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He Fits In Every Role Given To Him Except The One He Actually Wants - Blog Posts
Lance is such an interesting character to me in part because of how the narrative wants to portray him to the point it becomes contradictory.
His "arc" is supposed to be "cocky and immature teenager grows from his need for glory into a reliable team member"
And he does! He becomes Keith's right hand man, taking charge in battle, covering the team's backs and becoming an emotional support for other members when the time was needed.
But he is also a Comedic Relief™
Other characters have comedic relief moments too, like Hunk's love for food, Pidge's excitement about tech, Keith being socially awkward, etc.
And as aggravating as Hunk's fat jokes can be they don't contradict the fact that he is a brilliant engineer and became a brave paladin. Keith's social awkwardness doesn't contradict the fact that he became a capable leader.
But then you have Pidge and Hunk, making fun of Lance being "naturally dumb", and then a space deity calling him "the dumb one"one moment then following Lance's orders in battle and having him give emotional speeches to others the other.
The writers want us to take him seriously and see he is growing only to make fun of him when its needed for a laugh.
I feel the episode The Grudge is a good example of this:
Lance finds a way to find where they left their Lions.
Hunk and Allura seem impressed but Pidge dismisses it.
That would be the end of it until later when Veronica is talking with "Keith" (actually a hacker pretending to be him) and the says "Lance has it figured out", Veronica then in a sarcastic way says "Lance, the navigation genius".
Keith agrees and that's what clues them about something being wrong.
Is it a joke about Keith being openly nice to Lance? A joke about Lance navigation skills?
Either way, the joke is at his expense, even when early in the episode we see him actually figuring suggesting a way to correctly navigate.
In the end what I'm trying to say is that the writers want to have their cake and eat it too. Showing Lance growing and being capable but also making fun of him and not really having that much respect for his character.