VLD8x13 – “The End is the Beginning”(part 1)
8x13 – “The End is the Beginning”
I decided to post this commentary in two parts.
As much as this show frustrates me, I do have some level of sadness that this is the last episode, and this specific series of commentaries is at an end. My emotions that this is the end of the show feels more pronounced now than it did the first time I watched this season. There is a sense of loss to it, and some of that sense of loss comes from knowing that with this being the last episode, there is no possibility that the show will course-correct and produce a story that I started the series hoping for. In some ways, I feel like I’m mourning for the wasted potential that this series had.
Every story has flaws. Sometimes what works for one viewer doesn’t work for another. Even if there are aspects of a story that don’t quite work for me, if in the end, I feel fulfilled, then I’m good. Endings should have a sense of fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment. I wonder if the executive producers, the writers, the producers, the executives at DreamWorks, and others involved in this series’s production felt accomplished at the end, or if they just felt like it was finally finished and were past ready to move on.
This ending was not fulfilling to me, and that makes me sad.
The episode starts where the last one ended: Voltron and Honerva staring each other down, the Alteans in the nearby city in a panic. Honerva, with her gaze focused on Voltron, has her mecha aim and fire a hand blast at the nearby Altean city. The blast nearly hits until at the last second something blocks the blast. At first, I thought it was a leg of Voltron, but after a couple different shots, I realized it was Voltron’s sword. Voltron throwing its sword to block the blast leaves Voltron distracted, and Honerva tackles Voltron, sending them both sliding along the ground into the city.
Honerva’s mech extends a blade from its wrist and tries to slam down on Voltron, but Voltron takes flight and maneuvers out from under Honerva and back to its sword. They’re then suddenly out in a nearby field without any of the city in the background and start a sword fight. Honerva uses her tail to trip Voltron, which falls backward onto the ground. She then combines her wing-blades around her wrist-sword to create a spinning purple drill and she dives down into Voltron, sending the ground in the area crumbling. We then get a shot from far above the surface of the planet so that we can see their location relative to the city. My guess is the backgrounds during the more standard shots of the fight lack any inclusion of the city in the background as a way to not have to spend time and energy keeping track of precisely where the city is in relation to where they are in the field.
The drill doesn’t really damage Voltron though. Allura screams, pushes her controls forward, and an energy blast shoots out of Voltron’s eyes. Since when has Allura as a leg of Voltron been able to produce an energy blast attack out of the eyes (the head) of Voltron? The blast knocks Honerva back, and the wing-blades spin off and stab into the ground. Voltron then punches Honerva through a mountain.
Voltron’s sword, having been left stuck in the ground again, now has rockets, and it jets to Voltron’s hand. (Why did Voltron need to stop at the sword a bit earlier and pick it up on the way out of the city if the sword can come to Voltron on its own?) Voltron tries to stab Honerva in the head, but she easily moves to the side and the blow misses her. Allura yells, “Now, let’s finish this,” but then someone else yells “incoming,” and Voltron is hit by a wing-blade. The blade actually penetrates Voltron in the back (and stays stuck in Voltron). Then two more wing-blades stab Voltron, this time in either side of the abdomen. Voltron falls over face-first.
The other wing-blades swirl up into the sky and look like they stab the sky. It’s the wings piercing the fabric of space, and I actually kind of like the way it looks. Purple electricity arcs between the wing-blades to form a circle. The wing-blades piercing Voltron start to glow, a big bolt of purple electricity arcs between Voltron and the circle in the sky. Honerva stands up and flies up into the sky, into the circle. The way this is depicted, it’s so much clearer that she’s drawing energy out of Voltron to create a rift in space than it was the time she must have been doing similarly last episode. (Last episode, this similar moment didn’t show anything making a new rift, it was just spontaneously there.)
Shiro says, “We can’t let this happen. She can’t get away,” the Paladins grunt, Voltron pulls the wing-blades out of itself. There are no holes in Voltron in the three places it had been stabbed.
I do still actually like the visual design of this Voltron-Atlas combination.
