Steven Universe Screams: Are Sapphire and Ruby Really #RelationshipGoals?

Warning: the following post contains spoilers for Steven Universe. 

Seeing the reveal of Garnet as a fusion between Sapphire and Ruby in ‘Jailbreak’ made me so happy. Not because it was a surprise, thanks to tumblr, I already knew the big secret. No, it made me happy because it happened sooner than I thought it would, and the episode was great, especially “Stronger Than You”. Since then though, Ruby and Sapphire have left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love them individually, and I absolutely adore Garnet. She’s tied with Lapis as my favorite gem. But Sapphire and Ruby as a couple, or rather, how they’re depicted as a couple, really irk me. The show goes out of its way to tell you that they’re in love, that pretty much the whole cast admires their love, and that their relationship is the healthiest of everyone. Which is probably true, but that’s a pretty low bar considering everyone else is still dealing with the emotional fallout Rose Quartz has left behind, and other various emotional traumas. The behavior the show is glamorizing as ideal with their relationship is troubling to me.

Ruby and Sapphire can’t seem to function separately. Garnet exists because they can’t stand to be apart after their first fusion. They go on and on about how they’re made of love and all that, but it really seems like they just can’t cope with being separated. Which feeds into a lot of unhealthy standards we have when it comes to how our relationships should be.

A huge stereotype surrounding relationships, especially for women, is that we need another person to complete us, and once we have that person, we’re supposed to be with them all the time and basically be consumed by our love for them. But that’s wildly unhealthy. Always being with your partner, and being unable to focus on anything else is a sign that you’re way too codependent. This kind of dependence can also slip into abusive behaviors like isolation and being overly controlling. I’m not saying that this is what happens with Ruby and Sapphire at all, but their actions do put others in danger.

Since the big reveal, there’s only been one episode featuring Ruby and Sapphire where they’re able to function as individuals where they’re not fighting (“The Human Zoo”), and this is most likely because they barely have any screen time together. Other than that, they can’t seem to be apart without causing problems.

Take ‘Hit the Diamond’ for example. Right off the bat (no pun intended) Ruby is uncomfortable being without Sapphire. When she’s preparing to speak to the other rubies, she says “I don’t want to go alone”, clearly indicating that she doesn’t want to be away from Sapphire. Steven, with his usual obliviousness, volunteers to accompany her, but even with him beside her, Ruby is still over the top uncomfortable and does the exact opposite of playing it cool.

The situation only gets worse once the game actually begins. Ruby and Sapphire are constantly flirting, distracting them from the game and arousing suspicion from the other rubies. Sapphire even says she can’t keep her eye on the ball because “I just want to look at you” to Ruby. They’re so co-dependent they can’t even take an hour to play a life and death game of baseball. The stakes are incredibly high, and yet they’re both still too wrapped up in each other to focus.

Of course, they ultimately end up blowing their cover by fusing in front of the other rubies. Caught up in the moment of Sapphire’s spectacular home run, they joyfully fuse and immediately show the other rubies that they’re gems. As far as they know, Peridot’s life is in danger, but they’re still so caught up in each other that they can’t focus on anything else.

Sapphire and Ruby put their newfound ally, and consequently all of their friends, in danger by being so careless and focused on each other. Thankfully, the other rubies have less violent intentions than we were all expecting, but our couple doesn’t know that until they’ve already made a colossal mistake. Granted, the Gems probably could have handled it had the situation turned violent, but they shouldn’t have had to. This would have been a relatively simple deception if Sapphire and Ruby had managed to keep their damn hands to themselves for more than five minutes.

I appreciate the depictions of all kinds of relationships and sexualities Steven Universe presents, I really do. And generally, I’m all here for the show’s commitment to presenting complicated relationships that need work and communication to become healthy again. But those qualities are the exact reason why I find Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship so troubling. I don’t understand why a program that seems to pride itself on showing that relationships are hard and take work would be okay with depicting their close-to-perfect couple as incapable of functioning as fully developed individuals. It feels dangerous for a show that is catered towards children to hold this up as the ideal for what love and relationships look like.

I want this show, and others like it, to hold up relationships where its participants are strong and stable on their own, relationships where they choose to be together simply because they love each other, and not because they feel compelled to be together all the time. Steven Universe gets so many things right, I just wish they would do something to fix this.