The Subversive Boyhood of Steven Universe 

I loved that, but hated how soon in the show the Diamonds were humanized. Almost like they are rushing the show :/

That's unfair. The show is merely resetting to a status quo; like most cartoons of its time, it doesn't have a serial narrative and doesn't change over time, so it can't really allow all of these supervillains to be fully redeemed. Besides, when they fail to rejoin society it's tragic, and that's the nature of the show; you can't write off the interest in the possibility of their redemption (or the protagonist's concern) just because the series is predisposed to tragedy. It keeps the door open for hope, and that means something. Why do you think it tells these particular stories in the first place? Besides, when Steven fails to heal corrupted gems, do you hold it against him as evidence that he doesn't actually care because if he actually cared he would succeed? Of course not. But you're basically saying that Batman doesn't really care because the mental health professionals in his city are finding the Joker to be a bit of a challenge. What exactly would you have him do rather than return his enemies to Arkham? Bruce Wayne became Batman ostensibly to prevent crime but symbolically to fight death itself, to make sure that no one else loses people the way he did. You'd have to be pretty cynical to boil that down to him being Batman "to feel better about himself." No, he didn't set out explicitly to redeem villains, and he's not Steven Universe, but he does express concern for and show compassion towards members of the rogues' gallery. This is a Batman who brings sick villains into his home to try to figure out how to help them. A lot of his confrontations start out with him pleading for the villain to lay down their weapons and let him help them. Again, look at the care shown in understanding what makes each of the villains tick and how they are motivated by tragedy. Look at the small gestures of kindness and understanding. Look at Harley's Holiday and the way it ends. Look at how Baby Doll ends. TAS's structure may not allow for any redemption story to have a happy ending, but you have to ignore a lot to say that this isn't a show and a character that empathize with the villains.

Your entire argument is predicated upon narrative demands that exceed the fundamentally procedural structure of the series. Every point you make is basically "this doesn't change" or "there's no follow-up on this," but there can't be because the show's stories stand alone rather than forming a serial narrative. Criticizing it so thoroughly outside the parameters of what it could possibly have done is completely unreasonable.

No; it sends the message that it's the type of TV show whose status quo does not change.

Yeah, it's too bad that '90s kids were so television-unsavvy and incapable of managing their expectations within the common episodic framework of the time.

It's also too bad that you can't engage with a work of media on its own terms instead of according to your completely unrealistic expectations that contradict its fundamental structure. Oh well!

I said Batman villains can't be redeemed and that's true. Even on the few occasions when Batman tries to talk Harley or Ivy out of a life of crime, it doesn't work and they always end up back in Arkham by the end of the story. Intentional or not, the underlying message is "Once a criminal, always a criminal." There are more "fake reformed" narrative arcs in the animated series' than you can shake a stick at. That holds true in the games, movies and nearly all the comics too.

That's one of the things I hate the most about batman, and superhero comics in general. Fans and creatorss love these villians, just like the heroes. We want to see more, we want to see them return to doing what they do. The problem is, this causes a strict narrative to be created. Heroes and other "good" characters are good. Forever. Villians and other "bad" characters are also bad. Forever. Even if one writer wants to reform a villain, or corrupt a hero, some other writer will come along who prefers them as the character they were originally introduced as. The narrative this creates isn't exclusive to batman, or even comics, but any media where one writer frequently takes complete control over another. And because of the frequency we see this happen with comics "heroes" and "villians" are always stuck in that role and refused to be allowed to develop further. It's so bad that many writers will simply stop trying to change characters because they know the changes won't stick, and will only convolute the character's history within the comics. What were left with is a narrative that Justifies not punishing heroes when they do something wrong, and demonizes any attempt to reform villains. Even if a hero makes a mistake, or does something bad, it's baked into the narrative that they still a "good person" a heart, and punishing them for anything they do wrong in the long run makes no sense. It's better to forgive good guys once they make a mistake. Likewise with villains it also makes no sense to try and rehabilitate them. They will always re-offend, and even kill people. In the end, the only way to really stop villains is to kill them. This all pushes a simplistic "good vs evil" ideology that has real world implications. It's the reason we so rarely punish prosecutors, policemen, judges and anyone else in the justice system when they commit crimes. Criminals on the other hand, especially POC, aboriginals and poor people are thought of as irredeemable, and so we should just lock them up forever or kill them as the social parasites they are. You'll often notice people pushing back against police and justice reform are the same ones pushing for mandatory minimums and closing down rehabilitation programs within prisons themselves. This even extends to ideas behind donating organs. Some places have laws against giving new livers to alcoholics, assuming they'll just destroy the new one as well even though research shows 90% of them actually never drink again if they get a new liver. How we put often ridiculous limitations on access to the most basic social programs while allow the rich and powerful to abuse the system. It's how a supposed billionaire can not pay any income taxes for 20 years. Obviously, batman is the worst for this. The villains aren't simply sent to prison, they're sent to a mental health institution even though almost all of them are serial killers, Harley Quinn included BTW. Personally, the worst example of this in Children's television right now is Transformers RID. Where the heroes are cops and the villains are all irredeemable decepticon criminals. The only criminal who ever is given a chance to be reformed was an autobot right from the start. Even the villains are all literally dehumanized, as their alt modes are all somehow beastial in one way or another. Now that's a messed up.

I set it up to auto-block that word and all its various misspellings ;)

On BTAS (as with the rest of the franchise) Batman pays lip service to the idea of helping criminals but the critical point is that he doesn't. He can't. "Helping criminals" the way the show (and Batman himself) justify violent vigilantism. He beats people to a bloody pulp and throws them in jail or Arkham. With very few exceptions, the show never allows criminals to actually reform. The core ideology of the show is "once a criminal, always a criminal." Transformation is not actually shown to be possible. When you stop and think about it, the show is presenting a very right-wing ideology in relationship to criminal justice policy.

Some villain reform does occur in the BTAS comics. I agree with you, though I do wish you did mention Batman's shows of empathy as an example of a male character exhibiting that behavior because those moments are SO important, regardless of whether or not things work out in the end. Thank you for the swift response!