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autisticlancemcclain · 3 months

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okay so you just put this in your most recent post so now i’m really curious, what are your thoughts on kuron? what specifically makes you say he’s a good iteration of shiro? /gen

oooou okay thank you for asking. i covered this a little bit in this essay here, but i'll sum up the most important bit from that essay (in relation to this topic):

"Lastly — and this turned out to be less relevant to the essay than I expected, but I do want to go over it a tad — is Shiro’s tie to humanity. I mentioned two important points: Shiro’s connection to mortality makes him the most intimate with his humanity out of all the characters, and he is undoubtedly the flattest character of them all. That is, if you don’t consider his clone to be part of his character.

But I’m begging you to reconsider. Reconsider, perhaps, who the clone is — Haggar had pure access to Shiro for a year, you remember. His thoughts, his dreams, his mannerisms, his priorities, his body. Even him at his most human, his most deranged, his most scared. She had Shiro then. She had Shiro when he had nothing to look forward to. She had Shiro when he hurt his crew to make sure they would live, at direct cost to himself.

She stripped him of his humanity — his connection to his own mortality. She took his illness from him. And who, then, did she return to the team? Who was clone? Shiro, mostly. The clone was happy to play with the team. The clone was clever. The clone believed, fully, that he was Shiro, only he was angrier and meaner, a little, and less capable of shoving down his own pain. Shiro, stripped of his tie to humanity and mortality, stripped of his compulsive need to be strained and stressed and the one everyone else can rely on, the Role rather than the Person, is emotional. He has flaws and outbursts. He can’t manage his own pain. He is is cruelest to the one person on the team — Lance — who canonically reminds him closest of himself.

Shiro, in the purest form that Haggar can make him, is flawed and self-hating. That is where our love for him comes. Not the man who pushes himself down at the same time as he sacrifices his personality to be someone for others, but the man who is struggling and can’t keep it locked down. That’s where it comes from."

so! what does this mean.

shiro, as a character, does not get to choose and form his own identity. first he is the Garrison Poster Boy -- and while he is a pilot, an explorer, and happy to do both of those things, he is uncomfortable with (largely lance's) hero worship. he both a) doesn't believe he deserves it, and b) is not happy in that role. we see it in the "blam blam blam" scene -- he is trapped in the 'hero' role because he is trapped in a role of Perfection, and he is not perfect, and it grates on him. second he is the Champion -- and while he did force himself to be the Champion by injuring the Holts, it is a sacrifice. being a sacrifice is not the same as choosing a role. third, he is the Paladin of the Black Lion (not the Black Paladin, for deeper analysis on my thoughts there please read this essay and maybe this one too honestly) -- he tries to escape that role from the very beginning. i know i keep pushing yall towards the essay but i genuinely do discuss shiro's role in it, but i'll reiterate:

"...from the very beginning, he set up a replacement for himself.

Doesn’t that strike anyone else as odd? I haven’t seen the show in five years, and I don’t plan on rewatching, but I do remember that every moment with Shiro almost had this underlying tension. The closest thing I have to canon off the top of my head is the Handbook (which I had to stop reading because they did everyone SO dirty there, even though some of it was honestly pretty funny), which was released in S2, and even that incredibly early canon talked about Keith replacing Shiro!

From the very beginning, Shiro was planning an out to his role. He knew it was not meant for him. He did the role well, but it was not his to do."

shiro does not want that fucking role. every single second we see him on screen, as Shiro Original, he is shouldering a burden. he is being someone he does not want to be. not to give voltron any credit, but don't you think it's interesting that he, as a character, comes out to the audience as queer when he is...free from those roles? when he is no longer the Garrison Poster Boy (i.e. lance stops the hero worship), no longer the Champion (haggar is defeated), no longer the Paladin of the Black Lion (keith is now the Black Paladin)...we see him come out. we see him, as it is often called, "be true to himself". to me, this signals that he is finally free from playing someone he is not, and interestingly, this came after kuron -- after he maybe got to be something he truly was.

