I don't believe Honerva and Haggar are the same person
I believe the body is the same but haggar and honerva are seperate individuals and you'll see what I mean if you keep reading.
Note: there were supposed to be more image examples to go with this theory but tumbler only allows you to put a limited number of images onto a post and I didn't want to make a part 2
So let's have a talk about Haggar and Honerva. So from what we know about them from voltron is that Honerva was an altean Alchemist and close friend to Alfor. She eventually met Zarkon and later on married him after traveling to Daibazaal to research the Rift. Shortly afterwards she fell ill, zarkon attempted to save her but it was in vain, they eventually resurrected and Honerva, due to memory loss, became Haggar. However, the supposed cannon explanation to Haggar and Honerva's existence doesn't make sense when you put into perspective their differences, especially the ones that were never given any explanation to.
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So first off let's discuss looks. Honerva is a pure blooded altean born woman. She has purple hair with slight waves to it, prominent eyes the color of Gold and deep Violet, a straight nose, dark skin, and average sized ears.
Now as for Haggar she is clearly much different, but not just in what can be clearly seen. For example, the most notable differences would be Haggar's skin and eye color differences. However, Other prominent differences include her nose, curved differently than Honerva's. Her eye shape is more, what can be considered if she genuinely existed, almond shaped. She has longer ears, her hair curls more than honerva's. In addition another difference would be their voices. Honerva's is Mature and feminine, while Haggar's is more hoarse.
Now a lot of you can say, "well the changes could simply be another side effect to the quintessence corruption." And while that may be an easy explanation it doesn't make any sense since, if that were true, Zarkon would be widely different. But he's not. The biggest changes is that his skin developed a slightly more prominent silver Tone to it over time compared to his original and, of course, his eyes changed in color. But that's about it.
And I don't accept the explanation, "well zarkon was at the rift less than Honerva" because, well we all know how much he adored her. So much so that in Both Coran and honerva's own memories as well as alfor's we see him actively being there when Honerva is conducting her research.
Another thing I'd like to point out before we move on is how, I mentioned haggar and honerva's physical differences as well voice differences, but I also want to mention that honerva's features and voice stayed completely the same throughout the entirety of her life up until after she "came back to life" as Haggar. In addition she goes back to her original features once she reclaims her body and becomes honerva again. It's strange to me how, if she and Haggar were truly the same person, how easily it would be for her to somewhat go back to her original looks. Especially go back to her original voice. For example, go look at the two pictures of honerva and haggar then look at images of season 8 honerva. You'll see that not only has her skin and eye gone back to normal, but her ears returned to their original length, her nose is straight again, and her voice is back to what it once was. But why, even if the skin and eye colors could go back to normal, wouldn't the voice, nose, and ears stay the same as they were when she was Haggar due to deformity?
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So, we've gotten physical differences out of the way as well as debunked some things. But what I want to point out next is the most prominent and LEAST talked about difference in the entirety of the series. Even though it was referenced by Alfor's trapped spirit in one of the final episodes of the series. And that's Haggar's magic.
There's no way Haggar's magic can be written off as corrupt altean alchemy, it's just too different. From the magic circles, to the way she releases it, or uses it within her creations or daily life. To give an example Haggar's magic is too chaotic and seems to lack its own laws whilst alchemy has many laws. One such law being the law of equivalent exchange. And no I'm not taking this information from the fma series. This is a genuine alchemic law that exists within Voltron.
Now, to explain further lets take a look at examples of altean alchemy. You'll notice just how different they actually are especially within the use of inventions and machinery, like I referenced in the previous paragraph. To obtain alchemy Allura had to travel to a temple and under go trials. Her final trial she came face to face with the temple's guardian. Allura then states she seeks the secret to life, realizing what she wants she gives up her life in exchange. The law of equivalent exchange. However, the case of obtaining supernatural power functions differently for Haggar or at least it did function differently for honerva when she comes into contact with something dark.
That all being said, if Haggar's too different to be Honerva well then what is she? Well, she's an Entity from the Quintessence field. Yes everyone, the same thing that wreaked havoc on Daibazaal with chaotic power after it escaped from containment. Also, interestingly enough the same thing that allura allows to inhabit her body in season 8.
