#when they said the season finale will be something they’ve been stablishing since the season premiere

[princessamericachavez]

Considering the only truly domestic Buckley-Diaz scene we got during season 6a was the whole couch conversation, I still think that it’s absolutely UNHINGED that they ended the season with a shot of Eddie sleeping on his couch after getting Buck’s donor news

Immediately followed by a shot of Buck chasing that very domestic bliss in the wrong ways, no less.

[slashtakemylife]

What I think made VLD fail narratively and a possible fix-it

Most of us agree it was in S3 when Voltron went all over the place, Voltron’s plot went like a headless chicken from S3 to S6 then S7 looks like filler and S8 took the weight of explaining everything

The main problem is that Voltron doesn’t have a real coherent focal point of conflict, there are power stuggles between the baddies that leaves us an the general story line confused,here’s each season’s conflict or problem and how it went wrong and a possible fix it (Loooong post)

S1 - S2 (The Perfect ones)

Problem: Zarkon

Big Conqueror Meanie, these is not much to say about Zarkon other than he is the bad guy so the paladins have time to start their journey and learn of each other and the situation they are in, along with us the audience and at the end of S2 the big meanie is defeated

S3 - S6 (Headless Chicken)

Problem: ???? Lotor, then Zarkon then Lotor and at times even Haggar

Lotor is now our main conflict focus, his premise is that he is turning the Galra into Good people, so that opens the idea that they could go back to being the peaceful people they were, even be part of the newly forming Coalition, so Lotor joining forces with Voltron for the greater good is not such a crazy idea, in fact, that is the idea

However we also see he is a back stabber, he is always waiting it out for the best moment to strike and you know it’s going to be big but he waits so damn long even his generals get fed up with him and betray him, at some points even Haggar looks like a good contender to be the true big baddie but then...

Zarkon is back alive, pushing the focus of the conflic back to him because this series began with him, we were trained to see him as the main threat so Lotor and Haggar are pushed back, for what? Zarkon gets killed again and Lotor is now the emperor then he is shown to be the good guy working alongside Voltron only for then to back stab them and reveal his true intentions

Ring any bells? This was stablished since season 3, but Lotor only get’s to be emperor and his defeat all in season 6, we went 3 season going in circles, in between baddies, only to end up in the same place, Lotor is crowned, makes Good galra and uses Allura for research

The problem here is, we as an audience don’t have a clear focus on the conflict we only ever feel a general “galra is bad period” conflict that is not strong enough to be a real motive or plausable “why” for the series actions and character development of our heroes and the series story in general, they change direction and focus that the paladins and we as an audience fail to catch up and have the characters do things and stuff that makes no sense at all

Keith, we start with him tryin to be the leader but then Shiro comes back so that pushes Keith away into the Blades only for him to come back to pilot black, Shiro disappears only to come back into his role, Pidge focuses on the threat at hand when suddenly we have an entire episode of her finding her family with it legit starting in a “hey this GENERAL CONFLICT is happening but I need to take a few days” (seriously see the begining of that ep is almost literally like that, I’m really not making it up). Lance swings back and forward from goofball lover-boy to serious team mate to goofball and then back to serious, Hunk, my poor boy gets left behind in development entirely again, and this happens for 3 WHOLE SEASONS, and again, they all go in circles until they end up in the exact same place they hinted at in the beginning of season 3

S7 (Complete Filler)

Problem: Sendak?!

Ok after we stablished our main group of baddies, the royal family pretty much, S7 brings Sendak? A secondary villain that has no depth over Vrepit Sa and Victory or Death? The main drive of the season is that earth is in danger but since this is the focus, all the past 6 seasons feel for nothing, we don’t see anything of the main baddies, the royal family so story wise we don’t get much content per se

We get a lot of the characters’ development and backstory here but this shows how VLD failed narratively, without a clear structure in the headless chicken phase there were never moments to naturally wove in character development into the story (like S1 - S2 showing Pidge slowly getting info of her family as the story progessed without taking the focus of the threat at hand) beause there was no story! we were all confused and runing around like headless chikens from baddie to baddie to really include our heroes stories, so they had no choice but to shove them down our throats in this season

I knew VLDs was at it’s worst when right from the start, the very first episode:

Keith: you have no idea what Shiro’s done for me

VLD: proceeds to show what Shiro did

FFFFFFFFFFF what? This is so so so balantly obvious, as in literal narration, shows how bad VLD got that they just flat out tell you, these little phrases, these nudges of ‘hey hey you remember?’ are meant to be used because you have previously stablished the moment before, an ‘oh yes I remember!’, I read that all those flashback were due to appear back in the start of S2 when Keith and Shiro were wormeholed together and they reminicent a little on their past and bond, but they held back because they didn’t want to put a heavy flashback episode, well they had no choice but make S7Ep1 a heavy flashback episode because they didn’t do it throughout the consecutive seasons, if they had added just one scene, one memory back in S2

