Let it END ALREADY | Voltron Deep Dive Part 3
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- The final part to my 3-part deep dive of Voltron. The last two seasons are considered the worst seasons. But what specifically made them bad? How did they go from achieving greatness to letting something crash and burn?
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ok but you forgot that the producers hyped up adam SO MUCH in a con panel before season 7 so the backlash over his 3 second screentime before his death was.... very much deserved and understandable😭
Are you talking about Shiro's flashback or his death scene?
@@TailsFani'm talking about every adam appearances (including the memorial where shiro sees his name) and his relationship and/or significance to shiro in general
I was thinking this too. If they hadn't confirmed Adam and Shiro's relationship until after S7, people still would have been upset about the small screen time and quick death I think, but not nearly to the degree that it blew up into.
Yeah I specifically remember seeing a trailer that basically said "You'll get to know Adam, Shiro's boyfriend this season!" Being mildly confused because it felt completely out of left field but pleasantly optimistic despite also feeling a bit icky about the marketing kind of feeling like a "LOOK! GAYS! *Jangles keys* LGBTQ community come watch it we have gay people! You like that!" Then my mild confusion turned into severe disappointment because bury your gays, and also because Adam, hyped up as he was by the marketing team had virtually no screen time. Like dude what, you can't just hype this man up so hard and promise that we'll get to know him then have him have 30 seconds of screen time in the entire season! Let alone kill him off after what? Ten/Fifteen of those seconds? That's nuclear levels of whack right there.
Hella queerbaiting fr
I honestly barely remember the show - my main gripe is that THE LIONS SHOULD HAVE BEEN SACRIFICED INSTEAD OF ALLURA!!! The symbol of peace sacrificing itself for the greater good + the lions leave anyway?!?!?! IT'S SO OBVIOUS AND MADE SO MUCH MORE THEMATIC SENSE!!!!!
Also I remember the marketing was super misleading on a lot of things when it came to this show :(
Omg!
That’d be a great ending
Especially since the show started with them finding the lions it would have been so satisfying and have a message of like "voltron isn't the lions, it's the people" kinda. yk?
@@greadams1858
Yes!
It’s perfect ending
I like this ending and it’s good, but I remember that in the beginning how they said that Voltron was this super strong thing for good, and I just think that if in the future they need Voltron it wouldn’t have Voltron if Voltron sacrifices themselves
They did my man Shiro dirty. Man got demoted to supporting cast and then got the He got married ending with a nameless character. Lance got screwed over the most. He basically never got over Allura's death and spends the rest of his days just not doing anything new or meaningful with his life.
I only watched S1 and I felt Lance's ending was by FAR the worst and most forced. Why was he so broken up about it, forever? Made him seem super pathetic and whiney when he never had that at the beginning of the series
They made Shiro gay... but they fridge the gay, 6 feet under when they killed Adam... And has the gall to show Shiro marrying another man in the end. I mean, good for Shiro for moving on, but where's the slow burn? Their relationship timeline? It would be fine if they show him dating at the finale. NOPE, they just straight jump to a wedding!
@@trickthemisfit3256it was a CYA measure to cover for the bad press they had rightfully earned for hyping up Adam's importance. I can't say I believe there was a huge section of fans who were THAT devastated that he died as Tumblr claimed but it was still pretty shitty to mislead ppl like that. Like Negative Legend,I didn't even realize Adam had died or had even appeared in the show a second time before the memorial.
Shiro got screwed over the lost lol.
I can't believe all the Paladins died. What a wild ending.
Why does this say it was posted 4 months ago
@@revoncorvidae7826could be patreon
@@revoncorvidae7826 Probably because it was available 4 months ago to channel members
@@revoncorvidae7826 TIME TRAVEL?!
Was this unlisted for patrons?
I love Lance but... the way his character was treated by the writers just makes me so mad- ALSO WHY DID THEY MAKE HIM A FARMER
Or a diplomat. Seriously, he should have done something regarding talking.
Lance got Keith’s Sword for no reason! They should’ve made him the Black Paladin tbh
@LieutenantOzarAnThaceDoneDirty you are speaking true words my friend
This is literalt how I throght, My baby blue deserved so much more charictor development than he got.
@@daughter_of_Poseidon.3 fr (Omg daughter of Poseidon???)
I personally didn't like Lance/Allura not just because it was rushed, but because they did not feel like a healthy couple. First, Allura only started showing interest in Lance after her breakup with Lotor, a time where she was extremely emotionally vulnerable. It felt like she was using him as a distraction instead of dealing with the betrayal. Second, Lance's character seemed to regress back to the more toxic traits he had in season 1. In the carnival episode he says "I've always been good at winning prizes," while smirking to Allura. Implying he sees her as a prize that he's won, instead of as a person. He never has a chance to really reflect on this and realize that he was in the wrong. And third, the show seemed to be leading towards the two breaking up. Their climactic kiss scene happens in the first episode of the season, which is an odd choice for what is meant to be the final couple. Then, in the same episode Lance has his "prize" line, we have that vision of Lotor convincing Allura to use the dark magic, showing she still has conflicting feelings towards him. And later, Lance sides with Allura's father and criticizes her for her method of defeating Honerva. In any other show, this would be the point where the main couple fight and break up. I personally think it would be really refreshing to have none of the heroes (especially the female lead) paired off with each other. But no, they had to do the obvious option. Anyway, thank you for coming to my ted talk. (Also, it's been a few years since I've watched the show, so please correct me if I got any details wrong. I was like 16 at the time, so I probably missed some things lol.)
Plus they always gave me sokka katara vibes, aka great chwmistry, but for gods sake dont make them a couple but just platonic.
Basically how I felt, I like I can never say anything because I did ship klance but not in the toxic way, just the I like this ship and I'm saving some fan art way since I barely used social media at the time and didn't have Tumblr I would only hear through the grapevine how toxic it was 😅 and I genuinely would've been fine with Lance and Allura but I can never get that one scene were the mice tell Allura Lance likes her and she looks disheartened because she doesn't and likes Lotor out of my head, Lance felt like a rebound for Allura because she was emotionally vulnerable after having her heartbroken, like you said Lance doesn't appear to have learnt anything and it just feels like going backwards for a relationship that lacked development, Lance stops flirting with her in like season 3 and this would've been the time to maybe show Allura having romantic feelings towards Lance, you could then throw Lotor in as like a spanner in the works type thing but then have Allura realise Lance has been there the whole time and she's loved him for a long time instead of her just somewhat randomly agreeing to a date with him in the last season. 🥲
I'm glad someone else clocked that about where in the season that kiss happened. I was never that invested in the pairing but I knew then and there they weren't gonna last
Allura showed interest in Lance before Lotor, but it’s pretty easy to miss.
I wish they would have been besties at the beginning of the series. Lance teaching her to chill(have some fun) and her teaching him to also chill(be a bit more responsible) lol
The bad part about Shiro and Adam for me wasn't what was in the show, but instead the promotional material. There were banners of Shiro and Adam together for promotion which was kind of upsetting considering Adam immediately got killed off and tbh the way I remember the whole ordeal really didn't have an impact on Shiro as a character.
Now, that's no reason for the amount of hate and harassment people working on Voltron got at the time, but that's what was the salt in the wound for me personally.
Pretty sure there was a whole official tweet made about how season 7 would be introducing Shiro’s love interest Adam, and really made it sound like it’d be a big focus, too. Superrr queerbait-y
@march7thsonetruewife unrelated but based pfp
@@blehsomeguy same to you, fellow man of culture
@@freshcupofangst i remember the showrunners constantly queerbating
Lance and Allura still feels odd to me tbh, but I don’t care for Keith and Lance too. The lesson is no one wins.
I vaguely remember in the original series it was implied there was something between Allura & Keith, & it never went anywhere.
@LikaLaruku There was and you're right it didn't but Voltron Force (2011) did somewhat reconfirm it and it did seem to be mutual attraction, Lance and Allura still feels one sided to me since they never seemed to show Allura liking Lance back. That one episode in season 6 where the mice tell her Lance is into her and she seems disheartened because she doesn't feel that way solidified to me she didn't only then to flip 2 seasons later with no real build up to them being in love. 😅
lance and allura was so annoying to me too bc i feel like the end just tried to rob allura of all her agency when she started with so much and was such a good character but then she became a plot point to die to get to the ending like srsly 🙄 i hate the trope of ‘woman who has been rejecting man throughout the entire show is finally *worn down* by him by the ending’ idk tho
@@noname-mi2weit's funny you say that because once they actually did get together, Lance was shoved into the background and given all the development of a shounen battle anime love interest.
