Hey look, here’s the actual staff saying some of the same shit that I was saying.
I love the show and I love the staff! I think season 7 was fantastic. I think the fact that they felt the need to do this means that a lot of people need to fucking chill. Read a book. Go outside. Do something else for a while.
Voltron spoilers. Not here to cause drama but because I’m a writer and here’s my hot take on and analysis of why I’m decidedly not angry about a certain event.
Adam dying isn’t part of the bury your gays trope.
Adam’s function wasn’t to be a fully realized character, nor was it to get the audience to like him, and it certainly wasn’t to be Shiro’s love interest. Adam’s only function was as a reveal of who Shiro is.
Not only his sexuality but who he is. Adam said “This mission is going to kill you, I’m not going through this again. Pick me or the mission”.
Shiro picked the mission. That tells us something about him, rather it confirms something that we have already glimpsed. It points to an old, old pattern of Shiro’s. “I’m not doing this again,” Adam said. Shiro puts whatever he considers his duty above not only his own life and happiness, but the lives and happiness of others as well. That’s who he is. That’s why he was able to be a paladin in the first place, probably.
Adam’s inclusion in the story wasn’t really about Shiro’s sexuality, any more than his death was part of the bury your gays trope.
Adam died of a completely unrelated trope, old fashioned military leader refuses to listen to new intel and sends men out on an ill-advised mission the audience, and relevant characters, knows will get them killed.
His death was not used for shock value. How can it be in that set up? We already know he would die, that’s part of the trope. There was no building up of happiness or hope or excitement all to come crashing down. Not to mention he and Shiro broke up three years before his death. It was a completely different trope at play.
Did he have to be one of the pilots who died? Not necessarily. But what other role could they give him? He’d already fulfilled his purpose. It’s not as if he was waiting for Shiro to get back, and it’s not as if Shiro thought he would be waiting. Shiro made his choice. He and Adam broke up. Three years is plenty of time to move on. The only function he could have reasonably played would be somewhat bitchy ex, and did we actually need that?
And isn’t giving him some kind of ‘conclusion’ to his story better than using him in one scene and never showing him again? In this way he meant something to the story, both in the very beginning, and towards the end.
Anyway. I know people are almost certainly mad about it but it doesn’t bother me. The opposite of the bury your gays trope isn’t that no gay character ever dies, it’s that they are never killed for purely shock value after leading us to believe there will be a happy conclusion. It’s that their deaths, should they have them, fulfill an actual purpose in the story. His did.
Adam was a fighter pilot on a planet in the middle of a hostile takeover. He died. He would have died whether he was gay or not.
So, anyway, I’m not upset about it. (plus, tbh in my personal opinion, the emotional arcs of the story right now just aren’t set up for romance to be a part of it. there’s a little Allura and Lance but not even much of that – romance just isn’t part of the build-up of this season).
my friend said rolo would prob be vizzini and honestly why nOT
I also just wanted this trio to still be a Trio in this au lmaoo
keith has had a LOT of time to think of threats to the guy who did in his true love ok
I think we all noticed that the only person that even tried to talk to Keith in s4 and remind him of his importance to team Voltron was Allura. It then occurred to me that shewas the only one on the team that suspects Keith greatly underestimates his own importance.
This is not to say that the others don’t care about Keith, but nobody else had any reason to believe that he felt this way. Shiro has paramount trust in Keith’s abilities, Lance thinks he’s got it made because he’s so talented, and Hunk and Pidge don’t even seem to know him all that well.
But Allura was the one there with him in that pod in s2e6 when he talked about how the team needed Allura to pilot the castle ship while brushing off his own importance, and you can bet your life she noticed the stunned looked in his face when she implied the team needed him just as much. I believe it was then when she first realized that Keith’s opinion of himself is so low that he fails to see just how much she matters, even as a paladin.
From the look on Keith’s face, it was obvious that he’d never even stopped to consider it, and that’s something that the perceptive Allura didn’t miss.
She was also there later, s2ep12, when Keith volunteered himself to infiltrate the main galra ship to finish what Thace had started. You can see the shock and concern plainly on her face, especially considering how Kolivan had basically just called it a suicide mission. It affected her enough that she made the decision to approach him by the pods before he left. She took this moment not only to apologize to him for her unwarranted actions earlier but also to remind him that he was indeed cared for.
By this point, I think Allura realizes that Keith’s detachment does not stem from stoicism or lack of caring (she’s seen him care… she was the sole witness of Shiro and Keith’s hug in s2e9) but from his own lack of self-worth. This moment isn’t just about her getting over her personal issues and prejudice against the galra. It’s also about her trying to drive the point home that Keith is important to them, not just as a paladin or resource in this war, but as a person.
And then we see this again in s4e1:
SHE IS THE ONLY ONE TO APPROACH HIM without the intention of scolding him. She probably didn’t know that Keith had almost died, but she did know that Keith lost a comrade. Just from the soft “thanks” that he manages after, you can tell that he hadn’t been expecting that kind of concern and I’m pretty sure she knew that and provided her support as best she could.
She’s worried about the growing distance between him and the rest of the team and she tries to remind him that he’s important. The way she adds “WE cannot” at the end of her statement is deliberate. She wants him to understand that he matters to the team AS A PERSON, rather than just a resource. Sure, he’s important to the mission… but he’s more than that to them.
Keith seems to ponder over this, but the idea probably just seems too farfetched to him. The only person in his life that he thought for sure cared about him was Shiro and their relationship at this point in the series is so degraded that he just can’t fathom it. In his eyes, if Shiro doesn’t seem to care, why would anyone else? (This is not me saying Shiro doesn’t care, by the way. This is just how Keith probably sees it, especially after their last few encounters.) And of course, the distance keeps growing and Allura is the only one that seems visibly concerned and it breaks my heart.
After Keith confirms her worst suspicions.
And that’s when it fully hit her just how unworthy Keith considered himself of being the black paladin, the leader, and that HE WAS PLANNING ON LEAVING. She just looked like her heart dropped when it happened. But Keith’s made up his mind and Shiro gives him his blessing, so all she can do is support him and remind him again that they do care.
TLDR;
Allura was probably the only one aware of Keith’s low self-esteem since s2e6 and she tried her very best to make him see how far from the truth he really was, though Keith never realized this.
A side note, I think if Lotor hadn’t shown up at the end and stopped Keith from sacrificing himself for everyone else, she would have taken it the hardest because she knew exactly what would have been going on inside his head when he made his decision, and she couldn’t stop him.
I REALLY LOVE THIS and I really love Keith and I kind of want to go back and watch the whole sequence of him as the leader again because there was something I strongly picked up on is that Keith isn’t a great leader for Voltron not because he doesn’t have the ability to be but because he’s deliberately sabotaging himself.
Keith really doesn’t think much of his own abilities and his self-confidence is so low that rather than actually try to be good at something he instead acts in a purposefully reckless and irresponsible manner which causes the others to (in their anger about his ‘leadership style’) reinforce what he already things about himself.
I don’t know that he’s even doing it consciously but Keith does set up a number of self-fulfilling prophecies regarding his unsuitability for the role and it breaks my heart because I love him.
Anyway this post is very well worded and it’s not an aspect of this storyline that I’d noticed before so thank you OP! For my life!!!
if you’ve got a bunch of teenagers in space w no access to media they are going to start making their own entertainment so i think that we need to discuss team voltron memes
“where’s [insert team member here]?” “i mean… *looks out window at the stars, shrugs* space, probably”
they keep a tally of every time lance gets rejected by someone and use it to shut him up when he’s getting annoying
“okay i’m gonna stop you there, 37 strike outs”
whenever an alien does something particularly weird pidge loudly hums the x-files theme
lance will do random trust falls “for team bonding.” everyone lets him fall on his ass but shiro
drawing mustaches on random objects and talking to them as if they’re coran
for like two weeks lance refers to keith exclusively through pop culture references
“hey where’s older, angrier Nico Di Angelo?”
“scarless Zuko is in position”
“ayo young Billy Ray Cyrus come spar with me”
loud acapella renditions of The Circle of Life during training sessions
hunk the Hunk™
calling shiro dad but only in the context of petty arguments (“daaaaaad, lance won’t stop touching my stuff”)
*points at something pidge is tinkering with* “is that a calculator”
constant shitting on the castle’s defenses
“after that fight, I think I need a drink, and it better be stronger than that particle barrier”
there’s a month long campaign to catch shiro in the middle of his morning routine to solve the mystery of whether or not he uses eyeliner. but they can never catch him getting up in the morning?? like one time they pull an all nighter and hide in his bathroom and somehow?? he still evades them???
whenever allura enters the room lance yells “everyone act casual” and they all strike ridiculous poses
*lance gets into a Situation and asks keith for help* “I’m sorry I… can’t hear you…. I think the connection’s…… breaking up…………”
exaggeratingly censoring themselves in front of pidge
“oh biscuits and jam I am so darn steamed right now!” “lance shut the fuck up”
my dream for future voltron episodes is that there’s a scene where lance is just chillin in his room talking to himself, probably about something like keith or his role in the team, and he’s just lying on his bed monologuing and then he looks over and he’s like “what do you think kaltenecker?” and it zooms out and kaltenecker is also chilling in lance’s room eating some alien grass and she moos
Lanonima Tumblr Backup 