red or black. red because of lotor’s personality. who but the red paladin would think flying into the fucking sun is a good plan? or lose his temper over being betrayed by someone he trusted and lash out and execute them in order to protect himself and the people he has left? someone brash and who tasks risks, someone volatile. lotor is calculating, but these season especially has shown that under pressure he acts very emotionally and instinctively under pressure, somewhat similar to keith. flying into the sun is absolutely a keith move. black because, well.... zarkon piloted black and it would make sense for lotor to be his father’s heir; not to the galra empire, which has shunned him and from which he is excluded, but as the black paladin, the thing zarkon wants the most, more than his own son. however, whether he would be an effective leader of voltron is another matter, not because he is incapable, i just doubt the other paladins will ever trust him completely to make split seconds maneuvers at his command in a fight.
also because i think either keith or shiro would be replaced as a paladin if any of them are so it has to be one of two they pilot. allura too, but i really don’t think lotor would be a good pilot for blue.... maybe everyone would shuffle again? who knows. there COULD be a white lion but i personally don’t really subscribe to this theory because.... surely it’s in Voltron’s (the robot’s, assuming its sentitent to a degree) own interest to bring all of the robot parts together to ‘truly’ form Voltron? It’s a weapon? Why would it deliberately handicap itself? Also, where would it fit onto the robot? Thematically it’s a cool idea, but I just don’t see how it would fit in.
