Hello! Call me Faun or Hex (ey/em), blog for neglected/not really expanded upon women in media, either expanding or filling the void their absence leaves
Slugterra is very much a story about fathers, like I mean this in the literally sense I think until the very end, only one mother actually appears, which is something I am most impressed with this show I have gotta admit
If someone has an tragic backstory, if parents are a primary focus in any way, it will deal with a father of some sort, without fail, and no mother will be mentioned in any form.
Twist father was murdered
Dana's father was killed
Blakk's father left him to be enslaved (granted given to this is Blakk I'm pretty sure she died from child birth)
and the very thing that drives the part outside of unhinged capitalism, what happened to Eli's father
and if I was a better meta poster, I would go in the inherent misogyny of this show, where fathers are the most important thing to the character while the mothers are erased from the light entirely.
But I am not that good with meta, so that's not the point of this post
The point of this post is about the two characters that are brought to light by the Out of the Shadows final, two very important characters while still being essentially non-entities
Eli and Tad's Mothers
Like, the moment, the very moment, their concepts are introduced, who Eli and Tad are immediately re-contextualized, with the way they act and other details about them into something very different
Eli's mother being gone completely from his life while its clear that other Shane's stepped up to raise him, with so many implications and questions, did she have a break down and left, was she not fit to raise him, was the abandonment even willing? Or was she iced out of the Shane Clan the moment it became clear her husband wasn't coming home and isolated from Eli so she doesn't take him with her and leave Slugterra without a champion?
None of this explained, but the important thing is the impact of her absence on Eli, when we meet him he's so indoctrinated into the Shane Traditions and the glorification/romanization of his father and the position of being a Shane itself, he sounds like he's trying to be his fathers mini-me
Will is a good man but a good man who has done bad things to others because of misjudgements of he makes of the situation he's in and what the position of being a Shane demands, and it has to be spelled out to Eli by the people who are still suffering from choices Will made (Twist and Dana) that his father has done bad things and hurt others, even though logically that is the most realistic outcome from being the sole person in the only authority position 90% of the underground population has, you are going to hurt people who don't deserve it to keep control.
But. Eli doesn't have anyone outside of the bubble of the Shane's in the surface, with his mother not around, an outsider of the clan that could've been very good insight on what the position very much entails and what his father is expected to do, Eli just has an echo chamber of people who have been in the position and have very good reasons for their actions if they were harmful (because everyone got them) that Eli has high thoughts and expectations that get brutally destroyed when he was faced with the reality outside of the echo chamber he was in.
he leans towards his father being a saint because he didn't have his mother that could have given him a more nuanced view of what his father did and was, and that lack of view from his mother leaves him unprepared for Slugterra in the more nitty gritty personal side of genuine people conflict where it's not just people with guns who are doing whatever the fuck they want because fuck it, this is emotional conflict his family has caused and now Eli is having to get cut while trying to pick up the pieces.
Tad's mother is a bit more subtle, as she's never directly alluded to via the plot or characters, outside of it being clear she and Tad are not close to one another, but her existence is hard to ignore when you start looking for traces of her in Tad. First thing is Tad's scent, Pronto is immediately suspicious of him, which is later revealed that Pronto was scenting Thaddius' scent on him, but it would be logical to consider the reason as to why Tad wasn't immediately clocked to being Thaddius' son is that it's clear the his mothers scent is what's blocking Pronto from clocking it until its pointed out to him.
The other big thing that's there's thing thing about Tad, is that he's an inventor, just like his father, but where the split is that Tad has an almost elegant way towards his creating, his gliders. That's a split from Thaddius' creating, creating weapons that's destructive as all hell, the gliders are unique in that they're not destructive and aren't meant for the use of much outside of exploring/settling curiosity (Tad heading down to slugterra), you get the feeling that this is something that Tad's mother encouraged in a way. The fact this is the first and last creation Tad makes completely on his own shown to us, while everything he brings out is just things Blakk's created that Tad is reusing, his creativity is completely stifled because he is trying so hard to be like his father that things that he created get tossed to the wayside until it is extremely needed
It's such a interesting thing with how this mirrors with Eli and Tad, they're intent with this connection on living up/past their own fathers, while aspects of their mothers are pushed away, they are stifled in some way because of the centering they are doing towards the fathers and must struggle because of it.
