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damnredthing · 2 years

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Let’s get ready to ramble – SNW S1E01

This post – naturally – contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the episode yet and do not want to read spoilers, please do not read any further.

This is not an episode review but rather just a bunch of ramblings which I've tried to at least sort a little bit into categories.

Many thanks go out to those of you who commented on my last post about how spoiler tags work. Thank you so much! I hope I get this done right. If not, set phasers to stun and shoot my butt. 😇

Season 1 – Episode 1 – Strange New Worlds

Pike’s inner demons

Pike’s inner demons haunt him much more than I had expected. He looks terribly sad and depressed in the beginning. He was literally hiding from everyone. I’d even go so far to say he suffers from PTSD. Pike must have appeared extremely out of character to Admiral Robert April when he was running even from him and then looking as miserable as he did. The way Pike looked at April when he was pushed to accept the mission… such a sad puppy, it melted my heart. Actually, it stabbed a dagger right through my heart.

He is in a state of self-doubt. He sees his crippled face wherever he looks. It’s haunting him. It distracts him to the point that people around him notice something is not right. For a Captain that is not a good base to work on, which Pike is very aware of as he tries to deny the mission in the first place. Even though it is a rescue mission for his friend and Number One, he fears he could fuck it up and endanger Una. He even said so when he told April “You don’t want me in command on that ship.”

Spock confronting Pike was inevitable. And of course Spock knew what Boreth is known for. He is the chief science officer for good reason. When Pike tells Spock about his experience and his fears, it stabbed a second dagger right through my heart. Anson is such a phenomenal actor. The way he pulls this off is amazing.

Later when the team rescues Una and she tells them what happened, Pike’s first reaction is to blame solely himself that a pre-warp civilization gained access to Starfleet’s modern technology when the Discovery warped to the future. The truth is this wasn’t his sole decision at all. It was a joint decision made by the Discovery crew together as a team. Sure, as the Captain he had the last say, but the mistake that happened as an aftermath is not his fault alone. Yet, he blames only himself, which pays into his self-doubts.

I suppose the next episodes still gonna deal with this dilemma. Pike seems to be distracted often, this could get him in trouble one day when he spaces off just when he should be sharp on his senses. Maybe that’ll be the turning point. A lesson sometimes needs to be learnt the hard way.

Wishlist - yay or nay

Reference is made to this post:

Pike being the hero – YAY! He rescues Una’s away team and is very brave when he screwed General Order One because that could have backfired and have him court martialed. With this risky decision and his incredible speech, he prevented the civilization from entering a devastating, mass-murdering war.

Let Pike be the alien in one episode – A little bit YAY, a little bit NAY. Not quite as how I wished for (but that doesn’t mean we’ll not get to see it one day), but the whole show starting out with a pre-warp civilization episode was interesting. That Pike screwed General Order One right in the first episode kinda torpedoes my wish a bit though. Maybe he’s not that hellbent on it as I assumed.

But on another note, how dare Anson looking that frickin’ awesome even when he’s turned into an alien. I mean… look at how he’s standing there, like a god damn model (I know he modelled a couple of times for the Esquire but still!).

Horses – YAY!!! And what a beautiful one! The way Pike was seeking comfort from her as Admiral April pushed him was just so sweet to see. You can clearly see that horses have a very special place in Pike’s heart. And all the time I imagined that the horsey was comfort whispering in Pike’s ear like “Who’s that dude? Why is he so pushy? I can kick him for you to make him go away. I really can! Maybe just a little bit? Please say yes. With just one hoof? Please let me help you, I love you.”

No Kirk please – That includes Sam Kirk. Again, I don’t want to see any Kirk in a Pike show until the very end of the show. And again, I also have nothing against the actor Dan Jeannotte. It’s the name dropping that annoys me. It also feels a bit like a power struggle between the producers and the fans (and we know who’s going to win). The fans campaigned for a Pike show, but the producers and especially Akiva claim that a Pike show had always been the plan. Of course if they claim that now, they can twist the show to whatever they want (well they can anyways) saying sure you fans wanted a Pike show, but so did we and as it was OUR original idea, we can do whatever WE want with it. So, let’s also add some Kirk and TOS and whatever else that distracts from Pike. Bleh.

Robert April - YES, YES, YES! This makes me so happy. I was actually hoping for a flashback episode in which Pike is commander again under April’s command. But having Admiral April as recurring role in the show is so much better. I feel he could be one of Pike’s most trusted people to help him through this crisis. After all April has known his protégé for many years and he knows him very well. Yet he doesn’t seem to be too pushy and accepts when Pike says no (like when he let the "it's classified" slip). I get the impression that April can be strict with Pike and if needed, issue orders (as we have seen) to get him to do what he’d otherwise try to weasel himself out of, but April would do so always in the best interest of his former Number One.

Gorn – YAY! I want them, and we’ll get them! We haven’t seen them yet, but they were mentioned already. To me it is obvious we gonna see them this season. That story around La’an needs more exploration.

Randoms

Pike gives me so hard Hell on Wheels vibes in the beginning of the episode. It’s like he’s all back again. Even his defiant behavior, it so felt like Cullen.

The magic of silver foxes is that the hair always looks different from different angles or hairdos. When Pike was in full Hell on Wheels mode, his hair actually looked much darker and not so silver foxy, especially when he talked to April.

You can see the ice moon Europa when Admiral April talks to Pike, Una and Spock in Jupiter space station. Europa is realistically displayed. If you look up actual photos of the moon, it pretty much looks exactly like that.

You can also see Jupiter’s giant maelstrom behind on one of the domes.

Now that Admiral April has learnt what happened to the Discovery, can Pike still pull the classified card?

People complain about windmills in the 23rd century. My counter question is why the heck would there not be any? They could still be there for nostalgia just as we also still have old frame houses, water mills or television towers. And besides that, why wouldn’t people still use wind energy in the 23rd century? Nature provides that all for free. There are also solar panels on the golden gate bridge if you look closely, because the sun delivers that energy for FREE as well.

La’an – She is going to be a badass. I also expect her to have above average strength which she’s been hiding to avoid her genetical enhanced inheritance getting uncovered. She’ll probably be forced to use her superior strength in order to rescue one of the crew members.

Chapel – I thought Ortegas would be the sassy one, but Chapel is giving her a run for her money.

Pike and M’Benga being old-time friends. I hope so much we’ll get the backstory of how this friendship started.

Pike’s wife/girl-friend – She is a Captain, okay. Captain Batel. Why not? They both know what they got themselves into when they joined Star Fleet. With both being Captains, there should be no potential conflict about the fact that they do not see each other for longer times. However, I sense a tragic episode in which something might happen to Captain Batel. Maybe we’ll even get to see an episode in which the Enterprise fights alongside Batel’s ship against a greater enemy. Captain Batel doesn’t look like she’s the woman who is in bed with Pike in that one episode (you know, the one that keeps triggering me). And that makes me all anxious again!

The soundtrack throughout the entire show is AMAZING! I sure hope they gonna release a soundtrack album. The theme song is growing on me more and more. Meanwhile I can already hum it. But my favorite sound piece of this episode is during the scene where Pike rides through the snow. It’s so beautiful and powerful and melancholic at the same time.

When Spock cannot bear the pain of the temporal genetic modification anymore, he screams in front of the startled civilians. After he looks up again, he not only looks like his Vulcan self, his hair is also magically like his normal Vulcan hairstyle again.

Remarkable Quotes

There were so many great ones in this episode, sorry that this is going to make this post incredibly long.

Admiral April: Your first officer doesn’t do downtime well, Chris. Mine used to be a lot like that.

Pike: 🙄

Pike: Send someone else. You don’t want me in command of that ship.

Admiral April: You’re getting us confused. You don’t want you in command.

Pike: 🥺

Pike: Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission to explore Strange New Worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go, where no one has gone before.

Pike: Spock. *looks startled* Are y..y..you naked?

Spock: No, Captain.

T’Pring: No, Chris he’s not. He was about to be. It’s our special night.

Pike: S…ssssorry. 😟

Pike: This is your Captain. We’re a little early out of the gates, so I hope we didn’t catch anybody with your hair wet or your pants down.

Spock: Fascinating.

Pike: I’m all ears.

Spock: 😳

Pike: Figure of speech.

Spock: 🤨

Spock: As you know the Vulcans invented first contact.

Pike: As they never fail to remind us.

Pike: Doc! Please dispense some wisdom.

M’Benga: Okay. Never get the house dressing.

Chapel: Sedative first. Your body is going to undergo compressed, jury-rigged metamorphosis…. It’s painful.

Pike: Damn the ramparts, Doctor.

Chapel: 🤨

Pike: It means go ahead.

Chapel: Hang in there, sister.

Chief Kyle: Local clothing patterns have been downloaded into the buffer as well as universal translators and tricorders. Confirming no weapons?

Pike: Confirmed.

Chief Kyle: Setting you down somewhere with no foot traffic.

Pike: Just don’t lose my socks, Mr. Kyle.

*away team beaming down*

Pike: *looks around* Why is it always an alley?

Spock: Captain. Where are my pants?

Pike: *chuckles* When in Rome, Mr. Spock.

(meaning when in Rome, do as Romans do)

La’an: Captain, permission to act fast.

Pike: Granted.

La’an: Stay here. *fakes health issues to gain attention of two locals who rush to her aid*

La’an: Please, help me. *whimpers* Oh, my medication… over here.

Guy: Easy, easy.

La’an: His neck.

Guy: What?

La’an: *gestures neck pinch with her hand behind her back* His neck, his…

Spock: *neck pinching both guys* It is fortunate their musculature was responsive.

La’an: It’s fortunate you can finally take a hint.

Pike: 😯

*Kylian escaping from sickbay*

M’Benga & Chapel: Delta Scorpii Seven?

M’Benga: I’ll prep the booster, you catch the rabbit.

Chapel: Always give me the fun job.

M’Benga: Well, you’re my favorite.

Una: Captain? It’s quite a look!

Pike: Really? How about thank you for saving me?

Una: Somehow I figured you might.

Pike: Number One.

La’an and Una in synch: Yes Captain?

Pike: Err.. the original.

Spock: It is fortunate our route is empty.

Una: Can you not jinx it?

Spock: It is illogical to believe…

*locals exit the elevator and enter the room*

Pike: If we leave now, every death that follows is on our hands.

Spock: We cannot further influence the destiny of this world.

Pike: Meant or not, Spock. We already have. Our only option now is to influence it well.

Una: Chris, General Order One clearly states that we cannot inter…

Pike: Screw General Order One.

Pike: You remember when the elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers. The Kikuyu people of Kenya, Africa, on Earth, they teach us that lesson every day.

Leader Eldredth: You’ve given me a proverb, which is less useful than a stick. Whoever has the biggest stick wins.

Pike: *as he and Spock get arrested and guided out of the council’s hall* What good is a rule if you’re not willing to die for it? *pauses* Or break it. *turns around* Emergency communication from Captain Pike. Enterprise to lower orbit. Full visibility. Show ‘em what you got.

Spock: Captain?

Pike: Wait for it.

*Outside the sirens go off*

Pike: *shakes off the guard and walks back to Leader Eldredth* Just like you said, whoever has the biggest stick wins. *looks up through the window to look at the Enterprise in the sky* In this case, that is me.

Pike: Till our last moment, the future is what we make it.

Spock: If I may ask, Admiral. How did you convince Starfleet our actions did not violate General Order One?

Admiral April: I used a loophole. Since the council can’t acknowledge that the battle ever actually took place…

Spock: It cannot acknowledge how the people of Kiley 279 acquired warp.

Admiral April: Council’s not happy about it. They’re doubling down, renaming it the Prime Directive.

Pike: Well, that’ll never stick. 😏

Pike: Even in space, growth… sometimes remarkable growth, is possible.

Pike: Earth – the dust and sky – is my hearth. But Enterprise is my home.

#strange new worlds spoilers #snw spoilers #captain pike #christopher pike #anson mount #spock #ethan peck #una chin riley #number one #la'an noonien singh #admiral robert april #chief kyle #s1e01 #strange new worlds

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violethowler · 1 year

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An Updated Guide to the Timeline of VLD

Last Edit: 07/23/2023

After reviewing my timeline notes in more detail, I decided I wasn’t happy with editing my original VLD timeline guide, but I didn’t want to just delete the earlier meta outright. So I decided to start over and make a brand new meta that reflected my current research notes without me having to constantly go back and edit the old one every time I realized I had missed something.

And boy am I glad I did because in the process I noticed details that I completely overlooked when I made the last timeline guide that trying to edit the original post would’ve led to redoing the whole thing anyway.

So now I present to you my most complete and up-to-date notes on the timeline of Voltron Legendary Defender as of April 2023. Under the cut because this is going to get long.

Part I: The Time Period of the Show

While the show never gives exact dates on when major events in the series take place, we can narrow down when the Paladins left Earth by examining context clues and supplemental material. From there, we can use that to determine a rough idea of the show’s timeline.

Pidge’s flashbacks in S1E05 Tears of the Balmera and the fact that Iverson doesn’t mention her, Lance, and Hunk’s bickering being a pattern when he berates their failure in the simulator during S1E01 The Rise of Voltron indicate that the day of Shiro’s return to Earth was the trio’s first time in the simulator together, and that this was fairly early in the school year.

From a Watsonian perspective, it’s not out of the question that a future Earth might follow a different school calendar. But from a Doylist perspective, since the show never says otherwise, we can take it as a given that since VLD is an American cartoon, the Garrison follows the same academic schedule as American schools. Which start the school year in late summer/early fall and end in late spring/early summer.

At the start of Lance, Pidge, and Hunk’s simulation run in S1E01 The Rise of Voltron, Lance calls out “Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14.”

And Matt’s tombstone in S4E02 Reunion confirms that these numbers represent a date:

Pidge confirms that the 0010.05.25 represents a birth date, since looking at it is how she determines that Matt’s birthday is wrong. Because this is obviously a tombstone, we can logically conclude that 0014.04.28 represents a death date.

Lance’s 5-11-14 flight log number in S1E01 is most likely a reference to the fact that the show started production between April and June of 2014.[1][2]

And when Keith shows the other paladins his notes that he’s compiled on his search for the Blue Lion, a page-a-day calendar can be seen on the back wall showing that the paladins left Earth on the second of whichever month it was.

Meanwhile in S1E02 Some Assembly Required, Hunk refers to Shiro’s rescue from quarantine as Monday night. This would put the paladins’ departure from Earth on Tuesday afternoon, as Iverson confirms in S7E07 The Last Stand: Part 2 that the Paladins left Earth the day after rescuing Shiro.

So, if we look at the months in 2014 near the start of the American school year where the 2nd day of the month was a Tuesday, we can narrow down when the Paladins left Earth.

And the only option that meets all of those criteria is September 2nd, 2014.

Obviously the show doesn’t take place in 2014 because the technology the characters use in their daily lives on Earth is significantly more advanced than what we have in real life even in the 2020s. Not to mention Veronica name dropping World War III in S7E07 The Last Stand: Part 2 as a historical event.

However, it’s also obviously can’t be too far into the future, because other than having more advanced technology, much of what we see of Earth civilization looks fundamentally similar to our present day in terms of things like clothing and architecture, just with some futuristic flourishes here and there:

The fact that the years on Matt’s tombstone in S4E02 both begin with 00 as the first two digits raises the possibility that Earth decided to create a new calendar that started 14 years before the paladins left Earth.

However, it’s more likely that the production staff simply wished to leave it ambiguous how many centuries into the future the show takes place, as from a Doylist perspective there is no purpose to having Earth be on a different calendar system unless it’s relevant to the story.

Not to mention that it doesn’t make sense from a Watsonian perspective, since a change as widespread as the mass-adoption of a new calendar system would have to be in response to a major event that deeply changed society on such a widespread level that the society decided to define it’s calendar by how many years have passed since that event.

And the known event in the history of VLD’s Earth that might have this level of significance is World War III, which the showrunners have said in interviews resulted in “everyone on the planet realizing war sucks. We’re one Earth.”[3]

However, none of the characters act like it’s a recent event that happened within their lifetimes. The one time it’s mentioned in S7E08 The Last Stand: Part 2, Veronica speaks of the conflict as if it was a long time ago. Long enough that she has to preemptively clarify that the underground tunnels used to reach the Garrison’s supply depot are still structurally sound.

On top of the logistics not working out for World War III to have been the cause of a dramatic change in Earth’s calendars, Matt being Pidge’s older brother means that he would’ve been born before the hypothetical calendar change would’ve been adopted.

Yet S4E02 only shows Pidge’s attention being drawn to the year on Matt’s birth date being wrong when her tear slides over to the 10, when the lack of anything before it would’ve stood out first if he was born before the calendar reset to Year 0.

So we can safely take it as a given that the extra zeroes in the years on Matt’s tombstone are there to maintain a sense of ambiguity over what century VLD takes place in.

