Etcetera | A Journal

25 | summary + predictions before s7 drops (vld)

—SHIRO, THE ULTIMATE GAY ICON
HE'S BACK, OUR SPACE DAD HAS TRULY RETURNED, LONG LIVE SPACE DAD
I honestly don't really feel like his revival was a cheat. Unrealistic by our standards, sure, but it was set up as something plausible within the rules of the established universe. And it doesn't undo that hell that Shiro has been living for the past few months. He did literally die. And there was no body, so what does that mean? He was fuckin incinerated. He got dissolved into nothing. I imagine that would hurt.
Then, he was absorbed into the black lion, meaning he watched everything that happened afterwards while being mostly helpless to stop it. He watched Keith struggle and try to reject the role, watched him sell himself short and suffer without Shiro's guidance. And then he watched as Kuron split the team up and caused tension and shouted at and belittled other team members. This had to have hurt.
So, basically, I think Shiro has earned a fuckin magical resurrection, cheap or cheatsy or not (a lot of people seemed to think it was cheap). Also I'm used to that sort of thing anyway because anime.
Anyway. Shiro is an icon now. If I wasn't so heartbroken over my sunken ship (Shallura), I'd easily be 150% on board. I imagined him as pan even before the reveal, as he's so good at finding good things in everybody that I didn't think he'd care much about gender. But it's official now! He's gay.
There wasn't any foreshadowing to this, but in a way, that's clever. He's a character we've already formed our opinions of and who has proven himself to be strong and good and an effective leader and a selfless person. He's confident in his actions, generally, and knows who he is. Also, he's gay. That just happens to be a detail of who he is. He doesn't have to discover himself and he doesn't feel ashamed or guilty or anything. Also, choosing to save the reveal made us form our opinions of him before knowing that about him. Too often, the LGBT character is just, well, that. There for the sake of diversity or to cause some social buzz and not much else. It often feels like a shallow attempt to go "look at how progressive and tolerant we are!" In doing it backwards, we got an instant icon. What a king. Also, as an actual gay, this means that Shiro is now MY space dad too. A while back, an animated movie (Paranorman) did something similar. The "jock" character, at the very end of the movie, casually says something about his boyfriend. A lot of parents were upset, but I thought it was really clever and still do.
Anyway, I'm still sad about Shallura (it's always sad to have your ship destroyed), but I'm more okay with it than I thought I would be. I'll give the writers a chance, as they have yet to fail me. Also, alternate universes do canonically exist within the world of Voltron, so I guess not all is lost?
I'm really curious about how he'll be handled this season. He's going to be without an arm for a while, and his white hair seems to be a permanent change. He'll need to take a step back and hopefully start addressing his own psychological wounds (his PTSD issues).

—PIDGE
Since we're going back to earth, we finally get to meet the Holt family mom! I'm gonna laugh if she's super scoldy, though she has every right to be. Literally her whole family disappeared on her for a while there. Pidge and her family have been pretty central to everything from day one, and I imagine they'll be heroes back on earth.
Pidge's arc is more or less complete, and we have little to learn about her family and home life, but she's still a badass, and we still learn some things about her from time to time. The fact that she made a counter virus to Shiro's arm, for instance. The kid is depressingly cynical for somebody so young.
Anyway, I'd like to see her being a bit more open with the others, and I want a Holt family group hug with mom included. I will file a lawsuit if I do not get these things.

—HUNK
Okay Hunk needs more. I liked what we got with him in season six (his diplomacy and leadership abilities), but he hasn't had an arc or any serious development since season one. I'm not MAD about it, because for the most part, he's been stable and reliable and doesn't really NEED as much development as the others. Hunk is Hunk and he is important and precious no matter what. But it would be nice to see him getting some credit and development! I at least want us to see his family.