Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver except it’s playing from your neighbor’s radio that you can hear from your back porch, which you sit out on to relax in spite of the loud buzzing from the lightbulb and the hoards of moths that flock to it on summer evenings like this.
This is just literally what it’s like to sit on my porch
Hey, I realize not everyone is going to agree on every point and that’s okay! Everyone brings their own experiences into a story and sometimes the same thing can be seen by different people in very different ways. If you’re comfortable and content with how things are than you should completely enjoy that. Fandom is about multiple voices, not an echo box. Oftentimes people aren’t going to agree on everything and that’s a positive thing. What’s more? I agree with you on almost all counts. Shiro is an amazingly realized character. He was given incredible story depth, he has been and still is an amazing representation of so many minorities, determined and good of heart and respected and noble while still being human and flawed and trying. Voltron might have still managed to exist without him but it would have been a very different Voltron and its very likely that, without Shiro, the rest of the team never would have had the drive they needed to recover from some of their first battles and Voltron would have ended up a footnote in Galra history instead. He’s an amazing character to be a fan of and as someone with no ship in this race, he’s simply been amazing to watch all for himself.
And he just spent two thirds of the last season doing nothing. When he was even standing in the same room as everyone else. A handcuff to his belt loop kept him from trying to keep Pidge safe. The paladin’s armor protected them from being frozen from the energy bursts but what was Shiro wearing? Paladin armor. And what was he? Frozen. (if the show meant ‘helmets’ than the word they should have used was….. ‘helmets’) When the team goes after the druid after Allura breaks its containment spell, where’s Shiro while his team is getting their asses kicked one floor down and screaming in pain? Beats us. Not with the team. Maybe he’s admiring the swords instead. Game show that judges who’s ‘destined for greatness’? Not there. You’re a Shiro fan. What was he doing that entire time? Losing one arm doesn’t make you a fucking Popsicle. Shiro’s still perfectly capable of being active and involved with only one arm, especially the ‘whole body, use the surroundings, I have a jet pack’ way he fights. Why didn’t the writers, if they couldn’t include him in ‘team’ activities, have him doing something on the side instead, the way the show did when everyone was at the space mall and he was bonding with Black? For that matter did the show ever tell us why he wasn’t still flying Black? You know, even a line or two from Allura or Coran that might explain why Keith was doing it instead? Did we get a single line of Shiro mentioning anything about not being the Black Paladin, something we’ve all watched him fight for again and again, a bond he has constantly been shown trying to strengthen? Any hint at all? Why didn’t Keith ask him if he at least wanted to try when Keith had been so insistent all of season three about Shiro being the real Black Paladin? You would think losing Black would at least be important enough to include in a story for a character that mattered to the writers. Even a throwaway line or two. Its a pretty big plot hole. Nothing? Nothing at all? Not even a cop out mention of it happening off screen?
But we get to Earth and, thank God, finally Shiro’s allowed to be, you know, the team leader he (or his clone) were up until the end of season six. But he’s still removed from the team. We still don’t know why Black is responding to Keith when even Keith, when a lion bond is mentioned, immediately reverts to talking about Red. We don’t know why Shiro isn’t Black Paladin, why he’s sitting on the sidelines while the team goes out and Does Stuff. Yes, he finally gets a ship, a gorgeous ship and his own command and even his own mecha. But if you hear the way most of the non-ship Shiro fandom is responding its much more a ‘dammit I’ll take anything he can get’ over ‘oh wow! So glad we ditched that clunky Black Lion and the Voltron team. THIS is what we were watching the entire show for!’. And that’s even before we go into the fact Shiro’s now no longer allowed to win his own battles against very personal enemies or that he ends the season standing alone with a bunch of pictures of dead people while the rest of his team is surrounded by loved ones.
