#pointless and wasted potential is what i call the last two seasons of voltron

[bean-spring]

Not to mention Voltron and Klance/Allurance in our year 2024 but I find it very telling how they didn't have anything planned for the ending and how they made Lance choose Keith on "The Feud!" by saying "He's our leader, plus he's half-galra so he's like, the future" when a season later he refers to Allura as "the best thing that has ever happened to him".

And yes, you can love somebody to death and yet think somebody else should get to be the one to live, logically thinking, but Lance is pretty much the most emotional out of all the paladins. He's loverboy Lance. He speaks and acts with his heart all the damn time and thinks about the people he loves first and foremost. And I am not saying this is "wooahhh Klance proof!" because we are pretty over that. Just saying it feels like they didn't have shit planned for the last season because Lance (a Lance who is in love with Allura, in theory, from the start) would have never, even if it's logically speaking, let another person that wasn't her get out of there alive. And even if he wasn't in love with her, he has said multiple times how much potential, strength, and importance he sees in her role.

So it is just stupid to make him vote for Keith and say something extremely damn endearing like "he's the future" instead of saying it about his romantic interest.

Not to mention that they could have easily fixed this if they wanted Allurance to be canon. They could've made the bond and conflict Allura has with Keith deeper by making her vote for Keith and saying he is the future for being half-galra (something that is personal to Allura and it would've made more sense for her to say and eat her pride and hatred towards the galra. Character development who?). Then it's just easy to make Lance vote for Allura and make him go "She's our princess and her strength is what the world needs and the universe would be lost without her" or some bullshit like that. And then make Keith vote for Lance because the joke was actually perfect and I have nothing against it and it's pretty in character for him to say "I don't wanna be stuck with him" instead of saying that he truly believes Lance is crucial for the future. And idk, make Pidge and Hunk vote for each other because they are best friends and it makes sense to reaffirm their bond (although I do find really cute and in character their original votes).

I am just saying what we already knew and is that Allurance was so not planned and they could've written a way better build-up. And look, it would've still been shitty and forced and awful but at least it would've been written thoughtfully. Kind of. Instead, we got... Deeper bonding between Lance and Keith? And I am the first one to say that they barely have scenes together with the amount of drama people make about their canon relationship but... Why give these two this moment (plus the other two only emotional and well-written scenes of season 8) that could've been great to build up another romantic relationship?

#pointless and wasted potential is what i call the last two seasons of voltron #okay i am so sorry for talking about this show again but look. i made a rewatch #finished s8 yesterday and i have so many stuff to say that i couldn't years ago bc i was dumb and didn't know how to analyze shit #but this is just-- this doesn't make sense in the slightest #we speak a lot of s8 being dumb but s7 is equally as worthless because what the hell was this #voltron the legendary defender #lance mcclain #allura voltron #keith kogane #klance #allurance #tagging the ship bc even if i don't like it this is pretty much on their favor like. they could've done it wayyy better #and i don't like the ship but damn people who did ship them i am. very sorry for what they did to you #honestly all the ships suffered in this show we should stick together instead of fighting what the hell was this #i do NOT miss this era of my life idk why i rewatched this

[blairtrabbit]

