#blames himself > gets in psychic battle with zarkon > loses > black lion kicks him out > jet pack breaks > has to fight through ship >

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

I love how many episodes of Voltron are just Shiro discovering new flavors and varieties of “worst day of his life this week”

[kcwcommentary]

VLD6x06 – “All Good Things”

6x06 – “All Good Things”

For me, the title “All Good Things” is a cliché. Unfortunately, that hints at the many clichés that are in the writing of this episode.

As we continue to finish Lotor’s story, this show continues to offend me with its declaration that Lotor, as an abuse victim, is as bad as his abuser. It infuriates me that this is the message the show chose to send through this story. I imagine that the EPs and the writers weren’t even aware they were doing so, but that does not absolve them of doing it. I haven’t read or seen every interview with them, so maybe they apologized for doing so, but I don’t know of them having done so.

We start in the Black Lion’s psychic space with Shiro repeating Keith’s name, and Keith opening his eyes. His opening his eyes here would have worked better if the last we saw of him in the previous episode was him closing his eyes. However, last episode ended with him opening his eyes, sort of symbolizing a psychological awakening, so him beginning this episode by opening his eyes feels off. The way last episode ended, there was a resignation in Keith. Shiro’s clone was unconscious, the facility was destroyed, and Keith and Shiro were plummeting toward the planet. It was a slow, dramatic, interestingly peaceful moment. But now, this episode is ignoring that tone and feels like it’s resetting Keith’s mental state to the anger and aggression he had during the fight, not to the calm he had as he fell with Shiro’s clone at the end of last episode. The beginning of this episode is not matching up well with the end of last episode.

Shiro’s spirit appears to Keith. He’s calm and quiet as he talks.

“The thing that attacked you wasn’t me,” Shiro says. I really do not like that they have him call the clone a “thing.” That “thing” was someone who the Black Lion sensed across great distance and directed Keith to save back in 3x05 “The Journey.” It would have been nice had this show not ignored or forgotten this (honestly, I can very much imagine the EPs and writers of this show truly forgetting what story they’ve told earlier in the show). The Black Lion also let the clone pilot her. The Black Lion would not have directed Keith to rescue the clone nor let the clone pilot her if she considered the clone to be an evil thing.

Shiro says that he’s been here in this psychic space since the fight with Zarkon at the end of season two. “My physical form was gone,” and the show never bothers to explain what happened to Shiro’s body, nor how he died.

“I tried to warn the others about the imposter while on Olkarion, but our connection was not strong enough,” Shiro says as his image fades and disappears. I’ll say that it seems reasonable that he would have a hard time connecting to them since the others have demonstrated through their actions that they don’t really think of Shiro as a friend.

Keith opens his eyes and he’s inside the Black Lion. “You saved us,” Keith quietly says to Black. Us! Not just Keith. The Black Lion has again saved the clone! He’s laying nearby, unconscious but reactive enough to slightly groan. The EPs and the writers want us to think that the clone is evil. They write that into the dialog of the characters. They just had the spirit of Shiro call the clone a “thing.” But the Black Lion saved the clone again! This means something, and the show totally ignores it in its push to call the clone evil. This is something the show absolutely should have addressed, but they couldn’t because it would undermine their premise that the clone was not a person that is used to justify having the Paladins use the clone’s body without any debate about the ethics of doing so.

Coran, Hunk, and Pidge are working on the Castle to the get the ship working again. Allura is visibly experiencing emotional distress. Lance seems to notice, but he doesn’t say anything at first. Krolia and Romelle have just been standing off to the side until Krolia announces she’ll go help with repairs and Romelle follows her. Why weren’t they helping to begin with? Lance takes the opportunity to ask Allura if she’s okay.

She says she’s angry at herself for “play[ing] right into Lotor’s hands.” Of course, I don’t blame her since I blame the EPs and the writers for purposefully writing Lotor as if he was a character undergoing a transformational arc specifically so that they could claim a cheap plot twist of saying he was evil all along. Lance says, “You didn’t put us in this situation. It was Shiro who went rogue and released the virus in the Castle.” I know they don’t yet know about the clone, but it still bothers me hearing them talk about Shiro like this.

Allura goes on about how she trusted Lotor but shouldn’t have and about how she doesn’t think she can trust herself now. While these are valid feelings for her to have given what has happened in the story, I’m stilled aggravated by it because it’s all coming from the EPs’ and writers’ efforts to manipulate the audience by writing Lotor to be a good person for most of his time on the show.

“I had more reason than anyone not to trust him,” Lance says. Thus, the show says that Lance feeling intense jealousy over Allura being with Lotor was right. Allura responds by hugging Lance. Lance’s jealousy is justified, and he’s rewarded with a moment of getting-the-girl for it. Ugh!