What is there to take away from all of this? The moment that this show decided to think about mothers for even a second everything becomes 10xs more interesting and of course they only introduce it at the very fucking end of this show so they never explore a damn thing
i agree with every single thought in this post, thank you dude!!! we dont even have their NAMES but the moms of slugterra are SO IMPORTANT TO EVERYONE, especially to Tad's character!
you are so right, we don't got names so I have said fuck it and have given them names that I think is fun
I've given Tad's mother the name Magdalene, mostly because I think Magdalene matches well with Thaddius for fics reasons, and find the meaning of Tower a good fit for the character
Eli's mom is Zipporah because that's a gorgeous name and also Eli's name could be shorten version of *so many hebrew names* so i just headcanon him as jewish on his mothers side
Slugterra is very much a story about fathers, like I mean this in the literally sense I think until the very end, only one mother actually appears, which is something I am most impressed with this show I have gotta admit
If someone has an tragic backstory, if parents are a primary focus in any way, it will deal with a father of some sort, without fail, and no mother will be mentioned in any form.
Twist father was murdered
Dana's father was killed
Blakk's father left him to be enslaved (granted given to this is Blakk I'm pretty sure she died from child birth)
and the very thing that drives the part outside of unhinged capitalism, what happened to Eli's father
and if I was a better meta poster, I would go in the inherent misogyny of this show, where fathers are the most important thing to the character while the mothers are erased from the light entirely.
But I am not that good with meta, so that's not the point of this post
The point of this post is about the two characters that are brought to light by the Out of the Shadows final, two very important characters while still being essentially non-entities
Eli and Tad's Mothers
Like, the moment, the very moment, their concepts are introduced, who Eli and Tad are immediately re-contextualized, with the way they act and other details about them into something very different
Eli's mother being gone completely from his life while its clear that other Shane's stepped up to raise him, with so many implications and questions, did she have a break down and left, was she not fit to raise him, was the abandonment even willing? Or was she iced out of the Shane Clan the moment it became clear her husband wasn't coming home and isolated from Eli so she doesn't take him with her and leave Slugterra without a champion?
None of this explained, but the important thing is the impact of her absence on Eli, when we meet him he's so indoctrinated into the Shane Traditions and the glorification/romanization of his father and the position of being a Shane itself, he sounds like he's trying to be his fathers mini-me
Will is a good man but a good man who has done bad things to others because of misjudgements of he makes of the situation he's in and what the position of being a Shane demands, and it has to be spelled out to Eli by the people who are still suffering from choices Will made (Twist and Dana) that his father has done bad things and hurt others, even though logically that is the most realistic outcome from being the sole person in the only authority position 90% of the underground population has, you are going to hurt people who don't deserve it to keep control.
But. Eli doesn't have anyone outside of the bubble of the Shane's in the surface, with his mother not around, an outsider of the clan that could've been very good insight on what the position very much entails and what his father is expected to do, Eli just has an echo chamber of people who have been in the position and have very good reasons for their actions if they were harmful (because everyone got them) that Eli has high thoughts and expectations that get brutally destroyed when he was faced with the reality outside of the echo chamber he was in.
he leans towards his father being a saint because he didn't have his mother that could have given him a more nuanced view of what his father did and was, and that lack of view from his mother leaves him unprepared for Slugterra in the more nitty gritty personal side of genuine people conflict where it's not just people with guns who are doing whatever the fuck they want because fuck it, this is emotional conflict his family has caused and now Eli is having to get cut while trying to pick up the pieces.
Tad's mother is a bit more subtle, as she's never directly alluded to via the plot or characters, outside of it being clear she and Tad are not close to one another, but her existence is hard to ignore when you start looking for traces of her in Tad. First thing is Tad's scent, Pronto is immediately suspicious of him, which is later revealed that Pronto was scenting Thaddius' scent on him, but it would be logical to consider the reason as to why Tad wasn't immediately clocked to being Thaddius' son is that it's clear the his mothers scent is what's blocking Pronto from clocking it until its pointed out to him.