I rarely use the word ‘hate’. I was taught it was a very strong word that was in a lot of ways irrevocable. I won’t say that the EPs hate Shiro. I will say that it often feels, listening to their interviews, as if they resent having to bring him back after season 2, that they refer to him as boring and standard issue, that no matter how much they talk him up, they constantly seem baffled by fan positivity surrounding him. He’s not mentioned when they mention favorite characters even though they both name two each. And they can’t even give us basic vital information about him in the story but seem to only remember its even an issue if asked directly during interviews. Shiro’s degenerative disease? Show didn’t say a thing about it. They only remembered to tell us about the clone solution in an interview. The clone’s consciousness that was in the body Shiro got put into (and that’s a horrifying can of worms ethically)? Story doesn’t say a thing about it. They have to be asked during an interview and we find out about the mind merge. Shiro’s connection to Black? Not even a blip of mention in the show. We have to get a goddam interview to tell us why Shiro’s not piloting Black anymore (that include the ‘pat on the head, now move along’ phrase ‘you’re still cool’.) That’s not how you write for a main character with his own motivation, feelings and struggles or even one you feel is important.
Shiro IS a vital part of the story and Voltron WOULD be sunk without him. He is completely necessary to the show at this point. His fan base is pretty multi-armed but he’s got a lot of fanbase love. He’s an amazing character. Who just often happens to feel like he’s an amazing character despite the EPs thoughts on him, not because of them. I can’t read the EPs minds. None of us can. All any of us can go off of is what they show us. You see what you see from that. And this is what I see.
While I see progress in Mr.
Dos Santos and Ms. Montgomery addressing claims of queerbaiting, that had never been my issue with
Season 7. I think they overhyped Shiro and Adam’s relationship. I think Adam –
as well as Zethrid and Ezor – dying was unnecessary as well as offensive, and
though I had wished Adam and Shiro to have met, I had hoped they wouldn’t
end up together.
(Ultimatums are not healthy in any relationship, and as a
former caretaker of someone who had a degenerative disease, I loathed that Adam
walked away from Shiro when Shiro needed his support.)
My issues with Season 7 were
mainly:
Shiro was demoted from the head of Voltron, and he could have flown Black in Season 7 as we see the paladins flying their lions from beyond their bodies. So Shiro missing arm could not – and should not – have stopped him from piloting.
He was ousted from the “found family” team, and he
has no one else. And his mantra has always been and was again in Season 7 – “we’re stronger together.” Yet he’s no longer part of Voltron. He has no other family on Earth. How sad is that?
He was almost killed three time and even flatlined once this
season.
He was not allowed to strike back against Sendak and even got
laughed at when using his human hand. Keith needed to “rescue” him rather than
empowering Shiro to stop the abuse against him – this post explains it
perfectly.
Shiro – the paladin whose lion saved him from death and who lived
in the “infinity of Voltron’s quintessence” – is not a paladin? That doesn’t make
sense.
Oh, and this all happened in the season where Shiro to shown to be LGBTQ+
representation.
That’s not taking into account Allura being demoting literally
to a foot soldier when she was a commander. She should have risen to the role of
commander of the Atlas and bridge Earth and Altean technologies/forces. That also doesn’t discuss how every paladin-lion bond “victory” is actually a defeat of another kind (Re: VLD: Why it’s hard to rewatch.)
It also doesn’t
discuss how Shiro’s whole storyline revolved around whether he was worthy to be
a paladin, and the story’s answer is no – even though there is more than evidence to prove he was and still is. (Re: Shiro is Still the Black Paladin, and Here’s Why.)
TL;DR: They took a disabled, minority, mentally ill, LGBTQ+ representative character, and said he couldn’t be a paladin.
I didn’t like this season, and I doubt I’ll like Season 8. I wish DreamWorks would see the mess that this season was and create a Season 8 to address all this. I would be willing to wait for it, but they won’t lose that much of their investment, I would assume.
Every time I consider watching this season bc “maybe its not that bad maybe i’ll like it, maybe I’ll ignore the shiro disservice, I really want to see Lance reunite with his family” and I see a post telling what actually happened it physically hurts me, it makes me want to cry every time I realize Shiro’s in Atlas and not our happy content BP, when I remember he couldn’t win his battle with sendak. It’s too painful, I’m nearly crying rn
What people don’t seem to understand is that AFTER S2 – VLD became a depressing show. Not because of war and death, actually, but because of the supposed paladin-lion bonds.
Lance gets locked out of Blue.
