Characters / Voltron: Legendary Defender - Team Voltron

Main Character Index | Team Voltron | Galra Empire | Mecha | Allies

This page details the main heroes of Voltron: Legendary Defender.

Unmarked spoilers for Seasons 1-6.

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General

"Defenders of the Universe huh? That's got a nice ring to it."

• Ace Pilot: They all develop some degree of this after becoming the Paladins.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Each member of Team Voltron expressed an interest in exploring the cosmos. Now they have the chance and the means, with the unfortunate caveat that they'll also have to free most of it from the clutches of a massive intergalactic empire and defend what remains unconquered.
• Body Motifs: Lining up with their Lions' position in Voltron:
  • Shiro, the leader and head of Voltron, tries to keep a cool head and ensures that the others function as a unit, just as a brain controls the body. He's also the mediator making sure that everybody plays nice together.
  • Keith and Pidge are the arms of Voltron. The first two series focus on them and their efforts to take independent action: Pidge in locating the missing Holts, and Keith in uncovering his family background. Like arms and hands, they are driven to take action... sometimes to the detriment of the team (as in, "the left-hand doesn't know what the right-hand is doing"). Keith, the right arm of Voltron, is also Shiro's "right-hand man." In Season 3, when Keith becomes the new leader, Blue refuses to accept Lance and instead Red takes him. Allura explains that the "right hand" element of Voltron is literally true, and he was moved to Red to represent that.
  • Lance and Hunk are the legs of Voltron. Hunk is explicitly said by Allura to provide the strength and stability of Voltron; Lance's role is to be the balance and support. These two are team players and prefer to act as a group (or pair) rather than go off alone. Unlike Keith, Shiro, and Pidge, who regularly go off on their own quests, Hunk and Lance can generally be found where you left them, making them reliable. Similarly, Allura is also a definite team player and provides stability for the group, which is why she takes Blue.
• Color-Coded Characters: Shiro — Black, Keith — Red, Lance — Blue, Pidge — Green, Hunk — Yellow. As per promotional art, Allura — Pink, Coran — Purple.
• Color-Coded Elements:
  • Keith, with fire, is red.
  • Lance, with water, is blue.
  • Pidge, with forest, is green.
  • Hunk, with earth, is yellow.
  • Shiro, with sky, is black.
• Color-Coded Secret Identity: Outside of their lions and armor, their casual costumes still fit their color scheme. Shiro wears a black bodysuit, Keith has a bright red jacket, Lance wears a blue shirt and jeans, Pidge has a green shirt, and Hunk wears a yellow shirt and bandanna. However, the "secret identity" part does not apply currently. In Season 3, this doesn't fully apply as Keith and Lance keep their casual costumes despite having switched lions. Although Keith does wear a black shirt under his red jacket, which might also be this trope in action.
• Comic Relief: While Shiro, Allura, and Keith are rarely subjected to it, Coran, Lance, and Hunk play this quite often, being often relegated the task of making lighthearted comedy when an episode starts getting too dramatic. Pidge fluctuates on this, as she has been used for intense drama (for example, in "Reunion") and comic relief (for example, "Bloodlines") in irregular intervals more than any other character.
• Element No. 5: Together with their Lions, each of the Paladins is referred to as a Guardian Spirit of the _______.
• Everyone Has a Special Move: Each carries a Retractable Weapon called a Bayard that forms a unique weapon in person and interfaces with their Lion's cockpit to give Voltron a similar one. Shiro's Bayard was lost long before he took up the mantle, so he makes do with his robotic arm (which turns out to have a glowing charged-up mode, anyway).
• Voltron: Legendary Defender: The paladins that form Voltron are 5, (one for each limb and head of their Combining Mecha).
  • The initial lineup consisted of Team Dad Shiro, the rival duo of the hotblooded loner Keith and Casanova Wannabe Lance, and the support team of The Big Guy Hunk and The Smart Guy Pidge.
  • After Shiro's dissappearance, Keith steps up as the new Leader, and Lance buries the hatchet becoming his right hand man. Pidge and Hunk keep their old roles, but Allura (formerly the Big Good) steps into the field as the new fifth paladin and The Heart of The Team. This arrangement is the usual set up in other iterations of the franchise.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The Paladins fit loosely in the following:
  • Shiro: Leukine. Balances the others.
  • Keith: Choleric. Hardworking, confident, and determined, but also rebellious and cynical.
  • Pidge: Melancholic. Analytical, intelligent, and mild-tempered, but also blunt and inflexible.
  • Lance: Sanguine. Friendly, talkative, Hot-Blooded, likes to think of himself as The Charmer (but really isn't), but also rather frivolous and gullible.
  • Hunk: Phlegmatic. Humble, sweet, and hardworking, but anxious and yielding.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: The Voltron Team is meant to have become True Companions, with their bonds being vital to the creation of Voltron, but, with a cast of 7 main characters and only 13 episodes a season, some are rarer than others.
  • Shiro and Hunk rarely ever talk. This is particularly clear in a moment where Shiro reminisces about his time with everyone, each character gets a particular and heartfelt scene, while Hunk and Shiro's scene is one of the entire group, since they never spent time alone together.
  • Shiro also spends a minimum of time with Lance, with whom he also has clashing personalities. Season 5 gave this pair more screentime, highlighting Shiro's sudden personality changes and aggressive behavior. An official comic eventually explores their relationship further, showing that Shiro does care quite a lot about Lance when Keith is away with the Blades of Marmora.
  • Keith and Pidge had only one significant interaction back in early Season 1 and even then, it's unclear what that interaction really was, with the possibility that Keith is either extremely disappointed at Pidge for attempting to leave Voltron or has abandonment issues. They do have a few smaller moments, and in Season 7 Keith reacts strongly alongside Lance when Ezor attempts to harm her.
  • Hunk and Allura have barely ever exchanged words. It doesn't help that Allura is one of the leading forces in the plot while Hunk is mostly used as Comic Relief and stays Out of Focus during heavy plot-related episodes. However, they do get a little more interaction after both become "legs," and an official comic eventually explores their relationship more, with their going on a solo mission together.
• Generation Xerox: Owing to the inherent nature of the Lions, who supposedly favor specific personality types, we find that there are quite a few overlaps with their predecessors come Season 3. Lance's forerunner, Blaytz, was a huge flirt who whooped and hollered while flying, much like Lance. Pidge's predecessor liked to tease and needle her comrades. The Black and Red pilots are apparently intrinsically linked, with the Red Paladin playing The Lancer to the Black Paladin — whether that's Zarkon and Alfor, Shiro and Keith, or Keith and Lance.

• Only One Name: Keith, Lance, and Hunk are only known by the first names; Shiro and Pidge's full names have been revealed, but even then most characters will just refer to them by their respective nicknames. Allura and Coran are also only referred to by those names, and in their case it's unclear if the concept of family names applies to them since they're Alteans.
• The Paladin: Not just any Paladins, but Space Paladins.
• Personality Powers: Each Paladin is linked to an appropriate element:
  • Shiro — ranked higher than the others and looked up to by them — is the Sky.
  • Keith — the impulsive, instinct-driven hothead with a temper — is Fire.
  • Lance — adaptable, cool-headed in a crisis, and secretly rather emotional — is Water.
  • Hunk — kind, stable, and fiercely loyal — is Earth.
  • Seemingly inverted with Pidge, who hates the great outdoors and would rather interact with the world via technology. However, "Greening the Cube" reveals that her adaptability and tenacity makes her a better fit with the Nature element than she expected.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A survivor of an alien abduction, three cadets who consistently fail simulation missions, and an Ace Pilot with disciplinary issues are the only guys available to pilot Voltron.
• Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Allura didn't have much time to assemble a team. Fortunately for her, they may be teenagers with attitude problems and problems with teamwork but at least they're also students at a space exploration school.
• La Résistance: They are the last line of Intergalactic Military Defense and Liberty since the Galra Takeover.
• Sentai: True to their GoLion origins.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: In the final season, the group now wears a Galaxy Garrison like uniform with their corresponding colors.
• Space Cadet: Hunk, Pidge, and Lance started out as students at the Galaxy Garrison. Keith was also a student there, but he dropped out before the story starts.
• The Team: Hunk, Lance, and Pidge were part of the same unit at the academy. When they sneak out to investigate the crash, they meet Keith as they rescue Shiro and the Blue Lion takes them to Arus, where they awaken Allura and Coran. The two Alteans teach the five pilots to work as a team, and they all bond together to form Voltron and defend the universe. Shiro becomes Team Dad and The Leader. Keith and Lance form a rivalry for the "Lancer" role where the former is an Ace Ineffectual Loner and the latter is a Glory Hound Casanova Wannabe. Pidge is The Smart Guy, Hunk the Big Guy, Allura is the Big Good, and Coran is her Old Retainer.
• Technicolor Ninjas: All of their exploits without the Lions typically involve lots and lots of sneaking. This is while wearing bright white armor with primary color highlights and glowing panels.
• True Companions: They eventually become this, to a point where they would risk their lives for each other and stop at nothing to find one of their own. This is actually a major requirement for forming Voltron.
• Two Girls to a Team: Allura and Pidge are the only two female members of the Voltron Team unless you account for Kaltenecker.
• Vague Age: Up until after the third season almost nothing was known about the exact ages of the Paladins — just that Shiro is older than the rest, who were implied to be in their teens. The Paladin Handbook, ostensibly set right before the climactic battle at the end of Season 2, states that Shiro is 25, Keith is 18, Lance and Hunk are 17, and Pidge is 15. They've since all aged, due to the progression of time, but how much time isn't clear — not helped by the time Shiro spent dead and Keith spending the equivalent of two years traveling across the Quantum Abyss while only a few weeks passed for the rest of the universe. Or the time they got propelled into the future by an exploding Quintessence rift.

Voltron

The most powerful weapon in the universe, formed by combining the five individual Lions into a single fighting robot.

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See Voltron: Legendary Defender - Mecha

Shiro

Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane

Voiced by: Josh Keaton (English), Ricardo Tejedo (Latin America), Kenji Sugimura (Japanese)

Officially titled the Guardian Spirit of the Sky, Shiro is the pilot of the Black Lion and leader of the Defenders of the Universe. He was a star pilot in the Galaxy Garrison before he, along with Pidge's father and brother, were abducted by a Galra ship on Kerberos. Shiro later became known as "Champion" after he was forced into gladiatorial combat and defeated a feared Galra warrior; he subsequently had his right arm replaced with a Galra cybernetic that can both power up Galra technology and serve as his melee weapon. Shiro escaped Galra custody and returned to Earth, where he joined his unlikely future teammates. Shiro is the most level-headed and responsible of the five pilots, and despite suffering amnesia and PTSD after escaping the Galra, he remains quite perceptive.

As the pilot of the Black Lion, he has access to the most powerful weaponry out of all the Lions. He forms the head of Voltron but initially does not have access to his Bayard as it has gone missing. To supplement the missing weapon, he uses his Galra-tech arm, which is capable of heating to high temperatures and thus is able to cut through the Mooks of the Galra Empire with ease.

