YMMV / Voltron: Legendary Defender

Spoilers up to the point of the last two seasons will be left unmarked. If you are new to the series, please exercise caution.

---

YMMV tropes for the Voltron: Legendary Defender series

YMMV Tropes with Their Own Pages

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Fanon
• Hilarious in Hindsight.
• Ho Yay
• Memetic Mutation
• They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character
• They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot

---

A - C

• Abandon Shipping:
  • The age discourse didn't stop everyone, but it did put a large dent into people shipping Shiro with the other Paladins after it was revealed Shiro was in his mid-twenties and the rest of the cast were somewhere in their teens. Subsequently a massive abandonment of the Shiro/Allura ship occurred after Wondercon 2017 when it was confirmed that Allura was also a teenager. After Matt Holt was introduced into the show proper, an abandonment of the Shiro/Matt ship also occurred due to potential implications that he was also a teenager.
  • Many people abandoned their heterosexual ships involving Shiro (such as Shiro/Allura or Shiro/Pidge) after it was revealed that Shiro is gay^note Word of God via Joaquim dos Santos is that Shiro and Adam do not strictly identify as anything other than being in a relationship with each other (due to the future world not using sexuality labels), and that Shiro's exact sexuality was up for audience interpretation so as to not deny people with different headcanons. They also mention not wanting to confirm one way or another due to the backlash they might receive from those that felt excluded, as the fandom has a notorious reputation for harassing the cast and crew over shipping. On the other hand, Mitch Iverson and Tim Hedrick have stated that while they are unsure how or if people in the future label their sexualities, they believe that Shiro is exclusively attracted to men with Joshua Hamilton saying that the writers have pictured Shiro as gay since the start. Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim dos Santos have both referred to Shiro as a gay man. His sexuality is further confirmed in an Afterbuzz interview where Montgomery states that they hinted at Shiro being gay by having him display no interest in any of the female characters. This incident is similar to Pidge being confirmed to be a girl but the staff believing all interpretations of her gender are valid. and had a boyfriend prior to the start of the series.
  • Any ships involving Lotor. Even before he physically appeared, Lotor was already being shipped with all of the main characters. It did not help when it appeared that this incarnation of Lotor was actually more heroic than any other version, starting out as a Noble Demon, then revealing that he was Good All Along. That, alongside having excellent chemistry with the rest of Team Voltron, made him extremely popular with the fandom. Then Season 6 reveals that he's actually no better than his father (just don't say it to his face) who had been harvesting Quintessence from the thousands of Alteans whom he had been trying to "help." When this was revealed, the heroes and the fans quickly turned on him.
• Adorkable:
  • Keith is wonderfully socially inept, most prominent at the beginning of the farewell party with the Arusians where he has a hard time grasping he should respond "Tron" to Lance's "Vol."
  • This is one of many traits Matt shares with his sister; he can get just as excited about technology as she can, and then there's his rather dorky and over-the-top reaction to meeting Allura for the first time.
  • Shiro can be surprisingly dorky. A good instance is during Monsters & Mana. He gets very into his character, coming up with an elaborate backstory that Pidge and Hunk find boring, insisting that his class should be a Paladin (even though Coran points out that he's already a Paladin in real life and he could be anything else if he wanted), creates a Backup Twin as soon as his character dies, and gets excited about how the game itself is a great team-building exercise.
  • Kinkade. Despite his stoic and cool, collected demeanor, he has his dorky moments such as his enthusiasm when talking about yeast, and his flustered response at Allura and Lance kissing where he wound up covering the camera to give them privacy (much to Rizavi's dismay).
• Alternate Self Shipping: Shiro is already a Launcher of a Thousand Ships, but the reveal that he was cloned leads to a lot of this kind of shipping. There's also Shiro x his alternate-universe counterpart Sven.
• Angst Aversion: The much more bleak scenarios tend to be rather hard to sit through due to how much torment the characters go through. The deaths of Lotor and Allura in particular feel unnecessarily dark, especially with the latter coming about as the result of a Diabolus ex Machina in the series finale
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • It's revealed in the episode "The Depths" that Queen Luxia was being mind controlled by a giant monster masquerading as a garden, which had been forcing her to feed hundreds of her people to it. These people were then killed, turned into food, and harvested as mind-controlling sustenance for her and her people... in short, hundreds of citizens were killed and eaten by their fellow merpeople. Lance and Hunk also ate some of this food. Even after this is revealed, practically no one reacts with the appropriate amount of horror the situation warrants. It's possible the merpeople are waiting for the Paladins to leave before expressing it, but it's still jarring to watch.
  • The Paladins get a little bit of this, as they keep going with little reaction regardless of what happens to them. A good example is Lance and Hunk not seeming too upset about the above-mentioned reveal with the merpeople, other than a quick, 5-second comment from Hunk. Romelle even lampshades it in Season 7.
