Spoilers to Steven Universe Arkham Edition.

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I had so many titles in mind, like:

Why Momma White Is Best White, but it's kind of vague.

So then I thought of:

Why Arkham White Diamond is Best White Diamond, but that would be too long.

So then I settled with, "Why Arkham White Is Best White."

Because it's a mix of both titles.

This awfully sounds similar to my Spinel Analysis, "Why Arkham Spinel Is Better Than Canon Spinel," except we're not talking about the villainess side of White Diamond.

Arkham White is a very special variation of White Diamond because of her devotion to redemption. I know that Canon White would never dress up like Batman-wannabe, but that's the thing about Arkham Edition.

It takes all the characters we know and love and take a unique spin on them. Look at Steven, for example.

The Canon series started Steven off as a happy-go-lucky kid who was in his mother's shadow. Meanwhile Arkham Steven started off as a trooper ready for a fight.

Canon Spinel started off a generic villain with a good backstory. Arkham Spinel started off the same, but with big brain added to her set of skills.

Arkham Rose The Flower became... bad.

Basically, lots of characters have a change in their character in this universe. Canon White is such an easy and hard character to understand and write accurately. 

The easy bit is recognizing her personality, the hard bit is predicting how she acts.

That's truly a tall order for me to do for any character, 'cause I try to write characters accurately (unless they're original characters, whose actions are always accurate). 

But when I did Arkham Edition, I never quite have to worry about going far off their source material when it's intentionally meant to be different. 

Anyway, what's the point of this analysis? Well, I'm mostly going to dive into Arkham White's development and, of course, the legendary trend that occurred in Arkham Edition.

#MommaWhiteIsBestWhite

Unlike in most interpretations of White Diamond, where she's an aunt/grandma to Steven, she's a mother figure to Steven and several other characters in Arkham Edition. And I can tell that half of the fans in Steven Universe would be detested at the fact that this:

Acts motherly to this:

Just hear me out: it's not a bad thing to have White Diamond act like a motherly figure to Steven. 

Obviously, it's cursed because of the fact that in the show, she pulled out his gem and he never forgave her. BUT none of that stuff ever happened in Arkham Edition, so there's that. I can certainly understand why Steven never forgives her, 'cause of the attempted murder and all.

But well... Pearl did the same thing and he forgave her so... Steven's kinda a hypocrite. I know Steven was a baby and all, but if he's going to hold White Diamond accountable for that then he must surely hold Pearl accountable for that, too, right? 

Honestly, this only made me want to make Arkham White even more different than her canon counterpart.

Another motivation for me to make her development was because of the fact she's my favorite Diamond out of the four. One reason is because her design reminded me of an old childhood nightmare I had and reigniting during her debut. 

Second reason is her perfectionist and obsessive compulsive side, which I find heavily relatable. 

I feel like she, out of every single Diamond, received the poorest development and screentime. Why do I say that?

Because Pink Diamond literally has the series revolving around her actions being the reason why the show exists.

Yellow and Blue Diamond shared some development after Garnet's wedding and we get some insight to their lives during that and Change Your Mind.

White only, like, three sentences before Change Your Mind and just remained off-screen until then (Steven's nightmare doesn't count). 

And after her discovering her flaw, she crumbled.

Before I talk about Arkham White some more, I just wanna break down Canon White Diamond's defeat and why, "I am a child, what's your excuse?" line is actually more impactful than people give it credit for. 

Let's review her character:

White Diamond is very insecure about herself, despite being the biggest gem in existence with the most OP power (disregarding other characters in Arkham Edition), she literally has everything she could ever want - material-wise - and yet... she doesn't have what she really wants.

Security. No, not physical security, mental security. 

She doesn't think she's good enough, which is very evident when she says stuff like: 

"I can't have a flaw! I'm supposed to be flawless!"

"If I'm not perfect then... WHO AM I?!" 

"But I'm not supposed to be like this! I'm supposed to know better! I'm supposed to BE better! I'm supposed to make EVERYTHING better!" 

Given to the fact we don't know anything about her origin story and we don't know who told her that she's supposed to be those things, I can only assume she made those responsibilities for herself. 