Keith establishes communication with the Castle and informs Allura and Lance that Shiro was a clone. He also tells them he’s detected that Lotor’s ships are heading back to them, but it will take time for him to get to them. They’ll have to hold off Lotor without him. Keith tries asking the spirit of Shiro to help him get to the others. The Black Lion’s wing is still sparking. This sparking first started as a depiction of damage from a fight, so its continual sparking should be setting up something to happen, like the wing exploding or Black losing all propulsion or something, but nothing ever comes of it. It’s not necessary to explain Black being too far away to get to the others before the battle starts, so if that’s what it’s supposed to be signifying, then it’s pointless.

Allura narrates, “Accessing the quintessence field has been Lotor’s singular drive for millennia. He wants to harness the power for himself.” I have a hard time dealing with this switch the show has flipped in Lotor’s motivation. The show made the situation more complicated in a really good way by having Lotor argue that using the rift as a source of quintessence would allow him to move the Galra away from taking quintessence from living creatures. With the show’s twist that Lotor’s a villain all along, what was a great complication is now ignored and replaced with a simplistic, selfish desire for power. By having this twist with Lotor, the show has narrowed and made the current primary antagonist generic. Allrua says the Paladins have to destroy the gate at the opening to the rift.

Ugh. Lotor tells Ezor and Zethrid, “My deepest apologies for lying to you both. But in order to gain the Princess’s trust and make the Paladins of Voltron believe we were truly at odds, it had to be done.” By now having Lotor talk like a generic villain, he becomes far less interesting. That the EPs and writers think this is interesting baffles me. Having Lotor talk like this now feels fake. This is just not the same character they’ve written since at least 4x06 “A New Defender.” And it makes the title of that episode a total lie, proof of the EPs’ audience manipulation.

Titles function as a promise, almost like a thesis statement, about the content of the story so titled. But this show did not use that title as a promise, it was purposefully a deception used against the audience. Allura earlier talked about how she shouldn’t have trusted Lotor, and how she doesn’t think she can trust herself now. Well, this whole Lotor-is-a-villain-all-along plot twist tells the audience that we should not trust the EPs and writers of this show. What makes this particularly infuriating is that the EPs and writers clearly think that they were clever with this plot twist. It feels more amateurish to me than anything even slightly resembling clever.

I’m not quite sure why Allura thinks she can have the Lions blow up the gate and it’ll destroy the rift. I understand that she feels the need to do something, and there’s little she can do at this point. But we know her plan to destroy the gate will not get rid of the rift opening. One, the narrative doesn’t tell this little bit of story significantly enough to make it have the tonality of a conclusion. But also, we know the history of this rift opening. We know that Alfor destroyed Daibazaal trying to destroy the rift opening, and yet it has continued to exist for 10,000 years.

The fact that this rift opening has persisted is unexplained though. When we had the “comet” having opened a rift in 3x04 “Hole in the Sky,” that rift closed as soon as Voltron pulled the “comet” through the rift opening into this reality. So, what held this rift at Daibazaal open for 10,000 years? Also, given Honerva’s obsession with the rift, why has she never come back here to work with it over those 10,000 years?

Hunk says, “The last time we fought Lotor, we had five ships and Lotor had two, and he still kicked our butts. This time, he’s going to have three ships, and we’re only going to have four.” I guess technically true since Lotor was unconscious last episode when the whole of Voltron fought all three of Lotor’s ships, but it still feels like Hunk’s statement is wrong since they fought all three ships.

Coran is given an extended repair sequence. It’s nice that the show is giving Coran something to do since they’ve barely used him the past several seasons. He finds an old tool kit from his grandfather.

Lotor’s ships arrive.

Allura yells at Lotor, “You enslaved countless Alteans. Harnessed their life source for your own personal gain. How many innocent lives did you destroy?”

He responds, “It’s true, many Alteans perished in my quest to unlock the mysteries of quintessence. But I protected thousands more, and I rescued their culture. Our culture.” We’ve been told by the narrative that we’re not supposed to trust anything Lotor has ever said or will say again. The problem is that by writing this dialog, the show reminds us of Lotor’s argument. And the thing is, despite the show declaring him to be a lying villain, he’s not wrong here.

This makes me think of the issue of energy production. Some Alteans, for some never properly explained reason, have the ability to produce more quintessence than most other lifeforms. This is part of the problem with this show never properly defining its magic system. The show never explains what quintessence is. It’s always generic as just some miscellaneous life energy. But why can some Alteans create more of it than everyone else? And what does it say about the position of privilege that their ability to do so grants them? Or at least, the privilege that it gives Allura. She uses quintessence to power her ship all the time. The show never explores that Lotor and the Galra’s desire for quintessence to power their civilization gives them a valid point of critique against Allura. Why does she get to have a source of energy that benefits just her and the few she chooses to use it for? This is not to say that it’s okay for the Galra to produce quintessence by taking it from other life forms. Lotor himself has said as much, that he wants to transition the Galra off of this method of energy production. That’s been his whole point in trying to get quintessence from the rift.