“Brused Keith outside of office, clearly he fought someone, Shiro telling him he won’t give up on him”

When we finally arrive at S7 and Keith delivers that line, we know the deep meaning behing it, we feel conected to the show, is the same feeling we get at Marvel movies when they drop a name or a previous event, or when in Justice League Bruce tells Diana about Steve, we feel that, because we know just how loaded that phrase is, in here is just a flat line with no meaning until Voltron shows you in that exact next moment why it has to have meaning, since they went all over the place in the Headless Chicken phase, they had no time to add these things, leaving the creators with no choice but to push important plot things in this filler season and of course, our next and last one

S8 (The Final Choke)

Problem: Haggar, Royal Family

Now here I admit something, I have yet to watch S8 but I’ve spoiled myself enough, comments would be appreciated if I got something wrong.

Not gonna talk on any shipping or the character’s ending, the main problem I see repeat itself is people talking how little there is of the characters, how they go back to square 1 on what their roles are (cook, tech-wiz, fearless leader) rather than the people we saw grow and develop, how there’s little interaction between them and that is pretty much the main reason almost all of us are here (yes there is but is fewer than in other seasons) however the reason is that this season has the job to build up and break down Haggar’s but also the Royal Familys’, despite having 7 seasons it is only now that Haggar gets the full back story and with that tie in the finale, Voltron expects us to be able to focus on the villans and not so much on the paladins (heroes) because, supposedly, they’ve spent 7 seasons telling us who this characters are, what motivates them, what makes them strong, that we no longer need to focus on them that much, meaning we have enough time to give the Royal Family all the story they never had and our heroes just the final touches, the final tie ins that they need to lead them into their epilogue

So that went to shit, unfortunately, by the reactions, they didn’t succeed, they had to drop things, rush things, forcefully add things to give the season a bit of sense and coherence while also adding big robo fights and general stuff like comic moments, bonding and their lay-low/fun episode, it was just a lot and they barely got it

So now on to my main point, the reason VLD has so many plot holes, so many stories that go nowhere is because of that damn headless chicken phase, we wasted time seeing Lotor get to the throne with so many twist and turns, that time should’ve been used to add character development and a coherent story, the story has nothing to focus on, leaving the creators to fill in with sometimes even more things that they should, leaving so many loose ends the audience and even VLD himself can’t keep up, ultimately having to rely on their last 2 season to try and pull it all together, if they succeeded or not is up to you

Also I saw a post saying how VLD built up a world and it’s rules but then did whatever it wanted, making new rules, breaking them or remaking them, there is no logic behind, this also affects the last 2 seasons, since they reach a point were there really is no time left for the resolution, they have to rely on convinient things to solve problems, to make and break rules as they go to try and fix the problem but this can also get confusing and sometimes a little over the top, in S7 they legit say, there’s a lot of crazy science stuff said to make things work, just go with it, pretty much means, don’t think of it too much, we didn’t either, just bask in the glorious thiccness of the Atlas

My fix it is basically to let Lotor become emperor sooner, Zarkon stays dead and Lotors’ defeat to be a season sooner, thus allowing VLD time to develop Honerva

S1 - S2

Those are perfect

S3 - S5

Lotor becomes emperor because he is the rightful heir, he creates a Good Galra but he either

Makes it fake like in the Altean colonies and uses people for making his mega weapon

Threatens the people to tell Voltron they are safe with the Galra (they did something like that at the start of S3)

This gives the Paladins a false sense of trust on Lotor, helping him with getting the material he needed for his ship and the whole Allura thing, ends with his defeat (I would even put Lotor’s squad as the ‘bad guys’, like rebel Galra, so they make Lotor look good but he is directing them, honestly I wanted to see more Paladins VS Lotor’s squad but then they go separate that it never happens again, not all 4 of them at least)

S6

Get back to Earth, basically canon S7, since Sendak is sort of not a main villain, I would start Haggar arc from here the basic info of her plan, it ends with Voltron defeating Sendak

S7 - S8

Start S7 with Honerva’s Robeast we saw at the end of canon S7 (got battle fatigue at the end of canon S7 so putting that last fight to the next season would be great) so that means we get 2 whole season to really flush out what they made in S8, even, EVEN getting a proper Lotor redemption arc were we don’t see his melting corpse

By doing this, you strech the story, give time to focus on what you want to show, I will just talk the only canon pairing, defeating Lotor since S5 gives Allura 3 seasons to get over him and flush out a bit more that ship rather than the rushed out thing we got, give Lance and Hunk more arc, yes I will say it, get the LGBT rep right, focus on the story, show what will help the story, it being how do we defeat this very clear antagonist since we don’t even know who I’m pointing my bayard at, chose what plot you will develop and not put all kinds of plot holes, weave in the character development into the story and not just plaster it into our face because you ran out of time

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk