#also making this it occurred to me that he is QUITE little mermaid coded.

[wombpala]

Cas + animals

Spencer Madsen, My Cat is Sad // Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? // Agustina Bazterrica, Tender Is the Flesh

[polandspringz]

Voltron Legendary Defender Season 2 Review (SPOILERS)

I would like to begin by saying that I was FLOORED by the final battle of the season. THAT WAS A FINAL BATTLE. Although I was worried a lot throughout the fight they were going to end it on some cliffhanger(which they sort of did), it was nothing as intense as last season, but that does not mean the stakes are not high, if not higher than they were at the end of season one. 

First off, I would like to note some of the improvements this season made before transitioning into its flaws. I thought the comedy this time around was spot on. Last season, the show was experimenting with its audience, and while it was enjoyable to older members, it still had a younger, less mature sense of comedy and style. Additionally, season one had a more “edgy” shaky feel to it at certain times, and for first time watchers its fine. However, over a couple of months reflecting on it, and especially in comparison to the new episodes, the previous season does look a bit unstable. Season two managed to fix most of that, the comedic style was varied, with most of the jokes being made by Hunk having the punchline of being overly explained for younger audiences who can appreciate those jokes in succession while the other characters strayed from wisecracks and made genuine jokes that worked within their characterization. The one that made me completely lose it was Pidge’s “Spores Code”, particularly for its delivery. It was made with no eye movement or anything to signify her thinking of it beforehand, and the way she followed its use by a delayed “HAH!” before the scene cut just worked with how the audience processed it, as they would be catching up with the dialogue right alongside Pidge’s realization. (And forewarning, I will be referring to Pidge as “she” throughout the review, but I will get to that later, so I hope that won’t deter you too much).

Secondly, the action scenes in themselves were very well done. The way the art shifted to have those lines across the images during intense scenes (not entirely sure how to categorize them) were seen in season one as well, but they were much more prominent this time. They were used gradually throughout the show, with the monochrome beige and red background and line art being utilized in the most drastic moments helped stress the emotion. Especially in the final fight, I felt like I was watching something from Gainax or Trigger. Also, this is where I talk about the show being less “edgy”. This season’s battles were very high stake, everything was on the line, but the show’s balance of comedy and action drama was so perfect that it let things flow better. I think this is also do to the way the world felt more fleshed out overall. I remember seeing in either an interview transcript or an interview on youtube the creators talking about how in season one, they really enjoyed the Altean language and cultural jokes the show pushed, and that really stuck out in this season. The creators had a whole segment on Pidge studying the Altean language to later on come back to haunt the other paladins when she began to use idioms and jokes unfamiliar to them and there was also the whole way the plot of the “Slipperies” fit into Coran’s small character development. Most of all, the foundations set to give all the new aliens and groups unique comedic personalities stuck out, with the viewer even being given multiple scenes showing Zarkon’s desperation and Haggar’s disapproval. I keep using the same transitional phrases, but overall, I truly do believe that this is what made this season such a treat to watch. The creators stopped keeping the villains to just villains and the aliens to just aliens and made the leap to do simple things like have characters like Slav act quirky and anxious or the security guard who dreamed of being like Zarkon. It just helped world build and immerse the viewer much better than the first season which had this wall of mystique and edge that kept it feeling a bit empty and kid oriented.

Now, onto some of the flaws.

Episode 1, 5, and 13 were my top three episodes from this season, with Space Mall fitting somewhere in between them. Episode one was a good transition between the seasons, it jumped between the different scenes well, had good comedic timing, and built up suspense about Shiro without overshadowing or contradicting too much of the mood of the other scenes. Space Mall had a bit of problems balancing this, because I liked all the subplots in the episode separately, but Shiro and his Black Lion’s arc just did not flow well with the rest of the scenes. Standing alone, it’s amazing,for I had the suspicion from the beginning that they never actually left the castle and the way Zarkon and Shiro had to fight one another with their minds was well done. Yet, the jump into the “mindscape”, as I’ll call it, was very sudden and confusing with Zarkon saying how if they died here they would die for real. (Leaving me to shout at my phone, “IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE”) Generally, my main issue was how we would go from very jocular, joke-riddled and driven scene to one so dramatic that I felt Shiro’s arc should have been placed in another episode. 

Also, this was the season of Shiro. Keith did get a lot of growth with most of the fandom’s theories being confirmed about him, the way the knife tied into it all and such, but from the way the final episode ended, anyone could tell this season was about Shiro. (And the next will probably be Keith’s). One of my favorite things I liked about Shiro’s growth in the show was that he stepped out of the “Dad�� parameters set up around him and seemed like another young guy, not quite on the same level as the other paladins, but he became flawed. After he kept repeating to Keith about patience and keeping calm, I was so excited when Slav appeared because it was so clever to have Shiro develop backwards, in a sense. Rather than having him overcome any flaws for growth, the writers gave him a setting in which he could develop flaws. We can see Shiro get seriously angry when given the right circumstances, and the irony in his statements to Keith help bring this to life even more so. On a side note, I would like the bring up something that might upset the Sheith fans a bit. I feel like this season really established that Keith sees Shiro in a fatherly view, as not only did the animators have the “hologram” Shiro transform into Keith’s dad, but we also saw how similar they designed their eyes and other features (Scar on nose vs. scar on forehead). I was a little worried going into this season because about a week before I had heard some news about one of the creators liking a “Sheith” photo on twitter and everyone blew up about it. I really do not want to see any romance happen in this show, not only for personal reasons but also because I feel like it would not only destroy the fanbase but ruin a lot of the integrity and style the show has just now started to build correctly. To be fair on both sides, the elevator scene with Keith and Lance did make me chuckle (”GIRLS DON’T WANT A VOLTRON SEASON 2 GIRLS WANT A VOLTRON BEACH EPISODE” and I also yelled, “TWO BROS CHILLIN’ IN A HOT TUB, FIVE FEET AWAY...”) but I felt like Keith and Lance’s dynamic wasn’t well established this scene. For me personally, Lance almost came close to be destroyed as a character for me. The elevator scene felt like a bone was thrown to the Klance shippers, and I felt like it contradicted anything we had witness between the two before. Sure, they had a mild spat back and forth, and we got another clip where Lance tells Keith to back off his Lion in a bathrobe and face mask, but then we also got a scene where they “had each other’s backs” and it felt like the writers were just constantly fluctuating their opinions on one another depending on the scene and the tempo of the other characters or for plot advancement purposes without taking time to really delve into how these two characters actually feel about one another as paladins.

