#lotor’s gift

[xjulixred45x]

Lotor x Pearl!GN! Reader

Request: Now that the requests are open I want to do one about Voltron (again), about Lotor headcanons with a reader who is like a pearl from Steven Universe, who probably was a "gift" from his governess, I imagine that reader @ is a very scared but sweet person who is afraid of disappointing Lotor and that he will throw them away because of that (traumas from the past before meeting him). I just want some comfort from one of my favorite Voltron characters💕

Genre: Headcanons

Reader: Gender neutral

Warnings: allusions/mentions of past abuse, reader at first treated more like an object than a person, fear of abandonment, somewhat confusing timeline for the sake of the plot? HURT with Comfort, Fluff, non-canon ending of Voltron for my sanity :') Lotor What have they done to you?

You come from a very... special planet to say the least.

Especially you were born in a social caste that was considered the lowest, so you were trained all your life to be the future accessory of a powerful person. As bad as it sounded.

This was obviously not a pleasant process, especially with the Garla empire breathing down your planet's neck.

You could say that you got especially ruthless training, the slightest mistake was severely reprimanded, only to know that if you did it in REAL practice you most likely wouldn't come out alive...

Then the Garla Empire took possession of your planet. Everyone was terrified of what could happen, YOU were terrified of what was going to happen to you.

But fortunately? You were given as a personal servant to the Garla, along with many others, in exchange for not destroying the planet completely.

But you were lucky enough that it was your turn to serve the Prince of the Garla, Lotor.

This was before the Paladins intervened, so even when they arrived, this still stood.

To say that you were scared was to say, you were terrified of what was going to happen. What if he was one of those super strict princes? What if he had a bad temper? What if he got angry with you and got physical? And If it hurts you? Or worse?

You set out to be as correct and upright as possible for this new position, apparently you would be a gift, well, maybe you don't have to do much, you can do this.

Dayak barely talks to you, although the first time you meet her is only so she can give you a checkup to make sure you live up to her expectations, and fortunately you are and she seems very satisfied.

Before meeting this "Lotor" she gives you a tour of the Garla main ship in a vague way so that you become familiar with everything and thus adapt quickly before seeing Lotor. The ship is GIANT so it takes a while.

Although at least with this you can hear some people talking and whispering about Lotor, apparently the winner of the "Kral Zera", the first Half-Blood emperor and Zarkon's heir...someone to have fear apparently.

Let's just say they didn't make you feel much better.

But at the end of the day you finally meet him. Is he together with what appear to be the paladins of Voltron? And Dayak makes his presence quite noticeable (poor paladin Blue and especially yellow).

Before retiring, Dayak introduced you to Lotor, as his new personal assistant, to serve him in any way he wanted.

To your surprise, Lotor seemed just as off guard as you, it seems that he had forgotten the deal with the Kral Zera matter, it is understandable, but it was especially shocking when he apologized to you because he could not introduce himself properly, since he had a VERY busy day with the Voltron thing...

....weren't you supposed to come help him with that? What Quiznak?

You tried to tell him that, that you could help him manage that, but he said no! That for now he could handle himself well, but that you should give him time to think of something for you...

okay that was VERY strange

But a nice strange? Lotor was not like you thought he would be.

Even when he finally did what he had to do with the Paladins and Princess Allura (love of a person), he still treated you with a respect you weren't used to.

you were mainly in charge of his agenda with the other Garla leaders and works like that, together with the Paladins and Princess Allura, etc. It wasn't a heavy job, but it required attention to detail and you definitely went out of your way to make it perfect.

And contrary to what you thought, you received some recognition from your, so to speak, Boss (because Lotor hated it when you called him "master" or "owner"), Lotor was grateful that you helped him and that you were so diligent, He let you know when he kept you up to date.

You could even have conversations with him! It wasn't something you had been prepared for in the least, but it was nice, Lotor was someone very intelligent and even had an interesting sarcastic sense of humor. You learned a lot by talking to him.

In turn, Lotor learned more about your species based on his experience with you, although at first it was difficult for him, because you insisted on keeping a certain distance, but he was able to make his way through your walls.

He found you quite pleasant and even charming! Lotor always tried to see other species with equal respect, and for you to see him from such a high place (without the need for violence, just doing his job) made him feel very good about himself.

And the feeling was mutual.

It made you feel calmer about all of this, that everything was going better than you thought. You had ended up with an owner--ahem, Boss- who was nicer than you expected and everything seemed fine--

But then you made a MISTAKE.

You were trying to get used to one of the controls on Lotor's main ship and out of nowhere the controls stopped working. They didn't respond, didn't work and seemed glitched.

You realized that you had pressed the wrong places (used to the mothership controls) and that you had "messed up" this one.

But all you could think about was the trouble you'd get into with Lotor.

Oh no oh no oh no What am I going to do? What are they're going to do to me? They're going to have to throw me away, right? How can I get through this? What if they kill me? What if--

You were so panicked that when Lotor arrives you don't notice.

And it only makes you even more afraid.

Lotor asks what happened, but he starts checking the console on his own and realizes what happened, he knows what you did--

And you can't stand the urge to cry anymore.

Lotor honestly freaks out, he thought you would have gotten hurt and that's why you were crying so much, but you were apologizing for breaking the console, and saying that you were fine with being replaced with someone more capable as long as please, please don't kill you...

Even if he didn't show it much on the outside (it's a habit up to this point he's sorry for it), it hurt Lotor to see you like this. And even more so for something so small. Is this why you thought he was going to replace you? Kill you?? Although he sees that it's mostly because you've been traumatized before, so he's not offended (at all).

Lotor tries to calm you down, explain to you that it's not a big deal. It's not broken! It just needs to restart! Please don't cry! He's not going to replace you! Much less touch a hair on your head! You are save with him...

He ends up fixing the console to prove his point and you calm down, something like that, both of your emotions are running high.

From there, you are a little more alert for your possible "mistakes" and honestly, Lotor misses how you were before this little incident, now it seems like you are walking on eggshells (Whatever that means? The blue Paladin said it ) when you are around him.

He discovers that he misses talking to you more than he thought, he is not someone who gets attached easily, but finally having someone who respected him as a person and not as Prince Garla and that you are now in this scared state hurts him.

So it does something... surprising.

He asks the Paladins and Allura for help.

Obviously some make fun of him a little ahem LANCE AND PIDGE ahem, but for the most part they try to give him good advice on how to approach the situation, although they all have a common idea.

TALK IT DIRECTLY or let you adjust naturally again (which seemed unlikely without the former).

So he did it, he call you to speak alone.

Sincerely? You almost died of fright. This on your planet was a VERY BAD omen, VERY BAD.

so imagine your surprise when Lotor was REALLY alone when you went to see him, but you still remained nervous, this man could destroy you with just one arm after all.

But Lotor...just talks.

And he gets straight to the point, he does NOT plan to replace you, he does NOT plan to hurt you, he does not want you to think that you are so expendable, especially when he has come to enjoy your company so much, you can rest assured, mistakes happen, we ALL make them, he prefers that you make them. a thousand mistakes to not having you at all.

Being honest? It was quite nice.

And you were able to be more...at peace with yourself after that. Be the sweet assistant again.

If we talk about advanced terms of a romantic relationship, IT'S PURE FLUFF.

Lotor has shown that he doesn't give a shit about race, so he has no problem relating to you even if you're not even half Garla. What if someone has a problem? They won't have it anymore :)

If your planet is still under the control of the Garla, it is most likely that Lotor has forced them to have laws and a more egalitarian legislature, your people have not lived so well in decapheobes! Of course, there are those who are still not used to it and others who are directly against it, but that always happens.

Lotor is patient when it comes to old wizard habits, chances are you'll still be that way! But more as a consort😅

Get ready, now that it is certain that he loves you and that you love him too, there is no escape from affection. Lotor is aware that he's touch-starved, but when you discover through this that YOU'RE touch-starved TOO, it's like, the perfect mix.

Lotor is the most openly affectionate, which helps you gain some courage to do the same, although of course, when it comes to making the other person nervous, you never win (although Lotor MELT inside seeing you try).

Lots of physical contact!! Especially at events with too many people and where you can easily feel overloaded, it's a quick way to calm yourself down and for Lotor to be happy and calm (literally, if they want to calm him down they have to bring you into the room and he's INSTANTLY in a good mood again).

You have a friendship with Allura! She jokingly says that you're too good for Lotor, but in a loving way.

The Paladins don't understand how Quiznak, someone as sweet as you ended up with Lotor. Did they threaten you? Blink twice if so--

Your nature is now a little more curious, you see everything with new eyes, it is something tender for Lotor, for him most of these things are everyday, but for you it is something new and even unique, it is nice.

He also now handles your crises better when PTSD strikes, takes you somewhere spacious, keeps some distance so you can breathe better, and when you recover he is on you for the rest of the day, quite worried.

In general, Lotor sees his partner with equal respect and love regardless of their race, social status or how they met, he loves you regardless of everything or how you perceive yourself. You are his equal, his partner, nothing changes that.

Reglogs, shares and Comments are very welcome!!

#headcanons #neutral reader #lotor x reader #vld lotor #voltron lotor #lotor #prince lotor #pearl su #voltron #voltron legendary defender x reader #voltron legendary defender #voltron ld

[humanitieswalkingredflag]

confession headcanons with lotor, acxa and allura

notes: first post on this account, figured I'd start off with something pretty simple tags: friends to lovers, confessions, first kisses, hugs, overall just fluff lmfao, claustrophobia, tight spaces, being locked into a closet word count: 1.5k

[ lotor ]

okay so first of all Lotor would act one of two ways if he had feelings for you

either he'd be extremely suave around you (and of course a blushing mess the second you acted even close to similar)

or he'd be almost mean? like I feel like he would ignore you if you were someone he really cared about and/or someone he was enemies with

in the latter case its a situation where he doesn't want you knowing

I feel like, if you two went from friends to lovers, it would more be the second option, so we're going to go with that

so you've been noticing for a while that Lotor's been ignoring you for a while

and you're like hey bitch what gives, so you go and ask him why

poor lotor is an absolute mess. he has no clue what to say

cause like obviously he can't say, "Yeah I was ignoring you because you're super hot and I'm in love with you." So he just kinda stands there like 🧍 "How can I help you?"

but now ur like lowkey pissed so you just force answers out of him by like getting super mad

and he's just like 😒 "why do u care?"

hehe you just yell out "Cause I love you fucking idiot."

and then you realize what you just said and storm off lmfao

poor man has a panic attack and then just chases you into the hallway, grabbing you and pinning you against a wall as gently as he can.

"did you... mean that?" lotor forces out, cradling your cheek in his large hand. his cheeks are red, you notice with some satisfaction, and as you revel in this affection after weeks of being starved of it you realize that the likelihood of lotor feeling the same way is really quite large.

so, after working up insane amounts of courage, you go on your tippy toes, guide lotor's head down to a height where you can reach him, and peck him gently on the lips, pulling away quickly, cheeks dusted red. "uh... sorry," you look away, not wanting to make eye contact with him, "If you don't feel the same way... you can just ign-"

"- I do feel the same way," he coughs out, also not meeting your gaze.

"Oh."

Lotor steels himself, then leans down, tilting your head up with his warm hand as he gently meets your lips, deepening the kiss as you smile into it.

After some time he breaks away, smiling.

the man is emotionally stunted but you can fix that *winks*

[ a/n that was shit lmfao he's quite ooc i hope y'all don't mind ]

[ acxa ]

acxa would be really subtle if she had feelings for you

if you guys go from strangers to lovers, then she'll probably just subtly do things for you

she's going to get a coffee, she'll ask if you want one as well

just the little things

if it's a friends to lovers scenario, she might leave lingering touches along your arms or hands

I feel like her main love language is acts of service, considering she's relatively closed off due to her military history, so she will do more things for you, as I already mentioned. however if she has feelings for you beyond just friendship, she might also cave to your love language as well

physical touch? she's letting you hug her, which leads to ezor teasing her so fucking much because usually acxa will just step back if someone tries something like that

if its gift giving, expect small, practical things likes knives or omnitools. she won't give elaborate gifts all willy-nilly, but she does know what you like for, for example, your birthday

anyway back to the confession (I got a bit off track there lmfao)

so acxa will be realllll subtle, and you'll just be blushing your ass off lmfao

like she'll gently adjust some hair so that it's again behind your ear and you will just go red as a tomato

the issue here is that ACXA IS FUCKING OBLIVIOUS

doesn't notice a thing

this means ezor (best wingman fr) and zethrid (their exhausted gf) have to play cupid and get you two together, because ofc only ezor sees the signs and has to act on them

anyway, the actual confession is relatively simple, because ezor dedicates so much of their time into getting you two into the closet together that zethrid swears she hasn't slept all week

(the sheer amount of failed attempts... is astounding)

so ezor is like, hey, [reader] wanted to meet you here for something top secret and pushes acxa into the closest, meanwhile zethrid just picks you up and drops you inside, closing and locking the door as soon as you two are in there

ofc they're both outside listening in

anyway acxa starts off by trying to break down the door, like the night in shining armor she is, but as soon as she realizes that it's futile she just slumps against the wall and accepts defeat

i mean ofc she knows why ezor is doing this

doesn't mean she has to like it

"so..." you blurt out, awkwardly rubbing the back of your head with your palm. internally, you're panicing at being locked inside a tight space with none other than acxa, the object of your affections, but you hope that you can at least display some composure around her.

you wouldn't want her to think you a complete fool.

acxa raises an eyebrow, "yeah?"

"how are we going to get out of here?" you ask, saying the first thing that comes to mind.

"they'll let us out eventually."

"hopefully. why do you think they locked us in here?" of course you know why the locked you in here. you should never have told ezor about your feelings for acxa, the general always was far too eager to play matchmaker to trust properly with sensitive emotions.

acxa doesn't reply for a while, simply tilting her head at you. she supposes it's now or never. the quicker she confesses the quicker you're both out of here; you've mentioned hating tight spaces before and she doesn't want to inconvenience you any further.

"they locked us in here because of my feelings for you, [reader]."

your eyes widen and your cheeks go red at the implication in her words. "do you-"

"they're romantic, yes, before you ask."

you swallow, "okay. um. I uh-"

"you feel the same way?"

"yes."

acxa sighs, in relief, and stands. as she steps towards you, you reach a hand out so that she may help you up. yet instead of staying standing up she kneels before you, her face at level with yours. as she takes your face in her warm hands, you smile, and she lends you one in return, right before your lips meet hers. the kiss is warm, nice, gentle, soft. you seperate, but before you can lean back against the wall, she grabs your collar, whispers, "may I?", waits for your nod then clashes your lips against her own, this one much hungrier.

ezor tugs the door open right then, but acxa just keeps kissing you.

