I've already reported it on ATT over here
, as I have reason to think Opal 1249 is a sockpuppet of Axwi 07 who did the same exact thing.
As for Heterosexual Life-Partners, the main trope page for it points out that the characters themselves don't have to be heterosexual for it to count. So it can stay, as no matter how Ho Yay or not a given relationship between two same-gender characters may be to fans, the official depiction remains this, and this wiki is about covering text rather than subtext.
Edited by AlleyOop
Oh boy, they're at it again. Any way to summon them to this page or the ATT thread? Not that I expect them to take any heed.
Edited by AlleyOop
I suppose we can only re-add it and hopefully someone higher up will notice there's an editorial war going on.
Does anyone else think the Not Love Interest trope doesn't really apply to Shiro's folder? I mean this isn't even my opinion, the showrunners(Before certain fans cried out in backlash over Adam's death) even said that people could interpret them either romantically or platonically. Also, The way Keith sees Shiro doesn't quite fit the context of familial or mentor. He was willing to die(and doom the universe) with Shiro(Or clone Shiro). Finally, one last thing that really doesn't make the trope seem right, is Word of God explicitly stated that they were comparing Keith to Adam, and how while Adam(Shiro's ex-boyfriend) wouldn't stay, Keith would. You don't compare someone who's only a 'little brother' to someone you've dated.
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This is a Shipping Goggles-free page. Knock it off. If you want to talk about it put it in the Ho Yay page (although I'll likely axe anything that relies on external material or particularly strained interpretations of the show's text).
As the person one who originally put The Not-Love Interest there as well as the respective entry in the Ho Yay page, I definitely understand where the shippers are coming from. I'm a fan of Bucky Barnes who is also famously The Not-Love Interest. But just as it was there, unless there's strong textual indication that either were deliberately intended to be romantic as opposed to just friends (and not the result of the Shipping Goggles that plagues every malfested corner of this fandom) it belongs in this trope. It's not like you need canon confirmation to ship, and the people who believe this are a plague on modern fandom.
At most you could argue that it's a bit of Relationship Writing Fumble. I too was confused exactly what the deal was with their relationship was since the show took its sweet damn time getting there. But it doesn't matter how much Ho Yay they get together or even if the show were to present them as a literal inch from kissing, it was established very early on that their relationship is textually non-romantic. Any parallels with Adam are either accidental and the result of the show's known Writing by the Seat of Your Pants issue or the result of the original version of the scene that made it past the censors where Adam was platonic friends with Shiro, prior to the go-ahead that allowed them to use the version of the scene they had to discard before getting to this compromised version.
And those staff comments are the standard PR Shrug of God. Likely referring to the fact that the two were originally supposed to end the series unattached (along with every single other character who isn't Lance). They made similar comments about fans being free to interpret Keith/Lance as they wish even as they sunk it. If ship fans got hyped up for a prospective canon romance between Shiro and Keith then it's their fault for reading too much into generic PR speak, not the creators for making those comments.
Uhm, I hate to be the one to bring this up, but as a party with no horse in this race, Nex's comment was pretty inocuous to result in such a brash "knock it off" reaction. I get the point you're trying to make, but the way you're making it kind of compromises your entire point because it makes it seem in a bit... "lady doth protest too much".
I think Nex does raise certain points worth ruminating, at the very least, and dissing them as "shipping goggles, knock it off" is not fair towards them or this fandom.
Fair enough. I was going off some of their edits in the YMMV page which were more heavily shipping-slanted.
Either way, even if people might read Keith and Shiro's relationship as ambiguous, the fact that they're not an overt couple and have an obvious "platonic alibi" so to speak is why I believe Shiro should remain as The Not-Love Interest. If they're absolutely insistent on me doing something about it I can add an entry to Shrug of God, although it's such a mealymouthed comment that I don't find it worth including any more than the Shrug of God regarding Shiro's sexuality (that he's officially gay and exclusively so, but that doesn't mean people are committing a crime or deserve to be harassed for pairing him with women, which really should be People Sit On Chairs for people with a basic moral compass), nor do I consider it validation of the romantic reading of the ship.
Literally all they actually said is that they can't control if fans read them as romantic or familial or platonic. That's as noncommittal of a response as can get. Whatever ambiguity existed between their relationship was due to the fact that both were originally supposed to remain single, not that the creators were surreptitiously Getting Crap Past the Radar to imply that they were together.
