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one part of the ship finds the blue lion and shows it to the other. one part of the ship stays behind and misses the partnership they had while the other leaves to go on missions for the blades of marmora to protect the other. the one staying behind dies.

now am i talking about klance or keith's dad and krolia.

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HELLOOOOO!

There are days where I wonder why Voltron never got an official Art book with concept drawings, character designs, storyboards, writers notes ect. Like what Legend of Korra got with all 3 to 4 books. I’m sure there was so much amazing stuff that came out of production during development of the show at Studio Mir… It kinda makes me sad that nothing ever got released (maybe bc of fans or bc of dreamworks, who knows…)

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Hahaaaa. ☕️

There are days where I wonder why Voltron never got an official Art book with concept drawings, character designs, storyboards, writers notes ect. Like what Legend of Korra got with all 3 to 4 books. I’m sure there was so much amazing stuff that came out of production during development of the show at Studio Mir… It kinda makes me sad that nothing ever got released (maybe bc of fans or bc of dreamworks, who knows…)

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Any insight into why LM and JDS announced Shiro as gay at the SDCC 2018 Voltron panel when they already knew how S7 was going to play out (telling us we’ll “meet Shiro’s fiance Adam”)? Especially given all the excitement, praise and publicity they got in the following 3 weeks before S7 aired. If further executive mandated last-minute edits were made to the show after the SDCC announcement, I’d be impressed by just how little the execs knew their audience.

Well, this is only a theory of course… cause I wasn’t there… but I believe they announced Shiro as queer (they never actually say gay and I have my own reasons for why I don’t think Shiro is gay as in homosexual), because at that point the macross love triangle was still a part of season 8. They had most likely already finished the edits for season 7 (bringing Shiro back to life and removing Black Paladin Lance). Actually this is confirmed by the description of this video of the panel, in which they credit Joshua Hamilton as the story editor of VLD. That means at this point Tim had left the project and Joshua has been promoted to the story editor role to replace him. That confirms my timeline here. But they might not have received the order for s8 just yet… well Barlee here implies in this tweet that they announced Shiro’s sexuality before they got explicit permission to do so.

And so do JDS and LM in this interview, when they talk about how the positive reactions from the fans is what changed "their" minds about how explicit it could be (actually rewatching the interview, JDS says specifically that the edits to Shiro and Adam's story were not coming from Dreamworks executives, because it got so far down the line that it got storyboarded, but "other controlling parties" got involved that he doesn't name but he does say that Voltron is not DreamWorks owned property... so take that how you will)… and is what allowed them to include Shiro’s epilogue in the first place. So they were fighting harddddd to include that storyline specifically.

The purpose of queering Shiro was always to relate it back to Lance. That’s why they wanted to announce it in season 2, before his (original) death, because it was always going to play a part in Lance’s self-worth and love arcs, that I discuss here.

The date of this drawing says 11/8/16, meaning LM drew this no later than 8th November 2016 and she posted it on the following day on twitter, which is three months before season 2 dropped, in January 2017, confirming that they wanted to reveal his sexuality in season 2. They have not started production on season 7 or 8 here yet, but they have most likely started production on season 6 (originally called season 4), perhaps even wrapping up. But as I said here, this is around the time they got the order to keep Shiro alive, because they delay the release of season 2 by a couple of months, from late 2016 to January 2017. Most likely, they got the order to keep Shiro alive shortly after, which changed the story massively. This is in line with the edits I found for both season 5 and season 6.

As I said in Voltron is a Love Story (and several other places) Shiro is a more mature version of Lance. He is who Lance has to become in order to ascend to the Black Lion. That includes being comfortable with his own sexuality. And as Jeremy Shada (voice of Lance) says here in this interview, Lance still has some growth to do before he can do that (and that tells me they didn’t get the order to remove Black Paladin Lance yet, but it must have been very shortly after this interview… which confirms my timeline here). Well, at this point in the story (season 4&5), Lance is still hiding from his feelings for Keith, as I found here. Lance can’t ascend to the Black Lion before he accepts his feelings for Keith and stops hiding. And the thing is.. the acceleration of that arc happens towards the end of season 6 when Keith comes back to the team, as I found here. And as I found here and here, so was the culmination of Lance's Black Paladin arc.

