#vld 1x08

[kcwcommentary]

VLD1x08 – “Taking Flight”

1x08 – “Taking Flight”

“What exactly is a tick?” The ongoing joke this show does over its many odd time units is one that I always enjoy.

“Talking? Eating? Are you asking me out on a date?” Lance asks Allura. Allura responds by crossing her arms, turning away from him, making a facial expression of displeasure, and growling. Once again, she’s showing that she’s not interested in Lance romantically. That the show eventually throws this repeatedly expressed reality out to have the two of them romantically involved in the end is so frustrating. Allura is actively uninterested in Lance. I get the feeling that the show thinks that this is a funny joke. Ha ha, Allura’s upset that Lance is coming on to her, so funny, right? No, it’s not funny at all.

“We had a bonding moment! I cradled you in my arms!” Keith says, with a voice that indicates that it bothers him that Lance is being super dismissive of that moment. Again, I think the show wants us to interpret this as being funny, but it’s more that it makes Lance look like a jerk.

Sendak is being kept in a pod. How he was rendered unconscious in order to be put in the pod is never explained. Last we saw Sendak, he was very much conscious, just trapped inside a forcefield.

“They’ve been under [Zarkon’s] thumb for so long they don’t even know what it is to be free,” Hunk says. Like I said for last episode, the idea that slaves don’t know what the concept of freedom is is absolutely ridiculous.

Pidge tells everyone that she’s a girl. “I can’t man-up. I’m a girl. I mean, I can man-up because that’s just a figure of speech, I don’t have to actually be a man to man-up. I just have to be tough,” Pidge says. While I kind of appreciate that the show is trying to deconstruct the term “man-up,” I can’t ignore that this episode was written by a man, so I’m not surprised to see the show trying to defend the use of the male-centric term. Ultimately, this bit of dialog is all about trying to absolve men from having to be more inclusive when they talk. Just, ugh. Also, Pidge, through accepting the validity of the term, is equating being a man with being tough. Just… no.

Lance is the only one to freak out over learning Pidge is a girl. Hunk and Keith’s casual reaction is nice, but I think I like Coran’s the most: “We were supposed to think you were a boy?”

So, the Castle Ship launches. The ship is a big ship, but we never see it fully staffed. With the show continually building the Voltron Coalition, one might would think the ship would eventually fill its complement of crew, but the show never bothers to do this. Also, the ship launching again makes me wonder how did the ship get partially encased in rock?

Lance’s siren noise: “Rerrn!” Shiro responds by covering Lance’s mouth, saying, “Nope, not doing that.” Thank you Shiro!

Introducing Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer. I really like the visual designs for Rolo and Nyma, but especially Rolo. He looks realistic, yet not too human. That’s a difficult balance in visual designing alien species in space shows. I don’t get why the whole Castle Ship has to land on this moon instead of the use of a smaller shuttle, which would logistically be a lot easier to manage. Lance instantly drools because Nyma says “hi.” I might not be so annoyed by the show’s blatant heterosexuality if the show had treated its queer characters better. As it is, moments like this scream not just heterosexual privilege, but also male privilege that their sexuality is the one given focus. There’s an odd juxtaposition of Pidge reacting toward Beezer the same way that Lance reacts toward Nyma. I doubt the show itself knows what it expects us to interpret with comparing Pidge’s reaction toward a robot with Lance’s sexual interest in Nyma.

Rolo rides the social cues that Team Voltron is anti-Galra in order to manipulate them. Hunk is aggressively suspicious of Rolo. Shiro backs him up, at least. There is a sly quality about Rolo that seems to make his untrustworthiness blatant, but I guess this being a kids’ cartoon that is purposefully downplayed in the characters’ reactions toward him.

Allura asks Rolo for information about the location of Galra forces. This comes back to my comments for 1x05. Team Voltron had been training in use of the Lions and the combined Voltron, partially by kicking around parts of the Galra ship. Pidge and Shiro eventually go to the ship to get some data about the Galra captives as part of Pidge’s search for her brother and father. But why hadn’t they already tried to get information from the ship’s systems on the Galra forces, specifically for the reasons that Allura is asking Rolo now?

Nyma’s manipulation of Lance is annoyingly blatant.

