#voltron lion and sincline family space trip?

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

VLD S8 – The Purpose of Lance’s Altean Markings, Allura’s Canonically Inconsistent “Death,” and Voltron’s Mysterious Interstellar Road Trip in the End: Are Things Really As They Seem?

Hello dear ones, I received asks to follow up on my previous post about Allura’s capability to live a very long life if she hadn’t died in s8. I��d mentioned in this post that Alfor had connected Allura’s life force to the indestructible Voltron, and that this had significant implications for Lance’s strange Altean marks and Allura’s “death” in s8. So this is me, attempting to follow up on those requests! 

Let’s start with those strange marks. It seems like a lot of us who have watched Voltron: Legendary Defender season 8 scratched our heads over Lance receiving Altean marks at all:

This event happens when Allura and the paladins are standing in the “connected consciousness of all existence”—which is this…Mother-Brain realm for every consciousness that ever existed ever. Allura is preparing to sacrifice herself alongside Honerva, because they both have to give of their energy to regenerate the fallen multiverse. Honerva is already accepting of this and already interacting with her dead family whose minds and forms are preserved within the Mother-Brain space. It seems, even so, Honerva is still alive because she hasn’t yet completed the foretold Wild Sacrifice Move of Ultimate Alchemy alongside Allura: 

The Big Boom of Life happens after this point, so there’s something fascinatingly screwy about this realm. The typical separations between the Living and the Death are just…totally meaningless. We’re actively seeing a living Honerva physically interact with the minds and forms of her fallen son and husband. And if this Mother-Brain location truly preserves the consciousness of all existence, then I suppose it actually makes sense to me that Allura and Honerva could still be alive themselves while also being able to interact with the Dead who are preserved within this realm…

But Allura—she turns to the paladins and tells them that they’re all about to experience a massive fragmentation from her. It seems pretty heavily suggested that she’s going to die. In doing so, she kisses Lance and then gives him Altean marks: 

And the first question I have is….whyyyy the marks? What the heck was that for? Because I think it’s really weird that she’d just give Lance the most visually identifying mark for her own species. At least, I think it’s weird on the surface. The more important question may lie within Allura’s motives...and that gets into some much larger implications for ways to view those marks and the show’s ending. Some of the theories I’ve seen about those marks:

Theory 1: Lance as Trans-Species to Preserve Allura’s Species and/or Allura Giving Lance Some Unknown Gift/Power

I want to bring this up because it appears to be a largely accepted theory that I’m now heavily questioning. I’m not sure who first vocalized this understanding of canon, but Neko Chicana offers the theory in their Youtube video “Why did Lance get Altean markings!?” The theory is that in Allura’s last-minute panic about dying, she was trying to ensure The Chosen Altean vibes got passed down. This would mean that Allura infused Lance with deep Altean powers to inherently change him from being human into being a trans-species human/Altean.

But I struggle with this interpretation, because…she already had an entire colony of Alteans, many of whom clearly were presenting with high quintessence sensitivity and would have been even potentially fit for Oriande. And it’s not like Lance was going to know how to apply alchemy without learning it anyway.

In terms of the transformation itself, it’s incredibly superficial. It’s a face-lift and that’s it, as Lance never exhibits any other features of a standard Altean. And not just from a visual perspective, but also from a physiological one. He definitely is not shown suddenly freaking out over having alchemy powers. He isn’t shown connecting with anything on the astral plane. I would even posit that he appears to be aging right alongside his fellow humans, given his more adult/less baby-face facial structure in the epilogue, just like everyone else:

This article here seems to contain a similar level of skepticism about a genuinely trans-species Lance. 

And what would even be the point of converting Lance to have a token visage of Alteans, if Allura knows that his true heart and soul lies with his human family? Just by Allura’s reaction of disgust to his rounded ears in season 1, it seems pretty obvious that other Alteans would see him as “other.” If anything, a trans-species interpretation overly complicates the show here and generally can’t provide a self-contained, meaningful reason for its existence at all. 

Theory Two: The Markings as a Token of a Lost Lover/Remembrances

Another suggestion has been that Allura gives Lance such markings just as…a reminder? Of herself? But I don’t feel this at all makes sense with seven previous seasons of her character behavior.

Allura is shown consistently trying to sacrifice herself and her things at all costs, without anything in return or demanding that people remember her. She did it in season 1 to regenerate a Balmera, knowing full well she could die. But we don’t see her asking Coran to sing a pretty song for her. She sacrifices herself again for Shiro, by tossing him out of the way of Galran soldiers, without even begging that he come back for her. She sacrifices herself in Oriande to the White Lion. She sacrifices her crown in season 7 to stabilize Shiro. She even gives up her dresses and her station as a princess in order to better fit in with the humans in season 7. It’s not inherent in Allura’s character to demand anything in return for her sacrifices, much less that she be remembered for them. As a matter of fact, she’s very particular about ensuring that other people get recognized for their actions, and she’ll often place her own good work as part of a “whole” accomplished by the many. Here’s an example from season 6, episode 1:

So here we see her raising up other people and their contributions rather than demanding some offering or worship for her actions.

Princess Allura doesn’t even hold a grudge for Keith being accepted as Black Paladin or Lance as Red Paladin in s3, despite the fact that she secretly cried over it.

So, Allura wanting anything in return for what she sacrifices, or trying to intentionally drag down someone’s spirit for her own comfort, is not inherent to her character. If anything in s8, Allura consistently seems to want the paladins to move on without her:

In response to the emotional distress of the other paladins, she doesn’t give them an everlasting token to memorialize herself, but instead gives encouragement for the future:

And even Shiro! He warns her that she’s about to become the multiverse’s most anonymous hero:

And Allura’s response to this?

So Princess Allura went into this s8 self-sacrifice, fully expecting that the paladins would keep her actions totally secret. She was completely and utterly prepared to accept the very reality that Lotor had threatened her with in season 6:

So literally the only reason in s8 that anyone remembers Princess Allura…is because the paladins choose to honor her memory despite her stated sentiments against it:

So…all of this is to say, I don’t think it makes sense to assume that suddenly, Allura would want to forever keep Lance from moving on. She’s literally handed them her blessing to move on, and suggested that they even hide what she’s done. It’s the paladins who choose to remember her. So I think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest against an interpretation where Allura was intentionally trying to mark Lance to be her forever-doomed lost love. It’s completely inconsistent with other surrounding details about who Allura is.

I think there’s instead evidence to suggest a new theory about these marks. And if anyone’s suggested this before, please feel free to jump in, lol. I’m like, 1.5 years behind the times here, although I did find this article that also would seem to support the theory: 

Theory Three: Lance’s Altean Marks as a Tactical Homing/Location Beacon, Strengthened by His and Allura’s Shared Bonds With Blue Lion

Before she casually walks off to her alleged death, Allura tells Lance, “I’ll always be with you.” And then she gives him the Altean marks:

While I think this “I’ll always be with you” statement has some classic lessen the hurt of impending death vibes, Allura herself actually states she’ll always be with him. How certain are we that she’s not being actually serious? That this isn’t an intentional decision to ensure some kind of ongoing link?

So backing up here, we know from previous seasons that Altean markings can glow, unlike the rest of their body. They appear to glow in response to external stimuli. For example, in season 5, Allura and Lotor’s markings glow because they are within the vicinity of Oriande and have a deep well of quintessence within them. And this glowy activity is discriminatory, because Coran’s marks don’t glow:

Lance’s own markings initially glow when activated by Allura:

So for Lance’s markings to glow at all, that means something is happening. It means that an all-new, external stimulus is making those markings react, and that the magic of it is active. And that Lance is now housing enough magic to react.

That article I linked to earlier suggests that perhaps Allura intended to use the marks as….a communicative link with Lance. However, in a full year since Allura’s disappearance, we see no evidence that Lance has been talking to a mysterious spirit!Allura. He seems pretty depressed, and everyone seems largely accepting of the concept that Allura is dead and also is incapable of interaction.

