The Last Big Meta of Voltron: The New Klancetament: What Voltron Could've Been

Introduction

Hi! Our names are Leah, Astro, and Kat, and we're BiTron Legendary Theorists, your favorite Optimistic Trio. We've been sharing and reading several theories and metas about the final season of Voltron Legendary Defender and saw a lot of them overlap. We then combined our powers and put together this massive post for everyone.

This is, simply, a Voltron Season 8 Master Theory. Many of our theories for the final season have been overlapping, so putting them together as one massive, multi-part prediction made sense. There is a lot of stuff relating to Klance in this master post, but we do bring up things such as the Altean Colony and other points that have yet to be discussed in the show.

We have been working on this since 9/12/18 (September 12), and we had to get this finished under a deadline (before the panel at NYCC, aka October 5 or 10/5/18). Our apologies if anything we got here is wrong or if we missed anything. Balancing this with school, work and life was hard. If we missed anything, please remember that we can't tell the future. We can only guess!

Except for Astro, who famously tweeted this two days before Season 7 aired and cursed the entire fandom:

Please note: this is long and a lot to take in. We suggest that you take breaks while reading this and take your time. This tends to crash on mobile so please use desktop if you can!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Us:

Leah: Hi! I'm Leah! I have a Twitter and an Instagram, and I am well known for my optimistic theories which can be viewed here. After Season 7, I began to jot down a lot of my thoughts/theories on it since a lot of people were very pessimistic and angry afterward, which are both very valid with the way things were handled. They got a lot of attention and spread a lot of positivity to others, so I'm very glad and honored that I got to be a part of that and make others happy. Working on this, though, I didn't have a lot of time to make small optimistic theories, so I appreciate everyone's patience.

Astro: I'm here to prove to you all that Lance is bisexual and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum.

Kat: I'm that one person who spent 3 days watching an 80s anime. I refuse to believe something as Bad as the expected endgame can possibly exist.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why We're Doing This:

We're doing this mainly to spread positivity throughout the fandom.

No, seriously. You all are pretty miserable and, frankly, it's a bad look.

A lot of people are disappointed and don't expect much for Season 8 (which is fair because, let's be real, some of that was a mess) as well as resorting to not watching it. Our hope is that we can shed light on some of the mysteries that haven't been answered yet, as Voltron rounds into its final season, as well as bringing out new ideas into the realm of possibility.

Also, it's fun.

We weren't kidding when we said that this post was massive, so you're probably going to want to read this on a browser or at least take some water breaks between. We've put together a Table of Contents for your reference if there's a particular theory you're interested in.

Lastly, a Big thank you to all the Voltron theorists we've quoted in this, yall are seriously awesome!
Please enjoy!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents:

I. Foundation - The Macross Theory - UPDATED!

II. Lance's Series Long Bisexual Love Triangle
III. "Garfle Warfle Snick!" - UPDATED!
IV. Endgames - Allurance & Kacxa the Red Herrings
Interlude: Voltron Season Seven Cliffhanger
V. Lotor's Colony & Empress Honerva - NEW!
VI. Lotor's Intention, Acxa's Betrayal & The Klance Fight
Interlude: Shiro, Lance & Black Paladin Lance
VII. Why Keith Will Confess/Try To Confess First

VIII. Keith, Lance and The Wings of Voltron & The Concept of Yin and Yang

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I. Foundation - Macross Theory

Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos stated multiple times in interviews that one of their biggest inspirations for VLD was Macross/Robotech, an 80s anime centered around the same space themes. They even implied it has more influence than DoTU. ( read the articles here, here and here )
Season 7 of Voltron was a big homage to Macross, through the Earth Arc, the MFE, and the Atlas. (edit: well well, we now have confirmation! )

Macross’ love triangle was a very important part of the original series and what made the show interesting for so many people, and it’s one of the major things Macross is remembered for. It’s very likely that Lauren and Joaquim wanted to make something just as impactful for their audience.

The characters in Macross: Hikaru, Misa and Minmay have incredibly similar dynamics to Lance, Keith, and Allura. And this theory goes off of this, if Macross’ iconic love triangle was Misa/Hikaru/Minmay, then Voltron is trying to do this with Keith/Lance/Allura, and it makes sense since they’ve been the two relationships that have been developed and paralleled the most since the beginning. It also ties really well into lance’s bisexuality arc, which we talk about later in the post.

Other relationships in Voltron are also direct parallels to Macross: We have Minmay and Kaifun who parallel Lotor and Allura, and Claudia & Major Focker who parallel Shiro and Adam.

Claudia and Focker were flight partners since freshmen year. Claudia worked at the command center and the major was an ace pilot. Major Focker died because of an alien raid, he was mortally wounded while in his fighter jet but got to live for a little longer before he died in Claudia’s room.

Unfortunately, we also see Adam die fighting off the Galra invasion in his fighter jet.

Both of these relationships have major roles that help progress the story. We recommend reading the full theory here and here before proceeding. Since the beginning, we've witnessed the romance narrative unfold in the background of the series. They manage to keep the storyline intact, attributing dynamics from Macross to our characters in VLD.

Starting the second half, VLD cleverly introduces Lotor to the narrative, adding yet another layer of parallels to the 80s anime.

Finally, we are brought to our current point in the story.

EDIT: Asides from both their relationships evolving from rivals/friends, we’ve been seeing Misa/Hikaru and Keith/Lance parallels going back to S1. The bonding moment? Well, Misa and Hikaru did it first

And in S4 when Keith left the team, eventually meeting his estranged mother, leaving Lance upset? Yup Macross did that first too when Misa left the team to go on a mission where she reunited with her father, leaving Hikaru upset.

S6 already introduced us to the Minmay/Hikaru and Allura/Lance parallels. When Minmay broke up with Kaifun, she was hurt and depressed and went to Hikaru for solace, and Hikaru comforted her. In VLD, when Allura and Lotor fought and ended things, she was hurt and sad and Lance was the one to comfort her.

Going off of this, S7 kickstarted the final stages of the romance arc, as well as paving the path for a romantic twist. We already have a big indicator for this, with the Allura/Lance scene we get in episode 10, which blatantly parallels the Hikaru/Minmay one in Macross.

Voltron’s narrative follows the Macross one pretty closely, so it’s fair to assume that they’ll see it through to the end. We will start from here and build up the story as we go.

If S8 continues to stick to the Macross outline, here are some things that could follow:

Lance doesn’t know that Keith likes him
Shiro and Keith or Shiro and Lance will have A Talk about their feelings and it will most likely include a scenario like this:

Shiro talks about Adam, and we’ll get more flashbacks
Lance and Keith have a big argument/ fight, but make up
Lance is confused and goes back and forth between Keith and Allura
We get more Allurance, and Keith gives up
Keith goes off with the blades or some mission and tries to confess to Lance before he goes
Something bad happens and Keith is in danger
Lance figures out his feelings for Keith, might get flashbacks
Allura sees that Lance is distressed and helps him out, gives up on him because they weren’t meant to be together, and the two break up on good terms
Lance chooses Keith and they go into the final battle
In the end, Allura leaves to build a new Altea/lead the universe and Klance is endgame

edit: It seems the S8 uniforms are also inspired from Macross. the high collars, the uniform shape, the lines, the pin, the belt and the cuffs are all elements from the old Macross uniforms.

EDIT: just gonna leave this in here, thank u s8 trailer :)

(even the lamp post, dress and uniform-like shirt jeez)

And if you're wondering, "but when can they do all this in only 13 episodes?", well, everything that happened in Macross 3 2/2 happened in the show's last 6-7 episodes. The big endgame twist happened in the Finale. So there's still time.

---

II. Lance's Series Long Bisexual Love Triangle

We’ve been shown Lance’s bisexual arc all series, but because Voltron had its seasons cut in half, it wasn't easy to notice. As mentioned earlier, Lance's romances mirror that of the love triangle shown in Macross/Robotech between pilot Hikaru, his rival Misa and popstar Minmay. In Voltron, it's been a bisexual love triangle between Lance/Allura and Lance/Keith that has been building up all series long.

It’s easy to call out VLD for telling and not showing, but in the case of the Bi Lance and this love triangle, we’ve been shown a lot. The forest gets lost for the trees since they split seasons 3-6 in half.

To help this make sense we're going to call each 13 episode ARCs:

ARC 1: S1
ARC 2: S2
ARC 3: S3/S4
ARC 4: S5/S6
ARC 5: S7

ARC 3: Lance and Keith

We're not going to get too much into ARC 1 and ARC 2, we all know the evidence of Keith catching feelings for Lance, Lance going “Are you and the Princess together, together?” with Keith and Allura in the pod. By the time ARC 3 starts, Lance has a good relationship with both Keith and Allura.

Starting with ARC 3, Keith and Lance’s relationship changes in dynamic. The first half is heavy loaded in this change with Lance comforting Keith when they need to go find a new Black Paladin.

Later we get Lance encouraging Keith to be the Black Paladin and to respect the lion’s decision to have him as the leader. Keith is then able to pilot Black.

When Keith falls into Lotor’s trap and puts the team at risk, it’s Lance that helps him bounce back.

Towards the middle of ARC 3, when Shiro comes back, Lance lets Keith know his insecurities in the Bedroom Scene. One of Lance’s biggest concerns being that he doesn’t want to take Blue away from Allura.

The next episode is the flashback filler episode about Alfor and Zarkon, but the following episode we’re back to the plot and see that Keith is beginning to pull away from the team, and it’s Allura who confronts him about how Voltron needs him - “we need you” - this is after Lance vocally complains about Keith missing their shows.

When Keith leaves, Allura asks him if that’s why he was pulling away, Coran is right next to her. But when the camera shifts to Hunk asking, “What’s the other part?” the only other two in the frame are Lance and Allura before it turns to Keith, talking quickly about the Blade’s mission.

If you're wondering if there's any other indicator that Keith left the team for Lance's benefit, the scene in S6 with Krolia and Keith in the Quantum Abyss directly parallels this with Keith assuming he knew that his mother left him to join the Blades for the good of the mission. Instead, she tells him she left to protect the person she loves most.

Krolia did for Keith what Keith did for Lance.

Towards the end of ARC 3, we’re reminded of Lance’s crush on Allura when Matt makes a pass at her. This is the first time it’s been brought up all ARC.

This is to remind the audience of Lance’s feelings for Allura, because we’re going to see in the next ARC, it’s a major focus during the Lotor/Allura/Lance "love triangle" for him. They even make a point to show us Lance huffing when everyone goes inside.

The ARC ends with Lance giving Allura the “heart of Voltron/Blue chose you” speech, the same encouragement he gave to Keith when the Black Lion chose him and he was unsure. Allura is then able to use her magic.

Which leads us into ARC 4, with Lance and Allura.

ARC 4: Lance and Allura

ARC 4 is where we see Lance’s milestone interactions with Keith being mirrored with Allura. After Allura falls into Lotor’s trap and puts the team at risk, it’s Lance that helps her bounce back.

After Shiro snaps at Lance, Allura helps him with his insecurities. Like how Keith helped him with his insecurities about the lions.

And, of course, a bonding moment that mirrors Keith and Lance’s. Funny how in both of these Lance is the one who was hurt and saved by Keith and Allura respectively.

Towards the end of ARC 4, Keith comes back to the team and Lance takes note of his appearance twice, a reminder that Lance has some sort of fascination with Keith. Similar to when we've seen him react to Matt’s flirting with Allura at the end of the last arc. Comment One:

And Comment Two. This one with Lance walking forward, going to meet Keith first while making the comment.

We also see Lance waiting for a hug and getting none, and looking put out by it. Similar to how he was put out by Matt flirting with Allura and everyone going into the castle without noticing it.

Now that Keith is back, this leads us into ARC 5 in S7, with Lance and Allura and Keith.

ARC 5: Lance and Allura and Keith

This FINALLY leads us into ARC 5 with S7, the season where both Keith and Allura are very much on Lance’s mind after some major emotional moments in the past two arcs.

Episode 3 gives us the Acxa break out, and when Keith goes to Acxa, Lance looks like this.

This is the face that Lance makes when Allura goes to build the comet ship with Lotor in the previous season.