• Arc Fatigue: With the already-divisive storyline of Keith joining the Blade of Marmora continuing past Season 5, there were plenty of complaints from the fandom that the story went on far too long. However, these complaints were also being made since Season 4. The show's schedule, which had already caused controversy, is likely partly to blame. Luckily, the storyline ended in the beginning of Season 6.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: The finale is loathed by a majority of the fanbase for many reasons including killing off The Woobie Allura out of left field in a Diabolus ex Machina, teasing the return of Lotor only to reveal he was Dead All Along when many viewed him as a complex and sympathetic villain who hadn't been utilized to the extent they had hoped, Honerva becoming a Karma Houdini who gets everything she wanted and is Easily Forgiven for nearly destroying the multiverse in a fit of rage, for implying that the heroes became The Friends Who Never Hang (resulting in a Broken Aesop over the show's core themes), and for many of the main characters' fates, especially Lance who inexplicably acquires Altean traits and drops all of his established ambitions to pine after Allura for the foreseeable future, and Shiro who marries an extremely minor crewmate whom he barely interacted with as a hamfisted attempt at an Author's Saving Throw for the way they handled the situation with Adam. A lot of fans refuse to watch the last episode or the last season in general out of distaste for what happens in the finale. Not even a later Word of God confirmation that Allura was not truly dead could stem the controversy. Although one of the creators, Joaquin Dos Santos, apologized on Twitter due to the nature of her death, it was overshadowed because it took over 2 years after the finale's release for any acknowledgement of the backlash, much less an official apology.
• Awesome Art: Well, this is Studio Mir we're talking about.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Keith is the most polarizing of the five Paladins by far. Originally, he was hated for being a bland Jerkass with serious anger issues on top of being conspicuously underdeveloped in the first season, though he still had his share of fans due to his Bishōnen looks and being a rich source of Shipping and Fanfic Fuel. While the later seasons gave Keith a lot more focus and fixed a lot of the above issues, he still remains as divisive as ever, since fans are now split between those who believe the show was successful in turning him into a genuinely interesting character, and those who still find him to be painfully generic and not worth hogging screentime from the rest of the more compelling Ensemble Cast.
  • The Blade of Marmora themselves (with the notable exceptions of Thace, Ulaz, and Krolia) are similarly divisive; some fans consider them to be an interesting Good Counterpart to the Galra Empire, while others consider their views on making sacrifices unfair, in addition to their harshness towards Keith, along with blaming them for him departing from Team Voltron and hogging the spotlight from the more likable allies of Team Voltron, such as the Coalition and the rebels. It doesn't help the fact that Keith's storyline with them went from a storyline that could have potentially developed Keith further to a storyline that feels disconnected from the main plot and felt like it went on far too long.
  • Lance was generally well-liked at the start of the series due to being a humorous and relatable Audience Surrogate with a surprising sensitive side, but a portion of fans ended up finding his antics obnoxious instead. While a lot of this abated with Lance's Character Development in later seasons, his rushed romance with Allura earned him new haters for Die for Our Ship reasons. Likewise, his aforementioned Audience Surrogate aspects attracted an extremely vocal online fanbase who would frequently self-insert as Lance and bash other characters and harass their fans to elevate him, ensuring he would remain one of the most divisive characters in the show. A large chunk of the Lance hatedom admit they actually like the character of Lance himself just fine, and that a lot of the negativity and controversy surrounding him is more about Hype Backlash from his extreme fans' behavior tainting him by association. That a lot of vocal Lance fandom is joined at the hip with Klance fandom, which has an equally infamous reputation for extreme belligerence, also contributes to Lance's divisiveness.
• Better on DVD: This is a Netflix show, and produced in three 26-episode seasons by creators who were involved in two shows that are also considered Better on DVD, so this attitude is a given. A lot of fans feel that the plot flows much better when binge-watched.
• Bizarro Episode: "The Feud!", where the Paladins are kidnapped onto a game show and forced to play to escape, at the behest of a guy named Bob who turns out to be the 'verse's equivalent of Q. Word of God is that they figured they needed one completely light and fun episode in the middle of the especially dramatic Season 7, and the plot setup of the season meant completely breaking away from everything going on was the only way to do it.

• Broken Base:
  • What the various characters' ages are supposed to be has turned into a surprisingly contentious huge issue over which the fanbase has fractured, largely due to Shipping. Officially the staff have deliberately avoided confirming exact ages for any of the characters, other than that Shiro is the oldest, Pidge is the youngest, and the other three and Allura are somewhere in their late teens or the biological equivalent of such. Primarily the conflict tends to be over whether Keith, Lance, and Hunk are over the age of majority or not, and how much older Shiro is than them. Some fans believed that Shiro is in his 20s, or is as old as his 30s or even 40s. While others believed that Shiro is only slightly older than the others at 18-19. Even after the Universe Compendium came out confirming the official ages^* Shiro is 25, Keith is 18 (20 post-Plot-Relevant Age-Up), Lance and Hunk are 17, Pidge is 15, and Allura is a teen of some kind, people dissatisfied with the answers quickly ruled the book non-canonical. They based this determination on some statements by Lauren Montgomery which indicated that, while she agreed with the vast majority of the book's info, she was not involved in writing all of it, sending the arguments back to square one with no sign of ending soon.
