I have a bit of an unsupported headcanon that Zethrid is in some way related to Ranveig, personally I think she’s his daughter. Cause I mean, the resemblance there, they’ve got similar ear shape and are both very thick and muscular people.
And even in personality to a certain extent. Ranveig is loud warlord who’s rather proud of his accomplishments. He definitely looks down on things that aren’t war as lesser.
Zethrid, while not as violent as he is, always shown this warlord mentality since she was introduced back in s3. In s3ep3, she was always goading Lotor on to fight. But also, she loves destruction and wrecking people, particularly those who’d give her a good fight. Heck, when she joined back with Lotor in s6ep6, she was all like “hey as long I as get to blow stuff up.” In some ways, this is similar to how Ranveig values strength and warfare over bureaucracy and diplomacy.
But the strongest piece of evidence I think, is how Zethrid has had these thoughts of being a warlord in s5ep6.
Just the way she talks bout it suggests that’s something she’s considered for a while, heck it seems something that’s natural to her and sees no issue suggesting it. Almost as if it was an idiosyncrasy she was brought up with, the idea of destroying her enemies to take their land doesn’t phase her one bit. if Ranveig’s her dad, this would make sense as he’d raise her to value war and strength through battle and conquest as admirable things.
There’s also too, how Zethrid’s pirate outfit is clearly empire styled armor. Contrast that with how Ezor’s outfit is very much typical pirate clothes. Zethrid presents herself as a genuine warlord like in the times of the old empire, which would make sense if she was raised with that old empire mentality.
Now the question is, why didn’t Zethrid have a moment with Ranveig in the Kral Zera if they’re related? Part of my theory is that Ranveig, while raising Zethrid, was ashamed of the fact that he had a “half-breed” child. He tried in all ways, to hide the fact that they’re related from the rest of the empire. Or if it was something that was known, he made sure people were hush hush about it. That pretty much fucked his relationship with Zethrid over, and the two of em weren’t on speaking terms at all. Heck, I’d say that Zethrid allying with Lotor pretty much killed any good connection the two had left. They hated each other, and Zethrid wasn’t that sorry to see him go. Maybe she mourned what could’ve been her relationship with her dad later, maybe with Ezor comforting her, but that’s not something she’d show in public. There’s no point of it either, if her father didn’t survive the Kral Zera then he wasn’t strong, just as he would always say.
(A sidenote, but ain’t it fitting that they both lost their left eyes? Like that would be a piece of irony if it turns out that Zethrid is related to Ranveig.)
It goes without saying that I really love this dynamic. Not in a shippy way, but in a former-friends-turn-enemies way. Cause if you look deep at the show, especially early on and compare it to later, you’ll notice that Acxa and Ezor have seem to have a somewhat close platonic relationship with one another. Which makes Acxa’s leaving and Ezor’s mockery in s7ep3 all the more painful.
(Note this is gonna be part wise analysis, part wise theory/headcanon. just a heads up).
I have this headcanon, very much strengthen by s7, that Acxa and Ezor have been good friends for a while before s7, possibly even before Lotor recruited them. We don’t learn any backstory bout them obviously, but there’s a lot of hints here and there that suggest that they were close.
Cause from the beginning when the generals as a squad were a thing back in s3, Ezor seemed to be the one most comfortable around Acxa. Remember that scene where Ezor asked Acxa bout the Thayserix? I think it’s really telling how Ezor got very close to Acxa, so close that she was literally in Acxa’s space at the moment.
Notice how Ezor’s even crouched down and everything. Ezor’s physically very close to Acxa here, and Acxa herself seems to not bat an eye at it. This tells us that Acxa is very comfortable around Ezor, so much that she doesn’t find Ezor getting in her personal space alarming or annoying. And we know Acxa gets flustered and tense around when there’s people in her personal space. We see it when Coran gets in her face in s7ep3:
The fact that Ezor doesn’t evoke the same response from Acxa is very telling. For one, it tells us that Acxa knows Ezor very well, and knows what kind of person she is. So well that she doesn’t even move to get some more space or something.