Edited by AlleyOop
I'm sorry if my question seemed shippy? But you have to admit the change in their friendship from season 7 to season 8 made you go, "huh?" It made no sense to me how they stated in an interview, "When Shiro recovers, the relationship between him and Keith will become stronger." When they already were close as friends could possibly be. Season 8 made that a blatant lie. They couldn't even be friends anymore because Shiro was gay now, don't want fans to assume Keith is too. The Will they or won't they type Trope is still on Princess Bubblegum's profile and that was referring to Finn when she's with Marceline. Edit: And by stronger they obviously meant so strong that they are upgraded to Coworkers who barely say hi to each other.
Edited by LogicNex
I do concede that their relationship is written kind of strange (hence why a Relationship Writing Fumble entry is worth considering) and that tweet made me do a double take as to whether they might consider it, but as it was likely made by an intern I figured it was likely cheap PR speak similar to the comments about seeing more of Adam.
The fact that Shiro couldn't be friends with anyone male did indeed stick out to me like a sore thumb given his focus in the previous seasons, and it is something I pointed out in the forum thread, but I doubted it had anything to do with the fact that Shiro is gay. Seasons 7 and 8 were written and animated before they got the go-ahead to confirm him as such so that wasn't a motivator.
It's more of a symptom of the last season's general decrease in writing quality such as its ignoring of major plot threads or how sterile the relationships feel between anyone save for Lance and Allura, rather than malice or any attempt at a shut-down due to fear of no-homo (besides, Keith always came off to me as a character unfit for romance in general, hence why I reiterate that Shiro is The Not-Love Interest, because he's the closest anyone can come in light of Keith's inability to retain a traditional one).
The fact that Shiro's time as the former Black Paladin seemed Retgone in favor of Keith who only assumed the position out of necessity seems like the larger problem and the source of the dropped ball when it came to his friendship with Keith (and the others for that matter).
Edited by AlleyOop
They retgoned everything, hell, what was with the Paladins they seemed...Lifeless and bland. Also, I thought the Almighty god of the universe, BOB, was stated to make people who meet him meant for greatness? Still not Sure why Shiro wasn't there, but Allura was there! Where was her 'greatness'? That ending didn't even seem great at all. Yeah, there are just a lot of problems with season 8, but killing the female character who's black, then making the LGBT character retire at a very young age when he seemed to be happy working? Yeah, people don't like being lied to or hurt. Also, thank you for explaining why the trope was used for Shiro.
Edited by LogicNex
but here's the thing if you're going to market a show for the LGBTQ+ community on Netflix, maybe don't end your series like that whereafter there is so much development between certain characters, you decide to Retgone it and then butcher the main characters' personalities and try to give literal crumbs as rep. Just saying, bad move on their part.
I admit the last scene is pretty laughable representation as well as tonally inappropriate in general, and they were guilty of trying to have your cake and eat it too when it came to Adam, but the creators themselves didn't really market it towards LGBTQ+ audiences nor did they claim it was aimed at them other than that they may be able to get some representation in there somewhere. That's largely on fans pestering them about it, somehow convincing themselves that Voltron was a show for the LGBTQ+ community as opposed to a show that just happened to acquire a large LGBT Fanbase, and thus setting themselves up for unrealistic expectations. As well as Netflix engaging in some legitimate queerbaiting and exaggeration of Adam's importance (they've been known to racebait as well, by deliberately creating misleading posters to pass whites-dominated shows as focused on black characters), not the staff.
I don't remember them outright lying about Allura or Shiro aside from the "we promise not to do a repeat of Korra's forced romance" comments. They admitted that the scene with Curtis was an ill-advised Author's Saving Throw and obviously not part of their original intentions, so I wouldn't count that as a case of Lying Creator, just out of touch. Although their dramatic embellishment of the relationship between Shiro and Adam knowing his only other scene was a cheap death and that there was no way their relationship was originally written to be as profound as they tried to pass it off as being is definitely some kind of faux pas.
Edited by AlleyOop
Also, I believe Adam's only importance was that comparison(AS SHIP BAIT-Y as it is) and they were gonna have him die anyway because of Galra Invasion.
Well, they did intend for Shiro to be gay as early as season 2, but that was when they originally were going to go by other Voltron series and kill him off but didn't because he was so popular with the fans. Then, he was revealed to be gay and he became such a positive symbol and then season 8 scrapped that entirely.