[ a/n i am so gay. so. so gay ]

[ allura ]

THE SWEETEST

so obvious tho

but to everyone but you

again you are both oblivious to each other's blushing messes

"you look really pretty/handsome today," you are SCREAMING

in reply: "may I braid your hair, princess?" allura perishes on the spot and is so unbelievably red the entire time-

coran is, in this case, playing wingman

SHE STARTS WRITING LOVE LETTERS

they're always signed:

- from your sky princess

you only catch on at dinner one evening and you have that AHA! moment right next to coran

oh allura is so embarassed when you just stand up, tug out a letter and point at her while jumping up and down

but coran is smirking so hard lmfao

"you wrote the letters! princess you should have told me in person!" you're overjoyed; she returns your feelings! but why didn't she just tell you?

"I was scared you didn't feel the same way, love," allura replies.

you hands down leap towards her, hugging her so hard that she has to tell you to losen your grip a bit, lest you strangle her and you just cover her face in kisses. as you realize what you're doing though you jump away and blush hard, "sorry, I should have asked."

she shuts you up by tugging you back onto her lap and kissing you softly. "It is not an issue, my love."

you legitimately short circuit.

meanwhile the paladins: 😃 what the fuck 😃

cr: @humanitieswalkingredflag 2022 - by reading this you are agreeing to the following - this is my content and you will not copy it to any other websites - I do not own any of the characters, however I do own the work I write - I do not profit off of this content

#lotor x reader #prince lotor x reader #lotor deserved better #confessions #friends to lovers #vld #vld imagine #vld x reader #voltron #voltron x reader #voltron imagine #acxa x reader #acxa #vld acxa #voltron acxa #acxa imagine #allura x reader #allura imagine #princess allura x reader #princess allura #vld allura

[artsyjesseblue]

Lotura Week, Day 3: "Beach Day Bliss”

The trip to Earth had been smooth and fast, since Pidge had worked with her Garrison fellows on stabilizing the wormhole technology.

Aruba welcomed them with many, many smiles: at the airport, at the hotel, in the restaurants, and, of course, as soon as their toes sank into the smooth sands of their luxury resort beach.

“Oh, Lifegivers, this is so beautiful!” she gasped, admiring the azure water and the pristine sand.

Lotor’s eyes glimmered with awe. He’d seen such marvelous places on other planets, but he rarely had the chance to actually relax and enjoy the wonderful gifts of the universe. His father’s endless conquers always loomed large over everything. One way or another, each of these immaculate gems would soon fall under his Komar plunders.

But not anymore.

He inhaled with renewed vitality, smelling the salty air and the warm ocean breeze.

“Allura, we did it,” he turned to her, and, as if reading his mind, she smiled back.

“We did it together,” she took his hand, ignoring the curious peeps of the humans lounging on the beach.

Their tote bags thudded into the sand, and without waiting a second longer, they peeled their clothes off, revealing their newly purchased swimsuits, glinting in the summer sunlight of the Caribbeans. Allura wore a blue and emerald two-piece bathing suit, the cool colors complementing the warmth of her amber skin. Lotor’s khaki swimming trunks made a nice contrast to his lavender skin, which, despite its reputation for being awfully sensitive to sunlight, was actually quite resistant due to his Altean genes.

“Come!” she rushed him towards the water, without hesitation. “Let’s swim!”

Their white tresses billowed behind them in the wind, as they splashed their way into the gentle waves, like children ready for a new day of aquatic adventures.

“Let’s see who swims longer underwater!” she giggled and disappeared under a wave.

“Challenge accepted!” he followed her after a deep breath, then he dove under.

A few paparazzi peeked their heads from behind some cliffs in the distance. “Where did they go?”

A couple of minutes passed and no sign of the two royals.

“Alteans can go a long time under water,” said a green-skinned Dalterian.

“Galrans even longer,” replied a Taujeerian. “I think I see something. Over there.”

Allura poked her head out of the waves, for a quick breath, then dove back inside. The freedom she felt was exhilarating. Where was he? Maybe ahead of her? Maybe behind? Curiosity pulled her out again, thinking he got tired just like her.

“Aah!” she released a sharp cry, as a powerful grip tugged at her hips, and she found herself submerging into the azure waves again. His large hands conquered her waist, and she playfully wrestled with him underwater.

“You monster!” she emerged after a minute, giggling, splashing and kicking into his wide chest.

“Sea monster, haha!” he tightened his grip, watching her with unbridled pleasure as she continued to pretend to want to escape his arms.

“You scared me!” she whined with the most enticing voice.

“I was trying hard not to,” he pouted slyly, “but I just can’t help being the monster I am.”

“My monster,” she wrapped her arms around his neck, and the connection in their gazes grew with each second.

She closed her eyes…

“Yess… Kiss, babies, kiss…” the Dalterian cheered as he snapped many, many shots. “That’s right, perfect, juust… perrfect. Blissful.”

@loturaweek2023

#lotura #loturaweek2023 #lotor #allura #voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #hehe they’re wearing the swimsuits they bought at the mall on day 1 #except you can't see their bathing suits oops #jesseblue draws

[matt0044]

So... “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is a bop, right?

It’s firmly supplanted “Let It Go” as Disney’s latest ear-worm until the next one comes along but it’s more than just a catchy ballard. It spells out how the Family Madrigal view him as a blight on their family name, especially when they’ve been a pillar of their community.

It also describes how rather than dealing with his problem and maybe helping him through it, they opted to just let him retreat into his room never to be seen again. Better to sweep it under the rug. However, this also proves to be a root in while the house is coming undone.

The message is clear: a family can’t stay as one so long as they can’t talk about their problems with each other. It’s why Mirabel doesn’t get a gift so she can be the outsider looking in.

Where is this going? Well... somebody just finished Voltron: Legendary Defender... and enjoyed it.

Here me out before you scroll away.

I had finished up to Season 7 along with Teen Titans three days before Season 8 dropped. I knew that fandom discourse would be a bear and opted to let the season simmer before I viewed it for myself a few Watch Lists down the road.

What I couldn’t have known was this overwhelming hate for Season 8. I was on Twitter where handles were being altered to include #FuckVoltron and the like. I glimpsed spoilers of what happened in the finale without getting into the dirty details.

Thus I decided to put it off until the heat died down. A whole half decade at that. With Fandom Drama down to near non-existent, I decided to return and engage with Voltron on its own terms from the start. No shipping drama, no expectations for how it should go, no accusations of problematic behavior and no Purple Lion conspiracies.

And... I liked it. I highly encourage those scared off by the drama or felt Season 8 did it dirty to give it a(nother) shot. It deserves a full on renaissance the way Twilight got.

Why? (spoilers ahead).

I was sold on Allura and Lance’s relationship. I loved how he went from being a flirt to genuinely admiring Allura as a leader and Paladin, encouraging her in the season 4 finale without trying to get anything out of it.

I liked the tonal shift around Season 7 where the ultimate Golion homage is made with the Space Explorers coming home to a war ravaged Earth.

I liked how human Lotor and Honerva were as villains coming after Zarkon. I can see why there’s a whole ass conspiracy framed around him actually being in Season 8. Also them taking that “Your mother was an Altean bitch” like and running with it for Hagger was brilliant.

Keith becoming the Black Paladin after Kuron’s reveal was well done and felt weirdly natural in retrospect. He feels like he can’t measure up to Shiro and learns more discipline from

Allura sacrificing herself to restore all realities felt a lot better with the knowledge of spoilers. It helps that the ending went with a more noble feel than angsty, showing how the Paladins strove make sure that her actions set an example for years to come.

I love that they got creative with the multiple alien species and kept the Alteans from being just humans in space like in the original. It really took inspiration from Vehicle Voltron with more aliens in the mix.

Shiro the Hero, as Crazy Coran put it. What can I say except that he’s the kind of character you call a Mary Sue if he wasn’t a guy. Always calm, always perservering, putting the mission first and being a pillar the team can lean on. He even creates his own Voltron out of the Atlas

Honestly, the whole Adam thing isn’t something I fully blame the writers given the producers pushing back. Mind you, I feel like Keith would’ve made a good endgame pairing with him if they had even out their ages when they first meet, both as teenage proteges.

Studio Mir was amazing, especially with the space battles. Honestly, if Robotech managed to make a comeback, I could totally see them being tapped to match the classic Anime style.

So... yeah. Voltron good actually.

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #legendary defender #dreamworks #netflix #super robot #anime #animation #cartoon #studio mir #mecha anime #keith kogane #lance mcclain #hunk #pidge gunderson #katie holt #takeshi shirogane #shiro #kuron voltron #princess allura #allura #coran coran the gorgeous man #voltron coran #emperor zarkon #lotor #haggar #honerva #galra #galra empire #blade of marmora

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Prince Lotor

Born to Emperor Zarkon, ruler of the Galra, and the Altean scientist Honerva (also known as the witch Haggar), Lotor revealed himself to be a prodigy early in his childhood, possessing intelligence and maturity far beyond his years. Unfortunately, these rare gifts went largely unappreciated by Lotor's parents, both of whom were driven mad by an overdosage of raw quintessence and now only valued power and domination over others. As far as they were concerned, the only future Lotor had was that of a warrior, brutally instilling in him the Galran creed of "Victory or Death". Despite this, Lotor abhorred the warlike ways of the Galra and desired to change them, truly believing that the same imperialistic ends that his people sought could be achieved through diplomacy and peaceful persuasion.

Lotor's efforts were met with tragedy. Even when he succeeded at taking control of a planet through his methods and establishing a quintessence harvesting operation through the consent of its population, Zarkon was angered by his son defying his upbringing and had him knocked out. When Lotor regained consciousness, the planet had been destroyed and all its quintessence taken at once, and Zarkon now proclaimed that Lotor was banished from the Galran Empire's territory. Something within Lotor snapped that day. While his ideals remained the same, never again would he seek to achieve the results he wanted through honest means, and never again would he be fully open and trusting with another person. And while he got by through his reputation as the Galran prince, he all but disowned that side of his heritage in his personal life, identifying as Altean instead and becoming more fixated on the secrets of the Alteans and of quintessence than ever before, vowing to use them to save the universe from his father's despotic reign someday, keeping himself alive through quintessence for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

While his powerful natural mental fortitude kept the full effects of quintessence-induced madness at bay, it still undeniably affected Lotor and impacted his moral judgement. He became obsessed with achieving his dream: a peaceful universe ruled over and defended by him, with all its grateful inhabitants showering him with the love he had been denied by his own parents. He even created a prototype for this sort of universe by finding every surviving Altean he could and creating a secret colony for them to live in under his protection, which naturally earned him their perpetual reverence. He was like a god to them; they trusted him whole-heartedly. Which made it all the crueler for Lotor to betray that trust, weeding out the strongest in natural quintessence and sending them to a "second colony"...in actuality a laboratory where their quintessence was slowly drained from their bodies and studied in all manners of experiments, as well as used by Lotor for sustenance as he desperately needed to keep living so that he could see his glorious vision for the universe's future through.

By the time Lotor was allowed to return to the Galran Empire, he had been firmly twisted into a cold, calculating and even cruel person who displayed great pleasure in toying with his opponents, manipulating them to his own ends, and even making them suffer. Not even his own loyal followers were safe from him - when he learned one was being used to spy on him against her will by Hagarr, he didn't hesitate for even a second before striking her dead in cold blood. He then proceeded to use his other followers' natural misgivings about this as well as the dead end his plan had hit to manipulate them into "betraying" him...exactly the convincing scenario he needed to convince his former enemies, the Voltron Alliance, to bring him on board as an ally. In this position, he was finally able to kill his father in a duel and become the ruler of the Galra. He then proceeded to skillfully manipulate the Paladins of Voltron into aiding him in a plan that, unbeknownst to them, would ultimately end with Voltron's destruction and supplantation by his own "defender of the universe", the Sincline Beast, made from an interdimensional comet that allowed it the ability to phase in and out of the quintessence field between realities. He also manipulated the Altean Princess Allura into providing him assistance through her falling in love with him...an easy feat considering that he was just as genuinely in love with her in something of an Oedipus Complex, as she greatly resembled the woman his mother used to be, the woman he still admired even though he never knew her and he despised her present witchy self.

When his true colors and intentions were exposed and his plan began to crumble around him, Lotor's priority was now squarely on keeping Allura at his side, as his passionate feelings toward her had become overwhelming; the fantasy of ruling a new Altean Empire side by side with her too enticing for him to easily give up. But when it became clear that he would have to give it up, with Allura even comparing him to his hated father for good measure, the mental wall Lotor had erected between his psyche and quintessence-induced madness collapsed. This was only made worse as Lotor used the Sincline Beast to start jumping in and out of the quintessence field with reckless abandon, now single-mindedly fixated on destroying Voltron and its Paladins, his beloved Allura included, so that nothing would stand between him reshaping the universe to his own desires.

Diagnosis: Lotor is a very interesting case study, and needs to be discussed both without the effects of quintessence considered and with it considered. When you completely ignore the quintessence factor, then Lotor displays clear symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder over the abuse he received from his parents and Galran society growing up, and the mental defense he turned to in response was the development of a narcissistic personality disorder. As noble as his intentions for the universe are, they are tainted through the prism of his narcissism: he must be the one to bring about the change, he must be the one to rule over the universe and enforce the peace through totalitarian means, he must be worshipped and loved by all. Even the romantic feelings he develops for Princess Allura are rooted in his self-image as the tragic, misunderstood heir to Altea and his fantasy of being his people's (read: Alteans) savior and ruler of a new Altean Empire. He is only able to empathize with Allura because of what she is rather than who she is and what she has personally been through, which is why he is unable to understand why she would take the truth of what he had done to his Altean colony subjects so badly and would view him with such revulsion for it.

With the quintessence factor at play, Lotor is a psychopath. Beyond lacking empathy and having a grandiose self-image, he is also petty and cruel, chronically dishonest, possessing superficial charm that he uses to manipulate others with, forms no legitimate connections, displays an utter lack of remorse or conscience about the immoral means he is pursuing his noble ends with which includes torture and murder, and is driven by a deep well of rage and entitlement that we get to see in full during his final battle with the Paladins of Voltron.

Lotor's tragedy is that neither diagnosis I presented would hold true had he been born and raised in a healthy environment. Indeed, Lotor would have become a devastatingly potent force for good if his parents had been loving toward him and he had never been exposed to quintessence. As his regretful mother Honerva / Hagarr proclaimed when all was through: "He deserved better. Better than I could give."

This patient is dangerous under regular circumstances. Extremely dangerous when under the full influence of quintessence. Avoid!

#Voltron #Voltron: Legendary Defender #Prince Lotor #Patient File #Diagnosis: PTSD #Diagnosis: Narcissism #Diagnosis: Psychopath #Classification: Dangerous #Classification: Extremely Dangerous

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

Kuron lance and allura for the headcanon thing(if that's not too many lol)

Kuron-

Headcanon A: realistic

After that time on the ice planet he started keeping extra water pouches and snacks with him at all times

He does not like the smell of burning meat

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

He enjoyed being a paladin in monsters and mana so much he was planning to cosplay his character when he got back home :)

Also pretty decent at cooking and uses it to make fun of Shiro

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

He had even picked up some cloth he could use for cosplay, it got blown up with the castle since no one thought to pick it up with him being yknow

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

CLASSIC LIT NERD!KURON FOR THE WIN!!!!