And we see it from Ezor’s perspective as well. Note how in the same scene Ezor seems very comfortable with talking to Acxa, casually asking her questions and making jokes with her after she responds.
She’s playful with her, something we don’t see with Acxa and the other generals. Again, it implies closeness that otherwise wouldn’t be there given Acxa’s dour demeanor. If Ezor’s this playful around Acxa it tells us that they’ve had time to get along and know each other. Ezor doesn’t even fell awkward making jokes around Acxa who wouldn’t reciprocate them cause she knows Acxa’s just like that. She makes them in spite of Acxa’s lack of reaction. That really shows us that Ezor herself is comfortable round Acxa as much as Acxa is around her.
And we see this later on, in s3ep4. When Ezor makes the mistake of calling the other reality another dimension, Acxa is quick to get on her case. Ezor responds with an annoyed tone, and a very snarky attitude.
The exasperated tone Ezor has just makes it here. It’s a long suffering one, born out of dealing with Acxa’s nerdy attitude on a constant basis. The fact that her response is just repeating what she said already but with the corrected word in a sarcastic way tells us it’s an argument they’ve had before, had many times actually. Ezor doesn’t even bother with “Acxa you know what I mean,” or get sheepish when she says something wrong like she apologized to Narti. No, it’s a brat fight, one that Lotor is quick to jump in before it escalates. Acxa seems really into it too, judging by her surprised face when Lotor cuts in. this tells us that their bickering is constant, and the fact that it’s not really any more mean spirited than just basic annoyance tells it’s a bickering between friends.
It never fails to astonish me how much people… don’t give Haggar credit?
Like… we have it from the mouth of canon that Haggar’s the main mastermind here. Of Zarkon, Sendak, and Lotor, all major antagonists, Lotor outright accuses both Zarkon and Sendak of being Haggar’s puppets, with plenty of evidence to support those claims (neither of them rebut him, either, which is suspicious when you’d expect both of them to be furious about that accusation) and Lotor’s entire screentime thus far has been spent with him constantly trying to evade Haggar himself.
On the fandom side, though, it’s like people remember she’s competent and fond of insidious tactics as soon as they want to cast the latest aspersions on whatever female character they’ve decided is evil this time, but when we explicitly and obviously see her manipulate a situation, somehow s6e7 is just about Lotor vs. the Paladins and one of the two of them has to be wrong- Haggar isn’t even considered a party, like Shiro just suddenly flipped into murder mode and kidnapped Lotor all on his own or Haggar wasn’t paying attention to the situation and picked that time to attack for a reason.
Do I think that Haggar set up Romelle to find the paladins when they did? No. I don’t think anybody could have set that up- all the variables were so esoteric even someone of Haggar’s power and knowledge couldn’t have guaranteed it. This isn’t hitting a pea-sized target with a revolver, this is setting the revolver on a table facing the wrong direction and walking away, hoping something will set it off and direct the bullet to hit your pea-sized target.
But Haggar obviously started exploiting that situation as soon as she saw Romelle through Shiro’s eyes. That’s why she tapped Shiro when she did. When Lotor is brought to her, she outright comments on that exact argument, talking about how Lotor’s “continued her work”.
Assuming we can trust anything Macidus says, at least what’s corroborated by the ruins that the team founded him in, Haggar buying herself some time meant she could just casually snap her fingers, go “sic ‘em” and large numbers of druids just showed up practically out of nowhere and massacred the Blade and the coalition. These weren’t military expenditures. Matt outright says that Voltron’s allies were being hunted down.
Haggar without even seemingly meaningfully asserting herself was able to unleash the hounds and heavily damage the coalition.
You know, I really feel for Ezor this season. These fears are not hollow or overreaction, they’re some legit adult fear in the face of a horrible possibility. It’s noting how traumatized Ezor is from the whole Lotor experience. Cause it’s not like Ezor’s living in squalor like Acxa had, Ezor’s got her own fleet with loyal pirates and her big pirate gf. And yet, she stills worries. We know Narti’s death meant a great deal to her back then in s4ep3, and we see evidence of that creeping back in here in s7.
