#voltron meta

Red Lion: establishes a mental link with Keith out of nowhere

Keith, in terror: Lance is dead, isn’t he.

Red Lion: No. Keith. He’s alive. I just wanted to know if you were safe.

Keith:

Keith: oh.…I'm fine.

Even though the "bonding moment" wasn't exactly a success (Lance apparently doesn't remember it, there's a misunderstanding of each other's intentions)

I actually think... it was?

Because from that point onward their dynamic clearly changes.

Their interactions start feeling different.

And what really surprises me is how consistent the show is about it.

This isn't one of those conflicts that gets resolved in a single episode and there isn't a huge emotional speech where someone explains exactly what's changed.

Instead it's a series of small but very noticeable interactions. Tiny shifts in tone. Little moments that keep building on each other.

Show, don't tell.

After the "bonding moment" they both stop seeing each other as just the most superficial version of the other person.

They start noticing the person underneath.

Look at this.

Keith and Lance get paired together on Balmera.

And there's a really interesting scene here.

Again the scene itself isn't particularly dramatic.

What's interesting is what it says in the larger context because it shows a very clear change in how they treat each other.

Keith naturally, is ready to throw himself into danger without a plan or asking anyone first.

Lance, knowing Keith is impulsive as hell, stops him and calmly explains that maybe they should... have a plan first.

And what does Keith do?

He doesn't brush Lance off or ignore him because obviously Keith knows best. He WOULD before. But something is different now.

He actually listens.

He hears Lance out.

Also Keith is SUCH an idiot. I am so sorry but the fandom lied to me for YEARS. Everyone made him sound like this cool, disciplined, aloof lone wolf. This boy is an impulsive disaster who keeps trying to solve every problem by launching himself directly at it. I love him.

This is the moment where Keith realizes that... Lance is actually kind of smart.

He finally lets himself see Lance as a person instead of just the annoying loud guy.

Yeah Lance talks too much, he's irritating.

But he's also strategic, thinks ahead, he comes up with genuinely good plans.

And the best part?

Once Keith realizes that... he actually says it out loud.

He openly admits Lance's plan was better.

And remember, we KNOW who Lance is.

The writers made sure we understood from the very beginning that he struggles with insecurity, he constantly feels like he's not enough.

That words of recognition mean everything to him.

And now...

He's getting that recognition from the very rival he's been jealous of for who knows how many weeks????

The guy who barely compliments anybody.

The guy whose approval Lance has been desperately trying to earn since practically day one.

I mean... a few episodes ago Lance was literally fishing for compliments from him, trying so hard to impress him.

And now Keith just... gives him exactly what he's been wanting.

Directly.

Honestly I'm almost surprised the show doesn't linger on Lance's reaction for even a second.

Compare it to how emotional he was when Shiro acknowledged him.

All they would've needed was one extra second, maybe a slightly bigger smile or surprised expression idk.

But they don't give it to us which almost feels weird considering how meaningful this should be for Lance.

Because I'M convinced that night Lance fell asleep smiling into his pillow thinking about the fact that stupid Keith had actually acknowledged his abilities.

Nobody can convince me that it's not canon.

And after that...

They just... work together.

Whenever they're not actively arguing, they actually ARE... a good team.

Also, once again: why did fandom convince me Keith was the composed one??

I wouldn't say they suddenly become best friends.

But there is a very obvious shift.

They simply... cooperate.

They're real teammates now.

Interactions like these would've been practically impossible during the first half of season one.

Now?

Just look at them.

Once they stop constantly trying to prove something to each other they actually function as a team.

They still tease each other of course.

actually Lance is also an idiot. I almost forgot. Thankfully, the show didn't.

(btw, I absolutely adore the fact that they decided to spend time, money and work of several people to animate shit like this. Yes, give me more, I want to just be there with these stupid boys and watch them be stupid. This is the point.)

But something else starts happening with Lance that I find really interesting.

I feel like he stops getting triggered by Keith's existence...

...and starts getting frustrated by the things Keith does.

That's a pretty important difference.

Look.

Here Lance stops Keith from making another impulsive decision.

And here...

Lance doesn't seem annoyed at Keith.

He's annoyed by what Keith is doing.

That's not the same thing.

It's almost like Lance starts recognizing Keith's impulsiveness and naturally slips into the role of being the one who slows him down a little.

Keeps him from immediately charging into disaster.

So if Keith's realization is:

"Lance is actually smart and thinks strategically."

(Even if not enough to listen to him lmao)

Then Lance's realization is:

"Keith is actually kind of an impulsive mess who occasionally needs someone to hit the brakes."

Lance shifts from "whatever you're doing I have to prove I'm better than you."

to

"okay Keith, could you PLEASE calm down before you get yourself killed again."

It's an incredibly subtle change.

Nobody ever says it out loud.