aside from the more abstract analysis, shiro is deeply, deeply traumatized! it is inane to expect him to be the same person he was. why on earth would he have the same patience during/post war as pre-war? he knows now that hesitance gets people killed. if he had hesitated to hurt matt, matt would have died. if he hesitates out on the field, people die. patience yields focus, sure, but he hasn't had time for patience in god knows how long. any patience he has is, if it has not already torn, wearing thin. lance's lightheardness, although important, is bound to make him snap, especially because shiro used to be the lighthearted one -- if he was still the lighthearted one, people would die. on his conscious. his snappiness at lance, while inappropriate and damaging, makes total sense. it comes from a place of a) deep self-hatred/mistrust and b) trauma.

to quote myself again -- "shiro, in the purest form haggar can make him, is flawed and self-hating". take away shiro's roles, take away his masks, take away any of his responsibilities that have shaped his life for him -- who is he? would he be angry (like kuron)? would he be hurting (like kuron)? would he be vulnerable (like kuron)? would he, for the first time, reach out and ask for help (like kuron)?

i think he would.

#in my essay era again #anyways shiro i love you #vld #voltron #shiro #takashi shirogane #kuron #clone shiro #my writing #longpost

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localsaintbernard · 14 days

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Based off a Twitter post

#voltron #voltron fanart #voltron legendary defender #takashi shirogane #vld shiro #shiro #kuron #Voltron kuro #clone shiro

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mothmanavenue · 1 year

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while the black paladins is a brilliant episode of voltron and one of the better ones, frankly i felt cheated that the confrontation came with no resolution between shiro and lance, when it was lance who through the seasons was on the bad end of Kuron’s abuse and rapidly deteriorating temper.

it would’ve been, in my opinion, a more fulfilling conclusion for lance to have been the one to have the final showdown with kuron and bring shiro back home AND it would’ve been the payoff of lance slowly developing as a character in season 4 where it seemed like he was being groomed for the role of black paladin (another voltron storyline with an unsatisfactory ending how did they keep fucking up good premises-)

so here i offer you The Black Paladins, the alternate ending (wherein lotor isn’t the bad guy because seriously what kind of lessons is the abused becomes the abuser) where keith gets back too late to help shiro but in time to step up and protect his friends and team after missing them for years, while lance’s story comes full circle with him, again, rescuing shiro, not as a hero, but as a friend :)

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spirityy · 1 year

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It's been a hot second. I have not posted my art on tumblr so long oof. But here I am with a shiro drawing since I love him so much and I had to draw his clone because SERIOUSLY I LOVE HIS CLONE VERSION. I have procastinated on this drawing for MONTHS just cause of the damn background oml.

#digital art #my art #art practice #vld fanart #vld shiro #voltron #voltron legendary defender #takashi shirogane #shiro #fanart #vld art #black paladin #clone shiro #vld keith #poor keith #he's just laying there #simp for shiro #especially clone shiro #why is he even more hot when he's evil-

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im-smart-i-swear · 5 months

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snow.

#my art #kuron voltron #kuron vld #clone shiro #vld #jesus. i always get rlly embarassed about tagging stuff w/ the character and/or fandom.#gonna jumpscare random ppl with my hyperspecific almost-but-not-quite-oc art.....#anyway. buddy/kuron spends the first two days of his life almost dying in a frozen wastelad time and time again.......#so yeah. theyre not exactly a huge snow fan #when they eventually experience snow for the first time in years thay just stand there for a minute. in complete silence.#staring at the falling snowflakes in a daze. their mind wandering somewhere far away #shit i forgot to tag the fucking au #my funky guys

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father-spore · 2 months

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shance fanfic help???

i want to find a shiro x lance fic where is shiros clone falling for lance and OG!shiro in the lion sees it and is upset cus he also loves lance

But i cant :(

#shance #lance mcclain #lance voltron #voltron #voltron legendary defender #takashi shirogane #vld shiro #Clone shiro

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toasterghostie · 10 months

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This hurts my heart but we needed more blatant clone Shiro fuckery

#clone shiro #shiro vld #vld #voltron #lance vld #lance deserved better #LEAVE MY SON ALONE DAMMIT

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nightmarecasterart · 8 months

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Here is a drawing of good old kuron t26. Here is my sketch and finished work.

#digital art #takashi shirogane #vld shiro #voltron #voltron fanart #voltron legendary defender #shiro #kuron #clone shiro #fanart #the purple glow

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themoostking · 8 months

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Friendly PSA: if you haven’t read any fics about Kuron (clone Shiro) you are missing out. These are some of the best Voltron fics imo. There are so many AUs that save him and develop a personality/relationships for him and its beautiful.