In which case, if you did have a link to a supposedly dead person, even if you wanted to keep it secret, wouldn’t you at least look a little more…happy? That they’re not actually gone? So something’s a little screwy there too, that makes me think Lance wasn’t in some kind of interdimensional communication with Allura.

But I do think Lance’s markings, and how they glow in response to external power sources in the final episode, suggest something about Allura’s state of being.

So let’s jump in. We know that Allura’s life force is inherently tied to Voltron:

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post of mine: Right in season 1, episode 1, Coran admits that Alfor has done some pretty wild alchemy. He physically connected Allura’s essence with the essence of Voltron—the single source of self-regenerating, infinite quintessence throughout the whole of the entire universe.

I don’t know if a person’s life force being personally connected to Voltron would confer physical immortality, but I do think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that as long as Voltron exists, Allura’s essence would be preserved within it. And as we saw in season 6, Shiro was capable of interacting with other paladins despite his physical death, because Black Lion had preserved his essence….

All of this backstory and worldbuilding means at the very least that Allura was also capable of linking some part of her quintessence to Lance as well. And that, even if she hypothetically didn’t have a body on the material plane, that she would be very active on the astral one.

So why specifically Altean marks, then?

This isn’t the first time in the show that strangely powerful bonds have been made by the touching of faces and the transfer of energy around Altean marks. As a matter of fact, we might have even seen Alfor actively bind Allura’s life-force with Voltron, right here:

In which case, Allura was simply mimicking the work of her father as she knew it, but on a much smaller scale. Because she knew from her father that it was possible to bond life-forces, and for some reason, that alchemy trick appears to involve the face or else something to do with Altean markings.

So therefore, the activation of this marking “link” and alchemical bond might help to explain why Lance actually appears to be smiling with tears in his eyes when the Voltron lions fly away:

But why even Lance specifically?? What about all the other paladins she’s made connections? What makes Lance so totally special?

It might not be unintentional that, out of all the lions possible, the one to respond to some unknown activator one year later—with massive amounts of quintessence in the bond—is Blue Lion.

Notice that while the other lions are in flight, none of them are glowing like Blue Lion. There’s something inherently special about Blue Lion right now, especially given that it’s not even the leader of the pack.

In this scene, we see the paladins rushing out per all the ruckus. Lance’s markings start to glow:

And then the lions powerfully surge off on their merry, totally unexplained way:

So…in looking back at this, it’s interesting that Lance’s marks are shown glowing in ONLY two instances: 1) When Allura first activates them, and 2) When the marks themselves mysterious activate again in response to Blue Lion glowing outrageously blue, and the lions soaring off into space as well…

Is it a mistake that Lance just so happens to be the only other living Blue Paladin in the universe?

Allura’s life force might have been connected to the full of Voltron, but season 3 shows that her communicative/mental connection to it is through Blue Lion alone. Because Black Lion certainly had nothing to say to her, at the very least.

So Allura’s life force is connected to Voltron…Blue Lion responds to an unknown source of massive, pure quintessence, and then Voltron follows…Lance’s markings start to glow....

Could it be that in order to even re-locate Voltron and the paladins again in the larger scheme of the multiverse, Allura needed Lance’s connection to Blue Lion as well? To keep Allura in spiritual/mental communion with Voltron and with that universe?

With Allura gone and the Atlas portion of Voltron totally missing from Voltron, there’s the hint that possibly the Lion Musical Chairs event has undone itself and reconfigured once more. Blue Lion has re-accepted Lance, with Keith and Shiro piloting Red and Black. The lineup in the screenshot below would suggest that Shiro’s the one in Red this time, resulting in an interesting addition to the Keith and Shiro relationship arc. It suggests that Shiro is now back on the team as an established paladin, as the right hand of the Black Paladin, and is actively supporting Keith’s ongoing growth as a leader:

But if Blue Lion were Allura’s only true connection to “speak” with and interact with Voltron on a material plane, then it would make sense that she would intentionally connect her own life-force to the last Blue Paladin.

Lance, out of all of the paladins and with respect to this lineup shown here, is the only one who would be even remotely capable of ensuring this link in their universe (notwithstanding as well that canonically, Allura was in a romantic relationship with him, which might have something to do with this too, idk).

So what does this mean for Allura’s state of being? What’s exactly happening in this moment? Why do the lions leave their paladins? Is everything truly so pointless and nihilistic?

So Lance’s markings and the exit of the Voltron lions result in what I feel are two interpretations of the entire end of Voltron. And I think one is potentially more consistent with the overall show than the other:

Theory One: Allura Really Died/Shed Her Physical Body/Was Lost to the Material Plane After a Year of Hard Work

So, we do have evidence that the work to restore the full of the multiverse began pretty quickly, and that there was an explosive event to jumpstart it:

We otherwise have no evidence to support that this image meant the work (to restore every thread and all things within the threads) was DONE. Yet. It may have taken an entire year to regenerate the multiverse, which would explain the Voltron lions suddenly reacting strangely after that span of time. If we assume that Allura really died, then this would suggest that—with the overarching multiverses finally totally restored—her energy is spent up. She’s physically dying. And per the extinguishing of her own life force, Voltron….somehow can’t exist on the material plane without her? Because let’s not forget, the whole mecha is connected to her life force. So this interpretation would suggest that in her dying/being unable to remain on the material plane, Voltron itself has to die as well. This could explain why at the end here, they activate to go be with Allura and team in the shiny afterlife party in the Mother-Brain dimension. Lance may be crying here because he feels or recognizes the last of Allura’s energy slipping away. And it’s possible I was misinterpreting his smile earlier, because it’s, idk, maybe a sob.

And there does seem to be some canon support for a potentially permanent break between Allura and the material plane, as well as for why Voltron would leave:

But I’m really struggling to understand the deathy interpretation of these events at the end of s8, from SEVERAL angles, haha.

Strike One:

This scene would appear to blatantly and outrageously contradict previous show worldbuilding. To accept a “death” interpretation, one must also accept that s8 completely rewrites the inherent properties and behavior of quintessence, as well as show details that Alteans/Altean technologies more consistently function as conduits/capacitors of external energy sources rather than as massive batteries by themselves. The true batteries, even into season 7 with Shiro and Atlas, appear to be becoming from sources external to the power-wielder. This reality largely relieves the personal cost of any alchemical action/draining oneself, just so long as you have a powerful enough battery. In which case, given the resources and deep knowledge available to Allura and Honerva even in this apocalyptic moment, any action resulting in physical death feels...unearned.

If you’re interested in more specifically about this, I have a few other posts looking at these basic worldbuilding details:

Question on Quintessence and General Worldbuilding in     VLD S8

The Search for the “Bluest Quintessence” and S6 - The Most     Unnecessary Conspiracy In VLD?

It’s entirely possible I could be missing some information that would reconcile the s8 worldbuilding contradictions about quintessence and Altean energy back to the previous seven seasons. I suppose it’s possible that this s8 regeneration trick resulted in Allura and Honerva being physically unable to handle the amount of power they were conducting. But just after casually re-watching the show, I heavily question whether this is possible or consistent with everything else, haha.

Strike Two:

The concept of Voltron not being needed in a peaceful universe is nonsensical. So this show is telling me that a gigantic mecha capable of massive construction projects and space anomaly protection services couldn’t reorganize its paladins or get new ones, and transition to a new day job? Because Voltron has to exist in a combat theater only? This is wildly myopic, especially considering that Voltron already has a team of five who could pilot it again via a little game of musical chairs…and even the final lineup shown would suggest that Shiro had already taken over Red. I guess if the Galra aren’t attacking?? This must mean that there won’t be any civilizations in need of help or in need of being protected from imminent natural disasters?? At the very least, a new day job would be an incredibly meaningful way to convert Voltron from a war machine to a champion of the people. And it would still give the paladins a reason to come back together as a team and to exercise the bonds they’ve forged together as defenders of the universe.