So, Lance was meant to ascend to the Black Lion in season 7 (here I argue for why I think it was meant to be the very first episode of season 7) and he was supposed to confess his feelings for Keith in season 8 (in the original storyline). But then they had to change it when they were told to remove that arc. They reworked the original storyline with the macross love triangle and that’s why they added Lance confessing to the mice and Allura reacting to it in season 6 (as well as Keith seeing it in the quantum abyss…) to build up to the culmination of that arc in season 8, the only arc of Lance’s they had left. So, they reworked that into a bit of a more explicit reference than a more subtle through-line. That’s why they outed Shiro as queer in SDCC 2018. But as we saw, that was edited out too, in the end.

Any last minute changes ordered AFTER SDCC would have been purely for season 8. They would not have had enough time to edit season 7 well if they got the changes 3 weeks before release, and as I stated here, season 7 is much better edited than season 8. Well, JDS actually outs himself in this interview, saying that they "had a month left when reactions to season 7 came through and that was day of the drop", suggesting not only a much earlier release for season 8 than December (since Season 7 was released in August, and having a month left suggests an October release for Season 8...), but also confirms that they made some changes to season 8 that they hadn't included before... which they only admit to be Shiro's epilogue... but we know it's not everything...

The thing is, it wasn’t the Dreamworks executives. It was the IP holders. JDS also says in that interview that the show was made for young boys to sell toys and the core audience that the show built after release was very different from their intended audience. Well, he says this kind of in relation to talking about “other controlling parties” again… so you can take that how you want. I take it like this. It wasn’t that the Dreamworks or show executives didn’t know. It’s that the IP holder executives wanted to maintain the intended audience, because they wanted to sell more merchandise.

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THE SABOTAGE OF VOLTRON LEGENDARY DEFENDER

KEEP READING

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I went to work today...

...And I came home to our tweet going viral for the biggest misunderstanding I've ever seen. Woops.

(DW drop the reboot, it would be iconic)

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In honour of Princess Allura (also because we just posted about her the other day) take a look at this zine and give the artists some well deserved love! 🩷

Here's my piece for the Allura Zine, Altea's Last Princess!

Thank you @xochitai-zines for organizing this beautiful project! You can download the zine here

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Hi! Congrats to all of you on releasing the glossary!! 've loved all you guys' metas, they've made me so much more interested in symbolism and subtext in visual media especially!!! That being said I wanted to ask about whether you guys think that Allura's death was always planned for the end of the series and what possible endings there might've been instead?

<333

Hii! Thank you so much for this message and for engaging with the glossary in such a thoughtful way! It means the world to know it's helped deepen your experience with symbolism and subtext in visual storytelling. That’s the heart of why we made it.

Was Allura's Death Always the Plan?

There is official word and it does confirm Allura’s death was indeed planned. According to co-showrunner Lauren Montgomery, Allura’s death was chosen deliberately from a feminist standpoint. She cited a desire to invert the trope where “The man always gets to be the hero,” referencing Armageddon as a specific example.

Afterbuzz TV, Season 8 Review with the Showrunners (Transcript) | Feb 25, 2019

“If basically Keith had gone like, ‘I’ll do it,’ and then, you know, Allura had to stand on the sidelines and say, ‘Good thing Keith saved the day! I’m happy!’ — like no. I want my women to be able to save the day too… If people want to interpret that as sexist, then that’s fine. But we’re just going to have to agree to disagree."

She also clarified that Allura's power level made her the only character for whom the sacrifice made narrative sense.

“If it had to come down to any one person, she’s the only one powerful enough — and we’ve sort of, through, you know, being a life-giver.”

That said, the writers’ room also explored alternate outcomes. An earlier pitch involved the entire team disappearing, not dying in a literal sense, but vanishing together, allowing for the possibility of return. That version was rejected for being too bleak.

There was even a draft where the team would sacrifice themselves together, removing Voltron from the equation as a whole. But ultimately, Allura’s solo act was chosen for its emotional weight and symbolic finality.

