Okay, so, I know I don’t really post on here anymore. Nor is this a Voltron blog, or even a Cartoon blog. But I need to get this off my chest, and I can’t do it on Twitter or else I will spoil my lovely mutuals, some of whom haven’t watched the new season yet. I trust any of my followers here who don’t want to be spoiled muted the tag. Okay, so here we go, and trust me, this will be LONG (tumblr ate my first post though so let us see how long it takes for me to get demotivated).
First off, the biggest can of worms, the elephant in the room, the queerbaiting. Now, full disclosure, I am straight as one can get so this does not directly affect me. However, I understand why people are upset… they made a point of talking about Adam at SDCC, hyping it up, so you would expect him to get more than 3 lines and then die. So feeling anger over this is valid. However, please don’t attack the creators or cast over this. At the end of the day, this is a fictional work. Representation is important, but whether or not it is in Voltron will most likely not alter your own real life experiences with homophobia. However, if you attack real life people, that will have real life consequences for them. So please don’t do this. You can be angry, but don’t take it too far. Also, keep in mind, even though Shiro is not in a relationship and sadly didn’t even get to explore his past with Adam properly after his return, this situation does not change his gender or sexual orientiation. It is still LGBTQ rep…even if a very weak one.
I probably should get into talking about the ships, as they are the second most discussed thing about this season, but before I do that, for the sake of making sense, I need to talk about Lance, and the lack of his character arc. Again, full disclosure, Lance is my favorite character. I relate to him, seeing how I am also often the butt of jokes and people laugh at my expense. I do like making people smile and laugh, even if it is at my expense, but sometimes some people cross a line and they hurt me. I have great friends who don’t do this, but when people do, I am always too scared to call them out for it, in fear of them leaving me cause I have nothing going for me except being so funny and a clutz that people get to laugh at my expense. Or at least that is what I think. I am insecure. Sounds like Lance? Yeah. Except I don’t overcompensate by flirting around, because I also have insecurities regarding my looks, which at least that my boy Lance got spared from... So you see, we are at this point in the show and even though some reviewers hinted at a Lance arc all we got were a few good scenes at best. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those people who thinks he didn’t get any development because he did. Next to Keith probably the most development in the entire show. But it’s about high time the other characters reconize that he is an integral part of the team. Because he is, and everyone except the characters on the show seem to know that. I pretend the Feud episode didn’t happen in canon because it was a dream. Because it was just that stupid and hurtful for Lance. Heck, Iverson apologized to Shiro and Keith for the way he treated them, would it have been too much to ask for a sentence to be thrown at Lance too? Cause the last time I checked, Iverson told him he wasn’t good enough to be a fighter pilot and OH LOOK WHO IS PILOTING AN INTERGALACTIC SUPERWEAPON NOW. Yes, Allura does praise him and Keith trusts his co-leader capabilities so that makes up for some of it. But it is about time the team recognizes that they wouldn’t last 2 days without him, that he is just as important as them. Thing is, I don’t think it will happen anymore at this point. Seaon 8 will be endgame fights, I doubt they will have the time to fit an entire character arc in there. And if they do, it will be about either of their two apparent faves, Keith and Allura. Because we have reached a point in canon where every major problem has to be solved by one of these two, sometimes with powers and capabilities that are not even properly explained...Ugh, not gonna get into that. But yeah. My boy Lance deserves better.
So, now for the ships... first, Sheith. It’s the least controversial of the three (in my perception) most popular ones. Their interactions can be read as platonic or romantic, either of which is fine. And if they keep it like this, it will stay this open-ended, it will be completely up to interpretation to find out what happens to their relationship after the end of the show. It could be platonic it could be romantic. Either way it is clear they love each other, maybe the most in the world, just in what way is completely up to interpretation. But they are flowers and rainbows and unicorns, and I would absolutely not be upset if they became canon. I know they brought Axca into the picture, but I still hold out hope for her actually being Keiths half-sister or something, because a romance between them would just be too rushed at this point.
