#interesting implications because white is usually the 'community' color so i wonder if he instead views the tieflings

[nightmarist]

i could VERY well be overthinking this especially because MtG is not necessarily BG canon, but learning zevlor is officially UBR / blue, black, red in MtG makes me look at all his lines of dialogue with a new light, hes very strategic yes but also rather scheming i think. i get as a hellrider he probably Had to be for the sake of survival at any cost, but definitely some of his phrasing sounds "make them think its their idea" style of manipulation.

For reference: Zevlor, Elturel Exile

very cool.

after the above dialogue he says implicating kagha is initially the problem you can suggest HE "get rid of her" which causes these:

they seem so carefully phrased to:

not get his own hands dirty not put the tieflings in his command at risk you are an outsider to BOTH groups and thus the potential neutral third party to be blamed rather than him or the tieflings, especially good if you fail and/or die.

also, if you ask him to pay you he doesnt bat an eye, he just shrugs and says he'll scrape together what he can.

His mtg artwork seems to imply being controlled by the absolute, but he also has this quote when you try to tell him it's not his fault he was enthralled by the Absolute:

I'm always a fan of black in mtg used as a 'good' color when its so often interpreted as evil and i think Zevlor here is a cool example of it.

[ganymedesclock]

hey idk if you've answered this before but: with regards to the episode the legend begins, when do you think lotor was born? 🤔🤔

Tricky to say.

We know for a fact Lotor was born during that time because we see the meeting, and marriage, of his parents.

I’ve heard some people air the thought that Lotor was born in the same time frame Allura was, but, personally, I would expect that Allura is the older of the two of them, possibly even by a substantial margin. Alfor was a family man, clearly very excited to be a parent- Allura was a very wanted child from the start, and we know from her memories that Alfor very deliberately cleared parts of his schedule just to spend time with her.

Like... Allura’s not quite an infant here- she’s sitting up. A hasty google says the average range for that is four to seven months assuming human and Altean development is comparable in most regards. I’d put Allura here as closer to the “seven months” end of that- she has a pretty full head of hair, and good motor skills and cognitive development. She reaches for her mother and grabs her finger, but also turns to look at Zarkon as if trying to figure out who her dad is talking to.

She also seems to have a single tooth, when she smiles widely- which again, hasty googling says that’s usually around the six month mark. So over half a year, but probably not to a full year yet considering she’s still swaddled rather than wearing clothes.

This says a lot about how much Alfor trusts Zarkon at that point- Zarkon was likely one of the first people off Altea to see the infant princess.

But overwhelmingly, what we see of Alfor and the queen tell us they’re close, and very comfortable making that intimacy public. This same scene affirms for us Zarkon and Honerva are very awkward with intimacy, even as newlyweds- since this is also the same scene that tells us they’re just married- while Alfor and the Queen have been a couple since before the first arrival of the comet.

Both Honerva and Zarkon are very stiff. In Honerva’s case, it’s a bit of a departure from the more enthusiastic and gregarious face she’d presented earlier. We also know that Honerva’s been working solidly this entire time- if anything, Alfor is a little disgruntled to see her shut him out.

I don’t doubt that Honerva and Zarkon loved each other, but, I’m skeptical they’d immediately leap to having a child- especially because I think their motivations would very likely be the practical concern of producing an heir, rather than bringing a new baby into the family. They’d probably more take their time with that.

This is, incidentally, the same meeting that we hear that something came out of the rift, and that Honerva’s been communicating with it. Which thus boils into the first formation of Voltron, and the first argument between Alfor, Honerva, and Zarkon over the rift.

The scene ends on that note- and Zarkon overriding Alfor that work will continue on the rift. What follows instead is a sort of time skip montage- Coran explaining that the paladins built their legend during this time.

I think that Lotor was most likely born at some point in that time period. After Voltron, and after the rift creatures.

This would nicely create an opening- as the next time Alfor returns to Daibazaal, the next scene, he tells us it’s been a long time, and this is when we see Honerva is sick- she’s lost her hair color, seemingly let her personal grooming slide, and also is wearing multiple layers as if she’s having trouble keeping her body temperature up. Considering how rapidly she moves from that point to being bedridden and almost incoherent, I think that it’s pretty unlikely she could have successfully carried a child to term at that point.