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• The Ace: Everyone on the team looks up to him; he's an exceptional space explorer, adequate at close combat, and a very capable leader.
• Adaptation Name Change: A recursive example. Along with reverting Sven Holgersson to his original ethnicity in GoLion, showrunners Montgomery and Dos Santos opted to use his original Japanese name.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In the original Voltron, Sven has a romance with Romelle but here, it's revealed that Shiro is gay and had a boyfriend named Adam prior to the events of the show. This is somewhat justified as Shiro is more based on Takashi Shirogane from GoLion rather than Sven himself (who appears as a separate character in Legendary Defender). Takashi died before they could establish any canonical sexuality for him. Takashi was also the only paladin to express zero romantic interest in Princess Fala (Allura's counterpart), leaving it open to interpretation that his character was gay.
• Aloof Big Brother:
  • His leadership style has a bit of this as well, and it becomes very apparent in Season 4: Shiro, as the most experienced fighter, assumes he knows best, and while he may listen to input, he expects the others to do as he says. He's especially prone to ignoring Lance and Hunk's reservations, which almost gets them killed at the end of Season 4, when Lance recognizes a trap but Shiro insists on getting closer. Played with, since this was his clone's actions.
  • Implied to be an unwitting one by Season 2 to Keith. Despite Keith's annoyance and discomfort with being groomed as Shiro's successor, he seems down about not living up to Shiro's expectations when Shiro tries a second time to insist on the role. This dynamic is also implied between him and Matt — Pidge's brother, best shown during their reunion: Matt went in for a hug, but hesitated and gave Shiro a salute instead. Shiro hugged him back either way.
• Artificial Limbs: He has a cybernetic right arm that he gained while imprisoned by the Galra. He reappears in Season 3 with a similar in function but definitely not the same arm. After the team makes it back to Earth, he gets a new arm to replace the one his clone body lost, though it's similar to Sendak's in that it's more like a forearm that floats away from his body.
• Ascended Extra: While Sven was written out by the sixth episode in the original Voltron and spent the second half of the show Commuting on a Bus, Shiro takes the role of The Leader.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: The leader of the Voltron Paladins, the team strategist, and one of the better hand-to-hand fighters. Subverted as of Season 4: with both Shiro and Allura being Paladins, Allura is technically the strongest with most experience, but she's content with being the Leg while Shiro remained the leader on the battlefield for his greater tactical acumen.
• Awesome by Analysis: Besides his constant cool head, this is his primary credit towards his leadership:
  • During his year as a prisoner, he was able to defeat a nigh unstoppable gladiator by recognizing the pattern to his strikes.
  • He was able to escape by recognizing the prison guards are all robot drones, and after enough study, realized they ran on an exact cycle that he could exploit the openings in.
  • In Season 4, he kicked this up a notch and pulled together the attack on Naxzela, devising strategies for the entire coalition force after meticulously studying the planet's defense.
• Badass in Distress: Shiro finds himself overpowered from time to time:
  • In "Fall of the Castle of Lions" he's forced to surrender to Sendak when his men threaten a heavily wounded Lance.
  • Haggar is able to exploit his trauma in "The Black Paladin" to wound him, and he barely escapes after being rescued by Hunk and Allura.
  • In "Across the Universe" he's incapacitated because of his injuries from the above episode.
  • During the finale of Season 7 is able to fight to a draw against Sendak, but the ship's ensuing crash leaves him temporarily incapacitated, necessitating a rescue from Keith.
• Back from the Dead: In a sense. Shiro reveals in Season 6 that after their fight with Zarkon at the end of Season 2, his body died but his spirit was in the Black Lion. In the finale of Season 6, Allura is able to move his soul from the Black Lion to the clone's body.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Played mostly for laughs in "Escape from Beta Traz" as he tries to deal with Slav, but it's very clear that even Team Dad Shiro has a limit to his patience. And you do not want to be on the receiving end of that blow-up.
• Big Brother Mentor:
  • Mixes this trope in a bit with his Team Dad tendencies, particularly with Pidge, whose father and elder brother were on his original team. Season 2 shows that this is also the case for Keith, who even calls him a brother to him.
  • A Season 6 flashback reveals that he took Keith under his wing when he was very young and acted as a sort of guardian/big brother figure to him while at the academy.
• Big Good: By the end of Season 7, Shiro appears to have become the leader of Galaxy Garrison and one of the overall leaders of an Earth that's joined the galactic community. The penultimate scene of the Season 7 finale features him giving a speech for the funeral of the people who died during Sendak's invasion in a way that a head of state might be expected to.
• Body Backup Drive: Since his spirit was kept safe by the Black Lion after his body was destroyed at the end of Season 2, Allura is able to transfer him into his clone's body at the end of Season 6.
• Broken Ace: His The Ace characteristics come with a large serving of PTSD from his time as a Galra prisoner and guilt at surviving while the fate of the rest of the Kerberos crew is unknown.
• Bury Your Gays: Subverted. His body was destroyed and his consciousness was transferred into the Black Lion, essentially dying. Allura was able to transfer his consciousness into his clone, bringing him back from the dead.
• The Captain: Is given overall command of the Atlas during the final battle against Sendak. Commander Iverson and Commander Holt outrank Shiro but defer to him as an officer with enough experience to be capable.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Shiro purposely injures Pidge's brother, Matt, and acts bloodthirsty. It's a ruse so the Galra choose him to fight in the arena, and instead send Matt to a labor camp where he'd be safer.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He mostly wears black and his aura is purple. He's also a grade-A Nice Guy and the lead pilot of a mighty robot loved by good, feared by evil.
• Dead All Along: He tells Keith in the astral plane that he had died after their fight with Zarkon, but the Black Lion managed to save his spirit and kept him safe here. However, Allura manages to bring him back.
• Dead Man Walking: There are plenty of teasing moments that makes it seem like Shiro's about to kick the bucket. It doesn't help that his 80's counterpart got killed off pretty early in the series. After a tease at the end of Season 2, by Season 4, Shiro's still the head of Voltron. Actually zig-zagged: he actually did die at the end of Season 2, but since his spirit was preserved, Allura is able to revive him.
• Death by Adaptation: Played with. The original Takashi Shirogane dies early on in Golion, while Sven in Voltron was only injured and survived the whole story. Here, Shiro dies at the end of Season 2, is replaced with a clone, and is eventually brought back to life at the end of Season 6. While he does get killed off, it's eventually reversed and he survives to the end of the show afterward.
• Determinator: In the last two episodes of Season 7, Shiro shows staggering endurance and stubbornness. After having his brain used as a processor to hack a planet-killing weapon and surviving the crash of Sendak's command ship at terminal velocity while standing on the outside of the ship's hull, he pulls himself off of his infirmary bed to resume command of the Atlas and essentially wills the ship to transform into a Humongous Mecha to save his friends.
• Disease Bleach: Shiro gained a large shock of white in his black hair during his year as a Galra prisoner. He notes in the official Voltron handbook about his hair and scar that "[s]tress can do some pretty terrible things."
• Earn Your Title: Most of Shiro's character arc in Season 2 deals with him trying to strengthen his bond with the Black Lion so it doesn't fall back into Zarkon's hands (who was the former Black Paladin himself). The finale has them duking it out mano a mano, and Shiro's trust in his Lion finally results in Zarkon's bond being severed with it, making Shiro the true Black Paladin. It's even visually represented by Shiro now possessing the black Bayard, which Zarkon had kept in his possession for more then 10,000 years. Shiro has to earn his title again in the beginning of Season 4 after Keith's continuous absence.
• Extremity Extremist: Since he starts out lacking a Bayard, he focuses on using his cybernetic arm and thus uses his right hand almost exclusively in melee combat.
• Failure Knight: According to Josh Keaton, Shiro's protective Team Dad streak is fueled by the loss of his first crew.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: In contrast to everyone else's plain clothes, Shiro's shirt, pants, and vest all look as though they've been painted directly onto his skin.◊
• Foil: By Season 7, he's become one to Sendak. After they manage to make it back to Earth, Allura is able to build a new prosthetic arm for him that functions similarly to Sendak's, being a free-floating appendage that is controlled mentally, though it's built to resemble a regular forearm unlike the enormous monstrosity Sendak uses. And during the final battle, since he is no longer the pilot of the Black Lion, he ends up in overall command of the Galaxy Garrison forces, commanding from the bridge of the Atlas much as Sendak does from the bridge of his command ship. Finally, after Shiro sneaks aboard Sendak's ship and disables it, the two of them have a final battle on the hull of the ship as it is in the process of crashing into Earth, with Sendak declaring his undying hatred for Shiro. In the end, Sendak is almost able to beat Shiro, but is ultimately saved when Keith intervenes and kills Sendak with his Bayard, showing the crucial difference between the two; Shiro has friends and allies to back him up, and Sendak, who earlier destroyed one of his one ships just to try and kill Voltron, has no one.
• Gallows Humor: It's occasionally shown that Shiro can have a surprisingly dark sense of humor, such as in Season 2 after Keith asks how his wound was.
  Shiro: My wound is great. It's getting bigger all the time.
  Keith: (gives him an "are you serious?" look'')
  Shiro: Just trying to lighten the mood.
  • He even gets this zing in at Lance.
    Shiro: Well, I’m sorry, Lance, but I guess having my consciousness transplanted from the infinity of Voltron’s inner Quintessence into the dead body of an evil clone of myself has left me a little out of sorts for the past few weeks.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a heroic scar over the bridge of his nose from his time in the gladiator pits.
• Happily Married: He's shown getting married to Curtis in the show's finale, with the final scene of him kissing his husband.
• The Heart: Undoubtedly so. Especially since Team Voltron came extremely close to crumbling after his disappearance.
• Heroic Build: Especially apparent when standing beside his shorter, lankier allies such as Lance or Pidge — this was even before he was forced to fight for his life on a day-to-day basis for the Galra Gladiator matches.
• Hope Bringer: Revealed why Ulaz saved him.
• Hunk: He has a strong, muscular build and a Lantern Jaw of Justice as befitting the trope.
• I Am a Monster: Worries that he may have been irreversibly tainted by his imprisonment. Shiro actually suffers a nervous breakdown when Sendak taunts him with the suggestion that he's merely a Galra tool playing at being a hero as a coping mechanism.
• Irony: Given his circumstances after Season 2, it is kind of funny that the end of Season 7 has Shiro be the only member of Team Voltron to not end up hospitalized after the fight against the unidentified mech that showed up after Sendak's defeat.
• Ironic Name: Shiro is the Black Lion's pilot, yet his name is Japanese for "white" (and his full surname means "silver").
• The Kirk: Shiro balances between emotions, which usually manifest during his Team Dad moments, and logic.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: As appropriate for The Leader.
• Last-Minute Hookup: The series ends on him getting married to Curtis, one of his subordinates aboard the Atlas.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Can't remember much of what happened during the year he was imprisoned. Slowly begins regaining memories as the season goes on. He also couldn't remember what happened to him during his disappearance after the Battle with Zarkon.
• The Leader: Of the levelheaded variety.
• Leader Forms the Head: Lampshaded and given a mythology gag. Voltron was, after all, a prominent Trope Codifier in America.
• Lethal Chef: Although he's pretty much the best in everything else, the NYCC alternate cover of the comic reveals that he really can't cook for shit.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Keith. Shiro was the only person willing to put faith in Keith and support him when he was young and alone. Tellingly Keith does everything within his power to keep Shiro close to him and violently lashes out at people whenever he's gone.
• Living Legend: Lance comments on Shiro being a legend in the Garrison, and Pidge tells Keith that her dad and brother always talked about Shiro when they were at home.
• Locked into Strangeness: At the end of Season 6, when his consciousness is transferred to a new body, his hair turns completely white.
• Loved by All: While the rest of the team may bicker with each other, they all deeply admire and respect Shiro. Season 4 lampshades this with Coran stating that he's the most popular Paladin among the allied Coalition.
• Made of Iron: Most notable in the second half of Season 7. He invades a Galra battlecruiser all by his lonesome and depowers its crystal using his mind as a conduit, which leaves him temporarily incapacitated. Nevertheless he's able to recover, fight one-on-one with Sendak, and withstand multiple blows from him while holding his own, all without a helmet as the cruiser descends into the Earth's atmosphere. After the cruiser crashes into the Earth he's injured, but before he's even moved into a bed by medical staff he rushes back into the fray to pilot the Atlas again.
• Manly Gay: He's not Macho Camp by any means, but he's an extremely skilled fighter and very fit, heavily muscled, and masculine-looking, as well as being responsible for a decent amount of the show's fanservice centered on these aspects.
• Married to the Job: The main reason his relationship failed was because he would rather spend what time he had left before his illness claimed him pursuing his dreams out in space instead of at home with Adam.
  • This is highlighted when the Season 8 epilogue says he "found happiness and finally left the battle behind" while showing his wedding, implying he was able to maintain a happy, stable relationship by finally stepping away from his Garrison work.
• Meaningful Name: "Shiro" means "white" in Japanese (even though it's a nickname that's short for his last name, Shirogane, which means "silver"). After his time in captivity, he has a white shock of hair near his forehead, and as of the final episode of Season 6, his hair is completely white.
• Mellow Fellow: As stated by Allura in the first episode, Shiro was chosen as the black paladin because he keeps his cool in almost all situations. However, Shiro is more complex than that, as his traumatic experience as a slave/prisoner of the Galra gave him some nasty psychological issues and anxieties that have frozen him in place on more than one occasion.
• Morality Pet: Is this to all pilots, but especially towards Keith. Even lampshaded in an interview with the cast / crew who points out that having Shiro around is what keeps Keith calm.
• Mr. Fanservice: A lot of effort is spent detailing his muscular Heroic Build in closeup shots, and in Season 3 his abs and pelvis are clearly visible under his outfit as a prisoner on the run from the Galra again. Lampshaded in "The Voltron Show!" by Coran:
  Coran: Muscles speak louder than words. Now put on this super tight shirt and get out there!
• Mystical White Hair: After Shiro's essence is downloaded into the surviving clone body, he gains a full head of white hair, due to having having a piece of Allura's Quintessence magic within him.
• Nerves of Steel: He's very good at keeping his cool under pressure. This make him a very good leader compared to Keith during the latter's short tenure as the Head of Voltron.
• Never Found the Body: MIA as of the Season 2 finale. After fighting with Zarkon and getting the Black Lion back to the castle, the Paladins open the cockpit to find that Shiro is nowhere to be seen. Then in Season 3, he's revealed to be alive, and after finding him Keith theorizes that Shiro was teleported by the Black Lion to keep him safe. It turns out that there was no physical body to find — it was destroyed after his fight with Zarkon. In his words, he did die, but his consciousness was transferred into the Black Lion.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: When Shiro goes to the memorial wall for all of the fallen Garrison soldiers, he specifically goes to Adam's picture, telling him how sorry he was. While they definitely didn't end their relationship on the best of terms, this was certainly not the way Shiro wanted them to be reunited.
• The Not-Love Interest: Shiro is the most important person to Keith, to the point that Keith becomes unhinged when he thinks Shiro might be dead. A lot of Keith's motivation throughout the series is protecting Shiro and keeping him safe, to the point of jeopardizing crucial missions against galactic threats on the off chance that Shiro could be harmed or leave him. At one point Keith makes an explicit Declaration of Protection towards Shiro under intimate circumstances, which Shiro acknowledges and accepts. Keith even prefers dying along with Shiro to the prospect of living on without him, and gives him a (admittedly platonic) Anguished Declaration of Love. The show also compares and contrasts Shiro's relationship with Keith to his former lover. However, although neither have a proper love interest to speak of until Shiro's Last-Minute Hookup with a minor character in the ending as the result of a last-minute Author's Saving Throw, the series depicts it as a mentor/mentee relationship-turned-True Companions rather than a romantic bond.
• Not So Above It All: He generally doesn't get caught up in the other crew's tomfoolery, but then sometimes he does.
  • Early on, Shiro agrees with the idea of stacking the lions on top of one another like a cheerleading squad.
    Shiro: "...and I'll form the head."
  • In the same episode, Shiro joins the Paladins in a food fight against Allura and Coran.
  • When the rest of the team begins debating on the noises the lasers make, Shiro tells them to settle down... and then corrects them.
  • He gets caught up with the Paladins in a snow-ball fight, even when he tries to act mature about he eventually gives in.
  • He gets way into an Altean Tabletop RPG with an elaborate back story and generally outlandish behavior.
• Not So Stoic:
  • While normally collected and level-headed, Shiro occasionally suffers from crippling panic attacks and even once spaces Sendak in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
  • A more hilarious example happened when he has to transport Slav, whose obsessive compulsiveness and constant rambling about alternate realities seriously annoy him. (Of course this could have just been stress and panic leaking through at the prospect of being in a Galra prison again.)
  • His gameplay and player character antics in an Altean Tabletop RPG are way too over the top.
• Odd Friendship: The generally calm, respectful Shiro is closest to the hotblooded Keith.
• Official Couple: Shiro marries Curtis in the series finale. They are the only couple involving a main character to officially be together by the end of the series, in what is commonly referred to as "endgame".
• Passing the Torch: In the teaser for Season 2, Shiro tells Keith that he wants him to lead Voltron if anything ever happens to him. One of his reasons may be because Keith can pilot the Black Lion. Shiro's disappearance after the battle with Zarkon forced the Torch into Keith's hand, which he reluctantly takes until Shiro's return.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: The Galra's Druids sure must be regretting all that tinkering they've done with their former favorite gladiator.
  Haggar: I made you strong, and this is how you repay me? You could have been our greatest weapon!
• Power Fist: While the Black Paladin's Bayard was lost eons ago, his robotic arm easily makes up for it.
• Power Glows: His right hand glows with an awesome power when he uses it to fight or power other tech. It's often concealed by his uniform, the glow extended to his whole forearm before his disappearance and limited to his fist after.
• Preserve Your Gays: Inverted and Zig Zagged. He appears to die, comes back, disappears, reappears (which is then revealed as a clone), then was revealed to be dead since the end of Season 2 while his essence was preserved in the Black Lion, and then finally is brought back to life by putting his essence back in the clone body. Then we find out in Season 7 his original body had a chronic degenerative disease that was limiting his lifespan, and that he previously had a boyfriend.
• Purple Is the New Black: His suit and lion are black, but his auras and Tron Lines are usually purple.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Two, due to the first one leaving some room for ambiguity:
  • A flashback at the beginning of Season 7 shows Shiro in his room while his male companion Adam insists that he choose between continuing to be an astronaut or stay with Adam. Whereas Shiro was shown to have close bonds to other characters of either gender in past episodes, the context of their conversation together makes it very clear that Shiro and Adam were in a relationship together.
  • After controversy over the above scene being But Not Too Gay compared to the heterosexual couples and thus leaving some lingering plausible deniability about Shiro's sexuality, a last-minute change to the epilogue scene shows Shiro getting married to Curtis and kissing him onscreen.
• Race Lift: A recursive one. After the original Voltron was racelifted into a Scandinavian man by the name of Sven Holgersson, this version restores the character to his original Japanese name and ethnicity.
• Red Right Hand: Played with; Shiro is a hero though his robotic right arm is a result of Witch Haggar's experiments on him for the Galra Empire.
• Red Baron: Was known as 'The Champion' when forced to fight in the Galra gladiator battles.
• Rugged Scar: Shiro has a scar over the bridge of his nose from his time in the gladiator pits.
• Secret-Keeper: Knew who Pidge was from the start, and promised he wouldn't tell.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: It is implied that Shiro suffers from PTSD after his abduction. He often freezes up when he remembers incidents from his year imprisoned, and not often when he can afford to.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Inverted in the main wacky plot of the Space Mall episode where Shiro, who was the most serious member of the team, separates from the gang to pursue a darker subplot involving Zarkon and the Black Lion. Later on, Shiro gets way more caught up in the comedic moments of the show while Keith takes the role of the most serious main character.
• Sixth Ranger: Shiro functions as this for the team after his return. He resumes piloting the Black Lion when Keith leaves to train with the Blade of Marmora.
• Soap Opera Disease: It's never specified exactly what kind of disease Shiro was suffering from on Earth, other than that it's degenerative, primarily affected his muscles, and ultimately incurable with future medicine.
• Spared by the Adaptation: His counterpart in GoLion was killed off early on (before being replaced by an also-doomed Backup Twin); here Shiro survives. Played with — he did die in the Season 2 finale, but his preserved consciousness is put into his clone's body, allowing him to survive in a sense.
• Spear Counterpart: In Season 7, he progresses from being one of the main paladins of Voltron to commander of the Castle of Lions' replacement, the Big Good and The Heart for the team — the position previously held by Allura. He even has Mystical White Hair and possession of the Balmera crystal within Allura's tiara to boot.
• Straight Gay: It's been confirmed that he had a boyfriend named Adam back in the Garrison days.
• The Strategist: Shiro is the strategist of the team, he's often the one elaborating plans for their missions.
• Super-Soldier: Handed over to Zarkon's right hand woman, Haggar, for some experimental modifications during his captivity.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: The 2nd tallest of the Paladins (after Hunk), with dark hair and eyes, chiseled features and a Mysterious Past.
• Team Dad: Senior officer, oldest and most level-headed of the team, often dispenses encouragement and advice to his teammates when they're having trouble. The fandom has also taken to calling him "Space Dad". Josh Keaton even has a shirt with the words on it. The Paladin Handbook, a guidebook released two weeks after Season 3, indicates that even the rest of the Paladins call him "Space Dad".
• Token Adult: Shiro serves as the Team Dad, as at the start of the show he’s the oldest of the Paladins by a notable margin, who are made up of teenagers otherwise (at least, until in Season 6 when Keith spends several years in the Quantum Abyss).
• Twofer Token Minority: Asian, gay, suffering from PTSD, missing an arm, and chronically ill with a terminal disease of some kind prior to the start of the show.
• Wise Beyond His Years: Described word for word as this in his profile.
• You Are in Command Now: Sam Holt gives Shiro command of the Atlas at the end of Season 7 despite being the senior officer, since he's the most capable and most experienced officer they have. He proves up to the challenge.

Keith

Keith

Voiced by: Steven Yeun (English), Óscar Flores (Eps. 1-8), Carlo Vázquez (Eps 9+) (Latin America), Anri Katsu (Japanese)

The (initial) pilot of the Red Lion and Guardian Spirit of the Fire. Keith was an elite fighter pilot in the Galaxy Garrison, Earth's space exploration program, but washed out due to a "discipline issue." Inexplicably affected by the energies of the Blue Lion, he examined ancient messages left around its hiding place and thus learned of Shiro's return to Earth. Keith respects Shiro but clashes constantly with Lance.

As the pilot of the Red Lion, his Lion is the fastest and is best suited for close-range battles, and is also equipped with a heat ray and powerful cannon. He forms the right arm. His Bayard transforms into a double-edged sword, and his special weapon for Voltron is also a sword.

During Shiro's absence in the first half of Season 3, he takes his place as pilot of the Black Lion and leader of the team. He leaves the team from the first episode of Season 4, becoming a member of the Blade of Marmora throughout it and Season 5. Season 6, however, has him return to the team, once again as both Pilot of the Black Lion and Leader of the Paladins.