The other big thing that's there's thing thing about Tad, is that he's an inventor, just like his father, but where the split is that Tad has an almost elegant way towards his creating, his gliders. That's a split from Thaddius' creating, creating weapons that's destructive as all hell, the gliders are unique in that they're not destructive and aren't meant for the use of much outside of exploring/settling curiosity (Tad heading down to slugterra), you get the feeling that this is something that Tad's mother encouraged in a way. The fact this is the first and last creation Tad makes completely on his own shown to us, while everything he brings out is just things Blakk's created that Tad is reusing, his creativity is completely stifled because he is trying so hard to be like his father that things that he created get tossed to the wayside until it is extremely needed
It's such a interesting thing with how this mirrors with Eli and Tad, they're intent with this connection on living up/past their own fathers, while aspects of their mothers are pushed away, they are stifled in some way because of the centering they are doing towards the fathers and must struggle because of it.
What is there to take away from all of this? The moment that this show decided to think about mothers for even a second everything becomes 10xs more interesting and of course they only introduce it at the very fucking end of this show so they never explore a damn thing
For what it's worth, I think it wasn't done in bad faith. It was surely easier as show writers to focus on the one parent of the main character around whom the story revolves, considering that they already had tons of worldbuilding to do. Epecially since the viewers were teenagers or younger who, chances are, weren't yet interested in subtler, more socially engaging themes such as misoginy, privilege, compromise and more advanced ethics.
Plus, many of us happen to be female, but it's very likely that a show where you shoot (at) stuff and the main character is male, was aimed mainly at males. In that sense, a younger viewer might resonate more with a higher number of male characters.
Also, is there a chance that something good is actually happening for once in the world and we as a society are, even subconsciously, more inclusive than the early 2010s to women, when it comes to "simpler" media too? One could argue that mothers were introduced at the very end because times were ever so slightly changing, but don't mind my momentarily irrational faith in society.
All that being said, MORE LORE PLEASE showrunners. I agree with you, we basically got half-families for every character involved (not that it is an inherently bad thing of course, it just comes across as simplistic yk?). Not to mention that the only character whose family isn't even mentioned once is Trixie, the only female main character, and don't get me started on the total lack of background they gave her.
The other side of it though is that the Slugterra universe doesn't really seem to be that mysogynistic when you overlook the fact that the main backstory-characters are male. Gender distinctions do seem to be irrelevant when it comes to slugball; there are countless women-slingers; apparently they can aspire to be movie directors without being seen as a joke which is more than can be said for today's reality, save for a few exceptions. Plus, we also saw some women take leadership roles, like the leader of the resistence or as you said Shanai, iconic in herself.
Honestly imo, as usual with Slugterra, it probably isn't that deep in the showrunners' minds, despite us wishing for more depth
So, when I say that Slugterra is misogynistic, its not that I'm calling the the screen writers and the universe itself are like anti women, but that misogyny is inherently baked into society and the runners biases, yes I don't think that the show runners were thinking that into it, but that doesn't mean much other than this bias runs that deep that they can just not choose throwing a mention of a mother like twist and dana's stories do not change if you swap out their fathers for their mothers, like literally nothing, so that does bring in the context that the showrunners were more prioritizing of men
Epecially since the viewers were are teenagers or younger who, chances are, aren't yet interested in subtler, more socially engaging themes such as misoginy, privilege, compromise and more advanced ethics.
Honestly, I mean this in very good faith and kindly, I don't really get why you put this in there, because I wasn't saying anything about how they should bring those topics up, this is a silly lil pokemon ripoff show where the whole premise is based off a pun about slugs and slugs, I don't expect any of that I just think they should have thrown in more female characters and that there was a bias in centering men in this show, so this is a bit out of place in what I'm trying to talk about
Trixie's family is actually talked about once in the pilots, that's about it though sjhsjkfhsdjf
Honestly out of the shadows did come out in 2016 so I think your idea of things progressing does have some merit of things getting a little better!
i like what Soul mentions here, cause i dont find slugterra to be a silly show at all. yeah sure it looks like it at first glace, but when you boil the show down, its pretty damn adult-like in content. The show is clearly and consistently condemning colonialism, animal abuse, enviormental harm, and the general horrors of capitalism, every single episode. Its a deeply political show that tries not to seem like that at first glance in order to hook a viewer of any age in. And this messaging is blunt at times; it doesnt often engage in subtler misogony on the surface; most of it hums in the background, like the ethics behind Twist's motivations, or the history of he Shanes and the Yangs. In a conversation about misogyny, this treatment is fair to take note of, in my opinion.