Lance-

Headcanon A: realistic

Knows a Guy™ for everything, like even the most random and specific ass situations he just Knows someone who can get them out.

Also big fan of point and click puzzle games, and is getting pretty good at it too

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

His grandma taught him how to shoot as well as other things like administrating first aid, carjacking, how to read and write in code, impersonation, 5 different language etc. When asked why she just said "for the future" and didnt elaborate

Lance and Hunk once pretended to be toxic-couple-fighting-in-public-and-making-a-scene as a distraction for Galra long enough for the others to complete the mission

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Because of the entire died-but-revived and altean marks thingy he will either end up dying slowly or has extended life and is going to outlive almost all of his friends and loved ones :)

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

I have said this before but i'll say it again cause this is my favourite hc. I do not care what canon or fanon says but Lance is bi with shittiest taste in men. It's alright my boy, i perceive you, i know you have kissed men and i know they all fucking sucked.

Lance went on spy missions while the entire time Lotor was staying in castle and Keith was gone

Allura-

Headcanon A: realistic

She really doesnt like healing pods, or going to sleep and first thing she does after waking up is check the date and time

Also she would have loved glitter bath bombs

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

She loves building pillow forts. Lance and Hunk showed her how to make one and that is now her go to stress relief

Also she knows how to play an altean equivalent of a hurdy gurdy but like can only play altean equivalent of Wonderwall

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

As a little kid she used to look upto Zarkon and Honerva. You know how little kids have these adult figures (not parents) they really wanted to impress? That was Zarkon and Honerva

As a kid she was much more interested in Diplomacy and altean martial arts than in alchemy despite being naturally gifted with it because she thought the lessons were too boring. She regretted than when she woke up 10000 years later

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

She was researching on altean alchemy even before Lotor showed up to feel a bit closer to her culture

Technically she can pilot any lion because of her bond with them i do not care what canon says

#thanks for the ask! #Also this made realize how weird it is that Allura didnt recognize Honerva #Like she personally knew Zarkon how come she didnt recognize Haggar?? #Throw this into the pile of another plot hole lmao #empty answers #ask meme

[seliipi]

"Welcome home, Allura"

******

Altea was back.

She knew it in her heart with every step, fingers trailing along each passing juniberry petal.  

This wasn't some carefully crafted hologram like the ones she’d grown accustomed to. Nothing like the late nights in the Castle where she sat with her father's AI and reminisced for hours over the silliest little things. Never quite touching, never quite willing to be the first to say good night. (Until Coran came to gently usher her back to bed.)  

The warm breeze, the scent of juniberries in the air, the blades of grass brushing against the hem of her dress.

This was all, actually, here. 

It was almost overwhelming. 

Even the Castle was just as she remembered, grand and inviting, white walls glistening in the morning light. Coran would probably cry tears of joy if he saw it, enough to bring on another case of the slipperies. The image makes her laugh and she sends a silent apology to the man. 

The moment Altea reappeared, just shy of a decaphoeb after the Lions sacrificed themselves to save the universe, she had taken the quickest ship available and piloted herself straight here. 

Maybe it was a little selfish, but she wanted to be the first to see it. To make sure it wasn't just some trick of the eye. Had she hesitated even a second, a number of barriers would have popped up to block her way. Too dangerous, someone should scout the area first, an escort should be arranged–she was Altea’s last princess after all.

But because she was, this was something she had to do herself. 

Even if it turned out to be the perfect lure to get her alone, she knew the Paladins would be right behind her.

They more than anyone would know just how important this was to her.

And in the end, all those worries were for nothing. 

She could see the same fountains where she’d made the precarious habit of walking along the edge, arms outstretched, Coran or her father leading her round and round with one hand until she was happy to continue on.

And all around her, as far as the eye could see, were her beloved juniberry fields in full bloom.     

"Oh...!" She brought a hand to her chest wistfully. 

It seems, after 10,000 years, she was home. 

…

Of course, though a planet may be returned in its entirety, all those lives lost over the years could never return.

As much as she wished for it, her father would never again be waiting for her just outside the castle gates in their usual spot. The way he always found time to welcome her home even if they couldn't talk for long… She'd rush into his arms for a big hug and ramble away about her day as they entered the Castle, her father's laughter filling the hallway. 

Gyrgan and Blaytz wouldn't be there to tease her as always on how much she's grown in the few vargas since they last met. No more well-aimed kicks to Blaytz's shin that he would just barely dodge before going to fake sob into Gyrgan's shoulder, crying about how the little princess was going through a rebellious phase.

…

What was Altea without her people? 

Perhaps other Alteans were out there somewhere, like the colony hidden by Lotor, and they would make their way back. Or, in due time, people from all over the universe would come to call this place home. 

Would they need a princess then? Or was her place among the stars, continuing to help those who had lost so much to the war?

(She's lost so much too.)

…

From behind she could hear the Paladins quietly approach, as if not wanting to intrude on her thoughts. It's sweet of them, and her heart warms at the company. 

She's not alone. She doesn't have to deal with this on her own.

Earth really had started to feel like home, especially with the others embracing her into their lives. She swam in the beautiful oceans of Varadero, saw the desert sunrise near Keith's home, sat beneath the scattering cherry blossoms of Shiro's hometown…but she knew her heart would always yearn for Altea. 

And now it was back. A parting gift from the Lions.

And right on cue, just behind the Paladins came Coran's familiar cry of surprise and joy that made her eyes sting just a little bit. 

Right. 

She didn't have to make any big decisions right now. 

Her family was here, and now she could be the one to show them what Altea was like beyond the castle walls they once knew.

When she turned around, happy tears in her eyes, the Paladins were already rushing forward to wrap her in a big hug.

She was home, and for now, that was enough. 

#voltron #vld #allura #princess allura #seli draws

[quintessenceofdust73]

My fanfic, “Defenders of the Multiverse” is a crossover story featuring the characters from three different versions of Voltron: Defender of the Universe, Voltron Force, and Legendary Defender. Observant fans will notice that I put VLD’s Keith and Allura in a scenario similar to what DotU’s Keith and Allura faced in the Fleet of Doom movie. This movie was also an inspiration for the whole novel-length fic that I wrote. The movie has two different Voltrons teams teaming up for an adventure, specifically the Lion Force and Vehicle Force teams. My story details a team up of the heroic Voltron pilots of three different universes, with the primary focus on developing the young Legendary Defender characters.

“Defenders of the Multiverse” began as a VLD Plance fanfic, an AU which is a revised version of the “Clear Day” VLD episode. I decided to continue that story with a second chapter called “The Greatest Gift” which led right into my Multiverse crossover fic. The two Plance fics became official preludes to the larger storyline.

In “Defenders of the Multiverse” I also emphasized that Kallura is canon in both the DotU and VF universes. I think VLD Kallura shippers will enjoy both the Fleet of Doom movie and my fanfic. 😉 Besides the Kallura scenes, I really enjoyed writing the Keith vs. Lotor sword fights and the space battles.

Spoiler alert: the “Space Angel” character in DotU was referenced in this story along with the Omega Comet DotU storyline, so look for that when you’re reading.

#trivia Tuesday #vld #plance #Kallura #DotU #Voltron Force #Voltron #Fleet of Doom #Space Angel

[rizavii]

my writing plans!

this list will be updated regularly. if something was here before, but isn't any more, i've most likely finished and published it! feel free to ask or check my ao3 :)

feel free to ask me about any of these ideas! i <3 talking about them :)

AI Allura AU (wip) Allura is killed in the attack on Altea, and saved in the same was Alfor was. Alfor is alive instead.

Max Ride AU (aka wingfic) (wip) A feel-good, plotless fic with none of the actual Max Ride drama <3

like they'll never fall down (wip) A post-Kerberos fic about Keith, written from finish to start

would i run off the world someday? (wip) Lance feels untethered in the wake of battle, and Hunk helps him back to the ground.

interstate 75 (wip) The paladins (plus Allura and Lotor) survived an intergalactic war, so surely they can survive a seven-hour road trip. Right?

guardian angel (wip) idk how to describe this ok it's just Projection Central

Krolia and the ice cream shop (wip) One part Krolia & Keith fic, one part Keith/Hunk fic. It starts, as many good things do, with a trip to a local sweets shop.

my, what big teeth you have! (wip) Lance's new roommate is not a vampire, because vampires aren't real. Lotor taking the evening classes, having pointy teeth, and talking like a Shakespeare character doesn't mean a thing!

missing out, missing you (wip) Adam's side, from Earth.

and the universe said i love you because you are love (wip) a minecraft au series!

Honerva, Zarkon, and Lotor in the afterlife

Allura/Hunk/Lance/Keith after the war

5 times someone thought Keith might be more than human, and one time they found out he was

T4T Allurance

Five times Hunk makes someone's comfort food, and one time someone makes his

Allura has been dead from the beginning

Shiro is bad at cooking but make it OCD flavored

Hunk meets the family (families? idk, Hunk/Keith/Lance)

Keith vs James

Kallura Galtean Princess/Knight AU (keith gets to kill someone with his teeth)

Lotor ft “notre dame” by paris paloma

Lotureith where lotor and allura absolutely shower Keith in gifts <3

Keith with an Older Sister

Shiro finds a child idk man I just like kid fics

Shiro is a vampire, Keith is autistic, they're both dumb as rocks

Lance and Coran think about home together

Adam and Keith after Kerberos (idea by the little worm I call a sibling <3)

5 times Hunk got food at a local gas station in the middle of the night, and 1 time he didnt (ty leo)

Allura breakdown <33

Lotor cuts his hair after the war

Betting on who’d get into a fight

Lotor eats one of Allura’s mice

Galran courtship is just mutual stalking

Keitor with a lil kid bc they deserve one

Lotura to the quote, "If I've got to suffer, it may as well be at your hands, your pretty hands."

Qpp kallura but they’re super affectionate and everyone thinks they’re dating

BOM Lotor but during the trials he sees Honerva

Idfk just something krolivan i wanna write them

Mansplain Manipulate Manwhore

Keitor but they have tails (fuck you LSP i hate all of you guys)

Keith post-kerb to the quote "I was fifteen when you left and I have been fifteen ever since."

#vld #voltron #vld prompts #vld fic #requests open #jet's talking again #zenith_txt

[empressgeekt]

What would their doppelgangers be like in your VLD multiverse fic? And how will they interact with the main characters?

like I mentioned in the post the three major arches would be going to the VF universe, the 80s universe, and the paladins of old. I'll be basing the doppelgangers on how the characters are portrayed in the other cartoons, for the first two arches, with a few extra-headcanons thrown in (like keiths always have some form of a troubled family/home life, and all hunks love food). Currently my plans include, Lance and hunk getting swapped out with their doubles from the VF world along with larmina and Daniel, and the full team voltron getting trappedin the 80s world.

The VF universe is canonically further ahead in the future compared to the rest of the continuities, so the paladins(or pilots as thee called in that reality) have a lot more experience with war. The VF team is kinda shocked that the VLD are so young, like they are baby pilots to them, buy impressed with how well they work together. On mire personal interactions, larmina is kinda of confused by this elf version of he aunt allura; keith tries to be a good role model for Daniel and everyone is confused about his galra heritage, especially when krolia shows up; the perky coran coran the gorgeous man is baffling when compared to his more serious counterparts; and I'm pretty sure the ex-generals would totally take in larmina as their pseudo-niece once they got to know her. On the other side of the portal, Lance is sort of shocked that VF allura and Keith are married; everyone is weirded out by pidge being a literal dude; and Vince is finally getting some answers regarding his gift. Once more serious coran.

80s arch, well be getting more one on one dobbleganger interaction. The alluras bond over mice. Hunks bond over food. Keiths relate over family issues. Both keith and Lance are confused as they kinda swapped personalities in their reality. Pidge is too focused on getting the group back to their home world to bond with her doppelganger, she is also fighting tooth and nail against tbe blantent sexism in thia reality. We're even getting some lotor on lotor interaction, and storming castle doom. And serious coran...

There aren't dobblegangers int the third arch, as it's a crossove with a reality that is really similar to VLD just behind in its timeline.

#fanfic #humor #80s voltron #voltron fanfic #voltron force #original voltron paladins #voltron legendary defender #vld #oc #dimenson travel #multiverse #fic planning #Doppelganger

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

AlluraWeek 2023 Day 2 - Royalty

Allura turned the delicate gold crown in her hands, in awe of the bright blue gemstones that glowed with the power of Oriande. “This is for me?”

Across the room, Emperor Lotor of the Galra leaned against a pillar, crossing his arms. His expression softened. “You are to be the queen of New Altea. Is it not appropriate to indicate such with a physical manifestation of your role?”

Her eyes bubbled with tears as she ran her fingers along the stones. “Oh, but this is…” Her throat tightened up.  

Only one person could have re-entered Oriande to gather the gems for the creation of such a work of art.

Lotor tilted his head, his expression carefully schooled. “Are you displeased with this gift?”

She glanced up, breaking with emotion. “Not at all,” she said. “Truly, it’s the most beautiful crown I’ve ever seen. I simply did not expect such a gift for my coronation, much less that you would forge anything yourself, in the middle of your own trials with ruling.”

He raised a hand to his chest, puffing up in pride. “I am an artist, above all.” He then flicked his long hair over his broad shoulder, walking toward her. “It is my privilege to use such skills in the service of your reign.”

Allura watched him, her face heating as he neared. “How can I repay you?”

Lotor quirked a brow with merriment, daring to reach out. He gently curled her fingers around the crown. “Come visit me upon New Daibazaal, once your affairs are in order. I would gladly entertain the Queen of our neighboring planet.”

“Affairs?” she repeated, voice catching on the word. A tease worked its way up. “Is this in reference to my royal duties or to the many suitors that now seek my hand?”

His fingers ticked against her own, and he playfully set his forehead against hers. “The former, I hope, for I should like to be your only affair, Queen Allura.”

And then he swept her up into a sweet kiss, and she giggled against him before offering him a stolen kiss in return, while they yet had a tick to themselves. 

#AlluraWeek 2023 #Allura #Voltron #Lotura #Lotor #ahhh so nice to see Allura weeks into 2023 #it's a busy time but I wanted to at least a lil something #Would have loved a version of VLD where Allura got a coronation #my writing

[xochitai]

Concept: Lotor is gifted flowers. He promptly eats them

#a light snack - how thoughtful #galra headcanons #vld #voltron: legendary defender #vld lotor

[artsyjesseblue]

Slowly Going Mad - Part II - Honerva

Welcome to the second part of my Zarkon-Honerva-Lotor meta, focused on their gradual mental transitions along the show's timeline. Each of them are triggered by profound and very unique sets of reasons. (Here’s the link to the first part: Zarkon. Update: Lotor’s analysis is also complete.) My intention is to shine a light on the complexity of the characters and the depth of the scripts.

Just as in Zarkon’s analysis, there are two things to point out from the get-go:

1) Shiro’s statement: “Zarkon fell prey to his own evil instincts. The quintessence field didn’t create them, it revealed them.” - it basically casts the responsibility on the character, not on external factors, and that is an important point in my analysis.