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• '80s Hair: Keith's mullet and sideburns are pulled right out of a 1980s super robot anime. No points for guessing which.
• Ace Pilot: Probably the best pilot on the show, just don't tell Lance.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In the original series, Keith was the calm, collected leader. In this version, he's a hotshot loner, similar to the original's Lance. It takes several seasons for Keith to finally mellow out into his original personality.
• Adaptation Species Change: In the original Voltron, Keith was fully human. In Voltron Force, Keith was revealed to be Arusian. Here he's part Galra.
• Always Save The Boy: Has a bad case of this towards Shiro:
  • After Shiro's disappearance in Season 2 the team calls Keith out his refusal to help them form Voltron because he would rather spend it looking for Shiro, and it's implied that he's been at it for a very long time.
  • Tries to abort a crucial Blade of Marmora mission during "Kral Zera" when he finds out that Shiro is present because he's afraid the explosion might injure him.
  • At the end of "The Black Paladins" he's given the choice to let go of Shiro's unconscious body and climb to safety, or hold onto him and risk falling to his death. He chooses the latter, though thankfully the Black Lion comes to save him.
• Always Someone Better: Shiro is his Someone. The one reason he gave for refusing to Pilot the Black Lion and lead Voltron is that he can never live up to him. A somewhat unusual example, as neither characters are villains and Keith doesn't resent Shiro for it, but instead pushes Shiro to reclaim his position as the head of Voltron, as Keith believes he could never lead as well as Shiro.
• Ambiguously Human: He's the only Paladin shown to be able to sense the Lions. He's also able to use Galra scanners without the use of Shiro's arm and is noted to fight like a Galra soldier. "Shiro's Escape" adds more fuel to the fire when we see that a blade that Keith owns has the same symbol as a Galra resistance group. "The Blade of Marmora" outright confirms he is a Half-Human Hybrid with Galra blood.
• Bad Liar: He can deceive as long as he can keep his mouth shut, but start questioning him and he's a babbling mess. Just ask Allura about his night time strolls near the escape pods.
• The Berserker: Prone to flying off the handle during combat, despite his usually cool and methodical demeanor.
• Berserk Button:
  • Gets noticeably more out of sorts when Shiro is threatened, complete with taking on Zarkon himself if it means getting Shiro out of danger.
  • Since the revelation of his Galra heritage, he's noticeably irritable if it's brought up, especially in a negative light.
  • Shiro's disappearance and the need for a new Black paladin becomes one during the first two episodes of Season 3, but Keith moves past it for the good of the mission.
• Catapult Nightmare: Has one in "The Ark of Taujeer" due to his worries over his biology.
• Character Focus: After spending the first season largely Out of Focus, the second and third season put him center stage as his heritage is explored. Conversely, he appears less in Seasons 4 and 5, although the final episodes of Season 5 explore his heritage some more.
• Character Development: Keith undergoes a journey of self-discovery which results in him becoming closer to his teammates, less hot-blooded and impulsive, and more disciplined and efficient. This all comes to a head in Season 6, where thanks to his experiences, a now mentally (and physically) mature Keith returns to the paladins free of his mental baggage right when Lotor is about to complete his last Sincline ship. Keith formulates a plan, unflinchingly retakes piloting the Black Lion, and forces the enemy to go on the defensive. He's certainly come a long way from the shaky leader he was in Seasons 2 and 3.
• Chaste Hero: On top of his general disinterest in romance, the one time he's put into a potentially romantic situation, when Allura falls into a Bridal Carry in his arms and even blushes at the exchange, he is completely dismissive.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Keith's knife is shown in the first episode when he used it to free Shiro. In the second season, it becomes a major hint and what starts off his Quest for Identity subplot.
  • A bit more subtle, but in Season 3, Keith is once shown having the black Bayard move from one hand to the other without tossing it. In Season 6, he literally teleports it into his hand in his time of need to cut off clone Shiro's Galra prosthetic.
• The Comically Serious: Doesn't seem to understand humor or "fun" very well. When Lance tries to give the team a chant, he can't seem to grasp it.
• Commuting on a Bus: Leaves Team Voltron to focus on his work with the Blade of Marmora at the start of Season 4, though their work as La Résistance still affords him sporadic appearances throughout it.He eventually rejoins the team as the leader during Season 6.
• Deadpan Snarker: Keith has his own share of drippingly sarcastic one-liners, particularly towards Lance.
• Determinator: When Keith has a goal, he'll complete it or die trying. From being overwhelmed with his fight against Zarkon, Keith stood his ground. Then Season 2 has him going through endless trials of getting his ass kicked, and even when given the chance to quit, he continues to fight to the end. Deconstructed in Season 3 as his determination to end Lotor allows Lotor to pull the Paladins into a trap as Keith ignores the pleas of his teammates.
• Disappointing Heritage Reveal: Downplayed. When Keith discovers he is half Galra, although he learns this from a sect of Galra who are not aligned with Emperor Zarkon and the tyrannical regime that most of the species is aligned with, it's still a blow to him as well as to his camaraderie with Alura.
• Don't Think, Feel: Hinted at in Season 1 when he says that when finding the Blue Lion, he felt something calling out to him, and does this again when looking for the Red Lion. He seems to have gained better control of it in Season 7 when he uses this ability to find out where Macidus was going to teleport to next and take him out.
• Dual Wielding: He uses his knife and summons the black Bayard during his fight with Shiro, managing to cut his robot arm off.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance was a daring rescue to break Shiro out of quarantine, a plan that included having to set off remote explosions as a distraction, fight Galaxy Garrison members and then outrun the Garrison on his hoverbike with three tagalongs. Note that he is markedly calm and confident, even with the new sudden additions and got away with no casualties, a factor that he is a leader in his own right.
• Field Promotion: Invoked. In "Across the Universe," Shiro tells Keith that in case he doesn't make it, he wants Keith to lead Voltron. It comes true as of the "Red Paladin," to Keith's misery.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Keith and Lance seemed to have moved past Vitriolic Best Buds in the first half of Season 3 into this, after Lance supports and helps Keith with his role as the Black Paladin and Keith attempts to reassure Lance about his importance to the team.
• Foil: To Shiro. Both are the Head of Voltron at different times, but Keith's loner tendencies and hotheadedness lead to difficult leadership and an underwhelming tenure as the head of Voltron. In contrast, Shiro is stoic, cool-headed, and plays well with others, which leads to many victories. The premier episode of Season 4 has Keith deciding that he works better as a solo operator, which culminated in him leaving team Voltron and joining the Blade of Marmora while Shiro leads Team Voltron and the entire coalition.
• Good Is Not Nice: While Keith is certainly heroic, brave, and very much willing to do the right thing, he's a shade less idealistic than the rest of the group and far more pragmatic as he once suggested leaving Princess Allura in the hands of the Galra rather than dive into a suicide mission — as she had expressly stated she wanted.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: After his fight with Shiro, he got a scar across his cheek from the other's Galra arm.
• Half-Human Hybrid: "The Blade of Marmora" reveals he's part Galra.
• The Hermit: He had spent at least half a year living out in the middle of the desert in a small cabin by himself.
• The Hero: Although the series treats the heroes as an Ensemble Cast, Keith fulfills the most stereotypes for this trope out of the paladins. His color scheme and weapon of choice make this obvious. The first two-thirds of the plot focus heavily on Keith and his heritage, showcasing his character development and progression to becoming the leader of the Paladins.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: His personal weapon is a sword in a universe full of laser guns. This is a nod to his status as The Leader in most other incarnations, including Voltron Force where he had dual swords. As of "The Blade of Marmora", he is in possession of two swords, though he doesn't use them together at first. He also takes over as The Leader when Shiro goes MIA, and again becomes leader when Lotor's plans begin to come to fruition.
• Heroic Ambidexterity: He has no problem swinging his sword in either hand.
• Heroic Bastard: He's the son of a male human and a female Galra. It's unlikely they were married, due to it revealing her existence to anyone else.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Attempts one in the Season 4 finale by trying to fly himself into a Galra battleship to disable their planetary bomb. Lotor's intervention stops it.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: In Seasons 2 and 3. Neither Shiro's desire for him to take over as team leader nor the Black Lion's willingness to co-operate with him, can convince him that he'll be any good at the job. When he's forced into the position in Season 3, he actively resents it, protesting that he's "the loner" who isn't fit to lead anyone.
• He's Back!: After going through significant Character Development and a stint with the Blade of Marmora, Keith returns to the team in Season 6, then re-takes his position as Black Paladin and team leader.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Others are quick to write him off as an Insufferable Genius loner who only cares about results, but he's clearly devoted to Shiro, he's getting there with the others and he's hiding a lot of insecurity and abandonment issues.
  • The latter is most notably demonstrated in his Paladin Vlog. Underneath his prickly exterior, he's incredibly self-aware of his flaws, theorizing that his Galra heritage may play a part in his temper and pinpointing his mom leaving as the main reason why he pushes people away.
• Hot-Blooded: While he plays off as being cool to the others, he charges in headfirst against Zarkon in the season finale. When he is shown to be clearly outmatched, he just fights harder.
• Hot Blooded Sideburns: Rocks a pair of Go Nagai approved burns along with his mullet.
• I Got Bigger: He spent two years at the quantum abyss with Krolia, so he does get taller and his hair is now longer. Lampshaded by Lance when Keith reunites with the team.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Played with. Initially Keith's achievements during his first tenure as the Head of Voltron during Shiro's absence paled in comparison to Shiro's own. He kept falling for Lotor's traps and his most significant victory of preventing Lotor from getting the Teleduv speaks more for his piloting skill than Leadership quality. Compare to Shiro, who lead the successful attack on Zarkon's command and liberate a third of the Universe. To his credit, Keith protested being leader from the task, knowing he could never replace Shiro. Come Season 6, however, and a more mature Keith not only willing retakes the role, but smoothly relays orders to the team, literally manages to turn the tides of a Curb-Stomp Battle and outmaneuver Lotor in what's essentially an evil version of Voltron, something Season 3 Keith could only dream of.
• It Has Been an Honor: Keith tells the other Paladins it's been an honor flying with them when it looks like they'll have to pull a Heroic Sacrifice to get the Altean Mech off Earth before it self-destructs and takes out a significant chunk of the planet. They all survive.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A mild example. He can be abrasive and a bit of a loner, but over the seasons he opens himself up to the team and is devoted to the mission from the start. He truly does care for them, even if he doesn't have the best way of showing it.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When the others want to rescue Allura after the Galra abduct her, Keith staunchly advises against this and gets shouted down for it. In addition to it being exactly what Zarkon wanted them to do, the rescue attempt turns out to be the one action Allura was hoping they wouldn't take, for obvious reasons.
• The Lancer: The second-in-command of the Paladins. He's also a Hot-Blooded daredevil, compared to Shiro's level-headed Ace Pilot.
• The Leader:
  • In Season 3, he takes over as leader of the Paladins due to Shiro's disappearance and the Black Lion choosing him. By the time Shiro has returned, he's grown used to this role enough that he's starting to argue with Shiro over what course of action to take. What's notable is that he displayed leadership prior to Shiro's disappearance.
  • Deconstruction: Comes to a head in Season 4. Sure, Keith might have leadership skills and be chosen by the Black Lion, but that does not mean he wants to be the leader. Keith is still quite standoffish, insecure about his own abilities, has other responsibilities he considers more important, and when Shiro once again establishes a bond with the Black Lion, Keith is more relieved than anything else
  • Reconstruction: When he returns in Season 6 after working with the Blade of Marmora, learning about his parents, and spending 2 years with his mom, he immediately jumps back into the Black Lion without any hesitation (who accepts him immediately), and proceeds to not only rescue "Shiro", but lead the team against Lotor and his generals to successfully defeat him despite the power of the Voltron-esque "Sincline".
  • In the show's finale, he turns down the offer to become the new emperor of the Galra Empire in favor of taking leadership of the Blades of Marmora and reforging them into a humanitarian organization.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Keith is very prone to this, but reels it in when Shiro is in charge. Following instincts was explicitly a trait that Allura mentions is something that helps when bonding with the Red Lion. It is not, however, helpful when he has to take over as the Black Lion's pilot and team leader, and a major part of his character development is realizing that he can't treat his team's well-being as recklessly as he treats his own.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Inverted. His father was a regular human, and it was his mother who passed down the Galra blood and her connection to the Blade of Marmora. His features become more Galra-esque at points in response to increased anger and pain during his fight with Shiro's clone in Season 6: his sclera turn yellow, his irises narrow, his pupils become slits and his teeth sharpen to the point of resembling a carnivore's fangs.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: Starts out a bit of a lone wolf who doesn't play well with others, but he opens up to the team eventually.
• Memento MacGuffin: His knife ends up playing a key role in Season 2 when it reveals his Galra heritage and the fact that his mother was once a Blade member.
• Men Don't Cry: He didn't let out a single tear in dire situations such as Shiro's life being at stake after his soul was transferred from the Black Lion or Allura's sacrifice.
• Military Maverick: He turned into one of these when Shiro disappeared, which got him expelled from the Garrison, the reason for which is unknown, just that he had a "discipline issue". He seems willing to follow Shiro's orders, but his stubborn streak surfaces when interacting with the others.
• Mukokuseki: Unlike the other Earth members of Team Voltron it's ambiguous what Keith's human ethnicity is supposed to be. Him being half-Galra doesn’t help.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His impulsiveness nearly costs the team dearly in Season 3 when he goes barreling headlong into a trap despite their warnings, and he laments his foolishness to Lance.
• Never Be Hurt Again: In Keith's official vlog, he comes to the realization that the reason he's seldom able to connect with other people was due to his abandonment as a child; now, he pushes other people away before they get the chance to reject him.
• No Social Skills: Keith isn't exactly good at picking up on social cues.
  Lance: I say "Vol," you say, "Tron." Vol...
  Keith: Uh... Voltron?
  Lance: No, no, no, no, no. The cheer includes the instructions. I say "Vol," and you say...
  Keith: ...Voltron?
  Lance: ...We'll work on it.
• Not So Above It All: He might try to distance himself from the others and play the lone wolf, but (a) they're not having it, (b) he's every bit as petty and vindictive as his colleagues, and (c) give him a squishy asteroid fight and he's a happy Paladin.
• Odd Friendship: Hotblooded Keith is closest to the generally calm and respectful Shiro.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: His knife is one. His dream in "The Blade of Marmora" implies that he got it from his dad, who got it from Keith's mom. Said knife is the start of his Quest for Identity arc.
• Out of Focus: Zigzags between this and Character Focus, depending on the season:
  • His loner tendencies and lack of personal motivations leave him with less to do than most of the other Paladins, and he doesn't have a big story arc in the first season.
  • A major arc in Season 2 is his Quest for Identity, and in Season 3, he becomes the focus as he takes over the Black Lion and becomes the new team leader.
  • He goes out of focus again in Season 4, as he leaves Voltron for the Blade of Marmora and doesn't even appear for half of it, having a relatively secondary role in most episodes. This continues into Season 5.
  • In Season 6, focus is finally returned to him as the Blade of Marmora subplot resolves and he returns to the team as the Black Paladin.
• Parental Abandonment: Noted in his profile to be an orphan. In "The Blade of Marmora", it's revealed he has Galra blood from his mother's side while his father is human. He even notes in his vlog that maybe the reason why he's so untrusting of others and puts up so many walls around himself is because his mother essentially abandoned him.
• Partial Transformation: When Keith becomes enraged during his battle against Kuron, his Galra heritage temporarily comes to the surface and his sclerae turn yellow, his pupils narrow into slits, and his teeth change into fangs.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: He and his mother are trapped in the Quantum Abyss, where time passes differently from the outside world, for two years. This allows him to bond with his mother and come back a wiser and more mature leader.
• Pragmatic Hero: Keith is the one most likely to put saving the universe above personal goals or relations. He was by far the angriest and least sympathetic toward Pidge leaving the team to rescue her family. When Allura is captured by the Galra, Keith is the only one to suggest not going on a rescue Suicide Mission (which was exactly her intention when she stayed behind to let Shiro escape). In the season finale, Keith also elects to attack Zarkon with the Red Lion when Zarkon is exposed, un-armored, and approaching the Black Lion. He rationalizes it that he has a chance to rid the universe of the threat of Galra conquest this way... except Zarkon still has the Black Bayard from his time as the previous Black Paladin and boy does he know how to use it.
• Pretty Boy: Keith is attractive and the word "pretty" describes him well. He's slender and drawn with large eyes, driving this point home, even with his longer hair he grew in the post-timeskip.
• Quest for Identity: He goes through one is Season 2 when he realizes the mark of the Blades of Marmora, a Galra resistance, is on the knife that he has had since childhood.
• Red Is Heroic: Red is the color associated with him, and his other incarnations had him as the de facto leader and protagonist of the series. Which is furthered when the Black Lion lets him pilot it to save Shiro, as it was his main lion in every other incarnation of the series, though he eventually ends up both taking up both it's cockpit and the leadership role later on.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Zig-zagged; while Keith's reserved temperament contrasts with Lance's (despite the respective color schemes), Keith is the one most likely to act on impulse in the heat of combat.
• The Rival: To Lance. Eventually.
• Straight for the Commander: Keith really likes this trope. He has a tendency on focusing on killing Zarkon and later Lotor whenever he has the chance.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Constantly plays the Straight Man to the team's, or just Lance's, Wise Guy. However, when he and Lance do a Boke and Tsukkomi Routine on occasion, he winds up the boke to Lance's tsukkomi as a result of having No Social Skills.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He greatly resembles his mother, despite her being Galra.
• Summon to Hand: Technically, all Bayards can be summoned by their paladins, but Keith is the ONLY one who utilizes it in battle, summoning his sword back to him after throwing it, or even using it to switch which hand is holding the sword Notably, he's the only Paladin shown make his Bayard telekinetically move in such a manner.
• Take My Hand!: Keith does this in "The Ark of Taujeer" to Allura when the pod they were in exploded and jettisoned them into space.
• Terrible Artist: In "The Feud!", Keith had one of his child-like drawings that Lance answered as "windy cave" while the real answer is Haggar.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of Keith's go-to options in a fight. Helps that he can Summon to Hand.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Slowly opens up to the team as the series progresses. After finding out that he's part Galra, he's become more lax, even willing to make a joke. Hunk even lampshades it. After a rocky start due to his grief and new role as team leader, Keith continues this in Season 3, comforting Allura in "Hole in The Sky" and trying to reassure Lance in "Tailing a Comet" and offering to sit out of a mission for both Shiro's and Lance's sake.
• Token Heroic Orc: Is part Galra and very much has the fighting style to match.
• Unknown Rival: To Lotor. While Keith becomes so personally vexed by the Galra Prince to the point of trying to hunt him down on his own, Lotor himself has it out for the Paladins as a collective and doesn't even know Keith's name.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: His relationship with Lance seems to be developing into this. While they argue a lot, they do make a good team.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He calls out Pidge's decision to leave the team in "Fall of the Castle of Lions" as incredibly selfish, dooming the rest of the universe for two people.
  • Later he gets this from Hunk for suggesting that they leave Allura in Zarkon's hands rather than go after her and risk handing Zarkon exactly what he wants. No points for guessing what they do, and whether it was exactly what Zarkon wanted them to do.
  • Shiro and Allura especially, but the rest of the team are just as pissed when him giving priority to the Blade of Marmora over Voltron causes them to be in danger and almost losing important supply ships.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Keith both receives and attempts to give this type of pep talk. He receives it from Shiro in Season 2 as the Black Paladin tries to convince him that he has what it takes to lead in Shiro's absence. In Season 3, he gets a brief one from all of the other Paladins and Allura, once Black chooses him. He attempts to give one to Lance later in the season when he is horrified at Lance's willingness to resign as a Paladin. It's yet to be seen how successful this talk is.

