Why Klance Failed | The Science of Character Chemistry

we're doing it we're actually doing it we're making a clance video and no it's not a KTX Lance clans it's a real bona fide red and blue [Music] Glantz took the fandom by storm the moment season 1 dropped before Olivia and I ever got around a watching Voltron this summer it came out all we knew about the show was that it was about mecca's and everyone shipped those a red and blue guys you joking in the beginning there were no rival ships clients was unparalleled there were hundreds of fan fics and fan arts created within weeks of Voltron even airing everyone in their Abuelita was reading that one fanfiction dirty laundry which had its own fandom for a time this is how much people loved clans and it makes sense why people went so apeshit DreamWorks was endearing to the tried and true formula of rivals to friends by the end of the show whatever the original intent was with this relationship was completely lost despite that the clans following was so devoted to the pairing that even now people still cling to something that the writers have long abandoned whether you perceived their relationship as romantic or platonic there was a bond forming in the beginning and Dreamworks led us down in both regards in order to properly explain why clans failed we need to go back to the very beginning when we're introduced to Lance he is obviously jealous of Keith and considers him a rival Keith on the other hand doesn't even know who Lance is much less acknowledged their supposed rivalry this instantly establishes a social dissonance Lance feels very insecure in comparison to Keith and feels desperate for his approval on the other hand Keith doesn't need any approval from Lance and doesn't even care to remember him we're like rivals you don't lance and Keith neck-and-neck who are you this is a very appealing way to introduce their relationship because as they are forced to cooperate tensions will rise until the dissonance must be addressed when this conflict is addressed the true motives behind the characters fighting is brought to light and their relationship is transformed for example Lance's beef with Keith stems from his own feelings of inferiority and admiration for Keith rather than the dislike is portrayed as that's what's so interesting about this trope the viewers get to see a relationship that changes in an unexpected way because the bad start was a product of one person's internal issues being unintentionally brought out by the other person the relationship forces the characters to grow and that makes for an enjoyable experience for the viewer but how far did gain from in that process well it clearly established the one-sided rivalry in the very beginning and then moved on to mutual tensions the two begin interacting on the daily they appeared to slowly settle into a comfortable coexistence with occasional banter by season three Roger that team leader it genuinely appears as though Keith and Lance are beginning to care about each other but come season four their steady development came to a jarring in an episode one Heath [ __ ] off to the blade he became totally irrelevant to the team for 10 episodes until the crawls era when he suddenly met his mom and had that whole arc with her he had absolutely no face-to-face interaction with a team until season 6 the only way that would be acceptable would be if the team was notably affected by his absence which they weren't LANs in particular didn't mention him at all based on the formula that's been established for us up until this point we are supposed to assume that he cares about Keith and therefore shouldn't be okay with him leaving the group where the writers assuming that we would just think that Lance wasn't okay with it and decide to focus their screen time on other things the only indication we ever get that this bothered him was a whole season after Keith's return when Lance yelled at Keith while they were drifting in space for half a second soundbite what we mean is after Keith left in season four there wasn't a single well executed indication that Lance gave a [ __ ] about Keith at all ironically you can see where the writers cut off all attention to the relationship in the Klan's wiki the first three seasons describe pages of scene between the two of them but between the five most recent seasons there are only four vaguely relevant moments examples of this compelling evidence include quotable moments like when loves is practicing in the training room he bailed becomes a sword just like Keith had and in season six as you can see the writers were maintaining a steady build of the relationship for the first three seasons and then immediately dropped the ball after season four episode one and they weren't quite able to pick it up after that so why did the writers completely forget about all of this build-up and all of this development less than halfway through the show it has to do with the development imbalance it is no secret in the Voltron fandom that Lance has always drawn the short stick when it comes to screen time and character arcs Keith on the other hand has been constantly developing since the moment he first appeared on screen Keith just has so much [ __ ] going on with him the half dollar thing the orphan thing the shiro thing the mysterious past thing that garrison rebel thing the loner thing the leadership thing the blade a more more thing the mom thing lives in a conspiracy shack in the desert thing the cosmic wolf thing and Lance is just a boy from Cuba the writers have an issue with fully realizing what they start they obviously intended to continue this development until it was rounded out in a satisfying way but around season four they either got distracted with Keith's wealth of Arc's or somehow thought it was acceptable to establish that they no longer hate each other and then abruptly cut off all further communication to the point that season fives only moment was when les is practicing in the training room he banned because I sold just like Keith on it in the end Lance's character development whatever it might have been was scrapped in favor of turning him into an empty receptacle for his romance with Elora a romance which in its entirety paled in comparison to the single interaction between Lance and Keith that the writers somehow thought was a good idea to throw in before Lance's first date Lance who knows exactly who he is and what he's got to offer and who's that Keith what are you talking about because I don't know and I'm sure as hell that you don't know either oh wait you did know you meant the Lance that's not actually relevant to anything except a Flores in love life got it so this is the scientific diagram we've come up with to explain just how this relationship dynamic tends to work when portrayed in media as you can see on the left we begin with the basic rivalry between two individuals our E is the chemical abbreviation for rival / enemies there are two of them because our E is a diatomic element they cannot stand alone meaning it is always paired with itself Glantz season 1 would fit into this category after the introduction of this dynamic CD or character development is added to the formula inciting a chemical reaction and resulting in the transformation of our T 2 into F R 2 or friends as the periodic table stage sometimes the chemical compound s ete sexual tension is added to the resulting element which in turn creates a brand new element L or two or lovers through this extremely accurate science we've broken down the chemistry involved in character chemistry clint's does end up in the second category unfortunately the science doesn't work here because the writers forgot to add the development which is the most important part of building a character bond without development the initial rival relationship cannot properly transform into a friendly or otherwise relationship Glantz fails in this respect so the resulting friendship they end up with is jarring and comes completely out of left field it doesn't feel believable because watching these characters progress isn't satisfactory if the progression exists at all regardless of whether you ship it or not Glantz captured people's attention because it was set out the same way that many other rivals difference relationships are set up but because the writers failed to follow through the Klan's friendship we got by the end of the show was a watered down empty husk of what it had the potential to be the dynamic they presented at the beginning was interesting these characters had chemistry that's why it's so disappointing for so many people that the show ended the way it did making a video about it can't change what happened but can help prevent disasters like this from occurring in future media so whether you wanted keep'em Lance to be best friends brothers or lovers in the end we all lost thanks to all our patrons who support the channel so generously as special thanks to our space explorers Red nightmare and Alex stress bull [Music] [Laughter]

Channel: Avo Rabo

Views: 126,491

Keywords: klance, voltron, vld, legendary defender, keith kogane, lance mcclain, discussion, meta, cartoon, anime, writing, review

Id: 5TP8cjMPw9w

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2019