Voltron blasts off and soars into the rift, everything goes white, and then Voltron is floating in space, but it’s not regular space. There are what looks like stars in the far distance, but much closer, there are wispy, glowing tendrils, like roots that look like they originate from a central, brighter source.
Lance asks, “What is this place,” and Allura says, “I’m not sure.” Then Honerva’s voice booms, “This is the beginning—” her mecha smashes into Voltron, sending it careening away “—and the end.” Honerva blasts one of the roots with an energy beam and the root explodes. The root withers away, up to the central source, and then that center and every root ignites in orangish, fiery energy.
Allura glows yellow and sounds like she’s in pain and there are flashes of different aliens living their normal lives. The light around Allura fades. Team Voltron concludes that “these strands” “are the only remaining realities” and that “this place is the source of time, of space, of” “everything.”
I know almost everything in this show’s magic system is made up and re-made in the individual moment as each moment of the series has been written, and doing that makes it impossible to argue against anything happening if it can be explained as because-magic, but it does kind of bother me that Honerva can destroy a reality now, not by tearing a rift out of or into a reality but just by shooting a strand representing it with a standard blaster beam.
Honerva sounds ridiculous when she, while gasping for air like she’s out of breath, says, “I—will end this—once—and for all!” Like I mentioned last commentary, I don’t find villains who end with cliché scorched-earth action to be compelling. This series has put a lot of time and effort into trying – and I do think the creative team was genuinely trying – to add complexity to Honerva’s character. I think the attempt was almost always clumsy, quick, and underdeveloped, but for a while they were trying to portray Honerva as not a flat antagonist. But to have her character be this spiteful person who is trying to destroy literally all of existence, every reality erases any attempt this show made to complicate her character. I know the creative team would think that saying that she’s being irrational is a defense of having written her character to act this way, but it’s not.
Let’s say I accept – and I don’t, but I’m going to pretend – that Honerva was a good person before she was poisoned by quintessence and before she was possessed by the rift entity. And then that poison and that possession turned her into the abusive, torturing, genocidal dictator that she’s been for 10,000 years. That I accept the premise that the poisoning and possession took maternal instinct away from her. That she is genuinely upset that Lotor hated her. How is her current behavior a logical, writing choice to have her react like this to a little boy from another reality whose mother died not instantly accepting her as his mother? One little boy that she knows is not her actual son says “no” to her, and she decides to destroy all of existence? Like, even if this one Lotor says no, she doesn’t want to try additional other Lotors in other realities first?
This just feels like an escalation that the writing team thinks works because what can be bigger than destroying all of existence, destroying every reality? And the end of a story has to be about the biggest thing ever, the most cataclysmic conflict possible, right?
Honerva projects energy blasts in opposite directions and spins, destroying several reality strands. Then she throws her arms wide and 18 energy beams blast outward with her at the center. (Her mecha can generate 18 blasts simultaneously? Why hasn’t she used that before? That’s a significant weapon capacity.)
While she and the others grunt with each destruction, Allura says, “She’s destroying – all realities!” This level of destruction is so over-the-top that it doesn’t have any emotional weight. This is supposed to be the climax of the story, and I don’t feel invested in the plot whatsoever in part because of its scale. Another part that keeps me from feeling invested is that this is Honerva’s story. It’s not Shiro’s. It’s not Allura’s. It’s not Keith’s or Lance’s or Pidge’s or Hunk’s. Nothing about any of the six of them has anything to do with what’s happening. They’re all just sort of here. Even with this show in the past having used Honerva/Haggar as a foil for Allura, within this specific plot, that is not being used. Maybe one could say that it comes back later in the episode when Allura’s making the decision to give up her life in order to reboot all of existence, that the story finally brings Allura’s personal story back into this and her as a “life-giver” parallels Honerva as the destroyer of all realities. But that is not now. What’s happening in the plot now isn’t connected to Allura’s story. This decision to focus the story entirely on Honerva makes the show’s protagonists all be reactive. Everything that’s happening, they’re just reacting to, none of them are active, none of them are trying to achieve anything. And no, stop-the-bad-guys does not count as a protagonist goal because it is baseline-level of simplistic.
