Voltron: Legendary Defender (Re)Watch 6.2, "Razor's Edge"

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Love looms large as the Legendary Defender continues its sixth season.

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6.2, "Razor's Edge"

Written by Joshua Hamilton
Directed by Eugene Lee

Synopsis

In the wake of their previous adventure, Keith and Krolia continue to travel through the cosmos, Keith barraging his mother with questions. She defers answering against current exigencies--and over Keith's objections. She has intelligence on a fuel source for a superweapon--and the "quantum abyss" that seems to give rise to it--and directs them thither.

Aren't they sweet?
Image taken from the episode, used for reporting.

Aboard the main Galra ship, Lotor confers with Allura again, prevailing upon her to replicate her father's work for his Empire. She believes his stated hope for peace, and there is some romantic tension between them broken by the arrival of Lance, Pidge, and Hunk. Lance views the situation amiss.

Keith and Krolia proceed to the abyss. The initial foray into it goes as smoothly as could be expected until local fauna makes itself known. Evasive maneuvers ensue, but the fauna continue to prove problematic--and the two abandon their ship. They are stranded amid the field, but they proceed--only to encounter more trouble as an energy wave approaches and envelops them.

It does seem strange.
Image taken from the episode, used for reporting.

Keith finds himself alone amid an energy field--and in civilian clothes. He sees his parents and confers with a distorted Shiro before returning to himself and asking Krolia about what he saw. She explains his visions as effects of the local distortions.

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk continue their work to integrate Galra technology into Altean. Lance remains disturbed, and the others tease him for it.

Keith and Krolia continue to navigate the abyss. It does not go well, and another vision presents itself to him. He sees Krolia's approach to Earth and her betrayal of her then-commander prior to her arrival on-planet. The Blade of Marmora's interference in the early search for Voltron's component lions is noted, and another energy wave reveals the continued secrecy of the lions, as well as the burgeoning involvement of Keith's parents. Krolia notes her regrets.

Lance continues to fret about Allura and Lotor. He considers his own emotions and his own inadequacy (along with his Cuban origins).

Keith and Krolia continue their progress toward the abyss. Difficulties are noted, and more local fauna presents itself--benignly. Another energy wave recalls the time after Keith's birth to him--and Krolia's return to service. Keith's father is injured amid a sabotage attempt, and Krolia interdicts the other Galra. The incident spurs her to return to the Galra to halt their progress toward Earth. After, the two of them use the local fauna to navigate toward the abyss, finding that the local fauna offer enough biosphere to sustain life. And more visions of the past present themselves as the two proceed, their time strangely dilated.

Allura continues her work, exhausting herself in it. The romantic tension between them emerges again, and Allura is advised by the Castle mice of Lance's feelings.

Keith and Krolia emerge to find a Galra base, which they investigate. It reveals a strangely bucolic scene, in which they find an Altean woman.

*insert dramatic music here*
Image taken from the episode, used for reporting.

Discussion

While the dominant narrative thread of the episode is that between Keith and Krolia--and it deserves more explication and analysis than can be readily applied to it here--that with what seems the most obvious medievalist overtones is the romantic triangle among Allura, Lance, and Lotor. Lotor demonstrates romantic longings for Allura, in no small part because she is the heir of the magic Altean kingdom, not unlike his antecedent Mordred's covetousness of Guinevere (although without the overt incestuous overtones in play). Lance has long been infatuated with Allura, although much of that infatuation has been adolescent (generously) and/or partaking of the kinds of toxic masculinity that are rightly decried. For Lotor to act as though he has romantic feelings for her has the predictable results shown in the episode; Lance grows angst-ridden and acts out of sorts. And in doing so, he mimics his medieval Arthurian antecedent, Lancelot.

To a modern reader of Malory, Lancelot acts as a moody teenager writ large with regards to Guinevere. He does outsized deeds in the hopes of impressing her, despite the social mores that ought to bind them both (and the violation of which effectively enables the downfall of Logres), and when she expresses displeasure with him, he mopes and swoons in ways that far too closely echo those I recall from my own adolescence to be anything like comfortable reading. (I wonder how widely shared the sensation is of being embarrassed by the reminder of teenage folly offered by a book.) This is particularly pronounced at the end of Malory's text, when Guinevere rejects Lancelot's advances in favor of atonement for their misdeeds; in essence, Lancelot whines himself to death. And while Voltron's Lance is more comedic and less "heroic" than his medieval antecedent, he is clearly following the same pattern--and with possibly similar results, since a romance gone awry could imperil the continuing function of the Legendary Defender itself.

Given the context, it is not likely that Lance will lead Voltron to ruin--at least, not from thwarted lust. It can be hoped that the showrunners have learned from what has come before and will offer more satisfying endings for the characters than that.