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I'm coming back to the Voltron: Legendary Defender fandom in the year 2023, for reasons that this margin is too small to contain. Looking with fresh eyes at a show I watched 4 years ago, I have questions. Kind of a lot of questions. Let's start with just one.
First, a little bit of context, which will hopefully make this possible to follow for someone unfamiliar with the show.
In episode 1 of Voltron: Legendary Defender (hereafter VLD), we learn that there are 5 giant mechs called Lions that combine to make a bigger mech called Voltron. 10,000 years ago, King Alfor of Altea scattered the 5 Lions across the universe and hid them in an attempt to keep them out of the hands of Emperor Zarkon of the Galra Empire.
In the present day of 2405 AD, our heroes find the Blue Lion of Voltron, which has been hidden in a cave on Earth for 10,000 years. That means it was put there around 7600 BC, in the Neolithic or New Stone Age shortly after the end of the last Ice Age. (Remember that, it'll be important in a minute.)
The Blue Lion takes our heroes to the Castle of Lions, which is on a planet called Arus and is the hiding place of the Black Lion. We find out a few episodes later that Arus has native inhabitants: the Arusians, cute little newt-like aliens with goat horns, who don't display any technology above a medieval level.
From Arus, our heroes are sent to find the other 3 Lions. The Yellow Lion is on a planet that's been turned into a mining colony of the Galra Empire, and we never find out if it has any natives. Similarly, we never even see the original hiding place of the Red Lion, because the Galra found it first. But the team who go after the Green Lion are met by a friendly sloth-like alien. The sloth ferries them to their destination in a canoe that is definitely less than 10,000 years old and looks decidedly Stone Age.
That puts us 3 for 3, in cases where we know whether there were natives or not, for the planets where the Lions were hidden having pre-spacefaring civilisations. (As we worked out earlier, Earth was in its own Stone Age at the time the Blue Lion was put there, although it has since developed space travel.)
Now for my question: Did Alfor deliberately hide the Lions on planets with pre-spacefaring civilisations, and if so, why?
Sadly, Alfor is dead by the start of the series and cannot tell us anything about his reasoning. But I have theories.
( I have a LOT of theories. )
First, a little bit of context, which will hopefully make this possible to follow for someone unfamiliar with the show.
In episode 1 of Voltron: Legendary Defender (hereafter VLD), we learn that there are 5 giant mechs called Lions that combine to make a bigger mech called Voltron. 10,000 years ago, King Alfor of Altea scattered the 5 Lions across the universe and hid them in an attempt to keep them out of the hands of Emperor Zarkon of the Galra Empire.
In the present day of 2405 AD, our heroes find the Blue Lion of Voltron, which has been hidden in a cave on Earth for 10,000 years. That means it was put there around 7600 BC, in the Neolithic or New Stone Age shortly after the end of the last Ice Age. (Remember that, it'll be important in a minute.)
The Blue Lion takes our heroes to the Castle of Lions, which is on a planet called Arus and is the hiding place of the Black Lion. We find out a few episodes later that Arus has native inhabitants: the Arusians, cute little newt-like aliens with goat horns, who don't display any technology above a medieval level.
From Arus, our heroes are sent to find the other 3 Lions. The Yellow Lion is on a planet that's been turned into a mining colony of the Galra Empire, and we never find out if it has any natives. Similarly, we never even see the original hiding place of the Red Lion, because the Galra found it first. But the team who go after the Green Lion are met by a friendly sloth-like alien. The sloth ferries them to their destination in a canoe that is definitely less than 10,000 years old and looks decidedly Stone Age.
That puts us 3 for 3, in cases where we know whether there were natives or not, for the planets where the Lions were hidden having pre-spacefaring civilisations. (As we worked out earlier, Earth was in its own Stone Age at the time the Blue Lion was put there, although it has since developed space travel.)
Now for my question: Did Alfor deliberately hide the Lions on planets with pre-spacefaring civilisations, and if so, why?
Sadly, Alfor is dead by the start of the series and cannot tell us anything about his reasoning. But I have theories.
( I have a LOT of theories. )