  • Heavily related is the debate regarding ships involving Shiro and Pidge with the other Paladins. One portion of the fandom accuses others of being pedophiles or supporting child abuse for shipping Shiro or Pidge with the other Paladins, even in fanworks where Pidge was aged up, Shiro was aged down, or all characters involved were explicitly being portrayed as 18+. The portion of the fanbase who don't mind Shiro/Paladin or Pidge/Paladin ships accuse the former of being Moral Guardians or of cynically exploiting the issue for self-serving purposes, since the vast majority of this backlash comes from people who prefer to pair Keith with Lance or Shiro with Allura, which the also-popular Keith/Shiro ship directly opposes. The release of the official ages and Keith's Plot-Relevant Age-Up (meaning that, by their own standards, Keith/Shiro was an adult/adult ship and Keith/Lance was now unambiguously an adult/minor ship) resulted in the former camp reframing the ship debate a different way.
  • Particularly, the other big source of fandom fighting is over the divide in interpretations of Keith and Shiro's relationship, due to the show's enormous case of Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading of the two. Though the show officially treats them as True Companions, using the term "brothers" allegorically, a vocal group of fans insist that the term is literal, claiming that Keith and Shiro are distantly blood-related or that Shiro adopted Keith into his family, and accusing other parts of the fandom of, again, being pro-incest or supporting child abuse for shipping them. This led to backlash from people who ship Keith/Shiro who, again, point out that the vast majority of this comes from people who ship Keith/Lance or its Ship Mates, citing that the staff have already Jossed the most literal family interpretations and pointing out their Double Standards in ignoring several instances of the show describing Keith and Lance as also brotherly. This variant of the eternal ship war, while narrower, can get even more vitriolic due to portions of both camps being aggressive against the broad middle ground, with those who lean one way but are tolerant of the other side, those who think both interpretations have a point, and those who view them as neither but instead as an intense but strictly friendship bond, getting accused of Canon Defilement from multiple angles and dragged into one of the camps whether they want to or not.
  • The use of Voltron itself, or rather its complete lack thereof. Several reviews, particularly from Anime News Network, lambasted the show for not using the titular robot in any meaningful way and doing its best to keep it Out of Focus, with several fans going so far as to accuse the EP's of disliking the Humongous Mecha genre in general, noting that Voltron only fights seven unique robeasts in 76 total episodes ^note  For her part, Lauren Montgomery, in an interview with ''Den of Geek'', has admitted to fighting with the studio to use Voltron less. . Considering that Voltron was the Trope Codifier for Super Robot anime in the US, this is considered a nigh-unforgivable flaw by some viewers. Other fans of the show, in turn, believe that it allowed the show to focus more heavily on characterization and serial plot development.
  • Shiro's continued presence past Season 3 has also caused divisions. Though the character himself remained highly popular throughout the show's run, while some fans were happy to have him present due to Keith's own base-breaking status, others are not, since Shiro only came back due to Executive Meddling, and Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery had planned a more organic arc for the rest of the team.
  • The "Lion Swap" in Season 3, where Keith, takes up the Black Lion, Lance takes up Red, and Allura steps up as a Paladin and takes command of Blue. Some are happy to see the team back to its classic lineup, especially as it means Allura gets to join in the action as a full fledged Lion pilot. On the other hand, there are those unhappy with the fact that once again the pilots' uniforms don't match their respective Lions, along with the fact the swap seems to discard the established lore that a Paladin's Quintessence has to match their respective Lion, and seemingly cheapens the concept of the bond that was heavily established through the first two seasons.
  • Lotor's downfall in season 6 has, in the aftermath of the incredibly divisive series finale, become a hotly debated topic in the fandom. Those who are against it claim that it was a complete disservice to his character arc and borderline character assassination, pointing out that the only evidence the Paladins ever had regarding Lotor's crimes in the Altean colony was Romelle's word, that they didn't give Lotor a chance to explain himself and instead immediately attacked him, and that the Paladins choosing to turn on Lotor led directly to the destabilizing of the Empire and the crises of season 7 (The Blade being decimated, Sendak ravaging Earth, etc), as well as claiming that Lotor's crimes contradict his arc (why would a character whose pride in his Altean heritage was one of his defining traits turn around and subject the remnants of Altea to horrific Quintessence experiments?). Those who support it claim that Lotor was always meant to be a villain, and that the reason his downfall works is because he was simply unable to understand what he was doing was wrong. Then there's the camp that don't take issue with Lotor having a downfall, but wish he could have had a chance to come back and possibly redeem himself in later seasons, especially as said seasons continued to portray him as a sympathetic and tragic character.
  • Season 7 is the most divisive season among fans. Fan opinion of it tends to be either very high or very low, with few in the middle. Some like the whole thing, some hate the whole thing, others only like the first half that's focused around the crew's journey back home as opposed to the second half that is focused on Earth and its inhabitants, many of whom are entirely new characters that we aren't given enough time to care about, whereas others like that second half better due to the better action and dramatic stakes. And that's not even getting into the Adam situation.
    • Another major point of division over 7's quality hinges around its handling of Shiro in particular and whether his portrayal is empowering and progressive, plays into common negative tropes that gay men are subjected to, or both. Made even more complicated by the backroom circumstances around said Adam situation^note In the censored version of 7 that was originally going to air Adam was merely Shiro's platonic best friend, thus avoiding the Bury Your Gays issue, but at the expense of never being able to confirm Shiro's sexuality. In this version Zethrid and Ezor would be the only explicitly LGBT characters on the show.