I think we’re seeing more different species of aliens in this destruction of realities sequence than we’ve seen throughout the entire rest of the show combined. The destruction is now near total, with only one strand coming from the center remaining. Honerva has decided to pause and stare at Voltron for a moment before destroying the last reality strand. For some reason, rather than use her blaster to destroy this last one, Honerva decides to use her sword. Why? There is nothing to explain why Honerva decides to use a sword instead of a blaster. Allura quietly begs no one in particular, “No, please.” Honerva flies toward the last strand, but before she can strike, Voltron slams into her. This is the sole reason why Honerva switched to using a sword when she had been using her blasters: To allow for Voltron to hit her and knock her aside. In other words, it’s contrived. Why was Allura written to react as if there was nothing that Team Voltron could do and then have Voltron swoop in to attack Honerva? There’s a dissonance between Allura’s reaction beat and Voltron then attacking.
Voltron and Honerva fly around in a sword fight. Honerva stabs Voltron, and Pidge shifts her controls and Voltron grows knuckle claws and punches Honerva. Honerva drives Voltron backward, then Keith uses Voltron’s wings to push back. Honerva stabs Voltron with her tail and purple lightning sparks. Honerva’s enegines push harder, and she drives Voltron back more.
“If Honerva destroys this final strand, all of existence will end with it!” Allura says. That feels like it’s stating the obvious and thus unnecessary dialog. Keith thrusts his controls forward, all of Team Voltron screams, and Voltron produces larger wings. These wings are absolutely ridiculous. They are like 50 times larger than Voltron itself. Voltron pushes Honerva back.
Rather than push Honerva away from the strand, Voltron, without any characters saying anything about doing this, pushes Honerva into the light that was central to all the strands. What made them make this decision? It really bothers me that this show writes characters to behave like this. Characters aren’t supposed to just spontaneously do things. The writers are moving to the next set-piece and need to move the characters to there, so they just had the characters move to there.
I don’t understand how the show is conceptualizing this story-world’s cosmology. Where is this place from which Honerva is destroying realities? Does this location itself not count as reality? How could Honerva and Voltron exist here, how could they move around through space here if it isn’t itself a reality? I would imagine the creative team for the show would say something like Honerva and Voltron are outside of reality, but you can’t go outside of universes unless there is something there to go into. It kind of makes the fault of using the word “realities” instead of “universes” noticeable. The latter of those words could work, but the former doesn’t.
Inside, Honerva is kneeling on an endless horizon of white and slight purple above and below her. It looks a bit like the horizons that was the Black Lion’s consciousness until 8x10 “Knights of Light Part 2” had those environments be located inside Honerva’s mind where the Paladins fought the spirits of the old Paladins. I would have much rather had those environments remain the consciousnesses of the Lions, and then to have this white version be the consciousness of the White Lion. But this location is just some miscellaneous elsewhere. I also wouldn’t have minded if this white field location looked like the space Allura was shown in when the White Lion jumped into her in 5x06 “White Lion.”
Imagine if the show had kept Shiro as Black Paladin, kept Keith with Red, kept Lance with Blue, had Allura in command of the Atlas. Imagine if the show got to this environment as part of Voltron’s fight with Honerva. Imagine if here, the conversation that occurs here came to a point where here Allura actively proclaimed herself, I am the Paladin of the White Lion! That would have been so freaking cool!
Honerva turns around, sees silhouettes of the Paladins and Shiro. (I’m still curious what’s up with the rest of the crew of the Atlas. Are they still within the combined Voltron-Atlas mecha? Or were they magically thrown out into space and killed? Or were they magically erased from existence? If they’re still inside Voltron-Atlas, why aren’t they appearing here too? From the moment Voltron and the Atlas combined, the crew was simply ignored, and I guess the creative team on the show hoped the audience would ignore their absence too.)
Honerva asks, “Where are we?” and Allura answers, “The connected consciousness of all existence.” Is this different that the connected consciousness the Paladins used to get into Honerva’s mind in 8x09 “Knights of Light Part 1?” This connected consciousness definitely looks different than that collected consciousness.
