superheroladies:

captain-vulture:

superheroladies:

who fulfills galra ideal so zarkon isnt much focused and resentful at Lotor and is okay with him being spy/ druid support/marriage bait.

Well with the line of succession being decided by who’s the strongest warrior, who is to say that Zarkon and Haggar would not have arranged for Lotor to be married off to said warrior. Since we’re on the topic of said tropes, it’s interesting that the faux action trope, where the badass girl needs to be saved in the fight and has her plans fail no matter how much the narrative says she’s awesome, applies to Lotor.

Lost his fight against Zarkon until the paladins came to his rescue, plus the messy hair and position on the floor. My whole childhood is plagued by images of women in my cartoons looking like this. Heck even LoK is guilty of this.

Rescued by Keith and practically princess carried out of the way in the middle of his fight with Sendak

This image is powerful to me. I think we all know and recall how this is always gender inverted in mainstream media. We have suffered through many scenes of the reverse. I’m not saying Lotor is fully incompetent, but it is refreshing to see these tropes played with with not just any male character, but one who had rather unfortunate origins in the 80s.

This is not including how Lotor is depicted in show. At first, we’re introduced to a very competent Lotor. In the first 5 episodes of season 3, the paladins are no match for his tactics.

But come “Tailing a Comet,” the paladins, particularly Keith, school him and his plans. And specifically it was when Lotor himself got involved in the battle between the mecha. Beforehand, Acxa was leading the team just fine and arguably won fight against Team Voltron one-on-one. It was Lotor’s involvement and direction that costed them that victory (even if he blames Acxa for it).

And this continues in s4. There just as Lotor believes he’s at a good spot after duping his parents, Haggar causes shit by spying on hm. She tells Zarkon of the comet and they rush to attack Lotor and Lotor cut down Narti and split the team. And in s4ep5, the girls were more than willing to trade him in for their lives.

And in s5, we have all the good content. Lotor wins against Zarkon, but at great personal cost to him – the same with the Galra throne. In the Oriande arc, Lotor doesn’t succeed in getting the blessing, and again ruins it for himself.

What’s the common denominator? Lotor’s competence waivers a lot on this show – as did for many female characters in the past. Despite the initial presentation of competence, Lotor almost always lose when it matters to him – or his victories are not easily won. These sort of tropes are very commonly given to female characters.

And it’s also quite interesting that Lotor’s own failures are mainly a result of his own actions.

Let’s take it a step further. The way he is constantly treated as an object by everyone around him. A bargaining ship twice now in a hero version of I have your daughter, and a possessive father who treats him like property.

The way he’s tossed around also reminds me of all of my childhood heroines

There’s also his earlier interactions with Zarkon. They depended on him putting up a submissive facade in order to get what he wants.

Yes I picked the daddy edit. There’s also this shot

Which again, child me suffered so much seeing this shit over and over again with women. And finally, he gets the threat all of my childhood heroines got that even Lauren hated with OG Lotor.

In short Lotor is faux action girl/Strong Female Character that Lauren and we suffered through in childhood.

There is just, so much more. Right off the colony we have Lotor’s true colors revealed, in which he’s in trouble after he’s knocked out on the floor. He is rescued/kidnapped by Haggar and the generals then snagged up like a rag doll

Kuron being the gentlemen he is ofc keeps his hands off the goods and even sits him up while the unconscious Lotor is dragged away mid action, something again, typical to female characters in action movies

In which case ends up with Lotor captured yet again and with the constant objectifying ways of referring to him that I mentioned before. But there’s one more tidbit I like to bring up with Lotor that I mentioned above in how Zarkon grabbed him. What TVTropes calls the standard female grab area. Lotor is constantly either clutching his wrist close to his chest in nervousness/fear or is grabbed by his arm, the trope mentioned above. 

To the point where I expected him to be grabbed by the hair at that rate. He dodged a bullet there in terms of tropes at least. I’ll just never be over the subtle gender inversion of the Badass Strong Dark Chick tropes all being given to Lotor from controlling and possessive parents/authority to the way he’s treated by the narrative.