Voltron: Legendary Defender (Re)Watch 8.13, "The End Is the Beginning"

Read the previous entry here!

Voltron: Legendary Defender finds an end--and a promise of a new beginning.

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8.13, "The End Is the Beginning"

Written by Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery
Directed by Michael Chang

Synopsis

The towering titans that are Voltron and Honerva's Robeast face off, resuming their melee from previous episodes. Recognizing the threat to the local population, the former tries to move the battle into the hinterlands. The effort is minimally successful.

Clearly.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Honerva renews the ritual to pierce the bounds of reality, draining Voltron's energy to do so. Pursuit continues, though the reality left behind crumbles behind them, and Voltron emerges into a strangely liminal space between realities.

It is an odd place, if it is a place.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Honerva presses her attack upon Voltron--and upon entire realities. In her rage, Honerva purposes to unmake all, and Voltron is rebuffed by the effects of her attacks on the other existences, glimpsed in fleeting images as they are undone. At length, only one remains, a solitary chain of causality ripe for uncreation. It, Voltron is able to defend, rejoining melee with a renewed purpose.

 It does seem to be going badly.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Honerva is driven back, along with the Paladins. The latter are able to convince Honerva to repent and work to restore the realities that were undone. Allura remains behind, as well, to the sadness of the other Paladins, and the universes are restored.

As expected, really.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary, as is the next one.

In the denouement, the Paladins and their allies take stock of what has happened. Altea is restored. The Galra Empire is pacified and incorporated into a federated government. Peace talks in Allura's name work to ease tensions. The Paladins go about their lives, and matters give every appearance of being well. The Lions depart of themselves, vanishing into the cosmos, Voltron's time having ended at last.

Discussion

The series finale, in addition to making several covert comments about social matters, returns to the Marian associations of Allura. As is noted elsewhere in the comments about the series, Allura is something of a stand-in for the Virgin Mary, whose efforts and experience lead to salvation in the Christian ideology of medieval Europe. As is typically conceived, Mary is a preferred if not necessary intercessor for Christian prayer and forgiveness, the agent through which mercy is achieved--and the episode puts Allura in the position of offering mercy to Honerva and acting to provide salvation to all. While the framing is not restricted to the medieval in its overtones and evocations, it makes its case at the end of a series long established as decidedly connected to the medieval, so the resonance with medieval notions sings out strongly.

On an entirely personal note, there is a strange combination of relief and sadness in writing up the final episode. This project has, admittedly, taken longer to complete than ought to have been the case, and the way it was handled early on leaves a fair bit to be desired. (I'm sure some will say that the way it has continued to be handled does, too.) But it is done, now, and while there is pride in getting it done and relief that no more needs doing on it, there is some sadness that there is not more to do with it--at least not here. My words will not be the last written on the topic, though, or I hope they will not, and I look forward to reading what others will have to say. I can hope that what I have said will prove useful to them as they take up their own parts of the work.