#I think ‘the Lance situation’ is incredibly complex and nuanced

[yesterdayiwrote]

Idk, I don’t think they should force drivers immediately into the media pen before they’ve had time to decompress and gather their thoughts, but equally I’m not really cool with the drivers being shitty to the journalists because they’re in a bad mood? 😬

[emmagineif]

Morality in Voltron (Victory or Death)

.This is a topic I’ve been thinking about since season 4, but after LM said that if Keith hadn’t had Shiro, he would have ended up a lot like Lotor, I finally had my case studies. 

So, Keith vs Lotor...

First of all, Keith doesn’t have the social skills to be as manipulative as Lotor, and an orphan is hardly going to have the kind of power a prince does. Between Keith’s temper and awkwardness, they’re never going to be the same character. 

However, empathy and morality are learned. We get them from our parents, our teachers, and, eventually, our peers. If every person you ever meet is cruel and mocks you for any display of kindness, you stop being able to afford empathy. You assume the worst of people. Why help them? They probably deserve it.

So, to say that someone would have turned out differently if their lives had gone a different way is, verifiably, true. 

That being said, what do they believe?

Well, Voltron explicitly sets up two different bases of morality:

The Galra have the phrase: Victory or Death (variation: knowledge or death)

In other words, there are two things you can prioritize: The Mission or the Team.

Keith says this explicityly in S4E1 (Code of Honor): “In Voltron, we would’ve gone back in to save Regris.” A blade member would go “back to save the information.” ((I’ll come back to this scene later))

So, what do Keith and Lotor believe? Well, let’s take a look at how both characters handle The Trolley Problem. This is a classic thought experiment that basically boils down to: Do you sacrifice one person to save five? 

Lotor says yes:

Keith... Also says yes:

When Allura is captured, Keith doesn’t want to risk Voltron to rescue her.

Now, are these the exact same situation? No. First of all, Lotor doesn’t have to kill Narti; Axca has a stun gun for gods sake. Zarkon also isn’t going to kill Allura. Plus, the Paladins should have a pretty clear idea of what Allura would want; they’re in this situation because Allura sacrificed herself. 

Still, these are the two closest scenerios I could find, and they tell us what their priorities are. Lotor is willing to sacrifice his team the second one of them might be comprimised. Team voltron decides to go after Allura, because they need her; she makes them stronger. 

Now, let’s see a different scenario:

Do you kill thousands of Alteans, against their will, in the hopes that one day you might be able to improve their lives?

Lotor says yes. Keith says no. The mission, or the team?

Keith disagrees here, he says you should pick the people over the mission, while Lotor says the sacrifice is worth it. The ends justify the means.

So, what changed? Is it simply the scenario? The number of people? If only there was an instance in which Keith wanted to pick an individual over the universe at large...

It’s Shiro. Of course it’s Shiro.

Now, again, this isn’t the same scenario: they haven’t sacrificed Shiro; not flying the Black Lion won’t bring him back, but Allura does connect this to the Trolley Problem. (”Our Mission is bigger than any one individual.”) It’s almost like there’s nuance and complexities to any situation!

The fun thing is that Keith’s morality actually changes. And we can pinpoint when that happens:

In S3E3, Keith leads onto Thayserix, chasing after Lotor. When Allura and Hunk get separated, Keith wants to leave them behind. Why?

Now, of course this works terribly; the entire point of voltron is that they’re stronger together (the giant robot is a metaphor). It isn’t just about the mission, it’s about the team. This is the epiosde where Keith realizes that, because guess what? If you start leaving people behind, when you get to the end, you don’t have anyone left. 

And it’s after this where we start to see Keith doing something we’ve never seen Lotor do.

Sacrifice

Himself

For

Others. 

In fact, we’ve explicitly seen Lotor not sacrifice himself:

We know Keith is thinking about the team because in “Code of Honor” Kolivan chews him out for going after Regris, and Keith says “In Voltron we would have gone back in to save Regris. I went back to save the mission. Regris had the intel.” 

Except he’s lying. Because two minutes later Keith is trying to save Regris again, except this time Regris doesn’t have any information. The fun thing is that Lotor does something incredibly similar when he’s first introduced; he talks a big game about allies and loyalty, but when “the masses” aren’t listening?

Now, I’m not just going to gloss over Keith being self destructive; is there a problem with this? Yes. Keith cuts himself off from the team and we can see that his priorities now are bascially THE TEAM, THE MISSION... KEITH. And, no, that isn’t healthy. His character development hasn’t actually gone backwards, just sideways, because he’s cut himself off from the Team. 

