I Have A Lot More I Promise - Tumblr Posts

I'm procrastinating writing at the moment, so I decided to create a list of the things I hate about Voltron, a show I can't help but love and rewatch 200+ times. I mean. I've been pretty damn vocal about one thing in particular, but I should probably remind people I hate other things too so...

This list will be long, so read more under the cut!

1 - Okay, let's just get the obvious one out of the way: Lance. Reasons why can be seen here, here and here. The first link really goes into the details, the second one is more confusion as to why people think Lance is treated the worst, and the last is more why Lance would be horrible as Black Paladin. MOVING ON TO NEW POINTS!

2 - The ships. Specifically... ahem... Klance, Sheith, Allurance, Lotorance (Lotor/Lance), Shidge (Shiro/Pidge), Shance (Shiro/Lance). Those, in my opinion, are the top offenders. I've explained my grievances with Sheith in a post here. It's not that it's paedophillia, it's the bond. As for the rest, while I dabbled a bit in Klance and Allurance in the aforementioned posts against Lance, I've yet to actually explain.

First of all, the fans are awful. Tip: If you keep trying to force people to like your ship instead of letting them get to their own conclusions, they're just going to hate that ship even more. This isn't a Voltron-specific thing, but it's still rampant.

Second of all, Lance doesn't treat either of them well. He's constantly antagonising Keith, even when Keith stops biting back in season two. The closest he gets to respecting Keith is telling him to suck it up when he's upset that the Black Lion chose him. Keith does try to be amicable to Lance, but it doesn't work because Lance is always picking a fight.

And Allura. Lance is constantly ignoring her boundaries and invading them. There isn't a single moment where they're alone together and they feel like friends, much less pining, before season seven. The only time is when Allura encourages Lance to take up Red, and he didn't even notice she was upset that Red rejected her. In fact, Lance just keeps talking about himself and how he was rejected, ignoring how Allura was rejected twice, and by the Lion her father piloted. Allura also never reacts well to Lance's flirting, always ignoring him and frowning when he does. If Allura, at least, used to laugh at his terrible attempts at flirting, maybe I could try to believe it.

Third, general grievances with these ships.

Lotorance. Lance hated Lotor from the get-go. They barely have a scene together without Lance glaring at him. If they shared some sort of chemistry outside of Lance hating him from afar, and if the writers didn't make Lotor a twist villain for no reason, then maybe. As of now, I only like it as a complete crack ship.

Shidge. Pidge is fifteen. Shiro is twenty-five. You do the damn math.

Shance. I can definitely see Shiro being Lance's bi awakening, if I believed canon Lance was bi. (Canon Lance was straighter than a chopping board, but fanon Lance is a walking bi flag). But them being together? Ignoring that Lance is 17 and Shiro is 25, if you can do that, it wouldn't feel like a healthy relationship. Lance is blinded by hero worship and, from his canon personality, he likely wouldn't realise if Shiro isn't faring well or would just constantly pile his troubles onto him without thinking about if Shiro could handle it. So, yeah, don't like this ship.

So, yeah. I don't like any of the popular ships, which is surprising. I don't hate all of them. I do like Kallura, (should have been canon), and Shallura, (surprising, because I really do like gay!Shiro), and Shunk, (who doesn't, honestly?). But I tend to prefer the nicher ones. Katt (Keith/Matt), Heith (Hunk/Keith), Hance (Hunk/Lance)...

3 - The writing. Usually, I would respect the writers because it's hard as fuck to plan and write an entire series, but they just kept missing. They would set up so many interesting plots and ideas, only to do absolutely nothing with them. This, in and of itself, is not enough to make me lose respect, but that's not all. Plot holes, terrible escalations, too slow pacing, (slow burns are good - great, even - but not when things are supposed to be happening), horrible romances... It's to the point where, for a long while, I avoided the show and only read the fanfiction. There are so many people who don't watch the show, only exposed through fanfiction and social media posts, because the writing just isn't good.

