#here's a complaint I have from canon: you're telling me that little star-explorer Lotor-

[lilflowerpot]

Heyo! So, less of a question, but I just wanted to say that your fic has officially become my go-to whenever I need some delicious Good!Lotor in my life. Like just the other day I started thinkin how dirty canon did him and had to reread your fic to make me feel better. Oh! heres a question (tho you may address it in LB, but...): what are your thoughts on Canon's Haggar/honerva redemption where as lotor was last scene as a melted blob? I could sorely use some Lotor defense rn....

(⁄ ⁄>⁄‿ ⁄<⁄ ⁄) ahhhhhhhh that's very sweet of you to say, tysm my love!! Lotor honestly deserved so much better than canon ultimately gave him, so I am happy to be of service ♡

As for condemned!Lotor vs redeemed!Honerva....................... I have gone OFF on this topic several times before and it drives me absolutely mad every damn time because,,, like,,,,,, what a fucking joke?? So the abused child was, yes, willing to sacrifice the few to save the many, but in wHAT FUCKING WORLD IS THAT WORSE THAN HAGGAR WHO EXPERIMENTED / TORTURED / KILLED FOR PERSONAL GAIN AND ALSO CREATED THE KOMAR?

R E A L L Y

I don't think I can surmise my distaste for this particular Choice™ any more concisely than I did in the tags of a post from three years ago:

#here's a complaint I have from canon: you're telling me that little star-explorer Lotor- #-who did everything he could to work //with// the people of Ven'tar's planet rather than subjugate them as Zarkon wanted- #-failed at Oriande.. while Haggar succeeded?  H a g g a r #I don't CARE that she used to be Honerva or that she retrieved her memories of that time before entering Oriande #the last trial was presented as one designed to unveil the participants' moral disposition.. and you want to tell me that it found: #''I will work alongside the people and beg my father on my knees to spare them'' Lotor #somehow a //worse person// than ''I designed the Komar turned Naxzela into a bomb and enjoy experimenting on conscious beings'' Haggar #...........nah

#//do not// what they did to my boy was an abomination #not to mention the way canon essentially doubled down on the ''you will inevitably become your abuser'' narrative- #-by having Lotor ultimately declare he wanted to kill the entire galra race.. what the hell were they THINKING #canon and I are not friends #Ao3 Little Blade #sa screams back #the author speaks #prince lotor

[lilflowerpot]

Sorry if this is *spoilers* for later chapters, but would LB Lotor be capable of performing alchemy? One of the things that annoyed me about VLD was that despite his passion for studying it, Lotor failed to gain the knowledge of Oriande and never actually did any alchemy, and was instead reliant on Allura to help finish Sincline. I know that maybe he can’t due to his Galra half, but with his mother having been a skilled alchemist, I feel like he might have inherited some sort of adeptness at it.

I’m going to kind of talk around the topic, because to answer you directly really would result in a whole slew of spoilers for later in the narrative.

So Altean Alchemy as a whole will definitely play a role in the future (and it’s one of those things I’ve dropped little hints at already) because I found the Oriande storyline really interesting, and it explained a lot with regards to the actual construction of Voltron, and later Sincline. Obviously within the lore of Little Blade, you already know that their sentience wasn’t manufactured but rather acquired due to the trans-reality ore both were crafted from being essentially infused with the ethereal consciousnesses that exist within Sa (the gap between dimensions); my point being, Altean Alchemy didn’t give Voltron “life”, which raises the question of what it did do, and why it was necessary to Voltron’s construction. My take on this, is that while the Lions’ sentience is organic, as fragments of the same being they do not deal well with being forced into separate physical forms, and so Altean Alchemy was necessary for them to be allowed to physically transform and combine (lest they go mad, like another couple of Sa’s victims we know).

I initially touched upon this during the Pidge & Lotor conversation in chapter 8:

“The Secrets of Oriande: Alchemy and its Roots.” She raises her eyes from the cover, ignorant to how she has just risen in Lotor’s estimation by her effortless comprehension of the written Altean cursive. “What’s a book on Altean voodoo got to do with the Lions?”

“This Altean voodoo, was fundamental to Voltron’s creation,” it’s also the one piece of the puzzle Lotor himself is yet to solve - the one facet of knowledge that evades him, and therefore prevents his ships from ever truly becoming Voltron’s equal.

and also:

“That’s impossible,” Pidge interjects, reminding Lotor that she’s still with them, “Coran told us about the original Paladins. The void creatures were corrupt. Dangerous. Alfor wanted to use Voltron to keep them out of our universe.”

“True,” Lotor concedes, “but is Voltron not dangerous? You have to combat like with like, after all, and the creatures found beyond the Rift were not so much evil as they were insatiable. Without physical form to contain them, their hunger cannot be quelled, and even then the corporeal body must be an adequate container, lest my father be the result.”

Lotor recognises that he can’t complete Sincline without sufficient knowledge and understanding of Altean Alchemy, which he does not yet have, so it’s definitely something he’s intent on seeking out: if he doesn’t, Kra, Li, and Ept will forever remain separate (it’s not about being physically one at all times, it’s about forging the connection that allows this, because without it they’ll become unstable… unhinged), and that does not bode well for anyone. As you’ve said, Honerva was a skilled alchemist, and genetically speaking Lotor has the capacity to become so, but as to whether he does or not…?

In other words, while I can’t give you a definitive answer one way or another, this is an important narrative thread that I’ve considered in great detail, and it does play out differently to canon.

#here's a complaint I have from canon: you're telling me that little star-explorer Lotor- #-who did everything he could to work //with// the people of Ven'tar's planet rather than subjugate them as Zarkon wanted- #-failed at Oriande.. while Haggar succeeded? H a g g a r #I don't CARE that she used to be Honerva or that she retrieved her memories of that time before entering Oriande #the last trial was presented as one designed to unveil the participants' moral disposition.. and you want to tell me that it found: #''I will work alongside the people and beg my father on my knees to spare them'' Lotor #somehow a //worse person// than ''I designed the Komar turned Naxzela into a bomb and enjoy experimenting on conscious beings'' Haggar #...........nah #Ao3 Little Blade #sa screams back #altean history & culture