So far, Lance and Keith are “Rivals to Friends”, a popular trope in shows for young boys. One famous example is Goku & Vegeta. And you don’t see THAT kind of facial expression when they break apart. Lance has an expression of hurt, worry with a tinge of jealousy.

The episode ends with Acxa giving Keith The Look, after explaining how finding her path “led me to you” but quickly after that, she talks about Lotor and how he wasn’t the man she thought he was. Keith doesn’t seem as smitten.

Allura agrees with the point about Lotor, and we see Lance staring at her. Again, not so much smitten as he is sympathetic. He knows full well what Allura went through, he comforted her.

Axca then leaves until the end of the season. The rest of the season shows us:

Lance and Keith picking each other to escape the Game Show
Lance acknowledging that he took Keith’s leaving the team really hard
Keith not losing his temper at Lance when he went space crazy, even though Lance called him a “lone wolf” which was Keith’s big insecurity when he first was chosen to pilot Black.
Lance and Keith co-leading Voltron
Lance and Keith unlocking Voltron’s wings

And that soft look Lance gets when he talks about Keith being the future? Yeah, that’s the same soft smile Keith had when he told Lance he got his lion back in season 1.

Then we get to episode 10, evenly spaced from where we were with Acxa, and after everything we’ve seen in Arc 4, Allura begins to show interest in Lance.

We see in the following scene that Lance is struggling to connect with Red. This has never happened between Lance and Red before. It's even contrasted 4 episodes before, in ep 6, when the space creature focuses on Lance, and Red is the first one to immediately come to his rescue.

Something is stressing him out and keeping him from connecting with it. This other theory does a good job expanding on it.

Almost as if, after all this time, it’s starting to slowly hit him that he may have feelings for two people of different genders. And these feelings have been slowly growing since Season 3, and he (like the audience) would have to be able to compare his interactions with Keith to someone else, in this case, Allura, so we could see that those original interactions were, in fact, romantic.

It’s pretty clear that by the end of season 7, Lance and Allura are together and Acxa finds Keith on Earth. Which is interesting that both their romantic arcs started in the same season, one at the beginning and one at the end. Almost as if they were going to intersect somehow when Lance makes a personal discovery about himself and these two people in his life.

---

III. "Garfle Warfle Snick!"

In the fourth episode of S7, the paladins get trapped inside a cursed gameshow titled "Garfle Warfle Snick." The aim of the game is to win enough points to escape, nearly the entire episode is a foreshadowing of Lance's bisexual love triangle and his eventual endgame with Keith.

In the episode, we're introduced to the title logo of the game which has the same design as the 1970s game show "The Dating Game" (as Synth pointed out on Twitter) that had people asking contestants questions and choosing one of them to go on a date with. They even included the 70s flower design. Very groovy.

Next, we see the formation of the paladins in their booths. Keith is at one end with Allura at the other, Lance is cushioned between them in the middle buffered by Hunk and Pidge.

They're explained the rules by the host Bob and are told they need to win Quaz-cenbullion credits, or else they’d be trapped in the game show for the rest of eternity.

The board for the game has the overlapping circles colored red, blue, and pink, with the blue circle in between the red and pink ones. Behind it, there's a large triangle.

Red, blue and pink - Keith, Lance and Allura, because Lance has feelings for both of them. The triangle is to indicate that it is, in fact, a love triangle.
A bisexual love triangle.

Let's move on to the game.

The first round involves Keith playing a game of Pictionary and the rest of the team needs to guess what he's drawing. Keith is then gagged, so he can’t speak and all his communication with the team is limited to his actions. In this case, drawing. Each of the answers reflect a major milestone from Keith's relationship with Lance.

The first answer is Arusian, which Lance wildly guesses is a chicken. When Pidge asks him when have they ever seen a chicken in space, Lance blames it on Keith’s drawing. Allura answers the question correctly.

Arusians are from planet Arus, where Lance and Keith had the bonding moment.

Next, the answer is Blade of Marmora, which Lance calls “Space Chopsticks” causing Keith to break his pencil in frustration. Pidge answers the question correctly as Blade of Marmora.

The Blade of Marmora is where Keith went after he and Lance had the bedroom scene where he confided in Keith that there were too many pilots and not enough lions and was going to step down. Keith joining the Blade of Marmora ensured that Lance still had a spot on the team, but in doing so upset Lance who took it as Keith running away.

The following answer is Red Lion, and once again Lance can’t guess it - even though it’s the lion that both him and Keith have piloted. Hunk, working together with Keith’s arm motions, is able to guess the answer correctly.

The Red Lion is about when Keith first became Black Paladin and Lance supported him as Red Paladin, became Keith’s right hand, and piloted Red after Keith. It's the lion they've shared.

The final question in the round is Haggar.

EDIT: From what we saw of Haggar in the S8 trailer from NYCC, Honerva is the main antagonist in the final season and it looks like something happens to Keith as we see him getting hit with a corruption beam and the Black Lion flying to one of her robeasts.

This might also have something to do with Lance realizing his feelings for Keith, and them getting together.

EDIT: Also, the word "Haggar" appears in both Keith AND Lance's segments, so it only adds fuel to the fire.

But anyway!

Again this round, Lance guesses wildly and inaccurately, calling the picture a “windy cave.” This causes Allura to lose her patience with him and yell at him to stop talking just as time runs out before anyone else can guess.

After their points are stolen by The Galra Family, Keith asks Lance, “A windy cave?” to which he replies, “Hey! I’m not a mind reader!” Which is fair - Keith is not a man of words, but rather actions, and Lance really can't read his mind. Meaning when Keith does an action, say leaving the team to join the Blade of Mamora so Lance wouldn't have to step down, Lance could take that as a sign that Keith was running away from the team.

This entire round is an indicator of Keith and Lance’s miscommunication. Every single team member but Lance was able to correctly guess what Keith was drawing, but Lance struggled. In some cases, he was so wildly off-base that even his own teammates were confused. In the end, when Keith confronted him about it, Lance got defensive. This is to show Lance and Keith, although they’re a great team and can form the wings of Voltron, can’t even communicate their own feelings for each other. Keith thinks he’s being clear in his actions, while Lance is lost and misses what he’s trying to say.

Lance also keeps being called dumb during the game (although once could have been enough to get the "metaphor" point across smh voltron) , serving as hints to his clear obliviousness/confusion/denial over his developing feelings for Keith and his sexuality. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t making progress on recognizing these emotions in some way, as we’ll see in the final round.

Next game, Lance is thrown into the isolation shield and completely bombs the name game until he guesses Bi-Boh-Bii. During this round, the two who are most relieved to see Lance not getting eaten by the Snick are Keith and Allura, who have both let out sighs of relief.

The two then play a fill-in-the-blank game where every answer has the phrase “Bii” in it, and it isn’t until the word is “Bi” that Lance gets it wrong and is sent into the hot oil chamber. He starts the round looking very nervous.

Emphasis on the word “Bi” could have been on “Bii” or “Boh”, but it wasn’t. This also links to Lance’s bisexuality, which he still hasn't figured out. (Also, a reach, but the background of this pic looks like the bi flag with changing hues. We're used to liquid being blue, and if it was the case it would have stood out even further.)

EDIT: After Lance gets the first two tries, Bob says there's TWO more words left to guess. The first one is this , which is LITERALLY "I'm". Like come on, look at it, they didn't even bother to modify the letters like with the others!

And after Lance guesses this one right, guess which one comes next as the second and final word!

So yes, the last two words in this round literally make up the phrase "I'm Bi" , which Lance failed to figure out.

A bonus, when Bii-Boh-Bi was trying to help Lance by spelling it out for him, Bob interrupted him and told him he isn't allowed to say the word.

Considering the answer was "Bi" , what Bii-Boh-Bi was trying to spell out to Lance is
"Bii-boh-boh-Bi" (bee boh boh bye! here's an awesome meta about why that last Bi is actually spelled like bye not bee!) which, if you spell it out by syllables sounds veeeery much like
"Bi- se- xu- al ". Just a thought.

In the final round, the team is forced to pick someone else to leave the game, or in this case, make a “choice” if we’re going back to the foundations of the original Dating Game reference. The choices turn out as follows:

Allura chooses Pidge
Hunk chooses Allura
Lance chooses Keith
Keith chooses Lance
Pidge chooses Hunk

To break this down, when writing the names Keith fills his answer quickly without any hesitation. Lance, on the other hand, looks confused.

When Lance gives his reasons for picking Keith, we see Hunk and Pidge and they both look super confused.

They probably thought he was going to pick Allura, since the season before they were teasing Lance for his obvious crush on her.

Next, when Keith chooses Lance, we see Pidge looking at him suspiciously.

She can tell something's up here, because while Lance was leaning forward expecting Keth to say something equally kind back (and looking very hurt when he doesn't) Pidge is still staring at Keith.

Even though Lance and Keith chose each other, it's actually Hunk's choice of Allura that is the most interesting part of this.

In the scene where the paladins are voting each other to escape, Hunk (who is sitting between Lance and Allura) picks Allura. Lance then picks Keith.

Hunk’s answer is the most blatant foreshadowing for endgame Klance, moreso than Lance and Keith picking each other. Why?

Because Hunk and Lance’s answers should’ve been switched if Lance was to end up with Allura. Their exact answers could’ve been swapped verbatim and worked for the other if they wanted to set up Lance and Allura, but instead, they set up Lance and Keith.

Hunk picking Keith would’ve made narrative sense because Hunk wouldn’t just have Keith’s help in his future personal arc that season, but Hunk helped Keith accept his Galra side. Him picking Keith saying “He’s our leader plus he’s half-Galra. He’s the future.” Would’ve been a direct link to their friendship. Coming from Lance, it feels far more loaded.

When Lance tells the mice about his feelings for Allura the season before, he says how much he admires her. Now let’s pretend the following season he picks her to save and says, “The universe needs her more than it needs us.” Wouldn't that have clicked? And foreshadowed their romance that’s hinted at the end of the season?"

Switching Hunk and Lance give us the same outcome plotwise for the episode - everyone picks each other, the paladins escape and there’s a hint of the endgame romance. But they didn’t. They have Lance pick Keith instead of Allura, and it’s because THAT’S going to be the endgame.

Thanks for playing!

---

IV. Endgames - Allurance & Kacxa the Red Herrings

We're not going to bother going over the Klance evidence that was present in season 1-season 4, as we all know about it. We're mainly going to be talking about seasons 5, 6, and 7.

We think most people are very pessimistic only after watching season 7 because it’s so late into the series that people doubt that they can do a 180 and make Klance canon, but first of all we’d like to point out that Lotor/Allura was developed over 13 episodes, and that’s as much time we have left of the show/how long Season 8 is going to be. Voltron knows how to write romances and relationships in short time spans, so why couldn’t they do this with Allurance in Season 7? Why is it so messy and rushed? It’s because it’s not his endgame. Anyways, we're fully confident that they can do the same with Keith and Lance, especially since their relationship has been growing since the very beginning of the show and is a well-written slow-burn-to-rival-to-lovers trope.

Season 5:

We're just going to do a quick recap, we're not going to go over everything.

This season, where Lotor was on their side, there weren’t many Lance/Allura interactions, except for the broadsword scene where Lance unlocks the sword and Allura explains it to him. Lance shows jealousy towards Lotor throughout the season as he gets closer to Allura, but it wasn’t as much as Season 6 displayed.

However, Allura and Lance did have a small talk in S5E1, but it showed Allura having absolutely no romantic interest in Lance whatsoever, even when he worried about her going to Oriande with Lotor. If anything, she was distracted and as the team grew more irritated by Lance's behavior. The "love triangle" wasn't one at all because Allura wasn't torn between Lance and Lotor, she continued to get closer to Lotor and ignore Lance. Lotor never saw Lance as a love rival, because he wasn't.

Season 6:

In Season 6, it starts with Lance and Allura partnering up to repair a broken garla shield. After taking a hit for Allura, Lance is revived by Allura rescuing him in a scene that mirrors the original "bonding moment" between Lance and Keith in Season 1. The following episode, Lance has a jealousy fit, feeling like a major third wheel as well that he wasn't good enough for Allura.

His feelings were disregarded and joked about by Pidge and Hunk, which hurt his feelings. It wasn't their intention to hurt him, however, and there was a scene that hinted at Lance being bisexual. Lance then opens up about his feelings to the space mice who told Allura. Allura just makes a sad face and proceeded to later kiss Lotor, showing that Lance is, indeed, the second choice.