  • The very last scene of the series, which was an attempted Author's Saving Throw that shows Shiro marrying Curtis is extremely controversial. It's either a progressive move for LGBT media in kids' shows, that was doing as much as they could given the great constraints they were under, and helps to remedy the Adam situation a season ago, or it's a cynical attempt at pandering for the sole purpose of claiming credit for the first male-male gay marriage in a kids show, that was handled so sloppily and OOC in its desperation that it actually caused more problems than it fixed.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Krolia being Keith's mother might be shocking to see revealed, but it was hardly a surprise, considering she was basically a female and Galra version of him.
  • Lotor's ships combining into his own version of Voltron. The odd shapes of the first two ships make it obvious that they are the arms and legs of a Mecha. This is also made obvious as Lotor had a counterpart mecha to Voltron in Fleet of Doom.
  • Almost nobody was surprised when it was revealed that the Shiro who returned after Zarkon's defeat in Season 2 was a clone, especially given that he was introduced as part of a program titled Operation Kuron.
• Character Rerailment:
  • After Season 1 dedicates a lot of time to showcasing Hunk's Hidden Depths and Character Development in overcoming his fears and becoming a more serious fighter, he spends most of Season 2 as little more than comic relief and a constant source of food jokes and toilet humor, apparently forgetting all the growth he went through earlier. In Seasons 3 and 4, Hunk's Big Eater habits and constant talk about food were toned down, and his expertise in mechanics were put back in the spotlight, showing he is just as good as Pidge.
  • In a case from the original show's changes, Prince Lotor gained some divisive qualities due to his nature as an Anti-Villain, a Manipulative Bastard, and seemingly joining the team at the end of Season 5 separating him from his more villainous and threatening original counterpart. Season 6 gives him a breakdown that causes him to be much more faithful to the original in terms of personality.
• Complete Monster: Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire becomes the leader of his own Galra splinter faction, the Fires of Purification, after the downfall of Zarkon. Later locating Earth, Sendak kills the soldiers sent against him and begins bombing and razing cities until the world surrenders to him, whereupon the citizens are enslaved and forced into work camps to create new weapons. Obsessed with finding Voltron and punishing the Lions' Paladins, Sendak makes a deal to spare Earth in exchange for the Lions, only to double back on it, and forcing the Paladins and the treacherous Admiral Sanda to watch as he intends to exterminate Earth and the billions who live there. When Voltron finally arrives to oppose him, Sendak ruthlessly kills entire ships full of his own men to get at the Paladins, and refuses to let any of his own crew get to safety, consumed with his own ambition and spite and taking the worst excesses of Galra to their natural conclusion.
• Crack Pairing:
  • Keith/the deep voiced Arusian has developed a following on both Tumblr and Archive of Our Own.
  • Keith/Mothman has also gained a following, originating as a joke solution to the shipping wars from people sick of them.
  • Surprisingly, Lance/Prince Lotor rose in popularity with the ending of Season 2 before he even appeared, with several people simply making fanworks using the design of Prince Lotor's original incarnation in place of the official one.
  • Many jokingly shipped Shiro and Slav, which became Hilarious in Hindsight when Sven (Shiro's counterpart) and Slav are shown to be very close in the Alternate Universe, a fact that they embraced.
  • Pidge and robots, due to her love of Beezer.
  • Shiro x A Nap has become a popular meme because of all the stress Shiro's had to go through.
• Crazy Is Cool: Alternate Universe Slav is as crazy as his main universe counterpart, but also hilariously badass.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Haggar is a nightmarish sorceress to deal with, incredibly powerful, preys on people's fears, and is willing to torture for information. Nevertheless, the way she uses her powers, manipulates things behind the scenes, and fights are all awesome.
  • Lotor swings into this in Season 6 with The Reveal. His sheer insanity may be disturbing to watch, but his creepy obsession with Allura, his cool anti-Voltron mecha, and his ability to jump dimensions will have you on the edge of your seat questioning who's going to win the fight.
• Critical Backlash: Very few fans will deny Season 8 felt rushed, and few would consider it to be on par with previous seasons, but many also feel that more than a few of the criticisms of it are overblown and that it was not without redeeming aspects.
• Critical Dissonance: Season 8, which is largely reviled by fans of the show, nevertheless holds a respectable 86% score from professional critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score, for comparison, is 6%.
• Cry for the Devil:
  • We learn that Zarkon is an undead Paladin of Voltron, who died trying to save his wife and was corrupted and raised by malevolent quintessence. It doesn't make his subsequent genocide of the Alteans, or his obsessive quest to obtain Voltron, any better, but it makes one feel almost like his death is a mercy when Lotor delivers the killing blow in Season 5.
  • Even after what we learn about Lotor saving as many Alteans as possible only to experiment on the stronger ones in horrific ways, there is something really sad about Lotor finally learning that Haggar is his mother, after denying the possibility to Allura, for both him and Haggar. He understandably wants nothing to do with her after she spent most of their time belittling and spying on him, most notably using Shiro's clone for the latter, and she is trying to make amends to her only child.

D - F

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Pidge and Keith are commonly headcanoned by fans as autistic, due to Pidge's extreme passion for robots which is seen as a special interest and her tendency for overly blunt statements, while in Keith's case, it's his extreme social awkwardness and difficulty with typical social cues.