Strike Three:

After this s8 scene, and even assuming Allura has physically died, Voltron existed before Allura got linked to it. And it existed as a largely infinite and indestructible source of energy. Even if Allura did die, the loss of her personal quintessence was of no account to its existence. The worldbuilding of Voltron as a mecha suggests it didn’t need her to continue existing on the material plane like it had existed before their alchemical link from Alfor. And even if she’d died, taking Voltron’s life-force with her away from the material plane, then why in the world wouldn’t Voltron just…totally power down? Become completely inert with the lights fading from its eyes? But then, oh wait, according to the last seven seasons, Voltron is supposed to be indestructible and constantly self-regenerating even when temporarily drained, so how could it power down forever? Even the concept that Voltron could physically destroy/remove itself from the material world to fully join Allura on the astral plane is an oxymoron.

And even if Allura’s life force was fading out and the Voltron lions are dying too, how in the world could Lance’s Altean markings suddenly even manage to glow in response to an active and powerful external stimulus? And why would the lions themselves suddenly be lighting up and capable of expending massive amounts of energy on a sudden, random interstellar space trip?

Even if the Lions themselves longed to reunite with its dead creator or its missing piece per their Allurian life-force link (despite them clearly not caring when Alfor died or when Allura got put in stasis 10k years ago), this show would have me believe that Voltron wanted to die or give up? And...for what? To lounge about in an afterlife Cabana for Retired Mechas, sipping quintessence drinks while the universe experiences ongoing natural physical disasters or anomalies that could endanger entire galaxies? What if more trans-reality comets fell from the sky? They appear to not be an isolated incident, and where there’s one, there’s usually more…What if that causes more rifts to open? And let’s just assume for a moment that those two comets are the only two trans-reality comets in the multiverse. I guess we can all sleep tight tonight because Voltron is unconcerned that the universe still has several weak stitches between it and the quintessence field, where dark entities and rift creatures roam? Lol, what?

Lotor even confirms these weaknesses in season 4:

“Zarkon believed Alfor’s plan to blow up Daibazaal and destroy the rift between realities actually worked. No one comprehended that the experiments of my mother, Honerva, could never be undone.”

Lotor’s statement here would suggest that after everything that’s happened, it might be even easier to break open rifts. But okay cool, time for Voltron’s retirement/death, I guess. Just leave a peaceful universe to be one day swallowed up and destroyed by shadow rift creatures, dark entities, apocalyptic comets, and natural disasters…

Everything about the Allura/Voltron death theory doesn’t make sense to me and raises more questions than answers. So let’s look at another way of viewing this ending!

Theory Two: Allura Didn’t Die At All—She Just Finished Working for the Year And Needs a Ride Home

The fact that Voltron survives and is activated into movement by an external source of massive, pure quintessence suggests that Allura is likely NOT dead and is STILL ALIVE. In this case, the astronomical undertaking of regenerating a multiverse still took a full year to complete. We do know there’s no major time slippage between the paladin’s universe and the Universal Consciousness realm, because the paladins were seen right back in the heart of establishing/confirming peace when they returned to their universe. And again, s8 also shows people being able to interact on the border between the Living and the Dead, so Allura simply existing within this realm should not be enough to kill her. Because life and death are largely meaningless concepts in this space where all consciousnesses are preserved.

So, if Allura is alive and just finished her work, then oop, now she’s stuck in the middle of Space Nowhere without a certain ride home. So who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters. Voltron is the only ship that Allura has a deep psychical and life-force link to, so it would be within canonical bounds that if she just helped resurrect the multiverse, then surely one hard-working princess could use Lance’s markings (her own life force) to relocate her own universe, and then use that bond on the material plane to call Voltron from across the universe to come pick her up, lol.

I really like this re-interpretation of canon for several reasons:

One, it feels a lot more consistent with the world-building and the overall tone of the show.

Two, it suggests a much happier ending where canon confirms—sort of like the Iron Giant (1999) ending—that Allura would eventually reunite on the material plane with the paladins.

Three, it suggests that there’s been a full one-year span of time where Allura and Honerva were both working together to restore the universe…while in the presence of and even interacting with Alfor, Zarkon, and Lotor, and probably a billion other dead people they thought were gone forever, but who were preserved in form and mind within the Consciousness of the universe. I feel like there’s just LOADs of possible content someone could get out of this. Did Honerva and Zarkon reunite? Did Alfor get to hug his baby girl again? Did Allura and Lotor have a major heart-to-heart discussion about the Altean colony and his quintessence insanity, and positively reconcile? Which, regardless of however you interpret what Lotor’s accused of, Allura had already…exonerated his motives and turned him into, like, a Joan of Arc figure well before she saw him again. And she even wanted Honerva to honor his memory by doing the right thing:

So there’s some clear signs that Allura and Lotor could have reconciled now that there’s no apparent quintessence insanity or witch shenanigans afoot... And it’s very likely that Allura might have even reconciled with the true, uncorrupted Emperor Zarkon himself:

 And in the meantime, what would the paladins of old be like? Were there other victims of this war who would have found it meaningful to interact in some way to obtain justice for themselves…or to obtain something more??

And this gets into reason four of why I like this re-interpretation of the ending. So canonically, mechas created out of the trans-reality comet are infinitely regenerating and indestructible. So not just Voltron, but also the Honervian/Sincline mecha. This suggests that Allura already had a ride home.

So why would Allura need more ships?

This interpretation has the potential to reverse all the painful deaths that happened throughout the show. The original paladins, the Alteans and Galrans who perished for various reasons...Alfor, Bandor, Lotor, Kova…even deaths we didn’t see.

And in calling Voltron back to her, is Allura maybe…planning to bring some new friends with her too? If she already has the Honervian/Sincline mecha to fly home, why does she need all five lions, anyway? Who would pilot them? Who else is waiting patiently in the celestial mind/heart of the multiverse to return to reality with her?

And reason five, on a simpler and maybe less galaxy-brain note, this interpretation provides a completely different context, however apparently sorrowful, for Allura’s canonical goodbyes:

Allura’s path did end here...at least as a paladin of Voltron. Because that position was temporary anyway. Restoring the multiverse was going to be an ultimate act. And there’s probably nothing after this that Allura could perform to outdo herself in saving things, lol. This is the height of everything she is and has worked for. She intentionally identifies this as her purpose:

“It is my purpose.”

Her action in s8 is the full and total culmination of everything she has learned and grown capable of doing since s1. Everything has been leading up to this. It’s her one chance to undo all the universal pain. And through restoring the multiverse, she’d be restoring balance in her own life too—to reconnect with her fragmented past, to give those from her past a chance to live in the new universe with her….

The other paladins, though—they were still needed in the meantime to confirm peace with the Galran empire, to convert it (however questionably) to a democracy, and to establish relations between Earth and other vast galaxies of people. Allura was not wrong that their paths as paladins had not ended. Because she needed them to ensure their universe would be truly at peace while she was up in the stars, working to restore and reconcile with all that had been lost in painful war.

And all of this would ultimately suggest that she would return to the universe, to the paladins, and probably take back the piece of her life force she’d given Lance that ensured a link with Blue Lion. Because…that homing beacon wouldn’t be needed anymore. Perhaps Allura would even consider decoupling the remainder of her life-force from Voltron, to fully reconcile herself to herself. To finally be whole and just Allura again, idk.

The only major problem with the “Allura is Alive and Bringing Some Friends/Family Home” interpretation is that...lol, the development team for the show doesn’t subscribe to it, at least not in any outward way I’ve heard. Based on their March 28, 2019 interview with Let’s Voltron, the executive producers talk about Allura like she’s dead. They say that they wanted to show sacrifice, the impact of death, and how important it is to honor the memory of the dead:

And we definitely feel it. There is a massive weight of loss and memorial in the finale here. Coran looks just this side of totally broken as he remembers Allura, and he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. He reiterates just how much Allura means to the people still alive in this universe:

“For some of us she was a diplomat, a teacher, a leader, and a friend. But to those of us around this table, she will always be family.”

The EPs have suggested that, like other shows, there may be ways to resurrect Allura, and there may have been happier endings possible. But again, please see the Theory 1 statements above regarding the massive worldbuilding contradictions when assuming that Allura had to die in the first place.