Only after Lotor was revealed as having warped intentions did Allura eventually reciprocate Lance's feelings at the end of Season 7. However, at the end of Season 6, it seemed like Lance was beginning to let go when he was supporting Allura after she blamed herself for putting the team in danger, but we cannot know for sure.

Earlier in the season, however, there were massive amounts of parallels between Lance and Keith in S6. Among them, we can see parallels between Keith's dad and Lance, Krolia, and Keith (thank you Lars for the discoveries!) during the flashbacks when Keith is in the Quantum Abyss.

As well as Allura's reaction to Lotor interrupting and Lance's reaction to Keith interrupting their moment:

And finally the Shocked expression towards someone you have interest in:

How Allura Reciprocating Lance's Feelings Leads To Canon Klance:

Season 7 gave us Allura possibly reciprocating Lance’s feelings, or thinking she does, at least.

Remember watching this scene and thinking, “What the hell is happening right now?” because it was so out of place and didn’t fit at all? And Veronica, whom we thought would be the ultimate Klance stan, teasing Lance, didn’t help. But we're here to assess this time why Allura reciprocating Lance’s feelings is going to lead to Klance.

So, we don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in EVERY situation that involves Allura and Keith this season, Lance’s attention is always on Keith.

Notice in this scene here how Allura is behind Lance and Keith is in front of him.

It’s as if he wasn’t ever in love with Allura, which is weird since he's been so vocal about it. But it does validate the point that in this scene he was letting go of her:

Yet of course, at the end of the season where Lance has stopped showing romantic interest of all times, she finally reciprocates his feelings.

As mentioned before, this scene is a homage to the Macross scene with Hikaru and Minmay finally returning his feelings, even though he chooses Misa in the end. But, in addition, in this where we see Lance stepping up into the truck with Veronica, having him literally stand above her. The scene feels out of balance because they are out of balance.

And also here, notice how he’s not blushing until Veronica brings up the fact that Allura is pretty. Like, he knows this, yet he denies it? Why? Just two seasons ago he was badgering the team about Allura and in Season 6 Pidge and Hunk teased him about his crush on Allura. Everyone knows he likes Allura, and someone may even think that they’re together. What changed?

Keith came back.

Also, what’s up with the parallels this season with Keith, Lance, and Allura?

(Credit to the-red-paladins on Tumblr for these screencaps)

Mention of Allura

Mention of Keith

Denial About Allura

Denial About Keith

Worried About Allura

Worried About Keith

Think back to what we said earlier about Lance's feelings for Allura and Keith being hinted at all series. This isn't new, we've been watching Lance's struggling from the beginning.

Timeline-wise, between the Castle of Lions exploding and them landing on Earth, it was only a few months. Allura's relationship with Lotor is mentioned when they're around the fire with Acxa, its hinted when Lotor appears in The Feud, and Keith rips into Allura about it when they're trapped in space together.

If they really were just going to disregard Lotura entirely and pretend that it never happened to move on to Allurance why would they write the build up for Allura's feelings changing for Lance so poorly? Why was it ignored and instead her relationship with Lotor mentioned multiple times throughout the season?

Because it’s not Lance's endgame.

Remember how after the space mice told Allura that Lance has feelings for her, this is how she reacted?

And even after she learned of his feelings, she still kissed Lotor.

And only after they fought Lotor, did Allura reciprocate Lance’s feelings.

Allura's feelings aside, another question we have is why is Lance so in denial of Allura's intention? Like, yeah, Veronica is his sister and siblings tease each other, so he could easily be embarrassed, but we think there’s more to it than that. We're pretty sure he’d be proud that she likes him back, yet he’s denying it.

“She just cares about everyone because she’s awesome like that.” Maybe that’s a message to us. She only likes what Lance did for her.

Can you blame him for being confused about Allura’s feelings? No, because he doubts that she would choose him now of all times because she hasn't shown any interest previously. It's a disservice to both their characters as it makes Allura seem like she's fine being tossed from man to man and it makes Lance seem desperate. It sets off the message that if you keep persisting, eventually someone will like you back. It's confusing for the audience, and seemingly Lance.

Let’s put a pin in this for now and talk about the growth pattern dynamics for Keith + Lance’s relationship and Allura + Lance’s relationship.

Allura + Lance -- their dynamic is something that's been subtly growing over time. But Lance is always the one helping Allura grow and boosting up her confidence, while Lance stays in the same place or sinks lower than he already was. Sometimes the focus is on him at first, then switches to Allura, and ultimately, in the end, Allura is the one being comforted, not Lance. If this was really the endgame, Allura wouldn’t be the only one being comforted and growing here. It’d be mutual. But no matter how hard Allura may try, Lance stays in the same place, and Allura continues to glide above him without taking notice that Lance is feeling down. It’s not her fault, he’s just very subtle about it. He has only shown her and Keith his insecurities after all.

Keith + Lance -- their growth pattern dynamic is one of them growing individually and then helping the other grow as well. It has gone both ways, but currently, it is Keith that has grown while he was gone and helping Lance grow (since he’s been down ever since Keith left). But Keith knows that Lance is insecure… and that Lance responds to actions, which is why Keith is showing Lance that he has a place on the team and they need him while giving him missions and responsibilities and trust. It’s what Lance needs. He needs to know he’s needed, which we all know is one of his highest doubts -- that he doesn’t do enough for the team.

Another very telling moment for us is the scene with Lance reuniting with his family. We’ve known all series that Lance is homesick and misses his family a lot and that they’re an important thing to his character.

Their reunion felt like one of Lance’s most important scenes all series, in how it's animated. This is a peak scene for Lance, and right there, behind and closest to him as if sending him off, is Keith.

The only other two people in the frame are Nadia and Hunk, whose arc about his own family kickstarted immediately after this moment.

The camera rotates to the left and the only people we vaguely see before focusing on Lance’s family are Coran and Romelle.

Allura was absolutely absent from this scene and if they were endgame, wouldn’t it be super weird for her to be missing during this, instead of being by Lance’s side, you know, like Keith was?

Yeah, a nice "show, don't tell" right here.

So, which one does Lance need? Someone who is always comforted by him and never reciprocates (unintentionally) or someone who helps him grow while also getting that growth in return? Which one sounds more like the endgame?

Anyways, something that is observed is that Lance responds more to actions than words. The fact that Lance doesn’t understand when Allura explains things to him, like the lion switch, validates this point more. Actions affect Lance, not words. Which is ironic because the only times Keith seems to get through to Lance is when he does something because he's bad at communicating.

This has been on display many times. For example, when Keith told Lance that things would work themselves out with the whole too many paladins issue, Lance looked tired. Like nothing had changed, but when Keith left the team, it made Lance upset. Lance thinks that Keith ran away from him. Keith’s actions were so out of context that Lance doesn’t know the true reason why he left, even though he made the choice right after their conversation.

Now let's talk about Lance’s character.

Lance is someone who loves love. It has been explained that once someone actually reciprocates he won’t know what to do with it, likely because he’s so used to rejection, which doesn’t help Allura’s case. He’s usually upbeat and confident, but it is a facade because he has lots of insecurities and concerns, like his place on the team, him being “just a boy from Cuba”, etc.

It’s a case of Lance not seeing what’s right in front of him because Allura is currently reciprocating and pulling Lance away. It disallows him to properly branch out and come to this realization, which he needs to do because he needs to feel happy. He needs to feel like he’s someone’s first choice.

He literally isn’t Allura’s first choice. Deep down he knows this… deep down he knows this isn’t going to work out. She didn’t show any interest in him (even when the space mice told her in s6 that he liked her she expressed sadness and still kissed Lotor), and only after Lotor ended up double-crossing them did she reciprocate his feelings that were just starting to fade away. So we’ve got Allura reciprocating and making Lance disregard any feelings for Keith and hanging onto the lingering ones he’s got for her. He wants love, and he wants to love. But Allura and Lance’s goals and dreams simply are not compatible. She wants to lead the Altean colony, he wants to stay on Earth with his family. They’re from two completely different worlds. Allura isn’t going to stay on Earth, it's not her home.

We also got possible feelings on Acxa’s side for Keith, and it’s perfect because Lance needs a trigger for his realization that he has feelings for Keith, because they’re hidden underneath the surface.

Remember what we said about actions sparking things for Lance when it comes to Keith?

Allura liking him isn’t going to do it, that doesn’t make sense. So we have theorized that Acxa may show interest in Keith and Lance will feel conflicted, not know why, and queue the flashbacks (garrison/rivalry flashbacks?). He’ll likely talk with Shiro, who’ll help him and push him in the right direction. We'll get more into this later.

There's no doubt that Lance has feelings for Allura. We're just saying that he has feelings for both Allura and Keith. Lance's feelings for Keith are hidden underneath the surface because Allura is reciprocating and pulling him away from that realization. It's the Wrong Person First trope, because he needs to get what he wants for him to see what he needs.

He’s been pining after Allura since Season 1, showed signs of moving on/letting go in Season 6, and then in Season 7 showed no interest until Allura did. It's the fairytale romance, he'll get the princess. You'd think he'd be happy, right?

Lance having a realization that he and Allura are not meant to be together is super important for him, since he’s in love with her, but moreso with the idea of her. As we'll see in a later theory, Lance's most romantic moments haven't been with Allura, but with Keith. The same with Allura, who after learning of Lance's feelings, still chose Lotor.

It’s big for his character to let go of someone he cares about so much. He loves love, and realizing that he’s destined for someone else is big. If he never learns this lesson, that he has to let go/move on, then he won’t grow. Otherwise, it'll be that he’s so desperate for love he doesn't care where it comes from. This isn’t true, though, and it’ll be great for Lance to come to the conclusion that he’s meant for someone else and needs to let go and move on.

Why Keith won’t be a rebound/second choice:

There's been lots of arguing about this, and we're here to tell you that Keith won’t be a rebound/second choice. Since Lance is going to be the one letting go of Allura, seeing they don’t belong together and should just be friends, and seeing who he really needs/belongs with, Keith won’t be considered a rebound or the second choice. If Allura left Lance, and it wasn’t mutual and his heart was broken over it (since Lotor betraying them was heartbreaking for Allura and she started reciprocating Lance’s feelings only after), it’d be a different story, but that’s not how it’s looking.

Lance has had feelings for Allura and Keith all series, as we keep pointing to throughout this meta. Even though Lance himself isn't entirely sure of it himself, the true "love triangle" doesn't center around Allura, but rather Lance. He's the romantic "heroine" and for him to realize what he's been feeling all show, he's going to need Keith to do something to make him notice.

Why Allurance Isn't Endgame:

Okay. Moving on. So something a lot of us noticed this season is how Allurance seemed super dead in the beginning? Until it magically sparked back to life? uhhHHH?

No, seriously. They barely interacted. And when they did, it was small things or Allura telling Lance to be quiet during the game show and then suddenly, a few episodes later, boom! Allurance happens and we're on the road to endgame...Or is it?

Short answer: no lmao
Long answer: this.

Lance wasn't pining after Allura this season. He has been pining after her for so long now. It's not a slow burn like his endgame romance is described, since it's been one-sided and unresolved for so long, and they know that. But that's not the point. The point is that Allura can't possibly get over Lotor that quickly... can she? No. They didn't even bother to show it. They didn't show her internal struggles with getting over him. She just automatically seemed fine, but that's not the case. Also, as we've seen countless times in animation, no body means no death. That means there's a chance that Lotor is still out there and back in the final season, which means so will Allura's feelings in some way.

She's not over Lotor, it just wasn't shown at all. Which wasn't good writing, and the show knows how to make us root for a ship. They can't just have her heart be broken and then have her act like nothing happened. She mentioned Lotor maybe 2-3 times this season, and it usually was about him lying to her, and it was short but there was still hurt there. Which is why the audience feels Lance is a rebound, because Allura doesn't seem over Lotor.

And regarding Lance this season? His emotions seemed really scattered and genuinely confused about his romantic feelings. People are just automatically used to Lance still showing interest in Allura. Which is true, we won't deny it. But it's also true that Lance only showed interest if Veronica brought it up? Like, "Oh, she's pretty" and he got flustered and defensive, it wasn't like him. Lance usually is the first one asking other people what Allura thinks or says about him, but this was the opposite.

