Okay, okay, so this contains spoilers from s05e18, A Single Pale Rose that will basically reshape how you view the entirety of the show. And I mean, major spoilers, go catch up before you lose your innocence like the rest of us.
So, A Single Pale Rose happened and the entire fanbase is on fire. Some hate it, some love it, but you can't deny that the reveal that Rose Quartz is actually Pink Diamond wasn't a heavy, thought provoking, show-changing reveal.
But the conclusion that Pink Diamond is the villain of the story is frankly just... Wrong.
I get it, Rose is, at least indirectly, responsible for a lot of death. Her decision to fake her death and start a rebellion against Homeworld would inevitably lead to conflict, but Rose did her best under the circumstances. Here's a couple things to keep in mind;
1.) The Diamonds are... Well, genocidal.
Earth wasn't the first colony the Diamonds established and Kindergartens leave planets uninhabitable. If that wasn't bad enough, after Rose and The Crystal Gems won, the Diamonds used their combined strength to "end the fighting, once and for all".
They straight up space lasered the Earth.
Let's not even talk about how Homeworld's society is structured to disenfranchise off-colours and that the Diamonds aren't doing a damn thing to intervene.
Also Blue basically promised to murder Ruby for fusing with Sapphire.
2.) Pink wasn't asking for something trivial; She was asking the Diamonds to spare all life on Earth
A lot of people seem to glance over the fact that Pink wasn't just rebelling for the sake of rebelling. Yes, she was somewhat selfish, and yes, Rose has been known to "do what she wants".
But Rose is also known as a benevolent leader, and in all the stories about her, the one common thread is that she cared deeply for earth and the life on it. It's a belief she instilled into all of her followers.
Hell, it's in the theme song. "I will fight for the place where I'm free to exist together and live as me. I will fight for the place I was made in, the Earth is everything that I've ever know."
3.) While most of Rose's established backstory is now murky, her exploits during the war, especially the ones that The Crystal Gems bore witness to, remain unchanged.
Rose is still the leader of The Crystal Gems. She still fought to protect Earth during and long after the war. She still strove to protect the earth from corrupted gems and she took in any and all, even an Amethyst that came out a little shorter than the others.
But if you need more proof, I still love that line from The Answer:
Garnet: "I don't... Upset you...?"
Rose: "Who cares about how I feel?! How you feel is bound to be much more interesting!"
I think those two lines of dialogue say more about Rose than anything else. She still cared, about her planet and about gems being free on it. She cared about all gems. Even the ones that looked a little different, and the unconventional fusions. Rose loved Earth. And she loved humans.
She even loved one lion so much that she made sure it lived long after she was gone.
4.) She also cared about Steven, even though she knew she'd never meet him
Having a child is... Not an easy thing. Having a child and knowing the his or her birth will be the end of you?
That must be nightmarish.
Rose's love for Steven transcends time. You feel it throughout the story, and when Steven hears his mom's voice for the first time, I remember crying with him. It is real.
Giving birth to Steven may have been the most selfless thing Rose could have done. She's a powerful, immortal being of a high-ranking family and also the leader of a rebellion against a fascist regime. Giving all that up to bring a new life into the world is a heavy personal price to pay. She's leaving her friends and family, and the man she loved.
Rose... Gave up her own life for Steven.
That's just how it is.
It's weird for me to think that people want to try put things into terms as simple as one person being the villain and the cause of all the problems ever. Put an inexperienced child in a seat of power and ask her to take all the resources of a planet at the cost of the lives living there, only for her to find out that she actually can't kill anyone there because of her love for that planet? That makes for some moral grey areas.
Then ask yourself why we're not chastising Blue and Yellow more for trying to force that child to end all those lives for the sake of expanding their empire.
Rose isn't the villain. She was a kid, in over her head that did the best that she could. She won fair and square, and even did her best to make sure she didn't cause any casualties.
Then her sisters murdered everyone anyway.
Imagine being called the villain after all that.
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