In which case, hilariously, the EPs have also expressed their interest in creative works that keep going, with plot tensions that require even supposedly dead heroes to return, as in this article here: 

“You can kill Captain America a million times and he’ll always show back up.”

So creator statements are just all over the place regarding the finality of “death” or even of “separation” in this universe. We definitely don’t get a body to prove that Allura is dead. And we also know that canonically, there is a place where the rift between the Dead and Living breaks down. And oh, by the way, Allura just regenerated entire multiverse strands that had been destroyed. So even if it’s not as simple as…holding someone’s hand as they step out of the consciousness realm, what canonical detail or limitation would keep her from resurrecting them herself? It is well within Allura’s canonical range to bring back all of these people without dying herself. 

Conclusion

Regardless of creator intention, the various contradictions in the worldbuilding itself make the angst of Allura’s death, the memorial statue, the lingering pain of the characters (oof, poor Coran and Lance especially), and all the interviews talking about Allura’s death feel excessively unnecessary. And at the same time, I’ve been very fascinated by what one can do with the details about the Consciousness Realm; the inherent properties of comet-based mechas, quintessence, and alchemy; Lance’s strange marks; and even the odd, last-minute Voltron interstellar space trip surging toward the Allura in the stars, with Blue Lion in the lead:

It appears that Allura could be very much alive in the final screenshot of her in the stars. Through Lance and their shared connection via Blue Lion, she’s maintained a homing beacon for her own reality, activated Voltron to complete a massive interstellar trip to come get her and likely several others—and now, she’s faithfully waiting in the Consciousness Realm with everyone, preparing for a family trip back to their resurrected worlds, in their trusty mechas.

I watched s8 on the day it dropped. I was in a daze about all of its wild and painful messaging. I wrote some unhappy metas about the sheer nihilism of this show. It’s taken me, lol, 1.5 years to actually go back and re-watch several episodes at a time. And I don’t believe this interpretation of the ending would fix every problem in Voltron: Legendary Defender. Sometimes, trying to make sense of this show feels like trying to reconcile quantum theory with classical mechanics, haha. So I’m sure one could poke holes in this post. And to even arrive at these conclusions, I had to throw out or reinterpret some of the worldbuilding and scenes, in direct conflict with the stated perspective of the show’s development team.

But even so...I derived most everything for this interpretation from the show itself. And even if the development team didn’t intend this happy ending of resurrections and reconciliations as I’ve suggested…it seems that this finale—at least while I’m thinking about it right now—is canonically possible and an attempt at consistency with the material provided across multiple seasons. It offers resurrections, redemptions, reconciliations...

Its ultimate message even genuinely coincides with the last episode’s title.

The End Is the Beginning.

And I really like that.

[puppetmaster55]

A Fix-It to Canon

At the interest of @ieshavevo here is my extensive fix-it to vld!

So, uh, wouldn’t change much about seasons 1 and 2, those are actually pretty solid seasons. At best, I would adjust season 1 to be a bit longer, including an episode where they travel to an old colony planet of Alteans to really set in that Allura and Coran are the last of the Alteans. In season 2 I would add an episode later on, mostly revolving around the adjustment of Voltron working with the Blade, to get a sense of the two having a rough start working together.

Also, I’d have a slight change in focus, with more knowledge that Voltron is a myth and nobody really believes in it or has hope in season 1, leading up to the initial assault on the empire’s central command. From there, season 2 is the universe taking notice, word spreading that Voltron is back and is fighting against the empire and Zarkon, and winning.

Then, there would be a little more to season 3, with a slower start that’s time without Shiro and time with only four of the lions. There’d be more people starting to fight back, more planets and systems rebelling against the empire, and word spreading that Zarkon faced off against Voltron and lost. There’d be, as well, time for adjustment after the lion swap. A “Some Assembly Required 2.0” episode. 

Speaking of, the Lion Swap wouldn’t be Keith into Black or Lance into Red. I’d put Lance in Black, and Allura in Blue. Honestly there would be discussion about Allura taking up the role, and a little about Keith being Shiro’s pick, but ultimately it would be Lance. Allura taking on the title of Black Paladin would be something permanent instead of temporary, and Keith doesn’t want it and isn’t a good fit. 

There would be a name-drop of an Empress Merla in the alternate Altean Empire reality, for later on. Lotor, too, would have more of a plan in motion, and would be the source of the Zaiforge Cannons as a show of his progression of the empire in his rule. There would be more buildup toward Naxzela, as well, with Voltron coming across a planetary particle barrier and an Altean terraforming device. Haggar’s entire plan toward Naxzela would be made more clear when it happens, that this is her revenge for the plan that took down Zarkon. She will take down every single rebel faction, Voltron included, in a massive show of force to ensure that there is no more opposition. 

Lotor’s plans will be more about establishing his own foothold as a progressive leader and shift toward a more peaceful rule over the universe. He’ll buy into the Galra Empire’s superiority, but only so far that he can change it into being more sustainable and infinitely less likely to end up consuming itself as more and more planets are killed for their quinessence. 

Voltron finds the rebels, learning that former smugglers Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer joined their ranks. Matt is discovered among their numbers, having had to fake his death in a massive battle to avoid having a bounty on his head collected. 

As for Operation Kuron… the Shiro that returns to Voltron is the real, original Shiro. He’s got programming in his arm, something that wasn’t there before, that makes me more willing to gather every single rebel in on one huge attack on Naxzela and the surrounding systems. 

Something that his clone, Ryou, very nearly succeeded in doing just before the Blue Lion was found. Ryou will be Shiro’s clone, sent into the rebels when they were gathering and a mighty force, with no initial clue that he’s a clone. The “trash nebula” that Pidge crashes into ends up being revealed as the remains of the rebel fleets when Kuron brought Zarkon down upon them. Ryou, in the battle, took damage to the head and to the robot arm, which disabled the mind control and left him realizing everything. 

The rebels are scattered, but they’re coming back together, and under Voltron they can do so much more than they could before. 

Anyway, Naxzela happens, and Lotor in the process of avoiding Haggar gets pushed into going on the run and negotiating his surrender to Voltron. There’s big blowback on Voltron’s side, with the Coalition not wanting to be so into bargaining with Lotor, the rebels wanting to dispose of him, and Voltron wanting to keep him prisoner. Time passes, and with it Haggar brings back Zarkon to right all the failures of Lotor’s rule. 

Lotor and the Generals split, the Generals with Narti (who is comatose following the attempt by Haggar to mind control her), untle the Generals realize that they need Voltron and to return to Lotor. So they pick up a human prisoner that some value to trade for their safety: Keith’s Dad. 

What they don’t know, is that Keith’s Dad is also Acxa’s Dad, and it’s revealed that their shared mother is Lotor’s dead sister, Marmora. 

Keith, angry at his father for abandoning him, avoids the man. 

Lotor gets closer to the Paladins, and with it he reveals more about his life: his time ruling over a planet that Zarkon destroyed, and even that he’s got Sam Holt working for him in a special work camp full of scientists working for Lotor. He’s one of the scientists who worked toward reverse engineering the teludav and that it can reopen the rift on Daibazaal. Sam helps to convince the Paladins that Lotor isn’t all bad and that he can be trusted. Acxa reveals that she had the bounty placed on Matt to return him to the Empire so he could be reunited with his father. Both Sam and Keith’s Dad are sent back to Earth. 

Lotor manages to gain their favor in time to call upon a Kral Zera: an honor battle for the throne of the empire. He fights against Zarkon, almost gaining the win until Haggar intervenes, nearly taking full control over Shiro. Somewhere in the time Lotor’s under Voltron’s care, Sendak comes back, and is as honorable Galra as ever. He begins having doubts about Zarkon’s leadership when Haggar intervenes to “force” a win. Haggar, meanwhile, takes Sendak to act as her protector. 

Allura looks into her powers, looking and training with Lotor’s aid, to the point that they all go to Oriande. There, they find the Protector of the White Lion, Queen Melenor. Allura learns of the true origin of Voltron, and is given the opportunity to learn the secrets of Alchemy. However, Haggar uses her control over Shiro to learn about Oriande and attacks it, causing Lotor to become suspicious of the Paladins. Melenor is lost in the attack, but passes on her role of Guardian to Allura. Allura trains with her powers, managing to capture a druid and interrogate it about their origins and powers. There, they learn that the druids are actually the research team Honerva led. 