Her arc closely aligns with the Heroine’s Journey (as outlined in the glossary): a pattern that often ends not with triumph, but with transcendence through loss. Survival, in that framework, isn’t always the goal. Wholeness is — even if it comes at the cost of presence.

In the series, Allura doesn’t die from failure; she dies completing the very thing she’s always embodied: restoration. She doesn’t destroy, she heals. She returns balance, connects cosmic threads, and becomes mythic.

But there’s a tension here. That reading is elegant — yet for many fans, it still hurts. 

Because while Allura’s death is framed as noble and necessary, it also echoes familiar tropes: the emotionally burdened woman who carries the team’s grief, restores the balance, and then disappears. And for many viewers, especially fans of colour, this pattern takes on an even deeper resonance.

From a structural lens, her ending is beautiful — bathed in white-gold light, silent, and serene. It visually echoes Oriande, the White Lion, and the symbolic realm of chosen transcendence. There’s no violence in that scene, just ascension.

Importantly, Allura does receive:

A final scene with the team.

A dinner epilogue, where her memory is honoured.

A legacy that continues through Lance’s markings, through the team’s peace, through the quiet moral equilibrium she restored.

She’s granted peace in memory, but not a life where she gets to choose who she is beyond sacrifice.

And crucially, she does get to say goodbye (except to Coran, which we will touch on in the meta briefly). She speaks with each Paladin individually — hugging them, thanking them, saying a true farewell. She departs on her own terms.

But even so, her goodbye is framed by finality. It’s quiet, gentle, and emotionally generous, but it still leads to her departure, not her continuation.

There’s no room left for her to imagine a future, only to bless one for others. Her voice is present — beautifully so — but brief. Her softness arrives only at the end, once her choice is already made. It’s not erasure, but it is containment.

Her name is spoken again. The team remembers her, and the epilogue honours her visually and verbally. But even so, there’s a restraint in how her absence is processed. She is memorialised, but not mourned. Her impact is present, yet emotionally quiet. A legacy acknowledged, not lived with.

She dies as a symbol. And as the glossary says, symbols carry weight, often more than they're allowed to speak for themselves. That’s especially fraught for a character like Allura, who was never granted narrative softness, romantic fulfilment, or emotional rest, only responsibility.

Allura becomes a kind of saint—ascended, luminous, unreachable. It’s powerful, but it also removes her from the world of the living. Saints are venerated, not embraced. They inspire, but they don’t get to laugh, choose, or rest.

For many fans, what they wanted wasn’t transcendence — it was continuance. To see her live. To see her define her own peace.

The Weight of That Choice

Allura’s death sparked extensive discourse in fandom, and with good reason. She was one of the only Black-coded princess figures in Western animation. Her arc was powerful but inconsistently prioritised — her strength was central, but her interiority often wasn’t. So to have her die after healing the universe, without ongoing presence, romantic resolution, or legacy through voice, felt to many like an echo of “fridging,” even when wrapped in transcendence.

The showrunners acknowledged this concern directly. In a candid discussion, Montgomery said she understood the optics — “there is a trope of people of colour dying to save the stupid white people around them” — but dismissed that interpretation as superficial.

“She’s the main character here,” she argued, suggesting that viewing her death only through the lens of her race misses the broader intent to frame her as the emotional centre.

For some fans, her ending was bittersweet. For others, it felt like a narrative betrayal — the culmination of a pattern where women of colour are revered in death but sidelined in life. These interpretations coexist and are not mutually exclusive. Part of what the glossary aims to do is make space for that tension.

It wasn’t just about the plot. It was about whose stories get mythologised, and whose get to continue.

The visual framing said “peace.” But the silence said “closure” — without catharsis.

Allura’s arc reflects a familiar pattern in genre storytelling — the noble, emotionally burdened woman whose death becomes symbolic rather than character-completing.

She shares notable parallels with:

Padmé Amidala (Star Wars)

A powerful leader reduced to emotional symbolism by the end. Dies in childbirth, catalysing Anakin’s transformation, but her agency and voice fade in the final act.  Noble, mythic, but silenced — remembered through others rather than continued.