Honerva continues to be annoying. “You think you’re safe here? Soon, all will cease to exist.” Hunk replies, “You have to stop this. All these worlds, all these realities, they deserve to live.” What does he mean “all these?” We were just told a moment ago that there’s only one single reality left. Also, why is he framing this as Honerva has to stop doing what she’s doing? Why aren’t the Paladins actively stopping her? This comes back to what I said earlier that this plot only has the Paladins reacting to things. This is being framed as Honerva has to stop herself, not that the Paladins have to stop her. The locus of action for this plot has been placed exclusively within Honerva’s character, not in any of the protagonists. That makes this story weak.
Honerva says, “Those realities are flawed and weak, living out the same pathetic cycle of war and pain.” This philosophy is woefully uninteresting. It feels so weird hearing Honerva say this since she’s been such a huge inflictor of war and pain. She has no validity to speak in objection to war and pain. I can’t take her character seriously because she’s been written to say stuff like this that so diametrically opposite to how she has behaved. Also, if she’s condemning all realties for being flawed, does that mean that she thinks that she is flawless?
A scene of conversation like this at a point of climax in a story should produce a sense of enlightenment, but this doesn’t. It doesn’t work because Honerva’s comments and perspective aren’t, pardon the phrase given this story, grounded in reality.
How did Honerva’s psychology progress from an alternate reality version of her son won’t accept her as his long-dead mother to her having a problem with war and pain? There’s a lot of steps missing between those two mentalities.
Allura responds, “There is beauty in their flaws.” I have actively tried to avoid comparing this show to other stories, but I can’t talk about this line without doing so. This line instantly made me think of a far better-written conversation between a protagonist and the antagonist in a specific Marvel film. That Marvel scene felt poignant, but Allura saying it here does not. For this to have emotional weight coming from Allura, her struggling with her personal flaws would have had to be a much larger, prominent part of her character arc. I want to say that this statement would be better coming from Lance, but then the show gave up on doing anything with Lance and his feeling deeply insecure.
Allura goes on about the war killing her family and her whole planet but that she now has a new family. I wish it felt like they were a family. She also says she’s gained “a purpose stronger than any I could have imagined.” What purpose is that? Beyond stop-the-Galra, which turned into stop-Honerva, what has Allura expressed as feeling like her purpose is? Allura and whatever goals she might have or could have had haven’t been the driving force behind this story for a long time. Narratively, Allura’s purpose has been to wait around until the show got this last episode so that she can die and magically reboot all realities.
Pidge says, “Humans began very flawed. There were wars, hate, but with each mistake they learned and grew.” Is Pidge saying that humans in this story have ceased being “very flawed?”
Shiro picks up from Pidge, saying, “And now we reach out to other worlds, to pass on those same lessons and spread them across the entire universe, like your people once did.” I don’t like this idea that seems built into this dialog that humanity has moved beyond being flawed and that humanity can now function as some kind of lord handing out enlightenment to other worlds. This is a very arrogant perspective.
Hunk continues, “And with every new world touched, the message grows.”
Keith then says, “Every world. Every reality. We wouldn’t exist without the others.” Uh, yes we would. Keith personally might not exist without another world since he’s half-human and half-Galra, but humans here on Earth exist without needing other life on some other planet elsewhere to also exist. The ideal that every person has value is great, but Keith’s statement seems like it goes too far.
Lance says, “Our differences are what make us stronger.” I can agree with that.
Honerva responds, “You think your words mean anything to me? I’ve lived multiple lifetimes, and all of them filled with pain and loss.” Since when? Honerva has lived 10,000 years, that is not the same thing as having “lived multiple lifetimes.” Where did this suddenly come from? She mentioned it last episode too. When talking to alternate-Zarkon, she said, “I’ve spent lifetimes trying to get back.” I don’t if this is just really badly written, like the writers have conflated living one life for 10,000 years with living multiple lifetimes, or is this something left over from the season being revised (not even necessarily the re-edit that some fans think happened, but just something fundamentally changing in the story in the middle of production)?