The Coalition and rebels are furious about Voltron’s gamble, straining Voltron’s allies into breaking from their alliance. One of the rebels, Romelle, makes an attempt on Lotor, revealing herself as Altean and pushing Lotor into revealing that the planet he was in control over was an Altean colony. She claims that he is behind the death of the planet and all the Alteans on it, with herself as the only surviver, forcing Voltron to follow Allura’s lead and attack Lotor. 

Lotor flees with the Generals, all of them going toward the rift gate as the last safe place to lay low and hide until everyone fights each other and then they can emerge from the ashes and rebuild everything better. Unfortunately, Haggar used her connections to Narti and Shiro to learn the location of the rift gate and continued working on it. Haggar begins to activate the rift gate, and to distract Voltron takes full control over Shiro. Shiro comes along to Sendak’s side, and they manage to keep the Paladins distracted. Ultimately, Shiro, with the help of the Paladins, is broken free of Haggar’s control and fights Sendak to a standstill. 

Sincline and Voltron fight, with the Paladins thinking that all of this is Lotor’s fault. The two battle, until they both are hit and the Sincline caught in a tractor beam. Through the rift comes a number of ships, all Altean in design. 

Empress Merla has arrived, intent on bringing the Altean Peace to this and every other universe. Haggar goes to her side, claiming her old self as Honerva, while Lotor and the Sincline is captured. Merla created her own prototype gate using a teludav built by the Sincline Comet of her own reality, as found on her Oriande. Being obsessed with Honerva’s studies, Merla accepts Haggar to her side. The Generals manage to escape, Sendak flees back to Zarkon’s side to report about the arrival of the Alteans, and Voltron flees. 

With no allies and their name sullied by their siding with Lotor, Voltron flies to Earth to hide and recouperate. There, the Paladins nearly separate, returning to their families and reconsidering their duties and resolve. Meanwhile, Merla has taken up the trust and leadership of the Coalition, although there is a deal of mistrust within the rebels. She expands her presence, using the Hoktril to control and silence anyone who would dare dissent. Lotor, in his prison, looks upon Merla and sees everything that he was working toward. 

Shiro gets a new arm built. Keith gets quiet reconciliation with his father. Hunk discovers that he’s become so much braver than before. Lance reconnects with his family, and finds he misses space. Allura and Coran get into some lighthearted Earth shenanigans with each of the Paladins, maybe visit a zoo while they’re at it. Lance reaches out to Shiro, and speaks about his time leading Voltron, and also that he has more about his sexuality than he thought. There’s a small confession of feelings, and they decide to enjoy their time together, going on a date. 

They all find they miss traveling through space and realize that it is their love of the universe that brought them to fight for it, and that their failures do not define them. Also, they decide, when this is all over and done with they’ll go on a road trip across the universe. 

The Galaxy Garrison does their best to run the Paladins around any actual duties, until it’s revealed that the GG is reaching out toward Merla, and building their own Voltron out of fifteen vehicles. The Paladins gather together, fleeing Earth after a brief clash with Vehicle Voltron. The clash leaves doubt in the pilots and various members of the GG about the alliance with Merla. 

Voltron is on the run now, reaching out to old allies, finding the Hoktril in place on those planets. 

The rebels build their own Gladiator Voltron to protect against Merla after discovering the existence of the Hoktril. They take their team and Gladiator Voltron and flee, going to help others and join back up with Voltron. The Coalition shows unease at Merla’s rule. 

Merla clashes with Haggar, who takes the prototype teludav made of the Sincline Comet and is working on something. Haggar takes the upper hand, sending Merla on the defensive and fleeing back to Zarkon, revealing that she’s been playing both sides and that despite her past as Honerva, Haggar is her true self and her ends are her own to achieve. 

Lotor escapes, broken out of his prison by his own engenuity and with the help of his Generals. Narti, now awake, joins in as the five flee in the Sincline to find Voltron and warn them. 

Zarkon’s own rule over the Empire is crumbling, more and more of his subordinates showing a lack of faith and trust and obedience in him. Haggar proposes her new rift gate, and that they use the rift creatures within to cement Zarkon’s rule. 

Everyone is on the move, the forces gathering and reaching out to Voltron. Merla begins sending out combat mechas, ones originally prototyped under Merla and improved by Haggar, to sow fear and attempt to regain control. Sendak defects from Zarkon, finding Voltron and Sincline and fighting Shiro, this time to Shiro’s win. Sendak’s sense of honor is such that Zarkon’s win at the Kral Zera was dishonerable and while he does still hate Voltron, he would rather see someone with true Galra Honor like Lotor seated upon the throne of the Empire instead of Zarkon. 

Lotor reaches out to Voltron, and in the process finally tells Acxa, Keith, and the rest of the various allies about Marmora and the circumstances of her death. Marmora had gone to Earth, then returned, and with it Haggar had placed a same kind of mind control as Shiro and Narti were victims to. Through her, Zarkon had learned of the true method Lotor was using to rule over the Altean planet Pollux. Romelle had managed to escape, but what she saw was Lotor watching Pollux burn. In his panic, Lotor had killed his sister, and since then has regretted his actions and worked toward the peace that she had wanted for the Empire. 

Lotor has decided that while he will stand up as the new leader of the Galra, the Empire reduced and dismantled down into a small number of systems capable of safely being the new home of the Galra. He will not see the Galra as conquerors, and will not see the Empire continue to exist. Sendak shared what he learned about Zarkon’s plans, while Lotor and the Generals share what knowledge they’ve gained about Merla and, more importantly, Haggar’s plans. 

The prep for the final battle begins, with Voltron’s return to the stage by battling Merla’s mechas, and even joining in with the Gladiator Voltron. Vehicle Voltron turns up, Earth and the rest of the Coalition having defected away from Merla. Together, Allura and Lotor discover a means of breaking the Hoktril, and dig deeper into Voltron’s past. 

They learn about the rift creatures, beings of Chaos and Void, and of the Defenders that fought against it: the Lions, the Sincline, and the Oriande. Oriande is discovered to be what the White Lion is named, and is the Paladin of Light. Sincline is similar, and its Paladin of Dark. They, along with Voltron, are the Seven Paladins of Creation, the Defenders of the Universe. They learn that the Cosmic Abyss is where the Ancients come from, who began the universe and where Voltron called home. The great calamity that turned it into the Cosmic Abyss is from when the rift creatures touched it, and Voltron and Sincline battled it and ended up as the comets scattered around the universe. 

Allura is established as the leader of the Coalition. 

Lotor becomes the true Emperor of the Galra Empire. 

The Blade makes contact, having managed to gain knowledge of where the final battle will happen. 

Haggar enacts her rift gate, letting loose the Void Creatures from the rift. Zarkon takes one of the creatures within himself, transforming into a robeast that battles off Merla’s own attack. 

THe heroes arrive, fighting the Void Creatures. Voltron is joined by Sincline, Vehicle Voltron, Gladiator Voltron, the rebels, the Blade, and the Coalition. Allura directs them all from the Castle, until she brings the Castle into the battle. Merla and her remaining mechas join as well, realizing that she’s failed and when this is over she will have to stand for her crimes in both this universe and her own. From inside the rift, more realities join in: the Guns of Gamara, and even other version of Voltron from different realities. 

The Castle transforms, Allura realizing that she has passed on the White Lion spirit into the Castle of Lions itself. They join the battle, and gain the upper hand. Voltron fights Zarkon, striking him down as he leads the Void Creatures. Allura and Lotor both fight Haggar, ultimately leading to her defeat. The Void Creatures are defeated, and the rift gate, now the void gate, is destroyed. 

The universe is saved.