Trinity (The Matrix Revolutions)

A co-lead who dies after achieving both action and emotional fulfilment, but the peace she helps secure is something she never lives to see.  Her death supports the chosen one’s ascension, not her own narrative continuation.

Satine Kryze (The Clone Wars)

A pacifist queen who chooses diplomacy over war. Killed tragically with unresolved love, she becomes a symbol of what could have been — for Obi-Wan, not for herself.  Carries regal grace and moral clarity, but her arc ends in loss, not transformation.

These women, like Allura, are not failed or weak; they’re sacrificed as symbols, often to elevate someone else's path. Their stories resonate deeply but often stop short of giving them full narrative voice or rest.

What Could Have Been (Canon-Adjacent Endings)

Allura’s death is not a solitary act — Honerva joins her, and in doing so, the moment becomes not just a sacrifice, but reconciliation. That choice matters.

It softens Honerva’s arc from destruction into remorse and reinforces one of VLD’s deeper truths: healing often requires surrender, not conquest.

Still, even with that shared ending, Allura carries the emotional and symbolic weight alone. She’s the one remembered. She’s the one transformed into a legacy.

Lance bears her markings and symbolically her peace. It's beautiful, but it does subtly shifts the emotional centre of the ending onto him.

Here are some additional alternate endings that could have maintained her emotional arc, while allowing more relational closure:

1. Survival through Transformation

Allura returns changed, not as a Paladin, but as something cosmic. Her connection to Oriande deepens, and she becomes a new guardian or anchor for the universe’s emotional balance. Transcendence with continuation.

2. Collective Return

After the final act with Honerva, both women are reborn in new forms — no longer tied to their past roles. Perhaps not human, not Altean, not Galra — but something symbolic of rebirth. Honerva finds peace, and Allura is allowed to live a life beyond legacy.

3. A Quiet Epilogue

She lives. But she steps back, tending to Oriande, reconnecting with Altean spirit and self. Her arc ends not in death, but rest. Grief and peace coexist.

4. Accompanied Departure

Allura doesn’t go alone. Someone joins her, not just to assist, but to share the cost of closing the rift. This doesn’t lessen her strength; it honours her humanity.

If it’s Shiro, the moment deepens his ongoing arc of life after death, of anchoring others through emotional resilience. Shiro, who has died and returned, would understand what it means to step toward sacrifice and survive it differently. Their bond becomes a quiet echo of mutual respect — two leaders carrying each other’s weight when the universe asks too much of one.

If it’s Lotor, the act becomes redemptive. Not absolution for his past, but a deliberate accounting for it. If his arc had been one of self-awareness and repentance, joining Allura would symbolise reconciliation between the Altean and Galran parts of their shared legacy. It would also allow Allura to choose compassion, not to forgive blindly, but to heal history with him, rather than for him.

Either way, the moment shifts from being a solitary act of feminine self-erasure to a shared crossing — two people standing at the edge of the universe and deciding, together, what it takes to repair it.

Each of these endings maintains the integrity of her journey but allows her to remain, not just be remembered.

What Still Remains

Whether or not her death was “planned,” its emotional impact is lasting. Because even in her absence, Allura becomes part of the show’s mythic structure — like Oriande, like Alfor’s AI, like the White Lion — a sacred memory. But memory isn’t the same as voice. And that’s why fans continue to write, draw, and imagine what she could’ve had. That’s not just grieving a favourite, it’s a form of narrative reclamation. Filling the silence where the story stopped.

In some ways, that silence wasn’t just metaphorical — it was structural. According to the creators, much of the emotional depth they wanted to explore in the finale didn’t make it in: a deeper dive into Honerva’s POV, more space for Allura’s choice, and even more abstract, emotionally rich “floaty white space” scenes were storyboarded but cut.

As Lauren Montgomery explained in the Afterbuzz TV interview:

“There’s a ton of stuff that hit the cutting room floor… we’re trying to make it more than that… but it’s still technically a kids’ show.”

The creators acknowledged that the story they wanted to tell was bigger than the time they were given. What aired was just “the first act” — the fight and the decision — without the lingering aftermath they had imagined.

