Diamond's behalf. Pearl has trouble moving on because her entire reason for existing vanished.
  • Also from "Mr. Greg", "Both Of You" tints Steven in pink coloring and Greg and Pearl in yellow and blue coloring respectively, becomes much harder to listen to because of this one line from Pink in "A Single Pale Rose": "Blue and Yellow [Diamond] don't care. They never have"; not only did Pink resent them, she thought they didn't care about her, either.
• After she meets an infant Sour Cream, and learns about human babies, Rose makes a speech to Greg about how Gems are formed from the ground, and cannot grow or change the way humans do. Greg completely missed this wistfulness and wanted to put it in song form. She admired this power so much that she gave up her form to have Steven. Then we learn she is Pink Diamond, who was an immortal Womanchild who couldn't shake off her immaturity.
• Most of Season 4 is Steven finding healthy coping strategies for dealing with the trauma from the past season. Steven's VA, Zach Callison, tweeted he was suffering from panic and anxiety◊ while building his career.
• Eyeball Ruby trying to remove Steven's Gem (Which prompted him to wonder what would happen to him) in "Bubbled", and Pearl considering removing it in "Three Gems and a Baby" were already serious moments, but after seeing what would happen in "Change Your Mind", it gains a lot more weight.
  • Pearl's somewhat comedic refusal to hold baby Steven in "Steven's Birthday" suddenly becomes a lot less funny once it's shown she nearly removed Steven's gem when he's a baby. Pearl is ashamed of her past actions and probably doesn't think she even deserves to hold Steven.
• Watching any episode before "Change Your Mind" and/or the movie is significantly harder knowing that Pink Pearl is still under White Diamond's control and Spinel is still waiting in the garden.
• Every hit to the head Steven took becomes this in “Growing Pains” when his first X-Ray reveals that no amount of cartoon physics or Diamond biology could save him from several skull fractures.
  • While foreshadowed several times during Future, that episode also confirms Steven has severe childhood trauma as a result of the horrible things he's undergone. And not just from Wham Episodes like the Diamond Days arc, the episode makes it clear Steven's been traumatized since the first episode, and it's damaged his ability to get through smaller challenges in life because his body and mind constantly believe he's under attack. Seriously, "Growing Pains" should be called "Harsher in Hindsight - The Episode".
• In "Volleyball", Pearl exclaims (upon learning that Volleyball's cracked eye was a result of Pink Diamond, not White Diamond) that Pink Diamond would never shatter someone. She wouldn't, but in "Fragments", her son shatters Jasper.
• "Cat Fingers":
  • Steven lost control of his shapeshifting abilities, turning into a mass of cat heads, due to his inexperience, and at one points he said: “I’m a monster. I’m an adorable cat monster”. Well, it becomes hard to watch without thinking about the episode “Everything’s Fine”, when his trauma and his mistakes made throughout the epilogue finally catch up with him, and he transforms into a giant rampaging monster, out of belief he has become one.
  • Amethyst offers to teach Steven about shapeshifting and messes with Greg by turning into Steven. Greg cringes, saying he's not comfortable around Amethyst when she's shapeshifting. In "Maximum Capacity", Amethyst lashes out at Greg by taking Rose's form, hurting him deeply, and it's implied she's done the same thing before.
• "Gem Glow" features the hilarious "Cookie Cat" jingle that Steven sings: "A refugee from an interstellar war ... he left his family behind!" In the same episode, Steven starts to believe that eating Cookie Cats activates his power. It's a little less funny realizing that Pink Diamond aka Rose Quartz had the exact same backstory: a Gem that instigated a war, leaving her entire family behind and becoming essentially a refugee on her colony. Likewise, Steven singing "Giant Woman" becomes this with the same reveal and knowing that in Homeworld culture, all the Gems are supposed to look up to the Diamonds.
  • At the end of "Steven's Lion", Garnet justifies her decision to let Steven keep the lion by cracking "We kept Amethyst.", which Pearl laughs at excessively. It suddenly becomes less amusing when "On The Run" reveals that Amethyst was born and grew up alone until the Crystal Gems found her, possibly in a somewhat feral state. She's also rather ashamed of her origins, and Garnet and Pearl making a joke like that speaks to how ignorant they were of such feelings.
• In "Watermelon Steven", Amethyst's hysteria towards the prospect of being buried seems like a comedic overreaction. Then in "On The Run" we learn her backstory and it suddenly looks much darker.
• Much of Pearl's My Beloved Smother moments towards Steven become a lot more heartbreaking after "Rose's Scabbard", where it's shown just how much Pearl looked up to and adored Rose and the fact that she sees a lot of Rose in Steven.
  • Which goes from heartbreaking to horrific as of "A Single Pale Rose".
• Peridot's increasing annoyance at the Crystal Gems constantly hassling her in previous episodes may have made for some funny moments, but it takes a decided turn for the tragic in "Catch and Release", where it's revealed that not only is she basically powerless without her Artificial Limbs, but her increasing desperation was due in no small part to the fact that she is completely isolated on Earth, has received no contact from Yellow Diamond and has no Robonoids to help her, and is scared out of her mind at the prospect of still being around when The Cluster hatches and wipes out everything on Earth. Let the Cry for the Devil reactions ensue. It gets worse when she seizes an opportunity to contact Yellow Diamond and get off the planet, but due to Yellow Diamond wanting the Earth to die, Peridot calls her boss a "clod" and has officially severed ties with Homeworld.
