The canary in the coal mine
I hear people saying that Voltron became terrible in S7 and S8. If I may, I’d like to expose my own theory.
Kuron, and specifically the treatment he was subjected to, was the canary in the coal mine.
That is to say, the ending of the much beloved S6 foreshadowed what would come to pass. Let’s review, shall we?
We have this character who repeatedly showed that he truly loved his family, to the point that a mind-reading entity probed his mind twice and both time found him sincere. To the point that, while about to suffocate to death after spending seven days with no food and no water in the freezing silent dark void of space after setting his leg on fire, all he could focus on were the moments he (believed he) spent with them. This character:
-suffered from constant painful headaches because an evil witch was fucking with his head
-was starting to suspect that his memories had been tampered with and everything he knew about himself was a lie, thus lived in constant fear and confusion
-believed he suffered from a degenerative disease that would cripple him, and possibly kill him, within a few months
-felt guilty over accidentally getting a bunch of kids involved in a war, thus was desperate to bring them home safely. And, as stated above, by S5 he believed that he only had a few short months left to do it, so was starting to get bullheaded and reckless over his franticness to win the war quickly for their sake. He let his upset get the better of him one (1) time, when he yelled at Lance, but immediately looked away in shame, and by the end of the day apologized to Lance and praised his good work.
Over the course of a year, this character suffered in silence and did his best to save as many people as possible. His hard work resulted in the salvation of 1/3 of the universe. He cared, and he tried, so very hard.
Then this characters gets possessed by the aforementioned evil witch, and mind-controlled against his will into trying to kill his family. As a result:
-Shiro, a man defined by his compassion, labels him “that thing.”
-The team takes Kuron out of the healing pod while he is injured but explicitly stated to be still alive. In addition, we are shown that he was still alive because he groaned when he was unconscious in the Black Lion.
-Keith refers to him as just a body. Again, this while Kuron is explicitly stated to be still alive.
-Lance, the kind-hearted emotional support of the team, cries that the real Shiro tried to warn them from the Astral Plane, but doesn’t even mention the time Kuron reached out to him for help in the hallway.
-Allura never even tries to use her powers to heal him, despite the fact that just a couple of episodes before she showed the ability to heal mortally-wounded people. Instead, she forces Shiro’s soul into Kuron’s body.
-When the guy who wakes up identifies himself as the real Shiro, nobody asks what happened to Kuron. Nobody grieves, nobody mourns, nobody cares. Kuron either died during the soul transfer or immediately before it after being taken out of the healing pod, and both the characters and the narrative treat it as a happy ending.
Can we agree that this is terrible? All the listed canon facts indicate that our heroes let their teammate die by withholding medical care so they could use his corpse as a vessel to save somebody else. The Paladins fought Lotor because they claimed that harvesting people is the worst possible crime, then turned around and did the exact same thing to one of their own. And it’s supposed to be okay because we are apparently not meant to think of a clone as a person, but rather as a “thing,” despite the fact that he was sentient and compassionate.
Post S6, interviews clearly showed that the EPs never expected anybody to care for Kuron. They gleefully recounted how they planned “to put the [real Shiro’s] proper essence into the Shiro husk.” Why supposedly professional writers did not expect people to care for the character who had been leading the heroes for 4 Seasons, I have no idea. After a couple of interviews, and realizing that people were sad for the clone and disturbed by his fate, they introduced the Word Of God that Kuron and Shiro merged together. Whether the heroes intentionally merged the two men together to save them both or it was just an unintended side-effect of saving the real Shiro, and whether that involves an actual soul merge or just Shiro getting the clone’s memories, is left vague.
(By the way, if it’s the latter, it’s worthless. Kuron had Shiro’s memories, that didn’t make Shiro any less dead. For that matter, Alfor’s AI had Alfor’s memories. Hell, at one point the heroes extract Sendak’s memories, and presumably could put them into anybody. Memories are not substitutes for the soul, and keeping somebody’s memories doesn’t mean that the person did not die, so they should still be mourned).
Unfortunately this Word Of God is never, ever even hinted at in canon. No indication whatsoever. The team freaks out when “Shiro’s consciousness is being rejected by the clone’s body,” but they never acknowledge the clone’s consciousness at all. White-haired Shiro only ever talks about stuff the original Shiro did, and doesn’t show any recognition when people talk about stuff the clone did, like the Voltron Show. The official books describe the process of reviving Shiro as simply putting his soul into the clone body, no mention of any merge anywhere. Finally and most damningly, canon directly contraddicts the WOG when Shiro outright states that the clone died. Thus I can only assume that the EPs lied, as they have many times before.
(For the record, there is also no canon indication that Shiro is cured of the disease. It’s never brought up even once in the show, they only say he is cured in interviews. As far as canon is concerned, Shiro “left the battle behind” because his disease finally caught up with him).
After S6, Kuron is brought up once in the entire rest of the series: in S7, when Shiro talks about “the dead body of an evil clone of myself.” Kuron’s family has written him off as evil, and his death as a joke, because they victim-blame him for the things he was forced to do against his will while under mind-control, and it’s supposed to be a happy ending.
So. When people ask “how could S7 and S8 be so cruel and heartless to Allura? How could they treat Lance so badly? How could they mess with Shiro’s character like that? How could they be so brutal to Lotor? What happened to the theme of found family?
Kuron was the canary in the coal mine. S6 took this well-meaning victimized character and had the family he loved throw him away like a piece of garbage, while acting like everything was fine and dandy. Having shown that much lack of empathy, it was just a matter of time before the series did the other characters dirty. It never stops at one.
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