All he really needs someone to tell him that he’s important too--

Thanks, mom.

By the way, this is also the episode where Lance talks about his insecurities, because, yeah, this show is good at themes.

On Lotor’s side he honestly believes he’s the only person who can accomplish his goals: hell, nobody else even knows his plan. He can’t afford to sacrifice himself. For Lotor, himself and the mission are on and the same, and with Keith back on the team, they’re in basically the same spot, just vastly different ideals.

It’s almost like the half-galran boys who were abandoned by their mothers but still end up trying to fulfil her legacy are foils. 

And that’s the point. We don’t really see how Lotor got to be where he is; the closest we get is Lotor’s governess:

She doesn’t really care if Hunk avoids her blows by learning, or by blocking her, and that’s what Lotor learns: that it doesn’t really matter how you achieve your goal, and he never really had anyone to try and tell him different.

Keith, on the other hand...

Yeah, Keith, it would have been.

[littlehobbit13]

Why do you still like Varian? I mean, I get he’s a kid but he’s not so young that he wouldn’t know that kidnapping is wrong? That you shouldn’t threaten the life of another person? And the way he keeps casting himself as the victim. Would you explain why you still enjoy his character and want his redemption?

This might be my favorite ask ever, as it’s basically an invitation to gab on at length about my love for well-written characters. Gosh, where do I even begin?

The short answer? I love nuance and complexity in characters, and the more characters exist in shades of gray, the better I think they are.

The longer answer…

Varian’s antagonistic, sure, and he’s dabbling in some villainous ways, but evil? Evil, he’s not. You said it yourself, he’s a child. There are adults that can’t go through what he’s experiencing without it going badly, and you’re gonna hold it against a child? I don’t care how intelligent Varian is, he’s still young and developing. He can’t control his emotions yet, and it’s Varian’s emotions - not his logic - that are currently in control. A lot of people seem to be missing that key factor to his motivations.

There’s also the question of intention. Varian is making a lot of bad decisions - none of which I’m excusing - but ultimately he’s doing it to save his father. He claims some of it is for revenge, but that need for revenge comes from his deflected guilt over causing and then failing to prevent his father’s current state. His need for revenge is coming from the pain of being abandoned by literally everyone around him but his raccoon in his greatest time of need. Pain is not evil. Pain is just pain, and it has to be worked through or else it becomes a rot, which is what we’re seeing.

You reference how Varian keeps trying to paint himself as the victim. Yes, because the alternative is him admitting that what happened to his father is potentially all his fault, that through his passion for science he might have murdered his own father, and he just cannot grapple with that emotionally right now because he’s too young to know how. He can’t do it on his own, so he’s deflecting it. That kid needs a blanket and a hug in the most major way, and there’s nobody around to give him that.

Plus, he’s not solely at fault for this chain of events. It doesn’t matter if they’re “the good guys”, Rapunzel and King Frederic share some of the blame. It’s not Rapunzel’s fault that she had to break her promise to Varian when he came looking to her for aid, but she is at fault for never once following up with him. Imagine how differently things might have turned out if, instead of taking a painting class for example, she’d taken a trip out to Old Corona to check up on someone she apparently felt guilt about breaking her promise to. She could’ve given Varian comfort, learned about his father and offered her help, etc. Then there’s the King. By his own admission, he knew the black rocks were destroying the kingdom and he chose to do nothing. Varian messing with the rocks was a direct result of that inaction, him hoping to help people by figuring out a solution. Imagine if the King had addressed the issue instead, and how that might have kept Varian’s experimenting at bay. Then there’s the issue of someone spreading it around that Varian had attacked Rapunzel, a lie that apparently cut him off from the rest of the kingdom so he couldn’t ask for aid from anyone. He couldn’t then just walk up to the castle asking to speak to Rapunzel. His options for action dwindled rapidly, and he got desperate.

So you have a 14-year old boy isolated from the world in the middle of the grieving process. People go to bad places when cut off from others during crisis, and even the best people can wind up making bad decisions. Does any of this mean I agree with Varian? Of course not. I’m not excusing anything he’s done. He made his choices. I simply understand where he’s coming from in making them.

