I’m sorry but are you guys all forgetting that Diana lost Antiope and her aunts on the beach on Themyscira? She’s never lost someone she loves before? Never experienced death? I loved so many parts of the movie but I absolutely hated that her big moment was motivated by her love for a man—and that she barely spoke to a woman for the entire second half of the film.

I think this is a fair criticism. However, I think there’s a difference between Antiope’s death and Steve’s. Antiope died in battle. The Amazons were warriors, and dying in battle, while tragic, was an end that was noble and honored for an Amazon. Diana had likely seen her fellow Amazons die from accidental injuries and such before, so I doubt she had never seen death. But Steve’s death isn’t in battle, it’s not just or fair, and Diana has reason to blame herself for it. Those characteristics put Steve’s death outside the scope of what Diana was prepared to deal with, and it’s the catalyst of her building revelation that war is not black-and-white, good-and-evil. I think people are wrong to say that Steve’s death is the only thing that motivates her at the end, but it does cap off the total realization that she’s going through and occurs at the peak of her arc. I think it cheapens the rest of her arc to simplify that moment into saying it was only about Steve–I just think he was the straw that broke the camel’s back in this case.