Because White Diamond has perfectionism issues, and these are commonly developed by a fear of judgement and/or disapproval from others.

But who could've given White Diamond judgement and disapproval when she's naturally on top of the pecking order?

Herself.

Taking that into account, White Diamond hides herself to constantly preserve her perfect nature to everyone - using her presence as a tool of manipulation to make everyone fall in line.

She uses intimidation to make everyone not question her authority because she's afraid of disapproval, and whoever does question her - she punishes them with mind control to make them obey her.

And her power is actually very fitting for her character.

Twisting the minds of those who have the potential of judging her so she can mold them into those who support her is something a primadonna would do.

Now, prior before Steven ever being born, White Diamond's ego took a huge hit during the Gem War - and it's because of two things.

One: rebellion in her authority would be an obvious factor, since that could make her galactic competitors think she doesn't run a tight ship. 

Two: the failure of protecting Pink Diamond. 

Remember how Blue cried over Pink the most and how Yellow blames herself for giving Pink the Earth as her first colony? Well, how did White Diamond feel? 

We dunno, 'cause she was hiding in her room the entire time - utterly ashamed and belittled at the fact that the 'untouchable' Diamond Authority lost a member because of a rebellious gem. 

That made her lose it - she lost one of her own on her watch. And how did she handle it? She locked herself up in her own room to hide the shame and waited until she could find a dignified way to handle the situation.

And this will also explain the fact about why she ignored Steven during the first time he met her in Legs From Here To Homeworld.

White Diamond knew very well from the start that Steven was the son of Pink Diamond and his origin story, yet she kept talking to him like he was Pink. Why?

Because she's deluded herself into thinking Pink was never shattered.

Of course, Rebecca used the whole 'White bet that Pink was still in there' excuse for White Diamond ignoring Steven and mislabeling him.

But I came up with a better and more legitimate reason that could fit her character.

White Diamond is so driven to perfection and doesn't want to see the flaws in herself that she completely blocks out anything that would remotely make her look bad.

The Crystal Gem rebellion? She ignores it, thinking that it's just a few unruly gems that needed to be punished.

Pink Diamond's death? Oh, you silly gem, that's just a rumor. Pink was never shattered, she's just being overdramatic and needs to get everything out of her system. She'll be back soon enough.

Not only is it plausible that she deludes herself into thinking that Pink was still alive, but it could also be the fact she's afraid of what's gonna happen for when she's proven wrong and the whole universe knows about Pink Diamond's hoax death. 

Remember what Yellow Diamond said? "When we show up in this ship, it will be irrefutable that the last six thousand years are now the biggest galactic embarrassment that's ever happened. And we're the ones to blame."

This was heavy dialogue that nobody ever looked into.

The whole universe was aware of the Gem War and what caused it. That also means all eyes were watching Homeworld under White Diamond's watch the entire time and when they see that the late Pink Diamond's ship pulls up on Homeworld with Pink Diamond taking a new form, this meant that the entire Gem War was for nothing.

And she'll be the universe's laughingstock.

And in a futile attempt to preserve what dignity she had left, she pretends that she expected this to happen and that Pink Diamond was throwing one of her temper tantrums. This would make her look less bad, since it shows that she won't tolerate this kind of behavior - but not enough to completely eradicate the humiliation. 

So, with that all put together, White Diamond was determined to prove that Pink Diamond was still there - she was betting all the dignity she had into it. And guess what happened? She was proven wrong. 

That was a major punch in the gut for her.

Her plan was to prove to the universe that she was always the better Diamond - the more mature Diamond. And when she was proven wrong, after spending so much time trying to cover the truth - she breaks.

She threw a tantrum of her own. Just look at her in this video:

https://youtu.be/DO576JjJJ9o

She was so caught up in her own anger and disbelief that she had no idea what she was doing.

And then that was the perfect moment to completely mind-fuck her with this:

"I am a child, what's your excuse?"

She was finally called out on something and she had no explanation or excuse that would've made her come out to be the better gem. 

And like any primadonna when proven with indisputable facts, she crumbles. 