But you also asked about redemption, and why I want him to have it. Varian’s a good person at his core, we’ve seen that, and he deserves a chance to come back from his mistakes. Did Elsa not deserve redemption because in a moment of panic she froze her whole kingdom? If you think about it, she and Varian share similar paths. She lost control over a power she didn’t understand, it endangered and injured loved ones, people treated her like a villain, she refused to “see reason” when Anna tried to get her to return, but inevitably she came back from it and got a happy ending. Varian deserves that same chance, doesn’t he? Plus, basically everyone else is getting their happily ever afters even after making bad choices: Eugene, Cassandra, the Pub Thugs, Rapunzel, King Frederic… The question I put back to you: why do you feel Varian is the only one who doesn’t deserve that same redemption?

I still love Varian because I’m empathetic enough to understand his choices, and a glutton for great characters even if they’re bad guys. Frankly, I’m not sure how anyone can see stuff like this:

…and still refuse to acknowledge that Varian isn’t evil, he’s just in a really dark place. You don’t understand how I can stand by him? Well, I don’t understand how people can be so quick to just write him off. People seem almost eager to hate him, and I don’t get that attitude. Fans took Lance in even as he was actively getting Eugene back into trouble for no good reason. Why is Varian the one getting the brunt of people’s hate for bad choices? Answer me that.

And failing all else, some of Varian’s choices were less an issue of malice and more just him being incredibly smart about maneuvering what few resources he had at his disposal. He didn’t kidnap the Queen to be terrible; he did it because he knew it was exactly the right catalyst he needed to get people moving how he wanted. For me, that kind of craftiness is worth respect, even if I don’t personally agree with it. I’m always here for a master class in strategic genius.

I did not mean for this post to go on this long, but I have many feels about our little alchemist and his current situation, so here we are.

[kingofthewilderwest]

So,do you think that Voltron is deserving of the collective hate for season 4 and the claims of lack of character development? I personally liked the season,I didn't LOOOOVEEE it but it was completely okay and I dont understand some of the claims?

I’m not surprised at negative reactions I have seen from portions of the fandom (it’s to note that, while there is certainly vocal negativity in the fandom, it’s not everybody!). I sort of expected the backlash even before I finished the season; before I went online to tumblr, I predicted what the criticism would be about. So it’s not that people are making something out of nothing. The fans are definitely detecting something. And there are certainly a number of areas where I myself could constructively criticize the season.

That said, I don’t think that what these individuals detect about Season 4 is any reason to create a culture of collective hate for Season 4. I think it misses the point about what Season 4 is, what the purpose of Season 4 is, where in the narrative arc Season 4 is, and what VLD as a whole is. I don’t think Season 4 deserves such negativity at all.

I think that it would be good to step back and understand what S4 accomplishes, and to think about what waiting for future seasons will do to S4′s contribution in the long-ranging story. We need to be patient before everything comes to fruition.

Season 4 is a short six-episode continuation of a very long, complicated narrative. It’s only natural it won’t have EVERY nuanced aspect of the franchise in this time frame. Six episodes is very little material. While of course you can pack a lot into six episodes, and sometimes that’s a good idea, sometimes it’s also not a good idea to pack everything into such a short time frame. That can convolute the story and take away clarity, among other problems.

Voltron juggles a lot. It juggles the overarching narrative structure of fighting against Zarkon and the Galra. It has long-length arcs that last two seasons, culminating in a major climactic moment. It has season-length progression. It has single episode or multi-episode arcs. It has character development arcs for main characters like Allura, Shiro, Lance, Keith, Pidge, Lotor, and Haggar. It has side arcs and main arcs and arcs on top of arcs and many characters major and minor and planets upon planets and so much stuff going on. It’s not that Voltron is oversaturated in storytelling material… it’s just that it’s a very complex story and needs to create a sense of balance of progression for all these different plot points.

A six episode chunk isn’t going to handle all of that. It’s going to be one part of a balance to the greater whole. Season 4 isn’t about Shiro’s character development. But that’s okay. Season 4 isn’t focused as closely on Keith as Season 3 was. But that’s okay. Season 4 can give a good, useful contribution to the story as a whole without tackling everything.

Furthermore, just because it’s called a “season” on Netflix doesn’t mean it has the role of a season. Again, six episodes. The first six episodes of Season 1 wouldn’t make a stand alone chunk, nor would the first six episodes of Season 2. I wouldn’t criticize the first half of Season 1 for not getting “everything” to be a satisfying arc because that is not the purpose of that chunk of material. 

And there’s something to say that Season 4 does have a significant arc in and of itself that is introduced, built up, and brought to a climactic point within the six episodes we see.