2) The distinction between the entity and quintessence. The entity is a creature capable of magical stuff, whereas quintessence is a substance (highest known potency in the universe).

Honerva

Her story follows a bit of a more convoluted path. Similar to Zarkon’s, when we first meet her, she’s the High Priestess of the court, the absolute villain with frightening magical powers, capable of creating incredibly destructive machines and robeasts. Her mental transitions make a full 360 degree turn during the show, with ups and downs: 1) A rational, sane scientist. 2) Unstable Honerva, drifting into her research obsessions. 3) Haggar, completely disconnected from self for 10k years. 4) Slowly recovering old memories. 5) Post Oriande Honerva, obsessed with getting her son back. 6) Honerva completely rejected by her son - full madness again. 7) Newly awakened Honerva, ready to help restore all realities.

1) The rational scientist The oldest images of her actually date back from the time when she studied science classes along with Alfor - something shown in the last episode of the series, when Allura stirs up Honerva’s memories.

Chronologically, the next stop is during her time as a rift scientist, when Zarkon first meets her (S3E7). A young, cheerful, beautiful woman, elated about the idea of working on a science project that would revolutionize the entire universe.

2) Unstable Honerva Her passion for pushing the boundaries of science becomes her workaholic obsession, and for a large portion of her backstory, we mostly see her in front of her computer terminal, next to the rift gate. As Lotor later states, “The kinds of experiments she was conducting… she advanced science by eons.” Unfortunately, her passion - turned obsession - also becomes her downfall, just like the need for power destroyed Zarkon. She doesn’t even show up to congratulate Alfor on the birth of Allura. He seemed to have been a very good friend back in their school years. And when Alfor comes to visit her instead, she doesn’t lift her nose from her work, to look him in the eye. She is “working hard, as always,” as he notes. When he thanks her for Allura’s gift, she replies placidly: “It was a customary gesture.” Her distancing from the cordial relations with her friends are inversely proportional with her mania for science.

In fact, she declares that “we must always push into dangerous territory in pursuit of knowledge,” defying Alfor’s plea to exercise caution. Even after the “creatures” from the rift invade Daibazaal, forcing the Paladins to use Voltron to defend the planet, she still fearlessly pushes forward with her experiments.

Fast-forward into the future, Honerva becomes pregnant. As I mentioned during Zarkon’s backstory, her facial features have changed, her hair is white and her Altean cheek marks are now distorted (hint: the entity). After their lovely conversation about having a baby, dressed up in that loose poncho, she jumps back to her console and says: “There is much work to do. First, we must continue to harvest the quintessence. It will be needed for your son’s empire.”

Always about work. Always about her quintessence projects. And now, they both seem to have a higher purpose (or justification?) for their underlying obsessions: their heir. Notice how, even though the baby’s needs and mother’s health should take priority, she launches herself into more work. A mother (especially in the first trimester) is fatigued and needs rest. No, she continues with her rift project, exposing herself - and the baby - to the dangers of radiation, draining herself of energy, standing up long hours, focusing intensely on her project. And, although as a mother, one would want to balance work and personal health for the sake of the baby, she obviously tips the balance in one direction. When Alfor comes to visit, even though he cordially greets her, “Hello, Honerva. It’s been deca-phoebs,” we can see where her preoccupation lies: more work. Again, with her back at the king, she cynically welcomes him: “I hope you haven’t come to try to shut down my work.” Alfor traveled there out of concern for his friends. Due to the rift, the structural integrity of Daibazaal was weakening. Yet Zarkon’s power need and Honerva’s greed for more knowledge worked hand in hand - a self-destructive duo. As Zarkon bragged, Honerva’s team developed a space cruiser, five times the size of their largest ship - and that was nothing - meaning their arsenal of ships and weaponry was probably colossal. Instead of being received with joy, instead of giving him the wonderful news about having a baby, Alfor gets the cold shoulder. Nothing is uttered about having a child - in fact no one on Altea knew Honerva had a child until Allura found out directly from Lotor’s mouth, in Season 5. Instead, she condescendingly explains that “There is more hidden knowledge and power in this tiny fissure than you can possibly understand.” — And there they are - the two keywords: hidden knowledge and power! The two “evil instincts”, the weak spots that tore down this beautiful couple and the love for their son. Just as Daibazaal’s integrity is crumbling, this once strong family is now falling apart.

The scene with Kova follows right after this. I mentioned this in Zarkon’s analysis, but I’ll go over this again: notice king Alfor is visibly aged, while Zarkon continues to look young. Kova the cat shows up. As Honerva explains, the cat fell ill when the creatures attacked (!!), but she treated him with quintessence and Kova is now 28 deca-phoebs (~years) old. We are led to believe Zonerva’s longevity is due to the continuous supply with quintessence, but there is more at play here: the entity. Honerva says: “He [Kova] revealed the truth to us. Quintessence is so much more than you can understand. It is life itself.” Logical conclusion: entity + quintessence = life everlasting. (E + Q = L).

This is confirming to us, the audience, that Kova fell ill due to the entity, and Honerva explains that the quintessence treatment not only revived that cat, but expanded its life (indefinitely, as we know, since Kova is a character very much alive after 10k years). This is something that scares Alfor deeply, and Honerva finally turns around to face him, accusing him of being a coward. Her face… her face has changed - yes, her cheek marks look distorted, and Alfor notices right away with shock (parallel that to how Kova’s appearance has changed). Also, see how her hair is unkempt, unruly, she already has the appearance of a witch.

Preoccupied only with her quintessence obsession, she disregards her own self-care (not to mention - the baby!), and the climax of this madness comes right after Alfor leaves. Consumed with her own anger against the king (perhaps the anger fueled some sort of toxic reaction against that entity as well), she collapses on the floor. And there is no cure for this trance she’d fallen into, except… quintessence. Because Q is a fuel for life, and without it, the equation “E + Q = L” cannot be completed.

Here we are, revisiting the scene with the bedridden Honerva - looking visibly aged - hallucinating and trembling in bed, uttering disparate sentences about the immediate need for Q. Honerva: “We mu— We must… We must have… We must have it. Get back. Get back. Get back…” Zarkon: “What is it, my love?” Honerva: “Uh, quinte— quintessence. Quintessence is life. Into the— Into the rift.” Zarkon: “How?” Honerva: “We mu— We must— We must have Voltron. Voltron. Voltron! Voltron… It is the only way.” It pretty much seems like Honerva is not in control of her mind anymore in this scene. Eyes rolling, incoherent speaking, gasping for air, quivering, spastic muscles. And then she talks about herself with “we”. “We must have it.” Also… “Get back.” “Into the rift.”

Get back into the rift? But… had she ever been there so she could actually say she needed to “get back”? No. At that point Voltron had never been into the rift either. Who had been into the rift and came from there? The Entity. The Entity was the only one who had been into the rift. Who actually hailed from the rift. Logical conclusion: that was the entity speaking. The entity was desperate to get back into the rift to obtain more quintessence, because it was their food, their life. “It is the only way.” Of course it is the only way, because it follows the immutable rule of E + Q = L. You cannot obtain L (life) if you don’t add Q to E. The entity cannot survive without quintessence. The tragic fate of Honerva is, just as Zarkon’s, the complete loss of self to the entity.

3) Haggar - first madness When they wake up, after their “funeral”, they both have glowing purple eyes with motes of quintessence effusing from their orbits. She is shivering, and, unlike Zarkon, cannot remember who she is. Doctor Haggar tries to help her. Instead, she (or more likely the entity inside her) sucks out the life (quintessence) from the doctor, and, apparently, along with it, the doctor’s own consciousness, because Honerva calls herself “Haggar” after this. (Plus we know Honerva was trapping people’s minds in her own mind after killing them, because Allura discovered it during her trippy-trip inside Honerva’s consciousness.) And this is how the High Priestess Haggar is born. Ten thousand years of witchcraft follow, during which she expertly makes use of her powers and tech talents to syphon out quintessence from entire planets. But before she begins this long journey, she gives birth to Lotor. As doctors explain, it was “difficult, but successful.” Something that she also completely forgets. She rejects the little boy, maternal instinct abolished, her own self-awareness buried deep under the potent energies of the entity.

4) And then… very slowly (10k years slow)… her memories seem to come back. Bit by bit. The very first one comes during an interaction with teenage Lotor (S8E2). He wants to pet that curious-looking cat that is always around her. Out of some sort of (protective? motherly?) instinct, she tells him: “Do not touch him. He will hurt you.” Asked about the cat’s name, Haggar replies: “He has no name.” Isn’t it symbolic for how she basically lost her name, too? But then, suddenly, a flash of memory comes back. “Kova. His name is Kova.”

Her Altean instincts still subsist somewhere there. When Allura awakens on Arus in S1E1, she senses a resurgence of Altean energy. Many episodes later, when Lotor arrives at Galra central to relinquish power back to his father, she senses “a powerful energy on him,” “something ancient.” A major memory boost comes when she taps into Zarkon’s mind, to revive him (S3E7 “The Legend Begins”). She apologizes before she starts the process, which, yes, involves probing into his memories without his accord. Images of the past zoom through her vision: a Galra attack on Altea; the final fight with the Paladins; planet Daibazaal after and before destruction; then diving deeper back in time - images with the group of five Paladin friends peacefully gathered under their lions; a splendid wedding picture of her and Zarkon; the mighty comet at the crash site; and finally, a picture of her young self - a beautiful, radiant, exuberant Honerva.

She snaps out of her visions and notes, with a flat tone: “Husband. How could I have forgotten?” As probably many have noticed before, there is little emotional attachment in her demeanor. There is only one little glimmer in her reaction, right before Zarkon awakes. She says (and her voice doubles into both Honerva's and Haggar's): "You brought me back to life long ago. Now, come back for me." This is a powerful moment, which shows the beginning of her duality - Haggar and Honerva. But after this, we don’t see her being more affectionate towards her long-lost husband. Neither do we see any scenes in which she would acknowledge to him that she remembered her past. There is no grand reunion of the lost couple. Haggar continues being the placid witch, alongside her villain emperor, now fully armored in a quintessence-infused mega-suit. Some took this as a flaw in the show’s writing. I take it as a very coherent flow of her character’s arc. My wishful mind screams to see Honerva run back to her husband, rocking the walls of their dark magic cage, telling him: “Husband, I remember! We used to love each other, we were once good people!” But, realistically, that is not what an entity-possessed, quintessence-poisoned Haggar would suddenly do, would she? The fact that she is still very much under the dark spells prevents her natural instincts from manifesting. So the only thing she does is notice, coldly, as if someone else watches her life from afar. But not for long, as we’ll see.

In S4E3 “Black Site”, the episode starts with Haggar examining herself in a mirror, a reflection of Honerva instead. As she brushes her long, clawed purple fingers along the brown cheeks and chin, she notices the white cornea of her eyes and the presence of small irises. A very wistful music accompanies the scene (the very same soundtrack used in S8E2, where most of her tragic flashbacks will happen). Her expression is of utter shock, but also astonishment. The mirror motif appears frequently in madness arcs, as a means to show the disassociation between the two personas conflicting inside the character. Her sane persona begins to wake up and claim back her territory, and it is the very first time when we see her in a vulnerable state of mind. It’s the beginning of her reversion into Honerva. This state of mind is immediately suppressed once a Druid enters the room. Her harsh, sour expression and purple facial color immediately replace her Altean features, and the music shifts back to the ominous Zarkon theme.

As you’ll notice, Zarkon’s arc, compared to Honerva’s, is one of descent into the darkness (with a redemption late in S8), whereas Honerva’s is upwards - she gradually ascends towards recovering her memories and feelings. Immediately after, in the scene with the interrogation of Throk, Haggar says something that has multiple implications: “No one can completely wipe a memory away. There are always remnants deep within to claw out.” She clearly speaks from her own experience… as we just witnessed. Her memory is still there, remnants of it buried deep, waiting to be clawed out… Yet, with all their efforts, Throk’s specific memory of a particular event seems to be completely erased - courtesy of Narti’s work - but that belongs to a different meta. Not all of Honerva’s memories are back. She definitely doesn’t recognize Lotor is her son, and happily rats him out to Zarkon once she discovers he’s got his hands on a trans-reality comet. Her allegiance to the emperor is unshaken.

But here comes the next big blow to her fortress of multi-millennial oblivion. As she wallows in a pool of purple quintessence inside her space cruiser, she begins having visions again (S5E2 “Blood Duel”). It seems the dive into her memory reservoir is not without pain, as she releases a sharp scream before more echoes of the past start to surface… This time, they’re about Lotor. There is a crescendo of emotional intensity in these scenes, enhanced by the same nostalgic (almost elegiac) music that envelops her other flashbacks. Watching the tragic life of her lost son rewind in front of her eyes must have been truly heartbreaking. Her pained expression, the angst behind her glowing eyes, the eyebrows raised in incredulity and awe, but also imploring, begging to get back something she never had, her gasps in the darkness, in antithesis with the cute sounds of a cooing baby and then a giggling child, along with soul-stirring violins evolving into a more and more solemn hymn that will later accompany the most inspiring VLD moments with Lotor… these, all of these culminate with her regretful whisper, almost a question at the end, as she herself cannot believe this had actually been a living part of her life and she completely missed it: “My son… Lotor.”

I’m sure a lot of mothers watching this probably shed one or more (or a lot) of tears. How can you not? Honerva’s portrait grows more and more complex, while, sadly, her husband’s shrinks into the distorted image of a heartless monster. When she finds out Zarkon is on an exchange mission to retrieve Lotor, she immediately activates Operation Kuron Stage 4 - which, as we now know, used Shiro’s clone to spy on the Paladins (and her son). After Zarkon’s death, we were never shown any state funerals or Haggar mourning after him. Again, people would say this is a hole in the script. I would say this matters not for Honerva’s evolution. She clearly did not show emotional attachment to him before, so why would she now? The dark entity still has considerable hold of her consciousness, even though she does show empathy towards her son. But how much, actually? Well, it seems that operation Kuron is fully functional, since she is already able to watch Lotor planning to go to Kral Zera to get the throne. Again, she whispers wistfully “My son…” while her purple claw tries to possessively reach out and get him. There is a powerful symbolism here: the hand that extends out into the void - both to try to grasp him for herself (her selfish need towards her lost family) - and as a desperate gesture of reaching out from inside a dark place, reaching out into the light, to the only one who… can save her (which ties well with how the show was initially intended to end).

You’d think that a mother whose instincts have just awoken would want to see her son ascend to the throne… Instead, we see her summon Sendak, because “The Empire will only accept a ruler with Galra blood. It needs a natural-born leader, with an iron will to match his iron fist.” At Kral Zera, she actually insults Lotor in front of everyone and continues to twist the knife in that same spot where the prince has been teased about all his life: being biracial. Haggar: “Lotor, you cannot lead the Galra.” Lotor: “You think you can stop me, witch?” Haggar: “The blood that so bolsters your claim is also what quells it. You are not full-Galra. You are a half-breed. Your mother was Honerva.” It’s so mind-boggling that she is able to talk about herself as if it’s someone else. But if you get to think of it, she is still very much overpowered by the entity, which seems to speak instead of her. The snippets of her reawakening of consciousness were actually just that… Snippets. Which makes this scene even more tragic, knowing that she cannot fully connect with her son. This duality - two persons living inside a character - one belonging to the good/real side, the other one to an evil realm - this duality is characteristic of story arcs that revolve around the subject of madness. This paradoxical pairing of evil and good inside one person evolves via a gradual buildup. Usually, if it declines towards madness, there will be a buildup of negative energies and events. In Honerva’s case, it makes a sinusoidal arc - descending and ascending several times.