Pidge Gunderson

Katie "Pidge" Holt

Voiced by: Bex Taylor-Klaus (English), Angélica Villa (Latin America), Kana Omata (Japanese)

The pilot of the Green Lion and Guardian Spirit of the Forest. Pidge's brother, Matt, and father, Sam, were part of an expedition to Kerberos that also included Shiro; all members of the expedition were thought to have perished. Refusing to believe that they had died, Pidge joined the Galaxy Garrison in an effort to unravel the mystery of their disappearance. A computer genius, Pidge developed a system that can detect Galra radio transmissions, and ended up joining Team Voltron.

Pidge pilots the Green Lion, a Fragile Speedster that is excellent for subterfuge, support, and scouting, and is equipped with a weapon that can instantly generate vines to strangle enemy technology. Pidge's Bayard is a punching dagger that also functions as a taser or grappling hook.

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• Action Girl: Pidge is a capable warrior on par with the other paladins, even if she prefers to use her head.
• Action Survivor: While Pidge can hold her own in a fight, she is best at stealth and hit and run tactics.
• Adaptation Name Change: Pidge's real name was given as Darrel "Pidge" Stoker in the comics, while here it's mentioned to be Pidge Gunderson. Pidge's real name is actually Katie Holt.
• Adaptation Personality Change: This show's Pidge is reserved and slow to open up to others, as opposed to the happy and overtly friendly kid from the original.
• Affectionate Nickname: Word of God confirms that, even after she reveals her gender, everyone still calls her Pidge as a nickname. Season 4 shows that Matt was the one who gave Pidge that nickname, and she wanted to be called that before he left. invoked
  • Coran at first calls Pidge "Number Five" as a reference to her being the shortest out of the five paladins, but now it seems to have turned into something a little more affectionate.
• Affirmative Action Girl: Pidge was a male character in the original Voltron, but is made a girl in the Continuity Reboot to balance out the gender ratio.
• Air Vent Escape: Justified, as Pidge is the only pilot small enough to actually fit in them.
• All of the Other Reindeer: She was singled out and bullied in school due to her intellect.
• Attack Drone: Rover, a Galra drone which Pidge reprograms. It performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save her from a Galra commando.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Being the youngest in the group, the older paladins are very protective of her. She is hardly as helpless as the average of this trope, though, and the other paladins seem to be less strict with her as time goes on, as she leaves in a solo mission in Season 4 despite Shiro's objections about her going alone.
  • This becomes a problem later for the paladins when after a 3-year time-skip and capturing the paladins, when they don't give Ezor or Zethrid an answer they wanted, Ezor suggests she torture Pidge for answers. This causes Lance to immediately lash out and try to protect their youngest member, but it only proves that hurting Pidge would make the others more likely to talk.
• Berserk Button:
  • Lance notes that Pidge gets very testy whenever the Kerberos mission is brought up at the Galaxy Garrison. Also, any interference with finding Pidge's father and brother makes her extremely angry.
  • In a more comedic version, she can also get rather testy when people mess with her gear, as Hunk learns in the first episode.
  • When Zarkon calls for a prisoner exchange in which they give up Lotor in exchange for Pidge's father, she understandably insists that they agree to the terms, becoming extremely angry and inconsolable when some of her team members suggest that they don't comply.
• Big Brother Worship: Implied. She and Matt seem to have been very close, her disguise as a boy looks similar to his appearance (complete with his glasses), and her driving motivation from the start is to find him and their father.
• Big "NO!":
  • Gives one when she realizes she can't hook up her video game anywhere.
  • In Season 4, when she finds Matt's (fake) grave.
  • In Season 5, she yells one in outrage when she learns that the hostage exchange for her father was faked.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Unusual for a female character, as the main page notes, and one of the main reasons she can plausibly disguise herself as a boy.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The Short to Hunk's Big and Lance's Thin.
• Born Lucky: To a degree, considering what happened to her family, but things just seem to go better for her than for the other Paladins. Her Lion was on a completely peaceful planet just waiting for her and the natives helped her, when the Paladins separate, she ends in a peaceful area with cute and friendly aliens and enough machinery to build a way to communicate with her friends and then, in "Space Mall", she and Lance find enough money in a fountain to buy the video game they want.
• Boyish Short Hair: She used to have long hair, but she cut it to look like her brother's as part of her disguise as a boy. Even after it's revealed she's a girl, she seems to prefer keeping her hair this way.
• Broken Tears: Upon finding Matt's fake grave, she breaks down sobbing, crying and screaming in despair.
• Brother–Sister Team: With Matt. In a fight, they are easily capable of getting each others strategies and seem to be always in the same page. Their shared quirks and intellect also makes them capable of working on scientific projects very well together.
• Brutal Honesty: Pidge can spout out some unwittingly cruel remarks. A good example is "Some Assembly Required" where she states that Allura is hardly a princess since there are no people to rule over and that they (the Paladins) are not her subjects. However, she is quick to withdraw after noticing how crass the remarks were; in "Fall of the Castle of Lions" she says something insensitive regarding Allura's father and quickly apologizes for it.
• Clark Kenting: A very downplayed example. Pidge was able to disguise herself as a boy by getting a haircut and wearing glasses, but no attention is called to it.
• Character Development: "Greening the Cube" improves her connection to nature, and after she takes language lessons in "Eye of the Storm", she learns several common Altean terms.
• Character Focus:
  • Pidge was the first of the Paladins whose motivations and character development were given an arc. Her family ties and Gender Reveal made up the core of "Return of the Gladiator" and "The Fall of the Castle of Lions," with the latter episode featuring her as the Paladin who saves the day. In the second season, she gets a fair amount of airtime in "Across the Universe," and in "Greening the Cube," the disconnect between Pidge's technology-centered, outdoor-hating personality and her title as the spirit of Nature is addressed. She later gets this again when she is reunited with Matt in "Reunion".
  • She becomes a major focus again in Season 5 during the arc dedicated to rescuing her father, composed of "The Prisoner" and "Blood Duel".
• Confusion Fu: She largely plays this using her Bayard, which can be used as a grappling hook, making her able to improvise different angles of attacks and make unexpected advances at the enemy. She uses this a lot for hit and run strategies when facing someone she knows she can't defeat in a mano-a-mano combat and is very good at incorporating her surroundings with her strategy, such as electrifying the bounty hunter that was after Matt. The versatility of her Bayard also helps in fighting close, mid and long-range against enemies.
• Crazy-Prepared: Played for drama. In "Black Paladins," she admits she made a countermeasure of Shiro's robotic arm's programing and created a virus for it secretly that could be used against Shiro. She sadly admits to never wanted to have to use it, but it saves the Castle of Lions when Shiro's virus starts destroying it.
• Cute Bruiser: She may be the cutest and smallest of the paladins, but she's also feisty, high sprung and sassy.
• Cutting the Knot: When trying to keep the castle from taking off, she's supposed to input a sequence into the controls but can't read the Altean letters. Realizing that she's running out of time, her solution is to punch the controls with her Bayard, which surprisingly works.
• Communications Officer: Served as this while she, Lance, and Hunk were in training. Once everyone's stranded on Planet Arus, Pidge instead takes on the role of The Engineer.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • "Fall of the Castle of Lions" was the first one, with the main focus of the plot being Pidge's backstory while she attempts to stealthily rescue her friends.
  • "Greening the Cube" in Season 2, in which she has to learn from the Olkari to respect nature as much as she does to technology, gaining a Next Tier Power-Up in her lion's cannon.
  • "Reunion" focuses on a solo mission of hers to find her brother, Matt, and barely features any other Paladin.
• Deadpan Snarker: Pidge has several moments, and they're usually targeted at Lance.
• The Engineer: Along with Hunk. While Hunk is more of a mechanic and support engineer, Pidge focuses on upgrading the team's tech and repurposing the enemies'.
• Everyone Knew Already: When she finally confesses her real gender, everyone but Lance had already figured it out. Coran was even surprised to find it was supposed to be a secret.
• Fangirl: Is implied to be one to the "Killbot Phantasm" video game franchise. During a brief moment, she seems to be this to Alan Turing as well.
• Foreshadowing: Plenty regarding her true identity as Katie Holt, whose family was part of the ill-fated Kerberos expedition alongside Shiro.
• Fragile Speedster: She's small, fast, and along with her grappling hook, she makes for a hard target to hit. However, all it takes is a big or heavy body to take her out if you manage to pin her down.
• Friendless Background: Implied. She was bullied in school and had no one to talk to but her older brother. In the garrison, she hardly seems to have made any friends, not even with Hunk and Lance, who were her teammates.
• The Gadfly: Mixed with Deadpan Snarker. Pidge isn't afraid to let her teammates know that she thinks they're being idiots.
• Gamer Chick: In "Space Mall," she seems to have a knowledge of retro game consoles and about classic video games (which seems to be based on classic JRPG) and fangirls over an expensive game. By Season 7, she's managed to install a game console into the Green Lion itself.
• Gender Flip: Pidge was male in the original series and most of its re-imaginings, but here she's female (although she pretends to be a boy while infiltrating the Galaxy Garrison).
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Pidge's Bayard forms one that doubles as a taser.
• Green Thumb: Her lion's canon is capable of generating gigantic vines from the surface it shoots, being capable of defeating high-tech machinery.
• Hollywood Hacking: Given enough time, Pidge can hack into anything with some frantic keyboard typing and Technobabble. Justified in that decrypting signals would be an expected part of the skillset of a trainee communications officer and both she and her brother were shown to be very skilled in coding and hacking even before going into space.
• Idiot Hair: She may have two of them, but she's a smart dork.
• Important Haircut: When joining the Galaxy Garrison to hide her true identity, as she had been banned from the base.
• Innocently Insensitive: Her words can cut deeper than she means them to. She apologizes to Allura when Pidge claims that Allura isn't her princess and that she doesn't even have anything to be a princess of any more — Pidge is correct, but she didn't mean to hurt Allura. As of Season 3 onwards, there are also hints that her jabs have done some damage to Lance's self-esteem, even though Pidge is just engaging in the usual group banter.
• In-Series Nickname: Her given name is Katie, but she goes by the nickname Pidge. The nickname was given to her by her brother Matt, and she assumes it as an identity when infiltrating the Garrison. Even though everybody knows her real name by now, not even Shiro uses it. In a flashback, she is shown to dislike the nickname but asks Matt to call her Pidge when they say goodbye before he leaves on the Kerberos mission. Word of God confirms that she likes being called by the nickname. invoked
  Matt: All right, Katie.
  Pidge: No. Call me Pidge. I'm gonna miss that. And you.
• Invisibility Cloak: Seems to be a specialty, considering both the Green Lion and a drop shuttle that she personally modified possess them.
• Irony: "Greening the Cube" reveals that she hates nature and her lion is the lion of nature.
• Little Miss Badass: Despite being the youngest and the smallest of the paladins, she can still kick the butts of those larger than herself.
• Little Useless Gun: Lance mockingly calls Pidge's weapon "cute" when the team's first using their Bayards. Pidge immediately tases him with it, then agrees that it is pretty cute.
• Meaningful Name: Her last name 'Holt' means forest, and her lion is the Green Lion of Nature.
• Military Brat: Pidge's father and brother were both part of the Galaxy Garrison.
• Motor Mouth: When Pidge gets flustered or talks about technology, her mouth starts flapping at a million miles per minute.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Pidge is initially willing to abandon the team in order find her older brother and father who have been imprisoned by the Galra. Of course, a change of heart occurs when Sendak attacks the castle.
• Not So Above It All: In "Space Mall," she calls out that Lance is wasting time at an alien store instead of looking for the scaultrite lenses until she sees that the store has retro human video games and consoles and focuses her attention on looking for enough money to buy them.
• One of the Boys: Even after revealing her true gender, she is treated no differently by the other guys as she was before.
• The Paranoiac: In the comics, Pidge claims she always collects data on the things around her, even the strengths and weaknesses of her teammates, which she uses against them in that issue.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: After committing multiple acts of treason and getting banned from the Garrison, Pidge decides to infiltrate the organization by assuming a new identity — specifically, by cutting her hair, wearing glasses, and pretending to be a boy. Her new disguise looks almost exactly like her missing brother, Matt, to the point where Hunk believes a photograph of Matt is actually Pidge, but the Garrison is somehow completely fooled.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Spends a lot of time with Hunk. The two of them are about to cry in "The Belly of the Weblum" when the team splits up.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Sometimes when she is really focused, she shifts into this.
• Shorter Means Smarter: The smartest Paladin and easily dwarfed by the rest of the main cast.
• The Short Guy with Glasses: Much shorter than everyone else, wears glasses, and is a tech genius, like the original Pidge. Subverted when it turns out Pidge was a girl disguised as a guy.
• Sickly Neurotic Geek: Downplayed, but she mentions in "Greening the Cube" that she has several allergies and a fragile skin that makes really hard for her to be in nature.
• Shared Family Quirks: She and her brother have many of the same quirks and intellect, most blatantly, is their deep belief in color-coding everything they do and even refer to it in the same way.
  Pidge (Season 2): [...] color-coded, of course, because what are we, animals?
  Matt (Season 4): I love that you color-coded this, because what are we, animals?
• Smart People Wear Glasses: The team's resident inventor and the only one to wear glasses.
• The Smart Guy: Was training to be a Communication Officer. Over the course of the show, Pidge proves to be an excellent hacker and often teams up with team engineer Hunk to make new weapons and tools for Team Voltron.
• Static Stun Gun: Pidge's Bayard can also deal an incapacitating electric shock whenever it hits something.
• Stealth Expert: From the Green Lion's cloaking device to hologram fake-outs on foot, Pidge is the best at deception and infiltration.
  • Ironically, the disguise she uses to infiltrate the Garrison looks exactly like her brother — who had very recently and very publicly disappeared on a Garrison mission — to the point where Hunk believes a photo of Matt is actually her, and somehow doesn't get caught.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To Pidge's nearly identical-looking older brother Matt, especially after she cuts her hair. It's to the point where Hunk finds the picture she keeps of her and her brother Matt and assumes that Matt is her and the girl in the picture is someone else.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: "Pidge Gunderson" is a male alias created by Katie Holt in order to join the Galaxy Garrison after she had been banned from it because she broke in.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Bayards are naturally these since they take on whatever form suits the wielder best, but Pidge's functions as a dagger, grappling hook, and taser simultaneously.
• Technobabble: She and Hunk are very prone to dropping scientific/engineering terms when discussing what they're up to.
• Teen Genius: Pidge is the smartest among all of the Paladins. Best shown in the first episode of Season 2: she builds a communication antenna using trashed alien satellites, with the help of a few fluffy floating creatures.
• Tiny Schoolboy: A full head and shoulders shorter than any of the other Paladins, though being the youngest might have to do with it. Her father is on the short side, suggesting it runs in the family.
• Tomboy: She has little to no classically feminine traits. Her long hair and the dress she was wearing in the photo with her brother were one of the few things that could make the viewer believe she was female, so much that when she cut that off, she could pass as a guy. It's not quite clear whether she has always been like this or if this is part of the persona she developed in order to pass as a guy.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Pidge is the tomboy, while Allura is the more elegant girly girl.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Flashbacks in "Reunion" show that she used to wear her hair in a side ponytail, fitting with her tomboyish personality.
• Tomboyish Voice: Her vocal range sounds very much like a young boy's.
• Tragic Keepsake: Subverted. She wears a pair of glasses given to her by her older brother Matt before he went missing but continues to do so even after she finds him alive and well and they are reunited.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Does this when she seems concerned about her family. Such as when Matt tells Pidge in "The Prisoner" that he didn't find their dad, causing her to curl up in her paladin seat in the castle. She does this again in Season 7 when she tries to get a signal to her dad, but when she gets nothing, she curls up sadly.
• Walking Spoiler: For Season 1, due to the Plot Twist that Pidge is really Katie Holt, daughter of the leader of the Kerberos expedition.

