#allura

[r0bee]

Me when people blatantly misrepresent Allura by making shit up/vastly overexaggerating

[nartipilled]

Allura could have been the awful mean girl you guys claim she is and I’d have loved her anyway.

[r0bee]

Allura is a magical space princess with pink glowy magic who also kicks ass without it and still there are people who don't think she's the coolest in the world. COME ON PEOPLEEEEE WHAT ARE YOU DOING

[princess-allura-official]

I hate when stupid unnecessary things (my full time job and schoolwork) get in the way of my actual purpose in life (thinking about Allura)

[nartipilled]

sending you an inbox to perhaps balance out a day of terrible takes on the dash with something potentially a bit lighter (and PREDICTABLE coming from me) ! what are your favorite things about allura?? as a person, in the narrative, her relationships with other characters, whatever you wanna get into !

Elite ask, thank you.

Predictably, I'm going to preface this by rhetorically asking: what's there not to like? But, of course, nobody wants to hear that about the fandom's most LARPed character (in the sense that like, everyone will call Allura a girlboss to dodge misogynoir accusations and subsequently refuse to engage with her character beyond the surface level), so let's get into the guts of it. You've very helpfully split this post into three parts.

As a person: I like Allura's tenacity. It's the story's driving force, of course, but it's remarkable regardless -- especially given the magnitude of Allura's suffering. It is a personally respectable quality -- and it marks Allura out as classically heroic. Which she is, moreso than anybody else on the cast, I'd wager. Lance functions chiefly as comedic relief; Shiro is... amazing, but is shoved into the background past s2; Hunk is cowardly -- Keith and Pidge come close to the 'hero' archetype, but they're more... modern, I guess. I like Allura's competence; it does not feel contrived, unlike a certain other character's -- rather, it's narratively earned. We see her struggle with the Blue Lion; she overcomes the struggle through sharing the burden of responsibility. We see her struggle with her realisation as an alchemist (not referring to Oriande here; I think Allura's 'true' trial was Lotor); she overcomes the struggle through staying true to herself. I like how Allura makes me ache. Allura defined herself by her relationship with her father, his legacy, her planet and her people. Allura lost her father, and with that, she lost her anchor to self-preservation. Alfor's final motion was to protect his daughter, and with him dead, Allura ceased to protect herself. When the Red Lion rejected her, Allura thought she'd failed Alfor's legacy. She could hardly believe it when the Blue Lion accepted her instead; after Red's rejection, she mentally relegated herself to the role of 'team cheerleader'. And then, of course, in 'Crystal Venom', Allura had to choose between losing hope and losing Alfor's legacy; and she chose to destroy the latter. With regards to her planet: Allura was cruelly forced into a space-time conundrum that forced her to choose between her world, wherein Altea was destroyed, and an alternate world, wherein the Altean Empire flourished. Allura could have chosen comfort, but she chose to fight for what was right. And she made that same choice, over and over again; with Lotor, with the entity. In the end, Allura's sacrifice brought back Altea; Allura *became* the planet she so loved. But she never got to see it. And, of course, Allura and her people. Haggar was the first shock: an Altean, alive, but neither cognizant nor self-determinist. Rather, she cleaned the Empire's boot. Haggar was only half a person; a vessel for Zarkon's vindictive hatred. From their interaction, Allura swallowed the bitter pill that not all Alteans loved their people more than they loved power (in Haggar's case, it was Zarkon's power she loved, rather than her own). Then, Allura met Romelle, a genocide survivor like herself. And then she had to experience the pain of rediscovering the Altean populace as they slipped between her fingers like grains of sand. The people she had sacrificed so much for saw her as a traitor to their cause, so deep into their cult fanaticism were they. Allura physically *felt* them die; the entity within her connected their pain to hers. And throughout it all, despite the multiple warnings she received -- 'Honerva took that entity into herself and she turned evil, the same will happen to you' -- Allura never once betrayed her principles. I like Allura's kindness. I like Allura's empathy. I like how Allura is able to telepathically communicate with mice; it's really, really cute. I like how Allura's initial social awkwardness morphs into competent oracy and diplomatic tact. I like her anger, and her stubbornness, and all the messy, flawed parts of her the fandom either holds to intense scrutiny or glosses over; I like how prickly she acts with the Blade of Marmora, I like how she pushes the Paladins a little extra in the beginning episodes, failing to realise that not all live as selflessly as she.

(Cont, I sliced the paragraph bc character limit) I like how she understands both her foe's suffering and how that doesn't excuse the magnitude of the suffering they cause, I like how she forces redeemed!Zarkon to contend with what he's done. I like how politically correct she tends to be. A black genocide survivor character figureheading the violent, anti-imperial resistance without being demonised for it (most of the time) is rare. I like how she loves sparkly things. I mourn her mice roadshow that never was.