We see Haggar’s Komar Experiment/ritual. (I’m not a fan of the conflation of science and magic with the same action being both an “experiment” and a “ritual.”) “Druids of the Four Directions,” Haggar calls out. Four directions? That’s a very two-dimensional perspective, and not one I would expect from a space-based show. Also, the specifics about who the Druids are, where they come from, etc. is never really explored on this show. They’re basically faceless, bad-guy magic-users. I assume the name Druid is derived from the old version of Voltron?? Anyway, the process seems to involve little more than Haggar screaming and some glowing lights.

What in the world is this planet? It looks like a blossom whose outer petals are blooming. This is not how planets work. The way this planet looks is absolutely, totally ridiculous. Maybe the way this show designs palents should’ve been an early clue that ultimately the show doesn’t care if things make sense.

So, Haggar sucks the quintessence out of an entire planet, killing all the life on that planet in the process. She states that this process is one that allowed them to gain that whole planet’s quintessence a lot faster, that the old way would have taken years. This suggests the Galra have gone around absorbing quintessence from planets a lot over the past 10,000 years. It begins to hint at the issues of sustainability that end up at the heart of Lotor’s arguments in later seasons. But the fact that they’ve been working in such vampiric methods for 10,000 years also calls to question how they’ve been able to sustain their domination and not faced sustainability issues long before now, even if the old methods of quintessence extraction took years to complete. The show also never fully explains what the Galra use quintessence for. We’re supposed to understand it as an energy source, but what is it used to power? Balmeran crystals have already been shown to be the source of a ship’s energy. Zarkon implies that energy production in the past is excessively labor intensive, but all we’ve ever seen the Galra doing is standing around or attacking Voltron.

So, Nyma unsurprisingly tricks Lance, enabling Rolo, Beezer, and her to steal the Blue Lion. The plot of this episode is lacking in originality.

Rolo aims to pilot his ship through the “Zolor Asteroid Belt.” This is a peeve of mine with space shows/films. Asteroid belts are always depicted as being dense areas, but they’re not, at least if we’re going off of our asteroid belt. This is an instance of our space fiction causing people to have glaring misunderstanding of our solar system.

Keith engages in a dogfight with Rolo, missing him with his Lion’s lasers, but somehow has a giant space boomerang that he’s able to hit him with. Where did that come from? And how is it easier to aim and successfully hit a target with it than it is with a direct blaster weapon? This boomerang has not yet been established in this show, and it’s not explained here at all. Keith ultimately captures Rolo single-handedly.

Now that he needs Keith’s help, Lance is less interested in being a jerk over their shared bonding moment like he was at the beginning of the episode. This episode makes Lance seem so stereotypical; he’s definitely had way better moments in other episodes than any of his time in this one.

So, Team Voltron’s reaction to Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer’s betrayal is to leave them stranded on the moon they started out on, telling them they’ll have to wait for someone else to come along and help them. If Voltron is supposed to be trying to behave in a grander, better way, I don’t see how stranding them is a valiant, up-right thing to do. At the least, I would think Voltron would leave them with necessary parts for them to repair their ship, but leave it up to Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer to do that work themselves. Just stranding them and telling them to hope another ship comes along seems cruel.

And the episode ends with Haggar pledging to use a handful of quintessence �� she says “all this quintessence” like she’s planning on using a lot of it, but we’re shown her only holding like a 16 oz. bottle’s worth – to turn a lizard into a Robeast. So, I guess that’s one way to use quintessence.

[ebonynightwriter]

allura + magic // (seasons 1 to 6)

[shiroallura]

it lingers when we’re done, you’ll believe god is a woman.

[lancemccutie]

we feel it too, son. 

we feel it too. 

[mustlovelance]

hey guys i just had a fucking REVELATION and i was going to wait until i’d finished the meta that led to it but I NEED TO SHOUT THIS FROM THE ROOFTOPS AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS

so, in episode 1x08 of 80′s voltron, allura is tricked by prince bokar because she’s smitten with him. as it turns out, he was just trying to steal the blue lion. 

in episode 1x06 of vld, lance is tricked by nyma because he’s smitten with her. as it turns out, she was just trying to steal the blue lion.

however, get this: since episode 1x01 of vld is technically 3 episodes, when you account for that, episode 1x06 becomes episode 1x08.

which means vld directly paralleled the 80′s voltron storyline down to the episode number, except instead of allura being the trusting one who’s eager to fall in love, it’s lance.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN? is it basically telling us that vld lance has taken on 80′s allura’s role? does this support speculations that lance is written like a female character? is this related to why so many people want to see him in a leadership role rather than in the background? 

like, think about it. the female character tends to be friendly, trusting, eager for romance, and supportive of all of her friends. she’s the one who gives her love interest the pep talk that lets them unlock their next power level or whatever.

isn’t that basically lance? 

