in the space mall ep shiro spends all his time bonding with black and fucking yeets zarkon off the astral plane but only to lose him a few eps later, have his clone get him back for like 3 seasons and then actual shiro never pilot black again even tho he created such a strong bond with him

like what keith suddenly got a stronger bond with black after that? he didnt even do anything to bond with black unlike shiro

same goes with red. red is shown saving keith a bunch of times only in s2 its probably the strongest connection to a lion a paladin had achieved at that point only to never have keith in red again

and lance saved all those mermaids all alone in blue and unlocked a new power only to get to red after and never pilot blue again

it seems like the point of s1 and s2 is to see the paladins bond with their respective lions only for them to be moved in s3 and have all that progress be useless in the end

not only to mention the obvious that red is supposed to be the hardest to connect with keith almost died connecting with him and he just accepted lance while he was in another lions cockpit???

allura however is connected with all the lions so should be able to pilot all of them so why tf didnt she pilot black for a few eps until shiro got back instead of all that shit show?

they basically ruined all of s1 and s2 progress shiro keith and lance made with their lions cause in the end all the shit they learnt about their specific lions never come in handy again

it doesnt even pay off cause even tho we were informed its hard to connect to a lion lance and keith dont find any difficulties connecting with red and black (even tho those two are the hardest to pilot)

later on in s6 keith hadnt piloted anything (least of all a lion) for two years and youre telling me the second he goes back to black he just accepts him even tho she had been with clone shiro for months?

so I think Keith’s black paladin arc worked out for him edventually and definitely helped him grow as a person, but you know what would have made a lot more sense during season 3??

an Allura black paladin arc. I feel like the reason they stuck allura in blue was less because it fit her arc and more to accommodate the lion switch from the original show. Because many times throughout seasons 1 and 2, we see parallels between allura and shiro, we see them in equal positions of power with allura heading the castleship and shiro heading the paladins. They are both strong willed, determined, and decisive. But all that kinda just gets thrown under the bus once shiro disappears.

Since allura was already in a prominent leadership role and had proved herself to be competent many times over, wouldn’t it have been a lot more of a natural transition for her to pilot the black lion rather then have three paladins have to adjust to a new dynamic? Not to mention, allura has way more history and reason to want to reclaim the black lion from zarkon’s grasp then Keith does.

There is the aesthetic thing, of course; it’s distracting when more than half the paladins’ armor doesn’t match their lion (I am so sorry Lance. Red light on blue armor just looks bad). 

There’s also the whole, “A paladin’s quintessence matches his lion” thing that Allura told us about in the very first episode. It establishes that the best lion/paladin matches are when their quintessences are the same, and it’s implied that the first line up from s1-2 has those matches. If Keith’s quintessence is a better match for Black, Lance for Red, and Allura for Blue, it’s not told to us. Is it possible for quintessences to change over time? I don’t know, it’s never explored. 

(I’d also go on about how annoyed I am about how Allura saving Shiro’s essence cut his and Black’s connection, because hi, does this mean Alfor could have used magic to sever Zarkon’s bond with Black 10,000 years ago and saved us half the trouble?)

There’s also the uneven focus on switched paladins vs non-switched paladins, but that’s probably more the fandom than the show. Black, Red, and Blue all are viewed in a hierarchy, and their paladins keep changing, while Yellow and Green are pretty much ignored with their paladins’ stability. It’s important that through all the chaos of changing leaders and right-hands that Yellow and Green are consistent in their paladins and support for the team, and the fandom ignores that. 

But what really gets me is the lack of focus on the lions themselves. In the first two seasons, the lions are treated like characters. Emphasis is placed on the lions choosing their paladins, and the bonds between them. Red repeatedly saving Keith. Black and Green saving Shiro and Pidge from Myzax’s Robeast coffin/ship. Green and Pidge connecting on Olkari. Black choosing Shiro over Zarkon on the Astral Plane. (Yellow and Hunk didn’t really have a Moment™ until s7, but he also didn't want to be in space at all, so yeah.) And you could tell that the lions had personalities. When Lance awoke Blue and she was twirling around in the air and doing backflips and all that, that was all Blue, not Lance. You could tell what kind of a personality she had. You could tell Red’s personality from the constant rescuing, and even when they ignored their paladin (both in s1 and s7, although that second time still needs an explanation). You could tell Black’s personality by what they chose to show Shiro during their bonding and the Astral Plane fight. Green and Yellow don’t get much in the way of concrete personalities, but you can tell by the way Pidge and Hunk talk to them what they are probably like.

After s3e3, after Allura bonds with Blue and breaks out the Ice cannon, that’s it. The lions are just treated like ships. Yeah, Black still has that whole choosing paladins thing with Keith vs Shiro/Kuron (dafuq Black, why do you have so many paladins?! You have four, you pilot-hog), but most of Black and Keith’s bond is built on Keith’s devotion to Shiro, not so much each other (I would have liked to have seen Black and Keith bonding outside of Shiro). But the lions stop being characters at that point. There are no more bonding episodes. No more moments of connection, of exploring bonds and abilities. It’s just story story story after that with no time to breathe for possible development. Most of my criticisms of vld come down to pacing, and I’ll probably write a whole post about when the series is over, but it’s especially evident when it comes to the bonds. 

They stop unlocking abilities. Lions stop moving on their own. I imagined that as the series went on, the lions and paladins would have more intimate and intense bonds; they’d talk to them during battle, they’d treat them like partners. Because that’s what so cool about vld’s lions. They have their own sentience unique to any other living thing in the universe. They’re not quite AI, but they’re not people, they’re something almost supernatural. The lions in the 80s and other iterations of the franchise have them as just cool looking ships; anyone can pilot one (in the 80s they were turned on with weird keys; it’s so easy to steal a lion). The lion choosing their paladins made this series special and added new lore, and like I said, made them characters in their own right. But I don’t see that as much in the later seasons.