Let's talk more about this.

Notice how he's not blushing or anything, just talking to Allura. Nothing romantic there, until Veronica says that she's pretty. Then he gets flustered, and says "I don't know what you're talking about". We think a lot of people didn't see that this is so not him to say. He doesn't know that she's pretty? Lance isn't normally afraid to admit that he finds her attractive.

They could've made him have a soft smile or just admit it because he knows it. He would normally not be afraid to say that she is, which was another opportunity to spark Allurance (they had many opportunities to do so) but didn't. But he looks uncomfortable, then mildly annoyed, and then he focuses back on the mission and Veronica gives up on teasing him.

(credit to the-red-paladins on Tumblr for these screencaps below)

It's probable that in Season 6 he accepted that he and Allura will never be together. Look at these expressions: he's accepting that they're just friends.

And when Season 7 started, he was barely talking to Allura. He was too busy filling the role as Keith's right hand-man, just like he was in Season 3.

Lance was too busy to worry about his heartbreak because he was too busy being the second in command, which was Keith's decision and served to show him that his role on the team truly matters. He gave him the most important missions and put his trust in him. Keith showed Lance what he needed to be shown -- that he belongs on the team.

He was too busy worrying about Keith and helping him that he forgot about his feelings for Allura and didn’t show interest in her. He was moving on.

It was even subtly symbolized, with Allura being placed behind him and Keith in front of him, showing that he prioritizes Keith now over Allura, showing that he's maybe moving on from Allura and is now interested in Keith.

(thanks to: @KlanceMuffins for pointing it out)

Another thing to add is that each time they interacted, Allura was the one to initiate it. Like the blushing scene, which showed her walking over to talk with him instead of the other way around.

Lance was concentrated on Veronica in this scene. He was caught off guard when Allura approached him.

Notice how he was moving forward, yet Allura stopped him from doing so. Symbolism? Yes, of course!

Allura was probably going to talk to him more, but Veronica was in the back. Lance is not blushing here, keep that in mind.

Lance blushes, obviously. But the thing is, he didn't look as flustered as he would normally be in earlier seasons? And his smile is friendly, not really romantic. It was respectful. Where have we seen this smile before?

He's blushing because yes, his crush is still there. It was in the back of his head in Season 7, but it was brought out again.

The distance between them is... interesting. The height difference is not an accident. This is visually showing us the gap between them. His body is facing away from Allura. As mentioned before, this scene feels off because it is off. This was intentional.

(credit to the-red-paladins on Tumblr for these screencaps)

He’s moved on from his crush or somewhat has. The ghost of a crush is still there... it comes out sometimes. But in season 8 he'll most likely realize that the ghost of his crush on Keith is becoming serious. It's already started to become serious and something he can no longer avoid and deny.

Anyways, back to the scene, Veronica interrupts his swooning.

And here it is again. Him not admitting that she might like him back, which is weird. Before, he would be so happy. But here? He's closing himself off as if not accepting the idea. Allura liking him is what Lance wanted for seasons, and now that it's happening he's denying it?

Him doing this is just highlighting even further the fact that he is getting over her. He's not getting too happy over it, because he knows deep down that him and her won't work out. It will become more clear in season 8 to him after he discovers some things about himself, and he will admit that his feelings for Allura isn't where his heart truly lies.

He'll finally FULLY move on, FULLY let go, and find out what/who he needs: Keith. Keith knows more than anyone what Lance is capable of and that's why he chose him in The Feud. Here, they're both closing themselves off. One is closing himself off to hide his true reasons/intentions (Keith), while the other is closing himself off to an idea of being with someone else (Lance) and it will hit him in Season 8.

When Veronica tells him that Allura likes him back, Lance says, "She just cares about everyone because she's awesome like that." Did you notice what he's doing? He's making excuses. Making excuses so his small inner crush on her doesn't start growing again. So that his heart isn't broken again. Because in the end, he knows that he and Allura are just going to be friends.

We've seen this look before.

He's using excuses in both these instances. For example, he uses the excuse that she cares about everyone so that he doesn't get his hopes up. And in the second screenshot, he's using the excuse that Keith's the leader, AGAIN, like he did in the bedroom scene. He's using this excuse so that he doesn't have to admit that there are other reasons why he chose Keith to go back to earth. Don't you think Lance would have selected Allura to go back to earth? It was a perfect way to spark Allurance. He didn't. He chose Keith. In one instance, he's denying his small crush on Allura, while in the other instance, he's denying his big crush on Keith.

But soon he won't deny anything anymore. After this, near the end, Lance looked at Allura, and Allura looked back at him. But then Lance went back to the mission and helped Keith out.

Lance's focus this season is the mission. He's hardly focusing on Allura. He's focusing on being Keith's right-hand, and helping him.

Lance's focus is on Keith.

This just goes to show that, once again, Lance always ends up helping Keith. In each situation with Allura this season... he ends up with his attention focused on Keith. It's foreshadowing that Lance will end up with Keith and not Allura, and Keith will have his attention in the end….

He's burying his feelings for Keith under the surface, and even the Red Lion knows it. After this scene with Allura, Red doesn't respond to Lance. It's funny because this scene between Lance and Allura could've happened at any moment in time, but they put it right before they had to connect with their lions.

Nobody else had trouble. Everyone called their lions. The only one who couldn't at first was Lance.

It's not that Lance and Red don't have a bond. There have been instances throughout the series that prove that he and Red do connect and work well together, and it has never not responded to Lance before. The Red Lion is notoriously the most difficult to pilot, but from the moment Lance became its paladin, he never struggled to form a bond. Even when first going after Lotor, Lance struggled with Red's speed slightly, but the next episode was able to navigate the gas planet and follow Keith.

But in this scene, Lance is trying to call Red, but Red isn't responding, and Red only responds when Lance is about to die, when he's in trouble. The first time Red responded to Lance was because he accepted Keith as the leader of Voltron.

The thing is, Red needs a paladin who is true to himself to earn its respect. But at that moment with Allura? Lance was holding onto who he used to be, not who he became.

So in conclusion, Allura and Lance are not meant to be together, and Lance will come to this realization. He was holding onto his crush on her, and that's why Red wasn't responding to him. But he only responded when Lance was about to die. Why? Because he was accepting not only his fate. but everything that he hadn't before, that he belongs on the team, deserves to be a paladin, wanted to protect his sister, and lastly his feelings for Keith. At that moment, Lance was genuine and receptive to himself and that's why Red responded.

The face he makes when he's accepting death is obviously a little worse, but the similarities are there.

As if this could not get any longer, this has been swirling around Twitter for a while, but it's VERY important. After Lance is knocked unconscious, the rest of the team are all calling out his name to make him respond. His vision goes dark, and then blurry, and when Keith calls out his name, his vision focuses and becomes clear, and he curls his hand into a fist.

The sound of Keith's voice is the one that gives him hope and makes him want to get up and try.

It could've been Allura, but it was Keith. He needs Keith, not only to show him that his place on the team matters and that he deserves it, but also to help him get up and try and never give up.

Lance needs Keith. None of this was a coincidence, and none of the evidence in the past was either.

Lance and Keith are endgame.

Keith is what Lance needs, and not only in terms of romance, but also to help him get over his insecurities. Keith seems to be one of the only ones on Team Voltron who sees Lance's greatness within, along with Allura and probably Shiro.

We all know how insecure Lance is about his place on the team, and him thinking he's the seventh wheel.

But this isn't only about Lance. Keith is also opening up to the paladins. He let them know that they're his friends and that they need to stick together.

It's great that Keith had this development. It's good that he is able to let others know that he's there for them, like how he encouraged Hunk.

This is super important. It always will be.

Not only that, but there were many Keith and Lance parallels from Season 1 and Season 7. The only difference is that they have that trust that they lacked before, so they're able to correctly complete the task at hand.

Season 1

Season 7

Season 1

Season 7

Just wanna make it clear that he probably wasn't being serious about this. He knows Lance has skill. That's also one of the reasons why he picked him to go home in The Feud, but he communicates more through actions instead of verbally. He wouldn't pick Lance to go back if he didn't acknowledge Lance's abilities, because Keith values the mission -- he wouldn't choose Lance to go back only for his own personal reasons. He knows that earth is in danger, so this was a serious choice. He just didn't want to admit that to Lance for a reason we have yet to find out. His stance here is very closed off, suggesting that he's sarcastic/standoffish. Keith really trusts Lance. He didn't even ask if Lance was capable of shooting the drone. He just said "Don't miss." which was probably meant as a tease and him provoking Lance to do his best but came off meaner than intended.

He knows what Lance is capable of. He trusts him to handle the situation by himself so he goes instantly without another word after giving him instructions.

He would have questioned Lance in earlier seasons about his capability to protect him -- but here he put his life in Lance's hands, which shows that that trust has ultimately grown very strong.

And by extension, this season Lance wasn't shown questioning his skill like he used to. It's because Keith showed him that he had the capability, he put his trust in Lance which showed Lance that he really does deserve his role on the team. Keith gave him an important role this season, he had him do a lot. And that showed Lance that he does really have what it takes. He isn't a seventh wheel.

That's what Lance needed. He needed someone to properly give him room to grow. He needed someone to show him that he has a role on the team, and he needed it through actions since words weren't working before. Keith put his life and team in Lance's hands, and Lance fulfilled each and every order without any question. Keith showed Lance that his role on the team is very well deserved.

Lance has always been Keith's first choice. He always will be.

Here’s another example of Lance being Keith’s first choice. All comic relief episodes foreshadow things, and The Feud! foreshadowed so many things with Keith and Lance, as we laid out, and this was one of them.

Keith's Behavior in Season 7:

When Keith came back in S6E4, we KNEW something was up. Many people misread this change in behavior towards Lance -- we assumed it's because he had to deal with the situation at hand, but it's probably more than that.

The whole quantum abyss thing wasn't shown entirely. We have NO idea what else could've happened or what Keith might've seen. His behavior was very dismissive and oftentimes rude to Lance. This was further shown in S7 as well.

It just seems like something happened, that shifted Keith's overall opinion of Lance, almost as if he's acting this way because of something Lance did. But as far as we know, Lance didn't really do anything recently.

It's a crazy role reversal -- where instead of Lance carrying that rivalry out like in earlier seasons and Keith being unaffected by this/wanting to be friends, Keith is the one carrying out this rivalry and Lance is the one being unaffected by this/wanting to just be on good terms.

What was the point of this? It just seemed to erase and mask all of their development in seasons 1-3. This was bad writing unless it's for a reason.

If they really were using this as a way to shut down Klance, they would've made it clear that the two of them were just good friends so it wouldn't make all of their development prior pointless. But instead of that, it seemed like there was still a bit of the rivalry there. They got along in terms of missions, but outside of that? Not really.

There seems to still be a little bit of sourness.

But the weirdest thing is how Keith NEVER EXPRESSED SOURNESS TOWARDS LANCE IN PREVIOUS SEASONS. He sometimes did, but this was only because Lance provoked him. He isn't treating anyone else like this. So... why?

That's the question -- why is he treating Lance, out of everyone, like this?

Let's take a look at this -- S6E4.

See how Keith's face is full of concern in the first picture while he's talking? Yeah. And then as Lance says the word "she" Keith's expression becomes full of annoyance.

He said ONE word, and Keith looks annoyed.

This just seemed interesting. Why, after everything these two went through, would Keith be so annoyed at him?

There are a few options for this. It's up to interpretation.

While in the quantum abyss, Keith had a vision regarding Lance and Allura.
Keith got hurt by Lance. He doesn't want to get hurt again, so he's being careful who he connects with.
He knew Lance had a crush on Allura from previous seasons and just assumed those two became a thing in his absence
He's just emotionally overwhelmed (with finding his mom and having to fight his brother later)

Also, some people have talked about this... and it's really strange. It's a reach, but it's still worthy to mention.

This whole thing with Keith's distant attitude towards Lance might've started all the way back in season 4.

In season 4 episode 1, Allura made eye contact with Keith. Or did she...?

She looked directly at Lance. Her eyes followed where Keith was looking at, and that was LANCE. There's a parallel to this in TLOK where Opal acts as Keith and Bolin acts as Lance.