Slugterra built a world where this stuff IS important, and Soul is (from what i gather) saying that this wasn't just a by-product of the writers being silly in a kids show, the writers had a genuine direction with the messaging and they constructed their messaging to focus on some social causes more than others. Particularly those that would be understood by a teenage boy audience - dont kill the planet, be kind to all life, stand up for your friends, allies are complicated, people are complicated, someone has to stand up for the world no matter how powerful the bad guys are, you can be a hero even if you're starting extremely disadvantaged. It comes across as a very progressive show because of this, especially for a show for Disney XD, which is why I and many of us give the writers the benefit of the doubt about how woman are treated in Slugterra's narratives. I absolutely think, if we got another season, it should have (and could have!) dived more into their moms; would've been set up really well by ItS. It could have been a sign of the times, the showrunners adding more woman to the cast and to the overarching plot; woman have already been known as powerful characters, ex. Lian and Shanai and Indra and Drucilla. they SHOULD bring these woman-centered topics up, and I believe they would have if they had more time and kept writing into 2017, 2020, etc. and yes this is ANOTHER reason to hate ascension, thanks for asking!
I just see alot of ppl dismiss slugterra ALOT by going with the "its just meant as a silly show" deal, and truly, I take every excuse I can to fight that. this show is really introspective of political worldbuilding! we should treat the writers like people who had something to say, cause clearly, they did, they had alot to say. peace and love peeps, long live slugterra analysis!
This is a fair take! I do want to clarify when I say its a silly lil show I am not trying to degrade it, I am just having my expectations of it lowered of what it will be able to present with the censors and the need to simplify some stuff in order for the pre-teen audience can have a good understanding on what is being is being told to them without being overwhelmed, that's not to say it isn't complicated and has a lot of politics enmeshed in there (hell the tidbits that the show has of Jimmo is implied to had turn a blind eye on slavery going on and Red Hook?? Kinda participating in it?? fucking unhinged and shows that even allies have allowed a corrupt system to run even if they are now helping end a new one)! It certainly does, but my expectations for how they present it is gonna be lower than say if it was a teen or adult rated media,
an example I would expect a teen or adult rated show to go into detail of what slavery would entail, the brutality and dehumanization of it, but Slugterra dances around the topic (the only time they actually show slavery instead of just mentioning it was just a short clip of when child!Thaddius was thrown into the mines in the flash back and then just kinda stayed in the back ground for the rest of the flashback), because that would require tact and an older audience that wouldn't be overwhelmed by it, and I don't really expect this show to go into direct detail about this topic
(honestly if the rating was any higher Viggo Dare would not have survived his dual with Thaddius, he would have been torn apart by a Thresher)
I don't think that the show writers were being malicious when they didn't put a lot of woman in the show, they probably didn't think about it too much about what they were doing, but that's the problem, the fact they didn't stop to think about how they were writing the story which result in
Like for another example of the flaws in Slugterra, the show is racist/colorist, like there isn't a lot of darker skin characters in the show that appear, and the recurring characters that are brown/black are Dana and Mr Saturday, both are voiced by white people and are two criminals, a thief and honestly I'm pretty sure we could call Saturday a terrorist with the shit he gets up to.
So they have shown that they can design non-white characters, but chose not to do it much outside of making villains/anti villains
honestly Saturday is worse because they decided to make him a damn Baron Samedi parody, even though voodoo is creole, and they decided to make him have a Jamaican accent, which is honestly weird that they took a piece of something sacred from one culture and then smashed it with a different culture that has nothing to do with because both cultures are black, like you do see the problem with how appropriative that is right?
