#I’ve noticed the two separate shots with Balmera and the Alteans a few years ago but never made much sense of them

[artsyjesseblue]

Lotor in a Komar Robeast - a Speculative Meta

Listen, I said I wasn’t going to write any more VLD metas, but this one is borderline fanfic, so I have an excuse. My theory is a bit stretched, like a thin rubber band ready to snap, but hey, it’s always fun to theorize. I’m just throwing it out here for funsies.

So, first off, what are the easiest and fastest ways to change the course of an already animated story?

— Static images are easy to alter - Lotor’s cOrpSe comes to mind. Easy to draw a bunch of purple spaghetti over his body.

— If there are changes in the script, calling voice actors back to record new dialogue is also cheaper (and faster) than applying major changes to the animation itself (re-recording dialogue is called ADR and it’s used in the industry on a regular basis).

With that in mind, here’s where I’m applying my theory:

At the end of Knights of Light Part II, Allura remains unconscious, while all the other Paladins wake up from the entity-assisted trip to Honerva’s mind:

From here on, I (like many others before me) hypothesize that she’d continue her metaphysical journey and finally meet Lotor — a natural consequence of the fact that he (his subconscious more exactly) enticed Allura to follow him in the Clear Day episode (“Follow me”? And then we never saw him again? Hello? Anyone there?).

As seen in the “Genesis” episode in S8, Lotor is boiling in his own rage — a rage of galactic proportions, magnified by the rift quintessence. Similar to how she woke the Old Paladins up from the darkness inside Honerva’s mind, Allura would now have a chance to awaken Lotor’s consciousness.

The difference between Lotor and Alfor et al. is that Lotor also retains his physical body — and I posit it would not look as horrid as published in canon. After simmering in the quintessence field among entities, it would make more sense story-wise for Lotor to resemble his parents’ transfiguration. A vampire-like appearance. The flecks of purple light emanating from him in the (supposed) coRpSe scene suggest that as well (Remember Zarkon and Honerva’s eyes, effusing motes of eerie purple light after coming back from the rift?).

Here’s where I’m deviating from the traditional theories:

The outcome of Lotor still retaining a viable body would be that Allura would completely wake him up from his vampire state: mind and body.

In other words, Allura would revive him remotely, via the entity connection. She wouldn’t need to storm the pyramid. Or, to quote Allura herself in the very last episode of S8, she’d “change the quintessence within [his] vessel/body from a destructive force into a life-giving force” (note that in canon she applied this technique to Honerva, while they were in the Connected Consciousness Plane, so… also remotely). As per Allura’s own recount, this was something that Lotor helped her learn.

This would bring us to the next point, as we see it in canon:

At the beginning of S8E12 “The Zenith”, Merla unexpectedly comes to the Paladins’ aid, parrying a Komar robeast’s strike against Voltron:

Pidge exclaims: “It’s the Altean!”

“Why is she helping us?” Lance asks.

Merla pleads with the Paladins. “Please, do not harm them! They were misguided, much like I was. We all were.”

We never actually see Pidge, Lance or Merla talking, we only hear their voices while the robots carry on with the battle.

This sneaky little snippet of dialogue is where I think stuff might have been altered.

Why?

Because Merla freaking died in the previous episode. Honerva blasted Merla’s mecha to fine cosmic dust, and we witnessed that in a mighty well animated scene, for that matter.

So. Who might have actually piloted that Komar robeast?

Well…

How about… Lotor? What if Lotor’s “do not harm them” was swapped with Merla’s voice?

Freshly awoken from his mega mental breakdown, but still refusing to accept Honerva as his mother — thus putting up a big fight against her (and consequently pushing Honerva to such batshit insanity where she’d decide to search for a child-Lotor in another reality), Lotor would eventually manage to escape the pyramid aboard a Komar mecha. Abandoning Sincline in this case would also serve as a symbolic gesture of departing his past life and actions, and joining the Coalition for good. (Also, in Allura’s vision in “Clear Day”, the Komar robot had a bit of a sacrificial symbolic role, so there’s that as well).

