kuron’s arc honestly makes me so sad and frustrated.
he was absolutely his own person. he liked playing dnd games because he could be a paladin in another universe and got sad when he thought they would leave him behind so he couldn’t play with them. he was frustrated when he didn’t act the way he wanted to. he felt guilty and apologized. he felt pain. he hesitated when keith said he loved him because that was real and he felt it.
like you cannot tell me he wasn’t real in all the ways that mattered.
remember when the black lion found him? because he was remembering all of his teammates? that was real. the black lion knew that this shiro was a clone, and she still saved him. she still took him home. she still trusted him again.
and no one is going to mourn him, because they have the “real” shiro back. but he truly fucking loved his team and none of them are going to mourn him and i’m really fucking upset about it.
btw just a little misconception that i want to correct:
80′s romelle and allura were not cousins in the way that a lot of people seem to think. allura personally refers to romelle as her cousin, but more specifically, as her “distant cousin” from a “sister planet.”
originally, the first king of arus had two sons, one of which was ~evil and sent to pollux, wherein he created his ~evil kingdom. allura is part of arus’ royal family, descended from the good son, and romelle is part of pollux’s royal family, descended from the bad son. they don’t give specific numbers (i just rewatched the scene to check), but i’m guessing it’s been quite a few generations since that divergence, considering that allura referred to this story as a “legend” and arus is shown to be a well-established planet.
their resemblance was emphasized more to highlight that arusians and polluxians descended from the same people, and thus fighting each other was pointless, rather than to highlight that they’re literally first cousins.
in case you wanted to see how golion, the edgy hyper-violent anime (here’s a fun clip to demonstrate) from 1981, ended the series... with the entire team together, happy, at peace...in which allura holds the juniberry flower herself instead of her widower staring at it for eternity...
i’ve seen a lot of people argue that allura looking up at lance during their big romantic scene in s7 showed that this endgame is all about rewarding the Nice Guy by giving him his pretty princess that he’s wanted all along.
but you know what? the difference in the fantasy of allura looking up at him and the reality of allura looking up at him actually highlight how amazing their relationship is. when lance actually thought in terms of heroism being associated with romantic happy endings, allura found him annoying. when lance abandoned his attachment to the spotlight and embraced his role as the team’s support, allura fell in love with him.
in the fantasy, allura is looking up at lance with blind adoration, based on his heroic feats rather than sincere appreciation of him as an individual. in the reality, allura is looking up at lance with admiration. she knows lance now, and she thinks that lance is an amazing person, and she relies on him, and she loves him. allura is seeing lance as he truly is, and she likes what she sees!
besides, if anyone is falling over themselves because of how amazing and cool and heroic the other is, it’s lance.
lance went from assuming that allura was interested in him when she clearly wasn’t, to assuming that allura wasn’t interested in him when she clearly was. and boy, it’s interesting to see how that developed.
at the beginning, because of lance’s ego (which he clearly exaggerated to avoid confronting his insecurities), his assumptions about who he should be, and his immaturity, lance had an impractical approach to romance. it wasn’t about appreciating the other person so much as wanting them to appreciate him. in his fantasy, lance was just smirking while allura looked up at him adoringly. that was what he thought he wanted back then.
that started to change around when lance filmed his vlog. naturally, lance slipped into daydreaming about allura, thinking about all the aspects of her that he admired and loved. when he realized what he was doing, he tried to revert to his season 1 sentiment–basing his potential romance with allura on her feelings for him–but it only made his true feelings more obvious. he was the one pining for the Big Damn Hero, rather than the other way around.
when lance confessed that he was in love with allura, he talked about how amazing she was, that she inspired him to be a better person, and that he didn’t think he was good enough to be with her in the way that he so desperately wanted. unlike during his vlog, there was no backpedaling or denial. he accepted his feelings, even if he called them pathetic.
when veronica suggested that his feelings were mutual, lance tried to deny the possibility by…talking about how amazing and kind allura was.
unfortunately, in accepting his role as support and setting aside his ego, lance also drew his insecurities to the surface.
during this development, it was allura who continuously reassured lance of his self-worth whenever he doubted himself. yet, his insecurities persist, to the extent that he can’t fathom allura loving him in the way that he loves her.
does he truly believe that allura treats him like she treats everyone else, thereby precluding the possibility that he’s special to her? has he really not noticed how much she favors him in every way? touching him at every opportunity, confiding in him, reassuring him, being the most visibly distraught whenever he’s in danger...
is it really so crazy to think that someone as awesome as allura is in love with you, lance?
alright so aside from the fact that, in every installment of the franchise until now (including grimdark edgy golion that killed off 90% of the civilian cast in every episode), allura 1: was white; 2: lived; 3: had a happy ending, let’s look into fala’s/80′s allura’s “death”, which supposedly “traumatized” LM...
so, first of all, in DOTU, they changed the dialogue to make it clear, within less than a minute of allura’s “death”, that it was actually a trick and they would just play along until allura woke up. why? because they didn’t want to traumatize the kiddos. yet, somehow, LM was ~traumatized anyway, and thus, when she had the power to do so, chose to kill her off in a senselessly tragic way in the one installment in which she’s not white. interesting.
