'kallura is canon in s8' theorist

"I'll never stfu about Keith and Allura honestly." Dee. Kallura textpost and analysis sideblog. On hiatus (I ran out of thoughts).

[momentsreprieve]

Me: im free from v.d….. peace at last…

Me: *thinks about keith and allura*

Me:

[momentsreprieve]

Allura is so cute with her goofy self talking about “Keith, you will fly the Red Lion” and then going “but i can’t find it now, looks like the castle needs some work huh :)” while staring straight at him like. What is subtlety

[momentsreprieve]

❤💖

[dailykallura]

Haven't seen voltron since I was 12 in 2018, but I recently got reminded of kallura and checked the fandom and was so happy to see ppl still post about them 💕

Hi there, and glad to see you drift through! Thank you for visiting!

Although it's been years, we'll always be here, celebrating their love. ❤️🩷💞

[dailykallura]

Let's talk about the conference room scene in Season 8, Episode 11.

I wanted to delve into the contexts of Keith and Lance's conference room conversation, their mutual resolve, and my observation that Allura has always been central to their conversation, especially from Keith's side.

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To add context to this scene, we have to take context from the previous scene and call-to-action - the Mission Postmortem.

Keith and Pidge debrief the ensemble on their findings and explanations of Honerva's behaviour from their previous mission in Episodes 9 and 10 - a mission where, at its tail end, Allura is incapacitated.

As Allura's partner, Lance doesn't take this well -

"We know what Honerva wants to do, but we can't get to her. [...] Without Allura, we can't chase her, and we can't form Voltron."

I've been a big proponent of the idea that narrative intention can be gleaned not just from the script and context of a scene, but together with how the final animation itself is framed and voiced - especially because animation as a visual medium is planned with specific intentions.

It's interesting to note that "we can't form Voltron" falls on a shot where Keith is in the foreground of the frame. I'm taking this from the bones of another piece of analysis, but Episodes 9 and 10 shows that Keith understands that Voltron requires connection -

and as such, having one person incapacitated means that the bond, and Voltron itself, is considered incomplete.

Keith knows that having Allura out of commission hurts the greater mission, but at its core, her being out of commission hurts Team Voltron. Lance's defeatism is an example of that - Keith understands exactly how Lance feels, and as such, he is the one who approaches Lance after the Postmortem, with:

"[Allura's] gonna be okay." - framing this conversation entirely in context of Allura.

Lance's "I hope so" and subsequent statements about Honerva's plans still highlight his defeatism about Allura's incapacitation and its impact on them, though - and Keith tries something different.

Note that Keith is in focus and dominates the frames in the foreground when he reminisces about meeting Allura for the first time -

And although he is out of focus while he reminisces on his observations of her, he is still in the foreground of the frames.

"... and it worked."

This scene, although between Keith and Lance in presence, clarifies exactly how Keith feels about Allura - taking note of three things:

His choice in highlighting their first days with Allura as a shared memory between him and Lance - appealing to both Lance's current romance with her, but also implying how closely he's held this memory himself;

His observations of Allura calling back to their earliest meeting, implying that Keith has been taking note of Allura and her habits since the first episode, seven seasons ago;

The animators' choice to soften Keith's facial expression for the sequence where he talks about her, because his expression prior to mentioning her by name is entirely neutral, implying that Allura is closer to his heart than otherwise believed.

I'm also of the idea that this current statement from Keith reverts his previous statement to Hunk in Season 7, Episode 6:

Keith states to Lance in the conference room that, yes, Allura's belief in them was insecure, but her unwavering faith in them has brought them this far, and has essentially changed the both of them:

And Keith extends to Lance, in the same way that Allura's faith has guided them to this moment, for him to honour Allura by having unwavering faith in not just her and her awakening, but also faith in the possibility of righting Honerva's wrongs.

And it works.

[dailykallura]

Still obsessed with the crew going "yea they might not end up together this time, but Keith and Allura love each other to the ends of the universe" and kept posting all this art of other media where they're dressed as the love interests in that media – and did that whole con hunt with the storyboards for their Ark of Taujeer pre-escapade hangar talk – and had Steven put all the warmth and emotion into his voice for "Remember when we first met Allura..." in the conference room – and had him support her through the depths of her missions – and had Keith be told Allura would have been so proud of the man he became – and had them tell each other about how much impact they've had on each other – and made them embrace so lovingly but couldn't even animate them letting go of each other and and and

[dailykallura]

I've been going through my final Netflix rewatch of the show with a friend of mine, and I caught this blink-and-you-miss-it shot of Keith glancing backwards to Allura after they stumble during AR!Slav's bomb detonations in 3.04, 'Hole in the Sky'.

And it's just... something to note because this isn't something I'd have expected to be included, with everyone's focus on their own footing. And yet, Keith is drawn and animated to look back at Allura in this sequence.

Keith's concern and care for Allura is sometimes hidden in split-second moments.

[dailykallura]

Keith looking at Allura:

[dailykallura]

I am watching vld for the first time in the year of our lord 2024 (started as an ironic watch with a longtime fan friend. it is no longer ironic) and have gotten deeply invested in kallura. finding this blog has made me smile so big :) thank you for compiling so many moments of theirs and posting so many thoughts about them!

Hello, and welcome aboard!

I'm glad you've taken a shine to these two, and I'm honoured you like my work, thank you!

I hope your journey through the show goes smoothly - it will get a little rough as each season passes, but sit in your experience as wholly and completely as you can.

[dailykallura]

Hello. From one Kallura Shipper to another, I am glad that this ship still has its fans even after the disaster that is S8. I am still kinda confused on one thing. If Kallura was hinted that throughout the show, why didn't the EPs just go for it instead?

Hello, welcome, and I'm happy you're still on this boat with us!