5) Post-Oriande Honerva Right after Allura and Lotor go through the Oriande trials, Haggar, who continued to spy through Shiro’s clone, sets a course to the same location. It seems that Shiro is telepathically linked to Haggar’s magic, because he starts having visions of her while she goes to Oriande and takes down the Sages. Notice that her cheek marks, although distorted, still glow at the entrance to Oriande - meaning she does have the marks of the chosen.

The fact that she is telepathically linked to clone-Shiro, I believe, proves that Haggar was using the entity in her clones as well, because that kind of telepathic link, as shown in S8, could only happen via the entity (Keith severs the link when he removes clone-Shiro’s robotic arm - which seemed to concentrate most of the purple energy). Oriande is a turning point in the High Priestess’s story. It is the moment of transition from witch Haggar to Honerva. Alas, not completely. The metamorphosis happens gradually, but now she is definitely more Honerva than Haggar. She’ll start thinking more and more as an Altean and as a mother. Of course, the entity is not gone (it also explains why she destroyed the Sages of Oriande). Which will maintain a significant layer of darkness over her judgement. And her witch-Haggar appearance will still coexist for a while with her newly recovered Altean countenance. Here comes S6E4 “The Colony”: Haggar/Honerva reaches into clone Shiro’s mind, rendering his consciousness inactive and fully turning on the entity-controlled subject. Notice how she retains her Haggar complexion:

In the next episode, S6E5, we discover that Haggar now has the ability to create wormholes. Allura wonders how… but we know. Because Haggar finally connected with her Altean capabilities. Which means, she is double-dangerous now. As a sorceress, and as an Altean. She can fully command her entity-possessed subjects, and she does so with Shiro’s clone, instructing him to lure Keith away. One very interesting scene in her arc is her encounter with Lotor and the way she addresses him while revealing she is his mother: Honerva (slowly taking off her priestess hood and turning around, fully showing her Altean visage; her voice trembles and sounds quite emotional): “Prince Lotor. My son.” Lotor has no reply, just a visibly vexed expression. Honerva: “The anger you feel toward me is to be expected. But understand that the events that transformed me into the witch Haggar also shrouded any glimmer of maternal instinct I may have had for my one and only child. However, you’ve continued the work I started all that time ago and have indeed seen it through to heights I could have only imagined. Your never-ending pursuit of knowledge is truly —” Lotor: “Enough. My mother ceased to exist when Honerva drew her last breath. Do not believe for a moment that I would ever accept you as a kin. You are an abomination. A twisted perversion of what was once so pure and beautiful. The end is near, witch. I know you can sense it. If you beg for your life now, maybe I will take pity on you when the time comes.” Honerva (frowning, visibly offended and pained by the rejection): “Take him away.” Acxa, after a short eye look exchange with Lotor, decides to actually aim at Honerva instead. The witch vanishes in a cloud of smoke.

Let’s unpack this heavy conversation, loaded with angst, with spite, with something that was supposed to be motherly affection. Honerva starts quite emotionally… From her voice, you can sense her tense expectation. She’s been waiting for this moment for a while, and ever since she traveled to Oriande, her Altean senses revived, she really is looking forward to reuniting with her lost son. But… there is a twist to her motherly wish…

This is her apology for ten thousand years of missing in action: “The anger you feel towards me is to be expected.” Um… No “I’m sorry”, no “please, forgive me”. Her voice is actually… quite emphatic and firm. No sense of remorse for her actions, no apologies for her mistakes. Neither does she take the responsibility, nor does she accept her guilt. Actually, she casts the blame on external factors: “the events” that caused her to become witch Haggar are supposed to be the cause. How about… apologizing for being obsessed about her scientific discoveries, to the point where she neglected everything else, including her unborn child’s needs? Also, notice her expression in the above screenshot: despite the pain in her eye squint, she looks rather arrogant. Well, that’s actually the big problem, and she still doesn’t see it. In fact, she applauds Lotor’s accomplishments, because he… “continued the work” that she started, in a “never ending pursuit of knowledge.” Again, these are her vulnerable spots - work and pursuit of knowledge. These blinding obsessions for something that she thinks is absolutely revolutionary and beneficial to the world, these are her downfall. She cannot see anything else, even after ten thousand years. In her own twisted world, these are the ultimate tools for good. Why did she pursue knowledge? Well, first off, out of pure passion - turned into obsession. She wanted to advance science. Secondly, to fulfill Zarkon’s need for power. In contrast, Lotor sought to unveil King Alfor’s knowledge in order to “better the Universe”, to bring peace and prosperity, to defend against the dark forces of his parents. There is a bit of a difference in their scopes, I’d say. This is what she doesn’t understand. And she will continue to misconstrue Lotor’s work and delude all the Alteans into her vengeful plans. Lotor is, unfortunately, right. She (still) is “a twisted perversion” of her original self. Which proves once more that Honerva’s dual personality pervades her newly displayed self. For the entirety of S7, we don’t see Honerva at all (except the caricature from the garfle-warfle episode “The Feud”).

In S8E2 “Shadows”, we get an avalanche of flashbacks - some recent, some very old, revolving around Honerva (not going to touch the subject of why these flashbacks should belong to S7 and not S8, as it’s been already discussed in other metas and reconstructions (especially the work of Team Purple Lion) in great detail. My focus is on her evolution overall, which is chronological, not based on episode order). The episode starts right where S6E5 left off… when Acxa shoots at Honerva, after Lotor’s tense conversation with her. Here, we finally find out where Honerva went after vanishing in a cloud of smoke. She’s back at the command of her cruiser. Her pained expression (after being rejected by her son) becomes stark. She pulls her hood back on and Haggar’s purple complexion and glowing eyes return, as she contacts commander Mar and orders him to track Lotor down. For a considerable amount of time, as the scenes suggest it, she’s searching for her son, who has disappeared. She finds out that commander Mar is also nowhere to be found, and we can see that her desperation grows. She’s hunting high and low for him, roaming the universe in her ship. Until she finds the wreckage of his cruiser, at Daibazaal (the location sort of doesn’t make sense, because the last place his cruiser has been seen abandoned, in S4E3, is nowhere near Daibazaal, but that belongs to a different discussion that pertains to the inter-dimensional meddling into S7-8). In his cruiser wreckage… there’s Kova. Which, once aboard Honerva’s ship, triggers more of her old memories (we already discussed them earlier - her past memories about her pregnancy and about Lotor). One of her loyal Druids tries to persuade her to take command of the empire, because “it has been phoebs [~months] since Emperor Lotor has disappeared. The empire is in a state of chaos.” Her response is rather surprising, but then again, Honerva has never been one to actually seek power. That was Zarkon’s obsession. She replies bluntly: “Tell them to look elsewhere. The Druids are but ash in the winds of infinity. Let them be led by someone of equal esteem. […] Depart my presence.”

Her focus is not ruling an empire at this moment. Her focus is finding her son. A motherly instinct, full of emotional resonance. Imagine that after ten thousand years, she is finally able to see her son through the eyes of the mother she was supposed to be. She is able to talk to him, express - in her own, still twisted way - her regret for not being beside him all this time. She finally meets him face to face, finally reveals herself to him… Only to have the rug pulled from underneath her… Not once, but twice. First, her own son rejects her. How painful that must have been!… And then… he completely disappears, along with her archenemy, Voltron, on whom she casts all blame, hatred and bitterness. How desperate must she be now, to find him, to get him back! Even after he rejected her, she still wants to reunite with him. Underneath all the dark magic and potent influence of the entity, she still finds the power to go past his wrath against her, because that’s what a mother does… But she has yet to see her own fault in this. She blames everyone else around but herself. There is this constant push and pull between the two personas inside her. She is aiming for the light, for finding her lost self, but her own weaknesses, which have been there since the beginning, prevent her from fully becoming what she once was. After retrieving commander Mar, who reveals what happened to Lotor and Voltron, she remarks in awe: “He pierced the veil.” When Mar says that “Lotor and Voltron perished”, her expression suddenly shifts to a terrified look, beads of sweat glinting on her cheek. “No! I must find him.” She summons the Kral Zera, but not to elect a new emperor. She wants to spew out all her rage and revenge on the Galra. By destroying them. Notice she changed her garments. She no longer wears Haggar’s cape. Now, she proudly dons an Altean outfit. Symbolic of her new persona.

This is her justification, standing in front of the Kral Zera flame: “This flame represents Lotor, son of Zarkon, prince turned emperor, emperor that pierced the veil. And my Altean blood coursed through his veins. But the Galra empire failed him. It was the Galra blood, deeply boiled in traditions of evil, that tainted him. Your ways weakened a god.” A Galra general pulls out his blade: “That treacherous witch!” Honerva: “The empire is weak. And now, I will end it.” Holding out her dark purple globe of magic energies, she melts away all the Galra generals in a monumental deathly spell.

*Quick pause in her analysis to point out something that the Paladins figured out in S8E10 “Knights of Light Part 2” while traveling inside her mind. While unveiling some of her old memories, they get to watch the very last moments from the lives of the original Paladins. It turns out that Zarkon was not the executioner. It was Honerva, who performed exactly the same magic as later at Kral Zera, spewing the purple energies out onto her enemies. And Pidge concludes: “That’s how the original Paladins ended up trapped in here. She took their quintessence, trapped their minds inside her consciousness.” And this explains exactly how she operates the dark entity, or, should I say, how the dark entity operates through her. The entity is constantly seeking for a source of energy, which is quintessence, or “life itself”. By draining the “life” out of others around her, Honerva was constantly feeding her entity. Bonus: she was trapping their consciousness inside her mind - which explains why the first one she trapped - doctor Haggar - became the name she adopted. Devoid of her own memories, she took the persona of the first being she absorbed. Also, notice her use of the entity in mind-controlling her subjects: clone Shiro, the Alteans on the colony, her attempts at controlling Allura after she takes the entity, as well as… robeast!Lotor.

Honerva is extremely mad at everyone that “tainted” her son. She blames the Galra blood, deeply boiled in traditions of evil, for weakening him. She not only throws the guilt at the empire, but she basically blames her husband for it. She proudly states that her Altean blood coursed through his veins, but the Galra blood threw a wrench in his destiny. This is a 180 degree shift from witch Haggar. Now, the Alteans are the saints, while the Galrans are the devils. Also, wow, she calls her son a “god”. Unfortunately, again, she fails to see her own mistakes in any of this. The next scenes in this episode are an interesting choice to juxtapose next to her vengeful actions. We’re seeing into her memories with child Lotor and the way Zarkon treats him, while she - as witch Haggar - watches impassively: Little Lotor: “Please, father, I must know where I come from.” Zarkon: “I said enough!” Then turning to Dayak: “If you do not remove his impurities, then I will find a Dayak that can.” Dayak: “He will be punished accordingly. We will sear him down to his inner fire so that he may burn the universe. Vrepit Sa!” The inscrutable visage of Haggar slowly transitions to present-time Honerva and we see the sorrow in her gaze. Sorrow for not being there to protect her little child, empathy for his innocent suffering and grief for what he had to go through. There are several of these transitions from Haggar to Honerva throughout the show. They hint at her physical metamorphosis but also, more importantly, they suggest her mental journey, her slow awakening to that initial persona, buried deep beneath, the resurgence of her emotions.

Although many of us may regard Dayak dearly due to other, more comedic interactions in the show, the fact that she needs to “sear Lotor down” tells a lot about the kind of trauma this little kid had to go through. It’s what makes present-day Honerva so angry at the Galra: these “traditions of evil” that tainted her little boy… She is now driven by revenge, against anyone that, according to her newly formed world views, is standing in the way of her grand plans. Yet she still doesn’t know her son’s whereabouts, still searching for him across the galaxies. As her cruiser hovers around Daibazaal once more, she decides on what looks like another one of her sacrificial rites… this time on Kova the cat. It seems like this is a last resort in her frantic attempt to find her son.

This pet had been around for ten thousand years and we can see Honerva’s attachment to him from the way she holds him to her chest, before setting him down on the altar of sacrifice. She is willing to lose him to get her son back. And apparently, Kova possesses more knowledge about the prince than expected. We know the cat also has the entity within. As I’ll discuss when looking at Lotor’s arc, I’m convinced he had it as well. The link that the entity formed with him was strong, because the cat was in his possession since childhood. Motes of purple quintessence rise from the floor all around, while Kova meows in distress.

The suspenseful music converges in a dramatic flow of celestial sounds and Honerva starts her dive into the depths of Lotor’s past. A tragic crescendo of flashbacks starts pouring, and Honerva finally knows where to find him: in the rift.

She wakes up again next to her altar, Kova completely gone, a few motes of purple quintessence still floating through the air. Perhaps as an homage to the defunct cat, the next scene brings more memories of little Lotor, back when he started his friendship with Kova. And right after this, we see Honerva traveling to the hidden Altean colony planet. Just a quick reminder - these scenes from S8E2 actually take place in S7, but they have been inserted in S8 as flashbacks. In S7E5, when the newly rescued Kolivan tells the Paladins that he sent a team to the Quantum Abyss and he didn’t find any Alteans - “just an empty facility”, that happens after Honerva had already been there and scooped them out for her own plans.

This is an important point of inflection in Honerva’s arc, because finding out that her son has died creates a powerful motivator in her actions and this motivator is called grief. Her world has been shattered by this devastating news. A mother that has just been awoken from 10k years of self-unawareness tries to reconnect with her one and only son, only to lose him to such a tragic death. A character put in this kind of situation would want to fix the world, in order to bring things back as they were (she will want to resurrect him, as we’ll see), and/or get back at the enemies who did this (she will want revenge on Voltron). And Honerva decides on both.

Her speech in front of the Alteans tells us only a part of what her new beliefs and plans are. Honerva: “Lotor is gone.” Merla: “How did he die?” Honerva: “Voltron. To all of you who believed in my son so justly, your faith will be rewarded. I have come here today to continue my son’s mission. And for that, I need you all.” Luca: “We are your humble servants, as will be the members of our sister colony once we inform them of the news. Do you know of their whereabouts?” Honerva: “Unfortunately, they have also fallen to the evils of Voltron. Voltron and the Galra will pay for what they have done. With your help, I will resurrect my son’s dream.” Merla: “We pledge our allegiance to you, Honerva, mother of Lotor.”

