#Talk Zonerva to me

[lunar-magnolia]

Honerva: *breathes*

Zarkon:

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Rewriting Haggar/Honerva’s redemption arc

One of the many things that bothered me about VLD S8 is Honerva’s redemption arc. While I was never fully against the idea of Honerva getting a redemption arc, I just didn’t want VLD to do it because I knew that they would fuck it up if they tried. And low and behold, I was right!

But yeah, I wasn’t against the idea of her being redeemed. And I don’t mean “redeemed” as in “all is forgiven and she’s just a good guy now,” but more like a Darth Vader, “the things she did were inexcusable and she would never be able to right all her wrongs but she goes out on one good act to show that there was still good in her deep down and she at least had the potential to change.”

I know a lot of people don’t like the whole, “redemption=death” thing, which I understand, but I personally never had a problem with it.

Ok, so why didn’t Honerva’s redemption work? Well there are a few reasons but the one that baffles me the most is that, instead of trying to make her more sympathetic, season 8 seemed to go out of its way to show her being more evil and vile than ever.

And because I have nothing better to do, I’m gonna go through Honerva’s story in VLD and explain what I would change to make her redemption more believable.

(Keep in mind I am not a writer, this is just me ranting about my favorite character and how I personally would’ve written her.)

1. Realizing she’s Altean

I always thought it’s was weird that when Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” In the S2 finale, Haggar didn’t seem to react at all, she just kept attacking. It’s as if she didn’t care or already knew, which doesn’t make sense considering in the S3 finale and S8E2 it’s established that Haggar has no memory of who she was before she died. And in S4E3 she seems shocked by her Altean face (which also doesn’t make sense because her blue skin isn’t camouflage that’s just how she looks after the rift) so it seems like she didn’t know.

Wouldn’t it have made more sence if after Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” Honerva looked confused/shocked? If she became defensive and said Allura was lying/trying to insult her? There’s def anti-Altean propaganda in the empire so it would be considered an insult.

After that she starts questioning Zarkon. And when she looks into his mind, it’s out of genuine curiosity and desire to know the truth, not because, “the empire needs him” or whatever that meant.

And isn’t it a bit odd that she doesn’t seem betrayed at all when she finds out Zarkon has been keeping all this from her? She’s just like, “oh, you’re my husband? Cool.” Wtf???

2. Her past relationship with Zarkon

Okay, I love Zonerva, but if we’re being honest, Zarkon was not the best husband. He enabled the shit out of Honerva, even when it was obvious that the rift was doing serious damage to her physical and mental health. To me, it seems like Zarkon was so blinded by the power the rift gave him that he didn’t realize/ignored the negative effect it was having on Honerva. In the same way he downplayed the negative impact the rift had on the planet.

I think that should’ve been explored more. Maybe Honerva notices that she’s been acting differently and is worried somethings wrong (think S5 Kuron). And Honerva tries to tell Zarkon that she feels strange and Zarkon just brushes it off.

And later, when Alfor visits Diaibazaal years later. Things are pretty much the same except when we sees Honerva, she is very obviously pregnant and Alfor’s there when Honerva falls and goes into labor (instead of a random quintessence seizure). Alfor and many Galran doctors try their best to save her and the baby but she dies in childbirth.

Zarkon goes ballistic. He’s yelling, throwing doctors across the room, and Alfor turns to the doctor holding Lotor and tells them to get the baby to safely, fearing Zarkon will take his grief out on the baby.

Zarkon turns on Alfor, blaming him for Honerva’s death and accusing him of letting her die so that he could get his way and close the rift. He lunges Alfor and roars at him to leave.

He spends the rest of the night grieving at Honerva’s bedside, when Kova jumps on the bed and starts gnawing on her finger trying to wake her up. This is what gives him the idea to bring her back with quintessence.

3. Her current relationship with Zarkon

I think it’s pretty safe to say that they’re relationship didn’t get better after the war began. Zarkon hid her identity and her child from her for 10,000 years and essentially used her as a tool of war. It’s pretty fucked up.

I know it’s pretty well established that Zarkon treats Haggar with more respect than his other underlings, but I feel like it would be interesting to see that change overtime. We see that after Voltron comes back, Zarkon becomes very obsessed with Voltron/Black, and he and Haggar start disagreeing more and more.

Remember the moment where one of Haggar’s druids told Zarkon Haggar said he needed to rest and Zarkon hit them with his bayard and told them, “remember who your master is”? What if, instead of a random druid, it was Haggar who he hit?

