Peridot used to be my favourite character in Steven Universe until Spinel showed up in Steven Universe: The Movie. I considered her my favourite and best redeemed villain.
But now I'm coming back to the show and I think all along we had a villain who's redemption for far more gradual, far more expertly planned, laced with far more subtleties and real character growth, and that character was Peridot.
Yesterday I watched, in this order:
And I think these really sum up the gradualist of her growth.
In her proper introduction, Warp Tour, she's terrifying. She's new and technological and unknown. It's so bizarre to think that she is just a normal technician, who had been living her life and doing other things the entire time before she given the brief Earth mission:
I was to check progress on the CLUSTER!
Just in and out, before it hatches.
I wasn't supposed to get STUCK HERE.
But now — it's going to emerge — and nothing can stop it — and we'll all be SHATTERED!
Now, Peridot's development is stunning because there are no arbitrary choices along the way. There's no point by which she easily switches to good, or realises her crimes and repents and begs for friendship. She has amazing character consistency.
It may seem jarring to look at season 3-5's Peridot then to rewatch her Season 1 self, but Season 2's pretty much all about her, giving her all the time she needs to develop realistically.
The first piece of development comes through the first bit of Season 2, where she wants nothing to do with the gems and is just trying to get back home. We only really feel the tragedy of this at the beginning of Catch and Release, where she kidnaps Steven in a desperate final attempt to warp home. So when she says
Why can't you just leave me alone!
You really feel it.
I also really like that she doesn't hurt or kill Steven after he fails to fix the warp. She just sits down and talks about her feelings. She was never a monster.
I also really like how, after Steven says "Earth's not that bad", Peridot's retort is not that "Earth sucks", but
It doesn't matter what Earth is like. It's not going to be like anything soon!
The main axis for her growth is joint necessity. She doesn't want to be bubbled because that's basically being dead and she has a massive self-preservation instinct, as we all do. So after Steven releases her, she's forced at every step of the way to be more honest with the gems if she wants to live. It takes the entirety of that episode and an entire journey with Steven to prove she needs the gems, and then still sharing the information reluctantly and with her feist.
She doesn't do it because she's suddenly good, she does it because she wants to live.
By the time we get to It Could Have Been Great, Peridot's been forced to acknowledge the merit of Pearl, Amethyst and Steven, earning some respect for each of them through their own bonding episodes.
But we're also very importantly introduced to the most important aspect of her redemption: her love for the diamonds.
Her faith and total trust in them is a large part of this episode, and likely why she feels so comfortable dissing Rose Quartz, trusting that the Diamond's new best.
I wonder: if the Gem's hadn't been so salty about Peridot not bending over backwards to praise Rose Quartz, would she still have taken the Diamond line?
She was very much warming up to the Earth at the begginning of the episode with (the strangely second most popular Steven Universe song of all time) Peace and Love on the Planet Earth. But what this means is she was entirely conviced that Earth was good, except for the Diamond's. For Peridot to really switch, she had to lose her love for the Diamonds.
And MAN does this happen.
Peridot's call with Yellow Diamond is AMAZING. It's super sharp, extremely well choreographed, perfectly timed, and just spellbinding.
(And I really like that Yellow Diamond's reveal here is vital for the plot. It develops her, but also is emotionally VITAL for Peridot's story. Really good writing.)
Peridot didn't just believe she believed Yellow Diamond was flawless— she really did think that. So when she says "I don't care about potential and recources", everything comes crashing down. She can't keep her betrayal and anger inside, and then permenantly severes ties with homeworld. She can't go back.
So in the last episode of season 2, we see Peridot getting to know earth because a) there's nothing holding her back and b) she has no other choice. She was helping the gems only because she wanted not to die, expecting to return to her home and flawless leader. But, realising her leader is flawed, she can't take it and severes any chance she had to go home, calling her a clod right to her face.
—
I love Peridot's arc because her development is forced by necessity every single step of the way. She never gives up midway through a fight, or does a 180 on her personality straight away. It's always the same Peridot, and that's what makes it great.
Also, she doesn't care, or know, about Rose Quartz at all making her motivations to simply do her job as a lowly service worker and then to stay alive really unique among all the villains of the entire show.
Peridot is the best villain Steven Universe has ever done. Change my