I was one of those people who thought the Lance stans whining in the early seasons were being paranoid, but season 8? Bruh. Even Hunk got a more satisfying ending.
@@KariIzumi1nope hunk did not get a satisfying ending at all. He got the fat man becomes chef because fat people like food ending
I think Smidges brother not being dead was one of the most frustrating aspects of the show for me. It added to the character bloat and they did nothing interesting with it. Actually having to confront that loss would have been something... but nope we have an easy out.
Heh. Smidge.
How u r 4 months ago??
I agree! Even if he lived, her dad should have died. It would definitly helped develop her character
@@itsstargirl18 Some Patreon members get early access to the videos. The video was probably uploaded 4 months ago but as an unlisted video. When you make an unlisted video public, it'll set the time of it going public as the upload time.
I am fine he isnt, but he could have been used better, oh and 100% the dad should have died then. That could be good trauma bonding.
I literally screamed when Keith was killed off. Awful choice by the writers that really hinders what could’ve been an amazing series finale. Same with Lance.
I feel like the marketing of the show had a large part in the backlash. Rainbow Netflix headers and constant ship-bait UA-cam compilations on the official channel made a lot of people feel like what was fine or inoffensive in the show was actually just. Real attempts at baiting.
Plus, calling Adam Shiro’s lover is almost a stretch. We see them have like, one conversation that barely points toward what relationship they have. The only way a lot of people knew what was supposed to be going on with them was the announcement and rainbow marketing for the season.
Rainbow? You do realize the colors of Voltron are based on Buddhist esoteric elements . It is of Japanese origin.
Not everything is American.
@@CT-uv8osno we mean actual literal rainbows not the voltron colors and Netflix listing the show under its lgbt+ category
@@CT-uv8os theyre referring to rainbow marketing
By the 7-8th season I said point blank to my friends That i did not BELIEVE these characters were friends or even coworkers. They talked and acted like they were supposed to be close but their interactions felt shallow and that they had nothing going for them. The previous fun things of either fun jabs at one another or even the rivalry of Kieth n Lance (smth that gave them the chemistry ppl clinged onto so much) was just missing and made for all of them to be bland and uninteresting when put in a room
I had the same feeling too. The show went downhill for me with season 3 onwards with the increased focus on plot elements that made character focus take a back seat. The character focus was reduced to small moments here and there instead of being the focus of entire episodes. By the time we got to season 7, the moments there just fell flat for me. Them reminding each other of their friendship when they were lost in space, or Keith encouraging the team when ultra Voltron was depowered and stuck, these just didn't have the impact they should've had.
the show had the gall to have a scene between keith and lacen that can be interpreted as romantically coded and keith saying how proud he is of how far lance has come when they haven't properly spoken to each other in like 4 seasons. like, as a klancer, i'll take what i can get, but it was in no way earned and left such a sour taste in my mouth
Hey! Person who never interacted with the fandom, but who watched the show here. Voltron felt weirdly traumatizing for me -- which feels like it should be insane to say, but every time i see it in a thumbnail or title, my mood is immediately killed and i actually have trouble engaging with the content.
For me, it was watching the fun, high-potential story about a space found family (with promised diverse and LGBT rep from the show runners) devolve into a group of people that genuinely seemed to dislike each other.
Hunk and Pidge and Lance were downright mean to eachother starting in s4, and never improved. Keith was written out if the show for two seasons, and then his arc about learning how to accept love instead of rumning from it... happened in a TWO YEAR OFFSCREEN TIMESKIP. You covered what happened to Shiro lol. And Allura randomly fell for Lance despite outright rejecting him for the whole show, knowing about his feelings and still choosing Lotor, and then just dued because of undefined space magic?
Plus Lotor's character assassination was just yikes.
Shiro gets married to an unnamed background character with no dialogue lines.
Lance, the Cuban, becomes a FARMER -- which he expressed zero interest in -- instead of achieving his dream of being a successful pilot??? That felt actually racist.
As a writer, the decisions made starting in s4 baffled me, then bored me, then pissed me off, and finally made me feel empty about this ragtam space family i adored in the first two seasons.
It felt like i was watching spiteful writers slowly kill off my favorite characters in every way that they could. It legitimately felt like someone at the top actually hated the viewers so much, they tried to do the worst things they could get away with to the narrative.
I remember literally ADHD ranting to my sister for 90 minutes straight after the ending about all of the dropped character arcs, the plot holes, the terrible shipping, and the insulting ending. I've never quite felt that level of pissed since, but i imagine its probably how GoT fans felt after their ending.
"no dialogue lines", that's false. Shiro's future husband (Curtis) has MANY dialogue lines, try rewatching it and looking for him in both season 7 and season 8.
@@TailsFan I should be clearer, my bad. I meant he and Shiro didn't share any dialogue lines building their relationship.
He has a lot of throwaway dialogue lines about the ship's condition, I think he made a comment in a few of the meetings about the war effort, and I have a vague memory of him having a single line with Axca about something.
EXACTLY. COULDNT SAY IT BETTER MYSELF.
SAMEEEEEEE I really hated that they didnt explore more Black paladin Keith crisis more, like they brought shiro back the next season I didnt even miss him xd
@@taylerwatts4343 I'll give you that, they didn't bond as a couple but he actually had some pretty big moments, like when he used his skills as Communications Officer to know when Zethrid's lackey was posing as Keith on the radio and Voltron was in trouble.
I might be remembering this wrong, but wasn't Lotor basically raised by his governess? That's where he got the accent from. He spent pretty much 0 time with his family since they sent him away - or at least that's what was implied?
That's probably the case, but the show made no effort in making anything clear.
@@KariIzumi1 True that
Great videos series, I really enjoyed it.
The problem with Allura's sacrifice isn't that she was a women of color. It's because women of color having to die/sacrifice themselves for the other characters is a common trope in popular media that happens a lot. The same way how it's a trope for a black person being killed in a horror movie, or how if there's a gay love story it will end with one of them dying. It's a trope that's been used too many times. (Also in buzzfeed interviews after season 8, the show runners said how they had wanted to kill off Hunk and have Acxa take over the yellow lion but got told no. Take that as you will.)
Anyway, thanks for making it! Can't wait to see your next video.
So many, many problems on this show could've been solved by people working on the show learning when to shut up.
Absolutely no one deserves the amount of harrassment that they got from shitty fans, full stop. But it's not a coincidence that Josh Keaton stopped getting hate mail and threats to call CPS the minute he stopped discussing shipping.
o.o
HUNK being killed off wouldve been just one of the most transparently lazy decisions ever made...
The discourse over Allura’s sacrifice didn’t have to do with whether she was a good character or not. It’s disheartening and mean to see a dark skinned woman finally get portrayed in a series and her ending is that she gets to be a sacrifice for everyone else’s sake. A fate that is shared by many many many black women. It’s so hard for me to recall black women in animated series getting any sort of recognition or important role. Watchers finally get one and she ends up dying in the most cliche way possible. And I’m not talking cliche in the animated series sense. I’m talking cliche in the “oh of course the black women dies. Of course she doesn’t get a happy ending. What else should I expect.”
The death wasn’t meaningful in any way, at least to me. It was just sad because I’ve seen this story already countless times in real life and now I’m just seeing it again.
Real and true, I hope Negative sees this and it helps them understand the POC woman perspective a bit more. I enjoyed it in story but from a critical eye it's fair to be judged.
Yes, even to this day we don't get many characters like her and throughout the whole show it was just heartbreak after heartbreak for her nonstop, they should have given her a light at the end of the tunnel for all the pain she's been through, but it was just another sacrifice in the end.
It’s difficult to explain their reasoning without knowing they had at one point intended for a big finale movie, only for the show’s lack of money and Uber-toxic fandom putting the kibosh on it. When the LA Voltron happens, Allura will probably be a blonde again.
@@Dynaman21the animated film would’ve brought Allura back since apparently she’s not really dead.
@@Dynaman21also, the thing that scrapped the movie was Dreamworks switching to Hulu.