I feel like that would be a good way to show Haggar and the audience just how much Zarkon’s obsession with Voltron is affecting him, and make the audience feel a tiny bit bad for her.

Then later in season 4, when Zarkon wakes up from his coma and finds out Haggar brought Lotor back to take his place he gets pissed. He puts a price on Lotor’s head and has Haggar arrested for treason. She steals a ship, escapes, and later on meets up with Lotor’s generals.

Her and Zarkon are officially broken up and her quest to reclaim her identity and get her son back begins.

4. Oriande

I never liked the concept of chosen/sacred Alteans. The idea that some Alteans are just born more powerful than others just feels iffy. My idea of Oriande is that it’s an Altean holly land, any Altean can enter it just depends on whether or not you can pass the White Lion’s trial. Passing the trial proves that your intentions are pure and and the White Lion will bless you with power.

I didn’t like how Honerva seemed to force her way into Oriande, I think it would be more effective if she had gone through normally because, at this point, her intentions were pure. She was going there to purge herself of the dark magic corrupting her and reclaim her memories so she could go get her son back.

I also like the idea that Oriande is a sorta link to the Altean after life, and you can speak with people you’ve lost. Allura gets to speak with Alfor, and Honerva speaks with her mother.

You could also have her be confronted by the spirits of the Alteans she helped destroy. Have the weight of her past actions bear down on her. An important part of any redemption arc is acknowledging the terrible shit you’ve done in the past, and that was severely lacking in Honerva’s arc.

Another interesting thing you could do is have Honerva talk to her younger self. The one that died 10,000 years ago. This kinda thing actually happened in 80s Voltron, young Haggar appearing in Haggar’s head trying to convince her to be good again.

5. Her relationship with Lotor

Now this is where the redemption arc really falls apart. I forget who, but one of the writers said after S5 that Haggar/Honerva was motivated purely by love for her son, but man did they do a bad job of showing that.

And it would’ve been so easy to fix that problem, just have her not be horrible to him. Have them have actual civil conversations, have her protect and defend him. Don’t have her reject him as a fucking baby!

Imagine if, after Zarkon destroys Lotor’s planet, instead of immediately deciding to

exile him, Zarkon says that this is the final straw and he’s going to have Lotor executed. But Haggar speaks up to defend Him. There’s actually a scene in DOTU where Zarkon tries to kill Lotor and Haggar gets on her knees and begs for him to be spared. (Though the scene was mostly played for laughs.)

she asks for mercy and justifies it by saying it would be unwise to kill his only heir. It’s a weak argument, Lotor’s a half breed and couldn’t realistically take the throne, but Zarkon does concede, he still loves her after all, and has Lotor exiled.

And Haggar isn’t spying on him because she doesn’t trust him, but because she’s concerned for him. When Lotor confronts Haggar about sending her cronies after him, she says she knows he’s hiding something. Lotor asks if she’s threatening him, thinking she’s going to rat him out, but she says no, she’s not threatening him, she’s just trying to warn him against doing anything stupid because, with Zarkon seemingly on his death bed, the empire needs Lotor’s leadership.

At this point in the story, Haggar is questioning her loyalty to Zarkon, so I feel like it would make sense for her to be silently supporting Lotor from the shadows.

Then at the Kral Zera in season 5, It was weird to me how she was helping Lotor through Kuron while also telling him he couldn’t be emperor and trying to put Sendak on the throne. I feel like it would’ve made more sense for Sendak to just show up on his own without Haggar.

Haggar wouldn’t even be at the Kral Zera, she would just watch through Kuron.

And then we get to S6 when she actually reveals to Lotor that she’s his mom. This scene was just so poorly done. She never actually apologizes to him, she’s just like “yeah I forgot you were my kid and I never loved you, but were cool now right?” I remember when I saw S8E2 and it shows her after Lotor rejects her and she looks like she’s about to cry, I was just thinking, “this would be very emotional and sad IF she had actually apologized and made it clear that she genuinely loved him.” But she didn’t and I don’t know why!

And then we get to season 8, and of course everything in S8 is bad but Honerva’s story is particularly bad. She’s supposed to be motivated by love for Lotor yet she doesn’t act like she actually cares about him at all.

She manipulates his corpse and when she sees his gross melted body, she doesn’t even react that much. When a mother sees her child’s mutilated corpse, how do you think she reacts? Screaming? Crying?? Hurling??? But no. She’s just like, “...”