Opal wanted Bolin to know his worth, and Keith wants Lance to know his worth. Keith looked at Lance and then Allura, and left them. It also makes sense for Allura to notice Keith's actions if she's his true love rival, and Lance is the object of both their affections.

It's also super interesting to note that how in the same episode, Keith quits. He even hinted there were multiple reasons on why he left. He was probably thinking about Lance and how it was better if he was the one to leave.

Something interesting to note is the perspective. When Keith says "Yeah, I suppose that's part of it" we see him in Lance's point of view. Why? Because it directly connects to him and his insecurities.

So back to S6. When Keith calls the Castle, he sees Allura and Lance hugging. This had to have sparked a little sourness on Keith's part. It also possibly foreshadows Lance and Allura splitting apart and Keith being Lance's new s/o.

Skipping ahead to season 7, when Keith asks about the mission, Lance is the only one to answer.

He uses some possibly flirtatious behavior (finger guns) but that's up to interpretation. Keith just looks unamused. Normally, he would only make this expression if Lance was doing this to a girl.

This could show us that Keith is done keeping his hopes up and thinking that he has a chance with Lance. He thinks Lance is straight, which he might be. So he's not going to pay much attention to these things like he used to, especially after the bonding moment where Lance pretended to forget about it, and Keith was visibly hurt.

He doesn't want to have any expectations because he thinks there's something between Lance and Allura, which comes into play later in the season. "Why should I even feel this way if Lance doesn't? What's the point? He'll never reciprocate. He's in love with Allura". Funny thing is Allura didn't feel that way about him. And he started to let go. She only started feeling that way now, and the timing is so bad. But this will hopefully be addressed and cleared up.

Keith is most likely distancing himself to avoid rejection. It makes sense. He explained in his vlog that he leaves others before they get the chance to leave him. And we think, especially with all of this Allura stuff, that that's exactly what he's doing. Distancing himself before he can get fully rejected by Lance because he thinks there's something going on between him and Allura.

In earlier seasons Lance was only flirting and Allura showed no romantic interest in him or reciprocated, so he wasn't too concerned... but then he felt things shift, as well as his own feelings grow, so he isn't playing around anymore. He’s rejecting Lance before Lance can reject him.

No matter how hard he may try though, he can't ignore his feelings completely. So, in "The Feud!", their job was to write down which of their teammates should go back to earth. They had the option to choose themselves but Lance didn't choose himself, OR Allura. He chose Keith. And he said some pretty sweet things about him. Keith was definitely taken aback by this.

Keith voted for Lance as well. He said it was because he didn't wanna spend an eternity with Lance, but that could easily be a lie. There are a couple of reasons:

He could've voted for himself to escape if he didn't want to spend time with Lance.
His posture says it all. He's closed off, with a sour expression on his face. He doesn't want to tell the truth -- that he thinks Lance should go to Earth for different reasons. He's shocked by Lance's answer. He panicked, things turned out differently than he expected, and as a last defense to getting his hopes up he resorted to a rushed and mean a statement that he thought would put things back into place, to make them keep their distance.

Let's compare his expression from before his vote was revealed to after it was.

He lowered his eyebrows and made his facial expressions pinch. It's definitely exaggerated, not it tune with the overall atmosphere, and it doesn't feel like a natural reaction, it feels and looks deliberate. Which shows that his answer is not genuine.

Why Kacxa Isn't Endgame:

Honestly, there's not much to go off of because Keith and Acxa's interactions are limited to the blood brothers trope.

Let’s play into the Keith is Voltron’s protagonist mindset. We’ve seen him learn about himself (Half-Galra, BoM), grow into a leader (Black Paladin) and reunite with his family (Krolia and rescuing Shiro).

That’s pretty decent for a hero’s story arc, however, typically these stories also have an element of romance as well. Usually, one that’s set up early in the series with some sort of meet-cute. In Keith’s case, there are only 2 characters that fit that description.

Allura doesn’t, as her introduction with Keith wasn’t anything memorable. In S2 we see them get closer but as friends. So she’s out.

Pidge is too young, so she’s nixed.

Shiro is his brother figure and mentor who’s known Keith since he was a pre-teen, so he’s out.

Hunk and him do bond, but like Allura, they’re just friends. So who fits?

Keith meets Lance in the pilot episode when Lance chases him to rescue Shiro. Lance makes a big entrance, pushes a table out of way, and forces himself to help Keith carry Shiro out. It’s the biggest scene we see with Keith beside his introduction where he sets off explosions to distract the Garrison and knocks out guards. Lance and Keith’s meeting is memorable, probably the most memorable in the series. It’s a meet-cute.

We then get multiple episodes in S1 of these two driving each other crazy, bickering until eventually, we have the “We are a good team” bonding moment under the romantic purple lighting five episodes into the season. It’s also the first time we see Keith look soft and smile.

Keith gets the Blue Lion back after it gets stolen from Lance and then later he rescues Lance from getting shot out into space from the airlock - again, the character who Keith has had a meet-cute with, romantic coded moment with, is now saved by Keith multiple times.

S2 brings us Keith’s second meet-cute, and that’s when Keith saves Acxa from her crashed ship in the Weblum. Keith doesn’t know who she is or her gender, but the two of them partner up until the end when she turns on him and holds him at gunpoint.

Keith doesn’t know that this person is Acxa until the following season when they’re fighting. The scene when he recognizes her is brief and interrupted by Lance shooting down a knife thrown at him mid-air, saving him in the famous “I got ya, buddy!” scene.

Most of S3 is focused on Keith and Lance’s changing relationship.

And then in S4 Keith leaves to join the blades, unknowingly hurting Lance in the process, which is later brought up by Lance in S7.

He doesn’t see Acxa again until she shoots down an enemy for him in S5, saving him during the Galra Kral Zera ceremony. The two exchange a look, but don’t interact again until S7.

In S6, after reuniting with his mother, Krolia tells Keith how she left to join the Blades to protect the person she loved most, him. A similar sacrifice to what Keith did for Lance after he confided in him about feeling the need to step aside when there were too many lions and not enough pilots.

When Keith returns to the team in later in the season, Lance is the one who makes a big deal of his return and his physical appearance. Remembering that Keith is the protagonist and Lance is the character who’s always most affected by his presence, it’s starting to become clear that Lance is Keith’s romantic interest.

However, Keith also sees Lance and Allura’s budding romance. He’s the one who interrupts their Bayard passing scene in S3 and a hug in S6. Lance had a meet-cute with Keith in S1E1, but also with Allura when she fell into his arms from the cyropod. It’s a conflict for our protagonist.

Come S7 Acxa returns to save Keith and the team from Ezor and Zethrid. Keith separates from the team to help her, leaving Lance looking conflicted and worried. After Acxa tells Keith she's changed sides and her path led her to him, a moment is shared but it doesn't feel romantically coded.

S7 continues with Keith and Lance co-leading the team, choosing each other in the gameshow, and forming the wings of Voltron together. The season ends with Keith reunited with his mother and Acxa appearing behind them at his father’s gravesite after she lands on Earth.

The emotional weight of Keith’s scenes with Lance outweigh of that of his with Acxa, none of which are truly coded as romantic, like we’ve seen in every other canon relationship in the series. Keith, however, has had a romantic coded moment and it was with Lance, not Acxa.

Acxa hasn’t been Keith’s love interest during the series, it’s always been Lance. She’s being set up as a possible interest for another reason, but not as Keith’s endgame. Plus, Keith might be gay. We've been getting a lot of gay Keith imagery throughout season 7. It's not your usual lens flare, we have a rainbow blatantly associated with Keith 4 times this season.

Bonus:

The fact that it panned to Keith when Hunk was talking about this and him realizing that Hunk was fantasizing about quitting Voltron heavily mirrors to when Lance first connected to Blue. Keith had a connection with Blue. Her eyes shined for him, but ultimately Lance ended up piloting her until he accepted Keith as the leader and moved on to Red. It's just interesting that this is such a strong parallel to when Keith and Lance met and Blue took a shine to Keith.

In conclusion, the endgame of Voltron is Klance (Keith and Lance), not Kacxa (Keith and Acxa) or Allurance (Allura and Lance) and Keith and Lance are going to end up together romantically.

---

Interlude: Voltron Season Seven Cliffhanger

When we left off at S7, the paladins defeated Sendak and the Robeast and ended up in the hospital for recovery. Afterward, Earth becomes a place where both humans and aliens can live in, in thanks to the Altas castle ship transporting refugees and team Voltron working with the Garrison. The season ends after the Garrison pulls the Robeast from the ocean and Sam Holt tells Allura they discovered that it was being powered by an Altean. As Kolvian mentioned earlier in the season when the blades went to the Altean Colony, it was gone and we know that Honerva knew their location because she was watching through Kuron when Romelle told the Paladins about Lotor.

This will be the central plot for season eight.

---

V. Lotor's Colony & Empress Honerva

Now that we have the first trailer for Voltron’s final season, it’s clearer what Lotor’s actual plan was with the Altean Colony, the quintessence field at Daibazaal and what that means for the final season and Honerva’s master plan.

To understand it, though, we need to go back in time. Let's start from when Lotor was first banished and his relationship with Acxa.

When Lotor is first introduced to the audience in S3 we learn three key things about him:

He's half-Galra as well as his generals.
He fights alongside his soldiers.
He lets planets rule themselves.

These are the things that led him to be banished - we also meet Acxa.

Lotor tells Allura when they’re at Oriande that his first colony was a planet where he worked with the locals and harvested Quintessence sustainably.

Lotor views himself as a protector and not a colonizer, he doesn’t wish to eradicate culture or people. He simply needs resources and wants to do it as sustainably as possible. Lotor’s behavior made its way to Zarkon, an actual colonizer who doesn’t care about these planets at all.

Zarkon demanded Lotor destroy the mining colony for the Quintessence and move on. Lotor refused and attempted to stand up for the people he was in charge of on the planet.

One of those people was probably Acxa.

When Zarkon ordered Lotor’s removal, he may have been able to rescue Acxa, who he most likely originally befriended because they are both part-Galra.

Acxa is close to Lotor and Lotor trusts her, as she’s the one person he’s managed to save - a similar set up to Shiro and Keith. This is also why Keith and Acxa feel connected even though they aren’t romantic interests, they’re characters who mirror each other due to their loyalty.

As we saw in the S8 trailer, Lotor's story is confirmed and not only did Zarkon destroy the planet Lotor was in charge of,

He also made him watch.

It’s here where Lotor vows to find a more sustainable source of Quintessence mining to end this needless cruelty and dives into Honerva and Aflor's research. Acxa, homeless and loyal to Lotor for saving her life, joins him on this journey. Ezor, Zethrid, and Narti follow later.

Lotor confirms this plan when he's captured by Voltron after Acxa pretends to form a coup against him. By stopping the Empire from mining Quintessence, he can end Zarkon's act of destroying planets and the lives of those who live on them. It’s unsustainable and eventually, the universe is going to suffer for it.

During his banishment, Lotor creates the Altean Colony in the Quantum Abyss to protect the refugee Alteans who Zarkon and Haggar have hunted for thousands of years in their quest to eradicate them.

Now, this is when things get morally gray.

After studying Alfor and Honerva, Lotor sees the only way for him to get unlimited Quintessence for the universe is to reopen the rift that was closed on Daibazaal. He needs Sincline and the rift gate and he needs Altean Alchemy to do it.

That's where the Altean Colony comes in. Lotor needed a team of Alteans to help him build the Sincline ships and the rift gate. To do this, he needed to recruit Alteans who were skilled pilots and alchemists.
Lotor explained this when they were about to explore Oriande in S5.

To recruit Alteans, Lotor told them that the second colony was simply a way to ensure their survival.

Which was true, but the work that they would be doing was to build the rift gate and Sincline ships, maybe even piloting them as well. It was dangerous and would require sacrifice.

The Alteans trusted him, however, and began being accessed. The tests were to create a secret team unknown by the Galra to work without anyone knowing about the Altean Colony.

That is the team he mentions to Acxa and crew when they attempt to enter the rift gate with the Sincline ships for the first time in S4.

Acxa has known this plan, telling Lotor that she never doubted him. This is equally powerful since it's been said at the same time as Ezor starting to express doubts in Lotor.