I think a reason why there was so much out cry for Alluras death is that, we do not get enough WOC genuine perspectives, esp at that time. I remember Steven Universe having good rep too but thats it. I know it is a fictional setting, but still, seeing a main character like her was nice. I'm white myself, but growing up I was surrounded by people of many backgrounds and cultures. And seeing all the different backgrounds and diversity with the characters and show was awesome! Allura stood out to me though, she was cool but such a sweetheart, so kind and caring, and one of the few darkskin girls i actually saw on screen, that wasn't a background or side character. While a lot of the fandom was about shipping ( basically just keith, lance and shiro), Allura was always respected. People loved her, she was the iconic space girl. But her death was like a punch to the gut, I understand it was a sacrifice, but there is so much more to it than that. Why not the lions? Why not Shiro, the leader of the group? It just didn't make sense, she didn't deserve it. Maybe if the buildup was developed more, but it just came so out of left field.
It also is not okay since how so many woc just get killed off, and sacrificed. And its just, its sad. It is really really sad, Allura brought the team together, she was awesome, and they just killed her.
It sucks to see something like this. Women of color have be brutilized and hurt and killed for other character. Yes the representation is awesome in the show! It is beautiful! But why her? It feels like there was no plan. Just kill the girl.
Its been years and I still think of how terrible this show ended. I wasn't even into the fandom that much, but I know we all felt how wrong it was
Sorry for the mini rant, Allura is my fav voltron character and her death is just, heartbreaking.
o.o
Yeah. There was no reason for them to kill Allura 😢
I get that young queer people are desperate for representation, but we need to stop babying them. A teenager should know that it's not ok to harass people because of cartoon relations
For real, though. There's a ton of queer filmmakers and artists who devote their time to representative works. DreamWorks....? Don't expect that from them 😂😂😂 come on, kids.
Like if the show wanted , just make keith gay, not with lance or shiro, but like it could explore at least his character more, and let shiro be free to not shoulder that.
And give keith a catboy love interest on his adventures with mom?!
And yeah keith should gave gotten that fun galra love interest catboy for real,not lothor ok, and shiro, i just can him stay dead if the other paladins and keith get developement
@@henotic.essencewe got kipo and the age of wonderbeasts from them. They had Ben who was gay and ended up getting a boyfriend. And it made sense it wasn’t just thrown in there for the sake of quick queer representation. Ben was a kid on the surface and Troy was in the burrow city so when they got together it made sense. Bc they both were going to live in the borrow/with the human/mute group. We might even get more if kipo gets greenling for more content. So there is hope for dreamworks lgbt representation.
You're absolutely right but two things can be true at once. There was an unprecedented amount of fandom harrassment well before these last two seasons but the higher ups who thought they were eating by hyping up a guy with 90 seconds of screen time were only throwing more fuel over a nuclear reactor meltdown. And even worse, the execs at DW and/or WEP weren't the ones having to deal with these rabid fans up front and personal--the VAs did. Lauren Mongomery and Joaquim dos Santos did. So too did any other person who was known to work on the show. It wasn't pretty for any of them.
@@henotic.essence Dreamworks animation worked on She-Ra - the really gay version.
MY BIGGEST BEEF WITH THIS SHOW IS THAT CORAN NEVER GOT TO SAY GOODBYE.
Same even after all this time
KORAN!!! I LOVED HIM SM 😢
I can't believe all the Paladins died!
The mecha fan in me loves the fact that their ship randomly transforms into another giant robot, but you are not wrong that it undercuts what should be the primary focus. Now that I think about it, that would of been the perfect time to toss in a refrence to "Vehicle Force Voltron". Would of been a clever nod to classic Voltron fans. Not sure how'd you would rationalize humans being able to their own Voltron, but they clearly didn't care about making believable power scaling.
@ShadowEclipex
They could have pulled a Pacific Rim and have humanity build their own Voltron.
Granted vehicle Voltron Force would have been a... Controversial decision especially considering that there'd be a section of fans who would find vehicles to be a let-down compared to the five sentient robot lions.
Remember the backlash that power rangers turbo went through.
@ShadowEclipex
That doesn't mean that the concept of "vehicle Voltron Force" couldn't have been done well and could have actually been good.
The problem I feel that would have faced the series would have been the lack of the old cast being involved and acting as mentors to the new team.
I was only in the community on Instagram just happily liking art and watching the show so I didn’t have the crazy toxic stan experience most people did. But I was a huge Klance shipper. It just made sense to me. I loved all the potential the story had and the character dynamics and the creativity it sparked in people. I think the moment I realized the show was going nowhere was when they killed of Lotor. Like the set up for him was really fun but it just never payed off. To me I’ll always love the first few seasons. But I’ve never been able to bring myself to watch the last 2. They’re just really not entertaining when you know where the show ends up. I’m still pissed they killed of Allura, it should have been the LIONS. Since Voltron gets retired anyways they should have gotten their happily ever after. I don’t even care if Allura and Lance became end game (kinda always figured it was gonna go that way since it’s just very heteronormative for the bossy lady to like the man child). I wanted all these characters to actually feel connected. But by the end? It didn’t make sense why any of these characters liked one another.
As someone who watched the "original" Voltron, i.e. the Frankensteining of two different anime into a dubbed cartoon, seeing the whole Netflix series unfold was both heartening and depressing. They touched on so many good ideas and concepts for the characters and the IP itself, but flailed horrendously at the most basic tenants of good storytelling that it made everything past season 3 a serious drag to get through. Shiro's multiple passes of false and compromised identity, Keith's unwillingness to be a leader, and Lance, Pidge, and Hunk only getting the most sporadic of character focus compared to them and Allura made even the most epic set pieces feel like distractions rather than capstones. The characters really didn't "go" anywhere compared to where they started, and everything that happened could have been compressed into five seasons at MOST. I don't think the IP will be able to mount a return any time soon thanks to how it all panned out.
i can't believe all the paladins died. it was a controversial decision but one that definitely cemented the series as legendary.
@@naquangreen2192 clearly u didnt watch the full vid
@@StarCandyyyy
I did 😂 the only character that did die was princess Allura.
@@naquangreen2192 boi u are dense 💀
Shipping may have ruined the show, but Keith will forever be my punching bag for the show turning into "The Adventures of Keith, starring Keith (and the rest too, I guess)"
🤣🤣🤣
And they couldn't even do his plot lines/arches right XD
@@pencilbuddyinc7782 We didn’t even know his dad’s name! or anything about him or his relationship with his own mother that’s how bad his story arc is.
His leadership arc being utterly destroyed by going off and doing the Blades thing and basically living in his own mini-show was so bad. That should have been a small arc where he returns and comes into his own as a leader, and interacts with the rest of his team, which is the whole point of the "power of friendship and teamwork robot space fighter" show!
"Oh yeah Keith, you're part of this super important team of people who are the chosen ones to pilot these super robots that make a bigger robot that's the ONLY thing to potentially save the whole galaxy, and if anyone is unable to pilot a lion or form the robot then the odds of winning this seemingly unwinnable war get SUPER BAD, and with you being the new Black Paladin, you have the awesome responsibility of being the leader and - oh, he's already gone...cool."@@prokyonidae
The game show & space madness episodes were weird. They never question their team/family/friend dynamic before but all the sudden they didn't see each other as friends?!
The thing with Adam is that Netflix and the showrunners made a big deal about him. When season 7 came out they had shiro and Adam all over. They were literally the thumbnail of the show for that season. The advertising was shiro and Adam with some rainbows in the background. Then the man just suddenly dies off screen. Why did they make such a big deal about Adam if they were just going to do him dirty like that?
Let's just say as a black woman/femme (people that look like me) in fiction don't tend to have a happy ending in canon or fanfiction. Their ships are usually underdeveloped by the writers or invalidated by the fandom. And it's hard to have most of the fandom headcannon a black woman/femme as asexual or a 'I don't need no man' type of person even if they're canonly not this way. Also Allura sacrificing herself for the team it's very reminiscent of the 'Magical Negro' trope (think Bonnie in the vampire diaries) Allura's use of magic help move the plot along more than once and when needed she died for the plot as well. With all of this being said characters like this are seen as black because most black fans see themselves in their stories
Another element of what made that episode of them drifting through space so bad is how it had a whole scene where the paladins yell at each other and question if they're even a team after all this time. You mentioned in an earlier part that earlier seasons weren't doing a good job of treating the core cast as a team, and this episode was just the ultimate example of it. It's like.... really? This late into the show, and we still aren't supposed to know if the team actually even care for each other? How.
