Voltron Season 8 Finale: Ending Explained

December 21, 2018 steezy

Just in case the title wasn’t clear enough, this article spoils everything in Voltron season 8.

And so it ends. After an incredible eight season run Voltron took its final bow with an ending that will have fans talking for years to come. But uh, what exactly happened in that finale? Emotions were running so high with Allura’s sacrifice it was a little difficult to tell who ended up where. Fear not, we’ve got you covered.

Did Allura Die?

Phew, okay. This is the biggest one so let’s tackle it head on. At the climax of the final battle with Haggar/Honerva, the Paladins and her were teleported into the collected consciousness of all existence. Yes, you read that right.

At that point she’d already destroyed most of existence, including nearly all realities. The Paladins pleaded with Honerva to stop the onslaught but she refused until Allura helped her the see the error of her ways. Even with that, the damage was already done and Honerva THOUGHT there wasn’t anything left to save.

HOWEVER, Allura’s plan was to change the massive amount of quintessence Honerva had collected throughout the run of the series (and especially this season). Allura specifically said that Lotor had shown her how to change it from “a destructive force into a life giving force.”

This is where things get tricky. After a tearful goodbye, Allura and Honerva walk towards images of King Alfor, Lotor and the original Paladins including Zarkon. There’s a brilliant flash of light and the current day Paladins are back where they started in the battle with Haggar/Honerva… but she’s gone and so is Allura. Reality is saved. Oh also, Altea is BACK (along with Daibazaal.)

So uh… what happened here? Did Allura and Honerva full on sacrifice themselves to fix all of reality and restore the two planets along with presumably the others that had been wiped out throughout the series? Are they dead? Possibly, but Voltron has already demonstrated that things are never quite that simple.

When Allura describes her plan to the transform the Quintessence, Honerva says, “but… that would require…”

Allura cuts her off with, “I know the risks.”

So there’s no direct acknowledgement it’ll kill Allura. Sure she gives a tearful goodbye like she’ll never see the team again but let’s remember past episodes. There are forces that are on higher planes of existence in the world of Voltron. The White Lion from the episode of the same name and Bob from ‘The Feud!” are two examples of this. While Allura might be gone from the physical world, her spirit lives on. Not in some vague “oh you’ll always be with us.” No, her spirit is actually alive and well in the universe in ways we can’t even begin to comprehend.

Just look at the scene when the Lions are called back into space. Lance’s Altean markings glow (we’ll get to those in a minute). Remember when she gave them to him? She said, “I’ll always be with you, Lance.” Again, maybe that wasn’t meant in a vague way. Perhaps she is connected to him even if she’s on that higher plane of existence.

And if you watch past the credits of the final episode, you’ll get the biggest piece of evidence to support that higher plane of existence theory. Yes, there is more after the credits. Voltron pulled a Marvel style post credits scene! In case you missed it, it’s the Lions floating toward an outline of Allura in space. It’s open to interpretation of course, but let’s not forget the final shot of Bob from “The Feud!”

While the shots aren’t totally the same (Bob’s looks more like constellations) it still lends credence to the idea Allura isn’t straight up dead. Who knows, perhaps Allura will be needed on this plane of reality once more.

Altean Lance?

As mentioned above, Lance now has Altean markings. Does that mean that Lance is a full Altean now? That would comfortably fit a lot of theories fans have had about him since all the way back in the series premiere when he was able to bond with the Blue Lion.

More likely though it’s just a mark of some of Allura’s spirit or power being transferred into him. He doesn’t get the distinctive pointy ears Allura and Coran have and, at least from what we see, he isn’t displaying any of the powers or strength associated with the Alteans. It’s more likely it was just a way for Allura to keep in touch with him from that other plane of existence.

Vehicle Team Voltron

What the hell was up with that random robot Pidge was building? Well, that was the series’ biggest acknowledgement of the much forgotten other Voltron series. Vehicle Voltron. The character of Chip specifically was the brother of Pidge (though he for sure wasn’t a robot.) Making Chip a robot was probably done to fit in with Pidge’s love of robots like Beezer.

In the background of that scene (and in the photo montage at the end) we also see various characters who are direct references to the Vehicle Voltron characters, both in appearance and in their uniforms. The distinctive red outfits you see belong to the Land Team, the blue and white outfits were from the Air Team, and the blue and dark blue outfits were the Sea Team.

In those outfits can you even see how the Paladins (and the Galaxy Garrison’s) outfits were somewhat inspired by the original Vehicle Voltron uniforms.

The three vehicles you see in the background each belong to one of the teams. The copter on the left is from the Air Team and specifically was Chip’s vehicle. The one in the middle looks closest to Krik, leader of the Sea Team’s, vehicle. The vehicle all the way right belongs to Land Team member Marvin. We also saw it in the earlier scene where Pidge was working with Matt and alongside it was Hutch’s vehicle as well. Both of these formed the feet of the combined Vehicle Voltron.

So does this mean the Holt’s and the MFE pilots are now part of Vehicle Voltron? It’s hard to say without a little more proof. For all we know there could be multiple Voltron type robots helping to defend the universe. Or maybe these vehicles we see don’t combine into Vehicle Voltron and instead simply stand on their own. We’ll need some kind of Voltron sequel or spinoff to answer that question.

Shiro’s Marriage

In the final part of the montage we see Shiro getting married to a man we seemingly hadn’t met before… or had we? Eagle eyed fans have noticed that this was actually Curtis, a minor character who had appeared as early as Season 7. We don’t know much about him, although his biggest scene was in the Season 8 episode ‘The Grudge’ where he tried to include Acxa in the team’s conversation.

There’s a lot of time that passed during that final montage, so Shiro and Curtis had plenty of time to get to know each other and fall in love. Some have also taken issue with the idea that Shiro gave up his love of space in order to find true love, but read the montage text again. It only says he left “the battle” behind. Let’s not forget that Shiro was originally a space explorer. Perhaps he hung up his captain’s hat and instead went off exploring the galaxy. Again, more territory a comic or book sequel to the series could tackle.

Will There Be a Voltron sequel?

At this stage is doesn’t look likely. We went more into that here but with so much of the key creative talent moving on we don’t expect a televised sequel to Voltron: Legendary Defender any time soon. More likely is that years down the line we’ll get another Voltron reboot, as VLD was a reboot of the original series. Let’s also not forget there was Voltron: The Third Dimension in the 90’s and Voltron Force in the early 2010’s. Voltron has been around for a long time and will return in some form sooner or later.

Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Follow him on Twitter! Read more articles by him here!