Lotor is not just some crazed lunatic, he’s genuinely a bad person, one who’s willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Ezor saw what he did to Narti, and heard what he did to those Alteans. He himself proclaimed what he planned to do to the galra once he had his empire. Ezor is no idealistic fool like Acxa, she knows evil and understands the depth of power Lotor has with the Sincline robot.
It makes her actions in s7ep3 all the more sympathetic. Yeah she was torturing Pidge and getting a kick out of deriding Acxa and wrecking Keith, but those are just distractions from the concerns she legit has. Even in her intimidation at Team Voltron’s interrogation, we can see elements of that fear she showed at the beginning with Zethrid.
We know she’s lying here, earlier we saw her telling Zethrid how she’s worried that Lotor might still be around. It’s pretty obvious from these two scenes that a source of comfort for Ezor has always been that if nothing came from that explosion all those years ago that made Voltron disappear, then Lotor will never come back. It tells us too, that this fear is a reoccurring one, one that nagged away at Ezor even years after Lotor disappeared.
And Ezor tries to cover that up with her derision. When she mocks Acxa later on, it’s not just cause Acxa put her morals over their team again (though I wouldn’t doubt that played a part in it).
It’s also Ezor trying to distract herself from all her worst fears coming to fruition at once. Acxa herself broke away from Lotor yeah, but there’s no better way to agitate Ezor’s fears then for Lotor’s former loyal lap brat to make an appearance just as Voltron returned. Ezor’s words here tells us it’s been a while since they’ve seen Acxa, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t seen her since she left all those years ago. Ezor doesn’t know what Acxa’s been up to, what’re Acxa’s plans, or what did Acxa’s “I’ve got to find my own path” meant. For all she knew, Acxa was a liar and schemer that was in with Lotor and when shit hit the fan fucked off to the Universe knows where on some morality stunt. It’s like a horrible reminder for Ezor of all the bad things she experienced long past.
That’s why Ezor attacks Acxa so harshly in their conversation. Belittles her dedication to her morals and her cause to just a crush she’s got on one dude. To Ezor, it makes things seem a little less intimidating, and much more manageable. Which gets me to my main point.
It’s pretty clear that Ezor’s love of torture and mockery are defense mechanisms Ezor developed to ward away any fear she has. As @blacklionshiropointed out before me, Ezor is a survivor, and seen a lot of shit in her life and has had to escape some difficult situations before. She deals with this shit with it by trivializing it, by making herself out to be the stronger person. We saw this back in s3ep2, where she called the Lions of Voltron, the Universe’s most powerful weapon at the time, mere kitties. Despite her bravado and evil grins, she’s a very anxious and traumatized person*.
*she’s still evil but very complex in so. they wrote her very well and I appreciate that.
Lotor’s such a great politician honestly. While he’s not technically lying to Shiro and Allura in the first set of images, he’s definitely not telling the who truth. Cause yeah, sending Team Voltron in there was a calculated risk – if they didn’t make it out then Team SIncline wouldn’t have their comet – but he wasn’t, you know, acting like it would be a total loss if it were. Like my dude wasn’t lying about his confidence of his plans, but he was definitely not answering Shiro’s question here. Cause Shiro’s accusation was right.
Which tells us a lot about Lotor’s character. Mainly that in his reaccounts of things, he has a tendency to tell only the partial truth – the parts that benefit him in at the moment, or the ones that wouldn’t get him in trouble. And he does again in the same conversation with Allura and Shiro. When questioned about the generals’ absence he says it was a ‘minor misunderstanding’ which was partially true in that yeah, there was a misunderstanding, but he leaves out how he, you know, killed one of his friends and that was enough to them to doubt him, reasoning be damned.