• Peridot's Freak Out over calling Yellow Diamond a "clod" becomes this when, in "Reunited," she tries the same insult to get Yellow Diamond to stop fighting and tell her off. Yellow Diamond simply zaps and poofs her the second time. The same goes for when in "The Kindergarten Kid" and it's revealed Peridot can suffer multiple Amusing Injuries due to "us Peridots are tougher than we look!" Not even being an Iron Butt Monkey saves her from YD's lightning.
• Garnet's comedic bit of Tranquil Fury putting Peridot on a tether in "Too Far" for asking Garnet to un-fuse becomes downright heartbreaking after seeing her origin story in "The Answer": that Ruby accidentally Fused with Sapphire to save her life, and Ruby nearly died for it due to Fantastic Racism among the Homeworld Gems. As a result of her good deed, Ruby lost her home, her station in life, and her purpose, and had to rediscover it with Sapphire as a Fusion. Peridot's Innocently Insensitive request must have triggered a lot of flashbacks.
• The Gems' panic in "Steven's Birthday" when Steven reverts to being a baby is a lot sadder after watching "Three Gems and a Baby": not knowing that Rose was gone forever, they kidnapped Steven when his gem started to glow, believing that Rose was somehow trapped inside of him.
• The Gems admit that Rose saw the beauty in everything, even the "gross" stuff like alien algae that ends up swallowing any moving object. That's because as Pink Diamond she had a Heel Realization on learning that colonization would destroy all life on Earth, and that she had to mature so as to challenge her sisters and save the planet.
• In seasons 1-3 when a Crystal Gem takes a human or disappears with them, like when the Crystal Gems kidnapped Steven as a baby and when Rose vanished with baby Sour Cream, it's Played for Laughs. Then, in season four, Blue Diamond kidnaps Greg to "save" him from the Cluster, ignoring his pleas to put him down. Then, to aid Blue in her grief, Yellow Diamond orders Aquamarine and Topaz to kidnap more humans. These happened to be Steven's friends.
• All of the Lighter and Softer Lars episodes becomes this when due to Lars' fear he hides on his captors' spaceship rather than charge for the exit and gets taken with Steven to Homeworld. When Steven calls him out for not helping in their escape, Lars breaks down and admits that he envies how brave and kindhearted Steven is.
• In "Steven and the Stevens", when Steven and the Gems are singing "Steven and the Crystal Gems", he sings "I learned to stay true to myself / By watching myself die..."; in "Off Colors" and "Lars' Head", Lars dies and makes a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the Robonoid and save Steven and the Off Colors, with Steven resurrecting him from death afterwards, which makes the song seem Darker and Edgier in retrospect.
• "Your Mother and Mine":
  • Fluorite states that "Rose Quartz isn't real". Cut to "A Single Pale Rose" when it's revealed that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond, thus she technically wasn't real.
  • Garnet's depiction of Pink Diamond as a cruel, cowardly tyrant and having No Sympathy towards her for her shattering becomes this when it's revealed that Pink Diamond is Rose Quartz, and wanted Garnet to see her that way out of Self-Deprecation.
• "Uncle Grandpa":
  • In one of its many fourth-wall jokes, Uncle Grandpa fires a "canon" at a boat Lars and Sadie are riding on—they embrace, and Lars wails, "Our ship!" Come "Little Graduation", their ship actually has been sunk by canon, as the two have decided they simply aren't good for each other.
  • Steven receives a faux doctor's physical from Uncle Grandpa, with special focus given to Steven’s gem being examined with a stethoscope and responding with an odd noise. In Future, Steven also undergoes a physical, canonically his first ever in fact, and an odd noise emanating from his gem when examined by a stethoscope turns out to be a symptom of Steven's post-traumatic stress disorder.
• "Storm in the Room": Steven asks Cloud Rose if she created him to run away from her mistakes, and is reassured when she tells him no, he knows that she really wanted to have him. Unfortunately, Season 5 reveals she did run away from her mistakes when she was Pink Diamond, meaning Steven had unknowingly grasped the truth. Then it becomes harsher when White Diamond tells Steven that Pink created him as a vessel and it's not his own person; she was proven wrong, but still.
• "I Am My Mom": Just before Steven surrenders himself, Pearl tries to tell him something, but she unconsciously covers her mouth with her hands... She knew he was not responsible for Pink Diamond's shattering, but couldn't do anything to prevent Aquamarine from capturing Steven.
• The events of "The Trial" take an even darker turn after the reveals of "A Single Pale Rose": namely, that Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz were one and the same person, and the "shattering" that everyone saw was an elaborate plan cooked up by Pink to relinquish her position in the Diamond Authority and live on Earth as Rose forever. As such, the entire trial and resultant death threats are centered on a crime that never happened in the first place. Worse, the punishment of executing Steven would have been committing the crime they accused Rose of in the first place- specifically, shattering a Diamond.
• All the cartoonish Slapstick gags involving Steven getting hurt are cringeworthy after "Growing Pains," which shows Steven has sustained multiple fractures to his skull, and though his healing powers heal them fast, they're still all part of the trauma he's been through.
  • This also goes for the scene in "Coach Steven" where Lars and Sadie tease Steven for exaggerating the injury he got from Sugilite (a minor cut on his face) and Steven defensively says, "My hurt is on the inside!" Boy, was it ever...
  • The scene in "Catch and Release" where Steven takes a hard landing and visibly limps away is also harder to watch. It's very likely Steven broke his leg, and only his Healing Factor kept him from noticing just how bad the injury was.
  • And also, in "Earthlings" where Steven only winds up with a small cut on his shirt after being slashed by a corrupting Jasper, much to Amethyst's concern.