“You have a scene that’s basically an act long… but letting that go any longer than that is just like, ‘You can’t do it,’”

In other words: the silence wasn’t only thematic. It was editorial. Allura’s departure wasn’t just gentle — it was rushed. What could have been space for mourning, reflection, and interiority instead became visual serenity with minimal dialogue.

In the landscape of Western animation, Allura remains rare: a space princess and mythic figure who held narrative, symbolic, and cultural weight. Her arc touched millions, even as it left many wanting more. Her presence mattered. Her story mattered. And the conversation around her is part of a wider demand for narrative care, emotional depth, and visibility.

In that way, Allura’s death is less an ending and more a challenge:

What do we do with stories that were meant to mean more than the format could hold? And what does it say when even the most emotionally potent scenes — ones that centre women, healing, and goodbye — get left behind, unrendered?

✨ Important footnote: This summary only briefly touches on the complexities of Allura’s ending, story, and narrative position. In our full meta, we include a dedicated section that more fully explores her role.

---

We'll leave it there, but thank you for the question! ♥︎

☕️ Note: if we haven't answered your ask, I PROMISE, we will get to them all. Sometimes we have double up questions, some of which we can't answer at all yet but we will address in the meta. All in due time, friends.

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We had someone in our asks about this! Thank you for providing your thoughts.

This is interesting. From what we found, what that means is that there was a final poster that didn’t release rather than an extension beyond Lotor in the original poster. ☕️

Love this fandom. You guys make the investigative work so much fun.

Guys, I think I figured out how Lotor was excised from the end of the S7-8 poster. The image wasn’t cropped. It was enlarged, leaving Lotor out of the picture and shaving the top of Dakin’s head off the image (Dakin is the Coran-innkeeper big lady at the end of the poster).

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.

TL;dr: The image was not cropped, it was embiggened 😄 This reminds me of some famous stolen museum artworks, where the thieves cut the paintings from the frame.

[vldunchartedregions]

Voltron: Legendary Definition (AKA... The Glossary ✨)

Hello from the Uncharted Regions Meta Team!

Thank you for your patience, everyone!

This glossary is brand spankin' new 60 page document outlining the bare necessities of what our meta represents. But this is not just for fans of the series, or for meta readers.

This document is a reference point for writers, storytellers, fic authors, fan artists, and most importantly — viewers who may want to understand media literacy a little better.

This is to the audience members who want to gain knowledge and understanding on the emotional logic and structures of storytelling within the VLD universe.

☕️ We highly encourage you to read this before we release the episodic posts of our Uncharted Regions Meta.

This glossary is a breakdown of media literacy 101 and how to strategically analyse certain dynamics, shifts in storytelling, and how characters may represent certain archetypes, dynamics, and how this shapes accordingly to the narrative throughout the story of Voltron: Legendary Defender.

Voltron: Legendary Definition is broken down into five parts:

Narrative Elements

Archetypes and Story Models

Love Triangle Dynamics (Platonic, Romantic & Symbolic)

Tropes and Subversions in VLD

Klance Specific Readings

NOTE: The FINAL section is not for Klance shippers exclusively — however you may skip the last section if that is not your cup of tea. We chose to add the final section in as it's relevant to our meta and explores their dynamics and the structures of their intertwining character arcs. It's a very well done approach to understanding their dynamic - even platonically - so we highly encourage you, fellow reader (shipper or not) to give this section a chance and to read it too.

It breaks down recurring narrative tools and symbolic motifs, key archetypes and their evolutions, and gives language to the patterns you feel when watching, but might not have the words for yet.

…and so much more.

This is for the ones who stayed after the final episode, who felt the ache behind the animation.

For the fans who may want to rewatch; not to remember what happened — but to understand the whats, huhs, and whys?

We made this for you.

Voltron: Legendary Definition is available as a Google Document [LINK] and as a PDF for offline viewing / to download [LINK].

⋆⭒˚.⋆

✨ P.S. Special thanks to our honorary Yellow Lion for spearheading this part of the project. We couldn't have done it without you. ✨

(We're a little emotional about this one)

[vldunchartedregions]

Voltron: Legendary Definition (AKA... The Glossary ✨)

Hello from the Uncharted Regions Meta Team!

