#very hunk heavy cast but tbh we all knew that

[sage-nebula]

Mandatory Voltron

The real question is . . . does Voltron even have ten characters?? Hahaha, well, either way, in order (at least as far as the first two go; it gets harder to order them as the list goes down):

Keith Kogane --- My space son is obviously number one. To be honest, I knew from his very first appearance that he was going to be my fave, that I had found him, that I had found the boy, I just knew it. But everything I saw of him after that confirmed it. I do love his sheer determination (I have a type and that type is Determinator, apparently), but I love how protective and loyal he is as well---that it doesn’t matter if he just met you, honestly, he will defend you no matter how big or small the threat is. Keith is very much a Ride or Die type of person, and while he can and will make pragmatic decisions when necessary (because he is also very, very Gryffindor in that he’s very true to his internal sense of morality, and that internal sense of morality pushes him toward the Greater Good), by and large he won’t hesitate to throw himself between his team and any danger. Often times his team does tell him to stop (they don’t want him to die, either), but Keith prioritizes their safety (and the outcome of the mission) over his own and so he doesn’t listen. Haters may hate, but I personally like and empathize with that.Aside from that, though, I love all the other qualities that make Keith how he is. I find that his anxiety, and his tendency to bottle how he’s feeling and not burden others with it, is relatable. I love the fact that he’s an awkward dork at heart, that he is very blunt about trying to bond with others (whether we’re talking about the Red Lion, Lance, or anyone else), that we can see that he wasn’t really given the opportunity to socialize when he was a young child and so he fumbles his way through it now. He’s adorkable in the most unexpected ways and I love it. I also love how we’re seeing him develop and grow past some of his more hotheaded tendencies, even if his temper is still part of who he is. He is learning that “patience yields focus” and is actively trying to get better at practicing that, and I think that’s great. (Also, he shows shades of C-PTSD and we all know how I tend to latch onto those characters . . .)I could go on forever about Keith, probably, but I’ll stop it there. I really do love him!

Katie “Pidge” Holt --- Pidge is easily my second favorite character, and I had originally thought that she would be my first before I was introduced to Keith and realized, “that’s him, I’ve found my boy.” Even so, I still love Pidge an awful lot. I love that Pidge, despite being the youngest member of the cast, doesn’t take anyone’s shit and doesn’t hesitate to let her opinions on things be known, even right from the get-go in the first episode. I love that she has so many blatantly Slytherin qualities (e.g. prioritization of her important people, resourcefulness and cunning, et cetera) and that she wasn’t pigeonholed into being a Ravenclaw simply because she’s smart. (Well, the fandom lazily Sorts her there, but they’re wrong, so.) I especially love this because Pidge is allowed to be both a Slytherin and an unquestionably heroic character, which is so nice and refreshing. Even when she clashes with Keith because he’s so very Gryffindor and she’s so very Slytherin, neither one is shown as being Truly Right or Truly Wrong; they’re just approaching the same issue from different perspectives, hence the clash. Either way, Pidge’s salt and snark is truly entertaining (especially when she teams up with Keith---honestly, this big bro and little sis pair is my second fave relationship on the show), and her love for technology + aversion to nature is truly relatable. I love Pidge, she is high-key awesome.

Takashi Shirogane --- Shiro is probably my third fave, though again, it gets harder to sort them after the first two. Aside from truly loving Shiro’s relationship with Keith, I really enjoy the fact that we get to see his PTSD explored and that we get to see how he’s not a perfect Space Dad™ all the time. The times when we get to see him suffer the consequences of his PTSD flashbacks / trauma attacks, the times when we get to see him snap or lose his temper (such as when he flipped out on Slav in the middle of the mission gosh, Shiro, patience yields focus, remember) are times that Shiro really shines because we get to see that he, too, is just a person. He’s a young adult who has gone through a helluva lot and is trying to keep everything together because he and four teenagers have been recruited to fight in a 10,000 long intergalactic war. That’s not an easy thing to deal with, but he’s dealing with it anyway because he has to, and I really, really like that about him. I think that Shiro is truly great.

Princess Allura --- This is probably going to sound strange, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I like Allura for her flaws. While there are definitely times when she has made the wrong decision (e.g. as awesome as her “excuse me, but I do not need your permission” line to Shiro was, her insistence on going along on the mission at the end of S1 when she doesn’t even know how to fire a gun is what resulted in her capture and that kerfuffle; and her racism against Keith for being Galra, while understandable, is still not excusable), I like the fact that she is allowed to make mistakes, that she doesn’t have to be a paragon of perfection simply because she’s a princess. Allura is technically Altean, but this also humanizes her character. She’s flawed; she can be impatient, she can have tunnel-vision, she can (again, understandably but not excusably) have biases and prejudices that she refuses to see past. She’s allowed to have these flaws and, while I do wish that she had been called out with regards to her prejudice (she called herself out, but I feel it was too hastily done / not believable enough), I do enjoy the fact that Allura is not demonized by the show for them. She’s allowed to have her moments of temper without being trashed up and down for having a temper, for having feelings and emotions, while also being a princess. She shoulders a heavy burden, but she does so with grace and dignity, and I love that she can do that and still be a well-rounded character. (And of course I love her for all of her good qualities as well---the grace and dignity she does have, her selflessness and willingness to self-sacrifice for the greater good, her intelligence, her charm and delight in the smaller pleasures of life, et cetera. Allura is adorable and beautiful and badass all in one, but she’s all of those things and a believable character. I think that Allura is excellent from a character standpoint.)