[shiroallura]

Bonus pics of the team from my comb-through of episode 1x08, “Rebirth”

[shiroallura]

shallura analysis :: 1x08 “rebirth”

Previous analysis: episode one, episode two, episode three, episode four, [no episode five], episode six, episode seven

This episode is definitely a continuation of the last one—with plenty of little Shallura moments to look at. Without further ado, here we go:

In the middle of battle, Shiro and Allura are separated and able to communicate over commlink, however there is a nice little setup to the one quote that gets us more than anything: “I’m not leaving you.” “You have to!” from 1x10.

Allura: We're taking heavy fire up here! We're in trouble! Shiro: Princess, pull back! Get out of its range, now! Allura: We will not abandon you! Shiro: You're not abandoning us. We're about to pull back anyway.

Despite Allura knowing that the Castle cannot handle anymore heavy fire, Allura refuses to “abandon” them, Shiro included (or especially). Shiro is also just as concerned her for wellbeing, and knows that temporarily retreating is the best choice in the current moment, a scenario that Allura also considered in 1x01 of whether to stay and fight on Arus. Both of them are capable leaders who know that retreating is not a sign of weakness, but one of thoughtfulness.

Shiro: (over comm) Coran, Allura, are you there? Allura: Shiro, we're here.

It’s sweet that Allura responds when it could have easily been Coran, and these two using each other’s names instead of something more formal always makes my heart flutter. Within such a stressful situation however, they still make sure to check in on each other, and support each other.

While in the tunnels of the Balmera and trying to devise a plan, the two again show their affinity for helping each other with their ideas. Allura provides an idea and Shiro shows how they can actually execute it. The two make a near-perfect team with similar thought processes in battle.

Allura: Then our time is short. We'll evacuate the planet. We need to get all the Balmerans to the Castle of Lions before the planet implodes. […] Shiro: (over comm) We'll engage the beast in our lions. With it distracted, Allura and Coran will land the Castle and load all of its citizens.

Once the plan is put in action, they are the two to directly notify each other as to what is going on.

Shiro: (over comm) Princess, we've lured the monster away. It's time. Allura: I'll contact you all when I'm on the ground.

Allura: I'm on the ground. Shiro: Hurry! I don't know how long we can hold this thing off.

Shiro is also pretty blunt with her, willing to show fear and express weakness as she did earlier on in the episode. They are both aware of how desperate the situation is, and subsequently, how much they and everyone else are relying on each other. Her face is set with determination to keep Shiro and her Paladins, as well as all the Balmerans, safe.

Allura risks her life twice in this episode, once just getting down to the Balmera, and the second when healing it. Yet despite being completely cognitive of the danger she is placing herself in, Allura shows no fear. What an amazing role model and amazing woman.

Lastly, Shiro is the first to notice that the new robobeast Haggar has thrown their way is endangering the Castle, and knows that they need to protect it, and Allura by extension.

Shiro: We've got to defend the Castle! Everyone, follow me. Form Voltron!

He is also the Paladin who draws attention to Allura’s mighty, selfless display of strength in healing the Balmera. 

Unfortunately there’s not a good shot of Shiro’s reaction to Allura being so weakened afterwards (due to the sudden almost attack of the Robobeast), however, he is the closest after Shay and Coran and runs towards them, so obviously he is very concerned for his princess.

Bonus space parents looking beautiful (as always):

Feel free to request/use these screencaps!