Thank you for your patience, everyone!

This glossary is brand spankin' new 60 page document outlining the bare necessities of what our meta represents. But this is not just for fans of the series, or for meta readers.

This document is a reference point for writers, storytellers, fic authors, fan artists, and most importantly — viewers who may want to understand media literacy a little better.

This is to the audience members who want to gain knowledge and understanding on the emotional logic and structures of storytelling within the VLD universe.

☕️ We highly encourage you to read this before we release the episodic posts of our Uncharted Regions Meta.

This glossary is a breakdown of media literacy 101 and how to strategically analyse certain dynamics, shifts in storytelling, and how characters may represent certain archetypes, dynamics, and how this shapes accordingly to the narrative throughout the story of Voltron: Legendary Defender.

Voltron: Legendary Definition is broken down into five parts:

Narrative Elements

Archetypes and Story Models

Love Triangle Dynamics (Platonic, Romantic & Symbolic)

Tropes and Subversions in VLD

Klance Specific Readings

NOTE: The FINAL section is not for Klance shippers exclusively — however you may skip the last section if that is not your cup of tea. We chose to add the final section in as it's relevant to our meta and explores their dynamics and the structures of their intertwining character arcs. It's a very well done approach to understanding their dynamic - even platonically - so we highly encourage you, fellow reader (shipper or not) to give this section a chance and to read it too.

It breaks down recurring narrative tools and symbolic motifs, key archetypes and their evolutions, and gives language to the patterns you feel when watching, but might not have the words for yet.

…and so much more.

This is for the ones who stayed after the final episode, who felt the ache behind the animation.

For the fans who may want to rewatch; not to remember what happened — but to understand the whats, huhs, and whys?

We made this for you.

Voltron: Legendary Definition is available as a Google Document [LINK] and as a PDF for offline viewing / to download [LINK].

⋆⭒˚.⋆

✨ P.S. Special thanks to our honorary Yellow Lion for spearheading this part of the project. We couldn't have done it without you. ✨

(We're a little emotional about this one)

[vldunchartedregions]

Ah… Bob.

Isn’t it interesting, considering what we know.

(Thank you for the tag!! 🏷️)

Just noticed Bob in the audience at Shiro's arm wrestling competition in the "Clear Day" episode...

[vldunchartedregions]

I'm shaking in my boots, why does your new post have a bullet point that says: ...character art file book?!?!?!?!

...heh.

All in due time, friends.

[vldunchartedregions]

When we do our weekly team check ins, and we ask for a glossary update:

[vldunchartedregions]

What qualities do you think made Keith fall for Lance? And vice versa?

WHAT MADE KEITH AND LANCE FALL FOR EACH OTHER?

Let's start with Keith.

What does Keith seem to like about Lance? From what I can glean from his reactions, he responds best to him when Lance is being a goofball:

[Season 2, Episode 4: Greening the Cube, 02:38]

Lance was being a goofball here, 'cause he's starting a snowball fight, while Shiro was being all serious, like "okay guys. We've trained for this. We're prepared" lol. Clearly, Shiro likes it, too.

[Season 2, Episode 9: Belly of the Weblum, 02:35]

Yes! he is smiling here!

[Season 3, Episode 2: Red Paladin, 05:39]

(responding to Lance saying he isn't a goofball, which we all know that he is, including Keith, but that's what we like about him, including Keith).

And I found more evidence of this here from the later seasons.

He also likes it when Lance is being a capable paladin.

[Season 1, Episode 2: Some Assembly Required, 19:43]

This is after they worked together as a team for the first time.

[Season 1, Episode 2: Some Assembly Required, 21:54]

this is after they formed Voltron for the first time (on purpose).

[Season 1, Episode 7: Return of the Balmera, 07:48]

and this is after Lance comes up with a good idea (that Keith actually admits out loud is a better idea than his was).

[Season 3, Episode 6: Tailing a Comet, 15:09]

Keith also likes it when Lance approaches him and talks to him/teases him. He's spotted multiple times smiling when he talks to/teases Lance first (and mirroring his facial expressions too...).

