Okay but did you see how gentle Zethrid was with Ezor?? That woman who loves destruction and is brutal practically all the time but when she sees that Ezor is distressed she’s protective and speaks calmly?? Oh man, oh no, my poor heart, this scene was so cute, I cannot deal!!
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.
superheroladies 