Speaking of rushed relationships... Allurance. Now, Allurance shippers, hear me out! I actually ship them, and up to right before this season, if anyone would have told me they were rushed, I would have strongly argued against it. But after this season, I can see where people are coming from. I still think they are realistic, I just think they were poorly written this season. Now, in general defense of this ship and to point out why I ship it... 1) People like to argue that “Allura has always only ever rejected Lance’s advances, if he gets the girl now, it would send a message of “if boy tries hard enough and is persistent enough, he will always get the girl”. To that, all I can say is: Have you paid attention at all? Lance hasn’t pursuited her like that (aka persistent flirting) since what, season 3? 4 max. Yes, he would very much sill like a relationship with her, but he has not made that apparent to her in quite some time. In all their interactions the past few seasons he was a good friend to her, but not trying to achieve a relationship in the slightest. He accepted that she would most likely never reciprocate and has settled for it being a one-sided thing forever (as evidenced by him, in this season, stating that nah, Allura doesn’t like me back, she is just that nice and awesome to everyone, don’t say stupid things Veronica, which frankly, S1 Lance would have never replied in that manner). He is not being persistend anymore. He isn’t trying to push her into anything. If she starts reciprocating now, then that is not because he was persistent, because he wasn’t. Also 2) Lance is not a rebound to Allura. Now this hasn’t been canonically confirmed. But I believe Allura never loved Lotor. She loved that they had the same interests, the promises he made, that he helped her find out more about her Altean heritage, their Altean heritage. But that isn’t love. She may have mistaken it for it, but it’s not love, it’s infatuation at best. She barely knew him as a person beyond that part of him, how could she possibly have loved him? Love is about liking a person for who they are, their personality and character traits, not their interests and goals. While Lance doesn’t share her interest in her Altean heritage, she does love him. Whether you read it platonically or romantically, she does love him. For who he is. For the person he is. Cause, let’s be frank, what else would she like him for? No shared heritage, he is not a prince, he is just a boy from Cuba with nothing to offer her, as he himself put it. Can’t even be his looks because then she would have liked him from the sart (also she thinks his ears are hideous lol). Except he is Lance and that is enough for her to love him in some capacity. And as such, any interaction between Allura and Lance, romantic or not, is already so much more genuine than anything Allura and Lotor ever had. So having established that in my opinion, Allura never truly loved Lotor, but she has loved Lance for a while, it is totally realistic to me that she would start reciprocating his feelings even though it hasn’t been long since Lotor’s betrayal. Her feelings for Lance were there all along. She just had to figure out that they may not be purely platonic. Ofc this could have gone either way, and they could have been completely platonic, but this is evidently not the route they are taking. And that is where the bad writing comes in. Like I said, I totally buy her getting over Lotor this fast and realizing her feelings for Lance, but the problem here is...they never showed this happening. I can only imagine it happened with how things are now. Because she went from appreciating him as a friend while getting over Lotor to the full-on blush-face without the transition, the realization process that involves, ever being adressed. Her feelings did not come out of nowhere and as such I don’t think their relationship is rushed. However I feel they rushed it on-screen by not giving it the time it deserves to make it feel natural to the viewer. However, I still ship them. Because they are good for each other. Yes, some might disagree, but Allura is good for Lance. She is literally the only one on the team, aside from Shiro when he was still the leader, who has ever praised Lance for anything. Heck, she even went as far as to draw comparisons to her late father, whom she clearly respects most in the universe. So yes, as far as Team Volton is concerned, Allura deserves Lance more than anybody else. Because she is the only one who makes him feel valued on a regular basis.