Which fits with how showrunner Joaquim Dos Santos described how the writers kept the history of VLD’s Earth “nice and nebulous” rather than going into detail on the logistics of World War III.

However since we know that the dates we do have used the 2014 calendar as a basis, and that the Paladins left Earth on Tuesday, September 2nd, all we have to do is find a year ending in 14 where September 2nd is on a Tuesday that’s far enough into the future that there’s enough time for all the advancements of VLD’s earth, but not so far ahead that it’s completely unrecognizable to the 21st century audience.

Which works out well because the next year ending in 14 with September 2nd on a Tuesday is 2414.

Part II: Known Character Birth Years

If we treat it as a given that Season 1 of VLD starts in the year 2414, then we can use that to narrow down the exact birth years of the human Paladins, as well as Allura, Lotor, Matt Holt, and Kova.

Kova is the oldest character whose birth year is known to us, as Haggar states he is 28 deca-phoebs old shortly before the destruction of Daibazaal and Altea.

Allura and Coran were in cryo-sleep for 10,000 Earth years, and Coran’s pedantic comment in S1E01 about the castle being 10,600 years old and built by his grandfather indicates that this number is exact.

This would put the destruction of Altea and Daibazaal in 7586 B.C.E., as Coran’s narration in S3E07 The Legend Begins indicates that the other planets in their solar system were conquered quickly after Zarkon and Haggar woke up from their Rift baths, meaning that both the Altean and Galran homeworlds were destroyed within a very short window of time.

Since Kova was 28 when Daibazaal was destroyed, he would’ve been born in 7614 B.C.E.

Meanwhile, S8E02 Shadows showed that Haggar only became coherent again after she gave birth, and flashbacks in S8E10 Knights of Light: Part 2 depict her participating in the conquest of the system. Which indicates that Lotor was born in between the destruction of both his parents’ home worlds.

In an interview recorded at WonderCon 2017, Lauren Montgomery and Joaqim Dos Santos talked about how despite initially having more knowledge and experience than the other paladins she was “just as young as anyone else”, and that she was handling overcoming her prejudice against the Galra “like any teenager would.” [4]

This indicates that Allura is still a teenager herself in the first 2 seasons.

Something which is supported by the fact that Allura was born less than 28 years before the fall of Altea yet looks to be around Keith, Lance, and Hunk’s age. Which indicates that while Alteans can live for hundreds of years as evidenced by Coran helping his grandfather build the Castle of Lions 600 years before the war against Zarkon, they age at roughly the same rate as normal humans until they reach adulthood.

Since she’s visibly older than Pidge, the showrunners’ remarks about her acting like “any teenager” put her age before being put into cryo-sleep somewhere between 17 and 18, the ages listed for Lance, Hunk, and Keith in the Paladin’s Handbook.

And we can presume that the ages listed in the Handbook are mostly accurate given that Colleen Holt confirms in S8E01 Launch Date that Pidge was 15 when the paladins left Earth, which is the same age that the Paladin’s Handbook gave for Pidge as of the end of Season 2.

So, if Allura is the same age as Keith, Lance, and Hunk, then she would’ve been born between 7603 and 7604 B.C.E.

As for the human characters, the cast and crew of Voltron have consistently said that Shiro was the oldest of the paladins, and that his age was somewhere in his early twenties. The only time a specific number was given was in the context of providing a maximum limit to his age range. Saying that while he was at least 20, he wasn’t older than 25.

However, the fact that his official birthday is February 29th means that it’s impossible for him to actually be 25 as the Voltron Paladins’ Handbook claimed.

Because leap years only happen once every 4 years, in years that are divisible by 4 into a whole number (The only exceptions are years that are by 100 but not 400).

It’s not possible for Shiro to be 25 in Season 1 because that would require the year of the Kerberos mission to be a leap year, since Shiro’s 24th birthday would mark the 6th time that February 29th occurred on the calendar since his birth.

The year before 2414 would be 2413, which cannot be divided by 4 into a whole number (trying gets you 603.25). However the year before Kerberis, 2412, is divisible by 4 into a whole number (603), meaning that 2414 is in between two leap years.

With all of this in mind, the only way for Shiro to be older than 20 but younger than 25 in 2414, is if he turned 20 in 2412, as his 20th birthday would mark the 5th time since he was born that February 29th occurred on the calendar. This puts the year of his birth in 2392, making him 22 years old when he returns to Earth in Season 1.

Meanwhile, Pidge being 15 when the Paladins left Earth in 2414 would mean that she was born in 2399.

Meanwhile, the Coalition Handbook, which is written from the perspective of 1 deca-phoeb after the Paladins left Earth, talks about Krolia’s arrival on Earth being “about 19 Earth years ago,” indicating that Keith’s parents met in 2396.

The Handbook’s indication of a 1-year timespan from Season 1 to Season 5 is confirmed by Sam’s debrief during the flashback portions of S7E07 The Last Stand: Part 1. Commander Iverson mentions that Sam’s return to Earth in S5E05 Bloodlines happened a month before the meeting and says that the Keberos mission was two years ago.

Krolia’s arrival being about 19 years ago appears to reinforce the Paladin’s Handbook listing Keith as being 18 by the end of Season 2. Pidge’s age means that S2E13 Blackout can’t happen any later than April 2, 2415, meaning that Keith – whose birthday is October 23rd according to the show’s official social media accounts – turns 18 at some point during the first 2 seasons of the show. This puts his birth year in 2396 and indicates that his parents had to have met sometime that January, as we’ve seen little evidence to suggest that Galra pregnancies are any longer than human ones.

So, if Pidge and Keith’s ages in the Paladins’ handbook are accurate, then we can assume Hunk and Lance’s ages are too.

Lance’s birthday is listed by the show’s official social media accounts as July 28, so the timeframe of Seasons 1-2 means he would’ve already been 17 by the time the Paladins left Earth. This means that he would have been born in 2397.

Hunk is a little tricky since his birthday is January 13th, as neither the show nor the handbooks give any details to definitively confirm whether he turned 17 during the first 2 seasons, or if he was already 17 when they left Earth.

However, some context clues regarding the nature of the Garrison’s Cadet Program and the glimpses of his backstory that we got in S7E01 A Little Adventure can help make some educated assumptions.

In her goodbye to Matt at the Kerberos launchpad in S4E02, Pidge says “I can’t believe I have to go through middle school without you.”

Since Pidge makes no mention of attempting to enroll at the Garrison while Matt and her father are in space, this logically indicates that Pidge is entering 8th grade and that the Galaxy Garrison cadet program is for students at the high school level (Grades 9-12).

The fact that the MFE pilots had graduated by the time Sam returns in 2415 supports this, as their presence as background cameos in S1E01 and in the flashbacks of Keith and Shiro’s past from S7E01 indicate that they, Lance, Keith, and Hunk all enrolled in the cadet program the same year. This means that when the Paladins left Earth, Lance and Hunk were starting their senior year of high school

Keith and Lance being 17 and 18 during Season 1 is consistent with that, as 17 and 18 are the typical ages at which most American teenagers graduate from high school [5].

In the United States, many schools in grades K-12 use students’ birthdays to determine grade placement, with students who are born before a certain cutoff date (usually around the beginning of the school year) being placed in a higher grade level than students born after the cutoff [6].

For example, Lance and Keith are shown to both be in the same class at the Garrison in S7E01 even though Keith being born a year earlier means he’d theoretically be in the grade above Lance. But Lance’s birthday is in July, and Keith’s is in October.

So, if Lance’s July birthday is before the cutoff for enrollment for their grade level, then logically the same is true for Hunk’s January birthday, meaning that Hunk is already 17 during Season 1, putting his birth in the same year as Lance’s.

And knowing how the Garrison’s Cadet Program functions as an equivalent to high school means that we can figure out how old Matt is.

In the Shiro’s Story Ready-to-Read book, Shiro describes how he and Matt were selected for the Kerberos mission after they finished school:

Since Keith is still wearing his cadet uniform when he confronts Shiro about his disease, this means that Sam and Sanda’s argument about Shiro being on the mission had to have happened during a period when classes were in session, as the flashback of their hoverbike racing in S7E01 and the lack of comments from Hunk about being caught out of uniform in S1E01 indicate that students are permitted to wear casual attire outside of school hours.

This means that Shiro and Matt had to have graduated the year before the Kerberos Mission, and then spent the following year training and preparing.

From this, we can conclude that Matt’s senior year at the Garrison corresponded to Keith, Lance, and Hunk’s freshmen year, putting Matt in the cadet program’s graduating class of 2412.

This would mean that Matt started classes at the Garrison in the fall of 2408.

And when Pidge says that his birthday is wrong in S4E02, she only does so after the camera draws viewers’ attention to the year. Which indicates that the month and date are correct, putting Matt’s birthday on May 25th. Based on what we’ve established about cutoff dates for grade placement, this would mean that Matt was 14 years old when he started classes at the Garrison, putting his birth year in 2394.

Part III: The Main Narrative

Knowing that Season 1 begins in September 2414 allows us to use the date of the Paladins’ departure from Earth as a baseline from which to determine a timeline of the show’s main storyline.

As previously established, the meta references and context clues within the first season place the paladins’ departure from Earth in S1E01 on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2414.

Since this is “1 year later” from Shiro’s capture on Kerberos, this puts the crew’s abduction in September 2413.

Since the Paladins’ Handbook reflects events up to the end of Season 2 and refers to Shiro’s capture as being “about a year ago,” we can safely assume that entirety of Seasons 1 – 2 take place before the end of 2414 in order for the character ages in the guidebook to be accurate by the end of S2E13 Blackout.

And for the first several episodes of Season 1, we’re given enough information to pinpoint exact dates for when much of the first season takes place.

Arus’ environment is shown to be nearly indistinguishable from Earths’ so we can assume that days on Arus last for about the same amount of time as days on Earth.

Coran states indicates in S1E01 that the search for the lions took about 2 hours, immediately after which the paladins had their first battle with Sendak.

The beginning of S1E02 Some Assembly Required is confirmed to take place the following morning, as Allura refers to the battle against Sendak in S10E1 as “yesterday”. Coran then tells Pidge that the prisoners they rescued need to remain in the cryo pods to heal “until tomorrow,” putting the events of S1E03 Return of the Gladiator on Thursday, September 4th.

S1E04 Fall of the Castle of Lions takes place entirely at night, with the Arusian’s re-enactment of Voltron’s battle with the Myzax robeast and Coran’s comment about letting the Arusians see the inside of the castle indicating from context that this is still on Thursday the 4th. This puts the daytime events of S1E05 on Friday, September 5th.

S1E06 Taking Flight takes place on the 6th, as Allura states at the end of S1E05 that Lance should be fully healed from his injuries after a day in the cryo pods.

Shay’s Belmera was close enough that Hunk and Coran could fly there from Arus in a small shuttle pod, have dinner with Shay’s family, fix their shuttle pod, wander around in the tunnel looking for the crystal, get captured, get rescued by Shay, and then get back to Arus all in less than a day.

So even if they spent several hours talking to Rolo and Nyma in S1E06, they still would’ve reached the Balmera in S1E07 Return to Balmera the same day.

Since S1E08 Rebirth ends with Hunk showing Shay her first sunrise after the Balmera is liberated, this brings the paladins to Sunday, September 7th.

The first volume of the tie in comics is stated to take place right after this, as the paladins are leaving the Balmera in Issue #1. The bulk of the action happens over the course of the following day, as Issue #1 states that the Paladins’ battle against the guardian monster took place the day after they left Allura at the Castle, and the sky on Krell shifts from morning to afternoon colors over the course of the Paladins’ time there, along with the fact that the sky outside the Fripping Bolgogian is in sunset colors in both Issue #1 and Issue #5.

So the first 8 episodes of Season 1 and the first volume of the comics all take place from September 1st to September 8th.

From here, the timeframes indicated become murkier, as while many events seem to take place very close together, the fact that the guidebooks put Keith as 18 by the end of Season 2 means that S2E12 Best Laid Plans cannot take place any earlier than October 23rd, 2414.

There are a few instances where we can estimate the time between certain episodes, however, we don’t have enough concrete information to confirm an exact time frame by Earth’s calendar for anything after the first volume of the comics.

However, the fact that the Voltron Coalition Handbook refers to the Lion Shuffle as “many quintants ago”, even if that’s an understatement, indicates that since the second handbook is written from the perspective of Fall 2415, we can assume that Season 3 took place in 2415 as well.

Meanwhile, context clues in S3E01 Changing of the Guard and the 2 subsequent episodes indicate that only a short time passes between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3.

S3E01 shows that the Paladins have been splitting off to pursue their own objectives during the timeskip between Seasons 2 and 3, with Hunk and Lance liberating planets with the Blade of Marmora while Pidge looks for clues to her brother’s whereabouts while Keith searches for Shiro. Acxa’s reports in S3E02 Red Paladin on where they’ve been spotted by the empire only indicate a handful of sightings, suggesting that it hasn’t been that long since the end of Season 2. This is supported by the fact that Lance and Hunk brought the leaders of the planets they had liberated since S2E13 to the Castle to talk about joining the Coalition, and only 5 planetary leaders were present for the meeting.

Furthermore, as S3E05 The Journey depicted with Shiro, a human can survive up to 7 days without food or water. So in addition to Keith’s grief over Shiro’s disappearance still being fresh, the fact that he’s still looking for Shiro among the wreckage from S2E13 suggests that the start of S3E01 is within that 7-day window.

On top of that, Throk indicates to his friend when they’re sitting in the arena that he’s been trying to speak to Zarkon for several days without success.

But on the other hand, enough time needs to pass that planets like Puig will have heard of Voltron’s defeat of Zarkon before the paladins arrive

All of these details indicate that the time between the end of S2E13 and the beginning of S3E01 wasn’t more than 2 or 3 weeks.

So if the end of Season 2 was still in 2414 and the first 3 episodes of Season 3 were in 2415, that means that the final battle of Season 2 took place in December 2414, and the opening arc of Season 3 took place in January 2415.

Meanwhile, S3E05 shows that Shiro travelled in a stolen Galra fighter for 7 days after Thayserix before Keith found him at the end of the episode. Even if there’s some time dilation involved, the fact that the Paladins are surprised Lotor was able to construct the first Sincline ship so quickly in S3E06 Tailing a Comet indicates that it hasn’t been that long since Lotor stole it in S3E04 Hole in the Sky, meaning that all of Season 3 took place in January.

S7E07 indicates that Sam’s debriefing happened a year after the Paladins left in Season 1, putting the meeting scene in September 2415. This would be consistent with Iverson’s introduction of the MFE pilots indicating that they’ve graduated from the Cadet Program.

The next time-skip jumps to 1 year after Sam’s debriefing, indicating that Matt contacted Earth in September 2416.

Matt tells his parents that Voltron hasn’t been seen in 6 months, putting the last 4 episodes of Season 6 in March of 2416.

He also mentions that the Coalition and Blade of Marmora memories are being hunted, and that their army had been “all but wiped out”, indicating that the Druids’ counterattack had clearly been going on for some time before Matt contacted his parents. However in S8E02, Macidus tells Haggar that “it has been phoebs since Emperor Lotor disappeared,” and that “the Blade of Marmora still challenges,” indicating that the purge of the Coalition and BoM had not yet begun as of two months after Voltron’s battle with Lotor, putting the beginning of the attacks on the Blade and Coalition somewhere between May and August of 2416.

Meanwhile, because of the 3-year time jump, this means that the Paladins began their voyage back to Earth in March 2419.

Near the beginning of S7E06, Shiro indicates that it’s only been a few weeks since he woke up in the clone body at the end of S6E07, and when Lance asks how long they’ve been out there, Romelle says “going on four movements” before he then asks how much longer it’ll take to reach Earth.

Coran’s comment in S1E02 about his Paladin lunch helping the team form Voltron “six times a movement” is said in the same manner that we’d say “seven days a week” in real life, suggesting that one movement is 6 quintants.

Which means that by the beginning of S7E06, the Paladins have spent more than 18 days flying back to Earth, but less than 24.

Meanwhile, the Paladins mention in S7E03 The Way Forward that, from their perspective, their battle with Lotor was “a few weeks” ago, indicating that at least two movements had passed since the end of S6E07 Defender of All Universes by the time they encounter Ezor and Zethrid’s pirate crew at the end of S7E02 The Road Home. However, it’s ambiguous whether all of those movements were spent on travelling or if it took the Paladins a few days to finish the preparations for their voyage before leaving the Dalterion belt.

And Pidge’s insistence in S7E06 that they still have one and a half Earth years of travel time left gives me the impression that we’re still in the same calendar month.

From all of this, we can conclude that the entire first half of Season 7 up until the Paladins fly out of that energy burst and reach Earth takes place within the month of March 2419.

