Voltron Legendary Defenders: Why I loved season 8

Spoiler Warning!

For people out there who are in the fandom of Voltron Legendary Defenders or VLD, you most likely know that season 8 is very controversial within the fandom. The overwhelmingly popular opinion is that it was horrible and should never have been made as it was, well maybe not so harsh, but you get the point. There are many different ways of looking at season 8, the first being from the shipping standpoint. The number 1 most popular ship for this show is Klance aka Keith and Lance, but another is Allurance aka Allura and Lance. The people who ship these two sets of couples are often very passionate about it and will fight anyone who disagrees, which as you can imagine leads to a whole lot of fights. Most of the people who ship Klance tend to hate season 8 due to the fact that Allurance is canon. Well while that is true Allura also dies at the end for the good of the universe, so you know no one (Except Shiro and Curtis) actually gets a canon ship in the end, so in my opinion, it isn’t a very valid reason to hate season 8. Another standing point is, well of course that Allura dies. Well yes, Allura does die, but she died to save the whole freaking Universe! Not even that, she saved every single reality out there (yes even the bad ones) but still. If it weren’t for Allura’s sacrifice there would be no universe in any reality to live in, so of course, in my opinion that a flawed reason to hate season 8. You can be sad and cry for Allura, but you shouldn’t hate the season for one thing that made the show end with the universe intact. And of course, the last reason most people hate season 8 is Lance’s character arch, and I kind of agree. Lance is a sweet Cuban boy who misses his family so much in the first season of the show, we even see how much he missed them when they get to earth and he literally jumps out of the car (jeep thing??) right when he sees his family and runs like his life depends on it to give his niece and nephew a huge hug and proceeds to be piled upon as the rest of his family joins the heartwarming hug. But after that he doesn’t talk about his family at all. In the first episode of season 8, Lance and Allura go on a date (Ik, sounds like I’m going back to the shipping thing here but I’m not, so hear me out) and they walk around a- park from before he left earth, they are talking and Lance says to Allura “I would follow you across the universe” and this is only on their first date. This coming from a boy who would get homesick just thinking about his family after one day of being away from them, makes me believe that this was a forced line that the creators of the show added to make the Allurance ship sail sooner. Lance’s character changes so much from season 1 to season 8, and not in a good way. It changes in a way that people cannot change and a way that people should not change. While I don’t like the Lance arch of season 8, I don’t think it is a reason to hate it.

Now that I have said what I understand are the reasons most people dislike season 8, I am going to say why I liked it. Season 8 happens after the Galra have been defeated, but now there is a new villain well newish at least, Haggar/Honerva. Haggar has been sending these new robeasts powered and flown by Alteans, who she has under her control by telling them, “Oh! I am Lotor’s mother! Lotor did not abandon you! He has been trapped and cannot get out without our help! Help me find my son so we can rule together!” Well, of course, they listen to her and now they are being sent to their deaths for what they think is a noble cause. Now Haggar is a great villain in my opinion. She was a perfect contrast for Allura and made her realize things that she needed to realize; she pushed Allura to her breaking point and that only made her stronger. Now onto Lotor’s redemption arch. I hated Lotor with a passion, he tricked Allura and made her fall for him, only to have her find out that A. her race, which she thought was extinct, is actually not and Lotor has been hiding that from her, and B. Lotor is using them for their quintessence (aka their life force). After Allura finds these things out she loses it. She then finds out that the ship they’ve been building is supposed to be used to defeat Voltron. They have this huge battle that ends with Lotor stuck in the quintessence field causing multiple rifts/black holes threatening to swallow the universe. To close the rifts they use the Castle of Lions’ energy by sending it through the rifts. This devastates Allura seeing as how she has lived there all of her life. Now move to season 8 where we see flashbacks of Lotor. We first see Lotor as a baby right after he was born, we see this to understand what Honerva turned into after she gave birth. Next, we see Lotor around the age of 5, his teacher is telling Zarkon about how Lotor is doing in school. Once she has finished Lotor pipes up asking to ask his father a question, the teacher scolds him but Zarkon allows him to ask one question. “I would like to know about my mother. Please Father, what happened to her?” Zarkon responds with “I will tell you this and no more. She was my only weakness, but now she is gone.” Unsatisfied with this answer Lotor asks what her name was and what she was like, but Zarkon scolds him, but Lotor asks once more, but Zarkon yells again and then tells his teacher to “remove his impurities” or he would find a different teacher who could. In the next flashback, we see Lotor around the age of 10, he is standing by his father listening to a request from a soldier, the soldier asks for them to go somewhere and Lotor asks if he could go with his father to learn, but Zarkon tells him that he must stay. Lotor pushes back, but once again he is told no. Haggar’s cat has been standing in front of him and he notices it, he leans down to pet it, but Haggar tells him, “Don’t touch him. He will hurt you.” He proceeds to pet the cat despite the warning and the cat nuzzled into his hand. Then totally ignoring the previous statement which asks what its name was, to which Haggar responds, “He has no name.” Lotor is like, “ok, I’ll name it then.” He is about to say a name when Haggar says its name is Kova. Lotor finds it strange that suddenly it has a name but pays it no more attention as he pulls the cat up onto his shoulder. He says it’s now his and Haggar pushes back, but Lotor yells at her that he is her prince so she must listen to him. The next flashback shows Lotor, around the age of what I would guess, is 16 or 17, talking to some unknown alien. We next see him talking to his father accompanied by the same Alien. He is telling Zarkon how his methods of getting quintessence are working better than the traditional ones. Zarkon scolds him for disobeying orders and working with “a pitiful race” as if they were his equals. He then says that by working with them he has been more efficient and has gotten greater amounts of quintessence, but Zarkon is not having it. He tells him that working with his subjects is not the Galra way, but Lotor counters with “It is the way my mother’s people would have done things” Lotor then rants about how Zarkon can only destroy things. Zarkon and yells at him to stop, he tells him that he must destroy the planet. Lotor yells he would never, so Zarkon says that he will. Zarkon starts walking off with Lotor yelling after him, Zarkon just ignores him and so he runs after him, he stalls next to Haggar and continues to yell, having enough of this, Haggar uses her magic to shock Lotor. We next see Lotor waking up watching the planet he has been working on for a long time, in flames. He yells, and Zarkon says that he is banished from the Galra Empire. Zarkon walks off leaving Lotor with Haggar, “Have you nothing to say, witch?” he says bitterly. These flashbacks, especially the last one, shows us why Lotor is how he is today. He started as a curious and innocent child who was shaped and molded to be who he is today by his parent. Then there is the Zarkon redemption arch. In one episode, the Paladins go into a void of memories, where they meet the souls of the original paladins, well all of them besides Zarkon. They explain that Zarkon wasn’t always like he was before he died. He was a good man with a good heart, he fell in love with Honerva and helped her find quintessence. Honerva’s search for quintessence, drives her mad and drags Zarkon with her. Zarkon was changed, like Lotor to be who he was. Later on, Haggar is flying through different realities to find the one` perfect reality, destroying the ones that aren’t the one she is looking for. She finally gets to the ideal reality and when she comes out of her robeast, we see it is a reality where she died a long time ago, this means that Zarkon is a good man and leader and that Lotor has not been changed by Zarkon and her. These characters are good characters that were changed for the worse by Haggar. I love when a character gets more depth, especially if they get a redemption arch. If a show is able to change my mind in a way I never thought would happen, it makes me happy in a way.

Even though most people did not like Voltron season 8, I loved it. If you did not like it for the reasons in the first paragraph, I suggest that you rewatch it and pay attention to the other aspects. Flying off, for now! See you guys later!