With this secret team, Lotor appeared to have Alchemists and Pilots, a similar breakout to what we see Honerva do in S8.

The job of this team was also to collect material needed for Sincline. That included the comet caught in the time rift in S3 that Zethrid said many of Lotor's pilots died trying to break through the quintessence barrier.

Acxa is in the frame as well, but unlike Acxa, Zethrid probably didn't know they were Alteans.
Another thing Lotor needed was scaultrite, a material essential in building wormhole generators and can only found in Weblums.

In S2, Keith rescues someone we think is Acxa because when he fights her in S3 he recognizes her armor and makes the connection.
But what if it wasn't Acxa?

If Alteans were the ones Lotor used for this team and they were chosen because they had strong magical powers and could shapeshift to appear more Galra like Allura was able to with Shiro in S1, it's very likely that this pilot was from the colony.

In S3 when Lance asks Keith who the generals were, Keith tells him that the person he met in the Weblum was one of them but Acxa never confirmed that and Hunk talks about them having an Altean (Haggar) who could build a teludav.

They're onto the plan but have one big detail wrong. The Altean wasn’t Haggar, it was one or several from the colony.

Lotor and Acxa are important to each other. Even though Lotor could trust Acxa with the mission, losing her in the Weblum wouldn't be something he would risk. At that point in his banishment, she's the closest person he has to a friend in his life. She's his right hand.

Acxa, unlike Ezor and Zethrid, knows Lotor's entire plan and where the bodies are buried. It's why he trusts her to throw the fake coup against him in S4 when Lotor knows he needs the help of Allura and Voltron to get into the rift.

It's why she knows to go to the prison that Lotor oversaw to get Sam for Zarkon as leverage.

That's the same prison where Matt opened the cell and saw something that shook him - something that's still a mystery going into S8.
One idea of who could've been in there is an emaciated Altean Alchemist who hadn't been brought to the moon colony yet.

In that facility, Keith assumes they're being harvested, but the machines they're hooked up to are just like the ones that replenish Zarkon's quintessence in S4. That would also explain why the purified quintessence Krolia and Keith were following were flowing FROM and TO the colony.

Nevertheless, while Lotor joins Voltron in S5 Acxa keeps tabs on Haggar and Zarkon. Her loyalty to Lotor is shown when Keith saves him from the explosion during the Kral Zera and she shows her thanks by saving Keith from the Galra Soldier.

The gesture wasn't about Keith, it was about Lotor.

It's important to note that while Lotor was with Voltron, his relationship with Allura was simply to be a partnership. He needed her help to get to Oriande and appealed to her strong sense of righteousness to do so.

He conveniently leaves out the whole Altean Colony part, of course.

But during their journey and work together, he falls in love with her.
Lotor did not join the team as a means to seduce Allura. He was supposed to just get the Sincline ships to work and bounce.

Instead, he fell for Allura and she fell for him.

We know this wasn't part of the plan because when Lotor and the generals have their standoff against Voltron in S6 and Lotor is begging Allura to listen to him, Ezor and Zethrid seem confused and irritated by his pleading, but Acxa looks concerned for Lotor.

She knows what's up.

That desperate face doesn’t look like an act. It’s probably the most honest expression we’ve seen on Lotor thus far.

Allura tells Lotor he's just as bad as Zarkon, which is what eventually triggers their final fight and his rage. It was the one thing she could say that could hurt him after everything he’s told her about his exile.

This is the fight where Lotor’s aggression ultimately becomes his own undoing and Acxa and the generals can no longer follow his orders.

Which hurts Lotor the most, because Acxa is the final straw for him.

Lotor ejects Acxa last, after ejecting both Ezor and Zethrid in rapid succession. Acxa pleads for him to not do this because even though Lotor is misguided, there’s something still there that she’s loyal to and has faith in. She’s trying to be his voice of reason, but he’s too far gone in his own anguish.

This is the last time we see Acxa before the timeskip in S7. She looks crushed and upset, not angry.

The battle leaves Lotor trapped in the rift and Voltron time skips three years into the future. After she helps the paladins escape and defeat Ezor and Zethrid, Acxa tells them that they’ve been gone for 3 years and in that time there’s been a power vacuum since Lotor disappeared during their fight.

So why change sides now? Why was she lead directly to Keith - to the point that she was able to find out that Keith and the other Paladins were all being held captive on Ezor and Zethrid’s ship fairly quickly even though they were missing for THREE YEARS?

And the answer is because she was looking for Keith. She was tracking him for Honerva.

Which leads us with the next question, why would Acxa work with Honerva at all to bring her Keith? The answer is simple too: Honerva has Lotor. That’s why we see Sincline in her chambers during the trailer.

(Shoutout to Leakinghate for the good eye!)

Even though it’s true that Lotor and her disagreed, just like he saved her from Zarkon destroying her planet, Acxa will want to get him freed from the rift and heal him of the overexposure.

In S6, Honerva is able to reach Oriande and finally uncorrupt herself from the rift creatures and gain the power to better control Shiro’s clone. The power is so strong, that it affects Shiro and sends him into a crisis on their mission.

We know that this happens in S6 E1, and from then on, we don't hear or see Honerva until S6 E5 when Acxa, Ezor, and Zethrid save Lotor when Clone Shiro escapes and Acxa calls her Honerva when they’re bringing Lotor to her.

That means Haggar had been going by Honerva since she came back from Oriande, erasing her Haggar persona for good. That also leads to believe that while Lotor and Allura were building the Sincline ships and Lotor was busy leading the Galra, Honerva sensed the Altean Colony and planned to move it to Oriande, like we see in the trailer for S8.

She was successful, as Kolivan confirms in S7.

Also note that the colony is not a planet, it’s an artificial building like the room in the castle for Alfor’s AI.

This transport happened before Keith and Krolia found the colony, which is also shown in the S8 trailer.
How do we know that?

Because Romelle was a setup.

There’s a lot written on why Romelle is suspect, but the biggest hints is that she’s the only blonde Altean we see in the flashback, the only Altean Keith and Krolia meet, and in S7 when Kolivan says the colonists are gone she has no reaction and the shot zooms in to her between Allura and Coran.

It could be that Romelle was created by Honerva with her power from Oriande. As Haggar, we saw her puppet Narti and later Shiro’s clone, but with this new power, she could’ve created an entirely new being just for the purpose of breaking up Allura and Lotor and having the team turn on him. This was Honerva's way of getting Lotor back, with Acxa’s help.

When Acxa brings Lotor to Honerva, she reveals herself and praises Lotor for continuing her search into the rift. She also attempts to explain that while she was Haggar, she couldn’t have felt love for him.

However, Lotor rejects her.

He escapes with Acxa after she shoots at Honerva.

Honerva then retreats to Oriande, only to return when Lotor is missing and during the three year time skip, she works with Acxa to fish Lotor from the rift and look for Keith, who has some kind of Quintessence power. Honerva also builds the robeast we see in S7 and the S8 trailer.

In that time, she also sent her Druids to hunt down the Blade of Mamora to silence them about the colony and smoke out Keith.

After Acxa finds Keith in S7, she leaves the campsite to go back to report to Honerva. That is how Honerva knows to send the robeast to Earth to fight Voltron.

Its pilot is shown again in the trailer and appears to be one of Honerva’s subjects.

After Voltron defeats them, we see Acxa return to Earth and find Keith. This is because Honerva sent her after the robeast failed.

Acxa comes up behind Keith, Krolia, and Kosmo at Keith's dad's grave, framed oddly.

This leads us to Honerva in S8.

In the trailer, we see that Honerva is leading the rest of the Altean colony on Oriande, which is protected by robeasts and the temple is steered like how Allura steered the castle ship.

Similar to how we saw the Alternate Reality Alteans in S3, these subjects of Honerva most likely call her Empress, as opposed to Allura being a Princess.

In S7, when Allura sacrificed her crown and the gem inside it to save Shiro, that moment was not about her being at the same level for Lance because she had renounced her royalty. It was about her willingly giving up the most important part of her culture for SOMEONE else in Shiro, who had co-lead Voltron with her since the start of the series.

With her crown "lost", that provides an opening for Honerva to take it up herself and she does. The Alteans now look at Honerva, as their leader, not Allura. If she wants to lead her people, she's going to have to earn it.

When it comes to motivation for Honerva, it's a very simple one and it's one that we've seen play out again and again on this show.

It's about familial love, and what are you willing to do for someone you love?

Alfor spared Allura from the fall of Altea at the cost of his own life.

Pidge went to space to bring home Sam and Matt.

Keith searched the galaxy for Shiro and saved him.

Krolia left her newborn son and rejoined the Blades of Mamora in hopes he would never have to.

Hunk tried to break into a Galra Earth base to free his parents who were captured.

Lance faced down a fighter jet with nothing but a rifle to protect Veronica.
Voltron is a show about family.

And Honerva has lost her family and it’s all because of the comet.

Zarkon is dead and Lotor is suffering from Quintessence overexposure, and she herself was corrupted as Haggar for most of her life. She's lost so much and has nothing to show for it, except the handful of Alteans she managed to save from the colony and the desire to fix things.

On top of that, Lotor was also right about the way the Galra were mining quintessence. It isn't sustainable and it's been going on for 10,000 years. The universe is cracking at the seams and Honerva's work is what made that possible.

As we see in the S8 trailer, Lotor somehow comes back and probably tells his entire story to Allura. This will open her eyes to what dangers they’re actually facing with the rift creatures , it’s going to be the truth and she’s going to believe him this time.

Honerva will use the power of Oriande and the rift to transcend realities to go back in time, like how Voltron skipped forward in time, to stop the comet from hitting Daibazaal keeping peace across realities, spare her family and stop the rift cretures.

Honerva wants a happy family. She wants to right her wrongs and fix what she can.

But at what cost?

---

VI. Lotor's Intention, Acxa's Betrayal and The Klance Fight

Given what we’ve seen of Lance and Keith’s tense relationship after S7, it looks like we’re on our way to a stand-off between them. As mentioned before, Lance and Keith are so far set up as a Rivals-to-Friends trope. The Rival to Friends layout is incredibly popular in media targeted at young men, but it’s everywhere. And in each of these relationships, we always see the same thing - The Rival Fight.

Although it’s clear that Keith’s feelings for Lance are romantic, and he’s been pining far as far back as at least S3, Lance set up their relationship as rivals. Over the course of the show, we’ve seen the two of them become not only more friendly with each other but also co-leaders of Voltron. However, that doesn’t mean they still don’t have their bits of tension. They’ve come a long way, but they’ll still throw elbows. Romance aside, they’re the Friendly Rivals trope.

Going into the final season, Honerva is the last person from Zarkon’s reign and she’s the only one left for the Paladins to defeat to finally end the war with the Galra.

Honerva has never sought power, she doesn’t want to take over the universe or the Galra Empire. Honerva wants Quintessence. That has always been her singular motivation - to learn more about the universe and with as much Quintessence as possible. That’s why she went to Oriande.

Of all the paladins besides Allura, the one who has a big connection to Quintessence and is highly sensitive to it (enough to feel the Blue lion from all the way out in the desert) is Keith, who is also the only Half-Human/Half-Galra in the entire universe. Having him in her possession, Honerva can experiment and create a warrior even more powerful than Shiro, who may even be able to replace her incapacitated son as Galra Emperor. Or, he can help heal Lotor from Quintessence overexposure.

The way for Honerva to get her hands on Keith will be by bartering with Acxa. It’s clear that the number one thing that Lotor values most is loyalty and there is no one that Lotor trusts more than Acxa. Before the time skip in S6, after Lotor jettisoned Ezor and Zethrid from their ships, he hesitates before doing it to Acxa. However, her wanting to sever ties with him during his descent into madness is enough for him to pull the trigger, and lastly, she too is ejected. That’s the last time we see Acxa before the time skip in S7, and after helping the team escape from Ezor and Zethrid, Acxa tells them that they’ve been gone for three years and in that time there’s been a power vacuum since Lotor disappeared during their fight in the Quintessence Field.

She also makes a point to say that Lotor wasn’t the man she thought he was, even though before their last battle it was revealed that she was working with Lotor after pretending to “betray” him in S4 only for her to turn on Honerva the second Lotor gave her the signal in S6.