Depending on how long the Paladins spent repairing the lions and preparing for the voyage between the end of S7E01 and the beginning of S7E02, this means that their landing on the Dalterion Belt and Shiro being merged with his clone had to have occurred somewhere between March 1st and March 8th, which would also apply to the timing of the Paladins’ battle with Lotor in S6E07.

With Sam’s debriefing being a month after he landed, and him being released from quarantine after about a week, he would’ve had to have landed and been released in August 2415 in order for September 2416 to still be “just over a year” after he started working to upgrade Earth’s defensive capabilities.

With the debriefing scene being “four years ago” from the beginning of S7E07, this would put the Paladins’ return to Earth in August 2419.

The liberation of Earth appears to only take a couple of days at most, and according to Shiro in S8E01 Launch Date, rebuilding took “several months” before the Paladins were ready to return to space.

This puts the beginning of Season 8 in early 2420, and a line from Rizavi in S8E01 helps to narrow things down.

When Pidge sees the Killbot Phantasm game, Rizavi mentions that it came out just before Sendak invaded, and that because of that there hadn’t been enough time for any players to reach the final level. She then tells the shopkeeper that she waited 3 years to get to the end of the game.

Meanwhile, Macidus tells the Paladins in S7E05 The Ruins that he has been marooned on the planet they found him at for “the last two decaphoebs,” and that the Druids’ purge against the Blade of Marmora was them “carrying out her final orders.”

Since the Paladins would have encountered him in March 2419, this would put the fall of the Blade of Marmora and Kolivan’s capture in March 2417, 7-10 months after the beginning of the counterattack against the Coalition that Matt spoke of in S7E07.

S8E02 Shadows confirms that Sendak invaded Earth on Honerva’s orders in the hopes of drawing out Voltron. Given, the potential narrative symmetry, it’s likely that Sendak’s invasion of Earth took place around the same time.

Which would be consistent with how the MFE pilots are referred to by Admiral Sanda as cadets in S7E07 when they had already graduated from the cadet program the previous year because they, like Shiro appear to be in a post-graduate program to continue their education after high school:

At WonderCon 2016, showrunner Lauren Montgomery referred to Shiro as a “slightly older student.”

Meanwhile in S7E01 he appears to be assisting Iverson and other Garrison instructors with classes, but is not treated by other characters as if he’s a full-time teacher himself.

During the briefing scene in S7E7, Commander Iverson gives Shiro’s rank as Lieutenant, reflecting the tradition of fictional military organizations in science fiction to utilize the ranking systems of real world militaries, particularly with naval ranks such as Commander and Admiral which are exclusively used for naval officers.

During his visit to Keith’s school and his time overseeing simulator drills with Keith’s class, Shiro’s uniform only has two stripes on the shoulders of his uniform, and he’s never addressed by any specific rank.

However in the scene where Sanda and Sam Holt are arguing about Shiro’s inclusion on the Kerberos mission, his uniform now has three stripes on the shoulder, which he has been consistently shown to have in Pidge’s flashback to the crew’s disappearance being announced in S1E05, which show photos of Shiro, Sam, and Matt that would’ve been taken specifically for the mission’s publicity. And when Sam is debriefed in S7E07, Iverson identifies Shiro as a Lieutenant.

In our world, it takes an average of 4 years after enlisting in the navy for a person to be promoted to lieutenant. However, if someone enlists before or while in college, promotion to Lieutenant can be achieved with the completion of a Master’s Degree.

Depending on the field, a Masters’ degree would require an additional four years after completing a Bachelor’s degree. However, some universities that specialize in specific subjects (like mine did) offer a Master’s program that only takes an additional 1-2 years after receiving a Bachelor’s degree to complete.

Since the Garrison’s cadet program is teaching what 21st century viewers would consider advanced college-level science to high school students, it’s plausible that the Garrison has an advanced program for graduates of the cadet program to continue taking classes. Which makes sense because the Garrison’s cadet program is clearly an example of a vocational school, which focuses education at the secondary (high-school) and/or post-secondary (college) level on teaching students the skills and knowledge required for a specific career path, as opposed to a more general education.

It explains why tie-in books indicate that Shiro and Matt graduated from the Garrison at the same time. While Matt was completing his regular education in the cadet program, Shiro was finishing up his advanced education track.

Because Shiro makes multiple comments that imply an in-depth knowledge of physics and astronomy: From knowing enough constellations to recognize in S1E01 that the Blue Lion’s wormhole has left them in unfamiliar space, to being able to calculate the approximate speed of the black lion’s fall at the start of S2E01 Across the Universe in his head despite the pain of a glowing magic wound in his side and the general exhaustion of the battle they’d just come out of.

It even explains why S7E01 has Shiro was helping with classes and Adam mentioning having a class to teach, because many high schools and colleges offer work-study programs to where students can work part-time jobs at the school in exchange for financial assistance, as well as to get hands on work experience in a particular field so that they can transition from school to working more easily. Which also explains why Sam and Adam both mention Shiro having gone on multiple space flights and missions by the time he’s selected for the Kerberos mission even though the timeline indicates he’d only be 20 by the time he was chosen for Kerberos.

And since my analysis of Garrison lore indicates that the grey/green uniform that Shiro wears when visiting Keith’s school is reserved for those whose work in administrative roles and other capacities in the day-to-day running of the Garrison, this would indicate that he graduated from the cadet program at least a year or two before, and received the new uniform as part of the work-study program when classes started up the following school year.

So, the MFE pilots continuing their education after completing the cadet program would explain why Sanda would still refer to them as cadets even if they’ve already graduated from the cadet program: because even if they’re not in the cadet program anymore, they’re still students.

The pattern we’ve established regarding the human characters’ birthdates and grade levels means that Shiro would’ve graduated from the regular cadet program in 2410 (meaning he would’ve enrolled in 2406) and finished his advanced studies in 2412, making the Garrisons’ post-graduation education options a 2-year program.

This means that the amount of time that Sendak’s invasion of Earth had to have been before May of 2417. So, a March 2417 invasion around the same time the Druids and the Blades wiped each other out fits within that window.

And if that is the case, then Rizavi’s “three years” comment would put S8E01 in March 2420.

From the perspective of the crew of the Atlas, the first half of the season takes place over the course of about 48 Earth days. S8E08 Clear Day appears to take place within a couple days after the end of S8E07 Day Forty-Seven, as Hunk introduced the Altean robeast Pilots to Allura and Coran near the end of the day, and the following episode opens with Tavo agreeing to speak with Allura due to Hunk’s efforts at reaching out to the Alteans with food.

However, the leader of planet Drazan indicates that thanks to time dilation, the Atlas’ internal clocks are about 24 days behind the rest of the universe by the beginning of S8E08, as Coran notes that according to their calendars, Clear Day shouldn’t be for another four movements.

Depending on when in March the Atlas left Earth, this put the Clear Day celebration somewhere between May 12th and June 10th, 2420.

Based on how quickly events move following the events of S8E08, this would put the final confrontation with Honerva somewhere between the middle of May and the middle of June, which would put the epilogue in May or June of 2421.

Given that the fact the timeframe of the show was determined based on a meta gag about the show’s production, my instinct leans towards the second half of Season 8 all taking place in May, as it would mean that the entire main plot of the show – which was contracted for 78 episodes (the hour-long pilot being 3 episodes stitched together) – took place over approximately 7 years and 8 months.

Part IV: Backstory Dates & Other Timeline Trivia

Now that we’ve hammered out the timeline for the main events of the story, we can start filling in dates for elements of the characters’ backstories and other areas of the timeline not covered by the previous sections.

The First Kral Zera:

In S5E04 Kral Zera, the Archivist states in 2415 that the Kral Zera has been burning for “over thirteen millennia,” putting the first Kral Zera and the official founding of the Galra Empire as a political entity sometime before 10,585 BCE. Since he said thirteen, rather than fourteen, we can logically assume that it couldn’t be any earlier than 13,999 years before 2415, which would be 11,584 BCE.

The Daibazaal Rift:

Kova appears to be fully grown when Zarkon first meets him in Honerva’s lab in S3E07 after the discovery of the Rift on Daibazaal. Using Earth cat development as a basis for comparison, this would indicate that Kova is at least 1 year old by this point, meaning the earliest that the Trans-reality comet could have crashed was 7613 B.C.E.

However, it cannot have happened any later than 2 years before Allura’s birth. When Honerva shows Alfor that their Quintessence experiment is running after he thanks her for the gift celebrating Allura’s birth, he notes that the experiment has been running for a full year by that point. But despite the experiment being positioned right next to her workstation, it was nowhere to be seen when she and Zarkon were having their first meeting before the timeskip.

Meanwhile, before the episode transitioned from Honerva and Zarkon’s first meeting to Alfor showing his daughter off to Zarkon, Coran’s narration refers to Alfor visiting often “as the years passed,” indicating that more than one year passes between the discovery of the rift and Allura’s birth.

This means that since the experiment would’ve begun in 6704 or 7605 B.C.E., the Rift cannot have been opened any later than 7605 or 7606 B.C.E.

The Difference Between 1 Year & 1 Deca-Phoeb:

When Shiro and Allura are detected during their infiltration of a Galra cruiser in S1E10 Collection and Extraction, the computer identifies Shiro as "Fugitive prisoner 117-9875."

The format of his prisoner ID number indicates the year on the empire's calendar that Shiro was captured, meaning that the Galran calendar lists Earth year 2414 as imperial year 9876.

Initially, I thought this meant that the references to Altea being destroyed "10,000 years ago" were a generalization and that it wasn't exactly 10,000 years.

However, Coran's insistence on correcting Hunk that the Castle of Lions is 10,600 years old in S1E01 indicates that it was indeed exactly 10,000 years between Altea's destruction and the return of the Blue Lion.

Which left me with a bit of a conundrum of how to reconcile the two timescales. Then I remembered that S1E06 established that Earth and intergalactic time measurements weren't exactly 1:1, with Pidge and Coran's comparison showing that ticks were slightly bigger than seconds.

So I decided to do the math and see if how 9876 decaphoebs would compare to 10,000 years. And dividing both numbers by 9876 gives me 1 Deca-Phoeb = 0.9876 Years.

Meaning that Shiro's prisoner ID and the references to Altea's destruction being 10,000 years ago are both correct.

Shiro and Keith’s First Meeting:

Since the Galaxy Garrison’s cadet program is shown to be for high school students, and that Keith, Lance, and Hunk were meant to graduate in 2415, we can deduce that Shiro and Keith first met in the spring of 2411. Most high school enrollment is done in the spring, so it makes the most sense for the Garrison to send Shiro to local schools to convince students who will be freshmen at the start of the next school year to enroll, as opposed to trying to persuade kids to transfer in the middle of the year.

Based on the fact that Lance was in 9th grade as a 14-year-old, the Garrison likely starts classes in August, which is consistent with the fact that Keith’s map of his search for the Blue Lion places the Garrison near the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

Where, according to my own research and the experience of friends who live there, the school year typically begins in late July or early August and ends in May.

This would mean that Shiro just only a month or two past his 19th birthday when he and Keith first met, while Keith was around 14 and a half.

Pidge’s Grade Level:

Though we don’t know exactly when it happened, the fact that Pidge is still in 8th Grade when she turns 15 means that somewhere along the line she had to repeat a grade during middle or elementary school.

Details and Aftermath of the Kerberos Mission:

In S4E02, Matt mentions planning to use their family code to keep in touch with Pidge during his mission, so the fact that Pidge never mentions receiving any message with the code letting her know that they landed safely indicates that Matt, Sam, and Shiro were abducted shortly after arriving on Kerberos.

The news broadcast announcing their disappearance is dated five months after the launch, and earlier in the flashback, Sam mentions that he and Matt “will be eating freeze-dried peas for the next two months.”

Since their abduction happened in September 2413, this puts the mission’s launch in July of 2413. From a logistics standpoint, a summer launch makes sense for the Garrison so that they won’t have to worry about disrupting classes, or cadets sneaking around to watch the launch and getting hurt.

This would mean that the crew’s disappearance was announced in December 2413.

Pidge’s confrontation with Iverson during S1E05 indicates that she was not aware of the involvement of aliens prior to her enrolling at the Garrison, as she only mentions that the Garrison’s probes show no sign of a crash on Kerberos and doesn’t bring up the transmission from the Galra warship to Zarkon’s central command that S7E07 reveals the Garrison had managed to record.

The Paladin Handbook states that a rescue mission to Kerberos recovered the remaining equipment, so the fact that Pidge doesn’t mention finding reports from the rescue team on Iverson’s computer in S1E05 indicates that the rescue mission hadn’t left yet when the disappearance was made public.

Since S7E07 shows video footage of Shiro, Matt, and Sam on Kerberos getting cut off as the Galra cruiser approaches, the probes were presumably destroyed by the cruiser as it arrived on Kerberos, and the Garrison sent new probes to try and reestablish contact before making the crew’s disappearance public.

A further piece of evidence for the Garrison beginning classes in August is that Pidge’s comments in S1E01 indicate that she’s been listening to Galra radio chatter for several nights now and can recognize that the level of activity on the night of Shiro’s return to Earth is higher than normal. A month would give her a decent amount of data to work with to identify patterns of activity.

The VR Game and The Zel:

In the opening of that one VR game Voltron: VR Chronicles, Zarkon and Haggar discuss a technologically advanced species known as the Zel, whose population was decimated by the empire a millennia ago, but whose homeworld remains hidden from the empire.

The game features Shiro still piloting the black lion, and Haggar indicates in the first cutscene that they’re still able to track the Castle of Lions through Zarkon’s bond with the Black Lion, which puts the game before the events of S2E04 Greening the Cube. However, the paladins don’t give any indication that they’re aware that Zarkon can track them like that, meaning that it has to take place before Allura gets captured in S1E10 Collection and Extraction.

Given the timeline established for the first 2/3 of Season 1, the only places the events of the VR game could fit is between volume 1 of the comics and the beginning of S1E09 Crystal Venom, or during the travel montage in S1E10. However, the lack of any mention of getting back to their journey to the coordinates of the hidden Quintessence refinery in S1E10 means it has to take place between S1E08 and S1E09, particularly since Lance notes the game’s robeast boss fight - a recolor of the same one that attacked the Balmera - is giving him deja vu.

In the VR game, Hunk also indicates that travelling via wormhole is still a relatively new experience for him, so it’s most likelt that this game still takes place sometime in September 2414 after the events of the comic.

All of which means that the empire’s battle with the Zel that Zarkon and Haggar talk about would have occurred somewhere in the year 1414.

Timeframe of Seasons 4 – 5:

S4E01 Code of Honor opens with Keith indicating that Lotor hasn’t been seen in months. Since their last encounter with Lotor’s forces was in early January 2415, and Keith says months – as in plural – the earliest the beginning of the episode could take place is some time in March 2415. However, based on the timeframe of Season 8’s Clear Day, it can’t be any later than the end of April.

S4E04 The Voltron Show! establishes that the planet Drazan has a 721-day year and only 1 of those days ever gets clear skies, with Team Voltron missing that year’s Clear day due to Coran’s miscalculations.

However, in S8E08, Drazan is celebrating another Clear Day and explicitly states that this is the first one after the one that Voltron missed in Season 4. Which means that a day on planet Drazan is longer than an Earth day or standard quintant.

We’ve already narrowed down that Season 8’s clear day took place somewhere between May 12th and May 24th 2420, so if we assume that the paladins missing the previous Clear Day happened within the same window of time in 2415, this would put the beginning of S4E04 sometime in May 2415.

(Which, incidentally, means that a year on Drazon would be equivalent to about 5 years on Earth, while a day on Drazan is approximately 60 hours or 2.5 Earth days).

Meanwhile, Coran indicates in S4E04 that Keith’s departure from the team has not spread very far yet, indicating that the episode begins a short time after the end of S4E01 since Keith no longer piloting the Black Lion is not common knowledge yet. This means that Keith leaving the team would have also taken place in May 2415.

S4E01 shows a montage of time passing while Keith works with the Blades, indicating that a notable amount of time passed between the beginning and the end of the episode. Furthermore, Allura’s comment about how Keith keeps saying he’s sorry for not being there, but his actions say otherwise indicate a consistent pattern of Keith being too busy on Blade Missions to perform his duties as the Black Paladin. This indicates that Keith was flaking on them for at least a couple weeks before the crisis where Shiro had to reconnect with the Black Lion.

Meanwhile, the fact that Coran states that Keith’s departure from the team at the start of the season is not common knowledge yet in S4E04 indicates that S4E04 actually takes place before S4E02. This is reinforced by the fact that Lotor’s urgency to access the Quintessence field in S4E05 Begin the Blitz indicates that very little time has passed since the end of S4E03 Black Site, which contrasts how S4E04 clearly took place over the course of several days, if not multiple weeks.