And then when she goes to the alternate reality and meets baby Lotor and he rejects her, her reaction isn’t disappointment or sadness, it’s anger and entitlement. She immediately decides, “ok, fuck this kid. Let’s destroy this reality.”

It just doesn’t make sense! This is the season you’re trying to REDEEM her! Why are you going out of your way to make her so vile?

6. Her S7-S8 plan

(Keep in mind I haven’t watched S7/S8 since they came out and barely even watched S8 to begin with, so I don’t remember some things and I can’t be bothered to rewatch them.)

Okay, starting with S7, she’s not in this season at all but in “The Ruins” the druid dude says that her final order was to hunt and destroy the Blade of Marmora. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense because she saw that it was Keith who brought Lotor’s actions to light, but that whole plot was really pointless in my opinion. (Was anybody really hoping for a rematch between Keith and that one random druid?)

If you want us to forgive Honerva for her crimes, you really shouldn’t keep adding more unnecessary crimes. It’s established that there were a lot of Galra war lords vying for power and pirates looking for money, just have it be that Kolivan got kidnapped by one of them.

Then you have her season 8 plan and I’m gonna be real with y’all, I have no idea how to fix this mess.

I feel like the basics of her plan could work. She tries to get Lotor and Sincline out of the rift but when she gets him he’s a melted corpse so the plan then becomes to use sincline to go to another reality to find a living Lotor, but opening all these rifts causes problems and the paladins have to stop her.

But all the shit with manipulating the colony Alteans, killing the White Lion, desecrating Oriande, and destroying Olkarion and entire realities, it was all so unnecessary.

Personally I would cut the colony Alteans from the story all together, there are other ways for Lotor to betray the team. It was a lazy way of making Lotor 100% evil and having Honerva manipulate them is unnecessarily cruel, especially in the season you’re trying to redeem her.

Here’s a very basic outline of how I would do this plot.

If we’re going by season 8’s logic that she needs a sacrifice to bring back Sincline, I would’ve had the Galra she killed at the Kral Zera be the sacrifice, not the White Lion. She stands on the pyramid and talks about how the empire stole her life from her and she wants revenge as she absorbs their quintessence into herself and then uses that to bring back Sincline.

Then when she finds Lotor dead she takes Sincline and uses it to go to another reality where she can be with her family.

The danger comes when she opens rifts to the other realities and rift creatures start coming out and causing damage. The paladins fight them and follow her into the rift to stop whatever evil plan she may have. Because the paladins don’t know that Haggar is now Honerva and all this is just to get Lotor back. They think this is all some plan for multiverse domination or some shit.

Meanwhile Honerva has just been rejected by little Lotor and seeing Voltron show up pushes her over the edge and they fight.

But when they find out the real reason she’s doing all this they start trying to appeal to her and convince her to give up and close the rift peacefully. And similarly to how the paladins had to sacrifice the castle to close the rifts created by the fight with Lotor, Honerva has to sacrifice herself to close the rifts.

In the end, I feel like a Honerva redemption arc could’ve worked if the writers were actually competent and actually made an effort to have her be sympathetic, but In canon, her reasoning, “If I can’t indulge in the simple joys of life, why should anybody else?” just doesn’t cut it.

It’s disappointing. VLD had so much potential. I’m thinking of just rewriting the entire series from the beginning. Hopefully putting all my thoughts out into the universe will help me move on.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

VLD and Its Doomed Zonerva: A Copy of The Mummy (1999)?

Villainous romances and tales of ancient curses are nothing new. But as I watched the 1999 movie, The Mummy, I was struck by how excessively similar VLD’s environment and doomed Zarkon/Honerva setup was to Imhotep/Anck-Su-Namun’s. It makes me wonder if VLD creators didn’t take inspiration for Zonerva from this very movie, and here’s why:

They wanted to be together at the full expense of the universe.

What makes Zonerva unique from most doomed romances is that their love isn’t just about dying for the other or betraying colleagues—Zarkon’s love for Honerva ultimate leads him to betray the entire universe and jeopardize the ongoing existence of all things, just to be with her again. He just desperately wants his wife back.

Zarkon’s choice to widen the rift mirrors how Imhotep chooses to kill Egypt’s Pharaoh. Murdering such a king holds huge significance, because Pharoah was considered “god” to his people—the intermediary between the gods of heaven and the people of earth. Imhotep, as High Priest, is therefore willing to create an unbreachable rift between heaven and earth, just to be with Anck-Su-Namun—to betray his own station as High Priest, spiritually kill his own people, and defy all cosmic order on heaven and earth for the sake of one woman.