Don’t Let’s Start by BossToaster and Parallel by Proxy by VelkynKarma are two of my favorite series that focus on Kuron and Shiro, and really just an excellent place to start. There are also many other fantastic standalone fics under the Kuron tag on Ao3 that I would recommend exploring.

#fic rec #voltron #shiro #kuron voltron #moost reads fics #takashi shirogane #clone shiro #bosstoaster #velkynkarma #im rereading parallel by proxy right now and im deep in the feels

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seldomscilence16 · 6 months

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Whumptober Day 22:

"They never saw us coming, 'till they hit the floor."

Glass shard | Vehicular accident | "Watch out!"

Alt. Prompt: no.4 decoy

Fandom: Voltron

Prompts used: All

So this one is a little rushed as well, cause I wanted to put so much but needed to keep it short lol. Like with day 21 I tried to do angst with another character, but Lance still got most of it. I have too many headcanons dudes. Also the lyric was used like an inside joke, I will come up with a moment if someone asks lol.

TW for OC character death and like mentions of Lances near/death experiences.

…

Space was weird.

They all knew it, each new experience up here reminded them that their life was this crazy mess now. That they had to figure out how to face everything as it came at them, because it could mean the end of their lives or that of the universe if they didn't.

Lance knew this intimately, he'd looked death in the face a few times from different distances, had kissed him once for the briefest moment- though it left a chill in his bones even still. He wonders if Shiro has that chill sometimes, the man never seemed cold, but that didn't mean anything really.

He stares at the mess before him, ears ringing, cheek pressed against the cold floor- where was his helmet?- and shards of glass- the space equivalent anyway, he couldn't recall the name- scattered everywhere he looked. He moves his arm across the floor, the drag of something in his arm stinging something terrible, to help push himself up. He had things to do, he had to make sure the team was okay, there were bad guys to beat.

His body protests every movement, but as he gets his knees under him, gets his bearings, what he's supposed to be doing comes back to him like a hammer to the gut.

"Quiznack. Alright Lance, you have a job to do."

Standing is hard, but he handles it with a spite like determination, his helmet is nearby, the view screen cracked and pretty beat up, but necessary for his mission. The comms are wrecked, a squeal in his ear, static, a word or two, and more feedback than anything, he switches it off.

"Looks like I'm on my own." What's new?

He adjusts his armor, grimacing at the red color, so used to the familiar soothing blues, but it's temporary, it had a purpose. His wrist HUD is a little glitchy, and he finds a large shard of glass sticking out of his arm, but his directions are visible and the shard- shars probably- is fine for now. Something about pulling it out seems like a bad idea without bandages- a bitter thought about how his original armor definitely had bandages in it crosses his mind but he pushes it away.

"Alright, big bady shouldn't be far, just plug in the device, get his attention and run. You got this, you can handle this." The building- the one belonging to the overlord of this planet, the overlord they are trying to overthrow to free the people- is surprisingly neat and guard free as Lance makes his way through the halls towards the grid he's supposed to plug the device into. "Keith better appreciate this."

It's even more worrying to find the very important server room where the grid lays to also be unguarded, but he's gonna take what he can get. Once the little light on the device Pidge gave him turns green, he leaves the room, seals the door, and begins part 2.

"Alright, Mission pretending to be Keith to distract the bad guy is a go." He mumbles.

Pulling his bayard out he takes a deep breath, and runs.

Keith paces the length of his cell, fury burning in every nerve. He can't believe he got captured, and he wasn't even on a dang mission! He was just shopping! But he'd asked about Voltron- he just wanted to hear how they were doing- and someone had heard and suddenly he was being interrogated by some huge guy who hit like a quiznacking truck, and they wanted the Red Paladin, but Keith was a Blade now, Lance was the Blue-Turned-Red Paladin and he wouldn't freakin tell this snoz where Lance was.

But now he was alone, with at least a broken rib if the wheeze in his breathing meant anything, with no way out unless he could get this dang darn door to-

Open…

The door just, opened. No one outside of it, he hadn't done anything to it- besides kick it, but his foot just hurt from that so- and now it was-

"Don't have all day, dummy." A voice- oh so familiar- comes from the electric lock pad on the door, Pidges little gremlin hacker head laughing on the screen.