The timeframe for Sam’s return to Earth that I identified in the previous section puts all of Season 5 in August 2415, as events are indicated to happen fairly quickly:

S5E03 Postmortem clearly starts the morning after Zarkon is killed, and Lotor states that the Kral Zera will be held sometime in the next two days.

The hostage exchange in S5E02 Blood Duel likely only took a couple days at most of back-and-forth communication to negotiate the terms and details after the end of S5E01 The Prisoner.

S5E04 shows that Sam was making the final preparations to leave for Earth when Shiro and Lotor went to the Kral Zera, meaning that both Sam’s departure and the Paladins’ arrival at Central Command would’ve taken place a day or two later.

Pidge, Lance, and Hunk are shown spending most of a day goofing around on Central Command with their reprogrammed Sentry while Lotor and Allura are looking through Haggar’s lair.

After Allura finds the compass stone, they appear to head to Oriande if not that day then the following day, and when the castle loses power thanks to the White Lion, we’re told that the Castle only has another quintant of air left.

Assuming they spent a night recovering from oxygen deprivation like Shiro did in Season 3, then they would’ve returned to central command the following day. Right when they got back, Lotor had to receive a briefing on the state of the empire. A few hours later, he did his speech, following which Voltron went to help protect the Omega Shield

While it’s unclear exactly how many days passed between the end of S5E04 and Keith’s half of S5E05, Hunk indicates in S80E3 The Prisoner’s Dilemma that Keith and Krolia had already started their trip through the Quantum Abyss by the time the Paladins came to the aid of the Omega Shield.

So we can confirm that the entirety of Season 5 takes place in August 2415.

From there, we can narrow down a rough idea of when the rest of Season 4 takes place.

While it’s not stated exactly how much time passes between S4E06 A New Defender and S5E01, it’s implied to not be that long. In S5E01, Nyma thanks Pidge and Matt for helping with repairs on the Coalition’s fleet, saying the ships were “pretty banged up after the invasion.” This implicitly indicates that the attack on Naxzela and the rest of the Galra forces in that section of the universe was recent enough that repairs to the rebel ships that survived the battle were only just now being finished.

However, enough time needs to have passed that Lotor has been able to give them several locations for Galra bases to attack that were low-risk before he runs out of easy targets to give them.

So, it’s likely only been a couple of weeks at most since the end of Season 4. Since S4E02 and S4E03 happen only a day or two together, and S4E05 is implied to take place just a day or so after that, this puts the remainder of Season 4 sometime in late July, since Sam would’ve had to land on Earth in mid August in order for both his debriefing and Matt contacting Earth “just over a year” after said debriefing to be in September.

Which means that the third volume of the comics most likely also takes place in July, since the first issue of this arc depicts the Paladins attempting to drive a Galra fleet out of the Coalition’s new territory without letting them fly in the direction of the planets that were already liberated in S4E06 A New Defender, and the central conflict of the arc revolved around the paladins attempting to test if the information Lotor was providing them with was accurate.

Meanwhile, the scenes of Haggar gazing into Zarkon’s mind and remembering her past in S3E07 are implied to take place concurrently with S4E02.

S3E07 ends with Haggar waking Zarkon up, yet we don’t see him up and around until S4E02, which takes place several months after the end of Season 3.

Now, which sounds more logical?

Haggar wakes Zarkon up in October 2414 and he spends the next eight months or so sitting on his ass doing nothing while his empire keeps crumbling under rebel uprising?

Or Lotor’s lack of involvement in the empire for months as seen in S4E01 Code of Honor making Haggar desperate enough to tap into Zarkon’s mind, at which point he immediately gets out of his bed and takes the throne back from Lotor in S4E03 Black Site?

The latter would certainly be a logical sequence of events. And it would better explain why she’s suddenly looking at her old appearance as Honerva at the beginning of S4E03 if her recollection of her past was just yesterday than if she remembered months ago and is only now deciding to look at her old face.

Warlord Lahn Raiding Ranveig’s Base:

The Paladins visiting Drazan’s Clear Day festival appears to take place only a day or two after the end of S8E07. In that episode, the Altean robeast pilot the Atlas picks up is noted to be the 6th one they’ve brought aboard since leaving Oriande. Assuming they picked up one robeast pilot per day, this means that at least 6 days passed for the Atlas since the end of S8E06 Gensis.

Given that time dilation has only come up in the series when characters are travelling without using wormholes, we can probably assume that more than 6 days passed for the rest of the universe.

Since S8E08 appears to take place on Day 48 and is 24 quintants behind Planet Drazan thanks to time dilation, my best estimate would be that at least 12 days pass between the battle in Oriande and Clear Day.

Depending on when in May the Atlas visited Drazan for Clear Day, this would put the attack on Oriande somewhere between the end of April and the beginning of May.

S8E06 is indicated to take place only a day or so after the events of S8E05 The Grudge, which itself takes place only a short time after S8E04 Battle Scars, as the episode opens with the Paladins informing the Atlas of Olkarion’s fate.

Meanwhile S8E04 indicates it’s been only a few days for them since they left the Atlas at the end of S8E03, as Pidge notes that they’ve checked 11 star systems for signs of Robeasts in the last 3 days. Assuming that further time dilation occurred during S8E04 and S8E05, this would put the Atlas’ invasion of Warlord Lahn’s base on planet Ryker some time in April 2420.

When Lahn receives the transmission from the lost ship Klytax V-3, he mentions that he sent it and 14 other cruisers to scout Warlord Ranveig’s base from S5E05 for weapons six phoebs ago, which would be in October 2419.

Section V: The Complete Timeline

When you add everything together, the timeline of the VLD universe looks like this:

10,585-11,584 B.C.E.: The Galra Empire is formally established on the planet Feyiv with the coronation of Emperor Brodar in the first Kral Zera.

8186 B.C.E.: Coran’s grandfather builds the Castle of Lions. Coran accompanies him to a Balmera during the construction.

7614 B.C.E.: Kova is born

7606-7613 B.C.E.: A Trans-Reality Comet crash lands on the planet Daibazaal and a rift between realities is discovered at the crash site.

7604-7605 B.C.E.: 1 year before Allura’s birth, Honerva and Alfor initiate their first Quintessence experiment.

7603-7604 B.C.E.: Princess Allura is born, and Voltron makes its debut defending Daibazaal from the Rift Creatures.

7586 B.C.E.: Daibazzal and Altea are destroyed. Lotor is born

1414: The Galra Empire battles a technologically advanced species known as the Zel and decimates their population, but are unable to locate the Zelthronian homeworld.

2392, February 29: Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane is born

2394, May 25: Matt Holt is born

2396, January: Krolia crash lands on Earth

2396, October 23: Keith is born

2397, January 13: Hunk is born

2397, July 28: Lance is born

2398, April 03: Katie “Pidge” Holt is born

2406, August: Shiro begins taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison.

2408, August: Matt begins taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison.

2410, May: Shiro graduates from Galaxy Garrison’s cadet program

2410, August: Shiro continues his education at the Garrison

2411, March-May: Shiro visits Keith’s middle school as a recruiter for the Garrison sometime in the spring

2411, August: Keith, Lance, Hunk, James Griffin, Nadia Rizavi, Ryan Kinkade, and Ina Leifsdottir begin taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison

2412, May: Matt and Shiro graduate from their respective programs at the Galaxy Garrison.

2412, August: Shiro and Matt are selected to be part of the Garrison’s mission to Kerberos.

2413, July: The Garrison’s mission to Kerberos launches

2413, September: Sam Holt, Matt, and Shiro reach Kerberos and are captured by the Galra Empire.

2413, December: Galaxy Garrison publicly announces the disappearance of the Kerberos mission.

2414, April 28: Rebel forces battle the Galra Empire on the planet Marchanda, resulting in 127,098 rebel casualties while the planet is reduced to a barren wasteland. Matt uses this battle to fake his death and go into hiding in a hidden rebel listening post.

2414, May 11: A rescue mission from Galaxy Garrison arrives on Kerberos to retrieve the equipment left behind after the original mission’s disappearance.

2414, August: Katie Holt begins taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison under the name of Pidge Gunderson in order to find information about what happened to her father and brother.

2414, September 01: Shiro lands on Earth and is rescued from quarantine by Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge.

2414, September 02: Shiro, Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge find the Blue Lion and leave Earth.

2414, September 03: The Paladins train to figure out how to form Voltron outside of combat.

2414, September 04: The Paladins meet the Arusian natives and defeat the Myzax Robeast. Sendak attacks the Castle of Lions that night.

2414, September 05: Pidge and the paladins retake the Castle of Lions from Sendak while Hunk and Coran retrieve a new Balmeran crystal.

2414, September 06: The Castle of Lions takes off from Arus and liberates Shay’s Balmera later that day following an encounter with Rollo and Nyma en route.

2414, September 07: Hunk takes Shay to watch her first sunrise. After leaving the Balmera, Coran takes the Paladins to the Karthulian system for a training exercise.

2414, September 08: The Paladins travel to the planet Krell to retrieve a Yalexian Pearl to trade for Coran’s safety.

2414, September 09-30: Sometime in September, Team Voltron investigates a Zelthronian distress signal.

2414, December: The Paladins coordinate with the Blade of Marmora to attack Central Command, grievously wounding Zarkon in the process. Shiro disappears and Lotor is summoned from exile to lead the empire while his father recovers.

2415, January:

Keith becomes the new pilot of the Black Lion and leads the team in their first battles against Lotor on Puig and Thayersix.

The Paladins find an Altean exploration ship caught in a rift between realities and recover the trans-reality comet stored in its cargo hold after visiting the Altean Empire reality.

Shiro makes his way back to the team after awakening aboard a Galran research vessel.

In the process of searching for the trans-reality comet, the Paladins come upon Lotor’s generals attacking a Galran outpost in the Ulippa system to steal a fragment of their Teludav.

Coran tells the Paladins the story of Voltron's origins and Zarkon's descent into tyranny.

2415, March-April: Keith and Kolivan discover a new strain of Quintessence being shipped across the Galra empire through a network of secret supply routes.

2415, May:

Keith leaves the team in order to focus on his work with the Blade of Marmora.

Voltron misses performing their air show at the planet Drazan’s Clear Day celebration, leading Coran to ingest a brain worm to help him do a better job coming up with ideas for their propaganda shows.

2415, July:

Pidge finally tracks down Matt and brings him back to the Castle of Lions.

Haggar uses her magic to reawaken Zarkon, in the process regaining some of her memories of her life as Honerva.

Zarkon learns that Lotor is building ships from a trans-reality comet and declares his son a fugutive.

Voltron launches an attack on Naxzella and other key planets to seize control of 1/3 of the Galra Empire’s territory in a single strike.

The Paladins finish liberating planet Pintos Sentos.

Voltron dismantles the Galra shipbuilding facility known as SPRAWL using intel provided by Lotor.

2415, August:

Voltron rescues Sam, and Zarkon is killed by Lotor in the process.

Lotor becomes the new emperor of the Galra in the thirty-fourth Kral Zera.

Sam returns to Earth and is placed under quarantine at Galaxy Garrison’s main base in Arizona.

Keith extracts Krolia from Ranveig’s base and they enter the Quantum Abyss in search of the origins of the new mystery Quintessence.

Lotor, and Allura enter Oriande, where Allura passes the trials of the White Lion and gains further knowledge of Altean Alchemy.

Team Voltron assist Commander Bogh and Lieutenant Lahn when their planet is attacked by Sendak’s Fire of Purification.

Sam is released from quarantine and reunited with his wife Colleen.

2415, September: Sam is debriefed by Galaxy Garrison’s Joint Chiefs regarding his experiences in space.

2416, March 01-08: After spending at least 2 years in the Quantum Abyss, Keith and Krolia return to the Castle of Lions with Romelle. The Paladins battle Lotor and are forced to sacrifice the Castle of Lions to seal off the Quintessence Field and save their entire reality.

2416, May-August: The Druids and other factions of the Galra Empire begin a campaign of retaliation against the Blade of Marmora and the Voltron Coalition.

2416, September: Matt contacts his parents on Earth to inform them of Voltron’s disappearance and warn them of the rebellion’s losses.

2417, March:

The Blade of Marmora make their last stand against the Druids. Both factions suffer heavy casualties, and Kolivan is taken captive by Macidus.

Sendak invades Earth.

2419, March:

Allura merges Shiro with his clone and the Paladins gather Fonatonium to help recharge their lions.

The Paladins set off for Earth and are captured by Zethrid and Ezor’s pirate crew while investigating an abandoned Blade of Marmora outpost.

The Paladins encounter Macidus and rescue Kolivan. Krolia leaves with Kolivan to search for other surviving Blades.

The Paladins attempt to recharge their lions.

2419, August: The Paladins reach Earth and quickly liberate the planet from Sendak’s occupation.

2419, October: Warlord Lahn sends Klytax V-3 and 14 other cruisers to salvage weapons from one of Warlord Ranveig’s bases.

2420, March:

The Paladins enjoy their last day on Earth before returning to space.

The IGF Atlas launches from Earth to liberate planets that remain under Galra rule.

2420, April: The Atlas attacks Warlord Lahn’s base on the planet Ryker.

2420, May 12-31:

Voltron and the crew of the Atlas attend planet Drazan’s Clear Day festival.

The Paladins confront Honerva at the source of all realities.

2421, May: The lions fly away to parts unknown.

Note: This timeline will be updated whenever I uncover further information.

Sources:

[1] Creating Voltron: Legendary Defender; June 10, 2016. https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/creating-voltron-legendary-defender/

[2] Tweet by Joaquim Dos Santos; October 12, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20200723131054/https://twitter.com/JDS_247/status/1050905860728213506

[3] The Ending of 'Voltron' Season 7, Explained by the Showrunners; Eric Francisco; August 10, 2018. https://www.inverse.com/article/47977-voltron-legendary-defender-season-7-netflix-ending-explained-by-showrunners-interview

[4] Joaquim Dos Santos & Lauren Montgomery Talk Voltron at Wondercon '17; When Nerds Attack; April 2, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZW1V2dYHgs

[5] High School in the United States - wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school_in_the_United_States

[6] K-12 Education in the United States - Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-12_education_in_the_United_States

#voltron legendary defender #voltron meta #vld timeline #vld meta #long post #voltron timeline

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thingummies-and-whatsits · 1 year

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Lewis Fic Recs: Are You For Me? (S1E01)

Stories set pre-Lewis canon or during S1E01: Reputation (pilot). As usual, this list is far from exhaustive, so please feel free to add more fics to it!

Small World by prosfan

1,299 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply Lewis and Hathaway meet many years earlier, only for history to repeat itself 26 years later. Young James is adorably irritated to be in the hospital, and his shy awe watching Sergeant Lewis is very sweet.

Wanted: Sergeant by Hekate1308

1,361 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply A thoughtful look at Robbie Lewis, newly made DI, in the years between shows as he struggles to find a sergeant he truly fits with, after becoming accustomed to Morse's eccentricities for so long. And then Val is killed, and it hardly matters anymore. At least, not until his return to Oxford years later.

The Future of Modern Policing by richmahogany

11,834 Words, Gen, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply A collection of stories following Hathaway's earliest days in the force, as a DC and later as a new DS, before Lewis' return to Oxford. It adds some interesting details to James' background, including having him get kicked out of another station for being 'difficult', as well as his trouble fitting in with the others at Oxford, and offers some wonderful early interactions between him and Laura.

Working With Dinosaurs by athersgeo

1,942 Words, Gen, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply An annoyed Sergeant Hathaway drives to the airport and wonders why Innocent had sent him, of all people—and gradually learns there's more than meets the eye to DI Lewis. An nuanced take on Lewis and Hathaway's introduction, with the possibility that Innocent had ulterior motives in putting them together.

Every Little Thing by LyricaXXX

2,815 Words, pre-James/Robbie, Rated T, No Archive Warnings Apply James finds himself drawn to the summer warmth of DI Lewis in the middle of the first investigation together, when a sudden, simple question from the man sends James' mind into turmoil. This story is rich in sensory detail, and balances out James' inner angsting with a quietly hopeful ending.

The Steep and Thorny Way by emungere

809 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply Part 1 of a longer series. A fascinating look at James' conversation with Innocent at the end of the episode, how she's slowly convinced to keep Lewis in active duty and to give him first refusal to have James as his bagman. A quietly powerful recognition of "are you for me?"

Coda: Reputation by dbw

907 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply The stories had not prepared James for the enigma that was DI Lewis, or for how much his life would change at the end of the three days of their first case—or for the growing warmth in his chest at the thought of working together.

Lessons and Limitations by donutsweeper

208 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply Robbie pov. After the pilot episode, Robbie muses on his limitations, Innocent's desire to punt him into a teaching position, and his luck at getting as brilliant a sergeant as James Hathaway. A slightly melancholy combination of insecurity, practicality, and self-knowledge.