In 8x06 “Genesis” where Honerva is at the two-hand pedestal and is in the process of bringing Sincline back, we see different realities temporarily mixing with the main reality. There’s a moment where Honerva’s appearance changes several times. At first, I had thought she was shapeshifting back and forth between Honerva and Haggar, but then I wondered if we were seeing multiple different Honervas all doing the same thing the main Honerva was doing at their respective Oriandes. Thinking of that again now that Honerva has twice referenced living multiple lifetimes, I wonder if maybe that was originally what was happening in that moment in Genesis. Maybe an earlier version of this season had Honervas from different realities combining into one Honerva, and these two comments that she’s lived multiple lifetimes are artifacts in the dialog of an earlier version of the season’s story.
If there isn’t some kind of explanation involving a story revised while the season was well into production, then her making this comment about having lived “multiple lifetimes” makes no sense.
She continues, and her voice really bothers me here: “If I cannot experience the simple joys of life, why should anyone else!?” There is a flatness to the sound of her voice. The story and dialog seem to want to evoke sympathy for Honerva, but she’s not behaving like a sympathetic person. The expectation placed on the audience by the narrative and the content the narrative is providing to the audience do not match. This statement she just made is incredibly selfish. We’re supposed to feel sympathy for someone who thinks like this?
I’ve personally had more than a few problems in life, but I don’t resent other people for having better lives than I have. I want people to have better lives than I have specifically because of how much pain I’ve felt in my life.
This show wants us to feel sympathy for Honerva right now, but the method they’ve used to try to evoke that sympathy – having her say, “If I cannot experience the simple joys of life, why should anyone else!?” – demonstrates that Honerva herself is not capable of feeling sympathy for others.
And is this perspective Honerva’s speaking from right now supposed to be her still behaving under the influence of quintessence poisoning? Is she still being influenced by the rift entity? Or is this the real Honerva? It feels like the real Honerva to me. This selfishness she’s speaking with here feels exactly like how Honerva pre-quintessence poisoning in 3x07 “The Legend Begins” felt to me. This is why it’s absurd that the show absolves her abuse, torture, and genocide by layering the quintessence poisoning and rift entity possession excuses on top of her character. This is what’s underneath all those excuses: Honerva is not a good person. Her abusive, torturing, genocidal behavior comes, not from her having been poisoned, not from having been possessed, but from her own inability to feel sympathy for others.
Allura touches Honerva’s head similarly to how she touched Zarkon’s head in 8x10 “Knights of Light Part 2.” With Zarkon, she was angry and showed him all the horrible things he did in his life since he couldn’t remember them. Now, Allura is calm and makes Honerva see her happy memories.
Allura says, “There was a time when you loved more than just your family.” This show has not shown Honerva having ever loved her family, nor has it shown her having ever loved anything. Having a couple of still images here or in “Knights of Light Part 2” does not actually show us Honerva having once been a happy, normal person. These still images that are shown now as Allura’s speaking are a total retcon of Honerva’s character. Throwing this content, these images, these claims in now right at the end of the show is contrary to how this character has been portrayed for eight seasons. This just feels like the show lying to me.
Allura continues, “A time when your fascination with how vast the universe is gave way to your desire to help and uplift others.” Honerva has never once in this show been shown to have acted in any way that uplifted anyone else. It is so offensive to me that this episode literally just showed Honerva being incredibly selfish at the core of her being, and now the show is telling me that she used to be a person who “help[ed] and uplift[ed] others.” This claim that she used to be a good person is not supported by literally any of the content of her in this show. Allura just saying it, having a couple of still images right now, is not this show having established Honerva to have once been a good person. Again, I feel like this show is lying to me right now.
A video-memory of Allura and Lotor together appears in the mist of the two of them in the pyramid on Oriande in 5x06 “White Lion.” Honerva says, “You tried to help him.” I guess she did until she turned against him because someone told her that he had been drawing quintessence from Alteans. Even after Allura threw Lotor across the room in rejection of him, before Voltron and Lotor started fighting in 6x07 “Defender of All Universes,” Lotor still tried to get Allura to not reject him. But she did, and they fought, and the Paladins let him die in the quintessence field.
Honerva continues, “He was happy.” Lotor did seem happy with Allura. But this show told us through the story between 6x04 “The Colony” and “Defender of All Universes” and in conversation with Axca at the end of 7x03 “The Way Forward” that all these happy moments Lotor had with Allura was just Lotor lying and manipulating her.