"Pidge, how did you guys even know I was here??" Keith steps out of his cell, looking around the deserted hallway.

"Kolivan noted your absence and didn't tell us he was worried, or to come find you, nope."

"And you guys came to find me? How'd you hack in remotely?" Keith is touched that not only did Kolivan contact his team for him, but that his team came for him at all.

"Keith, I will literally answer all your questions if you can get out of there alive. Lance is distracting the big guy-"

"What!? The really big dude that hits like a truck!?" Keith feels panic swirl in his aching gut, but Lance was probably distance fighting so it was fi-

"He'll be fine, he's being you, now get out of their numbskull."

"What do you mean, being me?"

"Seriously Kei-"

"Pidge! The guy has been looking for the Red Paladin, he beat the quiznack out of me for information. Please tell me Lance isn't-"

"Keith." Shiro's voice filters through the small speaker, "Get out of there, and Lance will follow the plan."

"The plan, Shiro please tell me you didn't purposefully send Lance-"

"He's the Decoy, because you are the Red Paladin Keith-"

"You did a whole damn show about how I definitely wasn't the Red Paladin anymore! Shiro this guy has no guards, he doesn't need them, tell me where Lance is or so help me-"

"Pidge-"

"No! You didn't tell us any of that!! Keith he's in the East wing of the building! Hurry! We lost contact after his pod entered the premises!"

"Shit!" Keith takes off down the hallway, telling his protesting body to shut up, he had to get to Lance!

Lance is beginning to think the universe is telling him something. Like yeah, it has been telling him a lot of things- he's working on it- but this 'always close to dying' thing was getting old. Like, he gets it, he sucks, but chill.

He ducks under another swing, keeping his breaths short as he bends, and comes up to shoot at the hulking aliens back. His skin sizzles and he roars, but he simply turns to come at Lance again.

"You've got issues dude." Lance pants, head spinning.

“Perhaps, but one will be taken care of as soon as I am through with you.” He growls back, taking Keith’s luxite blade from his waistband and raising the dagger threateningly.

Lance gives his own growl,

“That doesn’t belong to you.”

“What, are you going to take it?” He taunts, giving no time for a retort as he lunges.

Lance grits his teeth, his blaster changes last second, flashing into his sword form as he counters the downward strike, twisting just enough to fling the blade from a meaty hand, however, it does not stop the bulldozer from hitting Lance. He grunts, back hitting the wall, sword pinned between them.

“Your time is through, Red Paladin.”

“They never saw us coming,” Lance gives a bloody grin to the confused tyrant.

“‘Till they hit the floor.” Keith’s voice is a growl to join the club, his blade- now elongated- slashes across the aliens back.

Like Lance's shot, it only has the alien lashing out in anger, but Lance is free to join Keith.

“You were supposed to run.” The Cuban comments.

“And let you have all the fun?” Keith gives him a once over, glaring at their opponent angrily at the damage done, “Nice sword.”

“You’ve missed a lot.”

“Then let’s finish this sharpshooter, and you can tell me all about it!”

The battle is on once again, though this time they are on the offensive. Fighting side by side like they’d been doing it all their lives, their team would probably be shocked. Lances bayard changes forms fluidly, Keith hadn’t even known it could take so many for one Paladin, he really had missed a lot. They have the alien tyrant beat, he’s finally swaying on his feet, another blast to the knee and a cut to his ankle, has him going down hard.

“Ha! ‘Till they hit the floor!”

Lance's face, obscured by blood as it is, lights up in a way Keith realized he had missed very much. In the few video calls home he’d made during his time with the blade, the team had seemed different, Lance had stood on the edges, a frown on his lips that unsettled Keith. He never wanted this smile to leave the Cuban again. He moves closer, hand outstretched, to say something, when the smile falls,

“Watch out!”

Keith is shoved out of the way, as Lance takes the charging alien in his stead. Everything seems to blur as time slows and speeds forward at the same time somehow, Keith’s ears ring, his feet feel like he’s running through sludge, there’s a shout, a noise, the tumbling figures stop moving.

“LANCE!” He shoves at the lifeless form, dead weight taking all his might to roll off. There’s a smoldering hole between his eyes, and Lance is wheezing but alive.