But the show keeps reinforcing it over and over again.

Which, yeah. But I feel like it never gets acknowledged that krolia leaving wasn’t the issue. Her ‘abandoning’ keith in on itself wasn’t what caused any of his issue.

The real problem was keiths dad dying, especially when he was still very little.

I try to explain.

See, not only wasn’t it a “I leave my child to grow up lonely without me but it is better than if he has to grow up with a galactic war reaching his planet” kind of situation but a “I leave my baby to grow up in the care of his loving father so to keep them both save from this war even if it means I can’t see them ever again” kind of situation.

Krolia was working under very different expectation from what really happened, which obviously she couldn’t have known.

Like, sure. Growing up without your mom you never got to know sucks. But growing up without your mom because she had to leave you but you still have your dad who cares for you and loves you a lot is way less devastating than having your dad die at a really young age and not knowing anything about your mom but that she left you.

and the later is what happened to keith.

If his dad hadn’t died when he was still so young, it would have been different. Still a little sucky but eventually keith would have been at an age where his dad could have explained things.

‘Your mom is still out there but she loves you a lot but can’t be here.’ And maybe he did tell keith that already but it’s kind of a meaningless reassurance once his dad is gone.

But eventually keiths dad could have told him the truth about krolia. Maybe even shown him the lion. and keith wouldn't have been left with no family but still had his dad raising him. you know, important difference.

But again, the dad died when keith was little. And at what point can you trust a child with that kind of information anyways? He couln’t exactly risk keith telling anyone, like a friend he might trust or slip up when getting in an argument.

Either teachers and stuff would worry about the kid having some mental issues and delusions (not good) or less likely but probably worse, someone would have believed it and worst case the government learns his kid is half an alien.

So yeah. My point is, not only was krolia expecting keith to be well cared for by his dad, its his dad’s early death that triggered keiths abandonment issues and most his struggles growing up more than her initial leaving.

In fact, keiths dad not dying but Krolia still leaving is really the only scenario in which keith had a chance at a stable childhood.

Because the sad truth is that even if krolia had stayed, even if the galra hadn’t found earth and the blue lion, it would have set up keith for a life as an outsider and difficulties with socializing.

Because, well. krolia is a 7 ft purple alien woman. Sure they have been living out in bum fuck nowhere. But no one could ever know about krolia. Freaking first alien on earth. You think there is any she could have just lived among humans with no issues? (you know like the government? Public panic?) Can't exactly disguise her in any believable way...

And then there is little keith. Brings us back to the previous point of: at what age can you be sure your kid wont accidentally or unintentionally reveal his mom is a purple alien to somene? And therefor either draw attention from child welfare service for continued and persistent delusions or worse the government interested in a real alien?

And even then. Should he lie about not having a mom in school? make stuff up about his mom being some kind fo freak or wirdo? He can’t ever have friends home. They can’t meet krolia for obvious reasons.

Even if keiths dad had been alive all this time and went to teachers conferences, to sports games, was the one to drop keith of at other kids homes. the lies. The pretending. The feeling – knowing – he wasn’t like others. That he was quite literally alien. Knowing who and what he was but also having to desperately hide it.

With krolia there, keith still wouldn’t have had a stable, easy childhood. Still would have struggled to connect to others. Still have been an outcast.

Hi! Welcome to "Uncharted Regions."

Now that it's been several years since Voltron Season 8 came out, the news of Netflix's removal of the series on December 14th, 2024 shook the fandom and pop culture as a whole.

You may be wondering... 1) Huh?! 2) Why?! It's a Netflix Original! 3) I loved this show, I don't understand! I was the same, too. We were all a little confused. However, licensing rights were ending to Netflix and Netflix doesn't want to renew. Fair play.

For reference, here is the full poster, as collected from a fan on Reddit a few years ago. I believe it is actually an official poster, not an image recomposed by fans, because it has the Voltron/Netflix logos on the bottom - which are missing in the individual releases throughout the seasons:

The proof hides in small details, so bear with me while I explain why the S7-8 part of the poster was enlarged…

As I accidentally discovered recently, the poster distributed at NYCC 2018 was even more truncated. Allura wasn’t in it either at the end. Here’s a post from Voltron’s twitter, back in 2018, releasing the digital image—which is the so-called ‘full’ S7-8 poster, that includes Allura.

But if you read the comments, there are several people who complain that all the posters given out at NYCC were… misprinted:

Also:

And this:

And again:

On e-Bay, there are still some original NYCC 2018 posters for sale (yes, in 2025) which, as expected, are missing Allura from the end of the print:

An important aspect is that the dimensions of the NYCC posters I found on e-Bay (including earlier seasons, such as the S1-2) are all 17” length, 9.5” height. So no matter what, they had to confine the image into that ratio. That was the poster’s paper size.

