Who’s ready for a flashback? Doesn’t
matter, you’re getting one anyway. It’s not just any flashback, though. No,
this time, we’re going way back. Ten thousand+ years back, to the origins of
Voltron, and of the dark Emperor Zarkon. The basic set up is, that while Haggar
uses her magics to peak into Zarkon’s mind in an attempt to revive him, Allura
is enlightening the Paladins as to what she knew of Voltron’s history. Her hope
is that knowing about Voltron’s origins might help them puzzle out what Lotor’s
plan might be. The end result, for the viewer anyway, is an abridged history of
the Legendary Defender, and its first Black Paladin.
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| The old school team. |
Turns out, the Paladin’s of Voltron
began as a group of friends. Zarkon was the young but respected king of the
Gulra. Allura’s father, Alfor, was the equally young and equally respected king
of the Alteans. And the two had three other friends named Gyrgan, Trigel, and
Blaytez. Whom were all leaders of their respective peoples. Except Blaytez,
whom I believe was some kind of space pirate king. Huh. And yeah, they seem to
have oddly similar personality traits as Hunk, Pidge, and Lance respectively. The
group was having a feast together when a massive Comet struck the planet. I
erroneous believed in an earlier post that said Comet had hit Altea, Allura’s
homeworld. Turns out, I was wrong, it hit the Gulra homeworld of Dybazal. My
bad.
Zarkon and Alfor, along with their
legions of subjects, are able to quickly set up a perimeter around the impact
site. The Comet is giving off a weird bit of extra dimensional energy that
baffles Alfor and the Gulra scientists. So, Alfor sends for a specialist from
back on Altea. Enter Honerva, the best Alchemist of Altea, and her weird alien
cat Kova. She’s extremely excited to be working on the project, and learning
more about the Comet and its energies.
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| Zarkon, an alien monster wrecked a hug portion of your planet You shouldn't have to be persuaded to shut the portal it used. |
We skip forward a few years. In
that time, Allura is born, Honerva’s made progress in her research, and even
found time to marry a certain Gulra monarch. Huh, funny how we’ve never seen an
Empress Honerva hanging around Zarkon, isn’t it? Anyway, Honerva had learned
through meticulous study that the Comet puts out a massive amount of energy
that could be used to power, well, anything. Which is good. And she discovered
some sort of extra dimensional organism that tried to slip into their universe
via the wormhole that the Comet seems to generate. This is less good, shifting
to full on bad when a power surge hits, and thousands of the buggers spill out
into their world. They’re able to get the Comet free, imprison the creatures in
a sort of force field for a while, and, somehow, Alfor is able to use the metal
to forge the five giant, color coordinated Lions that we all know and love. The
two kings grab their other three friends, and pilot the beasts in a bid to send
the invaders home. This proves difficult, as the thousands of smaller creatures
act as one massive entity that swats at them like they were flies. While the
five individuals put up a good fight, the monster is too strong, over powering
them. Thankfully, they form Voltron for the first time, and use the Leo Saber
to smash it to a pile of goo.
Now Alfor, being a smart guy, wants
to seal the breach left over from the monster’s invasion. Honerva, on the other
hand, wants the portal left open for research. Zarkon, being a doting husband,
agrees with Honerva, and tells Alfor to back off and follow Zarkon’s commands.
Seems weird that he assumed that would work, given his friend is also a King. But
whatever. They all continue to work together, although Alfor and Zarkon are
much more distant with each other thereafter.
Skip forward a few more years, and
things haven’t improved. Zarkon’s planet, Dybazal, is pretty much rotting from
the damage the still open wormhole is causing to the surface. Honerva isn’t
doing much better, visibly aging far beyond her actual years. Creepily, her cat
is still alive and looking like a haggard skeletal beast. I have no idea how
long alien cat’s live, but from the way Alfor acts, this fur ball should have
been dead at least a decade ago. Alfor rightly deduces that Honerva has been
experimenting with the Quintessence that the portal has created to keep her cat
alive. Alfor basically says ‘screw this’ to the whole situation and leaves.
Zarkon tries to order him to stay, but Alfor is so beyond done.
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| Wow, Honerva could use some sun. If she get's any grayer she'll start looking like Hagga-Ohhh... |
To make things worse for Zarkon,
his wife is dying. I guess exposure to all that raw energy has slowly poisoned
her. It’s not stated out loud, but I reason that Quintessence works a little
like radiation and a little like a drug. It’s pure life energy, so it has the
ability to heal wounds and extend lives, but like any drug you need more and
more of it just get back to functioning normally. Honerva, having spent over a
decade being exposed, can’t get the same effect as she used to, and thus is
slowly dying. She begs Zarkon to take her to the Rift, to the purest
Quintessence to save her.