So she wants to “continue” her son’s mission. After linking with him through Kova, she got a comprehensive view into Lotor’s life, so she (allegedly) knows what his intentions are. Based on what she will say in the next episodes, and also based on what Lotor uttered in S6 while fighting Voltron, it all seems to boil down to creating a “new Altea”, one that can rule the universe and reverse the evils of the Galra (one in which Honerva wants revenge on anyone she considers her enemy). Which… unfortunately sounds a lot like the alternate reality where the Paladins traveled in S3E4 “Hole in the Sky” (Yes, the one with Sven and the other Slav, where the Alteans are turning everyone that stands against them into “non-cogs”. The one where Allura concluded: “That is exactly why my father sent the Lions away so many years ago. To avoid this reality.”) But was this really Lotor’s initial plan with Altea? I’ll discuss more when I’ll get to his meta. An interesting detail is the mention of the “sister colony”, where Honerva casts the blame on Voltron for their death. Which we know is not true. This so-called canon pours all guilt on evil!Lotor. But was it really his doing? The garfle-warfled S8 that we got (thanks to Bob!akaWEP) left a lot of loose ends. In any case, she wants to use the Alteans to “resurrect” her son’s dream. In fact, she actually doesn’t only look for a revival of his dream, she intends to literally resurrect him. And she does tell the Alteans that she intends so, because Merla confirms it in a conversation with her at Oriande: Honerva, overlooking the magical landscape of Oriande: “This ancient land was created through powerful magic. Alteans would travel here to learn the secrets of our race. We have a long and difficult road ahead of us, but our path is true.” Merla: “We will do anything to bring Lotor back.” Honerva: “I know.” This little snippet of conversation with Honerva, as well as the previous one, shows the level of devotion these Alteans have, towards Lotor, towards his mother. They are willing to go above and beyond for him, and this is an incredibly powerful description of their community. But, as Allura noted when discussing about the acolyte Luca, “If she were so desperate for something to believe in, it may have made her susceptible to being manipulated.”

The next scenes depict the mega-lab that Honerva created inside Oriande, where she melts the statues of the Sages in order to build her Komar mechas. Here we find out something that S7 teased us about, in the last episode: the Komar machines that Honerva built have an Altean inside them, an Altean that is used as “its power source” (direct quote from commander Holt). A battery source? (clears throat - certain VAs spoke about Lotor using Alteans as “batteries”. Well… Honerva is “continuing [her] son’s mission”. But how much is she continuing, and how much is she actually altering for her own agenda?) She asks Merla: “Find me the most faithful amongst us.” So the mech pilots are the most zealous believers, which… yes, it makes them susceptible to being manipulated. After the tragic flashback scenes with Lotor and Ven’tar’s planet (where, again, we see Haggar exerting her abominable sorcery upon her own son), we switch back to Honerva (disguised as Haggar) receiving news from Sendak: the Lions have returned. She commands him to destroy them. Immediately after, she activates the first Komar mecha, piloted by the most faithful acolyte, Luca. Her words towards the Alteans clearly speak of her vengeful intentions: Luca: “Voltron will pay for what they have done.” Honerva: “May the light guide you. Rise and avenge my son.” Chronologically, after these scenes, the order of events belongs to S7 E7-13: Earth versus Sendak, then Luca’s Komar mech attack, defeat and capture. After a few episodes in S8 in which we find out that Honerva has been pumping more of these Komar mechs across the universe, while also destroying the Olkari planet in order to get their cubes, we have another view of Honerva at the Oriande pyramid, addressing her Altean people before she begins her mega-magical ceremony:

“For eons, our people have suffered, cast out from our home, driven mad by the cursed Galra. We have sacrificed much. You have sacrificed much. But Lotor gave more than any of us. And today, his ultimate wish will be fulfilled. The Galra will pay for what they have done to the Alteans. The end for anyone who dares oppose us is near. It is time to begin. May Lotor’s light guide you.” Hmmm… “driven mad”…? Then she adds: “But Lotor gave more than any of us.” “Lotor’s light”… I keep hearing Honerva talking about it. Does it have anything to do with… the “enlightenment”? (aka the “wisdom about the quintessence and the entity”, as mentioned by Honerva in her youth). Also, here it is, again, her vengeful stance: “The end for anyone who dares oppose us is near.” A very absolutist declaration. Politically, although anti-Galra, it actually mirrors their doctrine. So, if the universe were to be ruled by this new Altean order, what difference would it make from the previous oppressors? Now, do you see the purpose of the alternate reality episode? Also, Honerva makes use of her Komar mechs to syphon out quintessence from entire planets (while Matt and the Coalition struggle to save all the planet inhabitants), in order to gain galactic proportion energies for her Oriande magic. These are not even Galra, they’re innocent people, caught in the midst of this war, but according to Honerva’s twisted logic (which the Altean acolytes follow blindly), she can sacrifice anything and anyone in order to bring her son back.

A comment on Honerva’s statement regarding Lotor: “Today, his ultimate wish will be fulfilled. The Galra will pay for what they have done to the Alteans.” So, her opinion is that Lotor’s ultimate wish was to make the Galra pay for the genocide against the Alteans. Which, since she connected with him via Kova, means that she inferred it from his final words uttered at the rift battle with Voltron: “I’m ready to wipe the Universe clean of all my enemies: Voltron, Haggar and the rest of the Galra.” What she fails to recognize is that Lotor uttered those pronouncements in an unfortunate state of mental breakdown (“driven mad”). Nothing prior to that indicated that he ever intended to end the Galra. On the contrary, he told Allura that he wants to return the Galra Empire to a “bygone era of peace. […] This isn’t a zero-sum game. Meeting the needs of the Galra Empire means bringing peace to the universe.” Also, he stated that he does not want to make use of the “barbarism of the Komar.” Well, Honerva clearly still does. So much for Honerva walking in the footsteps of her son… And I shall return to this controversial subject when analyzing Lotor’s story, which is the most nuanced of all, precisely because of the suffering he’d been through, precisely because “he gave more than any of [them]”.

During the battle at Oriande, we have a one-on-one encounter between Allura and Honerva. I’ll discuss more about Sincline’s reaction to seeing Allura during Lotor’s arc, but just note that the mech prepares its aim then lowers the weapon at her sight. Lance attacks him to protect Allura, only to be pushed away by a Komar robot. The Altean quickly becomes a casualty of Sincline’s seemingly indiscriminate violence. As Lotor’s mech swings its blade at the Red Lion, Honerva commands: “Still.” Sincline complies, as if remote-controlled. Concomitantly, Allura plunges at Honerva with her bayard, only to be pulled into a dark space where the two of them will have a captivating chat, suspended in time. Honerva: “Altea’s wayward daughter.” Allura: “Don’t you dare mention Altea to me.” Honerva: “This is just the beginning. Join me and our people. Together, we will go back to Altea.” Allura: “We cannot go back. It is destroyed because of you.” Honerva: “Think of your father. I knew Alfor well. This is what he would have wanted. Join me and the Alteans.” Allura: “Never! You cannot keep me here forever. And the moment you release your hold, I will end you. Honerva, holding a sphere of purple magic, depicting Sincline in frozen-motion: “Then you will end your friends as well. I am the only thing keeping my son at bay. Join the right side of this war.”

As we’ve been shown across the many episodes, Honerva frequently makes use of that purple sphere. If you haven’t guessed yet what it is, let me remind you: [the power of] the entity (the entity itself is spherical and purple, as Allura will discover in the episode “Clear Day” S8E8). Honerva actually makes double-use of the entity in the same scene: she’s “keeping her son at bay”, and she’s also holding Allura trapped in that dark place, where they have the little conversation.

A few things worthy of analyzing in Honerva’s current state of mind:

She actually wants Allura to join her quest. The one that has been her enemy for so long, the princess she hated with all her might, yet Honerva wants her as an ally… Why? Well, first off, most likely because she is Altean, and now the newly awakened Altean Honerva wants to recruit every kin possible. Secondly, most likely because she values Allura’s immense powers. Together with her, they’d be invincible. I don’t believe Honerva has any emotional attachment to her; it’s purely a tactical decision.

Honerva wants to resurrect Lotor, not just bring an entity-possessed son back from the rift. She knows Allura has the real Oriande knowledge. (Speculation, but…) maybe gaining Allura as an ally will help her fully resurrect her son…?

She blackmails Allura so she can force her to join her side of war. Which, again, proves my point, that Honerva has no feelings towards the “wayward daughter of Altea” (actually note the snarky tone), and she uses any means to achieve her scope.

She believes she knows what Alfor would have wanted. Allura already explained to us that Alfor wanted to avoid this kind of reality, so we know Honerva is on the wrong side.

She is keeping her son at bay. Well, well. Logical conclusion: her son IS in there. She uses her entity powers to remote-control him just like she does with all the Alteans piloting the Komar mechs when she telepathically links with them. This, right here, blatantly contradicts S8's official stance, that Lotor was dead.

Some of you might say: yes, but the Komar pilots also have free will, they are still conscious of their actions, they are able to speak freely and express their thoughts and concerns (as we see Merla do, noticing “something’s wrong with Lotor”). You might say the mad!Lotor inside Sincline is something completely different: a being devoid of consciousness, indiscriminately violent, fully on remote-control (psst: except when pointing the gun at Allura). Taking a deep breath... Well. What did I just talk about all along this meta, and during the full length of Zarkon’s meta? What is the title of these essays? “Slowly going mad.” The entity’s takeover happens as a GRADUAL progression towards complete disconnect from self. Zarkon and Honerva prove it to us during their arcs: the entity does not take full control of someone’s consciousness right off the bat. It takes time, years actually. We know the Komar pilots were possessed by the entity because we have the example of Tavo. Honerva exerts bursts of remote-controlling over them, when they do become, temporarily, completely someone else. In time, they would have turned out exactly like Zarkon and Honerva. That is my analytical take on how the writers built the entity’s behavior, based on examples that clearly demonstrate that. Which, again, logical deduction, means that Lotor right now is at the far end of the spectrum - fully gone mad, fully possessed by the entity. And I’ll come back to that during his analysis.

No mother would want to have her child perpetually in this state. And I’ll further suggest that she wanted and intended to wake him up, with examples. Examples which, unfortunately, due to the garfle-warfled S8, made little sense in the context in which they were placed. I’ll put the next few paragraphs under an indented format, because they’re more ‘speculative’ in nature, due to the aforementioned scramble-warfle.

S8E11 “Uncharted Regions” is probably the most scrambled of all, as many others noted before me. It seems to be an episode patched up with scenes from different other (chopped out) episodes. In any case Honerva suddenly wakes up after Allura traveled inside her mind.

She then goes to the bridge of her pyramid-ship and orders her Altean pilots: “Exit at coordinates beta-four-ex-seven. The Paladins are aware of our plans.” Merla asks: “Is that a problem?” Honerva: “No, it’s an advantage.” We’ve heard Lotor utter a similar phrase when cunningly using Voltron to retrieve the trans-reality comet. What advantage is Honerva seeking to gain? Was it just to use the powers of Atlas’s crystal and the Balmeras? I suspect it actually had to do with using Allura’s powers to wake up her son. Which we never got in this S8 edition. But we witnessed other little details: During their trip inside her mind (S8E9) the Paladins see a glimpse of how Honerva interacts with her son (all throughout S8, we are led to believe he is deceased - because we see what appears to be a cORpSe, but there are motes of purple quintessence rising from his body - similar to how Honerva and Zarkon wake up after being ‘resurrected’ by the entity. Also, logical questions: 1) why would she talk to a dead body and 2) why would she even carry around a corpse inside a mech robot while fighting the Paladins? I don’t believe a kids’ show would employ such an insane, horriffic, mind-twisting scenario, and, again I posit that this is a butchered version of the #realS8).

Pay attention to what she tells him, face to face (while he supposedly is dead): “Lotor. We’ll all be together soon.” Again, in S8E11, Honerva facing Sincline: “We will be back on Altea soon, my son.”

The intent is to show us that Honerva wants to get him “back”, to be “together” with him, in the environment in which she grew up, her perfect version of an Altean reality. She desperately yearns for a normal family, just like they unveiled during the trip in her mind. Her deepest desire is to have what she never experienced: family love, connection to her son, to a caring husband. Which means she wants to bring Lotor again to a normal, sane being, one with which she can communicate and share her emotions and thoughts. But she cannot do that anymore, can she? Because the only place where she could have done that, the place that helped her recover her own memories and (partially) her sensibility, Oriande, is gone. She destroyed the guardian Lion, she took away the quintessence from the Sages, she melted their statues. All the magic of Oriande is gone. But there is ONE more person left in the Universe that retains the wisdom of Oriande. One person who can probably resurrect Lotor. And that is Allura. (she’d done it with Shiro, hadn’t she?). Which, once more, proves my point that Lotor is actually there, alive (albeit fully possessed by the entity), his consciousness buried deep, deep under (and only Allura can trigger a small flicker of it), tragically resembling his father Zarkon, fully collapsed into madness (for completely different reasons, but we’ll get to that in his own meta). And (speculating - yes, I know) Honerva bets on Allura’s “life giving” powers (“Alteans are life-givers”) to bring him back for her.

Here are some extra snippets of how Honerva interacts with Merla and the other altean acolytes. Note how the order of events makes no sense chronologically: Beginning of E11, Honerva tells her Alteans to set a course to beta-four-ex-seven. Once there, she pulls up her own mech and starts sorting through all realities, using her purple-winged rosette. Nothing major happens there, just some of her robeasts eliminate a few Coalition scouts. Next, she orders Merla, while inside her mech:

Honerva: “Preparations are complete. Set a course for Altea. It’s time” (wait, set another course? She just made a pit stop to sift through a few realities and then off they go again?) Just a bit later, when Allura wakes up, Honerva is suddenly not in her mech anymore (why?):

Honerva: “The princess has awakened.” The next scene we see her in, she’s back in her mech again (huh?), the Sincline is next to her robot, and she’s about to fuse them together.

Then, she uses her telepathic powers via the entity to summon her Altean acolytes on Atlas (Allura is caught in the midst of it, debilitating headache preventing her from operating the teludav): Honerva: “Arise, my children. The time has come to act. Repent for your traitorous ways. Lend me your quintessence and all will be forgiven. […] Deliver me the power I need to return to our homeland. Give your energy along with the ship’s crystal. All of it.” Merla: “My people. Honerva, transferring that much energy will destroy them!” Honerva: “Their lives will be sacrificed for their savior.”

Merla interrupts the process, turning against Honerva. Later, she tries to directly attack Honerva, but - as implied from the animation of Merla's (clearly) exploding mech - Honerva kills her:

Paradoxically, we see Merla again in the next episode, asking the paladins not to harm her fellow acolytes - the subtitles confirm it’s Merla - and she pilots her Komar mech… um, again. Did she just, like, survive the explosion then just go grab another robot? (which, no surprise here, is another proof of the S8 garfle-warfle).

Anyway, apologies for the detour, let’s return to analyzing Honerva: She is willing to sacrifice anyone, including Alteans, to reach her goals. As we see from her facial expressions, although not Haggar anymore, she is basically back to her state of madness. But why is she so mad? She looked more calm and confident at the beginning of the episode. After all, didn’t she just bring her son back from the rift? Is it just her frustration against the annoying Voltron? Or is it more at stake here?