And now that I'm thinking over it, I do believe a Relationship Writing Fumble entry is needed because WTF were they doing? Oh, we are supposed to interpret that Keith is straight' has no interaction that can be seen as romantic with a female aside from ship-tease with Acxa and even then he was annoyed by when Zethrid and Ezor even thought of that. The way Shiro and Keith interact in general just. I do 'love' how they seem fine and not traumatized from the fight they had. Like it was nothing big.
Also, I'd like to apologize for my shipping bias in YMMV page. But I have a question. Is it normal for multiple languages to get the wrong meaning of a scene? The Black Paladin's which is arguably the best ep of the season, if not the series(It was nominated for something I forgot). So, I'm going to ask don't translations in other languages know the writing of the story and wouldn't they have been informed of the nature of the character's relationships with each other(IE Keith and Shiro). I'm not saying this with shipping goggles(Honestly, it's impossible for Shiro and Keith because they have so much development and moments that goggles aren't even necessary, no offense).
I'm asking how does the translation into other languages go for Voltron: Legendary Defender? Do they just give the script to the other countries and have different V As translate the dialogue in their language? I know, I'm making no sense, but here's the issue...people, like me, interpreted that I love you as romantic, they tried to No-Homo it with You're my brother before it. However, why did languages for example German, Japanese, French, Portugeuse, and Finnish languages interpreted the scene as Romantic and use the strongest romantic forms of I love you German: Ich Liebe Dich Finnish: rakastan sinua Japanese: Aishiteru Portuguese: Eu te Amo French: je t’aime I did research these are ALL the translation from The Black Paladin episode...these are all the languages that used the Romantic interpretation of I love you...What the hell. Every language(English is ambiguous) except Spanish on Netflix translate that into I love you in a romantic way?! Now I'm not bringing this up for ship bias, even then I'm just in the opinion, 'if you want a gay wedding you have an obvious choice to pair with Shiro' THIS? How could this be a translation error?
I was really hoping that the number of languages on VLD would be more so this could only be an assumption, but no, apparently every language with a different way of saying I love you, except Spanish(Because no homo), saw that when Keith said I love you he was confessing his real love apparently...it basically wasn't a platonic confession in writing apparently. I have a headache from trying to find a way to rationalize this. So, every other language saw this scene or read this script and wrote out their translations and they were approved. I need help here...I'm serious I'm not even trying to do this for shipping bias, I legitimately thought, 'maybe there is like thirteen translations on Netflix VLD,' to see why 5 languages decide to use explicitly romantic ways of saying I love you... In fact, if there is ever a trope for Relationship Writing Fumble Shiro and Keith have to be pic because apparently, as you said these two were not intended to get together, yet their whole relationship...looks like a Love story...and this is before it's revealed Shiro's gay. Again, I'm not doing this for ship wank. I really want help rationalizing what the hell happened. Because at the end of day, Shiro and Curtis are the Official Couple, so we have to assume it was platonic, but...You'd think they'd go over these translations and tell them that it's platonic and not romantic...
Well, as someone who watched the whole show in ship neutral mode, my impression of Keith has always been that the show is textually trying to present him as a Celibate Hero disinterested in romance, hence why he showed no interest in Allura during that one scene in Season 2. Now, Shiro may be utilized in the ways traditional love interests are, perhaps because they needed to find something to do with him after being told they had to keep him, and figured replicating the already-successful Steve/Bucky relationship formula would make for easy pathos, but that doesn't mean he's actually deliberately intended to be the love interest. This happens in media all the time. It's not evidence that they were baiting or throwing in Ship Tease, and many of these examples do not go on to be popular ships in canon. Per trope description:
This trope points out that certain roles and dynamics are frequently shared between the hero(ine) and the Love Interest, or that characters in these dynamics frequently evolve into a Love Interest. With media featuring a male-female duo, a teased or obvious relationship is so common it can be a surprise when expectations of romance are Averted or Subverted.
Literally all it means is that love interests are strongly associated with certain kinds of tropes often but not exclusively, and which non-love interest characters may also fall into from time to time. It might sound circular, but the only thing that makes a character a love interest is that they're a love interest, and use any of the explicit love interest tropes, none of which Shiro and Keith use; there's also the inversion where such official love interests will not use the typical tropes associated with such characters, but that doesn't make them any less of the love interest, nor does it necessarily mean they were Strangled by the Red String.
