#my non-fandom friends watched s8 over the holidays and i got swarmed with questions

[yellowmechanicalcat]

emotionally colorblind: plance in season 8

(part one of three)

In the series finale of The I.T. Crowd, one of the techs has started dating a girl from another department. (Yes, this is VLD meta, just stick with me.) He feels the relationship is going well and is very happy, and brags to his coworkers that his girlfriend recently told him he was “emotionally artistic” - which he interprets to mean he’s on the “artistic” emotional spectrum because he’s so in touch with her wants and needs. (At this point, it’s become clear to the viewer that his girlfriend has actually accused him of being “emotionally autistic” and believes him to be on the autistic spectrum.)

Later that day, his girlfriend calls again to tearfully ask if he’d accompany her to her grandfather’s funeral and abruptly hangs up on him when he cheerfully agrees. He’s baffled by her reaction until his manager rightly points out that his girlfriend was upset because the way he responded was completely off base from the subject matter, as his chipper tone of voice made him sound as if he’d just been invited to a music festival rather than having any sympathy for his girlfriend’s loss. Only then does it occur to him that his response was inappropriate because funerals are sad.

“‘Emotionally artistic’? You’re emotionally colorblind,” his manager mutters in disbelief.

Old news, but Season 8 isn’t what anyone expected

‘Emotionally colorblind’ - e.g., giving inappropriate responses to a topic because of an inability to perceive the nuances of a situation - feels like a pretty good description of Season 8, in which excellent animation is overwhelmed by moments in which characterization feels off, dialogue doesn’t seem to fit, or the plot clashes with what’s actually being shown on screen. Those moments - along with the conspicuous lack of reaction from the cast and EPs in the month since its release and cryptic criticism from crew members - have led many fans to conclude that the version of Season 8 released took the cast/crew by surprise. Posts by Aria C., a former DW intern while Season 8 was in production, suggest that the overall plot hadn’t changed dramatically since the scripts were being drafted, but that doesn’t mean that individual character arcs weren’t subtly adjusted along the way.

While it’s not clear exactly how much actually changed about Season 8 during production, we do know that many of the changes were made at the last minute. The most noticeable changes seem to have been in response to the backlash against how LGBT characters were portrayed, although this article covers many of the other pacing issues in Season 8 while some of the discrepancies between the audio description and what’s actually seen on screen are listed here. The single biggest last-minute change seems to be the epilogue (including the final few stills) which was approved extremely late in the production process and underwent additional changes after being leaked just weeks before the season’s release.

I strongly suspect that Pidge and Lance had an arc in Season 8 that was another casualty of the last-minute changes.

The End is the Beginning

Let’s take a look at the ending of the series’ final episode. One year after the final battle with Honerva, Pidge and Matt are working on building a humanoid robot that Pidge dubs Chip. Colleen interrupts to tell Pidge she should be heading out; Pidge looks serious and doesn’t respond, then recovers a moment later and makes Matt promise to wait for her to get back to finish. She leaves her glasses with Chip before heading off in the Green Lion, as Sam and Colleen both watch her leave.

Colleen: “Your father’s got the teludav all warmed up for you. Better get going, you don’t want to be late.”
 Sam: (cheerful) “Have a good time, honey!” Pidge: (laughingly) “I will, Dad.”

The way they’re talking to her is the way parents would talk to a teenager who’s about to go to a party or on a date, peppy and almost teasing. Pidge’s serious expression suggests that wherever she’s going is somewhere she’s not entirely ready to be - she isn’t upset about needing to be somewhere, but she isn’t rushing out the door to get there, either. Maybe she’s nervous - we can’t tell.

We cut to Coran and Merla on Altea as they discuss preparations for “the first Celebration of Allura”, then over to Lance as he recounts the story of Allura’s sacrifice to a group of schoolchildren sitting by her statue, telling them that while he misses her, he knows she’s still with all of them. The Altean teacher, in a chipper tone similar to Pidge’s parents, informs the kids that “Paladin Lance has somewhere to be in a few doboshes.” Just then, a wormhole opens and Lance looks up as the Green Lion flies through. He turns away from the statue to watch Pidge land, a smile on his face.

The scene fades to the Paladins having dinner by the statue of Allura. Within moments, it’s obvious that their reunion is the feast Coran and Merla had been discussing earlier. The Celebration of Allura is the one year anniversary of her death. The paladins’ reunion is a memorial.