The various other Voltrons are returned to their universes, and Merla is taken into custody by the Guns of Gamara. With the universe moving toward peace, the Paladins go and kidnap Allura and Coran, promising to return the president of the Coalition once their road trip across the universe is done. In the meantime, Vehicle Voltron prepares to go out and ensure that there continues to be peace within the Coalition and no pirates or factions of the Empire try to rise up. Gladiator Voltron prepares for a long journey around the universe, fighting for justice wherever it is needed.

And the Paladins? They finally get that road trip.

[ptw30]

Shadows Critique

Continuing the “the definitive nitpick post” critiques from Voltron Legendary Defender Season 8, here we are go - 

Honerva looks sad in the very first scene, after she just told Lotor she had no maternal instincts whatsoever. So...why is she sad that Lotor didn’t embrace her? Or is she sad because she bonded with Acxa off screen and Acxa just betrayed her? Well, it is so hard to get good help these days. 

Well, now Honerva can focus on what Kuron is doing and see if maybe she can use him to...oh, wait. She totally doesn’t care about him anymore. Never mind. 

Okay, so no material instincts but Honerva crosses the universe in search of her son. #OppositeDay

Look at the eyes. 

Pretty sure Kova is Keith when Keith goes full-Galra. Or Kova is Keith from the future or Keith from another reality. #YoureWelcome

Both Haggar and Zarkon say, “Depart my presence” in this episode. Geez. Harsh family. 

“I must find [Lotor].” Haggar, Lotor and his peeps were on your ship before you jumped to another one. They talked about where they were going. Check the recording. It’s not a big mystery.  

Why does Zarkon remember who he is, but Haggar doesn’t remember who she is? Because she was more poisoned than him? But they both died...? And she didn’t seem to lose her memory before she died. She was just overwhelmed. 

“...emperor WHO pierced the veil.” The empress should have good grammar, guys. 

Why did Honerva go to the Kral Zera anyway? Just to stop someone else from lighting the flame? Let’s forget for a second that you don’t have maternal instincts -  there was no plot reason to go. Honerva didn’t end the empire by killing the Archivist and a few Galra soldiers. 

Dayak, you lost a bit of weigh and got a boob lift in the last twenty seconds.That’s impressive. The Galra medical plan was be amazing. Bet it has full dental. 

Oh, so Honerva used to the flame to see Lotor’s memories. How does that work? Why didn’t anyone use Zarkon’s flame before distinguishing it to see his memories? He was the longest-ruling emperor. Seems like an opportunity gone to waste. Also, if Lotor had seen Zarkon’s memories, he would have seen pre-zombie/BP Zarkon. 

Season 8 Episode 2 -

Season 2 Episode 12 -

Voltron and the Galra will pay...? But when did you find out Voltron lived, Honerva? You saw Sincline, but you didn’t see Voltron - so you assumed Voltron lived? But maybe the flame-thingie didn’t show you Voltron because it was attached to Lotor. Just saying - you really don’t know what happened to Voltron, Honerva. 

Merla is a sacred Altean, too? I missed her glowy marks. And hey - are all the Alteans from the Colony sacred Alteans? Then Romelle should be one, too. 

Death Star, is that you? You also are in pieces...but this is before Voltron took you apart. So you’re being built? Why would Zarkon take you on a road trip before you’re done? What if you break down? You’ll call Space AAA? Also - does Central Command always move? Then there isn’t a Central Command System like Coran said in “The Black Paladin.” (I had just assumed in S2 that Zarkon took you on the road after Voltron.)

Sendak: Should I capture [the lions] for you, High Priestess?

Sendak: All right. I’ll capture them for you. 

Honerva can wormhole Luca to Earth, but nah. Why do that? Instead, let Luca commute. It’ll only take her a few hours to go from Oriande to Earth. After all, the Lions are captured, the Atlas launches, the Lions are freed, Sendak is defeated - all within a course of two episodes - and then Luca arrives. Wow. She made good time, and she didn’t even have to use two bayards to make incredibly ugly wings to do so. 

Launch Date | Shadows | Prisoner’s Dilemma | Battle Scars | The Grudge | Genesis | Day Forty-Seven | Clear Day | Knights of Light Part 1 | Knights of Light Part 2 | Uncharted Regions | The Zenith | The End is the Beginning

[mizulekitten]

So uh, this au idea kinda evolved because of this art right here and it just... went places. There’s a more summerized idea/more concrete facts under the cut, so... yee. Have a sorta ficlet, sorta au talk:

Keith's never been truly alone in his lifetime. He's been scorned, hated, ignored, tossed away, but never alone. There's always been one constant in his life, a voice that spoke into his ear and kept him company. Even when he was younger, so young to not remember, he knows that they were there. That /he/ was there.

Keith doesn't know when he became truly aware of Yorak's presance, one day he simply... was. He was playing and looked up to find Yorak, just as young as he was, watching him. They talked, and they played, and they've been together ever since. Sometimes Yorak would be in front of him, visible, and sometimes he'd only be a presence in Keith's head. His father had always assumed that Yorak was his imaginary friend (without any idea of what else Yorak could be besides that. His father was unnerved by the use of the name Yorak, the name Krolia wished to name Keith, but there had to be a reason. Maybe he had said it once? He doesn't know. None of them know.)

Keith and Yorak are very similiar, but they aren't the same. A younger Keith had brought it up once, "Maybe we're twins?" but Yorak had disagreed. "Twins doesn't feel right," and Yorak's feelings were /always/ right, at least to a childhood Keith they were.

Yorak was almost exactly like Keith (or was Keith almost exactly like Yorak?) except the yellow scalera of his eyes, pointed teeth like fangs, slightly elongated ears, retractable claws, and occasionally a tail (Yorak was never sure if a tail felt right or not, but he knew everything else did.) When puberty hit, Yorak had spiked several inches taller than Keith had, but otherwise, the same.

Their personalities also differed a bit. They had both become pessamistic of people, yet Yorak's pessimism ran far deeper. Keith, despite how many times his heart had been broken by "friends" and "family" alike, still felt an instinctual hope whenever someone tried to get close. He hid it behind defensiveness, a bite to his voice, and an indifference that fooled many - except for Yorak. Yorak always knew what Keith was feeling, thinking, and more. It was Yorak who had lost all hope. Yorak would remind Keith that everything came to an end, and that they'd be shipped out eventually. They had been hurt too many times for Yorak to dare hope again. At first, he hadn't done it that often, but as they (Keith, not they. No one could see Yorak, hear him, feel him.) got rejected again and again, he became more vocal about it.

Where as Keith was protective of people, despite their many wrongs, Yorak was only protective of /Keith/. When Keith got in trouble for something "stupid",  it was Yorak who would worry about him. It was Yorak who cared. He couldn't fight alongside Keith against bullies, yell at adults for being wrong, or even hug Keith after a long hard day. All he could do was console Keith with words the best he could.

When they met Shiro, when they got into the Garrison, Keith desperetly hoped that the other would stay, would be the one to prove him and Yorak wrong. He was still prickly, hard to approach, but Shiro built doors in his walls, and walked his way in. Yorak had no such responce. Yorak hated Shiro for the longest time, a fact he brought up more so in the beginning, less so as Keith and Shiro got closer, as Keith finally made an actual friend (Wasn't he a friend?). Generally he would sulk, count all the ways things would go wrong and Shiro would leave them (Keith, would leave /Keith/. Shiro, no one, knew he existed. He needed to get that through his thick skull already.)

When Shiro kept sticking up for them, he eventually, begrudgingly, began to give Shiro another pass, a chance to worm his way into his own heart as well. Hard to do considering Shiro didn't know Yorak existed, but it was his treatment of Keith that gave Shiro points. Yorak was dedicated to Keith, and to see someone else /finally/ care as much as he did was both a blessing and a curse. There was less of Keith's time dedicated to him, more dedicated to Shiro, but to finally see Keith florish? It had to be worth it. It had to be.

The Kerberos failure was met with grim numbness, an accelerated mourning than that of Keith's, as he was less attached (Part of him, a selfish, selfish part, was glad Shiro was gone. Keith's attention was all his again. His alone when they [Keith! Only Keith! You don't exist!] resigned from the Garrison.)