And that significant arc is really the center and purpose of Season 4.

Season 4 is about the expansion of Voltron’s fight from one castle-ship to a galaxy of beings. That’s the purpose it’s meant to have within the larger VLD storytelling structure. It accomplishes this task very well. It’s not about the Paladins trying to learn how to be Paladins. It’s about something far broader than the six Paladins. It’s a season in which we are opening up to NEW characters and concepts and battles! It does that by giving us for the first time a battle with an entire flotilla of ships from aliens across the galaxy. It’s not a season meant to fully tackle the GRIT of old characters, but to introduce us to more material that will be built up more as we got on.

Season 4 is the beginning of Matt’s official on-screen journey, for instance, and the writers definitely made sure to give Matt a good grounding of screen time. We might not have had big Lance-questioning-himself moments, but that’s because the season’s purpose was to give us grounding for material like Matt which also will need to be developed through the franchise. 

Season 4 likely will be a foundation upon which much more nuance can be built. Give it a chance to grow from here, please!

Season 4 might throw people off because it has a slightly different narrative tactic than S1-3.

Season 4 is about expansion rather than a small team. Season 4 is a high concentration of casualties and near-casualties in a short time span. Season 4 builds on external political affairs moreso than has individual character episodes (aside from “Reunion”). Season 4 has more sense of passing time and time jumps than the steady moment-by-moment plotting we get in S1-2 especially. It’s a somewhat different narrative structure. And as soon as something changes, fandom can feel “off” and instinctively react against it.

But I don’t think this means S4 is out of place. It means that we are entering the central, convoluted development meat of the story… where things are getting chaotic and more pressed and everything is changing in the midst of the war. That’s what a middle chapter of writing often does: give us that spiraling out of control and spinning of new circumstances. We’ve started the plunge into a new portion of the overarching story.

Season 4 has incredible moments in storytelling, as well as significant moments for many of the Paladins. To say it is completely void of Paladin growth and nuance is to bypass and downplay critical scenes throughout the Season.

Now about character development: I do feel like the Paladins feel “flatter” because we’re not given as much in-depth focus on them this season (also because “The Voltron Show!” was an intentional writing of flattening the characters… but that’s a FULL episode of them feeling “less”). Again, it’s about the broadening of horizons this season, so we get a less “nuanced” lens specifically at the Paladins. I don’t criticize S4 for having this somewhat flatter feel for the Paladins because 1). sometimes looking at such a small chunk of material can make things naturally look flatter than they are over the whole, 2). there’s that other focus S4 is meant to expand upon, and 3). because the Paladins actually *do* have significant character moments!!!

Season 4 honestly packs a lot of story in a short time, if you think about it. And there is high-quality content in there.

Powerful, intricate moments for characters and their development include:

Shiro/Kuron’s nuanced psychology about Keith being leader. On one side, he says that he has accepted Keith is the Black Lion’s Paladin and will support his friend’s role as Voltron’s leader. But on the other side, Shiro commands Keith to obey him, questions Keith’s decisions, and undermines Keith’s role as leader. Kuron plays back and forth, simultaneously supporting Keith as leader and usurping Keith’s authority as leader. It shows a complicated psychology to what Shiro thinks about the situation.

Shiro/Kuron’s psychological struggle about being rejected by Black. We again see Shiro’s personality dimensionalized. On the surface, he shows himself to be calm, in control, and accepting of situations. He tells Keith he’s accepted he cannot be Black’s Paladin anymore. And while Shiro might even believe that, thinks he believes that, or tries to tell himself he believes that… it’s obvious that’s not the whole story. Shiro is extraordinary distraught when he’s sitting in Black’s cockpit, listening to the terrifying sounds of his teammates shouting, being overwhelmed by enemy forces, in deep danger and need of help. Shiro clenches tightly onto the Black Lion’s handles, his eyes tear up, and he pleas for Black to accept him. This is a huge moment of vulnerability for Shiro and speaks to the problems he’s continued to harbor.

Some interesting, continued dynamics about Shiro/Kuron’s attention to self-interests. It’s not that Kuron is selfish or cruel. He obviously is torn about not being able to save the Paladins, sitting there helplessly in the Black Lion’s lifeless cockpit. But Kuron acts a bit more in his personal interests and makes some commands to (especially) Keith that are less sensitive than we would expect of team-oriented, diplomatic S1 Shiro. This new S3-4 Shiro is being developed.