Speculating once more - I infer that she reverted to a high level of mental instability after Allura presumably saved Lotor, because the newly awakened son most likely rejected her… again. Deeply hurt by his refusal to accept her as his mother after she worked so hard to bring him back from the rift, she furiously decides to check out other realities and find her version of Lotor that would fit her selfish needs. So she sets her eyes on a reality where Lotor is an orphan child, because he’d be naive enough to believe she’s the good mother. This would infuse more tension buildup into her arc, creating an even more credible trajectory towards full-blown madness. Also, let's give this a logical spin: let's do a reductio ad absurdum. Why would Honerva rescue Lotor from the rift then completely abandon him (knowing that he IS in there, possessed by the entity) to go search for a child-Lotor in another reality?? It makes no sense.

6) Complete rejection But, surprise… Little boy Lotor is just as intelligent as his adult version: “She’s not my mother.” Honerva tries to plea with him, but eventually, the suppressed anger and madness that she tries so hard to mask does come out. She demands with a harsh tone: “Come to me.” And Lotor denies her again, with the same stark voice. “No. My mother is dead. And you cannot replace her.” This, this is the last straw that breaks the dam. She collapses into an unleashed mental breakdown: “[…] I’ve spent lifetimes trying to get back. Countless worlds have fallen in the wake of my effort to return to you. And this is how you welcome me? My own child, my own husband question who I am? I have sacrificed more than you will ever know! […] If there is no place in this universe for me, then there will be no universe at all.”

Honerva dramatically reverts to her state of insanity, this time amplified to multiverse proportions. The buildup of emotional distress she goes through ultimately collapses into this apocalyptical unleash. Her son’s rejection across realities is… world-shattering for her already fragile state of mind. If no one loves her, then everyone should perish. This extremist vision, completely disconnected from reality, devoid of empathy, filled with unrestrained violence and rage, is typical of what we simply define in lay terms in stories as madness - the kind of madness that is violent, completely devoid of any rational behavior (clinical definitions encompass a wide range of mental and psychotic disorders and I shall leave the exact diagnosis to experts). This climactic point of madness in her arc happens in an episode called “The Zenith” - or a “high point”, the time when someone is most powerful. She reached the “zenith” of her madness… She breaks the dam of mental disarray, letting herself completely go on the other side. Disconnected from from herself and from all realities, she intends to obliterate all of them - and her own life - in the process. It parallels what happened to Lotor in S6.

7) Redemption The last episode brings the Paladins face-to-face with Honerva, in the Connected Consciousness, after she scorches all realities in her wake. The Paladins give Honerva a moralizing discourse, trying to convince her that everyone deserves to live. She bluntly dismisses them: “You think your words mean anything to me? I’ve lived multiple lifetimes, and all of them filled with pain and loss. If I cannot experience the simple joys of life, why should anyone else?” Translation: If nobody gives me what I want, then screw you all. But then Allura approaches her and does a mind meld (remember the tempestuous mind meld with Zarkon? Well, this one’s more peaceful, actually suspiciously peaceful). She reminds her of her past life: “There was a time when you loved more than just your family, a time when your fascination with how vast the universe is gave way to your desire to help and uplift others.” Honerva’s distorted cheek marks suddenly reshape into their original Altean form. A short recap of Lotor’s life ensues, and Honerva bitterly concludes: “He deserved better. Better than I could give.” She weeps sincerely when Allura asks her to change everything back. “I’m sorry… but the damage is done. There’s nothing left to save.”

Although the scene is emotional and uplifting, I believe it lacks the buildup and intensity needed for a redemption of this magnitude. And that is because…

There has been much discussion around the edits made in these last scenes, including my own analysis - here and here. A recent tweet (2023) suggesting Shiro was drawn over Lotor in this last scene - liked and shared by Shiro’s VA - also sparked more interest in this subject. My opinion is that Lotor was drawn over with multiple characters, depending on the scene. They used Shiro, they also used Allura, and who knows who else. S8 was profoundly altered, the original message erased… Starting from that premise, here’s what I think really happened in this scene, which would have elevated the last part of the show to a truly remarkable ending: instead of Allura, it was Lotor who revived Honerva’s consciousness, as a follow up on what Lotor told her in their interaction in S6: “[…] maybe I will take pity on you when the time comes”. It would mean the ultimate family reunion and both son and mother would heal their multi-millennial wounds. Because, like I said, this mind meld looked suspiciously peaceful coming right after Allura and Honerva had fought a trans-reality life-and-death battle. Honerva allowing Allura’s hands over her head feels a bit unrealistic, but if Lotor were the one approaching her, the mother would be more receptive. This is speculative, of course. But keep in mind more and more evidence has started to emerge, supporting this version. And I’ll discuss more about this during Lotor’s analysis.

No matter, this ending that we got still partially preserves the original intent for Honerva, which was forgiveness, redemption through her own participation in the salvation of all realities.

Honerva finally reverts to her original self and the beautiful story arc closes.

A more complex arc than Zarkon’s, for sure (this took 3 times as many pages). Complex, interesting, diving into subjects such as ambitions versus obsessions, mental illness, motherhood, love, various emotional stages and subtle transitions, suppressed feelings, tension and accumulation of negative emotions, culminating with mental breakdown. And let’s not forget the artistry of Studio Mir in rendering the vast array of facial expressions, and the VA’s exceptional job with Honerva’s nuanced script.

Many of these nuanced emotional transitions will be found again in Lotor’s analysis, although effected by completely different reasons.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long, long analysis. Thoughts and opinions are always welcome!

#honerva #honerva meta #vld meta #voltron meta #lotor #voltron legendary defender #madness in vld #jesseblue writes #a bit of lotor meta in here as well #whew you survived this long post congrats! #even if only a handful of people will read this my message remains the same: #the writers and EPs were done so wrong #the story they created is clearly still there buried under the garfle-warfle #the best proof will come with Lotor's meta

[hunky-dory]

Title: paint over the scars

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairing: Lotor/Lance & Keith/Lance

Rating: E

Chapter One: 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46209235/chapters/116334148

Summary: 

When wealthy merchant's son, Lance, is kidnapped by pirate captain Lotor Sincline and his first mate Keith, his world is turned upside down. Held for ransom on their ship, Lance finds himself inexplicably torn between his hope for freedom and his attraction to both men.

Caught in a dangerous game of love and piracy, Lance must choose where his loyalties lie: with the charming yet dangerous captain or the enigmatic first mate.

Amidst sword fights, sea battles, and a journey of self-discovery, Lance risks everything to find his place on the high seas, hoping to not lose himself in the web of lies and deceit.

{gift for @hannaadi88}

#klance #vld #voltron legendary defender #lancelot #fic #vld lance #vld keith #vld lotor #pirate au #my writing

[minamorsart]

I HAVE JOURNEYED FAR AND WIDE , TO GIVE YOU A GIFT OF THANKS FOR YOUR ART AND YOUR CURRENT FANFICTION

I have a chemical and artistic equation that will award(I hope you like it) you the thanks I want to give you

IT IS WITH GREAT PLEASURE AND GRATITUDE THAT I GIVE YOU THIS

DreamWorks SPIRIT AND RAIN + LOTOR AND ALLURA

=

I HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME WEEK FURTHER AND I AWAIT CHAPTER 13 IS IT ??

Love you 💜💓

😱😱😱😱 AHHHHH OH MY GOODNESS ARE YOU KIDDING ME????!!!! THIS IS SO FREAKING GORGEOUS AND BEAUTIFUL AND ALDJFBAKSKFNASS 😭😭😭😭😭

Bless you for making such a stunning masterpiece, I am honored!!!! I am so blown away, I was not expecting this at all!!!! I am absolutely beside myself with joy right now my heartttt 🤧🤧💖💖💖💖💖

Thank you for brightening my day with this award and gorgeous artwork!! I love Spirit and I love your reimagining of Lotor and Allura!! The colors and the softness of it all 🥺🥺 makes me want to rewatch Spirit! That movie was such a big part of my childhood!!!

I look forward to sharing chapter 13 with you this Friday!! Thank you a million times for sending me this to me, I will treasure it forever 🤧🤧😭😭😭🫂🫂🫂🫂💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

#seriously thank you so much you beautiful human being 🥺 #this has really made my day #lotura #the empyreal within #asks

[arinaco]

Romelle: her story in the past and in the present. Part II

Translated and edited by  @ Nadezhda932    

Link to the part I.

IV. Heroine of the New Age

Before proceeding to the analysis of the biography and personality of Romelle today, I’ll clarify one point. Subsequent assumptions have emerged based on data from the VLD. They already existed when I started researching the plot of GoLion and DOTU, and before writing this article, I had never watched the old series.

That is, the plot of the old series served for me as additional(!) proof of the correctness of my theory, but wasn’t the reason why I came to such conclusions.

Where do we start? With Lotor, of course - Romelle is tightly attached to him in the plot, and when the writers decided to turn his personality inside out, she followed him.

If you compare VLD with the old series, you can see that Lotor hasn’t only changed as a character - he has become a completely different person. Neither Sincline nor his dimwitted counterpart had ever looked like scheming or tempting snakes. Yes, Sincline clearly could and knew how to make cunning plans, but nothing more. He didn’t possess the gift of oratory, and didn’t feel any need to have it. Sincline supported his father until he blamed him for the defeat of the Galra Empire, beat his own subordinates, and killed and raped the victims without a shred of remorse.

In GoLion in particular, Sincline never set up colonies to deceive the civilian population. Why invent something if you can openly let slaves in experiments? Sincline had no reason to do something secretly from his father, and even more so to take care of his moral character, and therefore he calmly used the resources of the empire.

That is, “Lotor creating colonies” is, to some extent, an invention of VLD. And if you’ve read my previous articles, then you know that in my opinion, the second colony was the home of Luca and Merla, not the first. And that the first colony, where the millions of Alteans declared by Lotor live, never appeared on screen.

If you think about it, Romelle's story looks like complete absurdity. Even in the initial episodes of the first season, it was explained to us that virtual reality technology only imitates form without content - people can see objects, touch them, but nothing more. Coran pulled Allura out of her half-sleep when he pointed out the lack of smell in the flower. And if it had occurred to Allura to chew this flower, then, most likely, she wouldn’t have felt any taste.

This technology was intended to create scenery and couldn’t fully replace the real planet in conditions where people literally lived next to the forest and (most importantly) were engaged in farming. Just think about it: according to Romelle, for ten thousand years the Alteans have been planting illusory potatoes in illusory soil not noticing any trick. They didn’t notice that the flowers don’t smell, the berries have no taste, and the forest rests against the wall.

Only a very emotional and impulsive person could believe in the stupidity of the poor, unfortunate Alteans, who for a hundred centuries haven’t been able to distinguish real nature from the local analogue of Stardew Valley.

For example, such as the red paladin. Keith... or Allura.

What about Krolia? Krolia had no idea how this technology worked, she had never come across it...

So neither the Romelle’s base nor the pod space base were real colonies. We can only guess about their true purpose. The space base looks like a stand-alone laboratory/medical unit, but the Romelle’s dwelling is more like a staging post - hastily built according to the standard Galran template and abandoned long ago by the Alteans as unnecessary.

But where’s the truth buried here, Holmes?

The idea that the planet of Luca and Merla isn’t the first colony occurred to me when I began to correlate Lotor's words about millions with what we’re shown. Honerva apparently landed at the point where she could attract the most attention, but she came out to meet almost no one. Moreover, water meadows with low houses stretched around, obviously not designed for a large population. This place couldn’t be the capital of a multi-million advanced race. For ten thousand years, the Alteans had to not only multiply, but also build normal modern buildings for their own comfort.

But if we assume that this place is a secret second colony, then it’s easy to conclude that all the important buildings were simply hidden for security purposes, leaving a few insignificant and inconspicuous houses on the surface. So insignificant and imperceptible that when the BoM arrived at the coordinates of Keith, they didn’t notice any signs of life on the neighboring green planet.

Lotor has always been a paranoid and overcautious person, and he must have put a lot of effort into keeping his hidden colony a secret. So he would never leave the pod base undisguised and protected if he wanted to hide it from the Alteans.

What’s also interesting is the presence in the colony of a huge number of well-trained specialists.

Alteans of Honerva:

managed to create white mechas;

Which means, at the very least, smelters to work with heavy-duty materials and skilled workers who know how to organize the production process. While the Earthlings spent several years perfecting four fighters, the isolated farmers showed unexpectedly deep knowledge in the field of metallurgy.

What wonderful building elevators are there in the background. Is there a second floor? Or is this smelter located underground?

What's more, the white mechas had a striking resemblance to Sincline mecha, suggesting they were designed by the same people. More specifically, Alteans.

And it turns out that in addition to professional metallurgical engineers, they also had design engineers who were versed in modern technologies.

professionally used these mechas in battles;

The white mechas weren’t animated creatures like the Lions and didn’t help their pilots with training, but the Alteans fought well, competing with the Voltron team. The preparation of such personnel requires many years of practice under the supervision of good trainers - but Honerva couldn’t provide anything of that. She flew in alone and had no idea how to pilot combat vehicles. That’s why her personal mecha was equipped with teludav, and as we remember from Allura's ordeals, the control of combat and conventional spaceships was significantly different.

From which it follows that Romelle's statement that the Alteans can’t pilot spaceships smacks of brazen lies. The colony maintained and trained its own small army.

What conclusions can we draw from this?

Lotor built a second colony because he knew that Zarkon's appetites were insatiable, and sooner or later the Galra empire would reach the Quantum Abyss. There lived not just abstract Alteans, but qualified pilots, scientists and engineers. Lotor conducted research in the field of quintessence, designed war machines, and generally increased the combat potential of the Altean people.

“Just remember, we suffer this isolation so the next generation may not have to”.

In particular, Lotor tried to build his own Voltron, as he understood that this was the only weapon capable of fully resisting the Ghalra armadas, and in particular the monsters of his mother.

And here, to complete the picture, I turn to the plot of GoLion.

To the sister planets: Altea and Hercules.

Altea is an unfortunate planet. When Golion was defeated, Altea didn’t have enough combat power left to protect itself from enemy attack, and the population had to hide undeground for many years until the Lions again found pilots for themselves. Apparently, the inhabitants of Altea relied too much on the power of Golion, and therefore didn’t develop their army.

What about Hercules?

Hercules was a former colony of Altea and was considered a militarized and very dangerous state. Even Daibazaal (aka Zarkon) recognized the power of the Heraclians and therefore didn’t try to attack them in the same way as Altea.

Only the beasts of Honerva were considered by the Heraclians to be serious opponents.

Also distinctive features of the Heraclians:

martial arts as an inseparable part of culture;

selfless service to their people and royalty;

fearlessness in the face of death;

And… it actually looks a lot like the Altean VLD civilization.

Yes, Allura said that the Alteans are a peaceful people, but in fact we see that they, just like the Galra, used edged weapons in the space age, and the standard education of the princess included martial arts. Why was the princess staying in the palace was taught to handle edged weapons? Because it was part of their culture.