Thoughts on Goddamn Voltron

1. The treatment of Shiro and Adam as a couple was the stupidest shot at “representation” i think I’ve ever seen and it honestly made me angry. We don’t know anything about Adam. We don’t know anything about him but his name and that he possibly has some sort of relationship with Shiro. We are never even allowed to see them physically touch (because this would be gross I suppose) and when Adam is killed off immediately in the initial invasion there is no emotion to it other than he was someone we were supposed to care about because Shiro cared about him. Or ...so its suggested. Not only is Shiro denied any sort of emotional catharsis after being forced to be stoic and endure unimaginable amounts of physical and mental trauma there is no one waiting for him to come home. They are killed for absolutely no reason aside from creating some bizarre boyfriend in the refrigerator for a character who certain has enough anger at the Galran empire that he doesn’t need anymore. If Adam was introduced to show Shiro was gay then that failed. If Adam was introduced to heighten the stakes that failed too. Adam was created to die for no damn reason and unless he somehow appears in season 8 this kind of shit queer-baiting is un-acceptable...hell even IF he comes back who cares? we aren’t even given the chance to know him as a person so whats to come back? Sidenote: Don’t make Shiro sick with some terrible wasting disease and then NEVER mention it again. What the SHIT. 2. The treatment of Lance is unimaginably cruel and I don’t understand it. In season three Lance proves himself to be a mature member of the team and not only does he help Allura who took his lion he becomes Keith’s right hand after a rocky start. He has shown multiple times that he is vulnerable, once to Keith’s face, and yet his leader and his team constantly question his choices and insult him. It went beyond ribbing this season. It felt like everytime there was a chance for the writers to do it they stuck in a Lance barb. I kept expecting a breakdown a moment where he finally defended himself, walked away or told them that he was tired of it. But that moment never happened. Instead the strong right hand of voltron just takes it and continues to do his job. No matter how many great shots or encouraging comments he makes he never gets fucking complimented. Also the writers seemed more determined then ever to give him absolutely no arc or focus. Which leads me too- 3. Why the hell did Hunk have Lance’s story arc. Theres this thing in writing called “setup and payoff” Its a super simple concept that all writers,especially in film and television, know how to use. You set up a concept early and later on it pays off with an emotional revelation or a character change. In seasons one two and three...even four? Lance was the only one on the crew besides Pidge who talked about his family. We saw them in his memories. he had a scene with Coran where he talked about missing earth. He talked about his mom and so on. That was his starting point and when he gets back to earth it should have been his family in the camps, his speech about being angry about coming back to a peaceful earth and a closed end to his talk with Keith about being a leader and how he respects him as one back in season 3. Having Keith compliment his bravery would cement him as his right hand the person hes SUPPOSED to be closest to on the team. Hunk had no set up for this. He never mentions his family or how much he misses them. He talks about food but for some reason he was given the ending arc that Lance EARNED but wasn’t given. In fact it feels like it was even written for Lance but was changed because they goddamn hate him and decided he doesn’t get an arc fuck you. 4. Hey. Hey Voltron. Its called fucking character development.  If you wanted to make Allura and Lance have a relationship you can’t make them blush in ONE EPISODE and call it development. Why don’t you cut down on the 90 fucking minutes of brain melting action sequences and put in some more character development. You can’t just dedicate the first half of your season to some goofy (lance abusing) comedy then spend the last half in one constant exhausting battle and expect us to give a shit about the cadets or anyone you introduce on earth. To me the stand out episode this season was the one where everyone is floating in space. They had to...INTERACT with each other but even this episode felt empty because Keith was the only one allowed to act out...AGAIN. Where was Lances righteous anger? Or even Allura’s? Why is Hunk stepping into this role as mediator all the sudden? What even lead to that? Was he literally just written into the Lance roles? If you wanted to tear the group down to have them be built back up then you have to do so on equal footing and it felt....tame. Like you didn’t want the kids to worry too much. Stress makes people act in cruel ways sometimes and overcoming it is a part of good character development. Instead it was just some lame foreshadowing about the deux ex machina that was lion summoning. It had so much potential-SO MUCH.

5. Not everybody has to end up in a fucking relationship. Axca? Seriously? Man are you gonna crank out some romance bullshit in season 8 aren’t you voltron? Is that what your gonna do? Make sure everyone gets a set of corresponding genitalia to wrap everything up in a nice straight bow? I’m sure you’ll give Shiro some kind of significant other right? Or maybe just have him smile at a dude ala live action Beauty and the Beast because that's what representation looks like in 2018. 6. Coran not getting to build the spiritual successor of his grandfathers work is kinda bullshit.

He spent literally every season waxing lyrical about how great his pop pop was and how much he wanted to be the one to build something like he did and then the castle is destroyed and I’m like oh man so cool Coran is gonna get his wish.Thats so emotionally rewarding that after all the hero-worship Hes gonna have the opportunity to build a new castle even better than the one his grand-oh -no...ok Sam did it. Yeah ok.