THAT'S why the line has more punch into it than a traditional fight scene. 

You see, fighting White Diamond as Obsidian (the fusion) and/or Yellow and Blue Diamond would've given her some honor that they they needed to take her seriously.

But being morally and objectively better than her? No honor in that. 

She could've killed Steven and Connie after that, but it wouldn't change the fact she was still childish and immature.

Basically, to sum up this entire breakdown of Canon White Diamond: Steven humbles White. 

Now, with that out of the way, let's get started into the topic of today's analysis.

What make Arkham White the best White? Obviously, it's subjective to say that she's the best White, but lemme try to convince you why with these segments:

A: An Alternate Change Your Mind Scenario
B: On-Screen Development
C: Conclusion

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A: An Alternate Change Your Mind Scenario:

Much like what it implies, this is a 'what if' scenario for Change Your Mind.

So here's what my take of Change Your Mind would be to appease for everyone (lets be honest, even though I made a super solid theory of White Diamond's downfall, their execution was even more lackluster than Spinel's plan in the movie). 

Everything similar happens with White Diamond gaining control of mostly everyone - but Steven learns her weakness and does something more threatening than an insult.

Steven threatens to expose White Diamond's wicked self to all of Homeworld and the universe

This became a part of what happens in Arkham Edition - where Steven threatens to expose White Diamond's evilness to the public and blackmails her into cooperating with him. As well as damaging her pretty face to show everyone that she isn't as tough as she thinks she is.

Basically pulling her down from her high chair and showing everyone that she is beatable. 

I have a feeling that would have the same impact as "I am a child, what's your excuse?" (if written better than what we got). 

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B: On-Screen Development:

Unlike Canon, where we never saw White Diamond until two years later (in the series) on the movie for five minutes and two episodes in Future, all we really know is she "goes from planet-to-plant giving voice to the little gem."

What does Arkham White do?

During the same night she discovered her flaw, she was determined to be better. And she starts by being Steven's sidekick - which ended up becoming her new way of developing.

You see, White Diamond didn't just stick to being Homeworld's Batman as her development, she actively tried being better as White Diamond, too.

Basically, she lived two lives that constantly did good for the betterment of everyone.

First life is White Diamond doing a complete 180 degree turn in personality where she was a cold-hearted and ruthless dictator to the sweetest Diamond you'll ever meet.

The second life is secretly being a hero like Steven Universe - protecting the weak and helpless from the cruel and evil (something she used to be).

And throughout most of Arkham Edition, she continues this until the Crystal Knight arc.

Now, why did she hide as Homeworld's hero? Why not be a hero publicly like Steven?

Well, part of it is because she's self-conscious. And the other part is because nobody would believe that the 'big bad' White Diamond would suddenly do heroic things - not without twisting it to make it seem like she never changed. 

Hence why she has her first life to active try to change everyone's view on her while she uses her second life as a coping mechanism to make herself feel better and to actually feel like she's doing good for Homeworld. 

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C: Conclusion:

Arkham White Diamond eventually came to embrace the fact that she's changed for the better - regardless of what public thinks.

It took her being unmasked by her own sister to simply not care anymore about hiding. 

'Cause by then, White was given enough courage and confidence by Steven and Volleyball to simply ignore the criticism she would get for being a hero. And much to her benefit, everyone supported her for her change with little to no criticism given to her. 

Basically, White Diamond's arc in Arkham Edition was that she learned from her mistakes and then improved her conduct by atoning for her crimes. She went from villainess to remorseful to hero throughout 60% (more or less) in the story, and currently she's just White Diamond - no mask or costumes. 

She even made a small new-generation of Crystal Gem teammates to add to the team.

She basically came a long way from being Homeworld's most feared Diamond to Homeworld's sweetest Diamond (yes, sweeter than Pink Diamond). 

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That wraps up everything I have to say about White Diamond. Like I said, I do take requests of characters within Arkham Edition. However, the only exception I will allow is characters from Sworn Enemies since it's an AU of Arkham Edition. 

Anyway, I also hope you liked my theory and breakdown analysis of Canon White Diamond. 

May 4th, 2023. 11:31 PM.