God, right? This was the type of episode that should have aired by the end of season 3 at the latest. Hell, given how Shiro was completely missing from that episode, I have to wonder if this was originally meant to be earlier in the show but TIIC were so attached to this idea that they stuck it in anyway.
Either way, the fact that such a question was needed that late into the series....big oof.
Yeaaaaahhhh…no, the ending is never gonna not suck and it retroactively made it impossible for me to ever watch the early seasons. It’s not necessarily because Allura died; as you said, sacrificing herself is incredibly noble. It’s that Haggar was so ludicrously overpowered through the whole last season, easily conquering everything and everyone over and over and it came completely out of nowhere. Everyone lost all season long to such a degree that the eventual last-second victory felt like defeat too. I have nothing but bad feelings towards the show (and btw, this is coming from someone who was totally outside the whole toxic fandom, so that’s nothing to do with it).
“This show became a war of attrition with its viewers” so beautifully put
my blind love for pidge allowed me to love every season because she was in it
So real
Lmao i related a lot to her
REAL I LOVE THEM SM
me with both pidge and keith
i can't believe all the paladins died. it was such a bold move to end the show with the entire main cast dying like that, i don't think i've ever seen another show do that before
I remember keeping up with Voltron and feeling completely disheartened by the finale. The desire for big stakes and battles left little room for the characters I grew to love.
I was so excited to have a dark skinned pastel woman in a show. When she died, I paused the show and sobbed my eyes out. I made the mistake of going online to see how other people felt, but everyone was too focused on Lance's ending and Shiro's new husband to care. I even saw an artist I admired say that she was happy Allura died, because she shipped her with Lotor. Her lack of compassion for WOC's perspective really hit me hard. In the end I feel like it's my own fault for getting attached to a character that a random company made. I think it's a good lesson to everyone, that if you want content that properly represents you, you should find an indie creator that looks like you.
o.o
saying you're happy allura died because you shipped her with lotor is actually insane. i ship them too, but i would've preferred it if they were both alive??? allura wasn't my favourite character, but since she was the "girly girl" of the group i always felt protective of her since those types of characters always tend to get a lot of undeserved shit, and the way she was handled throughout the show made me so angry. if anyone in the show deserved a happy ending it was her!!
Allura was a good representation for BIPOC girls who were watching the show. I mean, she was a badass magical space princess with a cool story (until a certain point) and design! I loved how both black and indigenous women could relate to her due to, even her people was genocided, she found a reason to keep fighting and turn the universe into a better place. Her death was just unfair
For Negative Legend regarding Allura's death if it is considered "Racist" or not:
So as an AFAB queer nonbinary person of color, the claims of racism is not THAT unfounded, considering that Allura is a GREAT women of color character on screen and I do agree that it could have been way more impactful if there were other women of color characters! But the fact is she is the only one, and it feels weird to see her be the one who never gets her happy ending yet arguable did the most work to save the entire universe.
Like ok once again women of color are doing the most work and once again they get the arguably unhappy ending. (Doesn't help she is also a woman of color with "magic that no one can comprehend but can help support the cast who aren't women of color either).
I do not think it is direct, intentional racism as some have accused the writers of, and it would be unfair to the writers to assume they would be that malicious about it. HOWEVER, I do think there is unconscious racism going around, because we could have had more women of color in the show that aren't antagonists for a show of *checks notes* 7-8 seasons, but instead the only main one is the one who died and never got a happy ending where she isn't dealing with war and isn't dealing with Altean extinction and whatnot. Hunk and Lance who have darker skin tones compared to Keith and Shiro (who are both men of color) and Pidge (who is the only white character on the team) didn't get their deep character story arcs either, so there could be unconscious colorism bias happening.
Do I think its that severe of a claim? No, but its still sus that they had all these chances for deep women of color characters like Allura but never did. Then again the writing of show is just NOT GREAT. They fridged a gay character that they hyped massively as severely important to the story, alot of other characters were implied queer but only if you squint really hard, as mentioned Hunk and Lance who have darker skin tones are also characters that were treated more as a joke side character without their own heavy story arcs.
And like, to use your identity as a comparison, like, let's say its a queer white character in a cast of straight characters and yes they had a deep character arc but they're still the only one who died sacrificing themself so all the straight characters have their happy endings. I can't claim on your behalf if you would be miffed, but as a queer person I would at least say man I wish there was more queer characters so the ending doesn't feel as sad or as terrible as someone of a marginalized group.
Anyways there are my two thoughts as someone who dropped the show around season 5-6 and was not involved in the fandom outside of perusing Tumblr on a surface level whenever the show trended. And I am just one person with one set of experiences, so don't take my word as the gospel please but rather just one view of everything that went down.
PS: These are just my thoughts, if you have conflicting thoughts please be respectful about them, this is mostly my opinion based on my own life experiences as A SINGULAR AFAB nonbinary queer person of color, so my thoughts may not align with yours, I just don't want to be hate crimed when I wanted to share my thoughts with Negative Legend in the comments. Thank you very much for understanding, and I thank you for your time and consideration if you did read this whole comment!
One of the best parts of this show in my opinion is that you had a father, mother, and son who all got their chance to be the main antagonist. Can anyone name another show that did that?
Im taking notes🤔
"When you make everything big, then they all just feel the same." This is also, incidentally, one of the main problems with the Michael Bay Transformers movies. Giant Robots corrupt people more than Quintessence ever could, it seems. 🍵
As much as I like Lotor as a character it really annoys me that the show fails to be keep my attention when he is not around. If it wasn't for this character the series might have just remaind a standard good vs evil plot with a monster of the week formula.
same, stopped watching when he wasn't in the show anymore. It was such a waste of time to get invested into a character that arguably had such a fire introduction and was brimming with potential, just to get him killed off.
@@opaloparu6048 It's like the problem I had with Catra in She-Ra.
I love Catra's story but I hate the fact the writers were over reliant on her to cause drama and progress the plot.
(1) Sometimes it feel like Catra is the only villain taking the war seriously and making progress to win it.
(2) Catra kept going back and forth on being a good and bad guy. So many times Catra told Adora I'm done with you and yet she always keep coming back to help her.
(3) Catra has also done to many things to be redeemed. If the writers wanted her to redeem herself they should have made join the heros as soon as possible.
Also wasn't it annoying how empty the Horde felt empty? When I was watching the show I kept wondering where are all generals leading armies into battle.
@@lesterwilliamsjr649 haven't really watched she-ra, but yeah, in my opinion, I don't think much was really concluded. The Galra had been ruling for thousands of years, I wish there was a portion of the show dedicated to rebuilding or something. Like that doesn't just all disappear because of allura's sacrifice, or the finale was so crazy that it just makes a different timeline where everything is fine and dandy? Idk, the more I think about the ending it confuses me. Even more than finding the possible motivation Lotor might've had for farming the altean's quintessence unethically.
I'm sorry, but the twist reveal of the colony will NEVER make sense to me. If you think about it for 5 seconds it's like "Oh my- that's horrible!" but the more and more you think about it, the less sense it makes. I'll probably elaborate in another comment to go over everything that in my opinion just doesn't fit.
Last two seasons of Voltron felt like it tried be an anime war drama like mobile suit Gundam. But, it took inspiration from Gundam F91, seed destiny, and Age which those are probably the worst of the Gundam franchise.
@bearerofbadnews1375
There was a much worse season of Gundam and it was iron-blooded orphans season 2.
The ending is what really ticked off the entire fandom because it basically ends with all of our heroes (minus some of the female characters) dying and the villains actually surviving and who won.
The villains themselves weren't even good villains in fact they have to be the most annoying villains in the entire Gundam series.
Gundam 00 Season 2 also had the exact same problem where the story of the first season was wrapped up and our heroes had basically won.
Only for a second season to happen and reverse a lot of the things that were achieved at the end of the first season and receive one of the worst endings in Gundam.
@bearerofbadnews1375
Gundam must be curse or something because the first half of their shows are just soo good meanwhile the second to third half are the WORST.