The writers get things right few times. I'm sorry, but if your entire job is to write a coherent, well-thought out story, why did they do such a bag job at it? I'll tell you why - they let the fans control what they did. Shiro was never supposed to come back. He was supposed to die at the end of season two and never come back, but the fans wanted him back so guess what? The writers brought him back! In doing so, they cut right into Keith's character arc and made him go through it off-screen. The fans built Lance up as the main character and fan-favourite? Well, the writers just decide to hand him everything. Reward him for being the fan-favourite and then ruin his character by never making him work for what he got.

The writers decide to pull a J.K.Rowling and went 'aw, yeah, Lance is bisexual!' despite him never showing an interest in a guy throughout the entire show, other than being a big fan of Shiro. They throw in gay!Shiro at the literal last minute with some background character who only ever had one line. Thanks, DreamWorks. It's not like you could've just let Adam live so Shiro could be going home to SOMEONE.

Unexpected things always happen. An actor being unavailable, a sudden irl event making it so the episode you planned would appear tone-deaf, the joke you wrote was less funny and more offensive... So on and so forth. Sometimes you have no choice but to change what you have planned because delaying it would just make the studio and the fans mad. Just... TRY to make it make sense. And don't fold to the fans, dammit. Shiro should have stayed dead because he just doesn't do anything when Allura and Keith saved him. The main character should have stayed as an ensemble, rather than pushing Lance as the central focus, because it would have left less reasons for me to hate Lance and give other, specifically Hunk, the development they deserved.

The show also never adresses traumatising shit, (*cough cough* Keith's sacrifice attempt *cough cough*), but that can be forgiven because it was aimed at children. I do, however, like that LM corrected an interviewer when they asked about Keith 'attempting to kill himself'. It was quickly corrected to 'sacrificing himself' because that's what it was! I'm sick of people acting like he was suicidal because he wasn't. He was actively scared of what he was going to do, i.e. sacrifice his life for everyone's sake. He tried to do it for the greater good. Would you call one of the many who died during wars suicidal? No. You would call them noble and heroic for their sacrifice, because that's what they are. That is what Keith was trying to do. He saw the only way out and decided one life in exchange for the many is a damn good deal and took it. Saying he was depressed and suicidal is undermining the actions he took.

So, yeah. In my eyes, the writers did two good things. Correcting the mistake belief that Keith was suicidal, and creating this shit-fest of a show. (God, I love/hate Voltron).

4 - How Pidge is treated by the fandom. Pidge is so mean. She's rude and callous and selfish and that's okay. What's not okay is acting like these traits make her a queen. She's rude, fine. She's callous, fine. She's selfish, fine. She's incredible for this? Um, no? Stop treating her like she's just sassy. She's mean. I mean, not long after Shiro's death/disappearance, she calls Keith, who is mourning Shiro so deeply, a 'loner'. Without even getting to know him. She just deems him a loner, even though Keith is just so genuinely kind?

Don't get me wrong. I love Pidge. She's great and she's an absolute joy to write. I admire her tenacity in trying to find her missing family members while also able to put the universe before them. Watching her break down about Matt when she thinks he's dead is so utterly heartbreaking because I really did like her.

But acting as if she's perfect because of this? No way.

(Also, I refer to Pidge as 'she/her' only in these posts. I much prefer gender neutral or trans Pidge.)

5 - Hunk's treatment. He deserved SO MUCH BETTER! This sweet, precious boy. He's the only one who reacted approppriately to becoming a child solider. He's an anxious, terrified kid and he's still able to swallow that fear and fight on because there are people, people like Shay, who have no idea what freedom means and if the sky is blue.

He's the only one who has to find and fight for his family when they get back to Earth, which makes me sad. Very sad. He cares so much about his friends. Even if he's scared, he'll still put himself in danger for them.

But the narrative treats him like garbage, reducing him to the comedic, fat joke, while Lance never treats him like a best friend. He deserved so much more than what he was given.

6 - The people in charge were so obsessed with doing every character dirty. They wanted to keep Shiro death, wanted to kill Keith after admitting to not knowing where they were going with him, tried to kill Hunk who did nothing wrong to deserve this, and actually killed Allura off when they realised Allurance would not work in the long-term because Lance would not be able to part from Earth for so long while Allura would not be able to stay confined to Earth at all.

7 - Lance fans would hate him if he was white.