It opens up a lot to discuss cause, if Lotor has a tendency to tell half-truths, then how much of what he’s said to both Team Voltron and the generals is true?
Like this story here –
how much of the truth is he leaving out when he recounts it to Allura? Cause the one time we see him conquering a planet –
he didn’t exactly work along side them. And note that that is what he considers proper treatment of a new ally.
like it makes one wonder…
Then when Romelle comes along and lets the cat out of the bag regarding his Quintissence harvesting experiments on surviving Alteans in a death camp he calls a colony, Lotor stans ironically start assuming “Well she might be either lying in order to frame Lotor and break up the alliance, or she’s not telling the whole truth about this!”, as though Lotor hasn’t told nothing but lies and partial truths and he makes a more trustworthy and respectable ally than Romelle would. Even if it somehow ends up that Romelle’s version of events really was just a partial truth (which she’d be unaware of), it’d be a taste of his own medicine for Lotor, who very deliberately used that as a tactic for getting what he wanted time and time again.
I think Lotor’s story to Allura was completely true. I think the “ally” you pictured was a special case because he was refusing to go along with selling out Voltron of his own free will. The issue I would point out is how Lotor phrases it: “rather than employ the usual Galran methods of subjugation” – it’s subtle and easy to miss, but right there Lotor makes an important acknowledgment: the methods he uses are not the usual ones that Galrans use in subjugation of planets, but it is still ultimately subjugation. Lotor initially frightens planets with his military force, then doesn’t actually use that force in favor of working with the planet’s leadership, adapts to their customs and treats them respectfully, and slowly gains their trust and favor until ultimately they allow themselves to fall under his rule. They willingly hand over their freedom to him. It’s even more dangerous and diabolical a way of taking over the universe than Zarkon’s way, and it’s what makes Lotor the most effective villain in the show.
The Galra’s history with other species is utterly fascinating to me. They are incredibly diverse, while actively deny their connections to other groups in the galaxy. Observing how they are drawn throughout the series leads me to believe that this was the creators’ intention.
Anytime the past is shown, only this style of Galra is drawn (Space Mall & Legend Begins are two most notable). The people protected by Bogh’s shield station are of this type as well. Features such as markings, hair, eyebrows, skin color and crest/facial extrusions vary. But everyone has butterfly-shaped ears, long faces, yellow eyes and red pupils. Prior to Daibazaal’s destruction, they occupied all areas of society: King, soldiers, servants, aristocrats, and scientists. There are no furry or manta ray types to be seen, which pushed me to question my thoughts on genetic variety being caused by Daibazaal’s climate. Are we to believe that they had no place in Zarkon’s court prior to the planet’s destruction? Or could it be that the furry and manta ray type are mixed Galra?
First of all props for putting up with me for so many years, now that is real patience! But yes it’s true, I was very self righteous and very, very argumentative. Heck I was still just that last year and even months ago, it’s only recently that I have decided to change. The key is empathy. I used to be so angry all the time and riled up due to who I followed and how I interacted with fandom. I was one of the proto antis of 2014, before the libel and death threats became a thing. That environment was built on guilting well-meaning young people into believing what they were doing is activism and necessary, even in fandom spaces. But also, it encouraged performative displays, which I played hugely into.
Second I think a lot of my improvement came from shedding away the tumblr shut-in culture. I interacted more with people outside of the internet, actual normal mainstream people and developed deep friendships with them, allowing me to see more of the moral grey area where these good people that would stand by my side through thick and thin had very different world views, oftentimes views unacceptable on here. So that really helped me out in losing the constant anger I had towards these attitudes by gently trying to understand why and having civil discussions. This site really encourages shut-in behavior and when all your social interactions are online, you damage yourself and become emotionally invested and depended on social interactions here.