The main story is almost always finished up and there is an already written satisfying ending with there being no need for a continuation.
The most recent Gundam series had the exact same problem where the first half was good, while the 2nd and 3rd half was the worst.
I remember when I realized that they were making Sendak the main villain for an entire season, and my immediate reaction was "Really? This guy's the big bad?" Then all the paladins just died the next season.
Shows like Steven Universe, She-Ra ATPOP, and Voltron LD all have something common that I really don't like which is they ignore the reality of war by suggesting that it's easy to forgive an enemy that someone was fighting a war against.
If your going to have an action series that has a war its important to have a villain that is punished as a result of there actions in the war.
As someone who shipped plance,it was so funny how the Plance part of the fandom was the only part where they were literally calm even after the finale :P
Oh I remember Hance being chill too 😅
it was insane how hunk died the worst out of them all
I will admit, I was really confused by your comment.
I think the Adam problem was also we never heard shiro said he was missing anybody. And Keith never mentions Adam ether. Bro came out of nowhere and died that same ep
I shipped Klance, and I guess I still do just less so than I did back when I was a teen. I always thought the Sheith vs Klance wars were dumb and it only got worse when people started sending death threats to the writers and actors. I was hoping they would make Klance canon because it just made so much more sense than anything else in my mind but when they didn't, I was sad but I didn't blow up over it. I was far more angry over Allurance being as poorly done as it was than anything. I felt so bad for the people who shipped Allurance because they definitely deserved better and so did the characters. Also I was just simply angry at the general shitshow that was the last few seasons. They tied everything up yes, but little of it made decent sense for any of the characters and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. But hey, thats why we have fanfiction! I feel like the first few seasons were great, especially when the fandom was new and people weren't fighting over their ships. I miss those times.
I was forced to watch the first season of Voltron because my friends were desperate for us to rp ships from the show. From the very beginning, Voltron's pacing felt too... quick. They barely lingered on an emotional moment or let you process anything. It felt like I was watching a show for kids. I wish I could have enjoyed the show, but I really couldn't. Watching your deep dives just helped me reflect on that. I was curious to hear how the show went after the first season. More power to the folks that loved the series
I mean...even for a show made for kids, it was pretty bad writing wise 😂 pretty much every kid show after ATLA has had planning and pacing and most have never blundered them the way this show did. I'd say _Star Vs. the Forces of Evil_ comes closest to matching VLD but... honestly, that show at its peak was genuinely good, with strong characters and motivations before the creator decided to turn it all about shipping to the point that even shippers themselves got annoyed.
VLD OTOH...even at its best, the characters all had very thin characterization and motivations and never got much more than what we saw of them in the pilot. Between than and the online toxicity, what was left to keep anyone around at the end of it?
The weird magic and the eldritch stuff was just weird. Everything felt like a stretch and didnt mean anything. The way they just dropped Lotor. He still mentioned, but he feels more like a plot device later on after his death. Lance was a rebound, no debate in that. They never really addressed Lotor's ideology in why did what he did. Like did he even need the quintessence from Alteans? You can harvest that stuff through other means. I would have been interesting to see how he justified his actions. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few debates are interesting to see how each side tries win philosophically.
I personally have a theory, which I put in one of my fics, that Lotor wasn't actually wanting to hurt them and he took "compatible" Alteans because Haggar found out about his little "side project" and blackmailed him into giving her some of the Alteans so she wouldn't tell the Emperor and get the whole thing destroyed. They never even tried to get Lotor's side of the story.
I think that personally the reason why the ending felt so bad was the just complete lack of stakes and poor execution
There were good ideas but by the end they would either rush to the good stuff with nothing in between or drag out the stuff that was less interesting/important
They couldn’t seem to find that balance past season 3
Honestly, as someone who watched the whole show and didnt rlly interact with the fandom (i did see all the shipping stuff online for some time and it annoyed me and i came to realize that it would benefit my mental health more to just, not interact with pretty much any fandom, ever, so i disappeared from social media haha), I barely remember anything from the show, nothing rlly impacted me, for me it was just some silly show abt giant space robots and space magic later ig, where, as u said, when the tension is constantly tried to be kept high, it just fizzles out.
I think the most fun things for me were the fight scenes, and my favorite characters were Pidge and Hunk, so, yeah
I think looking back on it, the show had potential with all the lore and some worldbuilding, especially character development, but in the end it just, tried to dive in the pool but face planted onto the ice it feels like for me
Stay hydrated and fed y'all, keep those meat vessels pumping :o]
“Tried to dive in the pool but face planted into the ice” is such a fantastic way of putting it lol
The fandom was crazy. But criticizing the messy and forced writing + the fact that the show runners patted themselves on the back and advertised queer rep only to give us the mess that was Adam and Shiro is valid. The original creator left the show at one point and it shows. Dos Santos and Montgomery fumbled a lot
Who do you mean by “the original creator”? Dos Santos and Montgomery have been the showrunners throughout the whole show.
Having all of the Paladins die immediately after Shiro confesses his love for Keith and gets sent to space super hell was an interesting writing decision.
I got that reference and I’ve never watched a minute of that show, it was THAT big of a deal 😂 I also think it goes to show how Voltron went that lowkey why does that unironically sound like something they’d have done to Shiro 💀
I mean, THEY KINDA DID, and Shiro didn’t even have to say it himself bc god forbid a war veteran and POW have emotions,, but through a shared trauma and noble devotion he managed to bond closely with the Black Lion, who gave up her former Paladin for him, who saved his life where anyone else would’ve died. It was genuinely the most meaningful connection of any two characters I felt in the show, and had such potential. He made that meaningful connection and then got killed off, and when he comes back, THEY ERASED THAT BOND. In order to have their nostalgic OG team the writers literally say off-screen that it was wiped. We didn’t even get a “thank you for everything” to Black, and clearly Shiro can’t even recall anything about that bond, bc he just. Doesn’t mention it. Ever. You can so clearly tell he wasn’t meant to be in the show at some points lmao and they,, somehow,, didn’t plan for a well-developed character to be LIKED on a kid’s show that COULD NEVER JUST WRITE HIM OUT (like, if this was GOT, it wouldn’t be a biggie lmao) 💀
Keith also tells Shiro he loves him, his brother, his salvation, and then that clone dies horribly (agonisingly mind-controlled and probably thinking he’d killed his friends. He hurt Keith) with no further mentions. They don’t even bring up that fight.
Holy quiznakking fu*k they treated him worse than soggy rag doll that a Doberman puppy got its teeth on
Oh and did I mention the fact he seems to have no one left for him on Earth. No mentions of family, or friends outside of pre-established characters. There was that one guy,, idk what his name was,, uhhh Adidas idk but I don’t know if they were close from that one interaction we got 🤔 Anyways that guy got murdered lmao
watched voltron with my siblings during covid, my dad downloaded it before we cut our internet so it was just us going through the motions. I loved how allura was a soft and gentle poc fem without being meek or overly tomboyish, i liked that pidge seemed kinda gender fluid for a bit and the whole nerd family reuniting, i didnt guess the clone thing but i never see obvious twists coming, and i did genuinely think keith and lance had more chemistry than allura and lance heck i thought it would made more sense if she ended up with keith. i did giggle at a ton of the jokes so all in all my no fandom experience was an 8/10
I can't believe the paladins died. But honestly, on a more serious note, I thought the best way to end it wouldn't be to have Allura sacrifice herself, but to SACRIFICE THE LIONS. It would show the universe doesn't need them anymore, and Allura would get to live and stay with Coran, who I argue was like her quirky father figure or uncle. Allura deserved to be happy after all she went through. and it would maybe show that Voltron itself was made of some very powerful space mumbo jumbo that had the capability of basically restarting the universe and its different diverging timelines.
I've never watched this show, however I do remember hearing of the Adam incident.
Apparently, the producers bragged about having gay rep in the show and how the LGBT+ community was going to get a big treat. But when the episodes aired and it turned out it was the "Burry Your Gays" trope, people got understandably mad.
Then the producers turned around and started crying that this was all Dreamworks would allow them to do. But then Dreamworks came out and basically said "WE SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THIS!!!"
