.DEAREST DARLING I AM STRESSED.

This is like the third or fourth time in the entire series when a woman has had to apologize for something and no- women apologizing isn’t a problem, it’s just that every time women apologize in the show it’s always over something way more drastic or serious than when most of the male characters apologize- which I honestly- maybe due to my bad memory, can’t remember very well if they even do a whole lot.

First we have Allura being a dark skinned character having to apologize for prejudice and basically racism (she went out of her way to withhold TEAM information from Keith on the basis that he has purple blood- which is how racism works). Then we have Keith’s mom apologizing for leaving and this doesn’t bother me at all because it’s fine and proper characterization of a situation like that. Then lastly, we have Admiral Sanda making unrealistically terrible decisions that supposedly stem from hot-headedness and irrationality, but I think are so unrealistic and so full of shit that it’s only a testament to the writer’s inability to properly craft and characterize interesting or relatable or realistic characters.

Speaking of Sanda, I hate how she’s a woman! They actually went ahead and had the female leader of the Galaxy Garrison’s power stripped away by a man. This reinforces a long-lasting trope in all kinds of media where The Male Figure has to step up and take charge, ultimately stripping a female figure of her authority and power.

What if everything in Voltron was the exact same- except Pidge wasn’t looking for her brother and her dad, but she was looking for her brother and her mom. What if Pidge’s MOM was the scientist, the genius, the whatever, and Pidge’s MOM and Matt got trapped in space by the Galra.

Then, Admiral Sanda could be a man- and like the already poorly characterized Sanda that we actually got, could be vehemently against the scientist who was quite literally kidnapped and forced to deal with alien cultures taking over their role as the leader/de facto of the Galaxy Garrison. See- making Sanda a male, and switching Pidge’s Scientist Parent from Father to Mother, immediately destroys the rhetoric that Voltron (intentionally or unintentionally) set up that the Male Figure takes over the Female Figure’s roles of leadership. It would then create a story, of how a woman who had far more experience than someone who has never set foot in alien territory had to overcome (or literally brush aside the same way Pidge’s Dad does Admiral Sanda’s problems in the show) the disrespect and threats of punishment for their behavior. Hell, if Sanda was a dude I wouldn’t care if he ratted out the Garrison to Sendak, because then it would be able to be portrayed that he was being selfish, unthinking, uninterested in what the majority of people wanted.

But instead we got female Admiral Sanda losing her position of leadership to a Scientist Man who- while he has more understanding and experience with the situation at hand- immediately steps in and completely pushes her to the shadows- where she then acts out in defiance against an agreed plan between everyone (one that would have probably definitely pushed Sendak into a near loss-position) and gets punished for it.

I’m writing this only after starting episode 11 of season 7.

This show was never great. It was never good. It was fun and a lot of the aspects of the story were fun and interesting, but in the end the writing makes it abysmal.

The good elements of the show are outweighed by shitty writing, shitty character development, terrible tropes in TV like bury your gays (where Shiro’s boyfriend dies before Shiro gets to earth but Veronica sacrifices herself and doesn’t die), and really backwards intentions on the show’s part.

I just read on the wiki that Admiral Sanda was killed in action after she helped the paladins out after her mistake- which is uh- another- long running TV trope where people who “do wrong” redeem themselves by sacrificing themselves and death.