Part of why this conclusion to Lotor’s story is so unfulfilling is because the show does not resolve this argument. I even wonder if the show realizes it’s made this argument. I can easily imagine that the EPs and writers saw Lotor’s argument as nothing but a means to trick everyone into letting their guard down. But the problem for them then is that the show still has Lotor make a very valid argument that is never resolved.

Ezor says, “I stopped trying to figure out Lotor’s master plan long ago. Too complicated.” Ezor here is totally lampshading the story; the show is acknowledging that this plot has become too complicated, and they’re essentially asking the audience to ignore it and just move on. This feels like the writers almost admitting that they’re too unskilled to be able to handle writing this story. I imagine there are instances of lampshading in other stories that work and don’t end up feeling like the writers insulting the audience for the audience wanting the story to make sense, but this does not have that effect for me. I want this story to make sense. I want it to be consistent, but it’s not. All this does is point out that the writers know there’s a problem with what they’ve written. It does nothing to fix the problem.

Allura fires first. Lotor orders his team to hold their fire. Lotor tells Allura, “My feelings for you are true, and I know you have feelings for me as well.” Maybe it’s just the voice acting being better than the show’s story arc deserves, but Lotor sounds genuine in what he’s saying. My guess is that the voice actor, maybe even the voice director, believed that what Lotor says is true, but the problem then is that the EPs and the writers have declared it that Lotor is just a deceptive villain.

Allura responds by saying, “You betrayed and used me. You’re more like Zarkon than I could have ever imagined.” In order for her statement to be true, that he did betray and use her, it requires that everything he’s said to her to be a lie. Because his arguments have always been valid, I cannot believe his past statements to Allura to be lies. So, how then has he used her? If his goal is and always has been accessing a source of quintessence to provide energy to the Galra so that he can make the Empire stop producing it through taking it from living creatures, then how has he “betrayed and used” her?

The show does not explain what Lotor’s goal was in harvesting quintessence from the Alteans. It’s used as a demonstration that Lotor is an evil person, so I guess that combined with the show declaring him to be a liar is supposed to make it that he did it as a cliché villain taking life from other people and no deeper explanation was ever crafted by the writers. But again, this runs into the problem of Lotor’s argument about getting quintessence from the rift being totally valid and never invalidated.

Also, I hate what the show does with Allura here. Lotor was abused by his father. We know this. Lotor has talked to Allura about it. And here, they have her tell someone who’s been abused that they are like their abuser. This is cruel. This is the show itself, not just Allura, being offensive. Lotor has demonstrated several times throughout this show that he has vigorously tried to escape his father’s abuse. He has actively worked to do things differently than his father. He has been subject to ridicule from both his father and mother because he’s not full-Galra, while he has rejected that racism and Galra-supremacism by embracing his Altean heritage and accepting Axca, Ezor, Zethrid, and Narti, in defiance of the Galra who condemned him for doing so. In 3x01 “Changing of the Guard,” we learn that unlike Zarkon, Lotor does not adhere to classist discrimination and fights alongside lower ranking soldiers; we see some of Zarkon’s classist discrimination when he condemns Blaytz in 3x07 “The Legend Begins” for flirting with a server at dinner. Lotor specifically told Allura in 5x06 “White Lion” that he envied Alfor being her father because Zarkon never supported his desire to be an explorer. He told her about how he was in charge of a planet, how Zarkon got angry that Lotor let the population there rule themselves, how Zarkon ordered Lotor to destroy the planet, and when Lotor refused, Zarkon did so himself. Lotor is not like Zarkon. It is absolutely cruel for the show to write Allura saying this. And it’s offensive to those of us who have been subject to parental abuse. Through Allura’s condemnation of Lotor, the show is saying that no matter how much we try, we will not only never escape the abuse, we’ll become as horrible as those who abused us.

The show then goes generic villain by having Lotor criticize Alfor for being “too weak.” He orders his team to destroy the Lions. They all start fighting. I have to say that there is definitely something wrong with the writing when I’m actually on the antagonist’s side instead of the protagonist’s.

Coran does whatever ultimately miscellaneous thing he does to get the Castle back up and running. It’s a moment that is played for humor, but given the tension of the moment, of the dialog between Lotor and Allura, this is not the time for humor. This show has a recurrent problem with tonality dissonance like this.