Truth and Clarity (The Deep Dark Ocean Remix) by elrhiarhodan

1,132 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply James pov. A remix of Lessons and Limitations. While others had always told stories of Morse's great intelligence, James had always recognized the importance that Lewis had played in solving cases. It's a powerful expression of James' eagerness to work with DI Lewis, and his recognition that brilliance need not come from academic achievement.

Six Days by ComplicatedLight

100 Words, James & Robbie, Rated G, No Archive Warnings Apply James muses on the nature of obedience, and finds himself a changed man after working his first case with DI Lewis. An incredibly powerful 100-word drabble that gets right to the essence of James' devotion to Robbie.

#inspector lewis #itv lewis #robbie lewis #james hathaway #jean innocent #laura hobson #S01E01: Reputation #LewisFicRecs

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comic-bastards · 9 months

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Review: Strange Planet – S1E01 – The Flying Machine

By Dustin Cabeal

If you've been on any kind of social media or meme factory, then you've likely seen Nathan Pyle's relatable webcomic featuring blue Allenesque beings that overly explain and yet simplify all the same things we humans do.

The first episode's title and storyline highlight this contradiction: "The Flying Machine." Of course, it's an airplane, but that is Pyle's brilliance – he takes something like alcohol and refers to it as a "Mild Poison." He's factually correct, but does anyone want to call it that while consuming it? No, but it's hilarious in this setting. And I don't really know what to call that overly complicated explanation that's somehow more direct and simplified than the word itself. I'm sure there's a simpler term for it, but I'm going to have to stick with the longer explanation that my rambling self has created.

Back to the episode itself, it's a layered episode. It's about planes/flying but also about overcoming changes and adapting. The plane is our plot device that guides our story from point A to B, but the "being" connections are what's relatable and keep the animated series connected to Pyle's comic strips. The A storyline follows a Comfort Supervisor who's really good at their job (I'm assuming a gender-neutral perspective here since they all look like blue/gray alien blobs) and is suddenly promoted to Supervising Comfort Supervisor or something similar to that. They're dealing with the new responsibilities and how their co-workers treat them now that they're the ones in charge.

Finish reading on Comic Bastards

#TV #Animated #Cartoons #Apple TV #Dan Harmon #Nathan Pyle #Strange Planet #Comics

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fiadorable · 2 years

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46 Great Things in Strange New Worlds (S1E01)

I decided to write down all the things I loved from each episode of Strange New World's first season.

Pilot episode things to love include:

Seeing first contact with the Federation from the POV of an alien species with Una's log overlaying the opening

Star Trek tradition of character being in love with really old American television/movies continues, this time with The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Pike's pancakes look divine - and the gentle way he spatulas them onto the plate! This is a person who is skilled and takes great care with delicate things.

I oddly love Pike referring to Batel as "Captain Batel" during breakfast and have this headcanon that he does so while she's in uniform to kind of draw the line between the personal and professional relationship they have

But also like shame on her for saying the pancakes were good BUT STILL LEAVING MOST OF IT ON HER PLATE

Calling the communicator a phone is weird - but I appreciate the effort they are making to bridge the way life imitated art and gave us cell phones before warp drives

Loving the way they are showing the relationship between Batel and Pike here, the friend/coworkers with benefits, call me when you get back in town but with no expectations thing - it feels realistic given their careers

Good god I love the music in this series please give me a soundtrack

What an absolutely gorgeous theme song and title sequence. It feels very Lower Decks visually, but definitely pays homage to the TOS sequence.

Say what you want, but I love seeing playful Vulcans. Tuvok had some excellent lines on Voyager, but seeing T'Pring and Spock dance around the engagement question is delightful.

"I'm going to have to ask you two to do that somewhere else." 😂😂😂

"Matrimony and duty. The two will complement each other." "I remain skeptical." As you should, girl, as you should

Oo, I do like the communicator plugging into a video display though. Nice blend of the 60s tech with modern tech.

Pike reviewing La'an's file and the Gorn report on the way to the Enterprise. Weird thing to like, I know, but this comes up later in my list.

I love that Enterprise is a learning ship and the cadets rotate through the departments

Pike has a goddamn fireplace in his quarters. He has a kitchen.

I love Pike's conversation with Spock on the way to Kiley 279, questioning how the knowledge of his accident will live in him and direct his actions in the years leading up to it - and the season finale answers that question which makes for a nice narrative circle shaped thing

Bridge troubleshooting sessions are the best

I love Nurse Chapel - she is the manic pixie dream girl of the show while still being extremely competent - and I love her introductory exchange with La'an and how Pike is just sitting back and watching them circle each other

"Well there's surviving and then there's living." I like that he left the decision to take the sedative up to La'an (and now knowing her backstory it makes sense but the first time I saw this episode I was like goddamn girl)

Obligatory "history of the United States" reference

Also loving the rivalry between Spock and La'an down on the planet… new coworkers are hard

Delta Scorpii Seven

"Always when I'm in the captain's chair" - This whole exchange is when I knew Ortegas was gonna be one of my favs

I love that Uhura is the one who is able to settle the rabbit - bonding through sports is the fastest way to get your alien captive to relax

The flirtatious lady in the elevator who sees Spock morphing while Pike pretends he has no idea what she's freaking out about - this man is a complete awkward dork around women how the hell did he get Batel into bed 😂(

"Somehow I figured you might" 😍 I don't ship them I don't ship them

"Can you not jinx it?" More of Una and Spock, please, I beg of you

Also the way Pike is holding her 😍 GODDAMMIT I DO NOT SHIP THEM

Spock screaming as his genome reverted was intense and I like it because it means my girl La'an is a fucking BEAST because she went through all of that without a sound on the ship which is horrifying

Shades of Janeway and the Caretaker's array in Pike's decision to interfere despite General Order 1 because without their original unintended interference there would be no secondary interference necessary - it's a parallel I am comfortable with

La'an calling Spock "the science officer" 😂

What a power move bringing Enterprise into lower orbit and I love the air raid sirens on Kiley that go off as it descends

"The true cost of a civil war is abstract"

"Right up until the very end life is to be worn gloriously"

Ok, ok, we get it, this is the bad place 🙃

The Kiley montage is weird like what is even happening in it are they worshiping the Enterprise at the end there with their paper doll cutout of it?? Aliens.

Renaming General Order One the Prime Directive

I like Admiral April - he is a solid dude

Pike knowing exactly what La'an is about at the end of the episode is the best. He's read her file, he knows all of this already, but he's letting her come to him and tell him in her own words and that's great.

"Other people are challenging for me." me too girl me too

Ugh this musiiiiiic 🥰

I just like watching this crew doing their jobs. The set is pretty, the people are pretty, the dialogue is crisp.

We are all Uhura saying "Cool!" on the bridge

Pike's almost knee-high boots

Ending credit music!

#st:snw #star trek strange new worlds #why is the pilot the name of the series #there's a lot that could have been done better this season #but there were also some really good things too #i want to focus on good things right now #ignore me #snw great things

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speedygal · 2 years

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Admiral Robert April, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - s1e01. Trek Central

#Robert april #star trek: strange new worlds #christopher pike

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sanguinarysanguinity · 3 years

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Would you ever write... a fic centering on Joan and Sherlock at/around the opera? (I'm intrigued by the scenario's potential for theatricality, and think it would be fun to see what you might do with it.)

Hm, I think I’d take it in a different direction you’re positing: I’d be interested in exploring if Sherlock’s position on opera has shifted since S1E01, especially since he reconciled with his father and with his own identity as a musician. I do think that Sherlock’s antipathy to opera in that first episode is a rejection of his father: so much of opera’s funding comes from wealthy patrons who want to be known as philanthropists while failing to challenge their own class position or provide any kind of relief or assistance to the people who are suffering in the class war. Just as, when Sherlock finally picks up the violin again, he secretly busks with a quartet in the park, as far from the wealthy-patrons world of Institutionalized Arts as he can get, so I think his involvement with or appreciation of opera would be similarly unfashionable among the wealthy set.

That said, I’m not in a great position to write the story: I burnt out on opera a while back (we had several years of season tickets at the local opera house, but I finally had to quit because Too Many Dead Ladies), and I’m not sure I have the energy to come up with two characters’ worth of Opera Opinions or research the full extent of the New York opera scene. Also, I’m woefully out of practice with writing Elementary -- I’d need to do a bunch of canon review -- and I don’t really like writing Sherlock-centric Elementary stories. (I’m still mad at the show for giving Sherlock so much more character development than Joan.)

Not gonna say never -- obviously I already have capital-T Thoughts on this topic -- but it probably wouldn’t be any time soon.

#elementary #writer would I ever #oldshrewsburyian

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kosemsultanim · 5 years

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Costumes in The Spanish Princess: 1.01 The New World

#the spanish princess #tspedit #perioddramaedit #catherine of aragon #Elizabeth of York #margaret beaufort #margaret pole #Lina de Cardonnes #isabella i of castile #S1E01 The New World #tsps1 #costume edits #my edits

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falcon2021 · 3 years

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VER~Falcon y el Soldado de Invierno Temporada 1 Episodio 1 Sub Spanol

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Falcon y el Soldado del Invierno (en inglés: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) es una próxima miniserie de televisión web estadounidense creada para Disney+ por Malcolm Spellman, basada en los personajes de Marvel Comics Sam Wilson/Falcon y Bucky Barnes/Soldado del Invierno. Está ambientada en el Universo cinematográfico de Marvel (MCU, por sus siglas en inglés), compartiendo continuidad con las películas de la franquicia. Los eventos de la serie tienen lugar después de la película Avengers: Endgame de 2019. La serie es producida por Marvel Studios, con Spellman como showrunner y Kari Skogland como director.

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kirayun · 3 years

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The Journey Of Destiny (Eng. Version) - S1E01: Pilot

AO3 Link

Previous Chapter Tumblr: X

Summary: Skye and Jemma thought they had missed their chance and would never see each other again. But on the first day of work for Agent Coulson's new team, the two girls get a big surprise.

Jemma Simmons was excited for this new adventure, the opportunity to be on this chosen team alongside her best friend and investigate all that was mysterious and new. They had already started with something big: an explosion and an apparent new superhero out on the streets. Apparently they also had a lead on a hacker belonging to The Rising Tide that Agent Coulson and Agent Ward had gone to pick up, but she had been assigned with Fitz and Agent May to inspect the explosion site.

During the trip his mind went back to a certain brunette she had met in a diner during her leave. That day she had felt something special, a connection she had never felt before with someone she had just met, not even with Fitz with whom at the academy she had immediately bonded for their love of science.

For Jemma, the encounter with Skye had made her believe for the first time in something superior to science and the facts proven by it, as if some cosmic force wanted the two of them to be destined to meet, to be part of their own lives. Unfortunately, however, it had all happened so quickly that she had forgotten to find a way to stay in touch with the other girl and was now convinced that she would never see her again.

Skye was looking around inside this strange interrogation that she was sure was inside a plane. Officer T-1000 was dozing on his desk after their "interrogation". And even though she believed the soporific effect was true and she was actually sleeping, she wasn't entirely convinced that the truth serum story was truly legitimate and that they were just playing with her. But she didn't mind that. She liked Agent Coulson's style, and besides, she was playing her little game too. It was part of her plan that they track her down through the Mike Peterson footage and take her inside. She had spent months hacking into SHIELD in a desperate search to find answers about her parents, and all she got was a document censored by the organization that was now holding her. Skye was taking a lot of risks with this operation. Trying to infiltrate the world's largest intelligence agency could have her locked up forever, but what other choice did she have? Besides discovering her origins, she really didn't have any other goals in life, and the only time her mind thought of something different in life, she let the opportunity slip right under her nose…

"Billions of dollars of equipment at your disposal, and I beat you with a laptop that I won in a bet?"

Thinking back to the sentence that Skye had said to the two agents shortly before, it reminded her of the young scientist she met in that diner. Jemma…

For the first time she had felt a real connection with someone, the desire to have a person next to her and the possibility of building something with them. She already knew that Miles liked her and that he wanted something from their "relationship", but for her he was just a way to not feel alone and pretend that she really has someone by her side. Not that she liked using anyone like this, but she had tried to clear things up with Miles several times before, but he seemed to believe that one day things would change.

But with Jemma it had been different. A brief meeting one morning was enough to make her feel that something, that magnetism towards another person and the need to always have it in one's life. Destiny had been mocking, however, because as quickly as he had sent the English girl into her life, she was immediately taken away from her even before she had the chance to create something. And so, once she got her soul at peace, she plunged back into her mission.

Now Skye just had to find a way to get into Agent Coulson's good graces and be able to stay as long as possible…

Jemma had just gotten back on the bus when Agent Coulson approached her group.

"Everyone in the meeting room, we convinced our guest to tell us what she knows about our mystery hero." Coulson said.

Jemma followed her superior into the meeting room ready to work on whatever information this girl had to give, when her world suddenly froze. Because the hacker of The Rising Tide front of her was no stranger. It was the girl from the diner she had given away her previous laptop to during a bet: she was Skye. The girl she lost contact with was a hacker who had hacked her agency and was now working with them to investigate.

Immediately the same thing was happening to Skye, that while waiting for the rest of the team, the last person who expected to appear in front of her was Jemma.

Jemma who apparently worked for SHIELD. The same SHIELD she was infiltrating. This complicates everything. How did she use the agency for her own purposes and at the same time finally get the chance to meet the girl she couldn't stop thinking about? Looking at her she was immediately captured again by that innocent and joyful charm that the English girl emanated without even realizing it.

Coulson's voice roused the two girls from their quick thoughts that had gone unnoticed by the rest of those present. "Skye these are agents Fitz, Simmons and May." He then proceeded to quickly illustrate the duties of the aforementioned agents. Plus now Skye finally knew Jemma's last name.

During the quick introductions neither of the girls gave evidence that they had met before. It was as if through a single glance between them they had mutually agreed to keep this little secret, at least until they had a chance to talk privately face to face.

Everything else passed quickly enough. The team had Mike Peterson to handle and an explosion case to solve.

As a first mission Jemma certainly did not expect all this: a device that was a mix of all known sources of superpowers and unstable and dangerous enough to generate strong explosions, the sudden reappearance of Skye, Fitz acting strangely while he talked to her on speakerphone… and now they'll have to figure out a way to make the dendrotoxin rifle (she still refuses to call it a night-night gun) to make Mike Peterson helpless before Agent Ward is forced to kill him. And as their superior had said, that would have meant leaving a child orphaned of his father. She tried to calm Fitz by comparing the assignment to an exam, hoping that her best friend would be able to concentrate and together they would solve the problem as they always had.

But the worst part happened when Agent Coulson revealed that Peterson had taken Skye and was now standing right next to a human bomb ready to go off at any moment. Jemma was beginning to wonder if she'll ever really get the chance to have that real reunion with the young hacker, or if there will just be an eternal chance they never got to grab and try. She prayed with all her heart that everything would be fine and that no one else would lose their life today.

After they managed to stop Mike Peterson without killing him and handed him over to the SHIELD medical team, everyone could finally take a deep breath and recover from the last very grueling hours. They were all back on the bus and immediately divided for different purposes: Coulson and May were in his office debriefing, Ward was setting up the equipment in the armory, Fitz was in the laboratory, and Jemma was looking for their host so they could finally talk face to face.

After wandering around the bus, she finally found her outside, in front of the other girl's van after the latter had just changed into a red dress with boots. Apparently he would have accompanied Agent Coulson to deliver Ace, Peterson's son, to his aunt. Jemma took a breath and gathered all the courage to get closer and finally begin their long awaited chat.

Skye, hearing footsteps approaching, turned to find Jemma Simmons facing her. She had been waiting and at the same time dreading this meeting a lot and now the time had finally come.

"Hi…" Jemma began hesitantly.

"Hi." Skye replied in turn, without the confidence that had distinguished her during their previous meeting at the diner.

Neither of them knew where to start. Both seemed to be waiting for the other to move.

"So ... you're a The Rising Tide hacker." Jemma said first.

"And you are a SHIELD scientist." Skye retorted.

They were from two opposite worlds: one fought for freedom of information (and in secret to discover their origins) while the other was part of the most secretive and powerful intelligence agency on the planet. Yet in reality neither of them was frightened or worried by these factors. Inside they were just happy that they could meet again.

“You know, you still owe me breakfast. Last time you ran away without even giving me your number. A girl could almost think you did it on purpose. " Skye said with self-confidence again and started to look like the girl flirting with the scientist that famous morning ..

Jemma was blown away by Skye's newfound attitude. "N-no ... that morning I was in a hurry and I forgot ... I swear I didn't mean ..." She mumbled the sentences trying to say something that didn't suggest that she really had done it on purpose not to give her number to the other girl.