Now, Klance. Listen, I may ship Allurance, but I would totally support a canon Klance too. Because they have mutual respect for each other. It would be a healthy relationship so I support it. You see, I have seen multiple people complain about how Keith was a dick to Lance this season. And I honestly think they watched a different season 7 than I did. Because I can honestly only think of two moments where Keith said anything remotely mean to Lance. One being part of the Feud episode, and I already established in the above that this episode, to me, is not canon, and honestly it shouldn’t be to anyone else because it was a dream. A collective dream. But a dream. Nothing that happened in there was ever said, as far as I am concerned. It makes me feel better. Cause the whole episode was weirdly written imo, Keith aside, even Allura yelled at Lance repeatedly and she hasn’t done that since....season 3. So yeah. Glad that writer left the team honestly. The other moment is when Keith tells Lance not to miss his shot. Which in my books is totally valid. Keith is gonnaput himself out there, and if Lance misses, he is gonna die, nothing wrong with reinforcing that he’d rather not do that. No matter Lance’s track record. Imo there was nothing mean about this statement. Keep in mind, Keith is the one who proposed the plan to Lance in th first place. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t have trust in Lance’s capabilities. In fact, outside of these two isolated moments, Keith has shown nothing but trust in Lance’s capabilities as a fighter, pilot, and co-leader. He deliberately left Lance in charge of a LOT of things this season. Including actively passing the baton to him and telling him to lead the team when he went to get Axca. While Shiro was RIGHT THERE, I might add. Keith wouldn’t do that if he didn’t trust Lance to be capable of it. And that is just one of many examples from this season. They really came into the leader/co-leader dynamic this season. And as such, they would make a good couple, in a relationship based on mutual respect rather than admiration. While Shiro respects Keith, Keith admires him. While Allura respects Lance, Lance admires Allura. Klance is more of an...even-footed ship, and I guess that is the appeal of it. But I also don’t think the show itself ever baited anyone with it. Any of their interactions can be read either platonically or romantically. If you go around saying “Allurance is bullshit cause all of her affection towards her was always purely platonic”, then the same can be said for Klance interactions. Nothing about either of them that makes them inherently anything (except now they did with the s7 Allurance moments). It’s all up to interpretation. And if you read Klance romantically then hey, that is cool. But it’s also YOUR choice, and not the creators’ fault at all.
General Thoughts: I love Hunk. Cosmo is best boy. Romelle is so relatable omg. Too much Garrison, too little Team Voltron. All of those new fighter pilot characters are all really lame and I seriously hope they aren’t as lame later if they really end up making a spin-off series with them as protagonists. One episode would have sufficed to explain what happened on Earth, imo. Lance accepting death like thtat. Ouch. That hurts. Veronica figuring out Lance’s crush on Allura in 0.2 seconds, that is sibling super power for you (trust me, I have a sister, I know what I am talking about). Why did Red not respond to Lance at first? Not enough bonding? Still attached to Keith? Or is it because of like Allura said, the Red Lion is hard to control and you have to earn its respect for it to help you? The latter kind of makes sense the most to me, considering how when Keith took the BoM trial, it also only reacted when Keith was half dead on the floor. It took Lance lookind death straight in the eye and handling it bravely for Red to react. Hm. That might be it. But it should still be explained in canon imo. Is nobody gonna talk about that super thruster thing Keith and Lance keep putting on Voltron? Because afaik that was never a thing, even with the old Paladins, so...why is nobody adressing this? Also is Lance ever gonna use that Altean Boradsword or was that just a plot device to further point out his similarities to Alfor and further his relationship with Allura? And what happened to the sobbing scene Jeremy talked about? The Paladins sleeping for a long time, that Kimberly mentioned? Unless she was referring to the Feud episode, though I doubt that was a long time... the Atlas turning into a robot was so lame like...okay now we have Voltron, Lotor’s Voltron, this new mecha thing and the Atlas? Just...lame. I literally rolled my eyes. This isn’t Gundam man... That scene where they literally made me believe this was gonna be Infinity War 2.0 for a second? There were signs that they were still alive, what with the lions being there, Shiro being way too optimistic about his speech and Veronica being excited over Slav when she wouldn’t have cared much about that otherwise, but I still believed it possible especially with them having introduced new characters that could have potentially taken over the Lions next season (would have been lame, but could have happened). So when they were zooming out to Hunk I was like “FUCK YOU WRITERS!!!” at my screen and I am not even sorry. lol Also that cliffhanger wasn’t much of a cliffhanger, we all know Haggar is probably using Alteans to power those robot(s?). They probably don’t know what they are doing which is probably also why she integrated a self-destruc emchanism should they fail, so that they can’t tell. That and because self-destruction would wreak havoc, and she doesn’t really care about the Alteans inside.
All in all I liked the season, but not as much as season 6. They disappointed me in a lot of ways this season, but also, the expectations were rather high so there is that. At least I got several Lance scenes, plural, which is better than half of the other seasons. Also Colleen Holt is fierce, I love her. Them skipping the step where Allura realizes her feelings for Lance aside, it was nice that for a change, Allura was more focused on Lance and his safety than he was on hers for a change. Also I LOVED seeing Keith and lance work so well together, that felt like a really good pay-off for their development. 7/10, it wasn’t all bad, but please do better next season, sincerely.
