Netflix's Voltron: Legendary Defender

So Keith IS half human, but from where that half is has yet to be revealed.

The WMG section mentioned the possibility of him being Filipino given the popularity of giant robot shows likes Voltes V and Daimos. I wouldn't mind that because it's not a group seen often in shows like this, and the guy is a rather blatant Expy of the main hero of Voltes V.

Pidge is Italian. Seeing as people beat me to the Mario jokes, what about The Godfather jokes? Or at the very least Goodfellas jokes? Anyone? Pidge is about as tall as Joe Pesci.

Hunk is 100% Samoan, huh? Part of me was wondering if they were going to make him half Samoan, half Japanese. Would be a way to keep the name "Tsuyoshi."

We knew Lance was Cuban, but it hasn't really come up in the show.

I don't like any of these revelations. Fan Discontinuity for me.

The ages and ethnicities?

Shiro being apparently full Japanese is interesting, because I remember Lauren Montgomery tweeting that she would like a live-action Shiro to be played by this half-Norwegian half-Japanese model, and they confused him for Sven. Could be it was a joke about Sven's Race Lift though, that Sven is still ethnically Japanese despite the name and accent, and that's it though.

Ethnicities bother me less than the ages, but some *cough*Pidge*cough* feel like the writers pulling them out of their asses. Or at least drawing them from a hat and being like Sure, Why Not?.

The age thing should have been abandoned entirely, it was stupid to bring it back in any way shape or form.

edited 9th Aug '17 8:49:31 AM by PhiSat

How dare characters have a canonical age. Think of the poor shippers who will be barely affected!

More like you shouldn't fuel the flames of crazy "fans" who have already shown they will do despicable things to each other over stupid shit like canon ages.

Then don't do anything with any fictional creation because every goddamn fandom is awful. Voltron's is awful, Steven Universe's is awful, Rick and Morty's is awful, MLP's is awful, etc.

The ages are canon. Pretending they aren't doesn't get rid of them.

This is the background of the hand jokes by the way.

I'm honestly just glad to have new info. Fandoms in general have always been terrible. The most toxic just have been more of the "threaten creator because they don't do what we want" until recently. Nowadays people also go after fan content creators for reasons that are honestly just a front for your run-of-the-mill fandom wank (ship wars and popularity, mostly). I just ignore them and do my own thing, but I get how it can be annoying to people.

Anyways, I wonder if any of the paladins are immigrants, first/second generation, just studying at the Garrison or are american with their respective ethnicity going quite a few gens back (the surname "Holt" does imply Pidge to be the latter, at least)

I'd have prefered they hadn't confirmed the ages because I suspect the more we learn about the characters, less sense they are going to make. Scratch that, other than perhaps Pidge "lied my way into the Garrison" Gunderson and Takashi "barely holding the suspension of disbelief" Shirogane none of those ages make sense.

I wonder why they don't tell us Lance and Hunk' surnames. Their nationalities aren't a secret after all.

You know Hunk isn't his real name, or his parents had one hell of a sense of humor.

I'm surprised about the last names, but maybe they plan to reveal them in show. I know fans were arguing (yes, I know) about Lance having his name from Devil's Due, Mc Clane. Which isn't very Cuban sounding.

OK, that Italian hand thing is pretty funny. I was hoping they'd put Shiro a year or two younger, and all the other paladins up by a year, even if it's a small change, just to reduce most of the fandom bitching. Because the creators know by now just how bad it is, having been on the direct receiving end of it multiple times.

Other than that though, I noticed on another batch of scans that Sendak was described in present tense without indication that he died, unlike Prorok. Which suggests he might come back after all? He was the most compelling minor Galra villain, since the rest mostly ended up being villain of the week types.

Given that for a bunch of half-Galran's Lotor and his Quirky Miniboss Squad all show strong signs of their Galran heritage, I suspect that Keith is more than half human.

Dunno. The pink one doesn't show much... Galraness. Nor the blind one, for that matter, but it's hard to judge without knowing what his other half looks like.

To be fair, of all the part-galra shown until now, only Zethrid has that "galra" look (purple kinda bat/cat mixed with kinda reptilian). Acxa looks like a purple elf, Narti has a tail and no eyes, Lotor looks a lot like his mother, only with purple skin, and Ezor and Keith don't look even remotely galra.

There's also the fact that unlike other galra, only the hybrids and Past Zarkon are shown having pupils (not even the Blade has them). I'm not sure if that means anything, but it's something I have noticed.

edited 9th Aug '17 11:20:09 PM by DemonDamian

Galrans are diatinct enough that it isn't impossible she does resemble an unseen Galran. And Antok a is shown with a tail so who knows how varied the race is.

Could be a sign of the Blade of Marmora being more inclusive than the regular Galra, since they'll accent mixed-race aliens like Keith and possibly Antok while Lotor's scene shows the Galra look down upon them.

I mean it's possible that human genetics are dominant compared to those of the Galra and that's why Keith looks more human than any other mixed race characters.

I checked to be sure, and Ezor retains the yellow sclera seen amongst several Galrans including Zarkon before quintessence and Lotor. All half Galrans have a very clear trait we've seen on Garlans who have not been stated to be only half.

I highly doubt it, especially when so many things are being kept secret about his mother. There's clearly more to it.

Maybe she did an alchemy on him

I just realized a big deal is made about Pidge being too short to fit in Black Lion's cockpit despite her predecessor being considerable taller than she was.

Yes? And? Being taller he'd not be too short of the cockpit.

I mean, Pidge is the shortest member of the team.

So ignoring the characterization for the moment, am I the only one who found most of the fights this season really boring? The flashback between Voltron and what looked like Lilith was pretty cool, (and seems to hint at the final villain being some sort of native being of the Quintessence dimension) but it's just the Lions vs fighter jets rinsed and repeated. If you wanted to do nothing but the Paladins fighting, why even have the robots?

I feel like in a lot of cases, we're told about why the robots are awesome, without seeing it. I know this is supposed to be tonally more akin to LA than Super Robot Wars OG, but they hype the lions up so much and don't show why Voltron is awesome.

edited 10th Aug '17 10:41:29 AM by Beatman1

Well, they couldn't even form Voltron in the first place for half the season. But I did notice that the animation seemed to take a hit in general and there were a lot of scenes where they cheated by sliding still frames around Inferno Cop-style. Even the on-foot sequences were a little less interesting than usual. I suspect action scenes might not have been as high in priority due to all the plot progression going on. I hope it's not because of a drop in budget or the accidental tour leaks screwing with their development.

Also is it me or did this season seem to up it in the ratings a bit? It's always been and will be a show that's meant for all ages including younger children. But the scenes of Honerva/Haggar's decay into madness and death, and a lot of the material in "Shiro"/Kuron's episode, especially the torture and experimentation and the possible implications of Cloning Blues, seems considerably darker than in previous seasons. Also I believe Alfor is the first character we've seen dying onscreen as opposed to falling into the abyss, exploding, or being implied like Raht's. Likewise what the Alteans do to create noncogs is also pretty gruesome.

Hoping it means the show is willing to delve into heavier stuff in general, as the increase in maturity level is probably why I enjoyed this season as much as I did.

edited 10th Aug '17 11:04:28 AM by AlleyOop