It's just a thing that happens, but VLD unfortunately has a portion of fandom who are entirely consumed by ships (and this is sadly not limited to the two main Sheith/Allurance and Klance/Shallura/Adashi fleets). On the other hand, there's a lot of people who don't watch the show with Shipping Goggles on or pay close attention to media tropes like I do will not see Shiro and Keith's relationship as romantic (of course, I'm discounting the people who aggressively try to shut down their relationship as purely platonic because of their own shipping biases or because they aggressively hate all same-gender ships, while they definitely exist and do edit these pages they're completely irrelevant), or conversely in the case of some of my friends, they ship them but haven't gone to the point of mistaking them for implied; don't apply your Fan Myopia to others.
As for the language thing, it's come up before, but the languages in question have a similar issue to English in that they too are somewhat ambiguous in nature. It's a fan misconception that they are. What it is correct to say is that those other versions of "I love you" are more intense and often saved for romantic relationships as a result, and may carry some subtext in some cases as a result, but not exclusively so. For example "aishiteru" can and is used familially, such as from a mother to her son, or between two platonic best friends, and same for the other language variants. English is the unusual one for using the same word "love" for both intense and casual feelings as opposed to splitting it like the other languages do. So the translation is correct, in that Keith's feelings are intense, but as to say whether they're specifically romantic or not is beyond the scope of the script. The "brother" comment suggests it's not and nothing contradicts that.
In the extremely unlikely case that one of them was deliberately romantic, then it's just the case of a rogue translator Shipper on Deck, but even so, it'd not be reflective of authorial intent. Just someone down the line projecting their own bias onto the work, as translators are wont to do.
Regarding my own consideration of Relationship Writing Fumble I was thinking that while The Not-Love Interest may factor into it somewhat, it's more the generous nebulosity of their brother-friendship relationship. How long did they know each other for and why, and how close were they to each other, were they acquainted beforehand, and how much after? A lot of that was answered after Season 7 but it's still something that took a frustrating amount of time to get to, by which many fans had formed their own oblique and ridiculous assumptions beforehand. Both the idea that Shiro and Keith were ex-lovers and that Shiro literally adopted Keith into his family or that they're blood brothers being some of the extreme incorrect ones.
Edited by AlleyOop
But these are the official languages that translated the ep. So there has to be professionalism no matter what. Aishiteru is the strongest form of I love you in Japanese you DON'T use it between family members or in fact, anyone really? You could've used Daisuki that means I love you, but can be applied in a very ambiguous way, Aishiteru is something that many do not use because it is a very powerful way of saying I love you and rarely if ever is used between friends or family. Everyone who knows Japanese knows that Aishiteru isn't used just for something to be ambiguous and not real love. Even still, they have to have had some people who looked over these carefully. No matter how much the staff may have shipped it, they wouldn't let it influence their story. So for other translations to use only romantic interpretation of 'I love you' and still get approved? And I feel like this would feel like such a slap though in non-English fans' eyes. For German translation, people kept saying "you don't say that to your friend or brother!" Why couldn't they have just used Ich habe Dich Lieb?
So, by the logic of this scene in the ep, If I were someone who had to translate this and they didn't tell me anything about the nature of their relationship I would look back at everything in the series and have to come up with my own interpretation of how much they meant and I think maybe the reason they made it so that any interpretation of I love you would be valid is because they wanted to keep this ambiguous and originally Shiro didn't have to an endgame couple and would be single. I feel like they would've said something if it were a rogue translator because this was before they revealed that Shiro was Badass Gay(Season 8 took the Badass part away harshly). Aww, But I love that Shiro adopted Keith...even though he had terminal illness and wouldn't be eligible to adopt and Keith was already a teenager anyway, so what would be the point?
Edited by LogicNex
You're getting way too worked up and reading too much into the show and Shiro's originally planned outcome that isn't really there. I implore you to calm down, because it's making your posts difficult to read and parse.
They can't have looked over the translations too closely, because they never got around to recording the romantic version of Adam and Shiro's conversation since it became good evidence of how Shiro and Adam's relationship was censored and Shiro wasn't going to be anything more than Ambiguously Gay for most of the show's run.
"Aishiteru" has been used for familial relationships plenty of times before. Between Naruto and his mother for example, and obviously they're not saying that she's in love with him. It's real love, just not necessarily the romantic kind. I've put the question about "I love you" in other languages to people who did speak them but were not involved in VLD shipping in order to get a non-biased viewpoint and they explained to me that it can be used for nonromantic contexts too.
"Daisuki" is another word that can both be used between friends, but depending on the context can actually be more romantic, because it's used in the sense of a boyfriend and girlfriend whose relationship may not have reached the intense levels that "aishiteru" demands.