(Sound familiar?)

Anck-Su-Namun, like Honerva, approves of this plan. She is more than willing to risk her own life in pursuit of what she wants, just as Honerva is willing to risk everything for what she wants as well. Anck-Su-Namun fully believes that Imhotep can resurrect her through his powers—and Honerva encourages Zarkon to go into the rift to save her.

But their words are not empty pleas. Anck-Su-Namun and Honerva both genuinely knew the power at their disposal, through their loves. Ancient Egypt believed in deep religious magic in the same way VLD universe is marked by the properties of “quintessence,” or as Honerva says, ”Life itself.” Ancient Egyptians simply called this “ka” instead (not to be confused with “ba,” or a person’s soul). Anck-Su-Namun and Imhotep believe they can manipulate “ka” to preserve their souls, just as Honerva and Zarkon believe they can manipulate quintessence to defy all natural order.

It is additionally curious that not just Imhotep, but Anck-Su-Namun herself spurns the Pharaoh and is the first to stab him, later saying that she is no longer a temple for this “god.” In a metaphorical sense, Honerva likewise rejects Alfor’s cosmic wisdom regarding quintessence and defies him both in his absence and when he confronts her. In doing so, Honerva separates herself from the one who stands as Altea’s king and the alchemical representative of the Life Givers and the One Who Came Before (the intermediary between the mundane and magical).

But the cost of defying cosmic order is too great for Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun, who like Zonerva, die in their pursuit. For all of their abilities to manipulate ka/quintessence, they cannot override that cosmic order.

Their deaths, however, are only the beginning.  

The very forces they sought to control in life (Ka/quintessence) are the very forces that then rule them in death/undeath. Imhotep is "bound by sacred law” to carry out the ten plagues of Egypt by virtue of the curse leveled against him. The terrible manner through which his ka/life force is taken away is precisely what gives him power to rise as the undead and wreak havoc on the world, even allowing him the opportunity to raise Anck-Su-Namun back from the dead with him.

In so many ways, this mimics how Zarkon is brought back by the properties of the rift itself, with an enhanced purpose beyond simply saving his wife. Post!rift Zarkon had his "humanity" stripped from him by quintessence, inspiring him to do terrible things even beyond what he would have done in life. He’s a corrupted, out-of-control version of himself, bound by the whispering fancies of quintessence to pursue power, domination, and immortality.

He, like Imhotep, also requires live sacrifices to exist as the undead, stealing others’ ka/quintessence to forever regenerate.

But while the curse itself gives Imhotep/Zarkon full regeneration, Anck-Su-Namun/Honerva does not have that. In the first movie, Anck-Su-Namun’s consciousness returns to a mummified body, and she requires an additional sacrifice that she cannot obtain herself, in order to be made whole. Imhotep fails to obtain this for her, and then she fails herself to kill her sacrifice, and so she never fully regenerates a whole body.

Likewise, Honerva is brought back by quintessence as the undead, but she is missing a huge part of herself. Zarkon fails to help resurrect her memory, and so she lingers once again in a strange purgatory, a victim to the whims of quintessence and cosmic order.

(As a side note, the Egyptian city of Hamunaptra shares many characteristics with Oriande. The fact that these places are hidden from view, contain deep magic of a past civilization, and stand as the seats of power/resurrection for both Honerva and Anck-Su-Namun is interesting.)

Fast forward to The Mummy Returns (2001). The similarities to s8 grow even more haunting:

This sequel reveals that Evelyn is the reincarnation of the Pharoah’s daughter. This adds more weight to Anck-Su-Namun’s desperate attempt in the first movie to kill Evie and take her life force. It mimics the way that Honerva was willing to force obedience and sacrifice more of Alfor’s people in order to achieve being alive again with her family.

And that’s something even stranger—that somehow, it’s not just Evie who’s affected by memories of a past life. A reincarnation of Anck-Su-Namun now exists, and she is recalling more and more about who she once was.

In doing so, the sequel really fleshes out more of Anck-Su-Namun’s personality and turns her into a major-character big bad, just like Honerva in s8. Anck-Su-Namun is both beautiful and underhanded, a warrior, with a ruthless lack of empathy for others. She threatens with a smile to kill Evie’s young son if he does not obey her. Her general personality and her behavior toward disobedience mimics s8 Honerva, down to even the fact that she threatens to kill child!Lotor when he refuses to accept her. Such behavior cuts straight to the heart of Honerva’s aesthetic—the undead, willing to do anything to get her original vision of happiness back, even at the expense of the happiness she could have in her new life.

