By Mark Laherty
In her well-known essay about the alleged genre of hopepunk, Alexandra Rowland compares it to the genre of ‘noblebright,’ which she says is “about goodness and truth and vanquishing evil forever, about a core of goodness in humanity… in noblebright, when we overthrow the dark lord the world is saved and our work is done. Equilibrium and serenity return to the land.” But in the real world, she continues, “There’s no such thing as winning forever. Evil cannot be vanquished, only beaten back for a day or two, and then it trickles back in, like water seeping through the cracks in a dam.”
So. Steven Universe.