So why change sides now? Why was she lead directly to Keith - to the point that she was able to find out that Keith and the other Paladins were all being held captive on Ezor and Zethrid’s ship fairly quickly even though they were missing for three years? It’s because she’s tracking him.

We end the S7 finale with the scene of Keith standing with Krolia at his father's grave, with Acxa appearing behind them. The way her legs are framed is the exact same setup from S4 where Pidge was at Matt’s fake grave when the bounty hunter was following her and eventually attacked them. And as pointed out by storiesbeyondthestars on Tumblr, her outfit also has the same color scheme as Haggar's Druids and the recovered Altean.

EDIT: Looks like that same bounty hunter is back as well as Ezor and Zethrid in the S8 trailer.

Unlike Lance and Allura, Keith and Acxa’s vibe doesn’t feel as if they were being set up as a true romantic pairing. Not only does Keith show very little romantic interest in Acxa, but throughout the series, we’ve seen a direct mirroring in their characters. It led to a lot of speculation that perhaps Acxa and Keith were somehow related but the connection seems to be more about the types of characters they are. Keith is very loyal to Shiro, just as Axca is extremely loyal to Lotor, who has a connection to Honerva.

With Ezor and Zethrid allegedly dead, there’s no one to corroborate Acxa’s story, eventually, the three of them went their separate ways, as Ezor and Zethrid coupled up and become Warlords while Acxa found her own path, but as we’ve already determined she’s an unreliable narrator. Acxa never specified how she spent her time during those three years - she doesn’t mention rebels or being a mercenary - she simply said she was on her own.

It’s because during that time she worked with Honerva to hunt down Keith in exchange for Lotor who Honerva saved from the Quintessence Field. Simply put, it’s a prisoner exchange. And even though Lotor shot her into space, Acxa’s loyal to his cause because Lotor was always after way more than power or Quintessence.

Lotor has been trying to save the galaxy because the way his father had been mining Quintessence for 10,000 years by destroying planets is unstable and leading the way for monsters like the rift creatures to break through.

It’s the same problem Lotor told Allura about when they were on Oriande, about overmining, and the end that he warned Honerva about when she revealed herself to him.

We’ll find out the true nature of the second Colony in S8, and with that Lotor’s true intention to help undo the harm his people had done on the universe by draining it on its most precious resource.

Being Lotor’s right-hand person means that unlike Ezor and Zethrid, Acxa is most likely the only other person who knew Lotor’s true plan. It’s why she was able to holistically have his back and understand why he needed the help of Allura to unlock the secrets of Oriande so he could gain the knowledge to help access the rift. It’s also why she’ll work with Honerva to hunt down Keith, someone who she has grown to respect because she knows the fate of the universe is at hand. It’s the mission before anything, or anyone else. Without Lotor, she can’t stop this far greater danger.

The season will open with Lance and Keith having an uncomfortable tension between each other that will push them away from each other and to Allura and Acxa respectively.

All series, we’ve watched Lance ping-pong between Keith and Allura, with most of his more emotional moments with Keith earlier in the series and later with Allura towards the end of the series. The relationship between Lance/Keith/Allura has been a subtle bisexual love triangle for Lance, which started to come to a head in S7 when, after Allura began to show interest in Lance, he struggled to connect with the Red Lion, something that had never happened to him before. The last time he couldn’t connect with his lion was when the Blue Lion locked him out and the Red Lion roared for him to become its paladin after Keith.

As we saw with the card in Allura’s room, Allura and Lance will probably be A Thing if they aren’t already. Acxa is also on Earth, spending time with Keith to gain his trust.

Keith and Lance will see each other with these girls and there’ll be some tension, similar to S7 when Lance saw Keith leave to save Acxa and how Keith got quiet in space when Lance jumped into Keith and Allura’s fight about Lotor and defended Allura. They’ll get along, but somethings up. Their common connection is Shiro, who will most likely be the person who brings it up to one of them in relation to working together and being able to form Voltron.

As the plot moves forward, eventually there’s going to be some kind of mission connected to the Alteans, and Keith and Acxa will partner up and be separated from the team. This is where Acxa’s intention becomes known, bringing Keith directly to Honerva and we get confirmation that Lotor is still alive, and it’ll set-up what we’ve seen many times in Voltron where Honerva keeps both Keith and Lotor and Acxa is forced to flee and go back to Team Voltron on Earth and tell them everything.

It’s then that Allura learns about Lotor’s true intent with the Quintessence mining and Lance will learn that Keith is in danger. Keith’s story throughout the series has interacted the most plot-wise with Allura, Shiro, and Lance. Shiro, his found-family and mentor, Allura, who he struggled with after finding out he was half-Galra, and lastly Lance, his right-hand-man, rival, and romantic interest. These three will be the ones who steer the final plot to rescue Keith and defeat Honerva before the Quintessence crisis destroys the universe.

This is where the Allura and Lance’s storylines will break off as they set up for their true endgames.

Remember the lion scene where Allura tells Lance to go because the Red Lion is calling him and in that same scene the Blue Lion called for Allura? Similarly, Lance and Allura will go to where their hearts truly lie .

We’ve all known that Keith’s softness for Lance has been prominent in S1-S3, we know Lance’s effect on Keith.

He’s his stability, supporting him with the Black Paladin stuff. Keith didn’t lose it at Lance when he went space mad - even though he is the only person on the team who knows that Lance feels like the extra wheel and that he doesn’t belong.

Keith could’ve destroyed Lance with that shot, just like he did with Allura by bringing up Lotor and her father. But Keith didn’t. Not even when Lance hit below the belt and called him the “lone wolf” - a term Keith called himself when he was worried about first piloting Black. Keith says nothing in retort. He’ll tease Lance, but will never hurt him.

What we don’t know is Keith’s effect on Lance, asides from the bedroom comfort scene. And that’s because Lance doesn’t know.

We do know that they picked each other to escape in The Feud, even though Allura was right there and Lance could have picked her. He didn’t, even though Lance and Hunk’s answers could’ve been swapped word-for-word and still worked, Lance chooses Keith.

The plot will continue, and during this Lance is going to see himself starting to feel pulled to both Allura AND Keith. It’s going to confuse him like it did when Allura started to show feelings for him in S7 and the Red Lion wouldn’t respond to him. Lance’s arc has always been finding His Thing. Yes, he’s the sharpshooter and Red Paladin but doesn’t really fit. This is a metaphor for understanding his sexuality. He isn’t just straight, he likes this boy too. Why can’t he fit into this one category anymore? Did he ever fit?

Going into S8, every main character has had a flashback but Lance. We know Lance’s family is fine so it won’t be about them. We know Lance and Keith went to the Garrison together, they showed us in S7, but what we don’t know if the rivalry between them and how or why did it start. Why in S1 did Lance have such antagonistic feelings towards Keith? Lance sorting through his feelings for Keith while he’s away and in danger will pull those memories forward for him as he sorts through his feelings during the mission.

While Lance is struggling with himself and his feelings for Keith, Shiro will be the one to lead him by telling Lance to be open while he can and not to wait too long. Why? Because Shiro lost Adam. That’s what Adam’s death is about. It gives Shiro perspective for this exact moment. Keith and Lance have both had near-death experiences and close calls throughout the series, including in S7 when after the Red Lion didn’t appear for Lance, Keith sounded the most gutted in the comms calling his name. It’s possible that they can lose each other before Lance figures his stuff out.

---

Interlude: Shiro, Lance & Black Paladin Lance

It was previously pointed out in this amazing meta that in Lauren’s famous drawing, each of the paladins has an arc regarding the signs they’re holding, and those arcs are being reciprocated.

In s1, Allura helped Pidge with her gender arc by trying to get her to own up to her identity, and also keeping that identity a secret from the others. In S7, now Pidge is helping Allura with her arc. Part of Allura’s arc is about her father’s legacy. S6 brought with it the destruction of the Castle of Lions. In s7, as Allura, herself says in "The Feud", Pidge’s family is the best hope the universe has to rebuild what her father started. And we actually get to see the Holts work hand in hand with Allura, trying to research and rebuild altean technology.

In s2, Keith finds out he’s part Galra and has a tough time dealing with it. Hunk is the one to help him by being supportive and accepting. Once again, s7 rolls around and now Keith is helping Hunk with his arc. Hunk’s earth arc was about finding and getting back his family, and this time Keith helps Hunk by being supportive and offering his help.

Now, for the big guns. We’ve all analyzed and thought that following the pattern, Shiro would be the one to support Lance’s arc. But we haven’t seen that yet, and we’re talking about reciprocation here. And what do you know, we got it, and we WILL get it. Lance was the first one to help out Shiro with his arc, his CLONE arc. In s5, Shiro told us he’s not feeling like himself. Lance comforts him, and promises him they’ll get through it together. He does this despite the fact that he was the most affected by Kuron’s attitude. Lance is the one Shiro reaches to when they’re in the astral plane, and it’s part of why that scene was so highlighted.

In S6, when Kuron has issues, Lance is the first and only person he expresses concern to. He’s still helping Shiro through his arc. At the end of s6 Lance is the one to regret not realizing sooner that Kuron was a clone. This still hasn’t been addressed and resolved between them.

An emphasis has been put since the beginning on Shiro and Lance’s relationship. Lance’s name is the only one Shiro knows besides Keith’s. We have this scene in S1E1 that really sticks out:

This scene was meant to foreshadow Shiro and Lance’s bond and inclusion in eachother’s arcs. What’s more interesting, as stated here, Shiro is offering lance his Galra arm, making it a possible reference to Lance helping out with his evil Galra clone.

With the final season approaching, all that’s left is for Shiro to reciprocate and help out Lance with his arc. The reason why Lance helped Shiro with his arc first is that Lance’s arc has to be saved for later. Because Lance’s arc, going by that art and the piles of evidence we have so far, is a sexuality/romance arc. So his arc is going to heavily involve his endgame romance, which happens at the very end of the series. This is further accentuated by Shiro’s sexuality reveal in S7. This also ties in perfectly with Macross, since Claudia (Shiro’s equivalent) was the one who helped Misa with her feelings, spoke about her dead lover and how it’s important to let your feelings out in the open before it’s too late, and brought her and Hikaru together.

Another very important hint was Shiro's arm in Lauren's drawing all along

It's the design of Shiro's new arm, not the Galra one! His arm is cleverly hidden behind Pidge so we can't see it float. It can be a reach, but it doesn't take much effort to make his fingers black like his Garla arm, and not make his knuckles stick out. Lauren paid attention to properly color/shadow everything else. We're thinking it was on purpose.

This further tells us that the reciprocation in their arcs and Lance's Bi arc comes after Shiro gets his new arm. (thank you to Kai for pointing this out! )

At this point in the story, everybody pretty much thinks Black Paladin Lance is not happening, but there is still one way this can play out in S8. I recommend reading about it in detail here. Basically, we have this shot of the Black Lion in S1E1. We know the drill, for each lion we were shown one paladin, but when it came to the Red Lion, we were shown both Keith and Lance, and that small prediction came true with S3.

In the shot for the Black Lion, we have Shiro, Keith, and Lance. Shiro is the original Black Paladin. Keith took his place in season 3 and then again in season 6 - present. In this shot, Shiro is the largest, which makes sense as he was the Black Paladin for the longest – seasons 1, 2, 4, 5, and half of 6. Keith is the second largest. He’s been the Black Lion’s pilot in S3, half of S6, and all of S7. So he has been Black Paladin for the second longest. Lance being the smallest makes sense if he’s only to be the Black Lion’s pilot for a short while. Considering how this shot is set up, it makes sense for it to have taken this long for Lance to be the Black Lion’s pilot. He’s had a gradual arc of stepping up and becoming a better leader and paladin. Season 7 especially, through Keith, enables us to see Lance’s amazing development and how much Keith relies on Lance to lead the team in his absence.

So how will this play out?

As we’ve already explained before, something will happen to Keith in S8, he will most likely be captured or mind-controlled, but he will be incapacitated in some way. Shiro’s ties to the Black Lion are severed, so he will not able to pilot Black. The Black Lion chooses Lance to be its pilot long enough to get Keith back, just like he first let Keith pilot it in S2 to save Shiro. Lance is the closest to Keith, he is his right-hand, and has now developed into a better leader and handles much more responsibility. It makes so much sense for Black to choose Lance at least for a short while. Of course, after Keith is saved they will each go back to their respective lions, but having Lance be temporary Black Paladin ties up all the loose ends and hints that we’ve been given throughout the series, and adds into both Shiro and Lance’s and Lance and Keith’s relationships.