This is so infuriating! The show introduced Lotor as someone who was abused by his parents, who was mired in the toxicity of his culture, who was subject to ridicule for wanting to treat people better. The show then did its surprise-twist to say that Lotor had been lying the entire time and that he really was “evil” all along. That surprise-twist was a giant retcon of his character. And now, the show is re-retconning him back to having been genuinely happy when he was with Allura in season five? I mean, I would like to have most of season six not exist either, but this show made that season. And they made that season specifically to defile everything about Lotor that had come before. And now the show is doing this. When Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery wrote this final episode, did they think that we had forgotten what they did to Lotor in season six?
Honerva says, “He deserved better, better than I could give.” He deserved better than this show’s executive producers and writers gave him for sure. Also, I don’t care about Honerva wishing she could have been a better mother to him now. I have seen this woman literally inflict so much pain on her son that he passed out. I don’t care if she feels bad about it now. I hate that this show is presenting the supposed sadness of an abusive parent reflecting on having abused their child as if their feeling sad about having been a horrible person is important. I care about the wellbeing of the abused, not about the wellbeing of the abuser.
Allura says, “Lotor may have been misguided, but ultimately, he wanted to preserve life.” Where was this understanding from Allura about Lotor trying to preserve life when Lotor was literally telling her this to her face? She rejected his explanations for his behavior. She repeatedly said what he told her was all a lie. The show itself did everything it could to reinforce the conclusion that Lotor was “evil” and that he had been manipulating everyone the whole time.
It infuriates me.
Allura says, “Honor your son. Help me change this.” Honerva responds, “I’m sorry, but the damage is done.” Yeah, the damage that the EPs and writers of this show have done is done. JDS and LM might have written this ending to undo the destruction of all realities, but they cannot undo the damage they’ve caused as executive producers of this series.
Allura thinks for a moment and says, “I can change the quintessence within your vessel. Your son helped me learn how to transform it from a destructive force into a life-giving force.” Here at the end of this show, I still do not understand quintessence. We have been told time and again that quintessence is life energy. That it is inherently life energy. That it is energy produced by living things. That’s how the Galra, that’s how Honerva has gained quintessence, by taking it from living things. So, how is it according to Allura here that quintessence is a “destructive force” that she through Altean alchemy can turn into a “life-giving force?” It has always been a life-giving force. Why did this show have so much trouble keeping something this simple and this fundamental to the story straight? Why is this story even now fundamentally contradicting itself?
Allura says, “But I cannot do it alone,” and holds out her hand to Honerva. Honerva says, “But that would require—” and her voice falls away, and Allura says, “I know the risks.” How/why does Honerva seemingly jump to the conclusion that what Allura is talking about will result in their both dying? Characters throughout this series have jumped to a lot of conclusions, but why does Honerva jump to this conclusion?
Also, if Allura’s plan of action is to generate a lot of “life-giving force” what about this requires her to die? The logic of this resolution makes literally zero sense. Allura’s not about to die because that’s the inevitable outcome of this story. She’s about to die because Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery wanted to kill her. It is that simple. JDS and LM wanted to kill Allura, and they made it happen even though there is literally no reason in this story for it to happen.
I know JDS and LM have said that this is a story about sacrifice, but if it is, this seems like it comes out of a perspective of people who have never had to sacrifice anything.
And let me talk about how offensive it is for this show to do this. Allura is a female character of color in an action-adventure animated kids show. This does not happen often, if at all. So, it was amazing to have a female character of color in this show. It made the show seem, for a while at least, like the people working on this show cared about inclusiveness and diversity. They’ve showed us before that they really didn’t with how they treated Shiro’s character. And now, they’re showing again that they didn’t with how they’re killing Allura.