I haven't really watched the eastern cavern seasons so I don't know how well they did with the aspects of Chinese culture they were using, but I do find it weird these aspects are first introduced by a character that isn't even human (Shanai)
(honestly part of me feels it can be argued that Blakk's design is a bit of an antisemitic caricature, but I am not that confidant in that argument to go into depth with it)
This isn't me saying that the writers don't know what they're doing, its just that they are all cishet white men and thus have the blind spots in topics of women and race, I do think they were slowly getting better at what they were doing as time went on by 2016, what I am saying is that while the show runners most definitely weren't being consciously malicious with how they wrote women and non-white characters, the problem comes that they didn't think about it at all and still wrote the show like that, and I think its important to shove it under the rug and talk about these flaws because Slugterra ultimately pushed these aspects into everything else
Slugterra is very much a story about fathers, like I mean this in the literally sense I think until the very end, only one mother actually appears, which is something I am most impressed with this show I have gotta admit
If someone has an tragic backstory, if parents are a primary focus in any way, it will deal with a father of some sort, without fail, and no mother will be mentioned in any form.
Twist father was murdered
Dana's father was killed
Blakk's father left him to be enslaved (granted given to this is Blakk I'm pretty sure she died from child birth)
and the very thing that drives the part outside of unhinged capitalism, what happened to Eli's father
and if I was a better meta poster, I would go in the inherent misogyny of this show, where fathers are the most important thing to the character while the mothers are erased from the light entirely.
But I am not that good with meta, so that's not the point of this post
The point of this post is about the two characters that are brought to light by the Out of the Shadows final, two very important characters while still being essentially non-entities
Eli and Tad's Mothers
Like, the moment, the very moment, their concepts are introduced, who Eli and Tad are immediately re-contextualized, with the way they act and other details about them into something very different
Eli's mother being gone completely from his life while its clear that other Shane's stepped up to raise him, with so many implications and questions, did she have a break down and left, was she not fit to raise him, was the abandonment even willing? Or was she iced out of the Shane Clan the moment it became clear her husband wasn't coming home and isolated from Eli so she doesn't take him with her and leave Slugterra without a champion?
None of this explained, but the important thing is the impact of her absence on Eli, when we meet him he's so indoctrinated into the Shane Traditions and the glorification/romanization of his father and the position of being a Shane itself, he sounds like he's trying to be his fathers mini-me
Will is a good man but a good man who has done bad things to others because of misjudgements of he makes of the situation he's in and what the position of being a Shane demands, and it has to be spelled out to Eli by the people who are still suffering from choices Will made (Twist and Dana) that his father has done bad things and hurt others, even though logically that is the most realistic outcome from being the sole person in the only authority position 90% of the underground population has, you are going to hurt people who don't deserve it to keep control.
But. Eli doesn't have anyone outside of the bubble of the Shane's in the surface, with his mother not around, an outsider of the clan that could've been very good insight on what the position very much entails and what his father is expected to do, Eli just has an echo chamber of people who have been in the position and have very good reasons for their actions if they were harmful (because everyone got them) that Eli has high thoughts and expectations that get brutally destroyed when he was faced with the reality outside of the echo chamber he was in.
he leans towards his father being a saint because he didn't have his mother that could have given him a more nuanced view of what his father did and was, and that lack of view from his mother leaves him unprepared for Slugterra in the more nitty gritty personal side of genuine people conflict where it's not just people with guns who are doing whatever the fuck they want because fuck it, this is emotional conflict his family has caused and now Eli is having to get cut while trying to pick up the pieces.
Tad's mother is a bit more subtle, as she's never directly alluded to via the plot or characters, outside of it being clear she and Tad are not close to one another, but her existence is hard to ignore when you start looking for traces of her in Tad. First thing is Tad's scent, Pronto is immediately suspicious of him, which is later revealed that Pronto was scenting Thaddius' scent on him, but it would be logical to consider the reason as to why Tad wasn't immediately clocked to being Thaddius' son is that it's clear the his mothers scent is what's blocking Pronto from clocking it until its pointed out to him.