7.YOU CAN’T SPEND ONE EPISODE ON EARTH BEING DESTROYED AND SHOW MAYBE THREE PEOPLE AND EXPECT ANYTHING TO HAVE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT. Hey, remember the movie Independence day? Not a great movie but it actually felt like the world was being invaded. It felt like peoples lives were being interrupted on a large scale and it accomplished this by showing the invasion from multiple pov’s worldwide. Would that have been so hard? Maybe show a little girl at school seeing a Galra ship. A man in Africa? A mother in Russia? Just quick shots. Thats all you need. A few establishing shots to show that people are experiencing something foreign and terrifying. I know its a kids show and you gotta what...keep it Y-7 but the Galra literally killed thousands and thousands of people-possibly millions you can’t just gloss over that. STAKES CAUSE TENSION. WITHOUT STAKES OR JUSTIFICATION A BATTLE IS EMPTY AND POINTLESS.OH ON THAT NOTE. 7. THE BATTLES IN THE LAST EPISODES BECOME RIDICULOUSLY BORING AND REPETITIVE. You can tell what the writers wanted to write. They wanted to write whole scenes where people star trek groaned in chairs and shouted about how much time they had.Because of the season lack of setup or stakes buildup in the previous episodes theres no tension whatsoever. Do I care about the people of earth? No I haven’t even seen them. I care about Shiro and the mains ...not even the cadets. I haven’t seen them interact enough with each other to even establish their personalities. So if the whole earth fries eh...I care more if Shiro is ok because i’ve gotten to know him over time. If the entire battle was to save Shiro from a falling ship (HOW THE FUCK DID HE SURVIVE THAT BTW I GUESS BEING A CLONE MADE HIM IMMORTAL) It would have more weight to it than the entire Hour long clusterfuck that was the battle for Hunk’s Parents, literally the only humans we care about. 8. WORLDBUILDING? HOW ABOUT FUCK YOU. Wow...so WW3 huh. That sounds interesting Voltron you wanna...no? Alright so...Russia is still a country this far in the future? Is China still communist or? Hey...why is this lady the queen of the Garrison? Why is her position so important? Who funds the Garrison? Is it the United States? The UN? Is it an international organization? Who pays the bills? The funding must come from some government who would be curious why you asked for millions of dollars towards all these bizarre supplies that could be used to build the biggest ship ever made.Why is Admiral Sanda god? She keeps threatening to go over their heads in the chain of command but that means that SHE has to report to someone? WHo?? THE PRESIDENT? SOME KIND OF WORLD LEADERSHIP COUNCIL? I know this shit is hard but come ON. Earth is NOT like these alien planets Voltron has been on that have a centralized monarchy or singular race with one central government. If Sanda is worried about causing wars and global panic thats fine but shes the one commiting treason by not reporting to her own superiors and letting the leaders of the free world make decisions on behalf of their own people. One person can’t make all the decisions we call that LAAAAAAAAZZZZYYYYYY. Oh and about Admiral Sanda? 9. Admiral Sanda is the worst villian Voltron ever faced Why did you try and give her a redemption arc? Every decision she made was stupid every choice was just...so dumb. She betrayed everyone and her level of power kept making me go...why...is she the queen of earth? When she died I was like good. What a dumbass. Don’t try and redeem someone who did nothing good in the first place especially if you never established enough world building to show she might have been correct. We can’t just trust TELL you have to SHOW us. 10. If you think the racism against immigrants is bad now I can’t even imagine the civil wars when actual aliens just invite themselves over. 11. Thanks for fucking up our tide systems by parking a fucking Balmera directly in our atmosphere assholes. In conclusion:THANKS I HATE IT.

#fuck this #fuck everything #voltron #vld #season 7 spoilers #season 7 #voltron legendary defender #lance deserved better #again

[sage-nebula]

I heard from a friend that there's 6 seasons of Voltron planned, so with another 4 potentially comin' up, d'ya expect anything particular in all this time? :0c

Well, Keith is definitely going to be the Black Paladin at some point (and I have a strong feeling that Lance is going to move up to Red). That I’m sure of.