“S’ry mullet, gonna need yer h’lp ag’n.”

“I got you, sharpshooter. Just stay with me.”

“Yer bad at math too.” His mumbles taper off, his eyes sliding closed.

Keith doesn’t remember getting him to the Castle, doesn’t recall getting him into a pod, but he's stationed before one now, refusing to leave Lance's side until it spits him out, because he knows Lance hates them. Shiro, or rather his lookalike, is in stasis in another pod, Lotor too even further apart from the Cuban. Things had gone to shit, but they could handle it… together.

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fortunatelycolorfulgay · 1 year

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Klance has such good potential but I’m scared to continue watching the show cause I’m at the part where shiro has “died” and a clone is gonna replace him and I really should stop reading the descriptions of episodes before watching them and then searching up the answers to questions

#klance #voltron #v:ld #keith kogane #lance mcclain #shiro voltron #clone shiro #I saw a fic about it and it made me sad so I’m scared #gay #lgbt

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autisticlancemcclain · 11 months

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Jackie supports the lion swap? How dare you!

Okay SO. This is not the first time I’ve gotten an ask or a comment like this, and I’m fully aware it’s a joke (or at least I think), but I also know that it is kind of a controversial topic on here! And I’ve already written an essay in the topic, but I have some more thoughts I’d like to dive into.

I used to be team Blue Paladin Lance, and hardcore on that team, too. If you look at some of my old fics, you’ll see that. However since I am a contrary person by nature, I started to notice that Red Paladin Lance was way less liked, and so I started to like it more. I really grew fond of the dynamic Keith and Lance got to have as co-leaders, both because it was homoerotic as hell and because the symbolism was fun to explore, but klance is not the main reason I started to care so deeply for the lion change — it was actually Shiro and Allura.

I’m going to start with Shiro, because he’s one of the most fascinating characters in VLD, if not underdeveloped. Part of that fascination for me is that he probably has the most arcs and opportunities for character growth and development in the show, and yet somehow he’s the flattest. He’s portrayed as very one-dimensional in a lot of fic — he tends to be less of a character and more of a role. He’s the Space Dad, or the older brother, or the cool teacher, or the kind and wise friend, or even the stoic Black Paladin. He is loved, I think, but the role he plays is loved, not quite the person he is. And that makes sense, because that is exactly how he’s portrayed in canon.

To Keith, Shiro is “like a brother to [him]”, but what do we see of that dynamic? The show has a clear sense of how a brother acts, that’s a good chunk of Pidge’s character. We barely even know Matt, but Pidge carries herself in such a way that it’s clear when her brother shines through her. And yet even though Shiro also goes missing, twice even, Shiro does not shine through his brother. Keith’s impulses are his own, developed from general abandonment issues rather than Shiro’s specific absence. Shiro’s absence becomes less of Shiro’s absence and more of an absence of a beloved leader figure, kind of a martyr, a “Shiro would have wanted you to carry on”. It is really hard for us as a fandom to use Shiro’s disappearance as anything but a plot device, because that’s all it felt like! We have occasional moments with Shiro, enough to care about him in some way, but as a figure, not as a person. Someone pointed it out on one of my fics and I agree wholeheartedly — Shiro is not shown with any flaws, and that makes it really hard to love him, because you don’t really get the pleasure of defending him, of seeing his motivations, his reasons. Not until the very end, at least.

This is, in all honesty, likely just poor writing. Shiro’s character was honestly just sidelined to a role, because he is really not that present in the show. But I am going to work with the benefit of the doubt, and see if I can use the lion change to explain why we all kind of love Shiro anyway, despite the fact that he’s flat as hell.

Shiro isn’t the Black Paladin. He never was. He flew the Black Lion, yes, and he flew her well — but he was never her Chosen. He couldn’t have been. From the very beginning, the Black Lion was in mourning; she was in no space to choose a new paladin. She accepted Shiro, and she loved him, but he did not fall into her as much as he fell into the role she provided for him. He piloted the Black Lion, but he was not her Paladin. This is made obvious in two ways: in that he never got her bayard, and that from the very beginning, he set up a replacement for himself.

From the very beginning, Shiro was planning an out to his role. He knew it was not meant for him. He did the role well, but it was not his to do.