In addition, the VLD Alteans had a cult of selflessness, and testing for loyalty to this cult was a major part of the trials on Oriande. Willingness to give up personal benefits for the sake of a higher goal. And this is also similar to the behavior of the Heraclians.

As a result, if outwardly the Alteans of the VLD really looked like the inhabitants of peaceful Arus/Altea, then inside they looked like people from Hercules, ready to attack armed Galra with sticks so that their princess could escape.

And this is a very interesting approach of the scriptwriters, if we remember that the Alteans and Heraclians are one and the same people, they just went in different ways of development.

Alteans in VLD are like a tiger raised at home. It’s sweet and kind ... while well-fed and no one offends it.

In addition, when Voltron fell into a trap, the Heraclians themselves made the decision to take over the defense of Altea. Hercules came to the defense of its sister planet, and really saved it when developed a weapon in time that could change the flight path of a dangerous planetoid.

And this already looks like a prototype of the relationship between the second and the first colony. The second colony existed to protect the first.

By the way, do you remember why the Heraclians decided to cooperate with the Galra? To build their counterpart to Golion, which they were going to use not only against Altea, but also against the Galra themselves.

Moreover, if we compare Samson and Sincline...

Don't feel it yet? What if we compare them like this?

 You know, Sincline was the first mecha which main weapon was dual blades. Voltron learned it only at the very end of the series in order to defend himself against Luca's attacks.

And for some reason, I think that it wasn’t just that Sincline was painted in the colors of Samson - in a gray color of a bluish tint. And even red inserts, with due imagination, can be considered a reference to the hair of the elder prince of Hercules.

Why did I describe all this? In order to clarify the conditions in which Romelle was born and lived.

Romelle didn't quite lie - she was born and raised in a colony with her brother. Only not in the first colony, but in the second. For her, the second colony was the only homeland, as the planet Hercules was the only homeland for Princess Amue.

Where everyone worked for a common cause under the leadership of Lotor, to create weapons together to protect the Altean civilization. The colony was founded not just by settlers, but by people who came to live there for a specific purpose, and their children were growing up in this reality and with varying degrees of enthusiasm joined the common work.

I’d like to ask one interesting question: how will a person whose enthusiasm is equal to zero feel in such a society?

Who was born in a second - specialized - colony, where everyone works on one project, and no one asks new members of the society if they want to do the same. Where the cult of sacrifice was considered the norm...

...and where Romelle didn’t fit. Let's remember everything that Romelle said about her people.

First of all, she presented them as people who don’t see the true nature of things and don’t notice that they live in a cage from which it’s impossible to get out.

“My brother Bandor was always faithful, but I had questions”.

The colony really looked like a cage in the eyes of Romelle, but not for all Alteans, for her personally. Of course, no one kept her there by force, but she couldn’t just leave, and her brother wouldn’t agree to fly away.

And where to fly away when there’s an almost uninhabited Quantum Abyss around? It was impossible to enter the first colony - its inhabitants believed that traveling to the second colony was a one-way road, and no one would let her into the explored universe, and even more so, they wouldn’t give a spaceship capable of flying there for personal use.

So, if for Princess Amue, Sincline was a literal jailer, then for VLD Romelle Lotor became a mental jailer. She blamed Lotor for creating a society where she felt like she was in prison and didn't understand why others felt differently.

“...but I also knew that no one would believe me without proof”.

But why (!) she began to break out of the general system is a topic for speculation.

As we already know, it was extremely difficult to build a second Voltron. Lotor was unable to do this, even using the material of a unique comet. Something didn't work, something was missing. And this something, most likely, was the knowledge of alchemy, lost along with the old Altea.

Moreover, the main problem was not the lack of a soul capable of turning a machine into something more - white mechas weren’t animated mechanisms, like Voltron or Sincline. But on the other hand, the white mechas were finalized by Honerva, the greatest alchemist of her time.

The mechas ran on the quintessence of their pilots. Voltron had an extremely high efficiency, and the process of return was exclusively voluntary - as much as the pilot was ready to give to their Lion. Shiro gave everything during the battle with Zarkon, and therefore not even a corpse was left of him - for the sake of victory, Lion dried him.

But what if some mecha isn’t (!) intelligent and simply draws energy from its pilot in the amount it needs? What if the efficiency of this mecha is much lower than we would like, because knowledge about alchemy is critically lacking?

Then attempts begin to understand how to increase the efficiency of the mechanism. And then comes testing on the most enduring volunteers to find out how long the pilot can last in this mech. And not always the pilot had time to return to the hangar and get out of the mecha before it turned them into a mummy.

Finding volunteers among the Alteans was the easiest thing to do, but that doesn't mean their families didn't mourn their loss. The names of the dead were engraved on the monument to forever remember their sacrifice.

As we remember, pink was considered a symbol of military sacrifice. Honoring the dead, not the living.

Romelle said that by the time her brother agreed to the “great honor”, her parents had already “gone”. In her story - to the base with capsules, but in reality, most likely, they died during the testing of the prototype.

The entire Romelle’s family were professional pilots who took part in the tests. And, having lost both parents, she thought about how justified this sacrifice was, and Bandor's desire to repeat this feat completely plunged her into despair.

Most likely, she didn’t believe that the Galra really posed a threat - the colonies had quietly existed for ten thousand years, and no one had attacked them. The Alteans had no idea what was happening in the explored universe, and Lotor was in no hurry to back up his words with some evidence.

And Romelle began to get angry. To be angry from hopelessness, because she couldn’t influence the decision of her younger brother in any way. She hated Lotor for the idea of ​​building a new Voltron and the dedication with which her relatives reacted to this project.

After all, she almost directly called Luca a fanatic. The best pilot of the colony an example to follow for everyone else. Who calmly activated the bomb on her mecha when she realized she couldn't defeat Voltron.

True, Romelle tried to be polite when she was alone with Luca. She didn’t yet know that Honerva had told the Alteans about everything, and, apparently, before this event, her relationship with Luca was at a relatively sane level.

Seeing no other way out, Romelle strove to at least outwardly fit into the society around her. She copied the behavior of others, adjusted, hypocritically. She didn’t want to become an outcast, and therefore she had to lie to others about her attitude to what was happening.

And she learned to lie masterfully.

She was sincere only with her brother, and - like her prototype from the old series - spoke out against the preparations for war and convinced Bandor that Lotor didn’t deserve such blind admiration.

But Bandor… what about Bandor? Even though he was the younger brother of Romelle and the namesake of the little boy from DOTU, but… what colors were his clothes dyed? In the colors of Samson. The same Samson who decided to sacrifice himself for the victory of his homeland in the war with Altea and the Galra. And for some reason, I think that VLD Bandor wasn’t a defenseless naive child, because they didn’t take random Alteans to the test.

And when the moment X came, and Bandor was injured during the next test, he, like other pilots in such cases, was taken to the space base. What exactly was done with them is unknown, but most likely they were kept on artificial life support until they returned to a stable state.

And Romelle decided that this was her chance to forcibly take her brother to a safe place. Perhaps to that same abandoned base, or perhaps she planned to get to the first colony and start a new life there.

But she failed to bring Bandor alive. He died on the way, because it was absolutely impossible to take him out of the pod. And that's why when Lotor was chasing them, he was doing it in the company of medical robots. Not because he was afraid of a lonely woman with an unconscious guy in her arms, but because he took a team with him for urgent resuscitation of a dying person.

If Lotor really wanted to catch Romelle, he would have done it. She had nowhere to run, but he had zero desire to catch her. He didn’t perceive Romelle as a threat, and made a fatal mistake when she found grateful listeners in the face of paladins. And given the whole story with the advent of Keith, here again the old series is remembered.

Episode 21, where Amue tried to escape from Sincline's prison in the company of friends in misfortune.

Amue’s emergency landing on a desert planet – Romelle’s emergency landing on an abandoned base;

Amue sent a signal for help – Romelle sent a signal to the explored universe to bring the curious to her;

The paladins were met by the witch, who pretended to be a princess – Keith met Romelle, who pretended to be a defenseless Altean;

The witch forcibly took the unconscious Alor away - Romelle took the unconscious Bandor away from the space base;

Too much coincidence, don't you think?

It’s also very interesting that Amue was exchanged for Farla, who pretended to be Akira. Just like in VLD, the paladins decided to trade Lotor for Holt, who turned out to be a hologram.

And it was also for the sake of Lotor that the Alteans were ready to die, just like the Heraclians were ready to die for their princess.

And it was Lotor who came to the aid of the paralyzed Voltron by attacking Haggar, although he could simply fly away, saving his own skin. Just like how Amue turned the ship around and went to ram the Galra to save Voltron in the old series.

And the scriptwriters followed the same pattern when they wrote the death of Bandor. It wasn't his transformation into a robeast that killed Samson, but Sincline's order to shoot him. It wasn't the trials that killed Bandor, but Romelle's attempt to take him away from the base.

But since by that time she considered Lotor the reason of all her troubles, she convinced herself that it’s he who killed Bandor, ignoring her role in this tragedy.

She didn’t want to return to the colony - there she would have to answer uncomfortable questions and pretend that nothing had changed. Therefore, Romelle decided to try to get out of the Quantum Abyss into the explored universe - to the place where the "jailer" was losing his power.

Moreover, Lotor had been so conveniently absent for many months and couldn’t prevent this in any way.

Most likely, Romelle didn’t even hope to find those who would be able to kill Lotor. The chance that a real Voltron paladin would fly to her signal was well below one percent. I think she just wanted to lure someone with a capsule of quintessence, and then bargain for her way into the explored universe.

Nor had she planned for the Alteans to ever learn of their saint's murder. Romelle thought that they would continue to live in the colony in blissful ignorance, and considered these ends cut off. That’s why she was so surprised when Luca accused her of betrayal.

She was already in amazement and horror when, in the wreckage of a white mecha, they found a painfully familiar Altean woman. Alive and relatively unharmed, which provided a chance to talk to her, which Allura and the earthlings decided to use.

Allura was very worried about the fate of the Alteans, and Romelle - that the truth might come to the surface.

By that time, the universe had suffered greatly due to the loss of Lotor, and if the paladins (and most importantly Allura) found out that he didn’t use the Alteans as a source of fuel, and indeed didn’t deceive anyone, then Romelle would have been waiting for a real massacre.

Therefore, she sharply grabbed Allura and began to follow her, pretending her best friend. Firstly, she wanted to convince Allura that Luca was inadequate and her words couldn’t be trusted, and secondly, if not to drive Allura away from Luca, then at least control what they would talk about.

I think Lance and his love plans have become a real gift of fate for her. She had no idea what kind of past connected Allura and Lance, but she took the opportunity to kick Allura out of the Garrison for at least one evening.

And of course, it was on this evening that Luca came to her senses. It remained unknown how Romelle entered Luca's room unaccompanied. Maybe while Coran was looking for Allura, she hung around and offered to talk to the Altean instead of the princess. And the earthlings decided that this was a good idea, since Romelle and Luca already knew each other.

While talking to Luca, Romelle was obviously nervous and spoke ingratiatingly. She realized that the situation had gone completely in the wrong direction, although more recently she was sure that a new life was beginning for her.

Plus - Luca died without having time to give out some important information, minus - she said that the Alteans know about the murder of Lotor, they’re angry and thirsty for revenge.

As it turned out, the ends weren’t cut off at all, but were dragged along from behind, having managed to catch on a huge fragment along the way, which became a heavy burden and almost a stone around the neck.

We don’t kbow what Romelle was doing on the Atlas while the whole company dealt with current problems. It’s quite possible that she not only portrayed ballast, but also thought about how she should behave in the new realities. So far, the Alteans haven't looked like people to sit down at the negotiating table with, but that doesn't mean the paladins and Allura won't try to do so.

And then Honerva managed to pull Sincline out of the Rift and showed Allura that she was in complete control of him...

And after all, the Alteans also saw this, and were unlikely to be delighted with what was happening. They didn’t help Honerva at all so that she would turn their prince into her obedient slave. Such behavior wasn’t very similar to the joyful meeting of mother and son.

This was the moment when their trust in Honerva gave the first crack.

However, not so big as to feel the desire to communicate with a traitor.

In fact, the Day 47 episode, although it seems filler, is of great importance to Romelle's plot. It very clearly shows how she reacted that not one, but a whole bunch of Alteans were dragged into the Atlas. It was already much more difficult to expose a whole group of people as inadequate fanatics, especially since Tavo didn’t make such an impression. He was calm, polite and much older than Luca.

And... Romelle was freaking out.

She appears near Allura, portraying her best friend, exactly when she wants to chat with the pilots, and then immediately disappears, leaving the princess alone with the deepest stress.

When the earthlings try to question her about the Alteans, she says that she has no idea why they’re attacking, breaks into a scream and is clearly worried, with her lies getting more and more rude, such as claiming that the Alteans are scared.

...the same ones that built white mechas and flew to smash the universe...

“But you must understand: my people were haunted nearly to extinction”.

And it’s very curious that in the next episode, Clear Day, she isn’t among the vacationers, and in subsequent episodes she did appear only in edited scenes.

Why did she suddenly disappear? Where’s she?

Romelle constantly pretended to be a cheerful fool, and couldn’t help but go to the festival with the rest of the paladins. Unless, of course, she was doing something else at that time.

For example, running away.

Yes, I believe that while all the earthlings were resting during the Clear Day, Romelle escaped from the Atlas. It was the most logical decision in her situation. She could easily hijack a ship (and even turn off some of the cameras), because in fact she was very good at piloting spaceships.

After all, what happened at the very beginning of the Clear Day episode? Tavo decided to talk to Allura. Personally, without a company. Perhaps Romelle's absence was discussed separately, but that doesn't matter.

The important thing is that Tavo, unlike Luca, survived, and Allura realized that he was ready to share information. It was foolish to wait for them to raise the topic of Lotor in a conversation, but then there was such a great opportunity to run away while the entire Atlas team was walking at the holiday.

What happened next? Here begins guessing without an evidence base.

Theoretically, this story could have ended in an instructive style, where the villain went unpunished, and the only thing left for the heroes is to fully feel their stupidity and pay for their mistakes. But I don’t think that such endings are VLD-style - so, most likely, the fugitive should have been caught and returned to the main characters for a heart-to-heart conversation. Or rather, for a public conversation with Lotor, since such a meeting was required by the symbolism of the plot.

And despite the fact that many Lotor fans quite naturally dream of punishing Romelle in various inhumane ways, I think... that Lotor would forgive her.

Firstly, because he’s not a vindictive person. Throughout history, Lotor never took revenge on anyone, and if he got rid of someone, it was only because he considered this person a threat. Lotor never considered Romelle a threat - for him she was just an offended woman.

Secondly, Lotor really felt guilty for the death of the pilots during the tests. He called them martyrs, and didn’t deny that they suffered because of their participation in his project. And he could sincerely sympathize with the grief of a girl who had lost her entire family.

And that would be a very powerful moment. After 7,5 seasons, where someone constantly took revenge on someone, Lotor would have forgiven his offender and lowered in peace. He could, I believe in him.

#vld #golion #voltron dotu #romelle #Allura #lotor