now, in golion, here’s how it goes down:
fala (allura) gets bitten by honerva’s (haggar) evil cat and faints. this is a plot conceived by honerva to convince everyone that fala is dead, thereby making it easier for sincline (lot/or) to finally kidnap her. she’s taken back to the castle, where a doctor puts her on oxygen and tries to keep her alive.
they try literally everything to prevent her from succumbing to the poison.
her nanny sobs at her bedside.
her aunt visits to check in on her.
her nanny cries out and her aunt faints when she “dies.”
kogane (keith) cries and screams in agony (seriously, click the link and listen--it’s horrifying), literally running out of the castle, when he realizes she’s gone.
in DOTU, this is the point at which keith realizes this must be part of an evil plan by haggar, which the rest of the team agrees with, and decides to play along for the sake of thwarting it.
the entire country is devastated by her loss.
everyone attends her funeral.
kogane thinks about fala, and about how amazing she was, and how much they all loved her.
in DOTU, keith acknowledges that allura isn’t actually dead, but takes this time to reflect on how much he and the rest of the paladins love her.
nanny collapses to her knees, sobbing. the mice cry. her aunt cries and says goodbye.
the paladins all leave flowers in her casket, openly crying. the mice cry some more.
the paladins carry her casket out, followed by raible (coran), her aunt, and her nanny, while the devastated civilians watch from the sidelines.
her aunt faints out of grief (for the second time lmao).
the paladins are sad as the carriage takes her away.
an old couple decilares that the world is over now that fala is dead.
sincline shows up and steals the carriage.
suzuishi (pidge) tries to strangle sincline with his thighs.
suzuishi, rather than be used as a hostage, threatens to blow up himself and honerva and sincline if they don’t give back fala’s body.
kurogane (lance) tries to convince suzuishi to let the adults handle it, but suzuishi insists that he would rather die than let sincline take fala.
even though sincline and honerva drop fala’s body as suzuishi ordered them to, suzuishi decides to kill them, along with himself, anyway. he’s so upset and angry that he’d rather just die and see fala in heaven than let her murderers live. he’s also like, 12 years old, by the way.
when sincline kicks the grenade away, suzuishi immediately throws himself on top of fala’s body, to protect her even in death.
the entire kingdom rejoices at fala’s return.
fala expresses her gratitude towards suzuishi with a kiss on the cheek, and laughs happily when her nanny freaks out about the indecency of it all.
so, tell me, LM, why the fuck did you trash on 80′s allura/fala, saying that she was a boy-crazy pathetic useless crybaby (which is COMPLETELY FALSE, by the way), and pat yourself on the back for making this ~super empowered far superior allura a black princess instead, while knowing you were going to give her this disgrace of an ending? why is it that the black allura is the only one in the entire history of the franchise, dating back to 1981 (37 years!), who not only gets an unhappy ending but also dies? why did LM express being ~traumatized by DOTU allura’s fakeout death and then really kill her off in such a disrespectful way? why did they make this fun 80′s cartoon into grimdark edgy bullshit despite retaining a target audience of 7-9yo kids?
in golion, fala’s death was treated as a horrific tragedy. her nanny sobbed loudly multiple times. her aunt fainted twice. her mentor screamed in agony after literally running out of the castle. her people were all crying and rushed to attend her funeral, which we actually saw. they had an entire flashback scene detailing why everyone loved her so much. her friend threatened to blow himself up just to retrieve her body, and even when her body was retrieved, he still decided to kill himself in order to kill sincline and honerva as well, since they had taken her from them. when he realized he couldn’t kill sincline and honerva, he jumped on top of fala’s body just to shield her body from the blast, even if it made him just a body too.
and she didn’t even really die. the last scene in the episode featured fala laughing happily while her kingdom celebrated her glorious return.
it is so thoroughly fucked and disturbing and infuriating and racist and i cannot believe they did this. i am so fucking pissed as a fan of the franchise (i have watched and read everything) that this is the one installment that fucks allura over this badly.
you can bet all the 80′s fanboys condescending to us with, “it’s just a story, it isn’t because she was black, it’s a cartoon, it was a good show, deal with it!” would be rioting in the goddamn streets if they had dared to actually kill off 80′s allura, and yet, here we are. she’s not the pretty white princess who deserves adoration and reverence and coddling and protection. she’s the sacrificial piece, the one character whom no one is willing to go to the ends of the universe to rescue, unlike the holts or shiro. she’s a stereotype of black women giving up everything and getting nothing in return.
this whole series is a fucking disgrace. i hope the next installment does allura justice and gives her what she deserves.
in the vlog: lance daydreams about how amazing allura is-->lance realizes that this puts him in the position of loving her rather than being loved by her-->lance overcompensates and redirects the praise back onto himself
in season 7: lance daydreams about how amazing allura is-->his sister realizes that allura loves him just as he loves her-->lance overcompensates and redirects the praise back onto allura.