Aside from those two reasons, Shiro also…can’t be the Black Paladin. He can’t be that and himself, I mean. This part is a little more complicated, so I’m going to borrow some of my own tags from some awesome fanart I saw:

I really do think Shiro is defined by his humanity (as is heavily implied by his illness — this is a character who is completely and totally bound to his mortality. Of all the other characters, he is the one most familiar with death, so he is the one who is most intimate with the raw fear of being human. But more on that later), but it’s my last comment that I want to focus on — “he is DEFINED by his his humanity…even as his greatest asset is the part of him that is not human”.

Every second that Shiro is leader of Voltron, he is the Champion. That can literally be his only goal — he is the head of the fight against Zarkon and the Empire. Either Shiro comes out the Champion, or Zarkon does. Either Shiro has to grit his teeth and fight off the flashbacks and the fear and the pain and use the one thing that forces him to reconcile with the fact that he had his entire personhood stripped away (his arm, his Galra arm, one of their biggest advantages as a team; his connection to Zarkon through Black, something that can only help the war effort at a direct cost to him; everything he does in this war is shoving him right back into that Arena again and again and again), or Zarkon wins. Every second Shiro pilots Black, every time he plays her paladin, he has to be who the Empire made him to be. He has to be the Champion. Once again he is not Takashi Shirogane, the person, the astronaut, the man, he is the Role. He is the Space Dad he is the Pilot of the Black Lion he is the Champion. For every second he is in that lion he is stripping away himself.

Obviously, that is something that was never sustainable. On this argument alone, Shiro was going to waste away eventually. There was always going to be a point where Shiro was not going to be able to be the Champion anymore. There was always, from the very way the dynamic was set up, going to have to be a lion switch. Now, interestingly enough, there could have been a really easy fix to this: Black Paladin Allura. She’s already a born and raised leader, already shown her immense competence, already someone the rest of the paladins follow. With her at the helm, nothing else would have to change, right?

Well, maybe. We’ll never know. One part of that is absolutely true — Allura should have been a paladin from the very beginning. Her quintessence is canonically closest to the entirety of Voltron (something that bears its own essay,; the relationship between all six of the paladins and Voltron is wrought with heavy symbolism), she is the most highly trained, she is smart, and she actually wants to be out on the field. She should have been in that armour from day one.

But Allura cannot be the Black Paladin. Allura cannot handle other’s sacrifice.

Of course this is a complicated subject. Should a leader sit back and let her crew sacrifice themselves instead of her? Must she hold herself in higher regard, convince herself she’s more important? Of course not! Teams, especially Voltron, are built with assets. While not everyone might be ‘equal’ in the traditional sense, they are all integral, and expecting sacrifices is not the stance I am trying to take here. But the point of a team, especially a team so small and vital as Voltron, is that everyone is willing to be the sacrifice, as they have to be, and Allura simply can’t handle that. She shows us this from the beginning, when she disguises herself as Galra and is taken in place of anyone on the team she barely knows, and again in Oriande with the White Lion, and finally in the piece of shit canon ending. Allura has to be the sacrifice. Every time.

And how could she not be? The last time she spared herself of sacrifice, she lost her entire people. The last time she let others sacrifice themselves for her, she was left alone, to shoulder a war bigger and greater than she could ever handle. Allura is painfully familiar with the agony of being the survivor, and she cannot do that again. She cannot and will not put herself through that again. As the Black Paladin, she would have to let her team make sacrifices — she would have to let them have their own agency, their own decisions; she would have to let them choose to get hurt and choose to do risky things and analyse and react and act. As leader she would have to trust her team to put themselves in harm’s way, and not only that, but she would have to authorize them to do so.

Like Shiro cannot last as the Champion, Allura cannot last as the Survivor. Shiro cannot even last in Voltron, and it is foolish to keep Allura out of it. A lion change is absolutely necessary for the show to move forward, for the war to move forward. The initial team was doomed to fail.

How would it change, then? What would fit? I know I’ve said my piece. I know who I think would fit where. But since I’ve been comparing character arcs to their roles as paladins, I’d like to keep doing that — what about Keith makes me so sure that he’s the true Black Paladin?