The final thing I have been learning recently, and you would notice by how I’m starting to interact with rude people of late, is constantly remind myself that the other side is a person. I fail at this still at times, and months ago I felt super guilty about lashing out on someone over fandom opinions, and so the other person replying with kindness and understanding really inspired me to do this. I’m in a constant state of cool now, losing a lot of the fire I had a few years back, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact it has helped me become happier in my fandom experience. Something that also helps a lot when I get angry is talk it out with a friend or typing out something, and halfway through it realize that it’s just bitter and mean-spirited so it dies out on its own. It takes a while ngl, especially if you’re as controlling as I used to feel towards opinions of random people. That is a must shed and something to be worked on, and something that I still work on.
Can we talk bout this little moment here? Not only does it divulge some interesting facts bout the Blade of Mamora’s history, but also bout Krolia herself. For one, this scene implies that Blade of Mamora itself is actually not that ancient of an organization. In fact, it’s one existing within one lifetime, or perhaps, one leader (Kolivan). The fact that Krolia was able to recognize this code in the first place tells us the original Blades that founded the BOM are still alive, given that she knows the code.
It also tells us that Krolia was one of the founding members of the BOM, or at least, one of the founding members of the unified BOM. This has interesting implications. One, it tells us that Krolia herself is quite old, in fact, old enough to be a peer or nearly one to Kolivan. There is evidence of this dotted throughout this episode and later on, notably in s7ep13, where Krolia returns in Keith’s hospital room.
Krolia’s outfit here is quite fancy for a Blade, as many pointed out is the same as Kolivan’s. She’s a high ranking officer of the Blades, and was definitely a member of the high council that Ulaz mentioned in s2ep3.
Other evidence is how she treats and responds to the paladins in s7ep5. We learn that Krolia has a habit and knowledge how to creat effective training simulators for trainees.
She probably used these simulations to train her student Blades. Which we later get official confirmation that she did in fact, train many Blades.
And a lot of em too. This adds to support the idea that Krolia’s high-ranking, so much that she taught many classes, or at the very least, took on numerous apprentices.
All of this gives context to the relationship between Krolia and Kolivan later on in the episode – we see that they’re very close.They’re at the very least, colleagues. Or perhaps even family, if we’re to take that one line from s2ep9 as evidence
Regardless, it definitely explains why Kolivan choose to apprentice Keith personally back in s4. Keith was not just a former paladin and an important ally, he was the son of a long standing friend or even family Kolivan had. He was not just gonna let anyone train Keith.
– Praise the living daylights out of a show and shove its greatness in everyone’s face
– 2 years later, pick it apart violently and insult everyone who still enjoys it in as edgy a way as possible because negativity is cool
!!!
uhh maybe marginalized ppl were excited at the possibility of a show (such as su) representing them, only to be rightfully angry when the show ends up racist, homophobic etc. anyway, super bad post all around
I feel like a lot of hardcore accusations of problematic and offensive content that get thrown at media that was previously lauded as progressive come from a few sources; first, the creators are often a lot more accessible than the creators of mainstream media. you can message rebecca sugar on twitter personally to call her a racist bitch, but you can’t do the same to, say, jj abrhams or another large-scale creator. likewise, you can’t stand on a streetcorner and scream at people until they agree to stop watching law and order, but you can certainly bully large groups of people online until they stop supporting an independent creator.
second, the fandoms that tend to form around progressive media tend to be younger, more volatile, looking to media and fandom as forms of activism. mainstream media they can write off as garbage, but progressive niche media that makes a sincere attempt to represent marginalized folks must be Absolutely Perfect. the idea that a piece of media can have good parts and bad parts, that it can try and only partially succeed, but that that partial success is still worth something, is completely lost on many young fans. either its irredeemable garbage or its the literal messiah, there’s no in-between. so if a show falls short of perfect, as is inevitable, then it goes straight into the “total garbage” pile and must be condemned by the masses.
genuinely trying to represent certain groups and making a few missteps is not the same thing as being ignorant or malicious. making a sincere effort to mean something to folks who don’t get a lot of things made for them is something to be proud of. would you rather go back to the times when fucking nothing got made for us? when the only characters we saw that we could relate to were only there to be made fun of? you’re spoiled by a rush of new creators who took “go make your own thing then” to heart and set out to make content for people like them, you have the gall to look at what they’re trying to do and spit on it for not being better. no creator owes you shit, no creator has to bow to a bunch of teenage bullies who do nothing but demand and harass, that’s all there is to it.