Keith leaves Red – and never says good-bye.
Allura is deemed unworthy by her father’s lion (despite being connected to all the lions’ lifeforce).
Black originally refused the clone, and when Shiro does get back from the infinity of Voltron’s quintessence, he’s no longer worthy or able or willing to be the Black Paladin, or if you take EPs words as fact, his bond with Black is severed.
This means all supposed fuzzy wins – Black coming for Keith, Allura gaining entry with Blue, Red denying and finally coming for Lance – are laced with sadness by the breaking/desertion of another bond.
Red no longer needs Keith. Black and Shiro’s bond has been broken. Lance is no longer worthy of Blue.
(It also means Hunk and Pidge are static for most story, so I’m not sure why it took until Season 7 for Pidge to level up them when Hunk got his bayard upgrade in Season 1.)
Moreover, one can argue that Black and Shiro came for Keith in “The Black Paladins,” just like you can argue that Black and Keith came for Shiro in “Lions’ Pride Part 1.” However, without the astral plane colors enveloping Keith as he opens his eyes –
– or seeing Black pull away from the ship without Keith piloting it –
signaling Black piloting on its own – we cannot assume Black came for Shiro in “Lions’ Pride” while we can assume Black came for Keith without Shiro in “The Black Paladin.” We know for certain he did in “The Journey Within” and “The Heart of the Lion.”
Finally – even as Shiro describes how the lions will come for the paladins, it’s truly heartbreaking.
It’s even framed to be somber and solemn, and that’s because as Shiro talks about the lions coming for their paladins – we know from the EP interviews that Black wouldn’t come for Shiro again.*
TL:DR: Any “wins” in VLD paladin-bonds between Black, Red, and Blue are also losses. And until we get back to the original line-up (perhaps with Allura sharing responsibility of other lions or as head of Altas), every win will be tainted. And if we never get back to the original line-up, then the show can’t produce a satisfying ending to the series or the lion swap.
*There is no actual discussion in the story about Shiro’s bond with Black being severed, but since Shiro was not part of “The Journey Within” or went back into his lion, we can assume the EP interview to be correct – Shiro is no longer a paladin.
Here’s the thing. Expectations are natural. We expect things because two plus two equals four in a base 10 system. We expect someone to react in pain when they stub their toes. We expect that the sun will rise. Things fall when we drop them. We expect genre conventions, we expect arcs. Humans like patterns and… y’know, character driven actions that move a plot.
We aren’t bad for expecting things to be logical and make sense. I’ve been watching some of the BNFs I follow talk about how they liked the season. And that’s fine. I was bored stupid and half drunk because of that boredom before the Paladins even got to earth.
The lead-up to season 2 had some pretty obvious expectations there. It’s where a LOT of fanon got solidified. Keith had his knife- we saw a similar one in Thace’s hands. We had some good foreshadowing that Keith was half-Galra- the logical conclusion was that they were related somehow. Even if not in the family way, but he was STILL our first good Galra, and him being family does make a logical sense because the BoM had not been foreshadowed yet.
Klance, much as I dislike much of the fanon, made sense from expectations, especially when it came to certain genre conventions. Red and Blue are usually paired. The Bonding Moment. Two cute boys in what could have been a very charged rivalry. In the first season, it wasn’t wrong to expect their relationship would develop into more, even if it was just going to be mutual respect. The problem came when the death threats and bullying started.
Sendak and Shiro’s fight had been coming since season 1. And they fought themselves to a stand-still, and Shiro surrendered when Lance was threatened. Shiro losing their final fight made no sense for most young adult/shonen or coming of age stories. Shiro was the hero in that moment. He had learned his lessons and overcome death itself with the help of his friends. He had been set up with Sendak from the beginning, as the villain Shiro was afraid of becoming. And then instead of defeating his own demons in that moment, Keith did it for him.
Hell, I didn’t mind Keith and Black being there. If they had been there to show support and to get Shiro back on his feet. Instead, Keith delivered the killing blow. That felt… very uncomfortable. Because it means Shiro would never truly overcome his fears. If Keith had been there to HELP, but Shiro had finished Sendak off, it would have been ‘I can overcome anything with the help of Keith’ which is a pretty good moral, honestly.