I’ll show you with process of elimination. I know Black Paladin Lance is a favourite, and I can see why. Lance has many leadership qualities, is a good tactician, and cares deeply. However, aside from his desire for power making him less suitable for the role, Lance functions best as support, despite how much he hates it. He is the one who knows how to pick up the pieces of a broken situation. He is an excellent guide, which makes him an unbelievably valuable second. He is adaptable, so he can fill in for many different roles. He can step in for leader when necessary, but putting him in Black would encourage a more active role for him; would force him to anticipate and plan for specific outcomes rather than his strength as one who analyses any outcome as it arises and works within it then. Lance could be the Black Paladin, yes, but taking him from the body and placing him in the head would be a fool’s choice. It would be crippling to Voltron, to put the jack of all trades as a master of one. Lance’s arc is all about learning to love and trust himself as he is, as the seventh wheel. Not to put him in charge of the vehicle.

Well, what about Hunk? Hunk is incredibly intelligent and analytical. He probably could lead Voltron, and did in several occasions. But Hunk’s arc is interesting because it was handled so early in the show. Unlike the rest of the team, Hunk’s arcs were solved largely in the first season. His biggest flaws were his distrust of people and, literally, his inability to fly. He could not take his feet off the ground. He was so untrusting that he could not manage to take a step forward. However his bonding with Yellow and trust with the team and their subsequent and returned trust resolved these issues, more or less, which is probably why Hunk was treated more and more like a side character the longer VLD went on. Hunk didn’t need the role of Black Paladin because he had settled into the Yellow Paladin in a way that was sustainable.

Pidge is in a similar boat. Her arc, primarily, has been about finding her family. Voltron was almost second priority for her, or at least not her only first priority. And understandably so! As the youngest she was afforded with that lenience. Her growth was about growing into her own pain, about becoming her own person alongside what she had become in the absence of her brother. As the Black Paladin, she would no longer have the space to prioritize her search for her family alongside Voltron, so her position as Black Paladin would be unstable. She is best suited in Green, where she can focus on several things at once.

That really only leaves Keith. In many ways it comes full circle — the Black Lion healing from her grief by choosing the man who ran from his Galran heritage and his power as a leader, rather than the man who chose nationalism and power over anything else. Keith is Zarkon’s direct opposite, and as such is the other side of the same coin, the one who is truly Black’s Chosen. We know this because Keith is the one who wields the Black Bayard, and Keith is, from the very beginning, the one the rest of the team chooses to follow — I ask you whether it was for Shiro that the three other humans ran off to chase in the desert, or Keith? Who was it that Lance could not leave alone? Who was it that piqued Hunk’s curiousity? Who was it that challenged Pidge to choose Voltron, rather than the search for her family?

That covers Black Paladin Keith. But what about Red Paladin Lance? I’ve established already why he cannot be the Black Paladin, but why did he have to move from Blue? For that, I bring you another few slices from early, S2 and previous canon:

“I thought what we had was special!” “Seventh wheel, if you count the Alteans.” More than once, Lance laments over being forgotten. He struggles with feeling like anything but the extra, the unnecessary. Whether or not Blue Chose him is irrelevant — he does not feel Chosen by her. The Pilot of the Blue Lion position for Lance is as unsustainable as the Pilot of the Black Lion position for Shiro — Lance does not trust it. He doesn’t trust himself in the role, and doesn’t trust Blue in having chosen it for him. Obviously, this is not the role for him.

But Red? Keith’s Red Paladin, at least? Yes, he struggles with feeling like Keith’s second, but that is literally his arc. Lance’s development is about becoming his own person despite his own misgivings about being second-best. His role as the Red Paladin is the fulfilling of his arc, and is thus the best Lion for him, the Chosen. And Red did Choose him, mind you. There was an adjustment period, of course there was, but Red did more than let Lance pilot her. She opened up new possibilities for Lance — think the broadsword — that he could not see. Red saw his potential and revelled in it. She Chose him.

Lastly — and this turned out to be less relevant to the essay than I expected, but I do want to go over it a tad — is Shiro’s tie to humanity. I mentioned two important points: Shiro’s connection to mortality makes him the most intimate with his humanity out of all the characters, and he is undoubtedly the flattest character of them all. That is, if you don’t consider his clone to be part of his character.

Anyways. Like with my other essay, I’ll admit that this analysis is probably reading into this. The writing of VLD was flawed, at best, but regardless, I think the lion change is a rich amalgamation of the characters and who they really are.

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