Hunk --- Hunk would probably be higher on the list if the show let him be anything other than a vessel for food / fat jokes. He was allowed to be more than this in season one, but in season two it was beyond ridiculous how little he was allowed to develop and exist outside of “haha, I like food.” That said, the parts of Hunk we’ve seen that are outside of that are parts I really like. I really love how he’s such a good judge of character; he’s the only one who doesn’t trust the bounty hunters, and while of course part of his issue is that he wants to get back to the Balmera to help Shay and the others, he also has legitimate reasons to not trust them that he has no problems expressing. I love how he’s also resourceful, albeit in a different way from Pidge; I love how we see that he really is a genius mechanic, that he can fix spaceships he’s literally never seen before through intuition and through applying knowledge that he has from his classes back at the Garrison on Earth. Hunk is intuitive, which leads to his good judge of character, and he’s supportive and genuinely sympathetic (though not to an absurd degree) to the plights of others. While Hunk does have his faults as well, I think he’s genuinely a good character, and I do like him quite a bit.

Lance --- Lance would probably be higher-up on the list if not for the fandom, in all honesty. Like, I like Lance in the show. Sometimes his flirtation gets annoying, sometimes his immaturity (which I feel at times exceeds even Pidge) gets annoying---but its his stans in the fandom that have left a sour taste in my mouth, mostly because they very often try to boost Lance up by bashing or degrading Keith, and I’m not here for that nonsense. But setting that aside, I do love the idea that part of the reason why Lance jokes around so much is because he’s trying to lighten the mood---because he realizes that the team needs some levity in order to get through this, well, 10,000 year intergalactic war they’ve been trust into. I like the fact that although Lance can be careless at times, we also see that he’s cautious as well, that he has trepidation about throwing himself (and the rest of the team) into immense danger. I do think that Lance has a lot to offer (and I think he’ll be an excellent second-in-command to Keith’s leader---that he’s an excellent Marco to Keith’s Jake), but I want to see him actually offer that more in canon, and I want fandom to stop stanning him so much at the expense of characters I love.

Haggar --- Part of me wants to move Haggar further up the list but whatever, she’s good here. I LOVE HAGGAR. SHE’S THE ONLY SMART ONE IN THE GALRAN EMPIRE. Well, okay---Lotor might be smart, but it’s still too early to say. Either way, Haggar was the only reason why the season finale of season two was so stressful. Haggar is the reason why Team Voltron almost lost despite their best efforts. Haggar doesn’t need Lotor, tbh. She could lead the empire by herself. HAGGAR FOR BIG BAD 2K17.

Coran --- I do enjoy Coran’s more serious moments, such as when he acts as a mentor figure for Allura, or when he blatantly blames Shiro for Allura’s capture at the end of season one. However, I feel like Coran is mostly there to provide comic relief, and while he is great for memes (“Coran..... if you’re out there,” still makes me laugh, even still!), I feel that there’s really not enough depth to him at the moment to place him further up the list for me. Maybe in the future, but not right now.

Kolivan --- And The Blade of Marmora in general, really, but Kolivan is stone cold fierce without being heartless about it. Like, his “knowledge or death” ultimatum can seem heartless from a certain perspective, but at the same time he was unwilling to send Keith in Thace’s place, knowing (or at least feeling) that it would be a suicide mission to do so. Allura criticizes how much caution The Blade of Marmora has shown over the years, feeling that it’s the reason why Zarkon remains in power---but at the same time, while I can see where she’s coming from on that, it’s also true that caution is the reason why The Blade of Marmora has continued to live to resist at all. I think we need to see more of Kolivan (and that we will see more of Kolivan as the show goes on), but I do like what we’ve seen so far.

Thace --- Thace deserves major props for managing to be a spy on Zarkon’s own ship for so long, damn. I also like that he seemed to be one of the more gentle members of The Blade of Marmora, at least to an extent. He was a nice middle ground between Ulaz and Kolivan. The moment that most stands out to me is when Keith insists on staying behind to fight with him, but Thace convinces Keith to use the escape tunnel, telling him, “You have a more important role to play.” That really stands out because Thace knew how to reach Keith. He knew that appealing to Keith’s sense of duty for the greater good would convince Keith to take the escape path, rather than staying behind to fight. Thace also delivered that line so calmly, but so sincerely, that it was just really effective. He will be missed. RIP, Thace.

#top 10 characters meme #shinygoku