Why Everyone Thinks That Season 8 of Netflix's 'Voltron' Was Queerbaiting

For those who don't know the term queerbaiting:

Queerbaiting is the practice to hint at, but then to not actually depict, a same-sex romantic relationship between characters in a work of fiction, mainly in film or television. The potential romance may be ignored, explicitly rejected or made fun of.The derogatory term "queerbaiting" is meant to imply that this is done for the purpose of attracting ("baiting") a queer audience with the ultimately unrealized suggestion of relationships that appeal to them. The concept arose in and has been popularized through Internet discussions among the fandom of popular films and television series.

Just two days after the eighth season of one of Netflix's most popular animated shows came out, the internet appeared to burst into flames of anger and fury from fans who claimed they were robbed from the LGBTQ representation that was promised. Some fans claim that killing Adam (Shiro's significant other) took away the opportunity to have a gay diverse couple in a cartoon and normalize the view of this type of pairings in kids shows; other fans claimed that Shiro himself was the representation and that there was no need to show or even develop the character of Adam W. and that his death was expected since the beginning.

It is easy to accuse the producer and creator of queerbaiting since there was a huge release of different thumbnails for the show where Adam and Shiro were together, also a confirmation for one of the producer's (Lauren Montgomery) that we would meet Adam in the show; showing a character for a flashback and 30 seconds of his death is not what most of the fandom expects as meeting.

Another part of the fandom is angry at the creators of Voltron because of the Klance pairing, who has been expected since season two aired and even when no one states that this will ever be "canon" the fandom keeps fighting that this is queerbaiting. Now, there is some proof's the Klance shippers have found through the seasons. The first one being that a lot of videos on youtube are tagged as Klance and so is the show itself, if you look up Klance on Netflix the show will pop up, there are fans who assure that the show keeps throwing hints that this will happen either via tweets or interviews.

The audience who agrees with the path the creators are taking express that not all the show is about relationships. They think that queerbaiting is not what's happening here and it's all a bunch of teenagers who are not getting what they want. The "free-ship" audience agrees that this is ridiculous; after all, it is a kids' action show and should be enjoyable.

While not every VA (Voice Actor) has commented in the allegations, the few who had expressed that this was never the show's intentions and that the show is about a war, not a ship-war.

We have to understand that as much as we like a pair, there is no excuse to go after real people like the voice actors or the creators; you can express your opinion but do it in a way that it doesn't affect others and in a respectful way.

Queerbaiting is a strong allegation and it should not be taken as a joke. Our society evolves and it changes for good through the years pass, we become more open-minded and inclusive, a show like Voltron is a huge step but there still many more goals to reach. Please remember that the Voltron crew did all they could to get Gay Shiro; maybe it was just not enough to get Adam as well.