Dear lord can everyone please read this post because it’s so relevant
YES. Yes, please read this. This has pissed me off for a while now.
As an independent content creator, you have to be fucking perfect. And if you mess up just a little bit, be sure that hate groups are going to get to you.
The same is not true for big, mainstream media products. They’ll be forgiven, no matter what they do, cause people do not expect them to be progressive anyway.
And YES we have to criticize when people mess up – it makes us better and people can learn from that. But PLEASE stop harassing independent content creators. You’re just making people stop creating the progressive content you consume. It’ll be your loss anyway.
Acxa’s arc when you step back and look at it from a distance, is actually quite fascinating. It’s really a series of reality checks for a very arrogant and self absorbed brat, who thinks herself better than the people around her, including her own allies. There’s a reason why I refer to Acxa as Lotor’s
protégé, cause in a lot of ways she is, especially when you compare her relationship with Lotor with that of Keith’s, her rival, with Shiro. There’s a lot of similarities to how each of them approach their mentors, and how their mentors teachings/attitudes reflect off of them. This is gonna be a long post, but bear with me.
Throughout the second arc, we have these little moments that’re very telling of Acxa’s bratty attitude. Back in s3ep1 when Lotor’s plan to dupe Throk and the rest of Zarkon’s court, she smiles when everything goes according to plan.
And in s5ep1, when Acxa is presenting the Sam Holt trade to Zarkon himself, if one were to notice she’s smiling smugly as she does so.
This is someone who relishes in manipulating and wrecking people. Acxa loves it when plans go well and is in a position of power over people, even if they don’t know it. It becomes more harrowing when you realize that the people Acxa laughs at are Zarkon’s court and Emperor Zarkon himself – she’s not just duping anyone, she’s duping the highest in galra command. As a half-galra who was mocked and ridiculed before, this must be a thrill for her.
And that’s the thing with Acxa and Lotor. Acxa relishes the outcomes of these plans cause she thinks as Lotor’s personal second-in-command, she’s got a lot of leverage. She thinks she’s got Lotor’s trust and Lotor’s trust alone. Much in the same way Keith and Shiro are very close, Acxa thinks her and Lotor are close as well. She probably thought that she was Lotor’s biggest confident as she’s the one he told her his big plan. And because she’s in this sort of position of power – cause Lotor is the new hotshot emperor remember – she thinks herself better than anyone else.
We see this in how she smiles as she dupes people as I pointed out, but also in how she treats the others around her. An example of this is with Keith, her rival. From their introduction we see that she’s acts very entitled around him. When he saves her, she gets offended when Keith takes her gun cause he doesn’t trust her.
We can’t see her face here, but her actions tells us that she’s deeply flabbergasted here. And it’s noting that Acxa ignores Keith here, and never thanks him for his actions. Instead, she goes on to take advantage of his kindness, and “teams up” with him for the rest of the episode. She leads him to believe that they’re allies who would have each others’ backs. She reveals this to be not true, however, and betrays him at the end, which is why Keith is so upset, he realized he was being used this whole time.
This entitlement we see more of later on when Acxa pays him back. When she saves him, Keith gives a judgemental distrusting look, which Acxa repays with an arrogant “I paid you back ok? You happy now?” and leaves with a bratty, entitled expression that lingers
She a very spoiled child, most likely a result of Lotor’s influence on her, a half-Altean, to think herself as better than other people, especially people who aren’t as great as them.
All of this makes Acxa’s character arc all the more ironic in season 6. Here is when Lotor’s, and to an extent, Acxa’s plans begin to fall apart. A lot of Lotor’s lies come unraveling in this season, particularly the ones he’s told Acxa before.
superheroladies 