The year in the desert had its ups and downs. It was Keith and Yorak, together again and striking it out on their own, but it was also more than that. It was each of their mourning, Keith more so than his own, it was their occasional (more often in the beginning) fights, it was feeling all the pain Keith was experiencing and not knowing how to help. It was a blessing. It was a curse.

And now they're in space, Shiro's back, scarred but back, and Yorak has no idea what to do. He can feel Red curling around them (Or is it just Keith? He can never tell, hasn't been able to in years.) and can feel their bonds in Voltron, but where does he belong? It's a question both he and Keith have, but at the end of the day, where Keith is dedicated to saving the galaxy, Yorak isn't.

Yorak's dedication will always begin and end with Keith.

This accidentally became a sorta ficlet? I didnt mean to get into Yorak's head but like.. so be it.

To highlight details: Keith can see and hear Yorak, but no one else can. Keith can't touch Yorak, and Yorak can't touch or interact with anything/one besides Keith. Keith used to speak aloud to Yorak, but when that gained too many questions (and a forced trip to a psychiatrist by an over concerned family, who returned him not long after, because "a kid his age shouldn't have imaginary friends anymore") he began to keep the thoughts to himself, knowing Yorak could simply read them. In the desert he gave up that habit because he /needed/ to speak. There were days where, despite how quiet he tends to be, not speaking felt like a cage, like he'd forget a piece of his humanity. This is becoming another mini ramble/ficlet xD

Red is well aware that Yorak is there, and is... a tad confused at first about him? Red’s embraced him because of how similar he and Keith are, and because he cares so deeply for Keith. Their mini connection is a bit a result of them both being connected to Keith, and both being creatures of similar descent (ie. quintessence eating and psychic connections).

Most importantly: Yorak isn't, for me at least, a stress response. Yorak is a real... creature. He feeds off quintessence much like the Lions, Sincline, and the Void Monsters do, but he doesn't feed mindlessly. He also doesn't know /what/ he is (so he kinda is feeding mindlessly, but not in excess). He doesn't know that he feeds off quintessence or anything. They don't have any idea what he is. My idea was, that given enough quintessence (whether on accident or on purpose), Yorak would become more physical, and thus be able to interact with his environment and have other's see and hear him, but this is all my idea around it.

[ganymedesclock]

How do you think they might go about bringing back Narti? Tossing her in a vat of quintessence, Lazarus-Pit-style? Having the real Narti stored alongside real Shiro, in the unlikely case of clone theory being correct?

Honestly, I have a theory and it’s kind of an odd one. 

Let’s assume Zarkon’s the deep end of the supernatural undead spectrum. He and Haggar were not only dunked in the rift but seem to have established some enduring connection with presumably the Rift Entity that empowered them wildly beyond anybody else we’ve met in this setting- even Lotor who was involuntarily along for the ride.

If Zarkon’s our Space Dracula, it’s fair to say he’s our gold standard for how easy it is to revive multiple times after the first one.

That said... taking the blazing sword through the chest very clearly did a brutal number on him, stuff that his usual vampiric habits with quintessence couldn’t patch. Lotor claims (and successfully gets under his skin) that Zarkon is deteriorating, which could be a commentary on how generally Zarkon is operating, but it’d also suggest certain things are hard to fix.

Now Narti’s wound is a lot less severe than Zarkon’s. Lotor was quick, precise, and clean, and he uses a straight broadsword that wouldn’t hook or tear anything coming out. She wasn’t run through the chest with the flaming weapon of a space mecha, but she was impaled, and Zarkon as a case study would tell us coming back from the dead doesn’t heal everything automatically. And as far as we know, she wasn’t undead in the first place, which would pave the way for her recovery.

Since Narti doesn’t have the resources of immediate medical attention or a lavish life-support suit like Zarkon did, there’s the problem of even if her consciousness is still around, it could well be that re-inhabiting her body is right out.

And here’s where I start to get into how Narti might come back.

Narti has power. She’s not the lightning-throwing all-empowered sorceress Haggar is, but Narti has a very specific domain of expertise- and that’s minds. She can control and enthrall the minds of others, and, quite possibly, given her convincing imitation of the Puigian leader and being Pidge’s counterpart in Sincline, Narti can read people’s minds, and glean information from them.

My personal conjecture is that Narti works with minds the way Pidge works with computers- she can “hack” them, in effect, read them for information, use others’ eyes and ears as her own (much like Pidge uses one of the little sentry eyes in s2e10).

This might go as far as, if Narti’s body fails her, her mind might be able to flee into another host. Especially someone who might already have a connection with her, and act as a carrier.

Someone like Kova- who made a specific point of faithfully staying by her side and while he was originally looking at Lotor and the other, leaving generals, the second time we saw him was staring incredibly pointedly at Narti’s body.

But Kova alone is only a temporary fix. Narti’s not going to want to spend the rest of her life body sharing with her cat. She’s going to look for a way to heal her body so she can shuffle back into it.

Which is not going to be convenient to do in a cat body either.

But Narti also, as mentioned before... can take over other people.

My current suspicion? Narti’s going to bodyjack Pidge. Her Voltron counterpart.

Pidge is pretty fond of animals- in the case of the space caterpillars she adopted them in a heartbeat, her family is shown to have a dog, she was happy looking at the bunny critters on the Green Lion’s planet.

It makes sense to make Narti’s objective something that conflicts with the team, and presumably also something that puts pressure on Lotor, because while he clearly feels bad about what happened to Narti, nothing’s really pushing him to think about it or address it. If Narti functionally kidnaps Pidge that’s a problem.

Pidge is also Narti’s counterpart, and of the Generals in s3e6, Narti is the only one that deliberately engaged her counterpart- Acxa and Keith clashed but Acxa was quick to disengage from him and focus on Lance while Ezor stepped in to take out Keith.

In that battle, Narti appears oddly playful with Pidge, repeatedly tripping her and when she picks up Hunk, she turns to face Pidge as if “watching” her for a reaction. Since Narti has no eyes and uses Kova’s to see, pointing her face at Pidge specifically only works as a sort of commentary or acknowledgement- she doesn’t have a practical reason for doing that.

And it was very specifically an episode centered on Pidge- s4e2- that had Matt in a flashback specifically talk about how the Holts rely on their heads to avoid being detected or infiltrated- because you can’t compromise the security of someone’s mind.

Except well before s4e2, we already know that not only is it possible, but we have an active member of the cast that can do it. Narti uses the Puigian leader to talk to Voltron, and she uses Throk to shut down security. Whether or not she’s able to search through their minds as the druids are claimed to and Haggar’s shown to be capable of, she can make them use their unique knowledge for her favor.

So if she got hold of Pidge or Matt... Narti could easily have them work through Holt family algorithms, breaking the allegedly perfect code. A fitting feat, for a Green Paladin. And big trouble for our heroes if they happen to try and rely in their foolproof system to play “spot the impostor”.... on a mind reader.

From there, Narti might try to look for a way through Voltron to either steal their healing technology or some other resource that can bring her body back to a point where she can move into it.

[kakunamatatq]

Voltron Ask Meme

Tagged by @kalluraicedcoffee, @n-trace, and @teamsincline (tumblr is shit with notifs more than usual lately but I think I got everyone? thanks y’all!)

How did you discover the show?

Through tumblr, although special mention goes to this particular ML AU piece because two months before I got into Voltron, ML was my default go-to interest.

Was it love at first sight or did it take you a while to get into the show?

Pretty much. I watched A:TLA and LoK before it, so combined with all the talk about it on here I decided to give it a go.

I think I binged half of it in a day before stopping myself and thinking I had to tell my sister about it so we could watch it together lol. The first few episodes are kind of heavy on the set-up, but “Fall of the Castle of Lions” and “Tears of the Balmera” solidified my love for starting to explore Hunk’s and Pidge’s characters more.

Do you have a favorite episode?