The other big thing that's there's thing thing about Tad, is that he's an inventor, just like his father, but where the split is that Tad has an almost elegant way towards his creating, his gliders. That's a split from Thaddius' creating, creating weapons that's destructive as all hell, the gliders are unique in that they're not destructive and aren't meant for the use of much outside of exploring/settling curiosity (Tad heading down to slugterra), you get the feeling that this is something that Tad's mother encouraged in a way. The fact this is the first and last creation Tad makes completely on his own shown to us, while everything he brings out is just things Blakk's created that Tad is reusing, his creativity is completely stifled because he is trying so hard to be like his father that things that he created get tossed to the wayside until it is extremely needed
It's such a interesting thing with how this mirrors with Eli and Tad, they're intent with this connection on living up/past their own fathers, while aspects of their mothers are pushed away, they are stifled in some way because of the centering they are doing towards the fathers and must struggle because of it.
What is there to take away from all of this? The moment that this show decided to think about mothers for even a second everything becomes 10xs more interesting and of course they only introduce it at the very fucking end of this show so they never explore a damn thing
For what it's worth, I think it wasn't done in bad faith. It was surely easier as show writers to focus on the one parent of the main character around whom the story revolves, considering that they already had tons of worldbuilding to do. Epecially since the viewers were teenagers or younger who, chances are, weren't yet interested in subtler, more socially engaging themes such as misoginy, privilege, compromise and more advanced ethics.
Plus, many of us happen to be female, but it's very likely that a show where you shoot (at) stuff and the main character is male, was aimed mainly at males. In that sense, a younger viewer might resonate more with a higher number of male characters.
Also, is there a chance that something good is actually happening for once in the world and we as a society are, even subconsciously, more inclusive than the early 2010s to women, when it comes to "simpler" media too? One could argue that mothers were introduced at the very end because times were ever so slightly changing, but don't mind my momentarily irrational faith in society.
All that being said, MORE LORE PLEASE showrunners. I agree with you, we basically got half-families for every character involved (not that it is an inherently bad thing of course, it just comes across as simplistic yk?). Not to mention that the only character whose family isn't even mentioned once is Trixie, the only female main character, and don't get me started on the total lack of background they gave her.
The other side of it though is that the Slugterra universe doesn't really seem to be that mysogynistic when you overlook the fact that the main backstory-characters are male. Gender distinctions do seem to be irrelevant when it comes to slugball; there are countless women-slingers; apparently they can aspire to be movie directors without being seen as a joke which is more than can be said for today's reality, save for a few exceptions. Plus, we also saw some women take leadership roles, like the leader of the resistence or as you said Shanai, iconic in herself.
Honestly imo, as usual with Slugterra, it probably isn't that deep in the showrunners' minds, despite us wishing for more depth
So, when I say that Slugterra is misogynistic, its not that I'm calling the the screen writers and the universe itself are like anti women, but that misogyny is inherently baked into society and the runners biases, yes I don't think that the show runners were thinking that into it, but that doesn't mean much other than this bias runs that deep that they can just not choose throwing a mention of a mother like twist and dana's stories do not change if you swap out their fathers for their mothers, like literally nothing, so that does bring in the context that the showrunners were more prioritizing of men
Epecially since the viewers were are teenagers or younger who, chances are, aren't yet interested in subtler, more socially engaging themes such as misoginy, privilege, compromise and more advanced ethics.
Honestly, I mean this in very good faith and kindly, I don't really get why you put this in there, because I wasn't saying anything about how they should bring those topics up, this is a silly lil pokemon ripoff show where the whole premise is based off a pun about slugs and slugs, I don't expect any of that I just think they should have thrown in more female characters and that there was a bias in centering men in this show, so this is a bit out of place in what I'm trying to talk about
Trixie's family is actually talked about once in the pilots, that's about it though sjhsjkfhsdjf
Honestly out of the shadows did come out in 2016 so I think your idea of things progressing does have some merit of things getting a little better!
Slugterra is very much a story about fathers, like I mean this in the literally sense I think until the very end, only one mother actually appears, which is something I am most impressed with this show I have gotta admit
If someone has an tragic backstory, if parents are a primary focus in any way, it will deal with a father of some sort, without fail, and no mother will be mentioned in any form.