Skye's little laugh stopped Jemma from her babble. "I'm making fun of you. I too forgot to leave a contact that day. " The girl sat on the edge of the open compartment of her van and motioned for the scientist to sit with her.

Jemma joined her and the two were now sitting side by side looking into each other's eyes.

“After you left and I realized we hadn't even left a phone number or email, I was convinced I wouldn't see you again. I didn't even know your surname to try to find you. " Skye confessed.

"I don't know your surname either for that." Jemma pointed out to the other girl.

"But I don't have a surname, I'm just Skye." The hacker responded in turn.

“Only Skye huh? Somehow I doubt that you've never had a surname in your entire life ”Jemma reasoned smiling.

"Yeah, only Skye," she said smiling too. Technically because of the Sisters of St. Agnes Skye she had a surname, and another name as well, but she certainly had no intention of embarrassing herself in front of Jemma.

The two girls would have gladly sat there staring at each other and talking about anything forever, but unfortunately they were joined by Coulson who was walking down the ramp of the plane.

"Skye we are ready to go, Ace has finished medical checks and said goodbye to his father" The agent in charge of the team said in their direction.

Skye looked up in his direction "Yes I'm on my way, a minute" And as the agent walked over to Lola, her vintage car, she turned her eyes back on Jemma "This time I'm the one who has to go."

The young scientist was frightened at this, convinced that she would never see Skye again, again. "Already?! But…, ”she said, unable to put into words the wish for her to stay longer.

Skye smiled at this and stood up, walking past the other girl. “Don't worry, I'm not going to disappear. Something tells me we'll meet again soon. " She concluded the statement with a wink and then walked to the red car while Jemma sat there with her mouth slightly open staring at her and with a slight blush caused by Skye's latest action.

The hacker wasn't lying when she said she wasn't going to disappear, now she had two reasons to be able to try to stay around SHIELD. Now she just had to find a way to get inside…

And as if someone were listening to her prayers, Agent Coulson had words to say to Skye once she reached him in the car. "As we go, I have an offer that maybe you might be interested in."

Perfect, it was as if destiny wanted to give her a hand. Not only had her journey to truth come to a turning point, but a new one also seems to have begun. A journey that included a beautiful English scientist named Jemma Simmons.

#skimmons #bioquake #Daisy Johnson #jemma simmons #agents of shield

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kingdomoftyto · 4 years

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S1E01: Our hero's mentor sends her to a new town with the goal of making friends!

S8E26: After narrowly failing to drain all the magic from the world, a child is imprisoned in Hell

#Tyto watches MLP #I'm so scared of what Cozy Glow might do in season 9 you guys #what the fuck is her DEAL

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lady-griffin · 5 years

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GOT Circle & Spiral

Since the beginning of the show, we’ve been introduced to the White Walker’s symbols. Perhaps it’s a way they are communicating and expressing their intentions or perhaps they are just copying what they have seen before, without any meaning behind it.

There is the circle. Introduced, in S1E01 “Winter is Coming”

And then, there is the Spiral. Introduced, in S3E03 “Walk of Punishment”

From what we know so far or have gathered, is that these two symbols were taken from the Children of Forest by the White Walkers and they have been using them to communicate something to the living.

Now perhaps these are just empty symbols for the White Walkers. But the WW are capable of thinking and strategizing, for instance, they adapt to start wearing armor once one of them is killed. So, I do believe they are communicating something to the living.

Now in season 6, we are reintroduced to these symbols once more. As Jon draws our attention to them when he shows Daenerys the cave drawings in Dragonstone, in S7E04 “The Spoils of War."

The second picture and the spiral that is shown, I think represents the creation of the Night King and the place he was created. But we’ll get into that a bit later.

Circle

First, we’re going to talk about the circle. While we haven’t seen it all that much in comparison to the Spiral, particularly in the later seasons. It still is the first symbol we were introduced to.

The first scene of the first episode of the entire show introduces us to this symbol and that episode is adeptly named Winter is Coming. The White Walkers are the Winter the Starks have been talking about, and they are not only coming, but are already here.

The final scene of the final episode of Season 1, reintroduces the symbol to us with Drogo’s funeral pyre and the birth of Daenerys’ dragons. And again, the episode is adeptly named, “Fire and Blood,” which directly refers to the Targaryen dragons, who are now also present in the current story.

And before we go to the circle and its relation to Sansa Stark, it’s important to note, that we do keep seeing the symbol in relation to the overall show.

The font style of the Title, turns every “O” into the circle.

Okay, back to the story within the show.

The circle is strongly associated with Sansa Stark, who wears the symbol as a necklace when she leaves the Vale, first appearing in S4E08, “The Mountain and the Viper.”

This is quite interesting.

While we know the chain reflects Littlefinger, a piece Sansa took from his own style (particularly in the way she wears it later on) andthe end “needle" piece is related to Arya’s very own needle. We still don’t actually have any meaning applied to the circle itself, at least not to my knowledge.

We should also take note of the scene where we first see Sansa wearing the necklace in S7E08 and the implication behind it. Because Littlefinger to some extent “creates” this new Sansa (or he thinks he does), but over time he loses control over her and she turns on him, resulting in his death.

Which is a scenario that is repeated quite often within the story.

Sansa’s later circle necklace (which becomes a stable in her wardrobe), continues the idea of Littlefinger’s influence/lessons and Sansa having her own Needle.

And this necklace reminds me more of a thread going through the sewing needle eye, than the first one. And overall sewing in general. Sewing and more traditional female activities are also closely associated with Sansa, just in general.

And while the new circle itself might continue the symbolic weight of the old circle (whatever that exactly is), I believe this new necklace carries an additional symbolic weight.

Especially, when Sansa wears her Twin Direwolf Collar/Clasps.

The necklace and collar, together, create a visual makeshift of a Viking King’s Chain.

And several other blogs/people have brought this up as a visual clue.

If this is an intentional visual clue by the costume designer or creators, then I think it clearly means that Sansa’s circle necklace (new version) is her very own Chain of Intent.

Matching & opposing Daenerys’ more famous Chain of Intent and if that is true, than these two are already made out to be two opposing forces before they even meet.

It’s also quite interesting that both Sansa and Daenerys have been strongly assoicated with the WW symbols and no one else really has. Sansa the Circle. And Daenerys the Circle and Spiral.

And the circle has come to represent opposing forces already. The WW and the Dragons.

But yet, we still don’t actually know the meaning of the White Walkers and Sansa’s First Necklace.

In our own world, the circle is similar to the Greek Letters of Theta and Phi.

Theta is a closer match to Sansa’s necklace, a horizontal line contained within a circle.

Theta is the eighth letter of the Greek Alphabet. In Greek numerals it has the value of 9 though and it is likely derived from Phoenician letter Teth.

The Phoenician letter ṭēth means "wheel" and possibly is the continuation of a Middle Bronze Age glyph named ṭab meaning "good".

But back to Theta.

It was once used to represent death, as it was used as an abbreviation for the Greek θάνατος (thanatos, “death”) and as a warning of death, in the same way that skull and crossbones are or have been used.

The idea of death is very fitting for the White Walkers/Night King. To those who believe in the Lord of the Light, the WW are death and the true enemy of R'hllor. But in general and for everyone, it’s pretty easy to associate death with the WW.

But this idea of death is pretty interesting in regards to Sansa, who wears the symbol in the end of Season 4 and a good portion of Season 5. And while she stops wearing it later on, the visual style of it continues on in a different form.

The symbol could represent the symbolic death of the old Sansa that once was, the one that existed before she walked down the stairs wearing said circle necklace.

Or perhaps it’s a forewarning of her own future, literal death. Or perhaps, like the WW, Sansa herself is a harbinger of death.

A warning of death to come.

Tyrion himself, in S8E01, brought up the fact that those who’ve underestimated or cross Sansa are now all dead. But it goes a bit further than that, doesn’t it?

Many of the characters who have directly impacted Sansa’s life or interacted with her on screen are now dead.

Lady. Ned Stark. Catelyn Stark. Robb Stark. Rickon Stark. Robert Baratheon. Joffrey. Tommen. Myrcella. Jory Cassel. Septa Mordane. Lancel Lannister. Loras, Margaery and Olenna Tyrell. Ser Meryn Trant. Maester Pycelle. Ros. Shae. Dontos. Lysa Tully. Tywin Lannister. Roose Bolton. Walda Frey. Myranda. Ramsey Bolton. The old woman. Ned Umber. Petyr Baelish.

And even those who haven’t died, have in many ways gone through severe changes that we could see as symbolic deaths.

The Hound. Jon Snow (+ literal). Cersei Lannister. Tyrion Lannister. Jaime Lannister. Arya Stark. Bran Stark. Theon Greyjoy.

In all honestly, though, we could make a list like this for every current living character and some would far exceed Sansa’s own death list.

But it is interesting for one of the few characters not involved in active fighting or killing, death sure does follow her.

But again, this is Game of Thrones.

Now Phi looks closer to the White Walkers’ circle, as the line is vertical and even passes outside the circle.

Phi, is the is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet and represents the numeral value of 500 and also 500,000.

The symbol of Phi can represent a whole number of things, most importantly the Golden Ratio. Which itself can represent infinity, beauty, nature, life and balance.

And, the Golden Ration is often represented by a Spiral shape.

Spiral

This leads us to the Spiral in the show, which has become the far more prominent symbol in later seasons.

It is first shown in S3E03, “The Walk of Punishment.” John and the Free Folk come across this symbol, specifically one that is made of horse parts. Though they don’t know its meaning, they talk of how there are no human remains.

The men that these horses belonged to are now wights, the NK has gained more soldiers. And in the same episode, Daenerys makes a deal with the Slave Masters of Astapor -- One dragon for the Unsullied. Daenerys in this episode, takes a step further in gaining her future army.

Interesting how the wights are completely mindless soldiers following one master, while the Unsullied or the idea of them is sold to Daenerys as being just that. In addition, while the Masters of Astapor never got their one dragon, the Night King did.

The Spiral is also shown when the Children of the Forest create the first ever White Walker, in S6E05, “The Door.”

Bran learns in that scene that it was the COTF who created the WW to protect themselves from the First Men. And it is also in that scene we get idea that the acts people do (or weapons they create) under the justification of war, is not always justified.

While COTF were being killed and their sacred trees destroyed, they created new life that they could not control and even slaughtered them, as well as the First Men. The COTF, in the end, had to work with Man to defeat the NK and imprison him beyond the wall.

The NK also creates the spiral in the most recent episode, S8E01 “Winterfell”, using body parts to create a spiral featuring Little Ned Umber in the middle (much like how the NK was in the middle of another spiral).

Beric Dondarrion even comments that it’s a message from the Night King. So once more we know the WW are sending the characters a message, we just don’t understand nor know what it is exactly means to the WW.

The Spiral is also associated with Daenerys Targaryen & potentially Targaryens in general.

In S4E10, “The Children” Daenerys wears a dress throughout that has the very same spiral pattern.

In that episode, Daenerys receives citizens in her hall when she is Queen of Mereen. She learns that some of the slaves want to be sold back to their former masters (as they feel there is no place for them in this new world). Daenerys learns the lesson that the freedom she has given these people, means they can defy her own wishes and wants for them.

This idea is further cemented when she learns that Drogon killed a small child. She has lost control of her dragons (drogon) and they are acting on their own will, which won’t always align with hers. So, she decides to lock up her two remaining dragons, to prevent this from happening again.

The episode is adeptly titled “The Children,” (it’s almost like the title is intentional).

We as the audience are introduced to the Children of the Forest. But further more we learn the trouble and dangers of “children” to their “parents”.

Some of the slaves don’t wish to be freed by Myhsa (mother) and the Dragons are acting on their own will.

The Hound begs Arya to kill him, who has become a pseudo daughter in a way, but she defies his will and leaves him to die a slow death. Well first she robbed him.

And the final nail in the coffin, Jaime frees Tyrion, who then kills their father, Tywin. Which is not what Jaime nor Tywin wanted.

Your children, the people you save or free from their former imprisonment, still have their own free will and that will can go against your own.

And this is a lesson that has been on repeat for quite some time.

The COTF learn this. Daenerys learns this. Littlefinger learns this. Tywin learns this. Cersei learns this. Doran Martell learn this. Roose Bolton learns this. Ramsey learns this.

Now, defying your “parents” wishes and turning on them does not always work out in the best of ways for the “child”. Robb and Sansa both went against Catelyn and Ned’s wishes in who they wanted to marry and both acts led to some terrible consequences for House Stark and said parents, as well as themselves.

So, there is a balance to be had. But the lesson remains, everyone has a will of their own.

And it’s also important to note that to create the first WW, the COTF used Dragonglass. Which is also refered to as frozen fire and is found in abundance on Dragonstone, the ancestral seat of House Targaryen.

There is of course one other way Daenerys and Targaryens are connected to the Spiral, their sigil resembles it quite a bit.

Of course, everyone has commented on the possible connection of the WW Spiral & Targaryen sigil as the similarity was made quite clear with Little Ned being set ablaze.

The Spiral itself could be seen as an abstract form of the Targaryen Sigil. Similar to how Cersei’s crown is an abstract form of a lion.

Heading back to the actual Spiral for a quick second.

Spirals in our own world can have a ton of meanings depending on different cultures, history and overall context. But overall, they can represent movement, life, creation, infinity/eternity, reincarnation/ rebirth and time (past, present and future).

And I think those meanings from our world can also be applied to the GOT Spiral.

Back to the Targaryen Sigil and its connection to the Spiral.

The Targaryen Sigil itself is reminiscent of Ouroboros - A symbol that depicts a serpent or dragon devouring its own tail.

Ouroboros represents or can represent wholeness, infinity, rebirth or a renewal of life (same as the spiral). A continuation of a cycle.

It also has the negative connation or idea tied to it -- eating (hurting) yourself to satiate your own hunger (desire).

Basically, a self-defeating way of trying to accomplish what you want.

Which is a way to describe several of the characters we’ve seen on the show and continue to see, the more they try to cement their power the more unstable that power’s foundation becomes.

But even more so, we can see it with how several of the “children” defy their “parents”.

And of course, both the Targaryen Sigil and Spiral Symbol also look like something else. A wheel.

Daenerys has sworn to break “The Wheel.”

While we can easily infer what the wheel is, it’s never actually fully discussed within the show.

We’re told the vague idea that it’s the families fighting one another for power and the destruction that follows (crushing the smallfolk), but that’s really it.

However, that idea is often shown to the audience in every episode, with once again the literal Title of the Show.

This looks like a wheel, with the different families being the spokes on it, just like what Daenerys said.

But back to our main point.

We have no idea how Daenerys exactly wants to break the wheel (dismantling the institutions of power that legitimize rulers? maybe?) nor do we know what she wants to do when the wheel breaks. Or what she wants to implement afterward.

One idea, is that she could mean she wants to do what Joffrey suggested in Season 1, dismantling the independent powers of the lower lords (Stark, Tyrell, Tully...ect) and cement the central power of the crown (mainly through armies).

This actually isn’t all that far-fetched. Daenerys has become the central ruler of her army and people, with seemingly no official lower branches or groups.

But that’s more stopping the wheel on the Targaryen Spoke, not breaking it.

The real problem is that it’s a nice line with no plan behind it and there is a fatal flaw in how it’s supposed to be achieved.

It’s hard to break the “wheel”, when Daenerys needs the wheel or the institutions of power that were or are still currently in place (monarchy/feudalism, succession rights, Targaryen rule, Iron Throne) to become Queen of the 7K, so she can break said institutions that reinforce the current social structure and help crush those below.

Daenerys (and the other characters) are part of this wheel. They might be able to change it, but can they truly break it?

I’m going to say no. The wheel and life keep spinning. The spiral continues. No matter what they do.

The wheel imagery also reminds me of the Seven-Pointed Star, the primary icon of the New Gods, which is the major religion within Westeros.

The New Gods is an interesting religion. It’s predominant across the show. It’s one of the few religions we see that has set rules and practices and it is (was) a formal institute of power in Westeros, but yet has no “proof” behind it.

The Old Gods, The Lord of Light and even the Many-Faced God have magic users and practices that seemingly reinforce said power of their god and prove its existence.

But magic isn’t linked to one religion or one god. In fact, it might not be linked to any. Magic might just be a natural part of this world and some religions may have been created to explain said magic and shape it.

Perhaps those who follow R’hllor can’t see the future through the flames because of their god, but many R’hllor exists because people could see the future in the flame.

But back to the Targaryen connection.

It always interested me that the Targaryens never brought over or implemented their own religion or gods from Valyria to Westeros. They just adapted to the dominant religion and allowed it to give them legitimacy.

One could also argue the Targaryen Sigil has “Seven Points” to it.

Three Heads. Two Wings. Two Tails.

And also, Joffrey based the throne room off the old Targaryen-style of the room. Including the Seven-Pointed Star windows.