[mustlovelance]

the dynamics between keith, allura, and lance have been a cornerstone of the franchise since the 80′s. vld has switched things up in a lot of ways, kept other things the same, and thrown new things into the mix, all culminating in the question--what are they trying to tell us? 

in 80′s voltron, it went like this: lance was keith’s right-hand man and best friend, and allura’s biggest supporter and arguably best friend who had a crush on her. keith and allura were each other’s close friends and romantic interests, as of season 3. golion was pretty much the same, except kogane and fala had a strictly platonic relationship by the end. 

you could also describe their dynamic in the same way in voltron 3d and voltron force. the only difference is that keith and allura weren’t dating in voltron 3d.

vld appeared to be a departure from this, but those dynamics didn’t last. 

in season 1, it went like this: lance was keith’s “rival” and frienemy and allura’s biggest annoyance who had a crush on her. keith and allura didn’t really have a distinct relationship at that point. 

however, in season 3, it went like this: lance was keith’s right-hand man and best friend, and allura’s biggest supporter and arguably best friend who had a crush on her. the one part that seems flexible is whether keith and allura are explicitly romantically involved, but they were closer by this point. setting that aside, the trio has reverted to the dynamic that’s been present in the past three versions of voltron.

in terms of characterization, each of them has switched their role with another. 

the responsible leader: 80′s keith-->vld allura the mediator: 80′s allura-->vld lance the rogue element: 80′s lance-->vld keith

although their (simplified) dynamics are essentially the same, their actual roles and personalities have switched around. the rogue element is not the responsible leader’s right hand anymore; instead, the mediator is the rogue element’s right hand. 

the most interesting switch, in my opinion, is the one between 80′s allura and vld lance. 

in episode 1x08 of 80′s voltron, allura is tricked by prince bokar because she’s smitten with him. as it turns out, he was just trying to steal the blue lion.

in episode 1x06 of vld, lance is tricked by nyma because he’s smitten with her. as it turns out, she was just trying to steal the blue lion.

to make things even more interesting: accounting for the first episode actually being 3 episodes combined, the vld episode was also technically 1x08. basically, allura and lance get tricked in 80′s voltron and vld respectively during the exact same episode. i doubt that was mere coincidence. 

furthermore, it was 80′s allura, not 80′s lance, who struggled with insecurity regarding their place on the team and associated piloting the black lion with being worthy. 80′s allura felt inadequate compared to sven, the original blue lion pilot, and thought she could prove herself by taking keith’s black lion. what upset her in the aftermath was that she endangered her friends more than anything, which is also very lance. 

despite this, it’s vld lance who’s allura’s cheerleader and keith’s right-hand man. 

and it was 80′s lance, not 80′s keith, who ran into situations without thinking them through. 

and it was 80′s keith, not 80′s allura, who took on a pragmatic leadership role.

essentially, vld has shaken up K/A/L’s roles, but not their relationships with each other. the most closely-mirrored relationships, however, involve lance. 

the shifting roles and personalities in vld are still based on the 80′s source material, even if not in the same arrangement. however, vld has introduced two entirely new elements: parallels between allura and keith’s characters, and parallels between lance’s dynamics with each of them. 

although keith and allura have had their share of conflicts, they parallel each other frequently and have a lot in common. 

both of them said goodbye to their fathers in scenes that are visually framed the same way. not only that, but this farewell was a choice they made, choosing the greater good over false versions of their fathers. 

when allura tried to encourage keith to accept a search for a new black paladin, she drew attention to the fact that they’ve both experienced loss.

because of their ancestry, they’ve forced burdens upon themselves. keith is terrified that he’s meant to join the galra because his mother was part-galra, so he does not want to live up to her perceived legacy. on the other hand, allura desperately wants to carry on in her father’s footsteps to win the war against the galra. 

when keith tried to convince allura that the AU alteans were evil, he referred back to allura’s apology. 

both of them tried to leave the castle in the middle of the night when they thought they might be responsible for zarkon tracking them down. that kind of impulsive self-sacrificing attitude is something they share. 

even the fact that both of them assumed that zarkon could track them created a parallel, regardless of their reasoning.

they are both shown to be completely willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. 

in fact, they both tend to think in terms of the greater good--it was the basis on which keith wanted pidge to stay, and on which allura wanted keith to stay. it’s probably also why allura specifically mentioned the greater good when trying to reach keith. she must have noticed that he operates under the same mindset. 

when allura imitated lance while trying to bond with blue, it didn’t come naturally to her. however, when allura was given the role of keith, her annoyance at the situation manifested such that she made for a passable keith. after the fact, allura was still not happy to be compared to keith, someone with whom she shares many traits, but she was excited to look at things from lance’s perspective. 