Now the juicy part:

—Look at the NYCC physical poster (where Allura is also missing) : Dakin’s head (the big Coran-innkeeper) is cut from the nose up, so you can’t see the eyes.

—Meanwhile, in the digital poster later released by Voltron and in the full recomposed poster, a little bit more of Dakin fits into the image—the eyes are included, but the top of the head is still chopped. (btw, the ratio of the digital image fits the 17x9.5 proportion too):

Which only means one thing:

That the S7-8 poster was neither chopped physically ✂️ (remember, it’s still 17x9.5, just like the previous posters) nor misprinted nor cropped digitally at the very end. The file image was resized. ENLARGED. This way, Lotor wouldn’t fit into the 17” length (and in the initial print run, Allura didn’t fit either, and that’s why Dakin’s head was snipped a smidge more).

My other proof is that when you look at the section where the S7-8 illustration combines with the previous section (S5-6), the photomerge is not perfectly seamless.

A Discord friend noticed some time ago that the S7-8 part of the fully reconstructed poster is a bit more blurry than the rest. Well, that’s because it was enlarged, so the resolution is different. Thing is, it wasn’t enlarged by much. Just a little bit to cut out that one last character. If you play with the resize tool, you can see that by bringing the image a notch down, Dakin’s head would fully fit in, and it would add that little space needed for Lotor to be there.

The problem is… by sizing up the last portion of the poster, it won’t properly stitch together with the previous section. But Photoshop is smart. When photomerging, the algorithm will automatically adjust the image to try to seamlessly merge the images while also maintaining the ratio. Which means that the image will get slightly distorted, but it’s imperceptible, due to its large size. Only when you zoom in, you see the artifacts at the seams, as described above. Also, the process of ‘distorting’ the image will add to the blur effect.

Looking at the overall poster, no other character is partially cropped out of the page. There are some creatures that have wings/fins sticking out. Lions do not fully fit in. But no sentient characters are chopped. Except big-head Dakin. Oh, and Allura’s right foot.

The entire poster is built in four wave-like compositions, to mirror the four poster releases. Each wave has a beginning, a middle and an end. Except the last section, which ends abruptly, with Allura’s hair floating into La-La land, and the green guy above waving goodbye, like a seal of doom.

Also, I do not believe there is more to the poster, beyond Lotor. The big Coranic dragon probably ends with the tail looping down and under its body. The end of the fourth wave.

Some may argue that we also need to see the rest of what’s on top (because some of the creatures’ top parts are cropped out; same with the Lions). But this would mean that the full poster image must be sized down significantly more—creating even more space at the very end (and a reason to believe there was more stuff missing from the poster). I don’t think that was the illustrators’ intention. The creation of these posters, as explained on twitter by an artist who worked on Voltron, was inspired by Kinu Nishimura. Here’s how Nishimura sets the compositions:

Notice how the big elements are not fully included. They are the background for the characters. (Ha, that actually might steer into a more advanced conversation about why the characters are more important than the mechas, but I shall leave that for another time.)

Lastly, if anyone has doubts about Lotor being the last character in the poster, try to come up with another tall guy that Allura may be gazing so fondly at; a character who isn’t repeated at all in the last quarter of the poster.

LOL, Sendak? 😂 (heh, actually Sendak is present in this section). Adult-Lotor is not present at all in the S7-8 poster, although we did see him/his ghost in S8. In fact, he is present only once in the entire S1-8 poster.

Or

The Space Mom Lance Agenda Masterpost

Here I will add the links to this meta and some other VLD meta in case anyone is interested in reading.

What is this about?

To those who don't know what i'm talking about, the "Team Mom" is a popular trope often found in ensemble shows where there is a character who acts in a more "gently parental" way to other members of the team.

Just like how the popular "Space Dad" nickname was coined for Shiro and the fandom accepted he was the "Team Dad", there was a time when the fandom tried to shove Allura in the "Space Mom" role.

But after the first seasons, the fans realised that Allura didn't exactly fit the role and just stopped using the name for her.

Some people tried to call Hunk the Mom Friend or Coran as he is also an adult and Allura's guardian.

This little meta is my attempt of saying that the closest thing the Paladins had to a "Space Mom" was a lanky cuban teenager.

Each part covers Lance's relationship with the rest of the team from this angle: how Lance takes on a caretaker/protector position and other interesting stuff I may find relevant.

Part 1. What is a Team Mom?/Keith

Part 2. Keith 2/Allura

Part 3. Allura 2

Part 4. Pidge

Part 5. Pidge 2/Hunk

Part 6. Hunk 2/Shiro

Part 7. Shiro 2/Coran

Part 8. Coran/The Space Pets

Part 9. The Space Pets/Veronica

Part 10. Veronica, Nadia and Sylvio

Part 11. Miscellaneus

Besides I will add other posts that were born while making these posts.