#notmyshiro

kuron is allowed to escape from where he was created so that he could infiltrate voltron. when the time was right, haggar would eventually manipulate him to her will. due to his programming, haggar could take usurp kuron’s consciousness (which is built on shiro’s memories), and make him her slave. in s6e4,

 the trigger that caused haggar to take over came when the paladins were about to kill lotor, and so she took over his mind and ordered him to take out the team and escape with lotor. this is when kuron ‘went rogue’.

cut to the fight with keith and kuron. it’s important that we know that what kuron says to keith is not shiro. it’s shiro’s memories being manipulated by haggar so that kuron is driven to kill. kuron’s passive self, or shiro’s true memories, remain as kuron softens when keith says he loves him. However, haggar’s powers are far too strong for kuron to gain control of his body again. 

when keith defeats kuron his memories, stored in the robot arm keith severed, are gone. kuron is now inactive. 

then keith, through his strong bonds with the black lion and shiro, manages to get solid contact with shiro, who divulges all of the details on his death, and how kuron is a clone. keith then tells the others who have an.... admittedly underwhelming reaction (i was kinda too busy screaming at kuron finally being called a clone).

once lotor’s defeated, allura pulls a deux ex machina and draws shiro out from the black lion’s consciousness through her other-worldly powers, and puts shiro’s essence (or spirit) into kuron’s body. this may seem cruel, as by then the team, and the audience, know kuron more than shiro. i do believe that kuron’s consciousness is already gone, and that he is inactive at that point. basically, kuron is already gone (or dead) when shiro is placed into his body.

da-da-da! now shiro is back, though he’s not in his own body because that was destroyed, and now his hair is completely white. looks like shiro really is shiro now, huh?

but yeah, it’s important to distinguish between kuron and shiro, because it’s important to know that all the cruel things that kuron says (e.g. ‘i told you to stay out of this’, ‘i should’ve gave up on you’) were not what shiro believes. 

the shiro we know is kind, and believes in his team more than anything.

‘you found me’.

after crossing with zarkon in the astral plane during voltron’s fight with him, shiro managed to take the black bayard from him even though they never physically touched, they only merged in the astral plane. this shows that the astral plane and the physical plane are connected, and what is in the astral plane can be brought out.

they both remained in a coma after their fight. with zarkon, he remained and did not go into the astral plane, or was drawn out of it (either due to him now being more quintessence than being, or because his ties to voltron aren’t strong enough anymore, or shiro pushed him out or the quintessence drew him out), however, shiro’s is trapped inside the black lion because zarkon trapped him in there and is still in the coma. because zarkon is alive, shiro cannot wake up.  

the galra do, however, have his physical body. im not sure if black teleported him into the galra’s hands, but i feel like that’s unlikely. i believe he teleported along with zarkon, but im unsure whether it’s to the galra or into the astral plane. this is a big hole in the theory. he needs to be with the galra in order for them to get his memories, unless they can access it through the data he could have inputted when interacting with galra tech.

operation kuron has been in progress ever since shiro became the champion. he is the perfect soldier, and does not fight for selfish glory, like a lot of other galra fighters and generals. the galra run so many tests on him because they want to clone him perfectly. haggar is able to form prototypes and can summon them by manifesting quintessence (hence ‘kuro’, the evil shiro that attacks him at the end of s1).

however, shiro escapes, and so the ‘greatest weapon’ is not fully complete. they have enough knowledge and testing for a clone that functions like shiro, but does not have all the bits and pieces. 

so, operation kuron goes ahead anyway - voltron is weak without the real shiro, and they’re distracted enough by lotor and the dynamic shifts in leadership to not notice any differences in a shiro that ‘comes back’. 

So, they go ahead and make a shiro, implanting his memories into the neural pathway link in his arm so he would think he’s the real shiro and act enough like him, with a few glitches (”I  T O L D  Y O U  T O  S T A Y  O U T  O F  T H I S”) (hunk mentioned shiro’s could be used to store galra info, so could be foreshadowing. pidge also mentioned how dna could now be used to store data, and perhaps quintessence could do that too?) (end of stage 1: creation). 

they need a shiro that will work like a shiro, so they let him ‘escape’ and see if he can manage to do it. they put sentries out so he can evade/attack them, but leave everything else roughly unguarded; this lets the clone think he ‘escaped’ when really, it was all to do with the plan to test if the clone is effective enough for usage (end of stage 2: testing). 

clone shiro, or ‘kuron’, is allowed a small ship with no food or water (not needed anyway), with a certain amount of time to get to voltron (stage three: positioning), which finally begins his mission (stage 4: ???), before his systems shut down (failure of stage 3). hence the only thing on kuron’s mind is ‘voltron, get me to voltron. where is voltron?’. notice how he never says ‘i wonder how my team is doing?’, ‘i hope my team is okay’. he understands he has a team, and some of the bonding moments he’s had with them, but not the exact inter-personal connections he has with them. 

once he returns to steal another ship, he again has no problem getting through security, even though there should be a lot as they were being attacked by voltron. 

he somehow survives 7 days on another ship w/ no food, water, and very low oxygen levels. the real thing that keeps him alive is his connection to voltron.

there is no reunion scene when kuron joins voltron, which indicates that this isn’t the real shiro, as otherwise there would a huge celebration over the fact that their leader and close friend had returned after being missing for weeks.

kuron’s interactions with the team, especially after keith exits the plot, is very limited. whereas shiro always had plenty of facial expression, kuron always looks unamused, or ‘done’ with the situation. where’s my ‘blam, blam, blam’ man? in fact, kuron seems very stiff in general, like he isn’t sure how to interact or do anything but fight as a paladin. 

the times when kuron does interact, or is in the center of attention, it’s usually to antagonise himself. he shouts at lance (one of the most stanned characters), he makes keith feel incompetent as a leader (purposefully or not), he goes against the team and helps out lotor, who had not shown any reason to trust him (this is obviously haggar’s will, haggar’s controlling of kuron). this shows the audience that kuron is to be disliked, or distrusted. 

finally, now that zarkon is dead, shiro can more easily communicate with the team, but can only do so through the astral plane as his body is still immobile. he has now been trapped in the astral plane for months. he finally reaches out to lance, hopefully kicking off the ‘what’s up with shiro you guys’ plot line. 

the only way to save shiro is to drag him out of the astral plane, by finding his physical body and waking him up. to do that, however, they have to get past kuron and haggar.

kuron has already begun deteriorating. the galra had no time to perfect the clone, as shiro had escaped before the final tests could be done. mentally, he is breaking out of character more often and is becoming less able to translate haggar’s orders into something more shiro-like in accordance with his programming and memories, as haggar is becoming more and more needy. physically, his headaches (glitching, malfunctioning programming, orders from haggar conflicting with memories) and his memories and understanding of his self (as he believes he’s the real shiro) are becoming clouded as haggar is beginning to break him down.