[Season 1, Episode 2: Some Assembly Required, 21:54]

(Lance was seen multiple times wearing this face with both Keith and Allura while he was flirting in the first episode, and here Keith is the very next episode, wearing the exact same face...)

[Season 1, Episode 6: Taking Flight, 21:48]

(Lance was literally wearing this face the episode before, when he called them a good team....)

[Season 1, Episode 6: Taking Flight, 21:53]

[Season 2, Episode 4: Greening the Cube, 02:34]

[Season 3, Episode 6: Tailing a Comet, 05:30]

Here we have confirmation that Keith likes it when Lance approaches him and confides in him.

Keith also likes it when Lance is being jealous... lol

[Season 2, Episode 6: The Ark of Taujeer, 19:26]

As for Lance, we’ve already established multiple times that Lance admires Keith a lot (here and here). He thinks he’s cool, and calls him such multiple times throughout the series.

[Season 2, Episode 10: Escape From Beta Traz, 13:50]

[Season 6, Episode 4: The Colony, 06:04]

He also finds him attractive, commenting on his appearance more than once throughout the show as well:

[Season 1, Episode 1: The Rise of Voltron, 10:13]

[Season 6, Episode 4: The Colony, 05:05]

[Season 6, Episode 4: The Colony, 06:05]

(and Lance has ONLY commented on Keith’s appearance throughout the whole show… he does call Allura “pretty lady” in the first episode, but he never says anything like that after the first episode, and he hasn’t gone out of his way to comment on her appearance the same way he has with Keith. ever.). So he finds Keith very attractive.

All in all, I think it’s just everything about them that they like about each other. Keith likes all the different facets of Lance and he likes being approached by Lance, and Lance admires Keith, thinks he's cool and finds him attractive.

As for when it really started developing into romantic feelings? well, it was kinda building up from the start, but the point of no return for the both of them is here:

[Season 1, Episode 5: Tears of the Balmera, 21:25]

[vldunchartedregions]

Roadmap of Contents!

Hello from the Uncharted Regions Meta Team!

💛💚🖤❤️💙💜🩷

Firstly, Happy 9 years of VLD!

Season 1 dropped today, June 10th, 2016, and it seemed fitting to start delivering the official meta posts on the anniversary of the show's launch date.

🧭 This is our ✨ navigation ✨ post, so we will be updating this post with links to other posts as we progress.

Thank you for your patience.

On that note: Please see our Roadmap of Contents™ below.

Please note, this is still in development and is continuously being updated, so some posts may be renamed, shifted into different sections, etc.

Friendly reminder that this is all alleged, all for fun, and please treat the team with kindness and care as we navigate through the uncharted regions of Voltron: Legendary Defender, Season 8.

Compass Points || Introducing the Meta

Welcome to Uncharted Regions 

Establishing the Ground Work

Production Lore

External / Influential Media

Glossary

Character Art File Book

Reference Appendix (Shows + Existing Metas)

Inbox Q&As from Tumblr

Uncharted Memes

Charted Territory || Breaking Down Season 8

Thematics

Source Material - Oriande’s Messages

The Feud + Tim’s Departure

Episode Breakdowns

S8E1 – Launch Date

S8E2 – Shadows 

S8E3 – The Prisoner’s Dilemma 

S8E4 – Battle Scars

S8E5 - The Grudge

S8E6 – Genesis

S8E7 – Day 47

S8E8 - Clear Day

S8E9&10 – Knights of Light

S8E11 – Uncharted Regions

S8E12 – Zenith

S8E13 – The End is the Beginning

Uncharted Regions || What's Missing?

Saving Lotor, Romelle, the Altean Colony

The Love Triangle™

Completing Lance’s Arc

Astral Plane / Time Rift Scenes

(Alleged) 60 Minute Finale

From Dusk Until Dawn: The Original Endings

X Marks the Plot || Conclusions 

Wouldn’t You Like to Know, Weatherboy?

Bonus Treasures

TBA

Our team thank you for your patience once again.