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Season 8 is honestly really strange when you think about it but the thing that stood out to me was how much entities were represented being able to possess an individual's body as well as the power that they bring to the host as referenced by Alfor's trapped soul, Hallucination Lance, Hallucination Lotor, and Honerva herself.
And funny enough, when allura allowed that entity to possess her, her powers changed. They became much darker, stronger, and more destructive compared to alchemy. As referenced in the paragraph giving us a brief look at magic.
It's also worth noting that no one in the series who knew of Honerva ever treated Haggar as Honerva. Zarkon, who risked his life for her, pushed her away from any romantic or sexual relationship even though she was supposed to be his wife who he loved. And Lotor always spoke so strangely about Haggar. Calling her, "a twisted perversion of what was once so pure and beautiful." And refusing to believe she could be his mother. He also never once denied the notion that her and Honerva were one in the same, but he never accepted it either. Even when it was completely apparent to him and told to his face by his own mother in the cannon explanation. But even then he disregards it. Also, even after that point he never refers as haggar and honerva as the same individual regardless of the fact they inhabit the same body. In fact, the only time they are verbally refered to as being one in the same is when lotor says so in season 8 when he's speaking with allura through his example using juniberries (altean flower). But that's not lotor. It's a hallucination made up by the confined entity and possibly honerva to persuade allura into allowing said entity into her body. So that statement from lotor isn't feesable. Because the real lotor knows. They are not the same. So to believe haggar and honerva are the same person even though it's told to us through the show that's false would be the same as believing Zarkon is still who he once was and the corruption incident never happened, but it all did. And lotor knows. The woman that came out of the rift is not Honerva, and zarkon and Lotor know.
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So then, what happened with the real Honerva? Well, the awnser stared us right in the face the entire time. The souls of the paladins of old were trapped within the confines of Haggar's mind. In fact, millions of souls were there. Souls of everyone she's ever killed. That being said, if an individual can slaughter someone, take their soul and trap it within the confines of a mind within another body inhabited by a seperate soul, then what about the ability to steal a living body and trap the original soul within the mind's confines as well? Thus comes the possibility that Honerva's soul was trapped there as well, unable to surface because an entity had taken over her body. In fact it's entirely possible said entity Haggar entered Honerva when she was still alive within the quintessence field, when honerva and Zarkon were being surrounded by said entities. Or what if it was prior to that. What if in the words of Honerva when she said, "we must always push forth into dangerous territories in the pursuit of knowledge." She held that Statment to close to heart and allowed an entity to inhabit her body in pursuit of knowledge and even worse, it somehow went wrong. After all, entities exist within the quintessence field and thus must need mass amounts of said chemical to stay alive. Which means it could have been feeding off of honerva's quintessence to keep itself alive. And evidently, Honerva also needs quintessence to live as does any other being and possibly allowed raw quintessence to inhabitant her body, possibly causing her disease and weakening her further
Eventually honerva may have decided to try and rid of the entity when she fell horrendously ill and mentally unhinged. We eventually see her ill on her bed unfocused on zarkon and seemingly focused on something else. She starts saying things such as "Get back. Get back. Get back." On repeat but it doesn't seem like she's speaking to zarkon. Additionally When she says, things like, "we must have it, quintessence!" Who is we? Zarkon? Or someone else. "Quintessence is life!" Is this truly honerva speaking anymore. Perhaps her body was in the process of being owned by the entity. "Into the rift... We must have voltron, voltron! Voltron! It is the only way.." Could this sentence have been honerva reaching out to her husband to bring her to the quintessence field in hopes the entity will leave, or could this have been the entity trying to persuade Zarkon to bring honerva there so it could gain more power? Perhaps it's both. In addition, it's entirely possible that the reason for Haggar and Honerva's physical differences is because the body had to adapt to its new soul. Haggar, who ended up taking the body over.