Lance

Lance

Voiced by: Jeremy Shada (English), Luis Fernando Orozco (Latin America), Takamasa Mogi (Japanese)

The pilot of the Blue Lion and Guardian Spirit of the Water. Lance considers himself to be Keith's rival, though he was only considered for Galaxy Patrol pilot training due to Keith's expulsion. Lance is convinced of his own superiority and quick to go after a pretty woman. Though he won't openly show it, Lance is quite homesick for Earth and his family.

He is the pilot of the Blue Lion, which is equipped with a sonic cannon and freeze ray. He forms the right leg. His Bayard transforms into either a close-range assault rifle, a long-range sniper rifle, or an Altean broadsword.

During the third season, he takes Keith's place as the pilot of the Red Lion after Keith replaces Shiro in the Black Lion.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Downplayed one for Allura, who doesn't hate him, but is visibly annoyed whenever he tries to hit on her. Though this isn't based on his looks, just on how persistent he is. More recently it's become more of a joke, particularly when Allura re-uses one of Lance's pickup lines in an attempt to bond with the Blue Lion. Around Seasons 5 and 6, he's mellowed out a bit, especially when he sees that Allura and Lotor are slowly growing attracted to each other and he even confesses to the mice that he's liked Allura more than any other girls he's met.
• Ace Pilot: A requirement for this team. He doesn't start out all that flashy, but grows to become a great pilot, if not a bit reckless.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: This version of Lance is mostly a comic relief character who sometimes butts heads with Keith. In the original series, he was instead more like this version's Keith, impulsive and not much of a team player.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Lance's Paladin skill/virtue is a mystery for the first two seasons, and his lack of a clear team role is source of angst in "Escape From Beta Traz." The comics, however give us a pretty big clue in one of Pidge's internal monologues — when forced to fight her friends, she decides to take Lance out first because he's the most adept at co-operating with his teammates and he's a danger at long range. Despite scoffing when Lance refers to himself as a "sharpshooter" in the show proper, here she all but confirms his role as the team sniper.
  • As for his role as a Paladin, the argument has been made that his role is Balance, citing both the attributes of his Lion (an even mix of speed, agility and power) and how he is a leg, literally balancing Voltron upright. His identity as a The Lancer to both Keith (who's Shiro's The Lancer) and Shiro himself also suggests this.
• Big Brother Instinct: When Ezor chooses Pidge to torture to get information, Lance immediately tries to protect his friend. However, he fails and only proves that hurting Pidge would get greater response out of the paladins.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The Thin to Hunk's Big and Pidge's short, he is the most lanky of the Paladins.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Plays the tsukkomi towards the more-so socially awkward Keith and Hunk, but winds up the boke for the rest of the team whenever he starts up his Glory Hound Casanova Wannabe routine.
• Book Dumb: Admits to having done poorly in chemistry class, and is hilariously bad at math, believing that "ten thousand" is equal to a "thousand plus ten". Keith even lampshades it at one point, telling him to leave the math to Pidge.
• Bookends: Lance is the first to find and bond with his Lion, Blue. She locks eyes with him and starts communicating with him almost immediately. In the finale, he's summoned by Blue once again, and is the first Paladin to be alerted to the Lions' departure. Once more, she locks eyes with him, and is clearly communicating with him again, despite Lance piloting Red for most of the series. Blue lingers slightly longer than the others, so Lance is the first to find his Lion, and the last to say goodbye.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite his insecurities, immaturity, occasional silliness and reputation as a Jack of All Trades, his consistent ability of keeping a cool head while strategizing, good reflexes, awareness of the team (most prominently shown in how he pings onto Pidge, Shiro and Keith's troubles and tries to hold Keith back when he's being reckless), and being an excellent shot leaves him with ample potential of shaping up into this.
• Butt-Monkey: Part of the Idiot Hero and Comic Relief package. Jokes are often made at his expense.
• Call to Agriculture: In Season 8 finale, he started a farm with his family once Allura sacrificed herself to restore reality.
• Casanova Wannabe: Hits on Allura shamelessly throughout the first couple of seasons, but she's having none of it. Otherwise, if it's on two legs and cute, Lance will want to hit on it. This actually gets his Lion stolen at one point when a female bounty hunter plays Lance like a fiddle and handcuffs him to a tree.
• Character Focus:
  • A limited amount in Seasons 1 and 2; his Character Development hasn't had much focus. Season 1's "Taking Flight" is a mixed blessing for Lance, as he gets a lot of focus, but mainly on how his trusting and flirty nature screws things up. He manages far better in "The Depths" and his Lion gets a new weapon. He's also fairly crucial in "Escape From Beta Traz" despite not being the primary focus — and this is also the episode that starts hinting at Character Development, with Lance not being entirely as thoughtless and cocky as he seems.
  • Season 3 gives him some serious focus. Most of the episodes have him as a major component, and a large part of "The Red Paladin" is focused on his struggles with Shiro's disappearance. He even has some Character Development, becoming a very effective strategist during combat situations and acting as an impulse control for Keith when he makes an incredibly reckless plan as the new Black Lion pilot. In fact, the Red Lion chooses him as the new pilot because Lance values the composition of the team over his own pride, earning his spot back as a pilot. His later offer to resign as a Paladin for the good of the team later in the series is also a direct contrast to his Establishing Character Moment in the first episode.
• Comic Relief: His Butt-Monkey tendencies and general gracelessness make for good jokes often at his expense.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Particularly when it comes to Princess Allura:
  • He was not happy when he found out Keith and Allura went on a mission together in "The Ark of Taujeer".
  • He did not react well when he heard Keith talking with Coran about the Blue Lion in "Greening the Cube", telling Keith to back off as he and Blue are happy together.
  • He gave a Death Glare to Matt who instantly gets a crush on Allura on his first meeting with her.
  • He also did not react well to Lotor and Allura befriending each other over the course of Season 5, constantly trying to needle Lotor with snarky comments.
  • Season 6 finds Lance at a crossroads between this and I Want My Beloved to Be Happy concerning Lotor and Allura's budding relationship. While he's clearly depressed over the idea, he's also more accepting of the possibility.
• Decoy Protagonist: Uniquely due to English-language Netflix's format of releasing an entire season at a time and the first episode consisting of two "parts" ("episodes") in one, this trope winds up Played With, in that most people don't notice that it's in play at all without a rewatch. But the "first part" of episode one frames Lance in The Protagonist role, starting from Iverson beating up his confidence and leading all the way up to his finding Blue with the rest of the future-Paladins, and the team going through the wormhole together soon thereafter. See Ensemble Cast in the General tab above for more details.
• Demoted to Satellite Love Interest: Once he gets a Relationship Upgrade with Allura, while he still gets a significant amount of screentime, it focuses primarily on his relationship with her and his concern about her wellbeing. After she sacrifices herself all of his remaining appearances are centered around him continuing to pine after her.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Often enough that his "dumbass" credentials are questionable. Lance may not be a particularly book smart or mature member of the team, but he's not afraid to call out his teammates on their poor decisions. He's actually pretty convincing at times. He's also far more observant than he appears, being capable of good tactical decisions on the fly.
• Establishing Character Moment: Lance is introduced ignoring the pleas of his fellow teammates while running a team flight simulator. Note that he is professional, confident and calm despite the issues, saying something about his leadership abilities. He ends up crashing and failing the test for the group. He then follows it up by sticking up for Pidge when she draws the ire of their teacher, mutely accepting the berating in her place.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Most notably in Lance's section of the comics as he was the only one to figure out that the princess Voltron came to save and the dragon the team was fighting were one and the same.
• Evolving Weapon: Lance's Bayard has undergone the most changes since the beginning of the show and continues to unlock new forms whereas his fellow paladins are still using the same type of weapons they started with. This might be to reflect his Jack of All Stats nature, being that Lance can adapt to any situation.
• Facial Markings: In the series finale, just after he and Allura share their Last Kiss, he is shown to have developed Altean-like markings under both his eyes.
• Friendly Sniper: His version of the Red Bayard is a futuristic Sniper Rifle, rather than the Mass Effect-like sci-fi automatic rifle he used at the beginning. This reflects his Character Development, supporting his teammates from the rear as opposed to charging in guns blazing and trying to hog all the glory.
• Glory Hound: Constantly seeks validation and recognition for his skills, from wanting to be seen as an Ace Pilot in the academy, to his rivalry with Keith, to talking about parades in Voltron's honor and trying to impress as many ladies as possible.
• Goshdang It To Heck: He comes up with interesting euphemisms when he curses, a few examples being "What the cheese?!" and saying that the castle has gone "apples and bananas."
• Heroes Prefer Swords: In Season 5, Lance unlocks an upgrade to the red Bayard, an Altean broadsword.
• Heroic BSoD: In Season 6, Lance breaks down in tears after finding out what happened to Shiro.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Non-fatal. Lance shields Coran from an exploding robot, resulting in him being out of commission for a few episodes.
  • In Season 6, he pushes Allura in Blue out of the way of an energy blast arching her way and is dead in the air for a few minutes as she flies into Red and brings him back.
• Heroic Second Wind: During the final showdown with Sendak, a comatose Lance manages to rise up and blast him with his rifle, giving his team the opportunity to take Sendak down.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation:
  • During the rescue of Slav, he realizes that he is the only one to call himself a sharpshooter, while everyone else has a talent (leader, hacker, pilot, chef, etc.) that is recognized by the rest of the group. Despite his self-doubt, though, there are many characters in the show who have reason to be grateful that Lance was in the right place at the right time.
  • As of Season 3, this has become a more marked part of his character. Lance doesn't really seem to consider himself a true Red Paladin and replacement for Keith, and expects him to reclaim Red once Shiro is back. However, he fully expects Allura to take up the Blue Paladin position permanently... leaving Lance in the cold. Before that can happen, he volunteers to step down in order to make things easier.
  • Lance got into Blue without knowing what she was, instantly formed a rapport, successfully flew her, trusted her to take them out into space and had destroyed a Galra ship within hours of taking the wheel... but openly states that he thinks that he's a spare Paladin, and that Allura (who took longer to master Blue) is a far superior Paladin than he is. Notably, he makes no comment on the notoriously temperamental Red opting for him over Allura, even though he'd envied some of Red's abilities earlier in the series.
  • Lance had continued to spiral into this as the seasons go on. By Season 6, he's just about written himself off as "just a boy from Cuba": not smart enough to hang out with Pidge and Hunk, not valuable enough to work with Shiro, and with no place in Lotor and Allura's alchemy/royalty projects. He also privately reveals to the mice that he genuinely respects Allura as a person, but he doesn't feel as though he's good enough for her.
• Her Heart Will Go On: After Allura sacrifices herself in the finale, Lance continues to mourn after her and dedicate his life to spreading her memory.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Hunk.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Lance may not appear so, but he has shown to be observant and a good strategist, shown when noticing fake Rover and coming up with an alternative plan to Keith's on the Balmera. He also teared up when he recalled his mom's hugs, suggesting that he might be more sensitive than he lets on. Furthered in Season 3 where he puts his resentment for Keith aside to support his new role as the Black Paladin and offer to step down from the team if he proved to be the "weak link".
  • In less serious examples, "The Voltron Show" reveals him to be an acrobat/gymnast, and he knows enough about animal husbandry to sufficiently care for Kaltenecker.
• I Just Want to Be Special: He has a moment of this in "Escape from Beta Traz" when he realizes he doesn't have a specialized skilled compared to his teammates and wonders if he's just dragging them down.
• Idiot Hair: Two of them.
• Idiot Hero: His intelligence stat on the official website isn't as high as the rest of the Paladins and he can be a bit of a cloudcuckoolander, but in-series he's shown to have moments of cunning, and his confidence and bravado are actually something of a boon when the pragmatism of his teammates threatens to stop them from doing the right thing.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He manages to shoot the knives Ezor threw at Keith in midair, and shoots a section of the warden at Beta Traz's arm that would allow him to let Slav go.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: What initially looks to be ego and unjustified overconfidence turns out to be a nasty case of this come "Escape From Beta Traz". The Garrison didn't bother to hide the fact that Lance was considered second-rate (only getting in to the top program because Keith was expelled), and his time as Blue Paladin apparently hasn't done much to bolster his self-esteem. As Keith starts to take on a more significant role in the team and the others find their niches, Lance admits to feeling unnecessary and left behind.
• Informed Flaw: His lack of intelligence. His teammates are quick to dismiss what he has to say as stupid or ridiculous, his Butt-Monkey status means that he often looks like an idiot. Yet from what we see, he has a head for tactics, has a better knowledge of people than most of his teammates, and has no trouble operating Blue right out of the traps. His main problems seem to be immaturity (and all of the Paladins, except Shiro, are immature in their own way) and terrible luck — not a lack of brainpower.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: He's very open about wearing face masks and saying he wanted to knit Klaizap a sweater. He even gets a scene where he pole dances for the audience.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He's definitely one of the more naive paladins in the group.
• Irony: At the end of Season 4, Lance, who is massively insecure, doesn't understand why the Blue Lion picked him out, and mourns his lack of an obvious talent, gives a rousing speech to Allura about how she's the heart of Voltron who brought everyone together — and that Blue chose her for a reason. He seems oblivious to the fact that this description fits him as well: Lance is the dispenser of pep talks who encourages his team mates when things get rough, he brought the team together (by accident) on Earth, and he was singled out of a group of five by Blue.
• Jack of All Stats: According to the official power rankings, both Lance and his craft are this. Instead of excelling in intelligence, strength, or agility, Lance has a healthy balance of all three, and so does his Lion.
• Jack of All Trades: Lance is shown to be overall-decent at many things: he can strategize, he can fight, he can pilot, he's a reasonable diplomat (if he can stop flirting for ten-seconds) and he can even lead when put on the spot. The thing is that everyone else specializes in one of those skills, leaving Lance playing second fiddle.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A mild example. Lance can be abrasive, and is a womanizing Glory Hound at times, but he'll always stand up for his friends and do the right thing.
• Handsome Lech: Although he lacks actual skills in hitting on girls, his good looks are actually enough to attract some female aliens, as shown in "Space Mall" and "The Depths". Though it might just be because they've never seen Earthlings before, as Earth has yet to encounter aliens on an official scale.
• Ladykiller in Love: In Season 6, he mentions that he used to be the one breaking hearts, but now he's hung up over Allura and Lotor's mutual attraction.
• Lame Comeback: Lance... isn't the best when it comes to verbal wit.
  Keith: The amount of information in your brain can be stored on a paper airplane.
  Lance: Oh, yeah?! Well, the amount of information you have, Keith, could be—
  Keith: Yeah?
  (Beat)
  Lance: Uhhh, it's less than what I have!
  Lance: (to Keith) Here's an idea: shut your quiznak.
  Keith: I don't think you're using that word correctly.
• The Lancer: To Keith's character, somewhat to Shiro. He especially steps up to the role in Season 3 when he becomes the Red Paladin and Keith's impulse control. In contrast, he's largely demoted in Season 4, where Keith's departure leaves Lance in Red's right-hand-man position, but Shiro, in stark contrast to Keith, largely ignores his observations and warnings — which almost gets the team killed.
• Leader Wannabe: In Season 3, "Red Paladin" as he was initially against Keith leading the team.
  • His role of The Lancer and right arm of Voltron, however, gave him more opportunities to step up to the role of a leader.
  • Season 5 showcased more of Lance's leading skills while Keith is with the Blade of Marmora and Shiro is starting to act more erratically and going as far as excluding the team in decisions involving Lotor.
• Little Bit Beastly: His Monsters & Mana character Pike sports a cat tail and cat ears, befitting his role as a stealthy thief.
• Love Confessor: He tells the mice all about his crush on Allura and how much he admires her, but knows he could probably not give much back to her in return, and also due to the fact that she openly showed to have an attraction to Lotor.
• Love Hurts: Lance spends most of Season 6 depressed as he see Allura openly showing attraction to Lotor while he thinks he has no chance with her even taking him seriously. In Season 8, Allura dies leaving Lance to mourn over her passing.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Coming from a big family, Lance has two brothers and two sisters, Marco, Luis, Rachel and Veronica (who we get to know more about in Season 7), with him being the youngest.
• Mark of the Supernatural: As Allura says her goodbyes to everyone, especially Lance, she kisses him and gives him blue Altean markings.
• Momma's Boy: When Lance brought up being homesick, he also mentions how much he misses his mom's hugs, and tears up about it.
• The Mourning After: In the finale, Lance is never really shown to recover from Allura's death. The young man we see in the final episode is a lot sadder and more introspective than the Lance we started the journey with. He still teases Keith and is friendly to adoring audiences, but a lot of the buoyancy and playfulness that defined his character is gone.
• Nature Lover: Lance is the Paladin who shows the most obvious affection for his element: when he's confessing to feeling homesick, his best memories of earth involve the beach, the rain, and splashing in puddles, and later in the series he's thrilled to discover the castle has a pool. More generally, he misses the natural beauty of Earth. On a more practical level, he shows no hesitation in exiting his lion to swim in the ocean of an unknown planet (though the pretty mermaid was definitely a factor in that decision).
• Noodle People: The slimmest of the Paladins.
• Number Two: Steps up to this role in Season 3 when he pilots the Red Lion and helps Keith lead Voltron. Lance steps back up to this role in the fifth season as well, being the second field-leader behind Shiro.
• Odd Friendship: With Coran. The two have several bonding moments in the first season, such as when Lance is feeling homesick and Coran consoles him.
• Out of Focus:
  • In Season 2, due to the developing arcs involving Shiro, Allura, and Keith, he was the one to lose screen time.
  • Again in Season 4, with Keith leaving Voltron, Lance's position of right hand man is nearly useless.
• Overshadowed by Awesome:
  • Has a very bad case of this, and come Season 2, it's started to do a number on his self-esteem. Lance is reasonably competent in most respects, but that's not much comfort when you're sharing a team with a hero, an Ace Pilot prodigy, a genius hacker and a gifted mechanic. This becomes even worse in Season 3: Lance now feels that he is overshadowed by Allura in the one place he used to feel relatively secure — Blue's pilot. He thinks she's the better paladin, and with Blue actively shutting him out in favor of Allura (arguably in order to force Lance to take over Red), he doesn't know if Blue would take him back. Note that he is not butthurt over Allura being the better Paladin or Blue taking him back; he is looking at the dilemma situationally and much more aware of his actions and decisions, a necessity to lead the team with Keith. Later on, he quietly goes to Keith and offers to resign, firmly believing that the Paladins should have the best soldiers — and that he's not one of them.
  • This also occurs in a narrative sense in Season 3: every time Lance does something noteworthy, he is quickly overshadowed by Allura doing something even more remarkable. In Episode 2, Lance arriving in Red isn't given much thought, but the novelty of Allura in Blue draws cheers and congratulations. His developing role as the second-in-command in Episode 3 quickly gives way to Allura bonding with Blue in supposedly record time. In Episode 6, Lance's new sniper rifle — and subsequent show of skill — is also quickly glossed over by Lance himself, who focuses the viewer's attention on how impressive Allura is with her new whip Bayard.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Has quite a bit of this, and not just over his interactions with girls. The first half hour of Episode 1 flaunts his calmness in the midst of danger and mind for strategy and attention to detail, with his immaturity placed on the back burner aside from quips between Keith and him. But come the second half his Idiot Hero traits are established more prominently, starting with a major blunder he makes in doing basic math. From then on it's constantly Zig-Zagged, and not at all helped by his tendency to put on a facade in order to mask his insecurities.
• Race Lift: While Isamu was somewhat dark-skinned in Golion, the original Voltron continuity had Lance be a Caucasian man. This version of him is Latino and Cuban.
• Ray Gun: His weapon of choice through his Bayard. Also a nod to his Voltron Force equivalent's pistols.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Zig-zagged; while Lance is far more expressive and relaxed than Keith (contrary to their color schemes), Lance is also more likely to stick to the team's plans in dire situations.
• The Resenter: Toward Keith in the first two seasons, but despite his initial insistence Keith would be the worst leader, he moves past this in Season 3 when Keith is chosen by the Black Lion and is clearly miserable about it and in need of someone to act as his lancer.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Allura in season 8 but it doesn't last as she commits a Heroic Sacrifices to save the universe.
• The Rival: To Keith. Although it is more prominent in the video game and comics. It is largely imagined and one-sided by Lance in the series.
• Rousing Speech:
  • To Keith in 'Changing of the Guards' and in 'Red Paladin'.
  • To Allura in 'New Defender'.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Played with. Lance catches on sarcasm, except that one time with Keith when escaping from the Garrison. It took him several moments to register.
  Lance: Can't this thing go any faster?!
  Keith: We could toss some non-essential weight.
  Lance: Oh, right! (starts searching for things to toss over) Okay, so that was an insult. I get it.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Out of the rest of the Paladins, he has the most high pitched scream.
• Skipping School:
  • He, Hunk and Pidge have probably missed a fair few classes back at the Garrison by this point.
  • What causes the Spanner in the Works below.
  • He also mentions in "The Depths" that he played hooky for two weeks once back in grade school.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Is convinced he's a much better pilot and more charismatic than he actually is, to Allura and Keith's chagrin. However, it's suggested a few times that at least part of this bravado is a front for his insecurities.
• Spanner in the Works: If he hadn't felt the urge to play hooky with Hunk and Pidge, he never would have found his Lion, the would-be Paladins would've been stranded on Earth, the Red and Yellow Lions would've fallen into the hands of the enemy, Princess Allura and Coran would've remained in stasis, and Zarkon would've attacked the planet to search for the rest of Voltron eventually. Also, if he hadn't pushed Coran away from the power core explosion at great personal cost to himself, there wouldn't have been anyone in the Castle who could get the team a new crystal from the Balmera, dooming both the team and Shay's people.
• Straight Man: Frequently towards Keith and Hunk, as Keith has No Social Skills and Hunk has a tendency to be something of a Ditzy Genius.
• The Strategist: Shows tactical prowess in battle, even if the methods are sometimes unconventional:
  • Demonstrates great team awareness and an understanding of where everyone should be in a battle in relations to his positioning.
    • Confirmed by Pidge in the comics when she chooses to take him out first for being too dangerous.
    • His reading of the others and their methodology are usually on point.
    • Predicted sending Keith to the Blade of Marmora headquarters will cause a major incident.
    • Knew Hunk would not leave the Yellow Lion in "The Depths" unless Lance manipulates the situation.
  • Planned to close the space hangar doors to trap their enemies in the base rather than risk an all out fight.
  • Created a diversionary plan when he and Keith were pinned down on the Balmera by Galran soldiers.
  • In "The Depths", he lead the Baku into a smaller space in order to trap it and make it an easier target.
  • Most of Season 3 but especially in the episode "The Hunted" as he becomes Keith's Number Two
  • "This isn't a participation game, it's war." In "Tailing a Comet," though it's a demonstration in Lance slowly becoming demoralized and failing to see how necessary he is, he had to explain to Keith why he felt it was best if he steps away from piloting and let everyone, "your best soldiers", be on the frontline instead. He is seeing the situation for what it is and conscious of his decisions, a necessity for leading the team.
    • Earlier in the episode, he shoots the control of a sliding door to take down three advancing sentries at once, including decapitating one as the door came down on it.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The Blue Lion's most notable quality is that it's exceptional at traveling through water or ice. Which finally gets it use in "The Depths" when Lance and Hunk land on a water planet.
• Twinkle Smile: Often does this if he's flirting with a girl or showing off.
• Unknown Rival: Lance considered Keith his rival at the academy. Though it takes a while before Keith seems to acknowledge him as such, considering he doesn't even know who Lance is at first.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: His relationship with Keith seems to be developing into this. While they argue a lot, they do make a good team.
• What You Are in the Dark: He reveals some insecurities when talking with who he thinks is Slav, he even compliments Keith by saying he does cool things.