all of this only makes keith and allura’s conflict during season 2 more interesting. although allura is altean and keith is part-galran, they actually have a lot in common, most notably their focus on the greater good. keith seems oblivious to these similarities, and allura seems annoyed by it, but we’ll see how that develops as the seasons progress. 

what i find the most interesting, however, is how their relationships with lance parallel each other.

both of them have a “meet cute” scenario in their first encounter. in both cases, it goes from lance helping them-->lance introducing himself-->the other person not being remotely impressed. clearly one of these scenes is framed in a romantic light, but they’re still the same setup. 

after their first encounter with lance, both keith and allura were annoyed by the superficial dynamic that lance pushed on them. for keith, it was rivalry. for allura, it was romance. however, keith got into it as early as episode 2, whereas allura was consistently annoyed by lance’s antics. 

the bonding moment can be compared to the scene in season 4 in which lance helps allura up. in this case, lance’s role is reversed. the cradled becomes the cradler. however, the bonding moment involved more intimate interaction: holding hands, smiling at each other, talking, soft music, etc. whereas lance helping allura up was more of a quick, quiet little moment in which allura was too distracted with their life-or-death dilemma to smile back at lance.

lance’s expression when talking about the future mrs. blue lion (who turns out to be allura) is the same expression he wore when describing keith to laika. visually, this ties lance’s feelings about both of them together. 

lance was not happy about the idea of keith and allura being “with” each other. again, it ties his feelings about both of them together.

in two instances, it was lance who disagreed with keith, who was thinking of the greater good, and insisted that they should go back for allura, who is also primarily concerned with the greater good. 

although it may have pained lance to do so, he offered support to allura and keith, both of whom piloted lions that he wanted. (bonus: "and you should too” rhymes with “i’m glad it was you.”)

additionally, allura offering support to lance was shown with the same gesture as lance offering support to keith and with the same reaction by the recipient. this is another role reversal that still positions lance as the common factor. 

during the same fight, lance stopped what he was doing to smile at allura for her awesome skills, and keith stopped what he was doing to smile at lance for his awesome skills (and almost got his ass kicked for it lol). this is another case of role reversal in which lance is the common factor. 

it was lance’s words that inspired keith to accept his leadership role over time, and it was lance’s words that inspired allura to unlock her abilities. 

lance is a supportive figure in both keith and allura’s lives. the key difference is that lance responds well to allura’s attempts to reciprocate that support, whereas he doesn’t seem to recognize that keith is reciprocating it in his own way. 

ah, and how can we forget the Bonding Moment? i don’t interpret this as a particularly strong parallel, considering the wildly different framing and context (and no, i don’t think lance hugging himself=keith cradling him, or lance putting his hands together to simulate the concept of “welding”=keith holding his hand). however, that phrasing is very unique within the series. only lance has said that in canon (shiro said it in a valentine’s day card), and he’s only said it to keith and allura. so, hmmmm. 

essentially, not only do keith and allura parallel each other as individuals, but they also parallel in terms of their relationship with lance. they’re all tied together in some way. 

even when keith was in trouble at the BoM base, it was allura and lance’s reactions that were given focus. 

what’s the significance of all of this, in terms of the pivotal trio of the franchise? keeping the dynamics intact despite switching the roles, paralleling keith and allura as characters, paralleling lance’s relationships with each of them... logically, it would make sense that lance would have a parallel dynamic with two characters who parallel each other. however, this extends beyond the content of the scenes into the visuals. as you’ve seen, the framing and positioning they intentionally chose to utilize for these scenes often mirror each other. furthermore, we know that lance will be getting a romance arc (slow-burn?), and keith and allura are the two characters with whom he has the most significant scenes and development thus far.

personally, i’d love if the answer to this was “they all belong together forever, the end", but we know that DW wouldn’t allow such an ending. regardless, their potential dynamic as a trio is pretty interesting. lance could keep allura and keith’s impulses in check and diffuse any arguments that stem from their similarities, allura could resolve emotional conflicts that she picks up on and keith doesn’t (likely because lance is upset about something and keith has no idea), and keith could...let them play with his hair or something.