• Die for Our Ship: Fortunately for a series so full of shippers, especially Yaoi Fangirls, the main heroines Pidge and Allura usually escape this trope and are quite popular in their own right. Nevertheless, it almost deserves its own section:
  • A Vocal Minority of people who ship Keith with Lance (and to a lesser extent, with Allura) have expressed hope that Shiro will be Killed Off for Real like his GoLion counterpart, with the specific reason given that Shiro is Keith's most popular other shipping partner. In the latter case, complaints about Shiro stealing Keith's rightful place as the pilot of the Black Lion are added to the mix.
  • And in a similar but more disturbing vein, an even smaller Vocal Minority have been sending (hopefully empty) death threats to Shiro's voice actor and even his family. It eventually came to the point where he refused to talk about Voltron on social media out of frustration.
  • Oddly enough, this happened to Lotor even prior to his proper introduction on the show, and despite his most popular ship at the time having been a total Crack Pairing. After Lance/Lotor developed a small following in the fanbase, some of the more extreme Klance shippers insisted that showing any interest in Lotor promotes abuse due to the actions of Lotor's GoLion equivalent Sincline. It died down after Seasons 3 and 4 showed that Lotor did not possess the same Darker and Edgier aspects of Sincline, but resurfaced in Season 5 after Lotor received heavy Ship Tease with Allura, this time from shippers of Allura with Lance, Shiro, and Keith.
  • For similar reasons, Romelle and Keith receive this treatment from a Vocal Minority of Shiro/Allura fans, since Keith/Allura and Romelle/Sven (Shiro's original counterpart) has always been the Official Couple of the previous continuities. Many of them were hoping Romelle would never be introduced into the show because of this. She does appear in Season 6, in the episode "Razor's Edge", although she never has a relationship with Shiro.
  • Romelle was also targeted by Lotor/Allura shippers who made up conspiracy theories that she was secretly evil as a puppet controlled by Haggar. They claimed that Lotor was a hero and Allura attacked him before he had the chance to explain his side of the story because Allura had been manipulated by Romelle.
  • Acxa got slammed with this hard from many sides of the fandom after Season 7 due to heavy implications that she has feelings for Keith. Before, there were numerous theories that she might be Keith's mother or sister due to their similarities in appearance; although this was eventually Jossed, there were many people who still clung to this theory in order to deny a romance between the two. Others hoped she would be revealed as a double agent faking her change of heart due to her past history of changing allegiances, even though her Heel–Face Turn is indicated to be sincere. Some of this also comes from non-shippers as well, who were bothered by the double standard of her surviving to have a potential straight romance over any of her teammates, one of whom was killed off immediately after being revealed to be in a lesbian relationship with the other, before fan outrage brought her back. This died after the show ended, as not only did the hinted-at romance between Acxa and Keith never actually manifest, but her scenes focused more on her growing friendship with Veronica which featured strong Les Yay undertones.
  • Lance is this for Lotor/Allura and Keith/Allura fans, as he showed jealousy during one of the moments when Keith was alone with Allura, broke the streak of Keith having always been Allura's love interest throughout the various continuities, and was constantly jealous of Lotor's relationship with Allura and disliked Lotor the most out of the team. When Lotor turns out to be evil, Lance goes to comfort Allura and Allura eventually starts to date Lance. Lance has been accused of being a Dogged Nice Guy as a result, although in context he was not behaving with ulterior motive at the time.
  • Curtis, due to the notoriety of his Last-Minute Hookup wedding to Shiro. As the Hundredth-Option Love Interest to other Hundredth-Option Love Interests it wasn't all that surprising.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Unsurprisingly to anyone who was a fan of the older series, Lotor is this. He may be a Jerkass Woobie and Well-Intentioned Extremist, but there's no getting around the fact of his lying to the surviving Alteans and enslaving them as Quintessence batteries under the guise of saving them. Nevertheless some people have tried to find ways to excuse it to the point of accusing Romelle of fabricating the whole thing to make him look bad, even though Lotor himself admitted to it.
• Ending Fatigue: Among the various complaints about Season 8 and a major reason for the Fanon Discontinuity attitude towards it is that it feels superfluous in the wake of the more conclusive finales of Seasons 6 or 7, which fans felt had more convincing stakes and better action sequences, did more to resolve outstanding plot points, and would have ended the show with a more thematically appropriate sense of finality.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Shay is a very popular side character due to her cute relationship with Hunk, her sweet demeanor, and, despite being female, having a non-sexualized figure.
  • Thace and Ulaz both have a solid fanbase around their Heroic Sacrifice, Good Is Not Soft and Memetic Badass elements and the appeal they have to the furry fandom.
  • Slav became popular because of his adorably goofy design and hilarious demeanor which drives even Shiro crazy. The appearance of his alternate dimensional version in Season 3 caused a lot of cheering, especially since he Took a Level in Badass.
  • Nyma and Rolo, due to them being interesting bounty hunters in their first appearance in Season 1. Being voiced by Lacey Chabert and Norman Reedus respectively also helps and were brought back as one of the allies under the Coalition in Season 4 finale and Season 5 premiere.
  • Olia, due to her being an Heroic Dog fighter pilot and supporting role in the Season 4 finale.
  • Krolia has become quite popular with fans after her first appearance in Season 5. Helps that she's a Cute Monster Girl when compared to many of the other female Galra. Being the long-unknown mother of a main character will also do that to you.