We're so excited to share what we've found with you. Hop in your lions, and join us on the Clear Day ride!

"Keep your hands and feet in the mouth at all times. You use ‘em, you lose ‘em. Have a blissfully burrowful time."

Sincerely, The Uncharted Regions Meta Team

[vldunchartedregions]

OH HI HELLO.

What was Hunk and Lance's families' role in season 8?

This is something I've been wondering since I found out that both Hunk and Lance's families were removed from season 7 and season 8 (here and here), based on the NYCC 2018 promotional poster, which shows us characters from season 6 to season 8 in a huge formation.

Well, I used this same poster to infer to their possible role in the season, and based on some interviews with the cast.

Firstly, let's look at their placements on the poster. As I've stated multiple times, character placements are NOT RANDOM. For example, the MFEs are all placed together, because they are most related to each other and they were introduced together. They were meant to make up the cast of their spin-off show,

the Alteans are all grouped together with Honerva and Sendak, since they were the antagonists of season 7 and 8,

Krolia and Kolivan are grouped together, since they are the leaders of the Blade of Marmora,

Veronica and Acxa are placed together as a nod to their bonding in Season 8 episode 4: The Grudge (and their romance...).

And to give you another example just to drive this home, look at the way the paladins are placed:

Hunk's position overlaps the old Yellow Paladin, Pidge's position overlaps the old Green Paladin, Shiro overlaps Zarkon's position as the Black Paladin, Keith's position overlaps both Zarkon and Alfor's position, signifying his roles as both the Black Paladin and the Red Paladin. Likewise Lance's position only overlaps Alfor, but he is looking back towards Allura, the current Blue Paladin, who overlaps Blaytz, the old Blue paladin, signifying that he has moved on completely from his old role as the Blue Paladin (and Allura...).

So, now that we've established that character placements on this poster are purposeful and have a meaning that directly reference arcs in the show, let's look at where Hunk and Lance's families are placed.

They are placed together. And as I pointed out here and here, we see a few details at odds with what we saw in season 8.

Firstly, Rachel has a haircut at odds with the last time we saw her in season 8:

but the last time we ever see her is in Season 8, Episode 1: Launch date, where she still has long hair!

[Season 8, Episode 1: Launch Date, 22:08]

which means we were supposed to see her again with her new haircut.

Secondly, this character is a member of Hunk's family (possibly his sister's husband based on the flashbacks from Season 7, but they are ultimately unnamed and untitled):

The only time we see him in the present is in Season 7, Episode 13:

[Season 7, Episode 13: Lion's Pride Pt. II, 09:14]

We never see him again from here, and we definitely never see him wearing those clothes.

Same with these characters:

The boy we do see in the screencap above from season 7, wearing the clothes he wears here. But we never see the woman nor the girl wearing those clothes, which means we were supposed to see them in season 8 with those clothes on.

Now, all of Hunk's family being placed and intertwined with Lance's family suggests that they were supposed to be linked in some way, and be involved. But how?

Well... based on this interview with Neil Kaplan in which he describes the noises and sounds that he recorded as Lance's dad... whom we never hear speak even once after we meet him... because it was cut... perhaps there were other things from Lance's dad which was cut. Maybe that has something to do with it. But that's Lance's dad. What does Hunk's family have to do with it?

Well... let's zoom out a little bit from the above place of the poster:

What are the children sitting in?? Oh, this is interesting... because I know exactly what that is. It is the ride from Clear Day:

[Season 8, Episode 8: Clear Day, 12:27]

Huh... why are all of the children placed in the ride, when the ride was about Hunk and Keith, not Hunk and Lance???

Well @vldunchartedregions say that they found evidence of a line being cut of Keith outing his feelings for Lance in the Clear Day ride with Hunk here.

And well... Hunk was already kind of linked to the love triangle between Keith, Lance and Allura when he "launches" the love triangle in Season 8, Episode 1: Launch Date:

[Season 8, Episode 1: Launch Date, 03:05]

Perhaps... the children were all going to play a role in Lance and Keith's romance plot... possibly by driving them together, but the plot involved the rest of Hunk's family too much... so they cut them out completely, along with Lance's family.