Twist father was murdered
Dana's father was killed
Blakk's father left him to be enslaved (granted given to this is Blakk I'm pretty sure she died from child birth)
and the very thing that drives the part outside of unhinged capitalism, what happened to Eli's father
and if I was a better meta poster, I would go in the inherent misogyny of this show, where fathers are the most important thing to the character while the mothers are erased from the light entirely.
But I am not that good with meta, so that's not the point of this post
The point of this post is about the two characters that are brought to light by the Out of the Shadows final, two very important characters while still being essentially non-entities
Eli and Tad's Mothers
Like, the moment, the very moment, their concepts are introduced, who Eli and Tad are immediately re-contextualized, with the way they act and other details about them into something very different
Eli's mother being gone completely from his life while its clear that other Shane's stepped up to raise him, with so many implications and questions, did she have a break down and left, was she not fit to raise him, was the abandonment even willing? Or was she iced out of the Shane Clan the moment it became clear her husband wasn't coming home and isolated from Eli so she doesn't take him with her and leave Slugterra without a champion?
None of this explained, but the important thing is the impact of her absence on Eli, when we meet him he's so indoctrinated into the Shane Traditions and the glorification/romanization of his father and the position of being a Shane itself, he sounds like he's trying to be his fathers mini-me
Will is a good man but a good man who has done bad things to others because of misjudgements of he makes of the situation he's in and what the position of being a Shane demands, and it has to be spelled out to Eli by the people who are still suffering from choices Will made (Twist and Dana) that his father has done bad things and hurt others, even though logically that is the most realistic outcome from being the sole person in the only authority position 90% of the underground population has, you are going to hurt people who don't deserve it to keep control.
But. Eli doesn't have anyone outside of the bubble of the Shane's in the surface, with his mother not around, an outsider of the clan that could've been very good insight on what the position very much entails and what his father is expected to do, Eli just has an echo chamber of people who have been in the position and have very good reasons for their actions if they were harmful (because everyone got them) that Eli has high thoughts and expectations that get brutally destroyed when he was faced with the reality outside of the echo chamber he was in.
he leans towards his father being a saint because he didn't have his mother that could have given him a more nuanced view of what his father did and was, and that lack of view from his mother leaves him unprepared for Slugterra in the more nitty gritty personal side of genuine people conflict where it's not just people with guns who are doing whatever the fuck they want because fuck it, this is emotional conflict his family has caused and now Eli is having to get cut while trying to pick up the pieces.
Tad's mother is a bit more subtle, as she's never directly alluded to via the plot or characters, outside of it being clear she and Tad are not close to one another, but her existence is hard to ignore when you start looking for traces of her in Tad. First thing is Tad's scent, Pronto is immediately suspicious of him, which is later revealed that Pronto was scenting Thaddius' scent on him, but it would be logical to consider the reason as to why Tad wasn't immediately clocked to being Thaddius' son is that it's clear the his mothers scent is what's blocking Pronto from clocking it until its pointed out to him.
The other big thing that's there's thing thing about Tad, is that he's an inventor, just like his father, but where the split is that Tad has an almost elegant way towards his creating, his gliders. That's a split from Thaddius' creating, creating weapons that's destructive as all hell, the gliders are unique in that they're not destructive and aren't meant for the use of much outside of exploring/settling curiosity (Tad heading down to slugterra), you get the feeling that this is something that Tad's mother encouraged in a way. The fact this is the first and last creation Tad makes completely on his own shown to us, while everything he brings out is just things Blakk's created that Tad is reusing, his creativity is completely stifled because he is trying so hard to be like his father that things that he created get tossed to the wayside until it is extremely needed
It's such a interesting thing with how this mirrors with Eli and Tad, they're intent with this connection on living up/past their own fathers, while aspects of their mothers are pushed away, they are stifled in some way because of the centering they are doing towards the fathers and must struggle because of it.
What is there to take away from all of this? The moment that this show decided to think about mothers for even a second everything becomes 10xs more interesting and of course they only introduce it at the very fucking end of this show so they never explore a damn thing
... We're all in agreement that Pieper was Tad's mother's slug, yeah? Like Tad most definitely was lying about the whole cat thing and he just stole Pieper from his mom, right?