But it also would suggest it’s very likely that Zarkon did not return the favor Alfor did- because it would mean that Lotor was born after the first decisive schism between them. Lotor would also very likely be born at least partially exposed to the rift.

And, with my theory Lotor was a sickly birth himself- this would not only point to a potential cause (in utero rift exposure)- but it’d line up nicely with how up until this point, Honerva was only conducting mechanical experiments, seemingly on engines. 

But when Alfor visits- she’s experimenting on living things- Kova among them. And Zarkon immediately shuts down far smaller concerns from Alfor with “I can’t stop Honerva’s work now.” He talks about the development of space cruisers, but now, both of them are tense and highly combative and very quick to view Alfor with suspicion or scorn.

And when Alfor refuses to expand the rift? Zarkon absolutely explodes screaming at him. Somehow, this doesn’t seem like he just wants to push its potential. Even before he discovers Honerva’s illness- her collapsing at the end of that scene- he seems to have something very personal at stake here- and dramatic enough that they can’t do it without the current size of the rift.

But now, that creates an even more interesting implication for me.

If Zarkon and Honerva’s sudden feeding frenzy attitude towards the rift had something to do with Lotor, then they were possibly trying to expand the rift to be able to attempt some kind of treatment on him. Quite possibly, rift immersion like Zarkon ended up doing with Honerva.

But considering Zarkon only ever was able to immerse one person in the rift before his death and the destruction of Daibazaal?

That’d tell us that Zarkon didn’t treat Lotor.

And yet, Lotor’s hardly sick, as we see him in present.

Like Honerva, Lotor has no color in his hair, which he could’ve been born with because of rift exposure, or it could’ve happened later in his life. Either way, it’s not his natural color, since both Honerva and Zarkon have rather dark colors all around- Zarkon’s black head ridges and slate blue skin, Honerva’s brown skin and navy hair. In contrast, Lotor has pale lilac skin and white hair.

However, Lotor also has incredibly striking pale blue eyes. A color virtually never diluted by his environment. His hair and eyes almost seem to glow in brighter lighting.

The rift is associated with gold and violet. In particular, Haggar, after being restored to life by the rift, has bright purple cores to her eyes in her true form. And the empire runs on the violet energy, which it processes from the gold.

However, s4e5 shows us something interesting: Lotor’s ships, unlike any other galra ship, run on a fuel that’s been refined into blue energy.

The same sort of blue Alteans would use- but the only Altean who got in the business of refining quintessence as fuel was Haggar, who, again, uses the purple stuff.

So Lotor wasn’t treated by the rift. His parents might have planned it for him, but if he was sick, then what sent it into remission wasn’t the same thing that revived his parents.

Instead, it seems whatever healed Lotor was aligned with the same type of energy as the Lions.

And there is a powerful source of blue energy that seemingly only Lotor and Alfor knew about- that Zarkon didn’t know.

The Sincline comet.

Which is connected to Lotor from the start, and which he seems to know is connected to him. After all, growing up in the shadow of the paladins and their legend right as it’s unfolding, Lotor would know that the wand chooses the wizard so to speak- and yet he was certain if he could just get his hands on the comet, he’d be able to make his own ships with it. He was able, quickly and easily, to follow in Alfor’s footsteps and work with the ore that “engineers itself”

Which explains why there appears to be such a stark divide between Lotor and his parents. Especially when Haggar and Zarkon entered their current states actively because of the rift- which they went into, willingly and knowingly, believing it would be good for them. If I’m right, it’s entirely possible they had planned to take Lotor with them.

But Lotor didn’t go with them. Something else called to him instead- something with a very different mentality. And while Lotor respected Honerva, his mother, the researcher- he can’t remotely abide the person she’s become, or the attitude of conquest and greed that drew both her and Zarkon to the rift.

Which I really have to wonder about- if Sincline appeared late in this situation, when the danger to Voltron was internal rather than external.

What does it mean if Sincline came to Lotor?