Zarkon calls out to Alfor again. He
tells his friend that he wants to use Voltron to seal the Rift once and for
all. Alfor agrees, rather too quickly in this humble blogger’s opinion. The
team assembles, forms Voltron, and summons the Leo Saber. So, the plan is to
use the sword to cut a bigger hole into the Rift, absorb as much energy as them
can, and then use Voltron to force the hole shut. I would have several problems
with this idea, but unfortunately, none of the other original Paladins have my
thought process. They rip the Rift open further, and fly in. Once inside,
Zarkon executes his actual plan. He exit’s his cockpit, cradling Honerva in his
arms, and the two of them are exposed to the pure energy of the Rift. It
doesn’t go well, as the two are seemingly killed by the energies, and their
presence summons a horde of the aliens from before. Despite the Black Paladin
being absent, the other Paladins can work Voltron well enough to recover their
friends’ bodies, escape the beasts and then the rift. Once at a safe distance,
and hopefully after a planet wide evacuation, they bomb the heck out of Dybazal
to seal the Rift for good.
Alfor planned a funeral for Zarkon
and Honerva, but things didn’t quite play out that way. The Quintessence that
he was exposed to had a somewhat delayed effect on Zarkon, or so it seems. Zarkon
rose from the dead, and has become the being we know today. His eyes glow, his
voice is deeper, and he wants Voltron back. He gets control of some transmitting
equipment and sends a message to the Gulra. He claimed his friend had betrayed
him, and destroyed Dybazal as an act of war. He is able to rally his people
into the full-scale war with the Alteans and the universe as a whole. Alfor,
fearing the monster that seemed to be wearing his friend’s skin, scattered the Lions
of Voltron. Zarkon killed Alfor in a rage, and destroyed Altea as a part of his
further vengeance.
Back in the present, the group
realize Lotor’s plan. He’s going to try to open a new Rift and harvest as much
of that pure Quintessence as he can.
And Haggar? Well, turns out
scanning Zarkon’s mind cleared out the cobwebs in her own mind. She had
apparently forgotten most, if not all, of her past as the scientist Honerva. Considering
the 10,000 years she’s been Haggar, I think we can forgive her forgetfulness. But,
now armed with her old memories, she uses her powers to call out to Zarkon
again, and asks her beloved to do the impossible again and return to her.
Something very wicked this way comes.
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| Well... crap. The Emperor is back. |
So, yeah, I think I can talk about
this now. Haggar was once Honerva, Zarkon’s wife. This puts into perspective
why he trusted her so implicitly, and never even once questioned her loyalty,
even when another king might be at least slightly distrustful of his witch. It
doesn’t make sense if she’s always been a creepy witch. I don’t know about you,
but I’m always distrustful of creepy old witches, ever since I read Macbeth. It
DOES make sense when you know that Haggar is the last bit of his wife. She
might not have remembered anything, but he did. You might think I’m making a
lot of assumptions here. But then, the whole “I’ll sacrifice my friendship and
my own life on the OFF chance I can save your life,” makes it seem pretty likely
that Zarkon would still have feelings for who she was. Just saying. Flip side,
this raises SO many questions about Lotor. Haggar is clearly Lotor’s mother, as
I just can’t see Zarkon moving on and Lotor’s clearly half Altean, but that
doesn’t explain WHEN he was conceived. He doesn’t seem to have the glowing,
pupil-less eyes of his parents, that I attribute to Quintessence exposure. So,
odds are he wasn’t born ten thousand years ago. Then when did it happen? Twenty
years ago? Fifty? I don’t know how quickly Gulra age. Seems odd. And does Lotor
know that his father’s favorite witch is also his mama? If so, he doesn’t seem
to acknowledge it. Which seems out of character for him. I think back to when
he presented the general’s arm to Haggar. No “Mommy I don’t need a babysitter,”
or “Oh you’re going to be a concerned parent now?” seems odd from the prince of
snark. Sure, she might not remember, but I doubt anything in Lotor’s past could
make him forget who bore him. Some might say, “what if no one told him?” to
which I say, “you think that not one servant noticed a pregnant Haggar right
about when Lotor became a thing?” Sure, I don’t know Altean anatomy, but, if
they’re as like human females as they appear, it would be INSANELY hard to hide
the baby bump. Just sayin.
Okay, so this once again didn’t
sound like a season finale. It felt like a mid-season finale. But, considering
that they released season 4 in the same calendar year, I think I can be more
forgiving this time. Learning about the history of Voltron is kind of
important, and as mentioned above, learning about Zarkon’s past made a lot of
his actions make a more sense retroactively. It wasn’t about power, as the
Gulra empire can make weapons on par with Voltron, it’s about the Quintessence.
Voltron’s unique composition allows it to manipulate the fabric of reality in
such a way that it can harvest that purest Quintessence. That Quintessence that
Honerva was obsessed with. So yeah, now I kind of get why he wants Black Lion
back so bad that he nearly destroyed himself. So yeah, another good episode.
Next time, who’s ready for some Punishment?
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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