Inserting Lotor here would be an effective action sequence, with a bigger story impact than Merla’s — and it would flow nicely, as he’d arrive in the nick of time to help the Paladins. Not to mention, it would save a lot of time and budget, by skipping that extra episode about storming the pyramid.

Look, I love the ‘storming the pyramid’ idea and all the art that’s been done so far with it. I’d love to see more! I wrote a fanfic around it, too. But what if there was a more streamlined approach?

Also… Also… This action flow would explain the unprofessionally chopped frame (rip Hunk, we only see your shoulder) that follows immediately after the Merla-helps-Voltron scene. (Oh, how about Lance’s “Why is she helping us?” rolling right during this frame? We don’t even see Lance’s mouth - how convenient!)

In the unaltered version of this split screen (there must be an uncropped version, because otherwise… where’s Hunk?), I posit there wouldn’t be any Merla; instead, we’d see the newly-arrived Lotor, the Paladins, and the two remaining Altean warriors. And the convo would flow something like this:

Pidge: “It’s Lotor!”

Lance: “Why is he helping us?” (Or perhaps he would say something else completely? We can’t see his mouth; I guess it was easier than re-animating his lips to the new dialogue?)

Lotor: “Please, do not harm them!” [Optional: “They were misguided — much like I was. We all were.” — this would tie in with what Allura said about him in the Connected Consciousness scene: “Lotor may have been misguided, but ultimately he wanted to preserve life.”]

Scrolling further into S8E12, there are two almost identical semi-static scenes (an Altean character is animated briefly), separated by about 5 minutes (min 12:08, then min 17:00). The background dissimilarity is what triggers my suspicions. Remember I said static images are easy to alter? Spot the differences between these two pics:

Image 1 - minute 12:08:

Image 2 - minute 17:00:

In the second shot Matt and N-7 are gone, but more importantly… the Balmeran alien on the right has been replaced by Merla, and her Komar mecha looms in the background. See how easy it is to switch characters in static scenes? It’s canon. Boom. Proof right here.

What if… that character was actually Lotor? If he was supposed to be in that mecha instead of Merla, this would be a great opportunity for him to join forces with his beloved Alteans, and… and… express his own magical powers! (Oh, magical Altean Lotor? We’ve been waiting for this since Oriande, haven’t we? Here we go!)

Not to mention the super-symbolic gesture he’d make, of giving up his own quintessence — after syphoning it from other Alteans in the past.

Ultimately though, we know that the Balmerans & the Coalition’s efforts fail, as they’re unable to contain the rift. Their reality collapses. Meanwhile, Voltron-Atlas misses their entry point to the next reality. They’re all defeated. Honerva reaches her target reality. There, she meets cute little Lotor, gets rejected (again!) by him, and looses her shit completely.

Then, out of thin air, Voltron-Atlas reappears. May I ask how? Because damn sure, canon never explained it.

While my imagination is exhausted here, I have a couple of options, sourced from a previous meta of my own, as well as @violethowler ’s meta. In either case, the idea is that a supernatural being from beyond realities must have helped them, perhaps akin to the Sphinx in the VLD comics — maybe a Lion Goddess (foreshadowed in S1)? Perhaps they must pass some tests? The riddle of the Sphinx? Perhaps their experience in S7, “The Journey Within” was the Goddess’ test, and they already passed it? Unity, friendship, hope… All that good stuff.

And here, in the Nowhere Land beyond realities, I speculate that Lotor reunites with the Voltron-Atlas team. A seven-unit team (as hinted through Kolivan’s interview in “Day Forty-Seven”). According to a previous analysis of mine, there are animation glitches that hint at Lotor being present in the final scenes in the Connected Consciousness.

Like I said, this is a highly speculative piece. More fuel for fanfiction though.

One thing I’d like to make clear as I close my analysis. When I talk about altering an already animated story, I’m referring to executive meddling, imposed upon the talented crew that poured all their love into this show: the EPs, the writers, the animators. You know, the whole “toys for boys” meddling issue. Imo, the show runners deserved better, just like this story. I’m simply speculating on what could have been.