Your question is one I've pondered over myself since I found out that they're the legacy ship of the franchise (vld was my introduction). It's difficult to put any one true reason to it, honestly, but whenever I think about it/discuss it, I always boil it down to a few things:

1. The EPs went into the show with very specific biases related to the characters. JDS had allegedly stated that Lance was his favourite from the original, so I assume his writing re. Lance's relationship with Allura stems from that bias. Similarly, I've observed that LM has a Pidge bias, and choosing to alter Allura's race alongside Pidge's gender felt like Allura's story suddenly took a lower importance to Pidge's story due to a racial bias. Because of that:

2. Keith and Allura's relationship may have never been intended to be anything more than shiptease to the EPs. I do think their final choices on canon relationships clashed with some of the story writers (who were writing with romantic kallura in mind), and part of their final choice to canonize Lance and Allura involved destroying the idea that Keith and Allura could have been a couple, either in the show, or "fictionally" (their fight in S7E6, and Lance's outburst in S8E1 about DOTU!Kallura is targeted to that).

3. The show and its popularity ebbed with the whims of the fandom, even though the EPs said otherwise. Because fandom swayed the show's popularity, and Keith and Allura's relationship was (and still is) highly disrespected in fandom, hinting at making them canon in later seasons, or making them canon at all, was never gonna happen. It just worked out that the EPs didn't care for them that much either.

I'm sure there's a lot of other reasons as to why they chose not to go with making them explicitly canon in this iteration, but those stand out to me the most.

But... even though the EPs didn't make them explicitly canon, I do feel as if they didn't want to end the show without paying homage to the relationship Keith and Allura had in prior iterations OR leave their relationship in this one unresolved, and called forward a LOT of the romantic writing from earlier seasons to S8. Which makes sense since S8 was their last chance to do so. The inconsistency is there but it means something to me!

[dailykallura]

Thinking so much about the intimate way the camera focused on the physical closeness of Keith and Allura on their final hug... Zoomed all the way in to obscure how their bodies touch, yet still emphasizing the proximity of their faces to each other.

The way this hug, in 40 frames, establishes the intensity, yet deniability, of their relationship - because everyone else got visible loving yet despairing hugs and a soft kiss, but Keith and Allura got a sustained focus on just their faces. And still, the depth of the intimacy and sadness is laced in the animation - Allura, slowly approaching Keith, eyes closed even before she touches him; Keith, the curl of his body subtle in the way his head minutely bows as they hold each other, his facial expression central to the experience.

We never do see them separate from this embrace.

[dailykallura]

An older thought from a long-deleted platform, but I've correlated Scorpio from the Twelve Initiations of Love with Keith for a while.

'to teach that love is passion and learn that love is surrender.'

"to teach that love is passion" embodies Keith in that he's someone who exudes passion for the things and the people that he loves - in all contexts of the word 'love'. In aligning it with kallura, Keith has shown a passion for carrying out Allura's ultimate mission of spreading peace and healing the universe through the last 10,000 years, possibly even to his own harm:

And it's this passion for her mission, even in the face of their interpersonal conflict, that causes Allura to reconsider how she's been communicating with him.

This appears in s8 as well, in my opinion - Keith is shown to be the only person who is entirely supportive of her choices and her decision to pursue Honerva, and he remains steadfast behind her as she moves forward.

But "to learn that love is surrender" aligns with Keith regarding Allura too, because Keith learnt that the most honourable way to love someone is to surrender: he surrenders himself completely to the feeling of love he has for Allura, indicative of the way he speaks about her -

But also, in learning that love constitutes surrender, Keith also surrenders Allura herself - he allows himself to be okay with Allura loving someone else romantically, and is shown to be consistently supportive of her relationship with Lance, from its inception onwards -

- and, to his and our regrets, does not intervene at her sacrifice, surrendering her to follow the decision that she makes to leave.

[momentsreprieve]

Visit Original Link

“But where is our audio compilation of Keith saying Allura’s name?”

Edit: Companion to Allura.

[dailykallura]

Visit Original Link

conversations are more intimate in the silence of the hangar.

[dailykallura]

Gonna be honest, but every time I think about Keith, the first thing I think of is the intensity of his quiet love for Allura. It's like... I can't actually separate Keith's love for Allura from him at any time. Not that his whole life is in honour of Allura, because of course not. But I guess I've been so steeped in reading his late s7-to-s8 actions as an indication that he doesn't have the time to be selfish anymore with this woman — that his love manifested out of regret for his actions, reflection on its reasoning, and acceptance of the impact of her on his heart (and in s8, the overarching fear of losing her forever and wanting to facilitate her plans because Allura needs to know if there is dissent from everyone, he will always be behind her despite that — he will always be the single voice saying "yes" loudly over a chorus of "no"'s.). That's been a big part of Keith to me since 2018 and it's just... it's just him. His love for her is just a big part of him.

[dailykallura]

Lance goes up to Keith one day after seeing the patterns of Keith touching Allura – hand resting on the small of her back; cupping the nape of her neck; subtly squeezing her shoulder; and starts, sheepishly – “Hey man, I know it’s not my place to be forward, but I have to ask. Are you and the Princess… sleeping together or something?”

And Keith looks up, crosses his arms in contemplation. "Uhm... I know we got caught napping together that one time in the break room... but no, not really."

[dailykallura]

I haven't been into Voltron since 2018 and I am rewatching for nostalgia purposes and I see a bunch of Kallura fans talking about storyboards with drawings of them together. I have tried searching for them and can never find anything. Do you happen to have a link to all that stuff? I would be most grateful:) It's been fun remembering how cute this ship was

Hey there, welcome back!

I do have a link - they're storyboards of the hanger scene in S2E6: The Ark of Taujeer :)

Here's the link!