Hunk

Hunk

Voiced by: Tyler Labine (English), Abraham Vega (Latin America), Toshifumi Nakabayashi (Japanese)

The pilot of the Yellow Lion and Guardian Spirit of the Land. Hunk initially seemed an unlikely candidate for a Voltron pilot, as he disdains dangerous situations and suffered from motion sickness. However, he is also a skilled mechanic who was able to process data collected by Pidge to create a "Voltron Geiger counter" that helped the group find the hidden Blue Lion. Hunk fills the primary role of Comic Relief on the team, but over the course of the first season, he becomes more willing to his role as the Yellow Paladin and becomes more heroic.

He is the pilot of the Yellow Lion, which not only has powerful digging abilities but has the strongest armor of any Lion. He forms the left leg. His Bayard transforms into a type of laser machine cannon, and his special weapon for Voltron is a shoulder cannon.

---

• Adaptational Wimp: Hunk was much bolder in prior incarnations. In this one, he seems more cautious and prudent, if not downright skeptical about going into action.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Or the cat equivalent. His Lion has the toughest armor and physical ability, so he rams, tackles and bites opponents more than anyone else.
• Beam Spam: The special ability he gives Voltron is a shoulder cannon that can fire plenty of Frickin' Laser Beams at once.
• Big Beautiful Man: He is named Hunk, after all.
• Big Fun: The most heavyset member of the team, and also frequently plays the Comic Relief.
• The Big Guy: His Bayard forms a Gatling gun, he's physically the strongest Paladin, and he pilots the toughest lion.
• Big Eater: Hunk really loves food. During the mental training, the Paladins are thinking of home or their loved ones, Hunk is thinking of spam musubi and shrimp-pineapple kabobs.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The Big to Lance's Thin and Pidge's Short.
• Catchphrase: The official handbook has his catchphrase as: "I'm a leg!"
• Chainsaw-Grip BFG: His Bayard turns into a type of laser machine gun with a chainsaw grip.
• Character Development: Over the course of the Balmera arc, Hunk realizes how many people in the universe need Voltron's help and takes a stronger attitude to being a Paladin. As the story goes on he becomes more assertive and proactive in establishing peace between the various factions.
• Comic Relief: His motion sickness, eating habits, and overall neurotic attitude are mostly played for laughs. He eventually grows out of this role (mostly) during the Balmera arc.
• Cowardly Lion: Easily the most nervous and fearful of the pilots, but when it matters most he can be counted on to stand by his comrades. This trait becomes crucial in "The Journey Within," where Hunk's familiarity with being afraid is what prevents him from succumbing to the illusions and space madness plaguing the other paladins.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: More prone to odd trains of thought and nonsequiturs than his compatriots.
  Keith: What do you think they have in those giant containers?
  Hunk: Well, I suspect that it's sporks... This is an advanced race we're talking here. Surely, they've learned that it's foolish to have forks and spoons when one tool will efficiently do the job.
• A Day in the Limelight: Despite being Out of Focus since Season 1, he actually acts as one of the main characters of the Season 6 episode, "Omega Shield". Season 7's "The Journey Within" and "Know Your Enemy" also give him a lot of focus, with the latter including flashbacks to his childhood.
• Demoted to Comic Relief: After spending Season 1 showing his Hidden Depths and going through Character Development, Hunk spends most of Season 2 on the sidelines while other characters get more focus, with him only really acting as a walking food joke. Luckily, Season 3 has him gaining more prominence as his serious traits once again get highlighted.
• Ditzy Genius: While a brilliant engineer and more cautious than his companions, Hunk's thought processes can go to some very odd places.
• The Engineer: Shares this role with Pidge, primarily serving as the mechanic and maintenance guy of the team.
• Establishing Character Moment: Hunk's intro to the show has him freaking out over how Lance is flying their ship and then throwing up in the ship's gearbox.
• Extreme Omnivore: He seems to have no trouble eating alien food.
• Fantastic Racism: Downplayed. Says some moderately insensitive things to Keith, when the latter is revealed part Galra. However, it was more lighthearted and unintentional.
• Genius Bruiser: While Pidge's expertise lies in computers, Hunk is the mechanical brains of the team.
• The Heart: Befriends people easily, and it was his friendship with Shay that inspired him to inspire the rest of the team to go out into the universe and start fighting the Galra by liberating Shay and her people.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Lance.
• Hunk: It's his name for a reason — he has many of the trope's attributes.
• Innocently Insensitive: He treats Keith like a different person upon learning of his Galra heritage, annoying him greatly.
• Little Guy, Big Buddy: Is often paired off with Pidge, as they act as the team's inventors.
• Mr Fix It: The engineer of the team, Hunk is quite the mechanical genius.
• Nice Guy: He's kind and always looks out for his teammates.
• Not What I Signed Up For: Clearly had no real intention of flying, let alone going into space despite signing up with an organization named the GALAXY Garrison.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His initial failure to save Shay from the Galra really puts him on edge until the team returns to the Balmera.
• Out of Focus: In Seasons 2-6, he's the only paladin without any kind of personal subplot or character arc.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Spends a lot of time with Pidge. The two of them are about to cry in "The Belly of the Weblum" when the team splits up.
• Race Lift: In the original Golion Tsuyoshi had a somewhat-darker skin tone, while past Voltron entries interpreted him as a Caucasian man. Hunk in this continuity is explicitly stated to be half-Samoan, half-African American.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Says this word for word when Pidge teases him about Shay. Who, by the way is just "a rock that I met and I admire very much".
• Stout Strength: Word of God is that he's physically the strongest of the five Paladins, just like how his Lion is the strongest out of all of them. If you look closely, you can see the muscles in his arms. invoked
• Supreme Chef:
  • Manages to make a lunch that had Lance and Keith drooling with ingredients that were literally alien to him.
  • In "Space Mall," he ends up in a greasy spork space fast-food joint, and turns out to be not just a world-class, but a galactic-class chef. By the climax of the episode, he's instructing the owner, and people are lining up down the block.
  • In "Day Forty-Seven," he recreates an ancient Altean dessert so well that it convinces the Altean prisoners to open up after Allura and Romelle had failed to get through to them.
  • In "The End is the Beginning" during the 'one year later' segment, it's revealed that Hunk has become head chef of the coalition's diplomatic team. With a team of chefs from across the galaxy, he blends ingredients from different planets to create dishes so delicious they influence hostile diplomatic parties to calm down and actually broker peace with each other.
• The Turret Master: In Season 7, Hunk's Bayard gains the ability to spawn multiple turrets that he uses to shoot down a Galran Space Pirate fighter.
• Took a Level in Badass: Definitely gained an iron spine between Rise of Voltron and The Black Paladin. Later, in Season 7, he takes another level as he fully comes to understand his role as the group's emotional anchor.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Yellow Lion, while he wanted to be the leader after Shiro's disappearance at the start of Season 3, he was the only pilot besides Keith that wasn't interested in piloting the Black Lion. He admits he wanted to form the head with the Yellow Lion. Part of this is because it's the most heavily armed of the lions.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: As a running gag is his constant vomiting, he gets these a lot.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Immediately delivers one to Keith when he suggests that the team should not go after Allura after she gets captured just prior the first season's end.
  • He also delivers an inadvertent one in Season 2, spelling out the reasons why Allura might continue to be wary of the Galra, including, unfortunately, Keith (though she does eventually bypass those fears).

Princess Allura

Princess Allura

Voiced by: Kimberly Brooks (English), Mariana Ortiz (Latin America), Yui Shimodaya (Japanese)

The princess of the fallen Altean solar system and the last known female Altean, who spent 10,000 years in stasis on the planet Arus. When Altea was attacked by the Galra Empire, Allura was in favor of forming Voltron and fighting the invaders, but her father chose to scatter them and had Allura placed in stasis. As such, Allura is driven to defeat the Galra Empire and drives the new Voltron Paladins hard in an effort to shape them into the force needed to save the universe from her ancient enemies. Allura's attire varies between a blue and white dress and a black and white jumpsuit with pink highlights; she is often accompanied by a group of Altean mice who were in her stasis chamber with her and thus developed a curious mental connection to her.

In battle, she pilots the Castle of Lions, a powerful battleship, though she can hold her own in a fight. She later becomes Paladin of the Blue Lion, after Keith replaces Shiro as Paladin of the Black Lion and Lance takes Keith's position as Paladin of the Red Lion. The Blue Lion's Bayard becomes something similar to an urumi when Allura wields it.