Lotor says, “Once I wipe out Voltron, I’m going to start a new Altea. An Altea that will never know Princess Allura or King Alfor. Nor will they know the Lions of Voltron. All they will know is me, their great leader! I’m ready to wipe the universe clean of all my enemies: Voltron, Haggar, and the rest of the Galra!” The show now has Lotor screaming like a cliché maniacal villain. Ugh. This last line shocks Ezor, Zethrid, and Axca. How they’re surprised that Lotor views Galra culture as highly toxic and one that has been cruel to anyone who isn’t full-Galra, I don’t know. It’s not like the Galra Empire hasn’t discriminated against the three of them for their being only part-Galra.

Axca says, “I think it’s time for us to sever our ties to Lotor for good.” The EPs and writers of this show cannot ever decide on where Lotor’s generals’ loyalty actually lies, can they? By switching that allegiance around so damn much, I’m left confused. I’m tired of having to try to figure out what Ezor, Zethrid, and Axca’s motivations are. With these characters, I feel like I’m being jerked around.

As they take two of Lotor’s ships away from battle, Lotor responds, “Even my generals betray me.” Since the EPs have said in an interview that their goal with Lotor was to have him end up being like Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender, this moment and this line is clearly supposed to be a copy of Azula breaking down after Mai and Ty Lee turn against her. This moment reminding me of that interview causes me again to think about how amateurish it is for the EPs and writers to build their characters by trying to copy characters from other shows. They inadvertently cause me to compare Lotor to Azula while watching this episode. What Azula went through in the end of AtLA was written with a great deal of respect for her character. Her viciousness is condemned, but the last we see of her in AtLA is Azula experiencing severe psychological anguish, crying, and Zuko and Katara looking on with expressions of pain and sympathy for Azula. With how this show ends Lotor’s character, and the EPs saying that he was supposed to be like Azula in the end, I have to think that they totally missed what made the conclusion of Azula’s character poignant. In the end for Lotor, he’s just a screaming maniacal villain.

Lotor takes over the other two ships and ejects his generals from them. He then combines his three ships into Sincline. It’s been a long while since this show has had a mecha versus mecha battle.

Pidge reacts, saying, “What is that thing!?” This is not the first mecha she’s seen in this show, so this response is silly. Allura says, “That is why he was using me. I helped him build it.” The ability for it to physically combine has nothing to do with the quintessence-imbuing alchemy that Allura did. If what Allura did is what enabled this to happen, I would think she would have noticed that she was doing it. Also, the show has very much already established that what she did was make the ships capable of entering the rift. So, this is just more inconsistent writing. Hunk comments, “Well, the good news is that it’s now four-on-one.” I genuinely laughed.

Sincline attacks the Lions. Coran has the Castle shoot Sincline, but Sincline eventually returns fire. The two blasts do the cliché opposing beams directly clashing with one another until eventually one overpowers the other thing. Sincline hits the Castle. Pidge reacts by saying, “Impossible! Lotor’s weapon has completely repelled the Castle’s attack!” One, we can already see that his weapon has done so, so that dialog does not add literally anything to the show. Two, who thought having her proclaim something we just saw happen to be “impossible” is good writing? It’s cliché at best, but even if it wasn’t cliché, it still wouldn’t be good dialog.

Meanwhile, Keith is listening to communications of the battle. He starts begging Shiro to help him. His screaming Shiro’s name is a bit too much, causing the moment to totally fall over into excessive melodrama, which despite the intended purpose of melodrama actually causes the moment to lose emotion, not gain it. Keith appears in the psychic space again, and Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder. Shiro tells Keith to see through the Lion’s eyes. He repeats his advice to Keith from back in season one: “Patience yields focus.”

The music in this moment is really nice.

Keith’s hands start to glow, he drives the controls forward, and the Black Lion’s wings glow and expand into bigger engines.

The other Lions are floating motionless in space, seemingly lacking power. Lotor’s dialog continues to be cliché villain-speak. Sincline detects the Black Lion incoming, which slams into Sincline as it flies past. Keith orders them to form Voltron. Though I wish they would have occasionally updated the form-Voltron animation, I actually like its use in this moment.

The two mechas are poised for what comes next, the final shot of the episode is great.

I’m left thinking that, even if the show had the same plot points, everything that contributes to how we get to them could have been written so much better. It feels like, due to inexperience and carelessness, the EPs and the writers lost control of the story long before now, but because the plot development inherently has risen the stakes of the story, the failure to sculpt the details causes the story to turn into a blend of clichés and offensive implications. The resolution of Lotor’s story is not one that is fulfilling. It ends up feeling like the EPs and writers destroyed something interesting in order to make something generic from it. Like most of this whole series, it’s the loss of what could have been, the potential the show had, that makes this story so disappointing.