The only undeniably romantic word in Japanese is "koishiteru", which is explicitly about romantic love, although the intensity can vary. And note that Keith does not use "koishiteru" with Shiro. If and only if he had used that word instead, then there would be no question of it.
If you all you want to say is that Keith and Shiro have a lot of Ho Yay then I don't care, I wouldn't even disagree. A lot of Ho Yay is not necessarily intentional, even the ones that people aren't deliberately looking for. Just don't go around claiming it's more deliberate on the part of the showrunners (who have already shown themselves to be somewhat out of touch and not aware of the implications of their work) than it actually is, because that's where a line is being crossed.
I really don't think they left Shiro single because they wanted to imply he was ambiguously in a relationship with Keith like the Epileptic Trees suggested he would, but just because they meant it when they said they didn't want to fill the show with unnecessary romance outside of the one Lance/Allura/Lotor triangle, which unlike Korra had the grace not to be an actual triangle. Likewise they just decided not to give Keith a romance for whatever reason, or figured that he's already got other stuff (his quest to become the Black Paladin and find out more about his past, his The Not-Love Interest friendship with Shiro) taking up his time, so throwing a proper romance into the mix with all that would've been too much.
Edited by AlleyOop
They gave the Holts development so I'm pretty sure they could've done it, but that's just me. Thanks for the information, by the way.
Well, at least you asked beforehand for this page, instead of just going ahead and editing it the way the YMMV page is frequently vandalized by shippers with an agenda.
Edited by AlleyOop
The way it's edited now looks like a pretty on-point middle ground, Alley. All the points any shippers (pro or otherwise) could argue are pretty soundly explained; as much as I'm surprised by the content, it's very hard for me to say any part should be removed as "overly shippy" as everything mentioned 'is' a valid part of the show.
Just a minor nitpick my inner proofreader raises with it: I'd probably vote to edit it's the "showrunners" who overtly state otherwise, not the "show" itself, as that would contradict the above-written paragraphs claiming ambiguity. But it's your entry, I'll leave it up to you whether that's what you wanted to convey or not.
Thanks. I avoided saying showrunners because they're notoriously evasive when it comes to talking about the relationship due to it being Flamebait for the loud Fan Dumb. Word of God from the writers tends to downplay the "brotherly" aspect, it's mainly to discredit the anti-shippers and therefore I didn't consider it germane to the work itself, but I can point that out if you'd like since it adds to the "fumble".
I used "overt" in the sense of "the text of the show contradicts these readings" but I can change it to "protestations" or "indications" if you think that conveys the point better, as Keith using "brother" is metaphorical and thus open to interpretation (that some non-antis read it as literal when I believe the intent is closer to True Companions, is part of the "fumble" in my opinion).
Edited by AlleyOop
Alley Oop, I again apologize for my edits in the YMMV page, but I thought I was being more additional and specific on certain things, because to many LGBT individuals who were fans of the show Curtis, this random background character, who knew nothing about Shiro's struggles or his life got to marry Shiro and it was after 'relationships aren't just about romance and we promise they will only happen when development is given' so you could see why a lot of fans of Shiro see it as a problem because he was forced to retire at 27 after he married this random person. But I can see why you believe that was me being ship Bias...even I can see it. But I'm not refuting that opinion on the Official couple. But I will be careful next time and won't edit any more pages willy nilly. So Again, I am sorry.
Edited by LogicNex
Yes, and those opinions are all fine and valid to have. As a person who is LGBT myself, I even agree with many of them to an extent. But as quite a few ongoing debates within the Trope Talk section of the forum will attest to, the YMMV page is for documenting and describing audience reactions, not a place to project your own personal opinions of the work or its characters. That's what Reviews are for. There's still certain standards of objectivity that have to be met.
If you want to criticize the show for its handling of Curtis and Sheith not being canon, then go ahead and write that Review to your heart's content.
Edited by AlleyOop
Should a separate folder be created for tropes applying specifically to Clone!Shiro?
In reply to the recently restored tropes (meant at the fellow troper, opal, who removed them): Listen, I honestly hate the last minute patched on wedding as much as the other guy. But that does not change the fact that it's a fact that happened in the show's canon. No amount of fandom rage can or will erase that (unless an official retcon happens, which is almost certain that it won't).
Even though this place technically has looser rules, it is still very much a wiki, and as such, it has to respect the works it describes. What actually happens in the fictional material we describe is unrelated to whether we like it or not.
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