I’m hoping that his ascension to Black Paladin will be temporary in season three, a “just until we get Shiro back” type of deal, and then they do get Shiro back and everything is right with the world again. I’m hoping, too, that they get Shiro back within the first couple of episodes. I say this mostly because season two made me very attached to the bond between Keith and the Red Lion, and likewise, season two really built up the bond between Shiro and the Black Lion. As funny as the memes are showing that the Black Lion didn’t care about Shiro (at least not to the extent that Red cares about Keith), the fact remains that season two was still devoted to showing the Black Lion accepting Shiro. The Black Lion showed Shiro his memories. The Black Lion took the Bayard back from Zarkon and gave it to Shiro. Shiro finally got the Black Paladin’s Bayard in the last episode of season two and now it’s going to permanently be passed onto Keith? That’s not fair to any of the involved characters. Let’s not use Shiro as a plot device to get the Black Bayard back, especially since it makes it seem like Keith wouldn’t be able to get it back himself, which is nonsense.

So I’m hoping that Keith’s ascension to the Black Paladin will be temporary for now, with the promise that, yes, in the future, it’s totally possible and will eventually happen. (In other words, this can be a sort of “see, we are honoring the original Voltron iterations, but this won’t happen for real for a while yet” type of deal.) Nonetheless, it is going to happen. I know that Black Paladin Discourse™ is the hot Discourse of the moment, and I’m aware that everyone and their grandma likes to argue over who they want the Black Paladin to be, but the fact remains that if you look at the show from an objective perspective rather than a subjective perspective (i.e. take your feelings for your fave out of the equation), season two blatantly set up the next Black Paladin to be Keith in a way that would make the entire season feel pointless and like a waste if they went “lol jk we’re going to make [other character] the Black Paladin instead.” As a few examples off the top of my head:

The idea of Keith being the next Black Paladin was brought up twice: Once in 2x1 “Across the Universe,” and again 2x8 “The Blade of Marmora.” Although Keith was shocked and dismayed and argued, it should be noted that he wasn’t arguing because he doesn’t think he can do it; while he did ask why Shiro was choosing him, he insisted the subject be dropped not because he has an aversion to being a leader, but rather because he didn’t want to consider the idea that Shiro could die. But now Shiro’s gone, and refusing the Black Lion won’t get Shiro back. I think Keith will realize this. He’ll have to. Regardless of that, however, the fact that this was brought up twice and that Keith’s primary objection was just that he doesn’t want anything to happen to Shiro was done purposefully. It’s to cement the idea of Keith being the Black Paladin in the mind of the viewer. The writers would not do this if they didn’t plan to go through with it.

The Black Lion already accepted Keith. The Black Lion doesn’t accept just anyone. I’d have to rewatch 1x1 again to get the exact wording, but I believe Allura says that---no, you know what? I’m going to watch it again to get the exact wording. Here is what Allura says:“As you have found, the Lions choose their pilots. It is a mystical bond and cannot be forced. The quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his Lion. [. . .] The Black Lion forms the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who is a born leader and in control at all times---someone whose men will follow without question.”A pilot cannot simply force a Lion to let them fly, and the Lions are very particular about who their pilots are. Some are choosier than others---the Blue Lion is said to be the friendliest of the Lions and the most open to new pilots, which is probably why Blue allowed herself to be stolen by that alien girl in the Balmera episodes. But Black and Red are the choosiest of the Lions, the most particular. The Black Lion won’t take anyone short of a decisive born leader, because the Black Lion is the head of Voltron, and therefore his pilot needs to be . . . well, a decisive, born leader whose men will follow without question. The Black Lion, despite his lingering feelings toward Zarkon, saw that in Shiro. And as we can surmise by 2x1, the Black Lion, like Shiro, also sees those qualities in Keith.And you know what? So have we! Keith is incredibly decisive; Keith has shown the ability to think on his feet and make decisions on a dime. He doesn’t waffle, he doesn’t waver. He can make the calls, no matter how hard they are, and he does so for the benefit of the greater good in each and every case. That is what a decisive leader should do, that is what Keith does. We also see that he is in control at all times; however much he may have a temper (that Shiro also has, by the way---look at how Shiro flipped the fuck out at Slav after about five minutes in Slav’s company!), Keith does what needs to be done and will determinedly do it even if others advise against it. The Black Lion is commanded by no one, and neither is Keith. This is something the Black Lion no doubt respects. And as for “someone whose men will follow without question,” not only did Hunk willingly let Keith lead in “Belly of the Weblum,” but in the final episode of season two, when Shiro was unconscious, Keith is the one who took point, telling the others that they had to protect Shiro and the Black Lion from Zarkon. The rest of the team followed without hesitation, and this is not the first time this has happened. We’ve seen all of the qualities the Black Lion prizes present in Keith, despite his youthful inexperience. We’ve already seen this, so it’s no wonder that we have also seen the Black Lion accept Keith as a pilot.