---

• The Ace: Allura is a capable commander and strategist, along with being a serious threat in combat. When she takes over the Blue Lion in Series 3, both Lance and Keith agree that she got the hang of it far more quickly than any of the human Paladins did (including Keith, an acknowledged Ace Pilot) and that she might be able to unlock powers in Blue that Lance cannot.
• Action Girl: Allura is a very capable fighter, taking out Galra enemies with her enhanced strength and fighting finesse. Then she becomes the Blue Paladin.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Allura has undergone a Race Lift where she is now dark-skinned instead of light-skinned. She was a blonde in the original series whereas now her hair is white. Her pink dress has also changed to a blue dress, and it seems that her mother wears it in this series.
  • Invoked further in Season 6 with the introduction of Romelle (who was her cousin and, look-wise, virtually Allura's doppelgänger in the original series). While Romelle kept the same blonde hair, light skin, and pink color scheme of the original series, all of that was adapted away for Allura.
• Adaptational Badass: She's far more in command than her previous incarnation. She can be crass, get physical if Lance goes too far being a Casanova Wannabe, and is far more willing to get her hands dirty. And this is all before becoming a lion pilot in Season 3.
• Adaptation Species Change: In the original, Allura was Arusian, here she's Altean.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Bonding with the Blue Lion requires a certain amount of groveling on her part. It only co-operates when she pleads for it to help her. Allura remains more dignified than most examples of this trope though.
• Aliens of London: She's an alien who has never been to planet Earth or even met humans before encountering team Voltron but speaks in (slightly stilted) British RP. This might be due to the series being an American production where the RP accent is stereotyped to be foreign and regal.
• Ambadassador: Being a princess, she is of course trained in diplomacy, and takes the lead in diplomatic meetings with planets when trying to convince them to join the coalition.
• Ambiguously Brown: Dark-skinned, but whereas there are Alteans who have overtly African or other such features, she and her family are ambiguous-looking and it's unclear which or whether they have any corresponding Earth ethnicity to speak of. The creators state that her ethnicity was made deliberately ambiguous to allow for greater relatability.
• Ambiguous Situation: In the end, a lot about her Heroic Sacrifice is incredibly vague, with little, if anything told to us about what exactly she did and what it did to her. It's not even clear if she's actually dead. All we know for sure is that whatever happened, she is unable to return to Team Voltron, and even that's only inferred by the remaining characters' dialogue and the implications of the Time Skip. Word of God states this was intentional so as to leave her final fate and possible return open.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: What her Heroic Sacrifice to undo the damage done by Honerva basically boils down to...maybe. It's not exactly clear what happens to her in the end, since what the sacrifice entailed and ultimately did to her isn't actually shown.
• Big Damn Kiss: With Lotor in Season 6, and with Lance in Season 8.
• Big Good: She’s not the field leader of the Paladins, but her role as the team’s Heart and political face leads to her becoming the overall leader of the resistance against the Galra and the person everyone on the side of good looks to for inspiration.
• Black-and-White Morality: At first, she has a very strong "Altea = good, Galra = bad" mindset. Which is fair enough given how the Galra are responsible for her entire people and planet being gone. This is challenged as the series goes on, notably, when the team meets a number of non-evil Galrans, Keith is revealed to be part-Galra, and she encounters the alternate universe Altean Empire.
• The Captain: Instead of taking over the Blue Lion as in the original, Allura takes charge of the The Battlestar, known as the Castle of Lions. Due to Shiro's disappearance, she takes up the mantle of Blue Lion pilot while Lance becomes the Red Lion pilot and Keith the Black Lion Pilot. Her Bayard transforms into an energy-based version of a flexible sword known as an urumi.
• Child Hater: A downplayed example, but Allura has trouble handling Coran when he de-ages. Word of God confirms that she uncomfortable around children.
• Cool Big Sis: Whilst they have little one-on-one time together, she and Pidge get on, and she encourages Pidge to talk to her because they are the only girls on the Team.
• Cool Crown: Whether in her princess dress or her space suits, she wears a gold tiara.
• Daddy's Girl: She was very close with her father, Alfor, and is still reeling from his death. A large source of angst for her is insecurity over whether she can live up to his legacy.
• Damsel in Distress: Very rarely; more often than not she can handle herself. After infiltrating a Galra ship with Shiro, she sacrifices herself to let Shiro get away (or more accurately, forcing him to leave without her), Galra forces take her prisoner and deliver her to Zarkon. The first season finale revolves around saving her.
• Death by Adaptation: In the original series she survived, here she sacrifices herself.
• Deus ex Machina: She is a major source of these in the series.
  • In the season 2 finale, Allura and Haggar are fighting and Allura is struggling at first but she manages to defeat Haggar by absorbing her Quintessence and firing blasts at her. It is never explained how Allura does this and she herself does not know.
  • In the Season 4 finale, Voltron looks like it's doomed to be crushed by the gravitational field of the planet they're trapped on... then Allura manages to tap into Voltron's energy with her Altean magic, giving the team enough power to fly out.
• Don't Think, Feel: At first, Allura has trouble piloting the Blue Lion, as she tries to force her way through first kindness and then force. She eventually realizes that she can't do everything alone and asks the lion for help. The lion responds in kind, allowing her to pilot the Blue Lion. She compares it to how Lance instinctively figured out how to use it back in the first season.
• The Emperor: In the alternate universe, it was Empress Allura who destroyed the Galra and forged the Altean Empire.
• Energy Weapons: When wielded by her, the Blue Bayard transforms into an energy whip that can behave like Razor Floss.
• Establishing Character Moment: Seconds after Allura wakes up from a 10,000-year-long cryosleep, she's immediately putting a smooth-talking Lance into submission and demanding to know who he is.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Close-ups◊ show that her pupils are purple.
• Facial Markings: Little pink marks under her eyes.
• Fantastic Racism: She has difficulty trusting the Blade of Marmora due to this, even after the likes of Ulaz proving his sincerity by sacrificing himself for Voltron. She also becomes cold toward Keith when she learns that he is part-Galra. However, it is Justified by the fact that the Galra killed all of her people. Growing over this to work with the Blade of Marmora and admit to Keith that he's Family of Choice, regardless of his blood, is part of her Character Development, and she apologizes to Keith specifically for any hurt her attitude caused.
• Foreshadowing: Allura offers her life to the White Lion to obtain the secrets of Altean Alchemy. In the final episode she actually pays that price in order to use alchemy to repair the multiverse.
• For Want Of A Nail: She found out that if Alfor hadn't sent her away or put her in sleep, she would have become Empress, saved Altea... and wiped out the Galra while brainwashing the entire galaxy. Allura and Keith are disturbed when they learn the last part.
• From a Certain Point of View: Allura said the previous Black Paladin was "lost," not that he was dead.
• Galactic Conqueror: Not Allura as we know her, but the version of her from the alternate universe where "Empress Allura" defeated the Galra after the death of her father King Alfor, and then forged the Altean Empire, which, while not as overtly militaristic or oppressive as the Galra, still employs Brainwashing for the Greater Good and values order and stability over all else.
• Generation Xerox: She's a carbon copy of her mother Queen Melenor, who was revealed in the Season 3 finale. The only noticeable difference is that Allura's mother has longer hair.
• The Ghost: Her alternate universe counterpart, Empress Allura is never seen in any form, despite the bad guys of the week being soldiers of the empire she founded. Of course, given that that happened 10,000 years ago in their history, it's possible Empress Allura is, well, dead, but General Hira recognizes Paladin!Allura pretty quickly and seems to accept the possibility she might be the Empress relatively quickly, suggesting the fate of the Empress to be somewhat ambiguous.
• Girly Bruiser: She's graceful, feminine, loves sparkly things and small animals, and is also a talented fighter with a devastating right hook.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Allura demonstrates a significant number of stereotypical feminine qualities (especially compared to Pidge), such as wearing pink and baby blue, being a graceful Lady of War, and has a love of animals and sparkly things. However, she's also a very competent fighter and is later able to hold her own as a Paladin of Voltron, and had a hard time handling Coran when he de-ages in one episode because she isn't particularly fond of children.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: She wears a gold tiara, and her princess dress has gold trimmings.
• Healing Hands: Is able to begin healing the Balmera simply by touching it. In Season 6, she heals Lance after he takes a hit for her, and she transfers Shiro's spirit back into his body, permanently turning his hair white.
• Heartbroken Badass: After finding out Lotor had used Alteans to harvest quintessence from them, she angrily throws him to the floor and is the first to fire at him when he tries to make peace with the group. She later blames herself for falling so easily into his charms and hates it when Lotor brings up that they were both mutually attracted to each other.
• The Heart: In "A New Defender", Lance calls her the heart of Voltron. She is the feminine emotional support and moral center of the team.
• The Hero: Word of God describes her as this in the final season.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Of the non-fatal variety. She also breaks King Alfor's ... AI matrix thing to stop the castle from hurtling into the sun. It's clearly emotionally traumatic. At the Season 1 penultimate episode, Allura stays behind to hold back Galra forces and tosses Shiro into an escape pod.
  • In the finale she succumbs to the fatal version, sacrificing her life to repair the multi-dimensional damage wrought by Honerva.
• Hot-Blooded:
  • Not as much as Keith, but Allura is also prone to acting on emotion, like the time she insisted the team dive into another reality for the chance of finding surviving Alteans (granted, she didn't know it was another reality, but it was dangerous all the same).
  • This is played up even more after it's revealed that Lotor used Alteans to harvest them for quintessence, right after the two shared a kiss, causing Allura to go into a rage and was the first to attack him when he tried to make amends.
• How Do I Shot Web?: After becoming the Blue Lion's pilot, she has a hell of a time getting it to work with her, trying polite asking, stern commands, and even flirting before figuring it out.
• Human Popsicle: She, Coran, and the Mice were asleep for 10,000 years this way.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness:
  • Subverted in the alternate reality. Allura is disturbed to find out that Empress Allura became as terrible a tyrant as Zarkon when saving Altea.
  • Played straight when Lotor's ghost convinces her to release the entity.
• Informed Ability: Once she is made a Paladin, the others constantly praise Allura for her "natural" piloting ability, and Lance himself — the very pilot she took over from — claims that she mastered her Lion far faster than any of the human Paladins did, to the point that he offers to resign so that she can keep Blue. Yet from the audience's perspective, Allura takes a long time to get Blue to cooperate with her: by "The Hunted," she's still getting to grips with Blue, and that's been with Lance trying to help her out for some time. Unlike Lance, Allura knew exactly what Blue was and what she could do (and presumably knew what kind of Paladin she looked for, which Lance still doesn't know) and still had to come to terms with how to fly her. Allura is an excellent pilot, but the show hasn't demonstrated her to be a natural — she had to work to get that good.
• Lady of War: A feminine, elegant Altean princess who is also a very competent warrior, wielding the Blue Bayard as an urumi with great grace. She also pilots her Lion with more composure and poise than her fellow Paladins once she understands how to use it.
• Last of Her Kind: The last female Altean, aside from Haggar. Although it's later revealed that there are thousands of other Alteans on a hidden colony, descended from ones saved by Lotor.
• The Lost Lenore: She sacrifices herself in the series finale and Lance never seems to fully recover from it.
• Love Hurts: She is heartbroken when she realizes Lotor's true colors.
• Missing Mom: Implied. She tells Keith that the Galra Empire "took [her] family from [her]", hinting that her mother was killed in the destruction of Altea.
• Mission Control: Often serves as this for the team from the castle, though she's not above jumping into the fray when necessary.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • She has a downplayed moment when Keith signs up for what is essentially a suicide mission, having realized that her cold treatment of him is entirely unjustified and she might never get to make up for it. Before he leaves, she seeks him out, apologizes, and begs him to come back.
  • This especially so during Season 6 when Romelle reveals that Lotor has essentially enslaved the surviving Alteans and used them to harvest quintessence, Allura severs all ties with him, now hating the fact that the two of them shared a mutual attraction. When he forms Sincline to fight Voltron and teleports in and out of space using the quintessence rift, she realizes the reason he's able to do all of this is because of her.
• Mystical Waif: While warmer and more proactive than the traditional example, she has several elements of this trope. She's a kind-hearted, physically young princess (who is over 10,000 years old, although she doesn't have the associated life experience due to being in cryo) with Mystical White Hair, the last female of an enlightened race with impressive technology. She introduces the heroes to the larger scope of the universe as well as sets them on their quest to find Voltron and defeat Zarkon.
• Mystical White Hair: Princess Allura has this rather than blonde hair, emphasizing how otherworldly she is.
• Naginatas Are Feminine: Her Bayard weapon takes the form of a spear in season 8, and fittingly she has the most ladylike fighting style.
• Never Say "Die": Notably, the finale goes out of its way to avoid using the words "dead" or "death" in regards to her final fate, only ever referring to it as a "sacrifice". Considering Word of God has stated that her final fate is meant to be open-ended, this was likely done to reinforce that.
• Not So Above It All: She actually wanted to go shopping for something "sparkly" in "Space Mall".
• Official Couple: Briefly with Lotor in season 6 and then briefly with Lance in season 8. But any romances involving with Allura are impossible now that she is dead.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Unlike Coran, who speaks in his voice actor's natural New Zealand accent, Allura speaks in Received Pronunciation. Although it lapses into an American accent at points and tends to sound very forced. Kimberly Brooks has stated that she has difficulty with long speeches.
• Pimped-Out Dress: She's wearing a very fancy dress when she awakens from cryosleep. She later wears it for ceremonial purposes, though she finds it got musty from misuse.
• Playing Against Type: In-universe, when Coran puts on a show for the Paladins, the normally plucky and upbeat Allura has to play the loner and brooding Keith, as Keith left Voltron and it would be confusing for the audience to get this news during the show.
• Plucky Girl: She was put into stasis as her planet was being destroyed, so when she's awoken the loss is still fresh. She powers through it like a champ, though, and resolves to work on destroying the Galra Empire right away.
• Pointy Ears: Has a set of elf-like ears.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: She was the princess of Altea, and is more than capable of handling herself in a fight. Among other things, she is strong enough to throw Shiro across a pod-bay with one arm. As a paladin, she's at least as tough as any of the guys who serve her.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Definitely a Lady of War, and puts her hair into a neat bun when it's time for action.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: She is a princess, and her official color is shown as pink, even her Paladin armor, also making her a Pink Heroine, though she mentions is related to Altean's traditions where Pink is a color for mourning.
• Princesses Rule: Despite her parents' death, Allura still refers to herself as princess instead of Queen or Empress. Justified since a Queen needs people and land to rule where a Princess just needs to be royalty. The alternative Allura from the universe visited in Hole in the Sky seems to have taken the title Empress.
• Psychic Link: With the mice family who were sealed with her in her cryo-pod for 10,000 years. She can communicate with them from a distance, allowing her to guide them into doing tasks to help her and the team.
• Race Lift: Allura is dark-skinned in this incarnation but was light-skinned and blonde in the original series.
• Really 700 Years Old: Being a Human Popsicle for 10,000 years has her chronologically much older than all the Paladins, although biologically and mentally she is a teenager about Keith's age.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Lance in season 8 but it only lasts for a few months before Allura commits a Heroic Sacrifice to save the universe.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: She was the princess of Altea, and when she's not piloting the castle ship she's often going to ground herself to help out. She later becomes the Blue Paladin.
• Rubber-Forehead Alien: The only things alien about her physical appearance are her Pointy Ears, Facial Markings and white hair.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She's graceful and feminine befitting her status, but has a backbone of steel.
• Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: Redesigned from her original version as a blonde and pale human woman into a member of the alien Altean race, with exotic-looking white hair and dark skin to underscore her alien nature.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man:
  • She become romantically involved with Lotor because of his goals to usher in peace with the Galra Empire, only for it to break when she realizes the more underhanded means he's willing to achieve that peace.
  • At first, she only tolerated Lance's attempts to hit on her. After she becomes a Paladin, he stops entirely and begins treating her as a friend instead of a potential love interest. Ironically enough, it endeared him to her when he shows his more caring side, loyalty to his friends and admiration for her as a person. It helps that his family tells her that original bravado he used was an act to appear more brave than he actually is.
• Space Elves: Of the Enlightened Mystic Race variety.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Season 3 reveals that she looks almost identical to her mother Queen Melenor.
• Super-Strength: She's strong enough to pull reinforced steel doors together with her bare hands. This isn't used much after the episode in which it was revealed until Season 3 when she gets into a fight with Zethrid.
• Terrible Artist: According to Allura herself, she is bad at drawing.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl to Pidge's tomboy.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Briefly, when Keith is revealed to be part Galra in the second half of Season 2. She comes back around by the end of the season, however.
• Tough Leader Façade: She says that she needs to portray strength so the others don't worry about their mission.
• True Blue Femininity: The other most prominent color in her design is a light baby blue. It's even more visible in her princess dress than the pink highlights.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: A flashback shows her mother as looking almost identical to her.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Magically speaking, she has an incredible capacity to channel quintessence in the form of light magic as a counter to Haggar's Dark Magic, easily overpowering the witch in a one-on-one encounter. However, her mastery of it is very limited and she rarely makes use of this ability.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Alteans possess the ability to alter their appearance and size. Allura says this is why they make such good diplomats.
• Waif-Fu: While obviously physically fit, she doesn't seem like that kind of person who can easily break down steel doors or chuck people across the room with one hand.
• Water Is Womanly: Allura is a kind, graceful princess who becomes the Paladin of the Blue Lion, the Guardian Spirit of Water. She's also much more feminine than the tomboyish Pidge, the only other girl in Team Voltron.
• Whip Sword: Allura can use the Blue Bayard this way, turning it into a blade which can extend as a sharpened whip.
• Wrench Wench: Allura appears to be a capable starship mechanic, given she manages to get the Castle of Lions spaceworthy again, with Coran's help (when he's not overseeing the Paladins' training).
• Xenafication: While the original Allura wasn't helpless, she wasn't exactly strong enough to ram a Galra soldier with enough force to embed his helmet into a steel wall, or throw a grown man wearing armor several feet across a room with one hand. She also turns out to be unexpectedly unaffected by Haggar's spells and even briefly becomes super-empowered by them during the Season 2 finale, something that both characters are surprised by. To say the least.

Coran

Coran

Voiced by: Rhys Darby (English), Moisés Iván Mora (Latin America), Kosuke Echigoya (Japanese)

Allura's royal advisor, in charge of the Castle Control and the last known surviving male Altean. Coran is boisterous and confident, but his efforts to appear intelligent are sometimes undermined by his occasional buffoonery. That being said Coran is a constant pillar of support for both Allura and the Defenders of the Universe, assisting them with training, operating the castle and providing knowledge on various galactic matters.