Somehow, this reincarnation of Anck-Su-Namun has also managed to accrue quite the operation for digging up Imhotep’s dead body and securing their stability/earthly rulership via the powers of The Scorpion King. There are significant religious implications via Egyptian god Anubis as to the power she seeks—and precisely why so many carry out her orders. This falls in line with how Honerva uses religious tones to convince the Altean colony to martyr themselves for her.

In the Mummy 2, Acnk-Su-Namun's reincarnation spends incredible effort and energy to find the body of her lover, tearing up landscape and everything in her way to do it, just like how Honerva tears up the universal threads to get to the one where she can find Zarkon/her ideal reality.

But they always face resistance. Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun are always plagued by the remnants of the Medjai who seek to keep them from destroying the world and living forever. The Medjai have several similarities in behavior to the Blade of Marmora, just as Evie, Ardeth, and O’Connell express collective characteristics of Lotor and Allura (and Jonathon to Coran/Lance/team Voltron?) in their attempts to stop total universal destruction.

In the very end, Anck-Su-Namun obtains her full memory within her renewed body. But when her and Imhotep's plots are foiled again, she has a breakdown. All of what she had been struggling toward for thousands of years is suddenly taken from her. This woman, whose spirit has felt only unrest, her reincarnation committing great acts of violence and crime to achieve her dream of love and power—is faced with the reality that her dream is impossible. In an attempt to preserve herself, she turns her back on Imhotep, to his deep pain and shock.

This mirrors, in many ways, the negative breakdown Honerva has to realizing that her ideal alternate-reality is not the way she wants it—as well as Alternate reality!Zarkon’s pain at realizing that his wife is a monster.

Both Anck-Su-Namun and Honerva achieve exactly what they want to some extent. But it is not their ideal vision, and so they reject everything. Their love for Imhotep and Zarkon, when ultimately tested at wit’s end, shrivels, and they guarantee their own destruction.

Conclusion

Voltron: Legendary Defender’s Zonerva is actually Space Mummy. The excessive similarities suggest the show writers may have taken inspiration from The Mummy movies.

(Also, both Zarkon and Imhotep are scared of kitties.)

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

[hidge-resource]

WHAT PARALLELS

okay. listen. listen. hear me out everyone. they’re the same pair with different outcomes. we’ve got:

big beefy guy with an imposing silhouette. looks like he’s super scary and definitely has the capacity to be extremely scary if you hurt the people he cares about, but is actually a big softie who gets startled over really small things. has another primary interest but also a knack for science/engineering and wants to discover the unknown. flustered around/talking about pretty girls. Fights For His Friends.

genius scientist lady who’s way smaller than big guy. highly intelligent and capable, can carry out entire projects on her own, conducting ground-breaking research to further the cause she’s chosen to fight for. seems heartless and cold at first but genuinely cares about the people she considers family, and although sometimes misguided would do anything for their well being. once she starts along an information trail she will not stop until she brings it to completion even at the risk of her own personal health. small companion that originates from the galra and helps her with her work.

the still from season 5 where hunk and pidge are literally dressed as zarkon and honerva

it’s real. we out here. zonerva ended tragically because of quintessance corruption but genuinely loved and cared for each other as both colleagues and partners, and hidge, without the quintessance to corrupt them, thrives based on that same love and care. thanks for coming to my TED talk - mod rover

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Any people out there who genuinely liked VLD S8?

Hey all, I have what is likely a strange request, given my stated stances on the overall s1-s8 quality of Voltron: Legendary Defender. But I know some people who fell into the fandom very late and ended up enjoying s8 a lot without considering previous seasons, etc. They’re looking for people like them, who are awkwardly caught between liking s8 divorced from early seasons, and feeling ostracized by the majority of people in the fandom who are frustrated/hurt by the show in its totality.

My friends within this realm are pretty heavy Zonerva shippers, loved s8 lil Lotor, loved Honerva and the crazy Honerva/Zarkon/Lotor family dynamics, etc. They loved the concept of the alternate universes and felt Lotor was a hero.

Feel free to privately message me if you are one of these people who are looking for a similar community. I’d like to help connect likeminded souls so my friends and you can have a safe place to talk about what you enjoy.