Reflection and Analysis

VLD: Truth About Lance (3/28/2020)

I want to address yet again how the Voltron fandom perceives Lance, but this time I'm going to frame this around the fact Lance's character does in fact represent a pervasive problem that ends up getting ignored. In fact, I recently delved into the fact this idea Lance suffers from low-self esteem is a load of crock, that what he really is, is in fact a narcissist. In fact, I'll quote the article "Narcissism vs. Self-Esteem" How Are They Different?" by Arash Emamzadeh.

"Narcissists crave admiration from others. When they don't get the admiration they crave, their self-esteem falls momentarily. In that moment, they may feel ashamed, and direct these feelings outward by lashing out against others."

This idea that Lance has "insecurity issues" is honestly a load of crock.

Now, I get it. There are people out there who are major fans of Lance's character who will argue that he does indeed have "insecurity issues" based on the fact he does in fact a couple of times momentarily have his self-esteem fall. The key word here is momentarily. For an actual person with self-esteem issues, there is none of this momentarily business. No, the fall in self-esteem is a constant. There's no picking oneself up after a pity party. And yes, that is what Lance is doing both times, throwing himself a major pity party.

The reason I'm bringing this up again is because I just finished reading a few essays.

- Bullies Play The Victim – Journey Support

- Some Bullies, narcissists play the victim – Bullies Be Gone

Seriously, read those articles before continuing any further, but to quote the second article in the same way I've already quoted above – it's in bold in the second article as well...

"Many bullies and narcissists decide they're the victims; only their feelings and sufferings count."

One of the problems with Lance fans – or I should say Lance stands – is they outright ignore the fact he is a narcissistic bully. Actually, I wonder if the people who think Lance suffers from self esteem issues actually understand what it means to actually have self-esteem issues. I certainly remember what that was like, in an area which my surprise people – my writing, yet here I am having gained quite a bit of self-esteem in regard to my writing.

In fact, one of the reasons I get so frustrated with the fact people in fandom comes from the fact as a dyslexic writer I most definitely had to deal with that self-esteem issue regarding my writing. Not once did I ever see Lance actually truly struggle because of some insecurity issue on his part. Yeah, there were those couple of pity parties: the first involved a pity party regarding not being the center of attention, and the other was a pity part about not getting the girl he wanted.

Which, the latter is one of the infuriating things about the end game pairing.

People talk about how Lance fits into this whole "nice guy" wears the girl down until he gets her, but in truth Lance isn't the "nice guy". We constantly see him bullying Keith. We constantly see him flirting with girls. We constantly see him acting in narcissistic manners. I don't think the fact Lance from DotU definitely fit the bill of "nice guy" helps either, as we expected Lance to become this character, nor does the fact he has a few redeeming moments in the earlier seasons which indicated character growth.

The problem is narcissist also have redeeming moments. No, more specifically, there are people who aren't very nice people do have redeeming moments, yet there are some people who are able to hide their less-redeeming moments from others. No matter how much people argue Lance grew as a character, he did not. We never see him stop flirting with the girls because he's never placed after that point in a position where he would be tempted. He definitely hasn't started treating Keith any better than he did on the first day, unless of course it's convenient for him.