Keith’s intricate struggle about his place on Voltron’s team. This cannot be analyzed enough. There is a lot of depth to how Keith avoids the discomforts of being the Black Lion’s Paladin by diving deeper into his Blade of Marmora training. It shows Keith accepting his identity as Galra and doing something with it. It shows Keith questioning himself and his role as leader. It shows Keith distancing himself and pulling away as a quiet means of him trying to handle his problems all by himself. We can talk on and on and on and on about what this means for Keith’s personality, as well as what this means for his relation to team dynamics.

Pidge’s mission to find Matt. Do I even need to explain this one and why it’s such a significant moment for Pidge’s character arc??? Isn’t this self-explanatorily a great character episode for her through and through? Isn’t this in depth and full of heart and not flat at ALL for her character?

All the Paladins acting as polished fighters. Compare them to S1. This season manifests how they have grown.

An entire episode dedicated to Coran’s insecurities. Nice to see an entire episode focus on Coran feeling worried about his contribution to the Castle of Lions group!

Lotor moments, Lotor moments, everywhere! Lotor is just as complex and interesting as the second he was introduced in S3. There’s a beautiful complexity in how he acts contrite before Zarkon but smirks behind his father’s back. There are lots of signs of Lotor’s machinations everywhere. And yet again, the story builds on Lotor’s ruthlessness - killing Narti - and being willing to do anything tactical to achieve his ends… down to offering peaceful talks with the rebels.

Haggar being built up as a more prominent antagonist. With complex motivations that are yet to be fully revealed! Wasn’t this so cool though seeing Haggar take the forefront of leadership against the rebels??? It’s a huge growth from her just telling Zarkon she made another robeast and asking him to use it. Also her staring at her appearance wide-eyed? Demonstrations of insecurities from Haggar we are unaccustomed to seeing. Growth growth growth!

Everything about Matt. This season not only introduces Matt, but gives us an in-depth perspective of who he is. He’s hardly flat!!!!!!!

Keith taking on a notable leadership role in the final fight. Keith brings up back-up, taking a notable step in leadership. This might not be Keith in the Black Lion, but this is a point in which we can see that Keith’s training with the Blade of Marmora is making him take prudent initiative in dangerous situations. Keith’s actions in the final episodes feels like a nice step up into Keith starting to actualize as a leader. Definitely an important step up in character development here. 

Keith’s self-sacrificial flight. POWERFUL and terrifying Keith moment. We’ve seen Keith take a suicide mission before, filling in a role. We see this happen again, but in a very different matter. This is an even grimmer taking of responsibility… it’s not just that Keith has a small chance of surviving a difficult mission… but that he’s literally flying a ship in an indisputably deadly collision course.

Lance’s leadership abilities and sense of responsibility matured. In the first episode, we see Lance take on leadership roles while Keith is absent and Shiro cannot pilot Black. When Lance gives Allura a speech about her being the heart of Voltron, he’s taking an extraordinary step that no other Paladin has done. Usually Paladins defer to the leader and wait for him to make the next move and statement (especially when Shiro’s in Black). But here Lance steps up to give the necessary leading, motivational speech, Paladin-to-Paladin. He has become an incredibly important and serious second-in-command.

Allura being the heart of Voltron. Allura using her magic in a new way to save Voltron is a beautiful manifestation of her growing abilities, growing strength in herself, and power as a Paladin. 

And that’s hardly everything we get in these six episodes! We might not have scenes where Lance questions his value on the team and dig into those character development arcs, and I totally get why that general lack feels odd… but this season hardly turned anyone into two dimensional sticks. We’ve got amazing character stuff in here for sure.

I’m sure we’ll continue digging into Keith’s insecurities, Lance’s insecurities, everyone’s problems. We’ve still got more to come and far, far more to tackle than what a small portion - six episodes - can do. 

I’m not worried that the writers have somehow made Season 4 “a mess.” There is something to be said that viewers should be able to be content with a story as they’re going along - not just when they’ve completed the story and can now study it retrospectively - but there’s also something to be said about waiting for plot threads to continue developing, and understanding that different parts of a story have different purpose. Season 4 executes a lot of amazing things. It’s not perfect, and I don’t want to go into all of its flaws, but as I pointed out above, there’s so much to offer, too. My favorite season is probably still 2, but I have no hate for 4!

And frankly Keith’s near-death and Pidge’s graveyard breakdown are going to be some of my favorite scenes in the entire franchise forever.