Lance’s character problems for me also tie into Pidge’s for this season, as it felt very repetitive in episode two and four for me. I could accept Lance and Hunk’s adventure, but once we got the mermaids in the picture I felt like I was watching Hunk and Shay except with Lance and mermaids. Of course they had different purposes in the story, but when we suddenly got Pidge going to a planet about technology, I immediately felt like the writers were trying to check boxes off character arcs as quickly as possible. Back to Lance though, the one thing I could sort of accept and by pass was the scene with him and Laika (the yupper) where Lance suddenly starts to question his worth on the team. This was a bit random, but I also understand how someone could easily start to overthink things about what others think about them when left pretty much alone, so it worked, especially when Lance proved his abilities later. This was not done for Pidge. Pidge’s planet arc really bothered me only at the end of the episode when she learned her Lion’s true potential. When she first got to the planet, she made a statement about her brother Matt. Later on, when she’s about to activate the Lion’s power, we see her struggling to connect with her Lion and hearing the voice’s of her friends saying how they need her and that helps her focus. This worked with Lance, because Lance had self-doubt before Shiro fixed it by saying “That’s why we bring our sharpshooter.” With Pidge, it was like we had the development with nothing to develop from. If before they had landed on the planet, we had had a moment where Pidge talks about her technology or something or had done something and was mildly brushed off by the other characters, the same effect in Lance’s case would have occurred. We, as the audience, would not have had to been given a whole episode of the paladins being disappointed in Pidge but rather we would just have needed a little nudge about something with how they react to her, like how they react to her using technological or Altean terms. If we had been given a set up in the beginning of the episode to show her being somewhat annoyed, the moment where she hears her friends voices would have been more meaningful as we would have made the connections ourselves. Pidge’s line later at the end of the episode talking about how technology has always been important to her felt empty to. Considering the mention of Matt at the start of the episode, it seemed like they could have used this line to have her elaborate or at least have the audience be shown a flashback or something with Matt that would make her love of technology in the present that much more important or valuable rather than just a quirky aspect of her personality.

Now, I’m almost done, but I haven’t addressed the last part of Pidge’s character.

The bathroom scene.

I’m not here to call this a flaw despite it succeeding my list of flaws with this season. I thought the bathroom scene was well executed for something done for a kid’s show. It really wasn’t concrete clear and offered two interpretations so people could take from it what they will before the writers decide to clarify anything. We are given a scene displaying two bathrooms, both with unfamiliar symbols, but one colored pink, the other blue. Pidge glances between them, and we see a non-identifiable alien emerge, and Pidge says she will “hold it”. I know the majority of the fanbase is jumping on this to show that the writers are saying Pidge is non-binary or genderfluid or trans or such. I personally do not see Pidge as transgender. The reasons behind her posing as a boy at the Garrison are still unclear, as girls are obviously allowed to enroll, and she only raises more suspicion around the people who knew her brother by looking more like them. In my opinion, I saw Pidge dressing like her brother as a coping mechanism for the loss. Looking like him would be a constant reminder to her of what was either lost so she doesn’t forget her mission or it was just a way of making her feel like he was still with her. But, back to bathrooms. I had seen this gif online as a spoiler at first when I took a break between episodes. I was worried they were laying down any definite statements about these characters without fleshing them out, but the bathroom scene also provides two interpretations. If you look at the first half, with the two symbols alone, it makes sense that people can use this to support the Pidge’s gender argument as although the symbols are vague, the colors should be enough to tell her which one is for men or women. Hell, the later scene when Keith walks out of the blue one shows that at least one other Paladin “knows” which one to go in. (I personally could just see Keith saying screw it and taking a chance) However, the thing afterwards, where we see an non-identifiable alien emerge from the “ladies” room, the show also could be saying that Pidge is still confused on which bathroom is which and not which one she feels she should go in. It is easy to also interpret the scene that the colors aren’t enough for her to distinguish, which I think works well for children who are watching the show and wouldn’t fully pick up on all the little things yet. (It’s like that scene in Spongebob where they are in the trench city or whatever?) Regardless of what you view Pidge as, the way the writers portrayed this scene allowing a double meaning was a good choice, as it gave the fans what they wanted while also easing the children and those who are less likely to agree with the gender debate something they could stomach. And hey, if you think that kids should be fully exposed to this early on, consider this scene something they can watch when older and realize the full connotations of if they so choose.

All in all, I’d give Voltron Legendary Defender an 8/10 with the first season at a 7/10.