I remember that and it was hilarious
The VLD reaction was so bad that the She-Ra creators put out a tweet saying they'd already completed the show and to not get mad at them (not that they needed to, everyone was pretty happy with Catradora)
I watched the first three episodes of season two, realised exactly where the show was going to go and decided to just leave and enjoy the version in my head instead. And *now* you're telling me that the Paladins all died? I can't believe I missed the Paladins dying. What a wild ride.
Honestly, if they hadn't included that bizarre "here's where they are now" clip show at the end, I still wouldn't have liked the ending per se (Allura's sacrifice needed to be set up better imo; it felt like an arbitrary solution for the sake of an easy gut punch since they either broke or stopped explaining the rules so often in S7 & 8 that I had no sense of what the possible solutions on the table even were anymore) but I wouldn't have hated it to the degree that I did. That last image with the lions flying off into space with the Allura constellation in the background was a decent enough note to end on, and a beautiful image if nothing else. Shiro's wedding, on the other hand, rang so incredibly hollow and insulting to me that I couldn't even view it as a superficial win.
After watching this, I think I would love a recap on Steven Universe from you honestly.
Ooooo that would be great!!
I also lowkey forgot that Adam had any amount of significance so when Shiro had his scene at the memorial, I was so confused. And am I the only one who thought the IGF-Atlas robot's design was so goofy lookin?? 😂😂
Yeah the proportions really threw me off. They really built it like and IG baddie 🤣
Adam didn’t have any significance. At all
I can't believe all the Paladins died, what a way to end the show, gasping for air
12:01
I love the klance shippers are locked in a bed room.
There’s blood all over the place🤣
It represents them perfectly
to be fair to klance shippers most were kids and many people working on he show very much so stoked the flames and essentially queerbaited the audience
"Allura was the only dark skinned person in the goup" Hunk just doesn't exists I guess.
Honestly he was barely there 💔 he was my fav but most of his “character” was very superficial, especially in later seasons 💔💔💔
i mean...? and there is a difference in how dark skinned women and men are represented. Notably in the fact that dark skinned women are often not represented and when they are they die. always.
WHAT??? I loved the paladins finally snapping at each other seeing the grief and baggage they carry from dealing with each other for so long
The frustration and anger and utter sadness of it all it was one of my favorite episodes
I get what they were going for but seeing as we never really saw them come together as friends in the first place, it really didn't land for me. If anything, it felt like a 23 minute lampshade on the fact that they understood the assignment as well as I did Physics: which is to say,not at all.
Imagine the 80s kid who saw the original 80s show's reaction to all this fandoms drama
Yeah it's bogus.
Allurance ain’t even that bad tbh I just feel like people hate them because of wanting Klance to happen and have this weird animosity with Allura… they are actually cute but they could’ve been written better and that’s ok too
Agreed.
It's mostly Lance fans feeling the payoff was underwhelming.
You skipped the part where Lance got the lamest ending ever.
I can’t believe all the paladins died. Made me cry so hard
I can't believe all the Paladins died. But it was a fitting ending. As someone who watched the show not knowing about the fanbase, I loved the show. Then again, I was like, 10 when the show ended and back then I didn't have very good understanding of quality.
They could've killed someone in Lance's family or someone else family to show the cost of war and get the feels without killing Adam
I still can't believe I watched them all die at the end. Especially Shiro, but Especially Pidge...
So yeah, I wasn't in the midst of all the Fandom madness while I watched voltron, and I also didn't care for the end. It felt really lacking, unsatisfying. For a show that tried to emulate Gurren Lagann so much, it failed to understand what made Gurren Lagann good. A bit ironic for any Gurren Lagann fan haha.
Squandered potential/10
being a former fan of voltron is like an unhealthy relationship. like, the show ends and you say "oh well, it was good while it lasted" but as the years go by, you've gotten into better relationships (or watched better shows) and the more you look back on it, the more red flags you notice until you eventually go "wait a minute...that sucked. why did i think it was good."
Honestly the ending was crazy and they did a lot of characters dirty. They should have just ended at season six or season two
Ending at season two would have been the perfect ending.
@@granixo I totally agree
So I've said this several times on several platforms but the one thing that goes unnoticed with Voltron among the sea of complaints is that the first and last seasons where dropped LESS than two years apart. I can only imagine basically everyone was overworked through the entire production, thus the writing quality went down hill as part of "the crunch".
Season one dropped June 2016. S8 dropped December 2018. Slightly more than 2 years, but an absolute insane time crunch for that amount of episodes. It's honestly a miracle that the show was ever as good as it was with such a tight schedule.
My husband and I both had bad experiences with fandoms, so we've sworn off of any fandoms for anything we get into. We just geek out about stuff with our personal friends.
That being said, we started Voltron with excitement and loved it so dang much. But as the later seasons came, we were worn out by the story. By the last 2 seasons we were trudging along just for the sake of seeing the story through. What you said in the video helped put into words the frustration we had.
Additionally, I was kinda bothered by how the characters responded to Allura's racism towards Keith. We both desperately wanted one of the other paladins to call her out on it and tell her it was messed up. We wanted more consequences to that kind of thinking. It was a great opportunity to show even people we were close to could have prejudices and we needed to do something about it. So yeah, that's my two cents lol
Dude... I never could have predicted the Paladins died, such a crazy ending
I can tell you just how bad it got. I was watching it with my sis who had just dipped her toes in anime and when this show came out both of us were ecstatic. We made sure to watch it season by season until slowly my sis became less and less enthusiastic and it was around season 3. I kept watching cause I wanted to see the end but by season 5 it was such a chore. My sis stopped even glancing at the tv when it was on and I never binged it in one sitting again. Whenever I tried to explain the plot to her I would get lost and she would scoff. By the end I was more confused than upset and then my sis became a normie again. Very sad
I didn't interact with the fandom at all, I only watched it because my dad remembered the old show and wanted to watch it with me. And while I do remember thinking clunky aspects especially later, I have to say, I think that's the best way to watch it. And I know that my dad thought it felt like it was made by people who had the same nostalgia as him, but wanted to make more the cool show as they remember instead of the not so good show it actually is. He liked it
Most effed up thing in the original: Lotor had a crush on Allura because she looked like his mom, a human whom was r***d by his father.
Most effed up thing in this series: Haggard was originally Lotor's grandmother, so in this series she had to sleep with her own son to produce Lotor.
I--
Whut
What??? Can you explain it better???
@@magicovento the dub of 80s voltron had haggar be a love interest for zarkon(although technically not ever stated to be his mother). The original Japanese had haggar be zarkons mother.
Personally, I was fine with the idea of Shiro and Allura being a thing, found the whole "making Shiro gay" come out of nowhere as, unfortunately despite how bad the shipping-community got, Keith and Lance really did have the best chemistry of the entire Paladin cast, but of course we can't have main characters be queer in a series--the killing off the gay love interest is such a common trope in a *lot* of media, it's very frustrating to see yet again. Allura turning Lance Alterian was weird, but I always kinda wanted him to be a sort-of descendant anyways, similar to how Keith is half-Galra, but just make it further down the bloodline as his family is pretty large... Plus, it would have been nice if they focused more on the characters interacting instead of just all on the war-war-war.
BUT, I also never finished the series on my own, most of what I learned was from commentary like this video. XD
There is zero basis for allura and Shiro at all, nor is there any chemistry or basis between Lance and Keith besides the superficial rivals which was incredibly one sided. Lance and Keith were never a thing. Y’all need to stop it
I CANT BELIEVE ALL THE PALADINS DIED, DAM
Can't believe it only had 3 seasons
I love this show with a passion.
Watching each season made me happy.
To see how the characters got treated so bad made me sad.
I love these characters so much. I just wanted them to be treated right.
I actually thought that the ending kinda fell short, like they shoved some of the paladins into places they didn't rely belong. Lance for example, they shoved him in a farm. He did not belong there!!! And Kieth, still figuring out who he is?!? He was doing that for the entire series.
Hagar is a Hebrew name - in Abrahamic religions, Hagar was Abraham's second wide, who was cast out when her son was considered a threat to the son of his first wife. I could never figure out if Volton just used the name by chance, or if they were trying to do something with that.
Haggar was a carryover from the original Voltron. If the crew from 1985 was aware of this when picking dub names, I really couldn't say.
