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ptw30 · 5 years

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Battle Scars Critique and Shiro is still the Black Paladin - Really. I’m serious.

Continuing the “the definitive nitpick post” critiques from Voltron Legendary Defender Season 8 -

Season 8 Episode 4 -

Season 7 Episode 13 -

Same soundtrack for both scenes, too. I’ve discussed this before, but essentially - the Battle on Olkarion was originally in Season 7 and Lance went along with Pidge on her journey, not Allura - The Bayards Don’t Lie

Random dog on the Earth - not the Space Wolf or Bae Bae. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Kolivan could get the Colony, but Voltron can’t? Really?

Lance is super close to Hunk, but now he’s not. Then he’s in front of Allura; now he’s not. And now Hunk is on the other side of Black -

Keith doesn’t say form Voltron. The last time “Form Voltron” wasn’t said, was in Season 3 - and the team couldn’t form Voltron.

After Keith and Lance form the wings, the viewer sees Keith through Voltron. That makes sense if Shiro made the wings - by himself - but since Keith and Lance together make the wings, it doesn’t make sense to show just Keith.

PIdge says the team hadn’t heard from Olkarion...after the two-second jump it took to get to Olkarion. I’m guessing that’s a physics thing I’m not understanding, but the narrative took the time to talk about fleas on a dog to explain the size of the area the paladins were searching. It couldn’t have explained why Pidge expected a call from Olkarion two seconds after she first put one out?

Keith calls for the shield but doesn’t call for the sword. Guess we stopped announcing all weapons.

Yup. We have. Here’s the last time we saw Voltron -

And here’s the next showing - wings back on. No call from Keith for him and Keith to form them.

No need to slow down - Voltron just breaks apart.

When has Lance ever used a scanner?

Allura’s comment is never explained. One can assume Honerva attacked Olkarion to get at Pidge since this is where Pidge connected with Green - but Honerva wouldn’t know that. Honerva wasn’t on Olkarion in “. “Greening the Cube.” She didn’t know what was happening there. Even the Galra commander on Olkarion was outcast and then killed. So how did she know about the cubes?

Pidge has a profound connection to the land? Not since Season 2. She hasn’t bonded with Green again and has barely spoken to the lion since that episode. She also hasn’t done anything with the land in the last six seasons.

Wait. Hold on! Supposedly the planet is dead, its quintessence gone. It’s why the Weblum is coming to eat it. (More on that later.) Allura says the soil holds the memories and for Pidge to “tap into its energy,” but the energy is gone. So there’s no way for Pidge to get these visions - according to the story’s own set-up.

Clue about the Alteans? Really? You’re in the middle of watching another civilization die! I get it’s a plot issue, but that’s completely forced, writers. And it’s completely disregarding the deaths Pidge is watching happen right in front of her.

“Thank you” - from Allura. ...I don’t remember the last time any paladin actually used manners.

Keith over Red.

Alright, the EPs decided to stop this episode to give a speech from Ryner to an Olkari child about moving on and then later, make a point to show Keith as the new Black Paladin as “old giving way to the new.” So I’m going to stop this nitpicking post to do -

Good try, EPs, but you showed Shiro as the Black Paladin and simply told us that Keith is the Black Paladin, which is why Black Paladin Keith doesn’t work.

Here’s why -

The Black Bayard is early on set to be Shiro’s, not Keith - even by Keith -

Zarkon is the “old” the narrative must lose, to give way to the “new” Black Paladin - Shiro.

Black chooses Shiro over the old Black Paladin -

Shiro opens Black’s wings by bonding with Black and remembering the good times they had -

- and then Shiro inserted the Black Bayard to form Voltron’s signature weapon with Keith -

Now, I need to preface this next section with - I love Keith. He’s my second favorite character, but he’s not the #OneTrueBlackPaladin. He’s not even a Black Paladin. He’s a Red Paladin. Here’s why -

Keith never pulls out Voltron’s signature weapon as the Black Paladin. The next time the sword is pulled out is in Season 6 - Shiro is still in Voltron. (And we know Lance and Keith’s Black and Red Bayard formation doesn’t form this weapon.)

This formation only happens once more - when Voltron is flying with Zarkon in “Knights of Light.”

Voltron doesn’t form the sword until after Zarkon joins the team, indicating that Voltron can’t form the weapon without a Black Paladin - and thus, Keith isn’t a Black Paladin.

Also, Keith doesn’t form the wings in Voltron until the penultimate episode in the series - and he couldn’t do it alone before that. In fact, he needs Shiro to do it the first time -

- and even then, it only happens because Keith’s quintessence comes to the Astral Plane. He is the fire/sun to Shiro’s moon. He is not the actual moon itself. In fact - he still needs Shiro’s quintessence to form the wings -

Also, as I said earlier, Shiro had a trail line of blue in Black -

- which is the same color as Keith’s bayard when it shifts this season and only this season. Previously, it had shifted in either purple or red, depending upon the season.

Oh, and one more thing - the Black Bayard has only glowed for two paladins -

The Old -

And the New -

Not for the Red Paladin -

TL;DR: Viewers can’t move on from Black Paladin Shiro because the creative team didn’t write Black Paladin Keith. They wrote Red Paladin Keith piloting the Black Lion. That’s it. After all -

In addition, Keith only even pilots Black for Shiro - to save him in “Across the Universe,” for Shiro in “The Red Paladin,” to go after the clone in “The Colony.” (And no - Keith defeating the clone doesn’t give him Shiro’s seat. He didn’t even take the clone’s place since the Black Lion comes for both of Keith and the clone. One can’t even say the lion comes just for Keith.)

The series showed us Black Paladin Shiro and Red Paladin Keith, and two lectures telling us to move on doesn’t change that fact.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled nitpicking post -

The mecha never drains the planet. It just leaves.

So the planet isn’t dead. The mecha just destroyed a city. There’s no reason for the Olkari to abandon their planet. They can rebuild. And there was no reason for the Weblum to attack Olkarion - cuz the planet didn’t die!

Did the Olkari abandon Ryner to starve in the ruins? She should still be alive.

Why doesn’t Voltron go to help their allies? They’re not dead, and isn’t it the Atlas’ mission to help people? It’s why Shiro and the Atlas didn’t join Voltron on this side mission. So if Voltron doesn’t, then at least the Alas should be heading to find the Olkari.

Now I have to go watch Shiro earn the Black Bayard again because this episode was extremely hard to watch with all its inconsistencies and the EPs’ desire to yell at their own fanbase.

#voltron #voltron critical #battle scars #shiro #onetrueblackpaladin #allura #lance #pidge #vld season 8 #the definitive nitpick post #zarkon #keith #onetrueredpaladin #vld lance

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