  • Romelle became instantly popular when she finally showed up in Season 6, for being a beloved character in previous continuities and making an immediate impact by helping to kick off the events of the season's second half.
  • Adam only appeared as a minor character in two brief scenes and died in the latter one, but has become an incredibly popular character, in part because he's Shiro's ex-boyfriend.
  • Pidge's mother Colleen and Lance's sister Veronica have become quite popular with fans after their roles in Season 7.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Some people speculate that Coran, who has been established as a Parental Substitute for Allura, is actually her literal father by way of Mister Seahorse due to Alteans' ability to shapeshift.^note This despite the fact that Allura's actual mother was eventually shown on screen.
  • An extremely popular (and completely unsupported) theory was that Lance is actually secretly a long-lost Altean royal sent to Earth for his own protection (and a long-lost relative of Allura's, often claimed by shippers to avoid shipping the two). However, in Season 4 Hunk points out that Alteans like Allura and Coran are immune to brain freeze, and poor Lance definitely isn't. Lauren Montgomery also addresses and explicitly josses this theory in the first episode of Form Podcast.
  • After Keith's mother Krolia was revealed in Season 5, the previous theories that Acxa is is Keith's mother were dropped, but were quickly replaced with the theory that she is actually his sister or aunt.
  • Some theorized that Romelle was lying to Team Voltron about the truth behind Lotor's real actions in Season 6. This, however, was debunked by Word of God shortly afterward, although Lotor's actual admittance of his actions threw a wrench in the theory already..
  • Some theories surrounding the final shot of the show.With the Lions seemingly approaching a constellation resembling Allura, some fans have theorized Allura isn't truly gone and the Lions are going to bring her back.
  • Quite a few fans, most notably on Tumblr, have theorized that Lotor's spirit was trapped within Sincline similar to how Shiro was preserved within the Black Lion. This would explain a great deal of Sincline's actions on Oriande, as well as how Lotor was able to contact Allura through the rift entity. Once Honerva (presumably) removed his body from the mech, that finally allowed his spirit to escape and pass on to the afterlife.
  • After the show's finale, a whole rainforest of epileptic trees emerged about the final season having been heavily doctored at the last second beyond the two Author's Saving Throw scenes mentioned above. Among the most popular ones are those that claim that Allura's death was a last-second decision (which has since been Jossed by multiple sources), that Lotor was originally supposed to survive and fight for the heroes, or that various characters were "pasted" over others, disregarding the immense Production Lead Time efforts that changes of such an extent would require. In an interview with the Let's Voltron podcast the showrunners confirmed outright that there was no Re-Cut of the final season like many of the more colorful conspiracy theories claimed and what was put to air was the intended product.
  • A popular related rumor that got especially wide circulation among Keith/Lance and Shiro/Allura shippers was the claim that Shiro was Allura's original love interest, but was made gay at the last minute to take advantage of the LGBT Fanbase that grew around it while Allura was likewise paired off with Lance at the last minute in order to spite the former two groups of shippers. Again, disregarding the obvious logistical issues with this theory, comments from various other members of the staff including storyboarders, writers, and voice actors all indicate that Shiro being LGBT was decided upon long before the show's release, and therefore could not have been influenced by the shipping fandom in any way.
• Estrogen Brigade: Despite the fact that this sort of show has been assumed to be aimed towards a male demographic, with female characters being outnumbered, there are still many female fans due to the attractiveness of most of the male characters, including all of the male Paladins and a good number of the bad guys. Add in the character-driven story lines, Pidge and Allura being written as interesting, fun, and well-rounded characters, and the large demographic of female fans who grew up watching Super Robot Genre shows, along the production staff caring whether girls would be able to enjoy their show or not, and it's unsurprising that the Voltron fan demographic is more diverse than traditionally anticipated. In Season 3, Allura becomes a Paladin, and Lotor's generals are all female, and fully capable fighters with different abilities and personalities. Overall, the addition of more female characters who are all interesting in their own way in comparison to the original series has likely gained more female viewers.
• Evil Is Cool: The Galra Empire as a whole qualify, but specific examples include Zarkon for his badass look and his epic beatdown of the Paladins in the Season 1 finale, Haggar for being a creepy Evil Sorcerer, Sendak for his Villainous Valor, and, of course, Lotor for his sympathetic points, strategy game, and skill in both personal and aerial combat. Lotor zigzags through this as he's initially presented as a straight-up antagonist, then sides with the heroes, claiming to be Good All Along, before being revealed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who then decides to wipe out Voltron.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • One developed with The Dragon Prince due to it being created by former Avatar writer Aaron Ehasz. Many fans, disillusioned with the Voltron fandom, have gone over to The Dragon Prince in the hopes of finding a Spiritual Successor to Avatar that manages to avoid the pitfalls of the VLD fanbase. It has gotten to the point where active comparisons between the two are considered shoehorning and a major source of ire for fans of both shows.