Joffrey didn’t include the star because he himself is religious, he did so to invoke the style and power he admired in the previous Targaryen rulers.

Robert, who overthrew the Targaryens, had removed and replaced the Seven-Pointed Star (and other decorations) with forest/hunting stain-glass windows and decorations.

While we might associate the current throne room and its “look” with Joffrey and later Cersei, they are only trying to invoke the Targaryens, who were overthrown so they could have power.

And we can see that in the flashback of the Mad King, as he too had the Seven-Pointed Star glass window.

So, in the past, the Targaryens have used the Seven-Pointed Star, not just in their decorating, but legitimizing their own power with The Faith of the Seven.

Overall, the Seven-Pointed Circle it a symbol of power that keeps things more or less the same. And Daenerys might have to reinforce or rebuild this religion once more to keep or gain her own power, if she were ever to become queen.

Once more, fortifying the wheel and making it more difficult to break.

Now overall the Spiral and the Seven-Pointed Star Circle aren’t that similar in appearance, other than them being circles with “spokes”.

The Spiral has 8 spirals. While the Star has 7 points.

The Star is contained in the circle and the Spiral is the circle that can continue on and on.

But they might just both represent religion. While not confirmed, from what we can tell so far, the Spiral is a symbolic part of the COTF magic (and potentially their religion as well).

So, there is again an element of opposite forces. The Old vs. The New.

And from a Watsonian perspective, whose to say the Targaryen weren’t influenced by the dominant religion of Westeros & the Spirals imagery found on Dragon Stone (plus their three dragons) in creating their sigil.

The two symbols the WW have used can be linked to and related to many different things from our own world to the world of Game of Thrones.

And while all of these different circles and symbols may not all be directly connected together in some overall giant meaning/conspiracy that will explain everything.

We can’t ignore, the same ideas and meanings keep coming up and connect different symbols and ideas together.

They are all different, but nonetheless similar. Reflections of one another.

What do these two symbols really mean in regards to the WW?

Well, I hate to say it I don’t have a concrete answer, despite everthing we’ve talked about. But I do have speculation.

In a more literal sense. I think the circle represents the First Men and the Spiral represents the COTF. Or at least they use to.

Basically, I think it will be revealed that the circle symbol we first saw (unless they’ve forgotten about it) was once a symbol of the First Men. We actually haven’t seen the COTF really be associated with that symbol, at least not in the same way the Spiral has been shown to be related to them.

True the circle is part of the Cave Drawings, like the Spiral, but the COTF were telling the story of how they joined together with the First Men to defeat the WW.

So I believe, the WW are taking what was the primary (or what they saw as the primary) symbol of the two groups that they wish to destroy and made them their own.

For the WW to have life, they most kill the old life in the current world. And these two symbols the WW have been using is that threat. Death is coming for the First Men (humans) and the COTF.

And that leads to what these two symbols represent (not just a single person or group anymore), but ideas.

Overall, I believe they both represent opposing forces and the duality of said forces.

The Fist Men and The Children of the Forest. Ice and Fire. Starks and Targaryens. Non-Magic and Magic. Old Gods and New Gods. Greatness and Madness. Death and Life.

Different sides of the same coin.

However, these symbols in my view don’t simply represent said opposite forces themselves, or more accurately, one doesn’t necessairly represent life, while the other represents death.

They represent both opposing forces at the same time.

But more than anything, these two symbols separate or together represent --

Rebirth. Renewal. Reincarnation. A continuation of the past in the present and future.

Both symbols have come to represent the duality of Life & Death and Death & Life.

The COTF created the Night King by killing the human man he once was. (Spiral)

The Night King kills humans and brings them back (creating “new life”) as either wights or WW. (Circle & Spiral)

Daenerys had three deaths (Drogo, Rhaego, Mirri Maz Durr) and willingly walked into the funeral pyre and by doing so, she created new life in her three dragons. (Circle)

Sansa has to symbolically kill (change) old Sansa to become this new and smarter Sansa (when she leaves the vale). (Circle).

And that idea, even though the symbols aren’t presented in literal form, repeats time and time again.

The Drowned God Religion in general.

Theon must die for Reek to exist and Reek must die to allow Theon to be reborn.

Jon has to kill the boy to let the man be born.

Jon also literally dies and is resurrected.

Human Bran has to die to allow Three-Eyed Raven Bran to be born.

The Faceless Men try to get Arya to kill Arya Stark so she could become No One.

Jaime most kill the King slayer to become Jaime Lannister.

For new life, you need the death of the old life.

Both symbols represent that overall idea, particularly in association together. But yet what once was, never truly goes away, does it?

“What is dead, may never die”

The old (the past) is never truly destroyed. And thus, you get this continuation that goes on and on.

But overall the idea of the future, despite its best attempt, being a reflection of the past is something that seems inevitable.

Though I would say the future of GOT won’t look exactly like the past, because many different reflections of the past will take part in creating this new future.

So, I believe some form of the old (current) life we’re viewing now must die, for the new life to exist.

And, there are a couple of questions we might want to ponder during S8.

Which “children” will defy which “parents” in this new season?

Which of the saved will defy their savior?

Which reflections of the past will actually be realized in the future?

What exact aspect of the old must die for the new to exist?

We’ll just have to watch and see.

#Game of Thrones #GOT #GOT Symbols #White Walkers #Children of the Forest #white walker spiral #White Walker circle #Daenerys Targaryen #House Targaryen #Sansa Stark #House Stark #COTF #GOT symbolism

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stvlti · 5 years

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Musings on viewer identification and spectatorship in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

Bandersnatch is a beast of a film and I am surprised I haven’t seen more academic essays and film analyses of it. So here’s me taking a break from your regularly scheduled fannish content to take a stab at it:

First and foremost I'm here for investigating the relationship between the audience and the screen, how the audience participates emotionally in their experience of a cinematic narrative, how the audience identifies themselves in relation to a character on-screen... perhaps, even, how the audience then continues to engage with the media they consume outside of the immediate viewing experience in a larger cultural context

And sure, these are questions that come inherently with the territory of film. Any good movie should lend itself to such thought exercises about the form, and any good screenwriter should be contemplating such questions before they lay their fingers to the keyboard (one of the first rules I learnt in Howard and Mabley's The Tools of Screenwriting: films naturally invite audience participation, and when used appropriately, it's a formidable tool in cinematic storytelling).

But Bandersnatch not only lends itself to discussions of questions of audience participation - it deliberately asks such questions through its unique form, it plays around with audience participation in such a way that even the untrained eye is made to look twice at this experience...

(1) Bandersnatch is made for active and literal audience participation

Bandersnatch doesn't ask you to invest yourself emotionally in the plot, it doesn't ask you to identify with the protagonist, so much as it drops you feet-first into the thick of it - inviting you to cross the fourth wall and become Stefan at every single choice point

(this approach takes inspiration from the video game RPG format, of course, but every other aspect in this narrative adheres to cinematic conventions, it's almost like Charlie Brooker evolved a hybrid form in writing Bandersnatch. And besides...)

(2) Bandersnatch is simultaneously metafiction that questions the idea of cinematic identification

There's a weird tension in the RPG format, you are at once experiencing the narrative in the limited tunnel-vision POV of the protagonist, and making choices for them with a sort of bird's-eye view awareness of other possible outcomes if you so choose to explore other paths. But this tension has never been so clearly illustrated as here in Bandersnatch: upon every revisit of the film you are making your choices with prior knowledge of the narrative's general direction, with the film deliberately pushing the viewer to explore other options and pathways. Because of the film's form, the audience's experience becomes one of cognitive dissonance - we are at once invited to become Stefan, and yet reminded at every turn that we will always maintain a distance to the characters on-screen, for the power and the somewhat omniscient knowledge we hold over them is a clear reminder that we exist on a different plane of reality, peering into their world through a fourth wall that was never really broken, merely lampshaded.

(3) The medium-typical visuals in Bandersnatch serve to highlight its metafictiveness (and further drives cognitive dissonance in the viewer's experience)

Unlike the video game format, the cinematic form can never quite adopt the fully-immersive POV visuals that, say, a first-person shooter game could. Conventions of the medium, e.g. mise-en-scene, wide / medium / over the shoulder shots whenever 2 on-screen characters are in conversation - even POV shots, which are quickly followed by objective shots in observance of the Kuleshov effect, none of these types of visuals come close to delivering the immersive experience that first-person video games can provide, which quite literally frames the narrative, from start to end, through the eyes of the protagonist.

The Kuleshov effect used in Bandersnatch. A POV shot is enclosed by two shots of the character whose gaze the camera temporarily adopts. Notice how by panning out to show Stefan's back, the camera distances us from Stefan's perspective once more, so that we are effectively watching over Stefan’s shoulder and not through his eyes as his story unfolds.

Every time the camera shows us a medium shot or a close-up of Stefan, Bandersnatch inevitably reminds us that we are always going to maintain a distance from Stefan as a character. We do not become Stefan, we make decisions for Stefan remotely, and this puts us directly at odds with the impulse to participate in a film via identifying with the characters on-screen.

And the idea that we are supposed to occupy a role separate from Stefan as we participate in this film - it is not just something me and a dozen other essayists have been speculating about. This is an idea that, I believe, is fully intended by Brooker and his team. If you pay attention to the film's script and visuals, Bandersnatch tells us this explicitly, particularly in the pathways where the film gets meta about its nature as a Netflix title:

(a) the script: after Stefan asks for the viewer to “give me a sign”, if you chose the Netflix logo, the dialogue confirms for us (Stefan says it and so does Dr. Haynes) that we are an external force from the future, making decisions for Stefan remotely. Stefan is then revealed, even on the level of the in-text universe, to be a fictional character played by an actor called Mike - nothing more than the sum of well-acted lines of dialogue and movement, which rather throws a wrench in a viewer's attempt to identify with Stefan as a person if you ask me.

(b) more importantly, the visuals: if you unlock the 5/5 stars ending, we see that Pearl's in-universe copy of Netflix Bandersnatch contains the same opening shot of Stefan waking up on 9th July 1984 as we witness at the start of the film. This literally adds one more layer of fourth wall between us and Stefan's character as we realise the screen through which we have been viewing his story is actually further enclosed in Pearl's computer screen, further driving home the insurmountable distance between us and Stefan's character.

(4) Bandersnatch delivers on the central conceit of spectatorship in Black Mirror* - and elevates it

There's a distance between us and Stefan, because we were never Stefan, nor were we ever even in control of Stefan - merely spectators of his tragedy.

In true Black Mirror fashion, Bandersnatch subjects us to a complicity in other people's suffering by emphasising that we are in fact viewing their stories through a screen (within the screen). Think of S1E01 "The National Anthem" - how that episode embeds footage of the Prime Minister's struggle and eventual humiliation within TV screens on-screen as he concedes to the terrorist's demands, and in doing so, places our gaze from the perspective of the UK public passively spectating the events of his tragedy.

Or, think of how S2E03 "White Bear" ultimately places our gaze in that of the camera phone-wielding park-goers, who film and derive voyeuristic pleasure from Victoria's suffering.

At the reveal, the camera transfers our POV from Victoria's to that of the audience in the theatre. She is physically enclosed within the three walls of a traditional stage, and we peer in through the fourth wall (in addition to the fourth wall of the screen we were already viewing this episode through).

Victoria's live reaction to her criminal past is then broadcast on a screen for the audience's viewing pleasure - a screen within our screens that also adds another layer of fourth wall.

This idea of spectacle*, of course, is thematic of the show - the overarching commentary on our tendencies to consume, through the black mirror-screens of our viewing devices, incidents of no small consequence captured on news and social media as if they were merely reality TV entertainment.

What Bandersnatch does though, is that it doesn't just force us to watch as characters inevitably spiral towards tragedy and then call us out for deriving entertainment from the process. Bandersnatch takes it one step further. Its interactive feature tricks us into believing that we can shape the course of the story towards better endings, so that we are invited to experience this Black Mirror episode not just as passive spectators, but as active voyeurs whose participation causes the tragedy.

And that, I believe, is Charlie Brooker and co.'s intentions when they created Bandersnatch: to place us in a position where our relationship to Stefan's character is to be a voyeur of his tragedy. We are not Stefan, we do not become Stefan, nor do we get to shape his story in radically significant ways* - because just like Stefan, we are also bound by the limitations of the script we have been given. All we can do is spectate as Stefan's tragedy plays out, further exacerbated by our participation. It's symptomatic of Black Mirror's central conceit: we are all victims of a culture of spectacle that rules our everyday experiences of media consumption and our relationships with other humans. Likewise, Bandersnatch holds up that black mirror to our reality, almost as if to say, we are all Pac-man in the end, all we can do is consume, and in turn, be consumed by others as sources of entertainment.

(*) Notes:

When I say that we cannot shape the story in significant ways, I am only referring to the events of the story as they objectively happen on screen. I am aware of Roland Barthes's idea of "Death of the Author" and how the audience gets to be the author when we decode the meaning behind a scene and event and interpret a text according to our personal experiences of the story... But in the case of the choice points and outcomes we are presented with in Bandersnatch, Charlie Brooker holds the pen as the author of the film's pathways.

When I talk about the theme of “spectacle”, I am referring to the idea outlined by Guy Debord in his seminal work, The Society of the Spectacle. “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images." It’s this idea that how we engage with each other as individuals in modern society when our relationships are increasingly contextualised by mass media, consumer culture, and commodity fetishism. Lots of big buzzwords there, so for a crash course on this theory and how it relates to Black Mirror I highly recommend checking out Youtube channel Wisecrack's oldest video essay on Black Mirror.

I am also currently working on a separate meta to address the idea of spectacle in Bandersnatch, all the ways Bandersnatch inherits the hallmarks of a typical Black Mirror episode, and why the movie belongs squarely in the anthology. I will hopefully post it soon so stay tuned!

#black mirror #bandersnatch #stefan butler #black mirror meta #bandersnatch meta #don't fail me now tumblr; i had to repost this so it would hopefully show up in tags #white bear #the society of the spectacle #Eugenia writes meta #long post #Black Mirror Bandersnatch

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ohjohnno · 4 years

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Outrageous Fortune Reviewcap: S1E01 (”Slings And Arrows”)

The first time I watched this show, it was more as an exercise in trying to learn New Zealand slang for a writing project than anything else. It didn’t really prove useful - the characters I was researching for were upper-middle class kiwis, as opposed to the bogans depicted here - but nonetheless, the first time I watched the first episode I was too focused on my project to pay too much attention to the actual quality. Only upon rewatching did I realise that this show was great right from the get-go.

The show, for those who don’t know, centers on what is sometimes called a “crime family”. But this isn’t a Corleone or Gambino style family; this is more like what you could call a blue-collar crime family, with the main breadwinner just happening to earn most of his income through crime (in this case, mostly burglaries). They aren’t a particularly violent menace, but they are nonetheless a perpetual thorn in the side of the police, from whom they get constant and generally perfectly justified visits.

It has flaws, yes. They’re especially apparent during the first season, and they never completely go away. But it’s the cast of characters that makes this show tick, and for the most part, they’re all compelling right from the get-go. It’s a fascinating bunch of introductions - let’s take ‘em one by one.

We have Cheryl West, introduced initially as your typical mama bear. She’s fiercely protective of her children, even as she remains very firm with them; she’s less firm with her husband, Wolfgang West, the only person in the whole episode she allows to lie to her face without challenge. (”Do you know where Van was last night?”, she asks; “no,” says an unconvincing Wolf, but she lets it pass without further comment). She claims that she loves all her children equally, and I believe her, but she’s particularly kind with Jethro West, the only one of her children who’s done everything with his life that she wanted him to. He’s on his way to being a big-shot lawyer at this stage in the show, and he seems nice; the first glimpse we get of any darkness below the surface is the revelation that he made up some Maori heritage to get hired. (Spoiler alert: this plot point gets quietly dropped pretty quickly, since, y’know, it doesn’t make any sense. One of them early flaws I mentioned.)

Cheryl is less kind to Jethro’s identical twin Van West, but that’s really only because he deserves it. Van is quickly established as The Stupid West, and accordingly provides most of the episode’s laughs, but it’s a little deeper than that; he is, specifically, the Stupid Man West, his stupidity really being almost entirely rooted in his crude, half-formed machismo and his desire to prove himself to his father. It’s clearly unhealthy - Van, and his good friend Munter (who will become more important later in the show), are clearly lacking the mental chops required for a life of crime, and Van especially is an absolutely horrible liar, which is maybe the worst possible trait a career criminal could ever have. Wolf, for his part, is very fond of him; he’s less fond of Jethro, with whom he shares only curt words (by familial standards, anyway) when he’s awaiting his court date.

