Oh no, Lotor… (alternately: Oh, no Lotor…)
I’m going through this process of post-Voltron-trauma mental healing (no, not for the past 4 years; I only watched it this year - 2022). Some people refuse to watch it again, because of the emotions some images might stir up. It’s weird, but for me, it’s kind of the opposite. Revisiting certain scenes makes me more immune to having that visceral reaction, and in return, I start noticing details I missed on the first pass. Especially Season 8. The one everybody hates watching again.
So, most likely by now everybody knows about this famous ending scene with Lotor standing next to the Old Paladins, all of them looking at us from the realm of afterlife.
And probably some of you have read certain metas about the obvious fact that Lotor has been inserted in this image, after the animation studio finished its production. The consensus is that this is the stock image of Lotor from the Voltron fandom wiki page. And, also, that his right foot has been moved a little bit to accommodate him in front of Zarkon. Also, that he does not have a proper shadow.
All of these are true imo, and I don’t know if anybody else has done it before, but here is my proof. I took the stock photo from the Wiki page and overlapped it with the image. Here we go (first image is 50% transparent, so you can see the original position of both feet):
For obvious reasons, they had to lower his right foot, so he doesn’t step on his daddy’s toes. A simple push with a Liquify tool. Which is a bit too obvious, because the foot appears a little crooked, the tip of the shoe is bent towards us and the perspective is screwed.
They made his left foot a bit smaller, to accommodate for perspective as well, but that is a crappy manipulation, because it doesn’t seem to be in sync with the perspective of the other shoes in the picture. Simply pushing the foot up with the liquify tool won’t solve the fact that the forefoot needs to be a bit wider when shown in perspective, to rest flat on the ground. Look at the other guys’ frontal view shoes for comparison.
And the one thing that scratches my retina (and it did to many others as well) is Lotor’s shadow. Like, seriously, everyone’s shadow projects from their heels. His seems to radiate from… um… the edge of his pinky toe? He kind of floats in a surreal space.
A detail that is quite hard to spot is the fact that inside the shadows there are darker shadows. Especially visible for Alfor. Zarkon has them too. The shadow of their legs is darker, on top of a lighter shadow of the body. Um… Lotor’s is… maybe non-existent? He only seems to cast a lighter shadow, from his pinky toe. Pffft.
But enough of this hair-splitting. Dang these conspiracies.
I’m moving to the next image, where I played with no Lotor in the picture. Oh, no Lotor!
Exguse meine rough zchetch… It’s for demonstration purposes only.
— With Lotor in the picture, the composition is out of whack (Remember, this is a static image, so there is no animation movement from left to right or anything like that. Just a small zoom in effect, expected in static scenes.)
— Without Lotor: just look at the new space created next to Zarkon. Doesn’t it look more balanced visually now? The whole pack of five is centered. Oh, what a joy.
It’s not like every scene in Voltron is always perfectly centered, but the static ones seem to be! Or they have a symmetry. If you don’t believe me, just watch randomly some episodes from the first few seasons (don’t trust anything in S7-8) and you’ll see my point. It’s common in animated series. Centered scened are visually pleasing.
And now to the more subjective discussion.
What business would Lotor have, to hang out among the Old Paladins? I get it, the one thing they all have in common in this so-called canon version is they are all dead.
And let’s not forget he actually never made peace with Zarkon, like Allura did when she traveled in Honerva’s mind. So now he’s just Zarkon’s peaceful companion, after he killed him?
And here is where my suspicion lies (albeit unproven), that what we see here is actually a scene that was supposed to happen a few episodes before, in S8E10, when Allura and the Paladins travel to Honerva’s mind and find the Old Paladins trapped in there.
Two things point me to believe this:
1) At the end of the episode, when all Paladins return to reality, Allura remains unconscious in her Lion, trapped in some sort of dream. They never show us what she was dreaming but I’m like 100 percent sure she was continuing her journey out of Honerva’s mind - because they punched out of there when Zarkon ordered the team of 10-Voltron Paladins to form sword and pierce the barrier of Honerva’s mind. So Allura is somewhere else… Where exactly? (Oh no, Lotor! Hello, anyone there??)
2) We were never shown a proper goodbye to the Old Paladins, when they left Honerva’s mind. Where the quiznack did they go? They helped the Paladins get out of there and they just poof! went into the void? Allura must have traveled with them somewhere else, meet *cough*Lotor, then wake up, angry as she looked in the canon part we were allowed to see. Maybe daddy got to meet one angry piece of son, they all solved their differences, Lotor tells Allura more details about his state in the Sincline, she now knows how to save him, and now it’s time to say goodbye to the Old Paladins... And that is where this Old-Paladins-in-the-blazing-lights image comes from. Not at the end, not with Lotor in it.
Wishful thinking? I think not.
Fell free to throw in your opinions. There are variations of this scenario of what happened with Allura in her dream, but they all lead to the same conclusion.
snowghoul
blakekathryn
titsay
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
vaporwave
theartofmadeline
andulkaphoto