  • One has developed with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power over the perceived issue of representation, with showrunner ND Stevenson promising LBGTQ+ representation. Ironically, while the The Dragon Prince rivalry is driven by fear that its fandom would accumulate the most toxic elements of the Voltron fandom, it's believed by more jaded Voltron fans that She-Ra is where said most toxic elements actually wound up migrating. This same belief is responsible for the subsequent Fandom Rivalry that those two shows also has, with She-Ra having a higher proportion of Keith/Lance and Shiro/Adam fans, and Dragon Prince having a higher proportion of the fans of ships the former accuse of being problematic.
  • The Friendly Fandoms status with Avatar: The Last Airbender started to sour into this after the latter was put on Netflix, since the ensuing Newbie Boom brought in a lot of Keith/Lance fans who began to ship Zuko/Sokka and would get into constant drama and Ship-to-Ship Combat arguments with fans of any of the other ships, creating a lot of resentment. Although, most of the newer fans who don't ship either Keith/Lance or Zuko/Sokka get along quite swimmingly with the older fans.
• Fanfic Fuel: Season 3 confirms that parallel realities are real, and the one we see is far from the only one.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Quite a few Avatar-related ones due to the staff's most famous previous works.
    • Lance was quickly dubbed "Space Sokka" by fans given his similar personality to the Ensemble Dark Horse of Avatar.
    • Likewise Hunk gets "Space Bolin" for being a Big Fun associated with the Earth element.
    • Keith occasionally gets "Space Zuko" or "Space Mako" due to their similar Pretty Boy designs, wearing the color red, hot headed personalities, and association with fire.
    • Allura has had a few fans mention her as "Space Katara" - she's The Heart who's prone to bouts of severe melancholy over Daddy Issues and being on the losing end of a war against a gigantic empire, the de facto leader of the group by virtue of being the Only Sane Man (Shiro is like 95% the Other Sane Man, but isn't as knowledgeable about the whole situation as her), a dark-skinned beauty, close to the last of her kind (Katara was the last confirmed Waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe besides Hama for at least a generation), and tries really hard to be funny/friendly but just comes off as dorky. Another nickname is "Space Yue" because of her Mystical White Hair, title of princess, and status as the one Lance/"Space Sokka" flirts with. And by the finale, both characters end up sacrificing themselves to save the world after saying good-bye to their Love Interest.
    • The attractive purple-haired half-Galra woman Acxa who serves as one of Lotor's generals in Season 3 was nicknamed "Space Azula" — except when it turned out she was nothing like that character.
    • Ezor, another one of Lotor's generals, is nicknamed "Space Ty Lee" due to her perky personality and acrobatic fighting style.
    • The episode "Hole in the Sky" gives us Hira who's known as "Space Kuvira."
  • Shiro has been dubbed "Space Dad," which has even been adopted by his own voice actor and even got a shout out in the official guidebook.
    Keaton: As a Space Dad, I must say, the Get Along Shirt is a fantastic idea.
  • Keith is often referred to by the Affectionate Nickname of "Keef" by his fans.
  • Some fans have taken to addressing Haggar's doppelganger Shiro as "Kuro".
  • For whatever reason the deep voiced Arusian in episode 3 often gets the nickname of "Jerry".
  • Pidge is often referred to as "Gremlin".
  • "Kuron" for Shiro in seasons 3-6, taking its name from 'Operation Kuron'—because while he's never directly referred to by that name, this Shiro is technically not the real one.
  • After season 4, Zarkon was given the nickname "Darth Zarkon" after his reemergence in an armor set that doubles as a life-support system.
  • "Luki" for the Unilu kiosk girl who Pidge talks to in "Space Mall".
  • "Grandma Smurf" for the bearded female blue-skinned employee of Vrepit Sal's who has worked as a dishwasher since she was a little girl.
  • "Sincline" for the unnamed Mecha that Lotor built from the trans-dimensional comet. To be fair, he already called its components "Sincline ships" so it's not too far a leap. Officially becomes Ascended Fanon in season 8.
  • Keith's father (whose name is still unknown) is often nicknamed "Texas Kogane" due to his Southern accent, and the fact that Keith's surname was "Kogane" in previous continuities (stemming from Golion's Akira Kogane).
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • A lot of shippers engaged in the fandom's notoriously brutal Ship-to-Ship Combat, especially those who ship Keith/Lance and Shiro/Allura, were quick to dismiss the character age reveals in the Paladin's Handbook, citing a comment from Lauren Montgomery that she was not directly involved in the writing of the book. It was later clarified by Montgomery and Dos Santos that everything mentioned is nevertheless as good as canon until proven otherwise, though that still hasn't assuaged the most fervent naysayers.
  • Many Shiro/Allura shippers insist that Shiro is bi/pansexual despite statements from the creators that he is canonically gay and not attracted to women.
  • Several Lotor fans who liked him being an ally of Voltron choose to ignore Season 6 due to the Evil All Along reveal of him being responsible harvesting several Alteans' quintessence.
  • Many fans are choosing to disregard Shiro's epilogue where he gets married to Curtis and is implied he might've retired; while some are definitely doing it because it disproves their favorite ships, many do so because they view it as Out of Character. The fact that Word of God admits to it being a last-second Author's Saving Throw causes some to view the whole epilogue as noncanonical.