The NOT so grand finale(according to most people)
I can't believe the paladins died! What a wild ending
In all Seriousness though, one of the things I find disheartening about the voltron fandom's effect is how shipping is perceived by people who aren't into it as just, all bad/delusional/bound to be toxic. Don't misunderstand me, shipping in fandoms still creates problems, but those are the minority of loud and obnoxious people (and tbh, being on twitter will make it seem like every single fandom is 90% toxic kids or adults who behave like they're 5 years old)
But to me shipping has always been a super fun part of it. I like it when ships don't have that much established dynamics, it feels like a fun challenge in that way. Shipping has been a way I've genuinely connected to people. My first girlfriend ever i found through a fanfic server and wr connected over rarepairs. And though we broke up, we're still good friends because the friendship existed before that already- I get nervous when the finger is pointed at 'shippers' when it comes to fandom culture turning toxic, because I think the real issue is a lack of strict boundaries between fictional characters and real people. I see it happen more and more with kids as young as 13 treating the act of someone not liking their favourite character as a reason to break friendships or insult them. When we've even seen "shipping characters is dub/non-con territory because they cant consent to being shipped" as a REAL ass thing someone said.
It's difficult to say what exactly is the reason for this. But I think putting the blame on shipping feels unfair, especially because fandom is built on the foundations of it. (Hell, I've even gotten to know a mother of 3 kids in her 50s now through my current fandom, and she's one of the old star trek fanfic/ship pioneers. For an anime fandom!)
(Not trying to criticise you Negative! You're absolutely right that it contributes a lot to fandoms turning toxic, just wanted to leave my two cents. I love klance, I'm one of the silly people who adores Lance's character and i thought keith and lance had a fun (but underexplored) dynamic that a lot of fanfics managed to satisfyingly build on. But dear god, saying "i still like klance" in 2023 feels like this shameful admittance lol. Like i have to quickly say "but I'm normal! I don't harass people over fiction and i don't care for my ships getting canon at all please don't think I'm like that" 😂
Im not a big shipper. Idgaf 99% of the time if the characters are happy, im happy. However, Allura and Lance ending up together made me ship Klance out of spite.
Something that always sticks with me is at a panel when a fan asked what the cast thought about Lance always been done dirty in the show and Jeremy and Becks immediately started telling the fan they were wrong and Lance has some of the most fanart, and he’s popular so he can’t be done dirty in the show.
I think overall the voice actors were just way too involved with the fandom. Some actors were way too vocal about ships they liked or didn’t, and it caused the fandom to fight a lot more than usual. And I think a lot of the fighting is people fighting over “morals” when a lot was never confirmed because the writers and official material was so inconsistent. I remember Shiro and Allura was a super popular pairing in season one, but suddenly you were gross if you still liked it after the episode we learn how old she’s supposed to be, or that Shiro was gay (Keep in mind that not everyone would watch the day it dropped, or finish a season) I know Lance and Allura was a thing in the original 80’s cartoon, but not everything needed to be the same. Even shows with big ship wars weren’t as soured by the fans and endgame ships the way this show was.
Re: Jeremy's reaction, I attribute part of that to all the absolute insane takes he was subjected to and probably being irritated on the shipping issue by then. The minute he could talk about Allurance spoiler free, he made some supportive post or comment about it and the Klance community turned on him like a dime. The other part is he's an actor and speaking negatively about his roles would be a great way to never get hired again. Not everyone can be the cast of _Riverdale_ haha
But I do agree that in hindsight, everyone with the exception of Steven Yeun was just way too terminally online with the fanbase and it caused so many avoidable issues. Josh Keaton has since implemented a rule on his discord that he'll only discuss canon ships from his show and even there he doesn't let those conversations go on longer than five minutes.
Shiro and Allie’s was popular because people assumed Allie’s was the same “age” as shiro and they deemed her space mom even though that never fit her character.
I can't believe all the paladins died! Oh my goodness. It was crazy. At least Shiro and Keith revived through the power of love. 🤣💕
I stopped watching Voltron after season 6 and had only the most basic exposure to 7 & 8 from my friends who kept watching. I'm amazed that this show turned into Gurren Lagann levels of reality-warping space mecha magic by the end. Absolutely ridiculous and incredible way to go out, I cannot imagine dragging that level of scale escalation out for an entire season.
The fact Allura and Lance didn’t have any proper chemistry until the very end and they threw away the Keith and Shiro chemistry in Season 8 is infuriating. They killed Allurance AND Sheith and practically any other real chemistry between the paladins in one season. Not to mention the discourse about them taking the only woman POC lead and having her sacrifice herself at the end. They did everyone SO dirty.
honestly all i wish is that i had watched the show with no external influences whatsoever. i remember watching the first season (or maybe the first two) on my own accord and loving it. so because I'd loved it so much i spoke to my at the time best friend and she got me into the whole klance thing because she'd seen on twt.
that's something i hadn't thought of on my own at all, but as a very influenceable(?) 13 year old i went with it.
all i wonder now is how different my experience would've been if i had watched the rest of the show without interacting with anyone be it irl or online
disclaimer!
i was never one to yell at the writers or anything. i just lived in my own little fantasy of klancw being a headcanon and talked about that with my irls and some other people on twt. but never said anything bad about the show at all
After all these years I’m still in sick about how they killed all of the paladins in the end. 😭
I watched the show when I was a kid before I was chronically online and I remember really liking Alura cause she was a pretty dark skinned princess like me. I think I was 9 so I wasn’t a huge shipper and I thought all ships were equally gross. One specific memory I have from being a fan who didn’t interact with the fandom was being so exited for S6 to come out and thinking about it the entire day prior abd begging my parents to let me stay up and watch it at 12:00am. They said no but I woke early the next morning and woke up my dad and brother first thing so they could watch it with me. And not to brag but I had all the lions so I could form Voltron.
So if anyone was wondering the kids who watched Voltron really enjoyed it. Or at least I did.
I'm genuinely glad that the kids in that target age range at the time enjoyed it 👍
One thing that really, really pissed me off in Voltron, and when it happened I actually just stopped paying attention to the rest of the show (and for good reason, because it went from bad to worse from then on) was how they handled the lion switch. It could have worked in theory, but they went about it so wrong that it's laughable. the worst decision they made was to make Keith the leader of Voltron. Don't get me wrong, I understand /why/ they did it, but it failed miserably. Here's why:
The obvious person to step up to the leader after the leader has left the position for one reason or another is the second-in-command, the right-hand man, the person directly underneath them. It makes sense. We see this with presidents to vice presidents, commanders to generals, and so on and so forth. So, obviously, Keith would take the mantle. This could've worked, as Keith's character desperately needed to develop, as it had been somewhat ignored and had become a festering issue within the team, especially when the only person who could manage him, Shiro, was gone. The first issue the writers made was making Keith vehemently hate his position. I mean, he didn't even try in the beginning. Grief played a major factor in this, but the whole point of switching up the lions was to give a good leader to Voltron. Even after Keith pulled up his big boy panties and realized that Voltron needed him, he was still miserable.
Keith was not a good leader. Not even once. He made rash decisions, argued when his team rightly pointed out his poor decisions, and when he didn't get his way, he went off on his own in a toddler temper tantrum to do what he wanted anyway. The show was trying to make an effort to show that he was growing into his role and that he wasn't perfect. It also showed the importance of Lance taking the role of the new right-hand man, with his attempts to guide Keith in his decision-making (as was the stated role of the second-in-command, but the show realized at some point that it had failed to show this with Shiro and Keith originally). But, in the end, it failed.
Keith did not grow into his leadership position, and this is shown when he is quick to shed the mantle of black paladin BACK to Shiro once he gets back, and then quits Voltron for his Divergent-Dauntless group. The writers tried to make a big deal out of this, but it fell completely flat. It leaves you wondering: "What was the point?" Keith didn't even take a leadership role in the Blade of Marmora, and though he brought with him the qualities of the Voltron, they were swiftly beaten out of him. The story arc felt null at that point when it could've been used to flesh out all of the other characters. And don't get me wrong: I love character-building. I wanted Keith to have a good story arc, but all of his actually good development happened in a 5-minute montage of him bonding with his mother on the back of some space creature going to get quintessence or whatever.
