jack

Wow, Steven Universe does better than almost anything else I can think of, bringing in additional worldbuilding which doesn't overthrow everything which came before, but adds to it.

I'm always interested in backstory and worldbuilding and how it's conveyed. I'm always annoyed when things that SHOULD be common knowledge are withheld from the reader (it can be a good effect, but it's usually just mystery for mystery's sake which undermines the story in the meantime), and SU does that occasionally but doesn't rely on it.

Successive revelation works well for SU for a few reasons. Because the protagonist is quite young, and grows over the course of the series, it's more natural that sometimes they don't explain all the answers immediately. And several times we've had revelations which aren't a massive twist, but, say, explain the background of the conflict in a way which simply wasn't dwelt on before.

Another thing I'm annoyed by is when shows over-rely on "everything you know is a lie". The worst case is things like "this character you've been trusting for years is actually a secret double agent" -- it usually doesn't really make sense that they'd be maintaining the pretence this long. But it often seems to come with a "everything you poured empathy into isn't actually what was happening". And that can work well, when it's a well-judged deliberate subversion. But usually the show poured a lot of energy into the supposed status-quo as well, and then the 'twist' comes across more as "suckers! we just change stuff at random, don't try to follow", or "just give up on caring about any characters, everyone is lying about who they are more than everyone else and no-one is worth rooting for".

SU manages to avoid that with revelations that add a *lot* to what was originally there, both factually and emotionally, but without just overwriting what was originally there.

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