In the narrative: sigh, well, everyone knows the problems I have with Allura's writing. White writers, in their effort to conjure Keith angst, briefly wrote Allura as a (reverse-)'racist'. The outcome of this arc left both Allura fans (me) and Keith fans unsatisfied: I was annoyed at the narrative framing of Allura as a bioessentialist, and her subsequent punishment for these 'beliefs' -- like the Altean Empire (see? You genocide victims can becolonisers too!), and Lieutenant Lahn Galrasplaining the difficulties of military life to child soldier Allura, who is made to empathise and concede her ignorance; and Keith fans were annoyed that Allura 'got off' with 'just' an apology for 'being racist'. Then, of course, I dislike the alchemist arc -- not because I don't think Altean alchemy is cool as fuck; it so is, but it's purposefully underdeveloped because the writers got bored. Which, wtf. This is one of the central aspects of the show, please explain a little more. What exactly is the 'secret of life'? How come Haggar -- pre-Oriande -- could perform alchemy but Zarkon couldn't? How could Allura do what she did? Where does her healing come from? It's extremely abstract to the point that it loops around to feeling derived. I'm sure there are some analyses/fancontents that explore this aspect a little more, but I'm still pissed it got shafted in canon. Finally (not really, I have a ton more issues, but I'm trying to make this brief so I can get to what I like), Allura's death. The most nonsensical sacrifice. Allura's power was only a fraction of Honerva's anyway; I'm sure Honerva could have sacrificed herself and it would have been enough (not that I'd be happy with that either, I adore Honerva). And, more importantly, the ending was antithetical to what Voltron was about -- TEAMWORK. Lotor's Sincline was objectively stronger than Voltron; but the Sincline's merging was facilitated by his team's *betrayal*, as opposed to its convergence. His poor leadership killed him. And in Honerva's mind -- and outside, even -- she reigned supreme. Only with teamwork, as was repeat-emphasised, could she have been stopped. But in the finale, Allura suicidally split from the team and they let her; they didn't cry and scream and (barring Lance) beg her otherwise. Just disrespectful. There’s no story without Allura, mind you!

Which brings us to what I like about Allura's narrative role. She is the story's beginning and end: she may not have always been a Paladin, but there is no Voltron without her, full-stop. While I dislike how Allura was denied Black Paladinhood, I enjoy seeing her (on many occasions) lead the team. I especially like her dynamic with Lance; his genuine encouragement/pride bouncing off Allura's material achievement endears me greatly to the relationship. Allura's actual arc is. Well, it's a little confused in the last two seasons, but chiefly it's about coming-of-age. And wbu le it is, in part, about overcoming naivete -- it establishes that a chief aspect of maturation is *holding onto hope*. Allura learns to walk the line between passivity and (self-)destruction, and it's very compelling, except... the ending. The climax of her story, her development; and it's Allura choosing to sacrifice herself. Just as she predicted in 'Clear Day's dream sequence. Oh boy, this is getting saturated with the things I dislike again... God, I'm so sorry Allura, you deserved a better show.

Relationships with other characters: Well, you guys all know I'm a sucker for Allura and Honerva foilisms. Sure, they don't interact much, but honestly, that's probably for the best. It means I can create a dynamic in my head that isn't ruined by oppressive canon. As for what we do see: Allura, like Honerva, is in a 'corpse'-like state for 10,000 years. Even after Allura is released from her cryopod, she conceptualises her existence as purgatory that she can only escape through the resistance's victory. Her purpose ends with the war, and as does her life. After her memory-(re)gain, something similar happens to Honerva. She orients her purpose around the dead men in her life, hoping to sculpt the 'perfect' nuclear family unit that re-enhances their lives and happiness. As well as her own, I suppose. Allura will sacrifice herself for the universe, Honerva will sacrifice the universe for herself. But Honerva will also sacrifice herself for the universe. Because Honerva is selfishly selfless. Honerva facilitates Allura's grief -- in blind hope of preserving something that is long gone, she leads Lotor's Altean factions to the sacrificial altar; further twisting the knife. Allura wants to destroy her. Allura wants to understand her. Them and their grief a thousand realities cannot contain...

I also like Allura with Lotor from a racial analysis standpoint. Allura discerning through Lotor's purple (white) saviour complex, etc. The compounding tragedy of it all: Allura betrayed by somebody who claimed to hold her culture's best interests at heart. Lotor succumbing to hatred and Allura persisting throughout it all. I prefer to analyse the relationship's explosive impact rather than it as its own thing, though.

I like Allura and Lance's budding friendship, and I'm pretty neutral on Allurance. Allurance, Klance, whatever, I don't really care who Lance gets shipped with. I strongly contest the commonly-held notion that Allura was Lance's 'rebound', though. Keith-Allura still leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth so I'm not too hot on that. Shiro and Allura are set up as heroic foils in the first season, but as compelling as that particular foilism is, and as much as I love Shiro (I don't talk about him much, but I really do love him -- he has such a relaxing aura, he's like, aromatherapy in human skin, do you know what I mean?), it's just not followed through consistently enough for my liking. Coran and Allura have a fun dynamic, even if I think some of the writing choices were weird (I'm just going to pretend we never saw Coran vet Lance on whether he was ‘deserving' of Allura's hand in romance); I love the snippets of Coran's more serious, paternal instinct in s8 (when he warns the Paladins against entering Honerva's mind & snaps at them for not heeding his advice), and of course a the wormhole age-warp lives in my head rent-free.

Again, thank you for the ask!

[nartipilled]

In 'Shadows', Haggar recalls Kova. But in 'Black Site', she dubs him an 'ancient energy'; unable to pin its source. I think Haggar did not just lose her memories of Honerva and the pregnancy. As the centuries grew longer, she began to remember less altogether, what with the quintessence degenerating her mind. Something kind-of similar happens to Allura -- in 'Crystal Venom', she experiences a sort of dementia.

[nartipilled]

Voltron implies that Allura and Coran think Lance is molesting the cow in 'Black Site' and never addresses it again. For some reason.

[nartipilled]

I KNOW these two were massive animal rights activists.