As for who I think should've been made the black paladin instead of Keith, the answer is probably obvious: Allura or Lance. For Allura, it would have given her the spotlight she needed and developed her leadership abilities in the way that Voltron /tried/ with Keith, and then later on with Allura when they shoved her in the Blue Lion and had her try to lead as an arm. While she struggled with the Blue Lion, I firmly believe that once she got the hang of it, she would've made a wonderful pilot and an even better leader, one that didn't shatter and fracture her team at every turn (like Keith did). Lance is my other pick. Him and Allura were the only ones that actively wanted to be the black paladin. Lance's character did have development but was cut short before it could get really good. I could go into him, but this isn't about the writers' failure on the ending. It's about the potential they wasted here:
The president and vice president role would've actually fitted very well here. Lance isn't a natural-born leader, but he had all of the qualities to make one. He could listen to other people, "flow" with their advice, had great ambition, not overly cruel or sacrificing, and could hold the team together. He could make split-second decisions, but if he faltered or had a mental break, Keith would be able to aid him as the second-in-command. Keith, and the rest of the team, would have propelled him into an amazing leader of Voltron. Not only that, he had recorded success of mingling with other species. He could've been a diplomatic leader as well, though not to overshadow Allura.
This is all to say that Keith's spot should've been in the second-in-command, or not at all. He was a terrible leader, had no character development, and quit the first chance he had to go play with guns with purple people. He had so much potential, and the writers shattered it with the biggest hammer that could find and expected us to ignore the bleeding cuts made from the shards. It was the first major red flag of the beginning of the end.
If anyone wants more of my complaints, let me know and I will GLADLY talk about it because there is so much to say about Voltron that wasn't talked about in the video. What the Negative said at the end, though, is completely true and summarizes my thoughts exactly: Voltron had all the makings to be the most incredible show of all time, and fell flat on its face.
With the mecha genre having something of a small resurgence (even if it will never be the 80s where you could throw a rock and hit an entry that has something of a following), Voltron will stand as a complete trainwreck that misses the point, and such a legendary failure Dreamworks up and abandoned the license, which is now allegedly in Amazon’s hands to make a live-action film.
It shouldn’t be that hard to put the elements that are Voltron to make a good mecha show, considering how many great shows have used those elements. The Romance Robot Trilogy, specifically Voltes V with its live action adaptation, the numerous Gundam shows, the most recent of which, Witch from Mercury was centered around a sapphic romance and sold endless amounts of model kits, hell, even the shiny Obari OVA’s of the 80s like Dangaioh. But Western writers have brain worms when it comes to big robots, that it’s committing the unforgivable sin of selling toys to boys, and that cannot stand! This and that other crusty piece of dog crap Gen:Lock.
@Dynaman21
Don't forget Pacific rim and how much of a disaster that the sequel was that Legendary pictures abandoned the franchise for years, only to bring it back with a pretty decent animated show on Netflix that only lasted two seasons and has get to get a 3rd season despite it being renewed.
@Dynaman21
I think Pacific rim had it the WORSE. The sequel basically destroyed the whole franchise in Live Action Movies.
Power rangers 2017 also counts because it never got a sequel and was promptly abandoned by Lionsgate pictures after the poor box office of the first movie.
you just now realizing that the space witch is called HAGgar is hilarious to me
I can’t believe all the Paladins died, such a sad ending
Also Negative Legend, you should watch and review the original Go Lion anime and Voltron show that this show was based off of.
Oh don't worry, klance shippers never forgot the "brother" bit of Keith's "I love you" and have obsessively used it to claim sheith is inc*st ever since. Nevermind that it's super common in fiction and real life for friends to say their close friend is like a sibling only for their feelings to end up being romantic in the end. It's never suggested that Keith sees Shiro as a father either, that's your own interpretation. Grooming is not 'a relationship with an age gap' it's a specific type of manipulation. If Shiro didn't manipulate Keith in this way, then there would be no grooming. Learn what terms actually mean before you use them, don't twist them because you don't like a ship, that's become such a common thing in fandom now and always gets used to harrass people.
Also I just want to add that a lot of the nasty tactics and rhetoric used by the more toxic fans (antis) came directly from radfems taking advantage of younger fans and teaching them that shit. Plus a fair amount of predators who wanted to create this environment of 'safe adults are the ones that like the wholesome ships' that let's them more easily actually groom minors, because nowadays minors look at what a person ships instead of actual red flags in their personality or behavior.
Thank you! I was about to give this video a like until she started with that crap, as if Keith and Shiro's interactions wasn't one of the main things that klantis willfully misinterpreted and spread to the rest of the fandom using said loaded terms, making it the toxic cesspool it became.
@@thisbarbieisahugefckingmess I'm just so sick of youtubers completely ignoring who the main instigators were. I'm sure there were a few sheith fans that went too far and got kinda crazy, but it was very much the klance shippers that went bonkers and harassed everyone (I received a number of sui-baiting anons myself and a friend had an entire blog made that was dedicated to hating her) and sent death threats to cast and crew because they were obsessed with making their ship canon. (And like I said, radfems in fandom also had a lot to do with it. It's not a coincidence that things like ace/bi/pan/trans exclusionism got really big in queer fandom spaces around the same time, along with the 'mlm shippers are all fetishizers' narrative.)
it's just, still weird, to be attracted to someone you met as a kid and to be with them now since they're legal now, it's the same shit people were criticizing Batman and Batgirl, both dynamic had only family bond and any romance shit knowing their history, would be just odd
@@nicoleflores2054 You're allowed to think it's weird and dislike it, just like the rest of us are allowed to disagree, but none of us have to care what you think. It's fiction, so the relationship is only unhealthy if it's written to be that way. Just because you met someone as a child, doesn't mean they have to only exist as a child in your eyes forever. I can't comment on the batman thing cause I don't give a shit about DC comics. But Shiro did not raise Keith, no matter what any antis like to claim. There is no inc*st and there is no grooming in that ship. It's actually a very vanilla and basic ship, the only reason it's considered "problematic" is due to klantis grasping at straws to slander it, because they couldn't handle the popularity of a ship they saw as "in the way" of klance.
@@arielxlazarus ...sure, well, can't do anything about it.
The biggest problem with Adam was that (as one of the people who watched the first episode at ComicCon) they said, yeah Shiro has been gay this whole time and he had a fiancée. And that was wild! But then came the biggest issue when they LITERALLY SAID “We’ll be seeing more of him later!”
And then they killed him
When first watching the season, I really thought that Allurance was just a rebound for Allura. Like...seriously. That ship had no real build up throughout the series, just Lance occasionally mooning at her, and Allura not caring. I'm a Klance shipper, but I could have technically bought Allurance if it was written well, but it just...wasn't. They just put a ship in there cuz the creators wanted a ship.
I only interacted with the fandom years after the finale. Hell, I didn't even watch any reaction videos.
I just watched 8 seasons of a show that I quite liked, and then the internet decided to point out EVERY SINGLE FLAW IT HAD AS IF THEY WERE SINS.
I had a very similar experience with TLOK. And both were animated by the same studio. Weird.
Yeah, fandoms can be sometimes way to overcritical. Like TLOK wasn't ATLA but it was still pretty good on it's own.
I feel like this is caused by fandoms getting too attached to headcannons and fantheories that they convince themselves are real, so when the series itself goes against or subvert it they get angry and act like the show itself is internally inconsistent when no?? I saw this happen in the Miraculous fandom a few years ago.
Korra is pretty good, i like her more too as main character. She is entertaining and engaging,and flawed in a good wayand once there arent character studio issues.
They even made mako work in season 4. I like him and wu.
Legend of korra is different, and the characters that are shown to be not the best parents,literally have understandable reasons.
Plus tenzin and lin are the best. And how they are adulrs and still need to figure out their life.
And yes dah, i dont expect toph not to overcorrect , or aang not to be an incredible workaholic having issues between helping his culture alive, and being there for his family.
Like they even respect him,he just is not the understandibly best dad while being still that good of a person, but huma, Also katara making up for it is so karara. Its also nice not too over the top family drama.
On a related tangent, when I rewatched ATLA again on Netflix, when I got to the Katara/Zuko revenge episode, I remember thinking how drastically out of character it was for Katara to yell at Sokka that he didn't care for their mother like she did. Hell, I don't think she even apologized to him directly for it. Imagine my surprise to find that it was none other than Joaquim dos Santos who directed that episode. He and Montgomery were also much more involved with LoK, which contained a lot more of the mean spirited writing that would completely take over Voltron in its later seasons.