I’ll just do one* for each season because there’s just so many episodes to love.

s1: “Crystal Venom” s2: tie between “The Ark of Taujeer”, “Space Mall”, and “The Blade of Marmora” s3: “Tailing a Comet” s4: tie between “Reunion” and “Black Site” s5: tie between “Blood Duel” and “Kral Zera” s6: tie between “Razor’s Edge” and “The Black Paladins”

*I tried and failed. Horribly.

Rest under a Read More because I’m long winded:

Do you have a favorite Paladin?

Do not...do not ask me to choose between my children (if you base if off of the “frequently tagged” suggestions on my blog it’s Keith lol. But for what it’s worth, I own these Garrison trio shirts, and the tradition is that I wear my Lance one and my sister wears her Shiro one whenever we sit down to watch the latest season drop)

Do you have a favorite Lion? (If it’s different from your fav paladin, why?)

Black because of her history with Zarkon and how it parallels Shiro’s history of trauma. Also, as Abby put it, Black “is the biggest Shiro stan & I respect her for it.”

Do you have a favorite Villain?

Haggar. Even if some things don’t entirely make sense (yet...?), I absolutely love the slow build-up we’ve been getting for her. She’s been in the thick of things since the first episode/10000 years ago, and we’ve slowly seen her piece together her own past (one of the biggest reasons “Blood Duel” is a favorite, her flashback was great) and manipulate things to her own advantage; I’m so happy she’s going to be the final boss of the series (or co-final boss if Zarkon and Lotor are going to come back in some shape or form, though maybe merely as her puppets).

Do you have a favorite Alien Race? (recurring and/or minor)

Galra for their species diversity and history (not entirely fair since they’re given a disproportionate amount of focus but still lol.)

Favorite side / other character(s)- Rebels, General, Blade of Mamora, Garrison, etc?

Hira, Kolivan, Romelle, Thace, Varkon, all of Sincline, and all of the Holt family (we’ve only glimpsed Colleen in a flashback but Ihave a feeling I’m going to love her too)

How/Why did you join the fandom?

Wanted to chat with other fans of the show because I’d already bored my friends who were either casual about it or indifferent to it to death lmao. I’ve been relatively on the outskirts since I first watched it in July 2016 because I’d rather avoid fandom drama, but I’m a bit more active now and hope to write a bit for it, as rusty as my skills are.

Care to share a favorite headcanon?

Um I like a couple of popular ones like TransGirl!Pidge, past Alforan, and Yorak for Cosmic Wolf’s name. Was really big on Acxa and Keith being siblings too until s6 seemingly disproved it. 💔 Some others: - Kolivan is Krolia’s dad. (thanks @aaawunder now I’m going to be sad if this doesn’t pan out)

- Coran knew Keith was Galra ever since the Castle scanned everyone in the first episode and he had to look at the human medical data when he stuck Lance in a pod in “Tears of the Balmera”. (keeping in line with how he knew Pidge was a girl; guy is up-to-date on everything going on on his grandfather’s Castleship)

- Hunk either got his current headband from a relative who has since passed away or it was a gift from Lance after the original one he got was wrecked somehow, and that’s how they became BFFs. - Keith’s jacket and gloves were gifts from Shiro. - Lance’s jacket was a hand-me-down from one of his older brothers.

- Shiro grew up with either a grandparent to explain his “old soul” tendencies/perspectives or was raised by distant relatives that he didn’t connect with much (basically adopting @bosstoaster‘s backstory from her Spectrum series for him because it’s amazing). It kills me that Josh was able to mention the former at a panel because that means we’re probably not going to get to see much of his backstory in canon, and I’d really like to see from his perspective what his and Keith’s friendship means to him. If he was in a similar situation of isolation growing up, if he saw that in Keith, etc.

- Alteans aren’t really hung up on gender due to their shapeshifiting abilities. Alfor’s referring to Allura as a princess when she was still so young was due to personal preference whereas the majority of Alteans would refer to their kids with gender neutral pronouns until they’re roughly the Earth equivalent of eight.

What do you think is the best part of the show?

The characters and the genre.

For me, characters frequently make shows of this nature.There can be an interesting plot, but if I don’t care about at least some of the characters to some degree, I’m not as inclined to watch. As many complaints as I have about certain aspects of this series, I’ve been endeared to these characters since s1. There could always be more content (what I would give for more filler episodes for the team to just bond and chill), but with what we have been given, there’s enough there for me to find enjoyment in.

The genre acts as a supplement to that. For me, one of the best things about space-faring adventures is seeing these characters placed in (literal) alien settings and watching how they react to all the possible scenarios the incomprehensible infinite of space has to offer. (And I’m a sucker for such things, being simultaneously made to feel so cosmically huge in one’s consciousness and so incredibly small in the vastness of a universe largely unknown to us.) There’s so much you can do with that. Any hopes and wishes for future episodes / seasons?

Holy shit do I!

- Tying into the previous question, one of the things that sort of made me sad about s3-s6/the second production season is how we didn’t get to do a lot of planet exploring. There’s an entire universe to play around with, and I know it’s impossible to show everything, but with s7 effectively being a road trip season, I’m ecstatic, largely because this provides us with the chance to see civilian Galra. I’m super interested in seeing how those dynamics play out between those not involved with the Empire and all the people who suffer under Galra oppression (we see this touched upon in s3e01 with Kolivan and the BoM, and at the time I was disappointed that it wasn’t explored more, but if they’re saving it for this season I can forgive them).

- Going further, how do mixed people fare under these circumstances? I’m really excited about this because I feel like this would be the perfect opportunity not only to expand upon the VLD universe as whole, but specifically dive into the backstories of Sincline. We know at least the upper echelons of the empire wanted nothing to do with them — how many Galra outside of that hierarchy feel the same way? People of their parents’ species?

Likewise, we could see if Keith being part Galra and Krolia being around gets the team into any sort of trouble. Since Keith’s bigger on actions than words, seeing him in a situation he can’t physically fight his way out of and having to rely on his team is a scenario of continued interest to me.

This is already way too long, but I’ll end it by saying I’m so stoked about all the potential road trip shenanigans the team could get into and for them visiting Earth again. I figured we’d be going back there around the end of s4 or s5 back when seasons were still 13-episodes long, and finally getting to see that play out after two years of waiting is again, very exciting for me.

And, uh, ships. I have my preferences. If they play out, I can die happy. If they don’t, I’ll always have the quality fanon content that keeps me involved with the fandom (all you creators are great 💜)

Do you think you’ll stick it out until the end of the show?

Barring unforeseen circumstances, most definitely. Been with it since a month after s1 dropped and it became my default fandom obsession, will be here when s10 drops in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Tag your friends or someone you want to get to know better

@grandraconteur @guegetheassassin @honestlyprettychill @mischiefandspirits @nixthelapin @pipedreamprayer @purpleneutrino @spacemare @sparklingdisneyprincess @tomodachi-to-koibito​ @winry7

And @ any else I didn’t mention but would like to try it too (Apologies if any of you have been tagged for this already. Hmu with your answers, I’d love to read them)

[ao3feed-voltronlegendarydefender]

Creeds & Credibility

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2A6rMlX

by MsMiaMimi (Mc_Mimi)

Prince Lotor's experiment with the comet opens the door for his (even more) evil counterpoint to enter their reality. Keith has to deal with politics, war criminal charges, shaky family dynamics, and two very judgemental Lions.

AU SPACE-TIME ADVENTURES

And lots, of arguing, breaking up, making up, conspiring, plotting, fighting, fingering, experimental shapeshifting, and tom-foolery and humperdinking.

Words: 1424, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of The Adventures of Little Red and His Big Dick Friend, The Asshole

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Voltron: Defender of the Universe (1984), Hyakujuuou GoLion | Beast King GoLion

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: M/M, Multi

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lotor (Voltron), Allura (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron), Pidge (Voltron), Coran (Voltron), Slav (Voltron), Matt Holt

Relationships: Keith/Lotor (Voltron), Keith/Sincline

Additional Tags: Established Relationship, multi-dimensional camping trips, The Fam Gets Work Done, Zarkon is not invited to the wedding, Sincline don't touch that its not yours, Slav was right about everything, Humor, Drama, Royal Pose-offs

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2A6rMlX