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• Ace Pilot: He's no slouch in a pod, as seen in "Fall of the Castle of Lions."
• Adaptational Comic Relief: Unlike the stoic Coran of old, this Coran is the source of comedy.
• Aliens of London: Speaks with Rhys Darby's natural New Zealand accent, notably the only Altean who does so.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In "Crystal Venom," he doesn't believe in ghosts, despite living in a castle that doubles as a spaceship built by supernatural technology while explaining this to a teenager from another planet. He even admits the description makes it sound haunted.
• Big Damn Heroes: Has one in the season finale, providing cover fire, in the process letting us all know how satisfying and therapeutic the moment must have been.
  Coran: "CORAN ATTACK! I've waited 10,000 years for this!"
• Birds of a Feather: With Lance — in fact, "Across the Universe" reveals that a younger Coran was very much like Lance. Both are characters defined by their sense of humor... and their regular Butt-Monkey status. Both frequently vex the people around them, and both occupy a Jack of All Trades role compared to their fellows. That said, both also come through when it's really needed, and both are basically team players. They're also both extremely homesick, and trying to cover it up as best they can.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: He's stricken by a disease that affects Alteans later in life during one episode, causing him to secrete slippery goo all over his body.
• Butt-Monkey: From a rather undignified de-aging incident to a nasty case of the slipperies, Season 2 was not particularly kind to Coran's dignity. Even discounting that, he's a bit of a buffoon, and both the plot and the Paladins like to take digs at him.
• Camp Cook: Is shown cooking a meal for the Paladins since they found the food provided by the Castle Ship less pleasant.
• Comic Relief: Keeps this trait even after Hunk has mostly outgrown it.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Presumably, his cooking is more palatable to Alteans. Although given that he admits it's disgusting, "That's how you know it's healthy," it can be guessed that he just has a love for making "healthy" food.
• A Day in the Limelight: "The Voltron Show!" is a breather episode, where Coran gets a parasite on his brain that makes him an entertainment Insufferable Genius who makes shows for the Paladins to participate.
• Emo Teen: "Across the Universe" reveals that he used to be one.
• Expy: Word of God states that he's heavily based off of Varrick. Not surprising, given he's an eccentric tech genius who is more dangerous than he seems. Plus he's got the 'stache to boot. invoked
• Facial Markings: Light blue marks under his eyes.
• Fantastic Racist: Often subtly insults the human members of the team.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Not really evident until "Space Mall", thanks to those 10,000 years in cryosleep.
• Formerly Fit: He possessed a far more impressive musculature when he was a younger Altean. Not that his present-day body isn't impressive, considering he's the Altean Equivalent of middle age, and as seen during scenes like the food fight, his reflexes aren't exactly rusty.
• Honorary Uncle: In addition to being an Old Retainer, he's something like this to Allura; when she's taken prisoner near the end of the first season, he's devastated, noting to Shiro that he can't lose her along with everything else he's already lost. Allura herself says she thinks of Coran like a second father.
• Human Popsicle: He, Allura, and the Mice were asleep for 10,000 years this way.
• Last of His Kind: The last male Altean. Subverted with the reveal that there are Alteans who survived the destruction of Altea.
• Muggle: He can't use or sense Altean alchemy.
• Odd Friendship: Seems to have developed one with Lance over the course of the first season.
• Old Retainer: Acts as this to Allura. Despite ostensibly being her adviser, he also handles chores, cooking, and castle maintenance.
• Older Than They Look: Alteans are a long-lived species, but in spite of how spry Coran is, Season 2 reveals that he's at least in the autumn years by the standards of his race.
• Overly Long Name: Coran's full name is: Coran Hiernoymus Wibelton Smythe.
• Pardon My Klingon: He's far more likely to sprinkle Altean slang into his speech than Allura is.
• Parental Substitute: Allura thinks of him as a second father.
• Pointy Ears: Has a set of elf-like ears.
• Porn Stache: Complementing his mullet and sideburns. "Across the Universe" shows he's had it since he was a kid.
• Really 700 Years Old: Mentions visiting Balmera with his grandfather while the latter was building the Castle of Lions. Considering the Castle is around 10,600 years old, that makes him at least 600 years old before being made an Altean Popsicle. He doesn't look like it.
• Rubber-Forehead Alien: The only things alien about his physical appearance are his Pointy Ears and Facial Markings.
• Sad Clown: He's not as cheerful as he always tries to look. Like Allura, he's lost everything he used to love, but he doesn't like to bring other people down. The only time we see the facade crack is when faced with yet another tragedy (such as losing Allura), or when someone else confides in him.
• Space Elves: Of the Enlightened Mystic Race variety.
• Team Mom: Coran handles the cooking and cleaning for team Voltron. He also gives them advice and provides them with healthcare. He is a political adviser but his role more resembles that of a butler. Being an Old Retainer, Honorary Uncle, and Parental Substitute towards the orphaned Allura adds to his "motherly" status despite being male.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Altean Royal family, whom he has served for centuries and later specifically Allura due to them being the only known Alteans left.
  • That loyalty was eventually paid back in spades. A flashback shows that on the eve of the final battle when Altea was destroyed, he was distraught at the thought of being sent away from King Alfor's side, only acquiescing when Alfor tells him that Coran is the only one he trusts to watch over Allura, the Castle, and the Lions.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: While he doesn't seem to show the ability to do this in previous seasons, in Season 7, when dressed as one of Zethrid and Ezor's pirates, he has to shift his skin tone and body to look a little more Galran to blend in.

"The Prisoner"

Kuron

Voiced by: Josh Keaton (English), Ricardo Tejedo (Latin America), Kenji Sugimura (Japanese)

A clone of Shiro created by Witch Haggar as part of Operation: KURON. He is released from his prison in the Season 3 episode The Journey and "reunites" with Team Voltron. He thinks he is the original Shiro and does not show any major personality changes, but is initially unable to pilot the Black Lion. Later the Lion gives him permission to fly it.

In Season 6, Haggar's plan is fully revealed and she takes control of his body entirely. Eventually, he is defeated and the original Shiro's spirit is transferred into his body.

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• An Arm and a Leg: Towards the end of his fight with Keith, the younger paladin manages to summon the black Bayard and using both of his weapons, cuts Shiro's Galra arm off.
• Animal Eye Spy: As part of Operation: Kuron, Haggar has been spying on Team Voltron through his eyes, just as she did with Narti.
• Arm Cannon: During his fight with Keith, he reveals that his hand can shoot out a laser with the power of an ion cannon.
• Artificial Limbs: Just like original Shiro.
• Badass in Distress: During his return in Season 3's episode "The Journey", he has to escape Galra captivity again and is forced to fight for his survival on an ice planet that he crashed into.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In Season 6, Haggar takes control of his mind and sets him against team Voltron.
• Came Back Wrong: A non-fatal variation. Shiro goes missing at the end of Season 2, but there's something...off about him upon his return midway through Season 3. Most notably, he can't pilot the Black Lion, and he complains of a strange headache. As of Season 4, Black lets him pilot again after Keith joined the Blade of Marmora. It's later revealed that this Shiro was a clone (one of many) and the real Shiro's physical form was destroyed.
• Death of Personality: Either when Haggar fully brainwashes him, or when Shiro's original consciousness gets brought back. Word of God has implied that Shiro has actually absorbed the clone's personality and fused with it, however. invoked
• Dying as Yourself: Haggar was controlling him through the arm. When Keith cuts off Kuron's arm, Keith also severs Haggar's control over him. Kuron barely manages to let out a horrified "Keith..." when he comes back to himself and realizes what Haggar forced him to do, then passes out and never wakes up again.
• Expendable Clone: Shiro's original consciousness is uploaded into his body, and this is treated as a triumphant return. This despite this Shiro being the one we saw for the past four seasons. Also, all of the other Shiro Clones are killed.
• Face–Heel Turn: For all effects, he has Shiro's personality and actively worked with the Paladins and Voltron, but he starts acting unpredictably and jerk-ish in Season 5, by the time Haggar takes over, he goes into full evil mode and even taunts Keith using every personal detail about his life Shiro knows.
• Genetic Memory: Has all the memories of the original Shiro up to the point of his death.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When Haggar takes control of him, his pupils turn a bright purple and glow.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe example, Kuron's vlog reveals that the reason he was taking more and more extreme measures was because he felt responsible for inadvertently getting his team involved in a war, and was desperate to win the war so he could take the paladins home safely.
• He's Back!: He can pilot Black again as of Season 4. He then leads the Voltron Coalition to capture a third of the universe from the Galra by the end. Subverted when it turns out that the Shiro who came back is actually a clone; the real Shiro's body was destroyed at the end of Season 2 during the fight with Zarkon, but the Black Lion had kept his spirit preserved in the astral plane.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Keith tells this to him when they fight. It doesn't pay off until the end.
• Kick the Dog: While fighting Keith while brainwashed he gives a cruel speech to Keith using the knowledge of Keith's past to break him down emotionally.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Haggar exploits the fact that the real Shiro was this to Keith, using the brainwashed Kuron to lure him away and separate him from the rest of his team.
• Manchurian Agent: The point of his creation, as part of Operation Kuron. He has no idea he isn't the real Shiro until Haggar takes control of him.
• Meaningful Name: The operation he was in was called "Operation Kuron", and Kuron is Japanese for "clone". There is also the fact that Shiro is Japanese for white, while Kuro means black. It also helps that Shiro is the pilot of the Black Lion.
• The Mole: In Season 5, Haggar is spying on Team Voltron through his eyes, with Shiro himself seemingly being none the wiser. Season 6 reveals that this Shiro is, in fact, a clone who was made for this exact purpose.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He snaps out of Haggar's brainwashing long enough to realize that he's beating Keith to death. This causes him to hold his fire just as they're both knocked out, and Kuron is defeated.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Shiro snaps at Lance in "Postmortem". While Shiro was always prone to sniping at the team it was only ever to stop them from bickering with each other and to focus on the task at hand. This serves as an early hint that this isn't the same Shiro we've come to know. Kuron himself notices that he is acting in ways Shiro never did, and becomes distressed over the feeling that there is something wrong with him.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: At the end of Season 5, Kuron starts suspecting that he may not be the real Shiro. He apologizes to Lance for snapping at him and seeks his help to try and figure out what's going on. It seems like the two of them are on the right track to uncovering Haggar's plan, but soon after she brainwashes Kuron and forces him to turn on the team.
• Split-Personality Merge: According to the showrunners, Shiro and Kuron merged together when the former's soul was placed in Kuron's body.
• Tomato in the Mirror: By the end of his life, he finds out he wasn't the real Shiro and instead being a pawn for Haggar. Kuron doesn't react well when he wakes up and realizes he nearly killed Keith while brainwashed.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 5, he's notably short-tempered, especially with Lance, and at one point disappears to take Lotor to the Kral Zera after everyone except him agreed it was a bad idea.
• Tricked into Escaping: The Galra wanted Shiro to escape so he could be the mole.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that the Shiro from Seasons 3-6 is a clone.
• Younger Than They Look: As a clone of Shiro, he cannot be more than about one year old, when Shiro was captured by the Galra but looks the same age as Shiro, who is in his twenties.

Romelle

Romelle

Voiced by: Mimi Davila (English), Xóchitl Ugarte (Latin America)

An Altean from a hidden colony created by Lotor to hide the survivors of Altea's destruction from Zarkon's wrath.

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• Action Survivor: She handles herself pretty well throughout "A Little Adventure" despite having no background in combat or space exploration like the rest of the team.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the original Voltron, Romelle was Allura's cousin, as well as the princess of Planet Pollux (a world settled by the same aliens as those from Allura's world of Arus, but had diverged to a totally distinct warrior culture a long time before). In Legendary Defender, she's an Altean from a colony created by Lotor in order to preserve the last of Altean culture, or so everyone else thinks.
• Aliens of London: Like several other Altean characters, she speaks in a British accent.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: She seems to have a very short attention span, as Lance learns the hard way when she flies with him in the Red Lion.
• Audience Surrogate: Romelle wonders how the Paladins are "simply moving on" after all of the events that went down in the last few episodes of Season 6, and occasionally calls out the things that the group is doing.
• Bearer of Bad News: She tells Keith and Krolia what Lotor has been doing to Alteans and later has to break the news to Allura to convince her that Lotor is up to no good.
• Birds of a Feather: Hunk is delighted to meet someone who shares his sense of caution and questioning the weird adventures.
• Broken Bird: Losing your parents, friends, and younger brother to the person you thought was saving your culture will do that to you.
• Cassandra Truth: Averted. Romelle was smart enough to realize that none of the other Alteans would believe her claims, especially since Lotor destroyed any evidence. Sure enough, when the Alteans learn that Lotor died, they brand her as a traitor despite the odd circumstances and Romelle trying to explain later on after the Alteans attack the Earth.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Her parents were taken by Lotor to be harvested for their Quintessence.
• Facial Markings: Has two light blue markings a little under her eyes showing her Altean heritage.
• Gamer Chick: First chance she gets she attempts to learn everything about how to pilot the Lions and quickly starts playing Pidge's video game with glee.
• Girlish Pigtails: She wears her hair in two low twin-tails.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Romelle just wants to protect those she cares for, and after losing her brother, she was given another chance through Keith and Krolia to warn the paladins of Lotor's treachery.
• Memento MacGuffin: Bandor's communicator. The one time it does work is when he returns home, haggard and broken to tell his sister that she was right in suspecting Lotor.
• Mr. Exposition: She tells the group about her colony, Lotor's true intentions and how he's been obtaining quintessence this whole time.
• Odd Friendship: In Season 7 with Hunk, who points out that she seems to be speaking whatever he's been thinking about to the group.
• Only Sane Man: Seemingly the only one on the Altean colony who doesn't worship the ground Lotor walks on and is fully aware of what he's done to her people.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: She begs for Bandor to not let Lotor take him away from her, but Bandor reassures his sister that all will be well. The next time she sees him, he dies in her arms.
• Pointy Ears: Being an Altean, it's only natural that she would have them. Her first appearance makes a point of showing how her ears twitch when she hears a sudden noise.
• Properly Paranoid: She thinks it's odd that Lotor wouldn't allow communications to the "chosen" few Alteans on the other colony since they were so close by, even though her brother tells her that it was to keep them hidden. It turns out she was right to be worried, as a dying Bandor admits.
• Spanner in the Works: If Keith hadn't found her, then the Paladins would have never learned that Lotor was experimenting on Alteans.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: She and Allura were (very distant) cousins in the original show, who could pass as sisters, but here they have no relation to each other, and clearly do not even share an ethnicity.
• Walking Spoiler: Her name alone spoils the fact that there are other Alteans.
• We Need to Get Proof: It's revealed that she didn't tell anyone about finding a dying Bandor because Lotor made sure to burn his body and dispose of the ship. No one would believe her for saying that Lotor must have tortured her brother to death. She switches plans when Keith and his mother arrive, and they do find the evidence. The problem is that Lotor is with Team Voltron and they decide to stop him first rather than notify the Alteans. By the time the Blade of Marmora goes to the colony, they find the incriminating laboratory destroyed.

Pets and Companions

The Mice

Chuchule, Platt, Chulatt, and Plachu

Four Altean mice that were frozen alongside Allura for 10,000 years. From left to right there's Chuchule, Platt, Chulatt, and Plachu.

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• Bizarre Alien Biology: They only look like mice from Earth. When stuck in a recursive time loop, they devolve into squirrels, hippos, snails, a four-headed chimera, giant spores, and a flock of irritable birds.
• The Confidant: When Allura feels she can't speak to the others, the mice are usually her go-to confidants. They also serve as this to Lance in Season 6, when he tells them about his feelings for Allura and his insecurities about how he doesn't feel he has anything to offer her, especially when comparing himself to Lotor.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: They can only make the typical sounds mice make, but Allura can understand them just fine.
• Nice Mice: They're cute little alien mice.
• Non-Human Sidekick: They are almost never seen without Allura.
• Out of Focus: Often do little but show up in the background.
• Psychic Link: With Allura, developed by sharing her sleep pod for 10,000 years.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: A group of pastel-colored tiny animals who all resemble mice.
• The Stool Pigeon: The mice gladly tell Allura whatever secrets they have of the paladins without much prodding. Such as Season 1 where they told her everyone's secrets, which was how Allura learned Pidge was a girl, and in Season 6 telling Allura that Lance confessed to having a crush on her.

Rover

Rover

A Galra drone Pidge reprogrammed for friendly use.

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• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Used to be a loyal drone working for the Galra Empire, until reprogrammed by Pidge.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Willingly deactivates itself to ensure Haxus falls.

Kaltenecker

Kaltenecker

A cow Lance and Pidge got in a deal from an earth vendor at the Space Mall.

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• Aliens Steal Cattle: The earth vendor seemingly abducted it from Earth to sell it.
• Animal Gender-Bender: Lance refers to "him" as male despite the fact that "he" clearly has udders. Season 4 has him correct this mistake to Allura and Coran, correctly pointing out that Kaltenecker is actually female.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Since the alien told Lance and Pidge they get a free Kaltenecker, it's likely to be what aliens refer to Earth cows rather than a name.
• Out of Focus: Being a mundane Earth cow with no real role in the plot, she quickly disappears after her introduction in Season 2 and doesn't show up again until Season 4. She then has brief cameos in Seasons 6 and 7, which serve no real purpose except to show that the writers haven't forgotten about her.
• Tuckerization: Credits reveal Kaltenecker is the surname of the production team's line producer.

Kosmo

Kosmo

A cosmic wolf that Keith adopts in Season 6.

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• Canine Companion: Keith bonds with the creature over two years, and even attempts to play fetch with it, with little success. It also helps the other paladins when nearby.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Immediately pounces on and growls at Macidus.
• Hates Being Alone: As Allura finds out when she's paired with the wolf. She yells at him to stop gnawing on the parts of her ship and angrily tells Keith to make him stop. He tries to tell her that he's just lonely and says to just let him in the cockpit with her, but she adamantly refuses.
• Heroic Dog: Well, heroic wolf.
• I Got Bigger: In the series finale, he's grown at least three times his original height and size that Keith could easily ride him if he wanted to.
• Mundane Utility: Hunk used his teleporting ability to carry food between the lions during the trip to Earth. He has also used the ability to move passengers around the lions without having to land.
• Named After Someone Famous: His name alludes to Cosmo the Space Dog.
• Stealth Pun: A lone wolf tamed by a paladin described as a lone wolf.
• Teleportation: Apparently a natural ability of the species. Kosmo can even teleport those close to it in a fight.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After getting injured by the superweapon, Kosmo doesn't make another appearance until briefly during the final episode.

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