Adam died a very stupid death. Yes, he was a background character. But Shiro never got any final closure with him, and that also meant Shiro never had anyone to come back to on Earth. Add in that Ezor and Zethrid are likely dead, and that Shiro has died twice, if not three times, then you can start to see why people are yelling ‘bury your gays’ here.
The one thing that didn’t particularly bother me too much was about Haggar, but we should have learned what she was doing much earlier.
Managing expectations is important. And a lot of the writing here basically ignores the expectations of the audience. In fact, the EPs seem so hell bent on trying to surprise people they have a story that makes no logical sense at all.
Sorry, anon. This is a mess. Expectations from the audience DO matter, and I feel like all of VLD is first-time fanfic right now.
One of the hardest but most important aspects of storytelling in serialized long-form is managing expectations. It’s one reason writers will lean heavily on genre conventions; respecting those allows the audience to extrapolate what to expect vs what’s out of bounds.
I would not be surprised to learn Keith’s position as Black Paladin now is because of this exact intent: the EPs seem so hell bent on trying to surprise people they have a story that makes no logical sense at all. I’d bet they’d argued away from Shiro returning to Black on the grounds that as an ‘expected’ resolution, it wouldn’t be surprising enough. Even when that ‘surprise’ violates the story they’re telling.
It’s a definite beginner’s mistake to emphasize that first-time unspoiled experience to the exclusion of all else. It means the story’s written without thought to how it looks in hindsight – and repeat viewing or reading is always in hindsight, with the outcome known.
Respecting genre becomes the easiest way to manage expectations for that outcome. Genre says the two in the meet-cute will end up in love. Genre says there’ll be a shoot-out and the good guys in white hats will win. Genre tells us what to expect in the roughest of outlines, and the cool stuff — the real story — is the color between those lines.
VLD is so busy trying to mess with the lines to ‘surprise’ us that it consistently forgets it’s supposed to color within those lines, too.
I have no idea what they honestly expected, but they’ve been pretty upfront when they’ve been less enthused about how they’ve been ‘forced’ to tell the story. Which means I see no reason to doubt them when they’re just as upfront about how excited they are. They’ve finally got what they wanted, even if it took 65 episodes to get there: Shiro is now just another secondary character alongside Coran, Romelle, Matt, and the rest.
As for Atlas, it exists — when you get right down to it — as something for the second-tier characters to do. It’s command central, but it’s a step removed. It gets a moment to shine, as do all secondary players in the average space opera. But only a moment, of course; it can’t steal the spotlight for too long. Then it gives way for the real heroes to deliver the final blow.
At the same time, the EPs are well aware Shiro has his own contingent of fans (including among the execs). So they’re going to pitch this to fans as they probably did to the execs, by translating their own satisfaction into excitement on the fans’ behalf. It’s a cousin to concern trolling, except it’s excitement trolling, as though the EPs’ joy is shared by the fans.
“This is exciting and awesome and everything Shiro wants,” they’d say, bubbling over with enthusiasm, and the message is: we know what we’re doing, so set aside your doubt and trust us. We’re excited; you should be, too. If the average viewer is willing to go along, we’ll see it in the data over the next few weeks. I’ve certainly seen some on tumblr who are fine with Shiro’s demotion.
That pleasure doesn’t seem to be the most common reaction, though. The predictive algorithms for twitter aren’t showing a spike for #voltron or related terms (and some are showing a drop). At IMDB, the entire season is the lowest-rated. Every season contains a stinker or two, but S7 is the only one where it’s true of every single episode. Rotten Tomatoes not only has a 17% score for S7, that score is based on 203 votes – more votes than for S2, S3, S4, S5, and S6 put together. You don’t see a sudden change in audience engagement like that unless people are really, really, unhappy.
Of course the EPs want the audience to like their story. That’s human nature, and the basis for any future career advancement. But knowing human nature, I’d be willing to bet that in the process of convincing execs that this is how the story should go, the EPs also managed to convince themselves that repeating the same to the audience would result in the audience agreeing, too.
heget's WordPress 