Then there’s Pascalle West, whom I’ve heard described as a “vacuous trollop” by certain online folks. I guess that isn’t entirely unfair, but it’s important to clarify what exactly is meant by that. In absolute terms, she is certainly smarter than Van, and she’s much more strong-willed and, in her own way, independent-minded. But she’s deeply naive, and her blustering confidence combines poorly with her total lack of any life experience. Her dream is to be a model, and she thinks she can use her sexuality to help her get there, Jenna Maroney style; the problem, as she discovers twice in this episode alone, is that this doesn’t really work. The handjob she gives to her photographer brings his price down only a little, and her attempt at charming the men at Work & Income leads only to them degrading her further. She’s trying to navigate a man’s world using the tools men have given her, and she’s only slowly learning that these tools were plague blankets, a false gift designed to keep her down.

And then, of course, we have my favorite of the bunch, and very possibly my favorite character in television history: Loretta West. It doesn’t take long to introduce the traits that most define her, and that will mostly continue to do so: she is intelligent, lazy, pretentious, nerdy, witty, and cruel. The cruelty is at a fairly basic baby stage at this point - mostly limited to probably-joking familial jabs and the occasional spot of ruthless blackmail - but it doesn’t take us long to discover that she’s found a way to secretly skip school for the past several months in order to focus on writing a movie script, that she views just about everyone else in the world as her intellectual inferior, and that she just loves to deliver witticisms.

House of suffering and torment...

The others, at this stage, are mostly minor characters. Ted West will become more important very quickly, but for now he’s just the butt of a few softly ageist jokes; Loretta figures out that he probably burned his house down on purpose because he was lonely, and she seems to get on with him more than anyone else in the family does, but that’s the only real hint of depth we get here. Wayne Judd is firmly in antagonist mode here, serving us some lovely smug snake goodness as the righteous cop perpetually tormenting our family of lovable criminals. Eric Grady is a decidedly unlovable perverted cheapskate with a faintly sickening crush on Cheryl; he’s good because every laugh is at his expense, and so he shall remain.

The episode does a great job of introducing all the main characters, but the central plot is really only driven by Cheryl, Wolf, and, alas, Van. Wolf, at this stage of the show, is very difficult not to despise; he loves his wife, but clearly doesn’t respect her nearly as much as he believes he does, and his utterly self-certain male chauvinism passes well beyond insufferable and ends up actively loathsome. Getting sentenced, early in the episode, to four years in prison for burglary does nothing to dent his absolute certainty in the correctness of his decision-making. A prison visit from Van ends with the latter trying, in perhaps the most foolishly and (fortunately) harmlessly incompetent way possible, to get involved in some sort of drug trade; when Cheryl presses him, he repeats what Wolf told him: that “with Dad inside, somebody’s got to make the decisions around here”. Cheryl’s long-suffering exasperation with unearned male arrogance is palpable.

But Cheryl is used to it. If anything, she’s too used to it, and her frosty confrontation with Wolf in a prison visit of her own is still far more charitable than he deserves. It does, however, lead to the most important early development in the show: Wolf’s hideously gentle insistence that she “doesn’t have the balls” for the sort of criminal work he expects from Van leads her to decide that the family is going to abandon the criminal lifestyle and embrace the straight & narrow. It’s a nice ideal, but it’s gonna turn out easier said than done. There’s far too many personality defects in among this cast of characters for anything to come easy.

Now, there is one notable flaw in this episode, and it heralds bad things to come: there’s a truly terrible racist joke about an old Asian woman who turns out to know Kung Fu, and it blossoms into the presence of an entire family of dumb stereotypes and silly lowest-common-denominator sex jokes (the Hongs) that’s gonna remain the worst part of the show for the duration of the season. It’s a shame, and the writers should really have known better, but I tend to just grin and bear it. They’ll be gone soon enough, after all, and they aren’t enough to get in the way of the generally excellent writing on display here. Plus - and this is one of only a few times I’ll mention it, ‘cos otherwise it’ll get repetitive - the acting from the main cast is universally incredible, to the point where I’m genuinely kind of angry that only Antony Starr has attained proper stardom. But no matter! We soldier on. To the second episode!

#antonia prebble #siobhan marshall #robyn malcolm #antony starr #grant bowler #television #outrageous fortune #frank whitten #rachel lang #gutter black #nz

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amandajoyce118 · 5 years

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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season One Easter Eggs And References

I so greatly enjoyed Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, and I’m really interested to see what they do in season two, which is almost done filming. I still maintain that this show is like if Riverdale and Supernatural had a baby. It’s definitely creepy and not for everyone, but I found it fascinating.

I’ve got Easter eggs galore, though I didn’t go through and explain who every comic book character is like I would normally do with a superhero show. And yes, the Netflix series is based on the 2014 Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic, which in turn was named after another comic from decades earlier. Sabrina Spellman is an Archie Comics character, but it’s not clear if her show is set in the same universe as Riverdale or not.

There are spoilers here, but as usual, I’ve broken this list down episode by episode for those who want to read while they watch. Enjoy.

S1E01 “Chapter One: October Country”

Opening Credits

The opening credits feature the artwork of Robert Hack. Hack is the artist who actually illustrated The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic book. A lot of his art inspires the look of the show as well.

The Episode Title

October Country gets its name from a collection of stories by Ray Bradbury. They were all considered pretty dark, and the volume mostly reprinted stories included in a different anthology, only adding a few new pieces, king of like this show.

The Very 70s Aesthetic

The show kind of has a weird timewarp thing going on like sister series Riverdale. There’s a lot of cars, furniture, and even clothing that seem to be inspired by the 1970s. That’s likely because Sabrina made her comic book debut in the 70s. It’s a way to give an homage to the original books as well as the newer series the show adapts.

Cerberus Books

Cerberus was a three headed dog who guarded the gate to the underworld in Greek mythology. We’ll discuss him more in a later episode.

Dr. Saperstein

My guess is that someone on staff is a Parks and Rec fan. This is Jean-Ralphio’s surname, and his father, was, in fact, a doctor. Of course, it’s also the name of the doctor in Rosemary’s Baby, so… pick your reference.

Sabrina’s Thermos

You’ll notice some characters on Sabrina’s thermos. Those happen to be a musical group named The Archies. Yep, they’re Archie and the gang from Riverdale, which does make you wonder if the two shows are in the same universe or if one is the fictional version of the other or what.

Sabrina Makes Harvey Forget

She does it with a kiss here, but in the 90s television sitcom, she made him forget she was a witch a lot of times. This made me wonder if she might have to do it a few more times over the course of this series, or if the next time he finds out, it sticks.

Her Parents Were Flying To Italy

This is an awfully interesting destination. Why? Because what’s in Italy? That would be Rome and the Vatican, home of the Catholic Church, which is interesting in and of itself. It’s both a very romantic and a very religious destination for a witch and a mortal to be traveling to. It also happens to be where the first Sabrina The Teenage Witch movie was set, if I remember right.

The Weird Sisters

These three get their nickname from the trio of witches in Shakespeare’s MacBeth. There’s a lot of Shakespeare references throughout the show, but I think that’s really just because writers like their Shakespeare.

Salem

The show’s take on Salem is interesting. In the Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina comic, he was Sabrina’s familiar, but that’s not became he was a goblin. Instead, he was cursed by a witch in Salem to become a cat. He was a mortal man named Samuel who got her pregnant and, because he had nothing to offer her, he didn’t want her to have to marry him. She took offense, Satan ate their kid and she cursed him to become her familiar. When she died in the witch trials, Satan renamed him Salem as a nod to what happened.

The 90s sitcom had Salem as a warlock who was cursed to cat form by the witches council after committing a crime. It seems like Ambrose on house arrest is filling that role this time around.

S1E02 “Chapter Two: The Dark Baptism”

“...a movie star like cousin Montgomery.”

I like the idea that this is a nod to Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of the series Bewitched, which followed a witch named Samantha who married a mortal. Samantha’s evil cousin on the show? Her name was Sabrina.

A Riverdale Mention

So, Riverdale is likely just across the river from Greendale here since we hear the town named.

Black Narcissus

The name of the goat snagged for Sabrina’s baptism is also the name of a 1947 film. There’s actually a ton of classic movie references, posters, etc in the show, just like in Riverdale. I probably won’t point them all out because this would be a list of nothing but movie references.

S1E03 “Chapter Three: The Trial Of Sabrina Spellman

“Conserve water. Plug it up, plug it up…”

This is a sign on the bathroom door in the high school It’s a nod to the horror movie Carrie, which was based on a book by Stephen King. The movie also inspired a musical episode of Riverdale in season two.

Daniel Webster

The lawyer is named after a character in a pretty famous short story about a farmer who sells his soul to the devil and is then defended by a talented lawyer.

Archie’s Madhouse

Another comic from the Archie world of comics. One of its covers is on the wall in Harvey’s room. He’s clearly a fan of many different types of comics.

Ravens VS Bulldogs

We get another nod to the fact that Riverdale exists. About half way into the episode, there’s a kid putting up a flyer for a bowling match between the Baxter High Ravens and the Riverdale High Bulldogs.

Dr. Specter

I just thought it was funny that an eye doctor has this name. It’s not really an Easter egg, just cute.

Side note: Ambrose asks Luke if he’s a vampire. So, I’m going to go with witches aren’t the only supernatural beings the show will eventually introduce. Vampires, werewolves, there is no limit to what I expect now.

S1E04 “Chapter Four: Witch Academy”

Gehenna Station

“Gehenna” is an old biblical term that means hell-like. I kind of think it’s fitting that the school is disguised as an old train station as well since a lot of artists imagine purgatory as a train station. Hell-like purgatory seems like a good training ground for witches.

Nick Scratch

Old Scratch is a common slang, or at least it used to be, for the devil. Here, I think it’s just a nod to the fact that Nick’s a warlock. (Also, Nicholas Scratch was the name of a Marvel villain once upon a time, but that’s a whole different publisher.)

Valac

One of the names seen in a book is that of Valac. I think fans of The Conjuring franchise will recognize it as a demon there. Another movie reference in this episode? The “light as a feather, stiff as a board” chant used by the harrowed kids. That’s courtesy of The Craft.

S1E05 “Chapter Five: Dreams In A Witch House”

Batibat

Her makeup looks pretty reminiscent of The Witches (movie based on a Roald Dahl book), but that’s actually all I’ve got for this episode. Unless we count Sabrina using the children’s string game Jacob’s Ladder as her way to get the spiders’ webs going, but I think that’s just a result of that particular game being a prevalent one in the 90s, and thus, amongst the writers.

S1E06 “Chapter Six: An Exorcism In Greendale”

Harvey As Johnny Depp

Harvey with his headphones on in the #10 tee? That’s am almost exact remake of a shot of Johnny Depp in A Nightmare On Elm Street. (Side note: I kind of feel like this shot should have been in the previous episode, the one that actually focused on nightmares.)

Apophis

Apophys is a death metal group. Apophis is the name of an asteroid, but also a derivation of the name of an Egyptian ruler, as well as an Egyption entity of chaos. Apep was drawn as a giant serpent and was an enemy of “the light.”

The Exorcist Homage

Okay, this episode really just plays as a loving homage to The Exorcist. There are so many shots that echo frames from the film. I’m not going to even attempt to list them all.

The Witches That Came Before

Okay, Sabrina calls on the power of a whole lot of historical figures as she names “witches” during her exorcism. My personal favorites? The goddesses Artemis and Luna, the queen Anne Boleyn, and the mythical first wife of Adam, Lilith. She also calls on Morgan Le Fay of the famous Arthurian legend. She actually appeared in an old Archie comic involving time travel called Jughead’s Time Police. Yeah, even Archie comics got weird back in the day.

Afterlife With Archie

This is the more supernatural version of the Archie comic book universe. Luke actually has a copy of an issue in his hands while he’s in Cerberus. It’s funny because this comic book storyline was created by Sabrina trying to bring Jughead’s dog back to life… we’ll call that foreshadowing for a future episode.

S1E07 “Chapter Seven: Feast of Feasts”

Grandpa Kinkle

TV fans might recognize Grandpa Kinkle as Michael Hogan. He’s been all over genre shows for decades. Most recently though, and where Sabrina’s target audience will know him from, he played a hunter on Teen Wolf. There, he came from a long line of werewolf hunters. Here, he’s from a long line of witch hunters. Coincidence? I have a feeling it’s not.

Ben

Poor, tragic pizza delivery boy. Okay, so the most recent season of Riverdale also featured a character named Ben. Specifically, Ben Button. Ben Button was played by Moses Thiessen. Guess who this Ben is played by? That would also be Moses Thiessen. And, guess what else? They both (spoiler alert for Riverdale fans who haven’t watched yet) died in weird ways. What does this mean? I have no idea.

Side note: The only witches in the coven who don’t seem to partake in the feast are Sabrina, Zelda, Nick, and surprisingly, Prudence. (And Hilda and Ambrose, but they aren’t invited) There’s a part of me that wonders if that will be significant in season two.

S1E08 “Chapter Eight: The Burial”

1693

Above the entrance to the mine, we see that the Kinkle’s took over, or created, the South Line in 1693. I’ll admit, my first thought was, oh, that’s when the Sanderson sisters originally died in Hocus Pocus. It’s also the year that the Salem Witch Trials took place, providing a nod to the history the show pulls from. The Von Kunkles hunted down witches and stole their land while the trials were going on in Salem, which also indirectly led to the hanging of the original Greendale witches. Yikes.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares

A comic book published by Vertigo, this happens to land on Harvey’s bedside table. Another vampire reference, eh? I hope we see one eventually.

S1E09 “Chapter Nine: The Returned Man”

Dr. Phibes

He’s named for a Vincent Price character. If you don’t know who Vincent Price was, he was pretty much the face of horror in American cinema for a while. Do yourself a favor and look him up.

Pop Culture Nods

I have no idea why someone who claims to be as dark as Zelda chooses a song from The Sound of Music for the Church of Night’s choir. Your guess is as good as mine. Susie tries to shoplift Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I’ve never read it, but it’s certainly the type of novel Susie, or even a witch in Greendale would be interested in. It follows a poet who changes sex (male to female) and lives for hundreds of years.

S1E10 “Chapter 10: The Witching Hour”

Mr. Loomis

This is likely a nod to the Halloween franchise, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that it was also the last name of Sidney’s boyfriend in Scream, but that was a nod to Halloween in and of itself.

Riverdale

Again, a Riverdale nod. Harvey’s dad had the funeral home in Riverdale take care of Tommy instead of the Spellman’s. But is it in the Riverdale we know on TV? Who knows?

“Let Greendale cast a spell on you…”

This is the town motto on the sign at the edge of town. (I’d like to point out the sign is designed just like the one of CW’s Riverdale, so nice consistency in set design there.) It’s cute, but I’m also wondering how the town got this motto since everyone seems bent on rewriting the towns witchy history.

Cerberus

The owner of Cerberus books? His eyes flash yellow after getting a kiss from Hilda. I’d like to think he’s something canine to go with his name, and perhaps his store stands over an actual gate to hell. Whether he’s a real hellhound or a werewolf, or the show pays off on its vampire nods with him, remains to be seen.

Madame Satan

She reveals her real name. She also reveals she’s Lilith, first wife of Adam. I find it funny that Sabrina actually invoked her during the exorcism.

Comic Book Look

Sabrina gets her comic book accurate hair in the end here. You know, I don’t think she needed it, but it’s a nice nod that there’s been a transformation in her power level.

Bonus Motifs

These things showed up a lot, and I didn’t want to have to write about it every single time.

Pop culture has got 13 as being unlucky and associated with magic, so I like that the show embraced it. A witch’s pregnancy lasts 13 months, 13 minutes is just enough time for a soul to leave a body, and 13 hours is how long Sabrina has to wait to see if her resurrection spell worked.

Cain And Abel

These two brothers were the sons of Adam and Eve, for those who know their biblical stories. They represent jealousy and murder, etc. We’ve got Hilda with her Cain pit in the garden, but there’s actually a lot of more subtle references to them. Cain was a farmer (Hilda) and Abel was a shepherd (Zelda, leading the way), for example. There’s a lot of focus on sibling relationships considering the show’s main character is an only child. Harvey and Tommy, Hilda and Zelda, the Weird Sisters, etc.

Suspira

A lot of the set design (windows and ceilings, specifically) are nods to the horror film Suspira. I’ve never seen it, but it got a lot of notice from horror fans on social media, so I figured I should add that here.

Real Spells

According to interviews and set visits, the crew wanted the set to be authentic, so that had practicing witches cast protection spells on the set and used real symbols around the Spellman house. The Spellman house even has a German protection spell carved into the floor.

Jughead

Also according to set visits, one of the shelves in the Baxter High library has a shelf where you can see a crown and “Jughead was here” carved into it. I don’t think it’s actually visible while watching the show though.

So, what did you guys think about the show? Love it? Hate it? Did you spot more Easter eggs?

#chilling adventures of sabrina #sabrina on netflix #sabrina season one #chilling adventures of sabrina spoilers #easter eggs

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