At the end of the season two finale, Keith was the one who had focus on him as they ran to the Black Lion. When the door to the Black Lion opened, we see all of the Paladins standing in a row. Keith is dead center, where the head of Voltron would be. Pidge is to his immediate left, where the Green arm of Voltron would be, and Hunk is on the far left, where the Yellow leg would be. Lance is to Keith’s immediate right, where the Red arm of Voltron would be. Coran, perhaps bemusingly, is to the far right, where the Blue leg would be. And Allura, as always, is standing just behind the Paladins, in the center, where the commander of Voltron (i.e. her role since the start) has always been. This was done deliberately, I feel, particularly since they then realize that Shiro is gone, and we get another close-up on Keith as he stands in the center, the focus of audience attention. They would not put this much focus on him being in the center if they were not going to put him in that role moving forward. That wouldn’t be a red herring, it would be a lie. And lying to your audience is not a good thing.

I’m not saying people have to like the idea of Keith being the Black Paladin, even though all of the arguments I’ve seen against him are nonsense. I’m just saying that people should accept it, because that’s the set-up we’ve been given. That’s what the story is telling us. Changing it now would be like having six Harry Potter books about how Harry is the one Voldemort chose to defeat him, only to say, “oh wait, actually it was Hermione’s role all along lol.” It doesn’t make sense. That’s not the story we were told. And the it’s the same deal here. You don’t have to like it, but you should accept that Keith is going to be the Black Paladin. Whether that is temporary or permanent in season three remains to be seen, but it’s going to happen nonetheless. (And if it doesn’t, then it should only be because Shiro comes back. At this point, after all this damn build-up, if it’s anyone besides Shiro or Keith I’m honestly going to be angry, because that’s not what they’ve written and I’m a stickler for coherent writing.)

Aside from that . . . I don’t know! I really want Haggar to take over as the Big Bad, because she’s the only one who has shown herself worthy of it so far, but I don’t have a lot of hope that’s going to happen, haha. I think (hope) we’ll get more information about Keith’s backstory, particularly in regards to his mother. I’d also really, really like it if his mother is still alive, but evil, so that she can try to tempt him over to The Dark Side™, only so Keith can borrow Raven’s speech from season four of Teen Titans (with words changed as necessary to fit the show it’s on):

“You may have created me, but you were never a mother. Mothers are kind! Mothers protect you! Mothers raise you! I was protected by Shiro. I was raised by Team Voltron! They are my family, this is my home, and you are not welcome here!”

I mean, obviously they can’t straight up plagiarize like that, but still. I’d love to see a moment like that. ♥ (Also, I love my boy Keith, but more angst is always good, haha.)

I hope we get more bonding between the Paladins, too. I hope Lance and Hunk get to develop beyond being comic relief. More filler episodes of silly teenage shenanigans, like the Space Mall episode, would be great. I also want an episode where Lance, Hunk, and Pidge can contact their families back home, especially in Pidge’s case since her mother presumably has no idea what happened to her, and has thus now lost her husband and both of her children. Pidge’s poor mom needs a status update asap. :(

I also want more with The Blade of Marmora. They are so cool, let us see more of them!!

Anyway, this is long enough, haha. Those are my expectations / thoughts / hopes. We’ll see where the new season takes us. =)

#shinygoku