Allura is a female character of color. She’s a character who can use magic. And here, the story kills her to magically solve everyone’s problems. In this series, Allura had been a princess, a genocide survivor, a leader, and a friend. But here, in the end, the show reduces her into nothing more than a magical negress stereotype. If you think that the magical negro/negress stereotype is not a thing, then do some research. There is a long, long history of this stereotype used in black characters in stories. It is a deeply racist stereotype. Often when a character of color is used as a magical negro/negress, the writer thinks that they’re actually doing a good thing by writing them positively: Look at how awesome the character is, they have magical powers! But they’re written to have those magical powers to solve other characters’ problems, so that makes the magical negro/negress character subordinate to the other characters. Voltron Legendary Defender takes its one main character who is a female character of color and kills her to magically fix everything.
Part of me wants to characterize the blame for this as the result of VLD having been written primarily by a bunch of white men. But I feel like that’s just giving them an excuse. I am a white man, but I have at least a bit of understanding about why the show killing Allura to magically solve everyone’s problem is offensive.
Given how this show handled Shiro being Asian and gay and having a disability, given how this show had Lance’s being Cuban pretty much in name-only, given how Hunk’s ethnicity is never really defined at all in the show, given how the show had Zarkon speaking with praise about Keith in saying Keith’s leadership comes from Keith being half-Galra, I just don’t think most of the people who were in control of this show’s story, especially Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, bothered to educate themselves about different constituencies of diversity. I think they were/are oblivious to how hurtful so much of what they wrote into this story has been.
JDS and LM wanted a story with a theme about sacrifice, they’ve said. They seem to think that that means characters must die. I think that they thought they were making it better when, in one of the interviews earlier this year, said that they considered killing all the main characters here at the end of the show. That just sort of emphasizes that they specifically chose Allura to kill to magically fix everything for everyone else in the story.
I don’t think the solution was to kill any of the main characters. Allure here told Honerva that she’s going to use energy that’s in Honerva’s mecha to do this. The show could totally have had Allura have to use, and thus sacrifice, the Lions of Voltron to make this reboot happen. The EPs chose to kill Allura.
Honerva takes Allura’s hand and stands up, and Allura then turns to the others and says, “I’m afraid this is where we part ways.” She tells the others that this “is [her] purpose.” Ugh!
Hunk tells her, “There is no Voltron without you,” and she replies, “Voltron isn’t needed anymore.” How is that accurate? The universe is now going to be an unrealistic peaceful utopia for everyone now?
Allura says, “The rest of the work is up to the people, and they’ll have you to guide them Hunk,” and she hugs him as he cries.
She hugs Pidge and says, “Remain curious and fearless.”
As much as I have a lot of criticism for what’s happening, I do still feel the emotion of it. And Shiro talking to Allura breaks me. I’m actually crying now:
Shiro says, “Most of them won’t know the sacrifice you made so they could live.” Allura says, “And they’ll never need to. Your selflessness taught me that.” They hug. Allura says, “Thank you.” Shiro says, “You never have to thank me for anything.”
Allura moves down the line, “Keith, I cannot thank you enough for all you’ve given me.” Keith says, “Allura, when you accepted me, it helped me to accept myself. Thank you.” Allura hugs him and says, “There is greatness in your heart and in your actions.”
Then she comes to Lance. He says, “No, Allura, there has to be another way.” She says, “There is no other way. This is all we have.” He says, “You’re too important to the cause. You’re too important to me.” She says, “I’ll always be with you Lance. And I’ll always love you.” She kisses him and Altean facial markings appear on his face.
What in the world does Lance getting Altean facial markings mean? There is never an explanation for them.
The light in this long scene has been white, but now it turns yellow. The light in the distance beams like a sun. Allura and Honerva look toward it. In the light stand Alfor, Lotor, Zarkon, Blaytz, Gyrgan, and Trigel. Allura and Honerva walk into the light.
Allura turns back to look at the Paladins one last time before heading on into the light.
(I hate that a story as hurtful and offensive as this is still making me cry.)
The light fades and Voltron and Honerva’s mecha remain. Light shrinks down into a point until everything goes dark then light explodes outward. The strands of existences spring back into existence.
The Lions and the Atlas are separated. Keith quietly asks, “Is this?” and Pidge confirms, “Yeah, it’s our reality.” The cockpit of the Blue Lion is empty.
Hunk sees a planet, “I don’t remember that planet being there before.” Lance looks up, “It’s Altea.”
Cut to “One Year Later…”
(This commentary continues in part 2.)