We’ve seen memorials in VLD before. In Season 7, Shiro visits the Garrison’s memorial wall for those KIA. Later, Earth has a giant memorial service for the victims of just one battle, as Shiro addresses the crowd: “There isn’t one of us here today who hasn’t experienced the tragedy of losing someone close. It truly feels like a light has gone out in our lives and the sun itself couldn’t reignite it. But that light, that fire, hasn’t gone out completely. It’s fueled within each of us by the memories and the love of those we’ve lost. …”

After the one year timeskip, we see Keith persuading the Galra to join the Galactic Coalition with Shiro and Hunk leading diplomatic negotiations on the Atlas; all three invoke Allura’s example as they work towards peace. Hunk even mentions the significance of that day being when they commemorate Allura’s sacrifice. What she did and why she did it aren’t secret. It stands to reason that the anniversary of her death - the anniversary of when Allura saved their reality and countless others - wouldn’t be a ‘celebration’ only for six people. Everyone, everywhere, should be taking a moment to remember her - especially those who fought at her side, like the Holts.

Instead, Sam and Colleen’s reactions in Pidge’s scene are jarring. While things may be different in Voltron’s future world, I doubt any parent would tell their child “Have a good time, honey!” as they go to a memorial dinner for their dead friend. Because as The I.T. Crowd pointed out, funerals are sad - and so is any reminder of someone’s death. You don’t have to be constantly moping and sobbing because you miss someone, you can still celebrate their life, but that kind of event still has a somber, bittersweet element to it. Telling someone ‘Have fun, don’t be late!’ as they head off to a memorial would definitely qualify as emotionally colorblind. It’s hard to believe the actors and voice director would have agreed to record the scene within the context we got onscreen.

Lance’s scene makes it even more complicated. Showing Lance turn to watch only Pidge land is a bizarre choice if the purpose of his scene is to emphasize how much Lance still cares for Allura before showing the other Paladins arriving on Altea. It only makes sense for Lance to turn away from looking at Allura’s statue and towards Pidge if Pidge and Lance are supposed to have a deeper connection.

If the focus is actually meant to be on Allura and this event - and on her family coming together to remember her - it would have made sense for Lance to look past Allura’s statue to see the Blue Lion in the distance, Red parked next to it, as Green, Yellow, and Black emerge from the wormhole to land beside them. If the animation had to be rushed for a last-minute change or the budget was stretched too far, they could have just used the same shot of the Lions sitting together at the end of dinner with daytime lighting instead of night, fading into dinner instead of fading out. 

Pidge and Lance’s scenes would also have benefited from being re-recorded with slightly different dialogue and delivery. For example:

Colleen: (serious, but gentle) “Your father’s got the teludav ready to go. You don’t want to be late, Katie.” Sam: “Tell ’em hello for me.” Pidge: (a little reserved) “I will, Dad.”

Teacher: “I think Paladin Lance has some visitors to go meet, and you all have class…” 


VLD’s had to work around making the dialogue fit changes to the animation/plot before. Take The Feud, in which Keith sounds bizarrely calm compared to the others, which the EPs later explained was because Steven Yeun recorded his lines before the storyboards and script had finalized what the paladins’ reactions would be and he was too busy to re-record before the deadline, so they kept his first take. (I suspect that’s also the reason for Keith’s annoyed-sounding “Don’t miss” comment to Lance in Know Your Enemy, which doesn’t mesh with their otherwise more positive relationship at that point, although I have absolutely no proof) But Yeun’s situation isn’t the norm - in cases where the actor was genuinely too busy to re-record, the show either used soundalikes or wrote out a character where possible, replaced dialogue, etc. Any of those tactics could have been valid workarounds…. unless the change was made relatively last-minute and there just wasn’t enough time.

So if the ending is missing the context of an additional scene between Pidge and Lance, what else might have been cut? And why?

I’ll explain in part two.

#sarah forms voltron opinions #plance #flirtyrobot #pidgance #vld s8 #voltron critical #plance meta #been on a bit of a hiatus for the holidays #not much time for tumblr meant lots of time for theories #my non-fandom friends watched s8 over the holidays and i got swarmed with questions #which was a little validating because it's one thing for fandom to be nitpicky but if casual viewers are also watching and going 'uhhhh what #was THAT?' then maybe something really is off #i've been thinking a lot about cultural differences while writing this #obviously funerals are the biggest event but the first year usually has a memorial of some kind whether with a religious service or just as #a gathering of family/friends... if it's a family member the first few years usually involve doing something #just because it's hard to be alone #PSA: the i.t. crowd is a good show #long meta is long thank you for reading??