Voltron: Legendary Defender (Re)Watch 8.11, "Uncharted Regions"

Read the previous entry here!
Read the next entry here!

Matters begin to hasten towards an ending as the final season of Legendary Defender approaches its close.

---

8.11, "Uncharted Regions"

Written by Joshua Hamilton
Directed by Rie Koga

Synopsis

Good morning.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Honerva rises to unpleasant consciousness as Oriande travels towards an unknown end. She directs the craft to a point in space to await the Paladins.

Aboard the Atlas, Coran upbraids the Paladins for not defending Allura more stridently before they are summoned to the bridge. Shiro notes the emergence of Oriande and the difficulty in reaching Honerva.

Meanwhile, Honerva begins to deploy her own Robeast, piloting it herself to enact her unholy rite on a massive scale and attempting to identify a reality in which she can be happy with her husband and son. Keith addresses the Atlas crew to that end, and Pidge notes the destructive nature of that attempt. Matters look grim, and the crew purposes to face her despite that grimness. Assignments are made and begin to be carried out.

The leader and the lancer
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

After, Keith and Lance confer. Their situation worries Lance, and Keith reassures Lance about matters. The two emerge from the talk with renewed purpose.

Preparations continue. Romelle confers with the Altean captives. They remind her of Honerva's hold on them. Pidge assists in the development and refinement of new weaponry. Smaller groups head out from the Atlas to reconnoiter--and it is remarked that Honerva remains in a single location, and that she cannot be reached, though reconnaissance can be and is conducted on her. The information reveals to the Atlas crew that Honerva is in the midst of enacting her reality-shattering plans. The scouts come under assault from one of Honerva's Robeasts and are son destroyed.

So begins the end.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In the wake of that destruction, Honerva relocates to the site of the lost Altea and the Galra homeworld. Lance attends on Allura as she lies unconscious, and she wakes. Honerva is aware that they will be coming; the Atlas girds for the fight to come, and battle is joined. It does not go well for the Paladins and the Atlas, particularly after Honerva compels the Altean captives to work to sabotage the ship. Their efforts are spectacularly effective, and the Atlas is left depowered--with Honerva's might greatly increased by their sacrifice.

Only the sudden betrayal of one of Honerva's lieutenants hinders the enactment of the reality-ending rite. But that delay allows for aid to arrive, and the battle to defeat Honerva continues with decreasing hope as the barriers between realities begin to fall.

Image taken from the episode, used for illustration.

Discussion

For the final write-up of February 2019, there's more than a bit of the apocalyptic to be found. The multiverse in which Legendary Defender occurs is ending, and there are demonic figures (Lotor's Robeast, Honerva's Robeast, and the amalgamation of the two that emerges during the episode) presiding over the whole. And that focus on the apocalyptic offers a connection to the medieval. Richard K. Emmerson notes in "The Apocalypse in Medieval Culture" (in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages) the extent to which medieval though considered the end-times: pervasively. Pieces written to "fill in the gaps" of Biblical accounts for European audiences are amply attested, and many speak to what Emmerson calls "the horrendous dissolution of nature" (pg. 305). That idea, that nature will collapse, seems to be at work in the present episode, if with a more "scientific" and less religious bent. (The earlier-noted cult-working of the suborned Alteans comes to mind, however.) And it is being brought about in the effort to achieve a paradise, if only by and for Honerva, so there remains a twisted parallel to Scriptural and popular accounts that suffuse the medieval.

There is also a related connection, though it reads as somewhat misogynistic. Biblical and medieval conceptions of the end of days feature prominently the putative Whore of Babylon; Emmerson remarks that the character "is the most memorable 'citizen' of Babylon" (pg. 320), for example. The current episode--indeed, the current season of the series--focuses largely upon Honerva; she is its most memorable participant. Given the depiction of the Babylonian as associated with the Antichrist--and Lotor does a decent impression thereof, prior to his death--and Honerva's own color motifs, the parallel can be drawn, reinforcing the medievalism of the present episode's eschatological overtones.

At the same time, Honerva continues to read as somewhat sympathetic; what she does, she does to restore her son. She is not dissimilar to Grendel's mother in Beowulf, who works to avenge a son slain justly; Lotor was clearly in the wrong, clearly evil in the perspective of the series, but he was still beloved by his mother, and it is hard to rage at the impetus of a mother to do all that can be done to preserve her child. But, as with the Anglo-Saxon antecedent, Honerva's means are execrable--and more.