here’s my interpretation of lotor where he’s not entirely a soulless monster that still recognizes what he did to the alteans!
lotor could have chosen good.
but he didn’t.
lotor was a liar, manipulator, and mass murderer; he was this way from the very beginning. but i honestly believe that allura made him reconsider his ways.
lotor’s first intention was to gain allura and the paladins’ trust so he could use them to his own advantage, and getting with allura was just another part of the plan. but that changed when he got to knew allura. as they grew closer, he genuinely fell for her.
and thus began his struggle with good and evil.
he had doubts, hesitations, and regrets for everything he had done and had planned to do: the colony, the quintessence, the betrayal.
because of allura, he gained a moral compass.
but he didn’t listen to it.
he knew in his heart that what he had done, what he was going to do, was wrong. before his true backstory was revealed to the team, he was in the process of choosing good.
each second with allura convinced him more and more to abandon his plan, his experiments with the colony, his evilness.
but the team found out, and he lost the chance to change his heart. maybe with more time he would have turned his back on evil, or maybe not.
he was doubting himself and the evils he had committed. but he wasn’t convinced. he wasn’t ready to make a decision, he wasn’t ready to choose between good or evil. but he ran out of time. the team’s confrontation about the colony was enough to push him over the edge.
in the end, evil won. it was easier. it was who he had been for the past 10,000 years. but the good was there, inside of him. because of allura. allura had changed him, was changing him, was going to change him.
allura sparked a goodness inside him, but the evil extinguished it before it had a chance to grow. maybe in another timeline, things would have been different.