----

Once the team reaches to wherever Honerva is holding Keith and Lotor, the final tipping point for Lance to realize his feelings will be Allura letting him go, paralleling the scene of when she told him to go to the Red Lion from the Blue Lion. But much like before, while Lance goes to find his place with Keith like he did with the Red Lion, Allura will go to find her own place with Lotor like she did with the Blue Lion. It’ll be emotional, these two both care about each other, but they aren’t meant to be together.

Honerva’s experiments to corrupt Keith’s Quintessence will lead Lance and Keith to have their showdown or their rival fight. Especially if Honerva’s corruption was to develop Keith into a super soldier Galra Emperor to replace Zarkon, this fight will be a mirror to that of Alfor and Zarkon. The relationship between Zarkon and Alfor mirroring that of Lance and Keith was first brought up by Allura when she was explaining to Lance why her father became Zarkon’s right-hand-man in battle.

Keith is half-Galra and has been learning more about his heritage during his time training with the Blade of Marmora and spending time with his Galra mother, Krolia. During this time, Lance was getting closer with Allura and was able to unlock Alfor’s broadsword form from his bayard.

Although the constant parallels between Alfor and Lance by Allura could be seen as hints for their eventual romance at the end of S7, that doesn’t explain why after Lance first unlocks his sword in S5 we’ve never seen him use it. And that’s because he’s never had to before - he’s been able to be the team’s sharpshooter and when on the ground, Keith can handle the close combat while Lance watches his back. Without giving Lance the sword, it’s not an even fight, but with the sword they’re equals.

Keith has saved every character on the show, but who will save Keith? That will be Lance. It will be a fight between them where Lance will use his Altean broadsword and Keith will use his black bayard. It will mirror the battle between Zarkon and Alfor on Altea, but unlike Alfor and Zarkon, Lance won’t give up on Keith. He won’t give up him, no matter what, even if it means he’ll have to fight someone he cares about. Someone who he picked to save out of the entire team during the game show.

Due to the Quintessence corruption, Keith will send the two of them to fight in the Astral Plane. Just like he was able to access it before when Shiro was trapped in the Black Lion in S6 and how Zarkon was able to fight Shiro in it during S2. Besides Keith, Lance is the only other person who was able to access the astral plane back when Shiro called out to him in S5, which is what the blue and red stars have been waiting for all series.

This fight will be the emotional climax of all their growth and overall dynamic all series - Lance’s petty rivalry, the bonding moment, Them becoming friends and supporting eachother, Keith leaving the team, Their reunion, Keith’s feelings for Lance and eventually Lance’s for Keith - it’s gonna be an emotional, tearful scene that will solidify their relationship and lead to a tender moment, which eventually pulls Keith out from Honerva’s corruption.

Elsewhere, Allura will square off against Honerva, about the Quintessence harvesting and go to save Lotor now that she’s learned that she was wrong about his intentions and Romelle was wrong about the second colony.

We already know that Lotor’s feelings for her were true, as we watched his heartbreak for her before their final fight. Once defeated, they’ll be reunited and soon joined by Keith, Lance and the rest of the Voltron team to face off against the Quintessence crisis and Rift Creatures in the final battle to defend the universe.

VII. Why Keith Will Confess/Try To Confess First

If we go off the Macross timeline, it is expected for Keith to be the one who makes his feelings clear to lance before lance eventually makes a choice, and it makes perfect sense considering his arcs throughout the series. Keith started off as someone who wasn’t eager to let people into his life, who put distance between him and others in order to not be rejected first. He was in an awkward place, deprived of affection, insecure, and the only person whom he had a close relationship with disappeared. He had his walls up high.

After that, he started discovering more about himself and his past. Being with team Voltron and finding out about his galra side was the first step towards him discovering and exploring platonic and familial love.

His bonding moment with lance and everything after was him discovering romantic love as well.

Like this brilliant meta says, "Keith’s arc is about him allowing himself to be vulnerable enough to be loved and to love others. It’s about taking that risk to let others into his life, even though he might lose them, which, Keith frequently has (see: his mom, his dad, and Shiro).

Lance, in a lot of ways, is a foil to Keith. Lance gives love freely and is one of the more trusting members of the team (if not the most trusting). However, he has trouble receiving love as well. So, Loverboy Lance is a thing but he doesn’t actually get love that often. Of course, the team does love and value him but it’s not actually shown that often, at least in contrast to how often Lance shows his affection.

Then, you have his feelings of inferiority. So, Lance, like Keith, has these walls up but they’re different. Keith’s walls are meant to keep others away, while Lance’s are meant to conceal. Underneath Lance’s bravado and loverboy persona is someone else, someone else that Lance doesn’t think is good enough. While he conceals himself, it’s clear that he really wants to be loved and tries to pull it from people, in a way."

Finding Krolia and receiving familial/motherly love from her , as well as finding out about his past and that he was/is loved by his parents had a deep impact on him.

And spending 2 years in space with his mother helped him grow, both physically and emotionally. As Keith progresses and matures, he ends up in a place where he is emotionally developed and strong enough to express his feelings out loud. We see him break down those walls and starting to openly express platonic/familial love to Shiro first, his brother figure and mentor, in an emotional moment that affected them both.

We see his growth continue with him openly expressing familial love to his mother as well, in another emotional moment where they part ways.

Keith’s arc will end in s8 with him expressing romantic love out loud. Like Lauren & JDS said, S8 will be “the culmination of many arcs” and this includes Keith's emotional journey.

---

VIII. Keith, Lance and The Wings of Voltron & The Concept of Yin and Yang

Wings and soulmates, wings and pairings, relationships and their connection to mecha- this has been a relatively common theme in the mecha genre, and it continues to be explored to this day.

Starting from the original Macross, the characters’ relationships were closely tied to the ships they pilot. In the early episodes, Minmay wrote a song called “My boyfriend is a pilot” which echoed throughout the series and is one of the most remembered songs. At first, Minmay was the reason why Hikaru was able to pilot the fighter jet and defend the spaceship, she was the driving force behind Hikaru flying. On the other hand, we have Misa, who is Hikaru’s true endgame and who literally gives Hikaru wings as she is the one to command the fleet, call the pilots to their jets and coordinate them in space. She and Hikaru work hand in hand to defeat the enemy forces, and only together are they able to successfully execute their strategies.

The same concept, but even more literal, can be seen in Macross Frontier. It is arguably one of the most popular animes of the Macross series after the original.

As stated and further expanded here, a big chunk of Macross Frontier is a love story, “ there are many instances in this anime that the characters talk about “forming my wings (aka their mechas/jets) for someone.” Often they talk about how a particular person can drive their motivation for flying and fighting in space. Now some of the people that the pilots mention have a platonic relationship, however, many of the others are romantically coded. It is a love triangle between two singers, Ranka and Sheryl, and a Pilot, Alto.

In Alto’s case, his wings are both Ranka and Sheryl. It is something he struggles to figure out throughout the entire series, but he eventually finds out that both of their strength and affections are the reason he flies.

In the final episode, before Alto states that both Ranka and Sheryl help form his wings, it is Sheryl that helps alto form his wings to save Ranka from the enemy. It is Sheryl’s strength and will that help him fly. Alto had already unlocked a powerful sense of flying by himself, however, Sheryl helped him become even more powerful. Sheryl and Alto ultimately are the endgame of the Macross Frontier series, and Sheryl is the reason why Alto flies. (These two are also red and blue coded) "

We find this concept in newer versions of mecha anime as well. The most recent example is an anime called Darling in the Franxx. (fun fact, one of the two main characters as seen in the picture, is also part the alien race they're fighting)

The foundation on which this anime is built refers to a mythical bird called “Jian” which only has one wing. The bird can only exist with another of its kind, and together they can soar. Directly quoted from the show:

The Jian, also known as “the bird that shares wings,” only possesses one wing. Unless a pair lean on each other and act as one, they’re incapable of flight. They’re imperfect, incomplete creatures.

But, for some reason, their way of life, struck me as profoundly beautiful.

In this anime a mech can be properly piloted only when its two pilots reach maximum compatibility, and most of the times the two pilots are lovers.

In Chinese philosophy, Yin and Yang describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang.

Keith and Lance have had a plethora of parallels in their arcs and they're pretty much each other's narrative foils. Through subtle hints in the narrative structure, we have pretty much seen them grow alongside each other, and Voltron seems to keep intertwining their arcs. In S6E2, we're presented with Keith as the episode's side A, and Lance as the B side. While one was discovering things about his past and about his love (albeit familial) being actually reciprocated, the other, as Netflix put it, was "wallowing in unrequited love." Ever since the beginning, they have been each other's YinYang. While Keith was masking his soft and vulnerable side with a "Lone Wolf" attitude, isolation and rejection, Lance was masking his loneliness and insecurity with bravado and confidence. Lance brings out the playfulness and softness in Keith, and allows him to feel safe around him when vulnerable, Keith sticks by Lance's side and helps him fight off his insecurities, allowing him to be vulnerable as well.

This concept is brought out to light beautifully through visual cues in seasons 6-7. (big thanks to this amazing theory!)

In S6, during the peak of Keith's arc, we see him emerge from the shadows and into the light. As he is starting to accept his fate, light is enveloping him.

Keith is Yin, he is the one always hiding in the shadows, ever since the beginning he preferred to be the one that works and supports the team from behind, not the spotlight. S3 was his first push to change, to embrace that light within and keep growing. The one who helped him tap into the light was Lance, through supporting and encouraging Keith in S3. Then from S4 up until S6 he retreated in the dark more than ever, and we're told this through the BoM's visual designs and their way of being stealthy and literally hiding in the shadows, but also through their dark ideologies.

Finally, thanks to Krolia, he returns in S6 ready to face and embrace the light, or should we say the spotlight, by being the Leader of Voltron, while also keeping balance with his dark element. This is why, in his most impactful and life-threatening moments, we see him embrace the light. This culminates with the Black Lion coming to his rescue.

Lance, on the other side, is the Yang. Bright and warm , he is the glue of team Voltron , the goofball who always cheers others up and loves the spotlight. Since the beginning we have seen him wanting to take charge and be in the front (wanting to pilot Black in S3), because of his insecurities he was afraid to be left behind, in the shadows. In S3, through Keith, Lance is able to tap into his "dark side" by actually leaving the spotlight and working behind Keith as his right hand, and also telling Keith about his insecurities and the lion problem. Keith tried to comfort him, and lance kept growing.

After Keith left, in S4-S6 Lance was destabilized and turned to the shadows. He isolated himself in a dark room, trained by himself, and became more and more lonely. His insecurities kept growing, and we've seen him hit rock bottom in S5-S6 until Keith came back. S7 showed us Keith helping Lance slowly leave the dark by bringing him into the spotlight, making him lead the team in his absence, highlighting his sharpshooting skills and giving him a confidence boost by extension. Lance's arc is still in progress, but in a similar manner to Keith, in S7, in one of his most intense and life-threatening moments, Lance accepted his dark side and everything that came with it - insecurities, place in the team, heartbreak. As the fighter jet was coming straight at him, he basked in light, and shadows slowly enveloped him.

Lance's arc will end with him back in the light, but this time in perfect balance with his dark side and being a brilliant right hand who operates in the shadows. Also, in a perfect parallel, Red Lion comes to his rescue.

Lance helped Keith form the wings of Voltron. Keith needed Lance to help form the wings not once, but twice. It couldn't be anyone else but Lance. Lance and Keith are each other's wings.

In S6 when Keith unlocked the wings for the first time, the first person he thought of was Lance.

In S7, they do it together. Once during ep 6:

And once during ep 13. Both episodes are the final ones of their respective arcs.

Yin and Yang working together to bring balance and freedom - wings.

Wings and duality are symbols that have always gone hand in hand. The bird which has only one eye and one wing and needs a partner to fly. It highlights the strong bond between two partners, symbols of balance and mutual support.

This is also why only the Black and Red paladins can form them since they have the strongest bond of all the lions. As we all know, this combo so far has been best friends, brothers, and, well...there's only one thing left.

Lovers.