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Now before I end this post I want to say that I don't think Haggar is just some emotionless individual or corrupt supernatural beast. I do believe that when she came into existence she developed proper emotions as well as some form of morality and wasn't just some monster. She is seen to physically care for Zarkon and Lotor to the point that seeing them harmed causes her great pain. Though, why an entity would want to possess someone in the first place, I don't know. Maybe Haggar is the same entity that was in Honerva's test tube and didn't actually die to voltron. Maybe after seeing what realities looked like it wanted a shot at a real existence. Which, honestly, makes me pity Haggar even more. Since if that were true, then her first moments/days of existence were pain from Honerva's left over disease, fear and paranoia of everything, lack of understanding of ones self and the world around it while simultaneously understanding everything due to Honerva's left over knowledge, Intense hours of painful child birth to an infant she did not know of nor initially want, and even after all that still lost some of her very own memories due to trauma. Honestly, this theory is a sad thing to think about.
Post Made: Oct 18, 2021
Updated: March 9, 2023
I decided to Republish this because as I said previously there were more examples I wanted to give as evidence but couldn't do so due to the image limit. This is for that. One thing I wanted to do is to dive further into Haggar's body and her physical differences. The reason for this is I believe that when Honerva's body was possessed by the dark entity, the body deformed and changed to match the physical characteristics of the entity itself. Take a look at these image examples.
The entity shown has a blue tint to its overall body matching Haggar's blue skin, it also has a gold eye matching Haggar's golden eyes as well. But that's not the only similarities. I stated earlier that Haggar's magic differs immensely from altean alchemy. Well there's one more physical difference to magic as well that I failed to mention. Haggar's magic looks like the exterior form of the entities body.
Being a clash of violet and black. It also behaves similarly to how entities are seen to move within the show.
Another thing I noticed that is up to your interpretation is Haggar's clothing. After Honerva had begun communicating with the entities from the quintessence field, her clothing began to change as well, almost psychologically. What was once red, black, and gold, representative of Daibazaal and of her position as Queen consort, now was becoming a mixture of purple, black, and gold. The same colors we see on the entities. Now Honerva has changed clothes before from blue dominated clothing to her royal clothes but that change made sense. Honerva wore Blue dominated clothing because it was her uniform as an altean alchemist and scientist. It represented Altea and made known to others her position. It is natural that on Daibazaal she would change her colors to red and black as she is no longer an Altean citizen or royal altean scientist. She is the queen of the galra and must represent that accordingly to her citizens and to other empires. It's because of this that the change to Haggar's traditional garb doesn't make sense because it just doesn't correlate. Which is why it leads me to believe that it is psychological. Perhaps Honerva was already under the influence of the entity at this point.
Color schemes within the empire started changing as well. Anything that Honerva was in charge of the color would become a muted purple or variants of greys and blacks. No more striking red, light purples, pink hues, or any other colors. We see the start of this when we see Honerva at the quintessence field doing research alone in a surprisingly dark lab and wearing the start of Haggar's clothes. It's different from the previous times we see her at the quintessence field. All those times it was brightly light. On the first occasion she's lively even. Then becomes disconnected from others on the second occasion we see her once she is queen. Then the final we see her as I mentioned, her demeanor is completely different and the lab lacks presence. And by the time Haggar comes into existence the overall look is completely changing. Violet command ships, bases, palaces, and more. All darkly lit as well. Even Zarkon's primary ship matches that scheme down to the throne room where it's all violet coloration and a large black wall.
This also further debunks Zarkon's transformation since if this is true, Zarkon would have gone through the exact same things Honerva went through on a physical and psychological level such as the memory loss, the color obsession, talking to seemingly yourself, the deformation, But he didn't. He just became an ass.
Maybe I'm just a little crazy but I just can't ignore this theory or put it past me especially when there are so many similarities and things that just don't add up within this show. I wish the real final season of Voltron didn't get cancelled because maybe, just maybe, all this stuff I'm pointing out was in fact purposeful and would have received an explanation, especially when the show strived so hard to represent entities within the show only to leave them and their existence unexplained and left to the viewers to decide upon their importance and necessity.
Post Made: Oct 18, 2021
Updated: Sep 17, 2023