  • Many fans feel this way about Season 8 in general due to the aforementioned epilogues, various plotholes, characters behaving OOC with Third Act Stupidity, and of course, Allura's death, which fans view as poorly built towards.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • Every character gets their share of species swap fic, but stories where Lance is a long-lost Altean prince who falls for and may be engaged to Keith, who also turns out to be a long-lost Galran prince even before the series revealed that Keith was part Galra, are exceptionally commonplace. Less popular but still findable are Pidge as an Altean princess (which typically extends to Matt and Sam; Colleen is typically Altean as well in these stories) and part-Altean Lance or Pidge (which can both vary from "one of their ancestors was a displaced Altean", "they're half human/half Altean" (with 50/50 odds about which parent is which species) or "they're half Altean/half [insert species]" (with again 50/50 odds about which parent is what though Galra is rarely, if ever, an option)).
  • A stock plot in Voltron fanfiction is Betrayal Fic or Accusation Fic starring Lance as the victim of bullying and mistreatment from one or more of the other paladins, and for him to angst over it until he impresses them into having a Heel Realization, winning their respect from then on. It's so widespread that the term "Langst" was coined to describe such fics.
  • Numerous stories where Keith being part Galra leads to him being abused, threatened or hurt by people who suffer from blind Fantastic Racism can be found, including other humans. Depending on when they're set, these stories can feature Allura snapping out of her anger about Keith's heritage with a My God, What Have I Done? reaction, especially if her behavior encouraged the assailants. Regardless of when it's set, the entire team is furious and in some cases, this type of behavior nearly destroys peace talks and treaty agreements, only not doing so because Keith is willing to Turn the Other Cheek.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • In the Western fandom, Keith/Lance is the most popular ship on Archive of Our Own compared to the canon Lance/Allura. They've had varying levels of what fans see as Belligerent Sexual Tension and Ho Yay throughout the show, along with later seasons after the lion switch having Keith take over as leader with Lance being promoted to his right-hand man.
  • In the Eastern fandom, Shiro/Keith is the most popular ship, and even in the West is still easily Shiro's biggest ship. The pairing is also far bigger than Shiro's canon ships with his ex-boyfriend Adam or his endgame one with Curtis. It helps that, unlike Lance, Shiro is canonicaly gay and that he and Keith have the closest relationship out of the whole group. The two also have a big case of Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading that leads to fans seeing them as more romantic than the creators necessarily meant them to.
• Fight Scene Failure: While the hand-to-hand fights are considered to be well animated, the same cannot be said for the Humongous Mecha battles, which when they do appear, show janky CG and poor choreography. Special mention must be given to the final battle between Voltron combined with the Atlas and Honerva's Robeast, which amounts to little more than a shoving match while Allura talks Honerva down.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Sendak/Shiro because the two got into an intense fight. They also count as a Mind Game Ship [[spoiler:with Shiro questioning Sendak when he is trapped inside a cryogenetic pod but eventually releasing him when Sendak manipulates the situation. There's also Sendak's speech to Shiro about them being not so different.
  • Lance/Lotor became popular very fast on the basis of this dynamic, before he was revealed to be less overtly antagonist than previous continuities. To a lesser extent Lotor/Keith and Lotor/Allura, or both also developed fans for the same reason as well as being a callbacks to the old series.
  • This was expected to be the case with Lotor/Allura, but while they have some fans who ship them along traditional enemies-to-lovers War Ship dynamics, expecting them to behave like previous continuities, the ship primarily took off due to their positive interactions after he claimed to be Good All Along. Until Lotor's Face–Heel Turn in Season 6.
• Fountain of Memes: It seems that almost once a season, an episode is dedicated to sheer goofy comedy effect, resulting in this.
  • The episode "Space Mall" is so wacky and goofy it easily makes up for half of the jokes of the fans based on Season 2.
  • As of Season 4, "The Voltron Show!" seems to be a contender for the spot. The script reaching the level of almost self-parody definitely helps.
  • In Season 5, "Bloodlines"'s sub-plot of Pidge, Hunk and Lance re-purposing a Galra Centurion to be a Fun Personified robot is the latest entry in this trope.
  • Season 6's "Monsters & Mana", which is a goofy RPG Episode full of Mythology Gags and Shout Outs galore, is one of the most well-received and memorable in the show.
    Galra Centurion: Goodbye, pala-dudes.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • There is a large amount of overlap between fans of this show and Avatar: The Last Airbender due to the fact that the showrunners and animators from both shows worked together on its sequel series The Legend of Korra.
  • Despite the Fandom Rivalry, a decent amount of fans of this show are also fans of The Dragon Prince due to the aforementioned overlap in Avatar staff and a hope that the show will provide a similar experience as Voltron but without as much of the toxicity that consumed its shipping fanbase.
  • Despite the major Fandom Rivalry between the shows, there are some fans of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power who actually do like this show, most notably due to the parallels between Haggar and Shadow Weaver in terms of their sympathetic backstories before they went from good to evil along with characteristic parallels between Sea Hawk of the reboot and VLD's Coran as well as between Scorpia and Shiro.
  • Many Yuri!!! on Ice are also Voltron: Legendary Defender fans. The massive popularity of male/male ships among the latter probably has something to do with this.

G - L

• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • While Shiro was already one of the most popular characters with the Western fanbase, his popularity is overwhelming among Asian fans, to the point that he dominates art and doujinshi made of the show at Asian fan events.
  • Since the age discourse is not a source of dispute for Asian fans, the Fan-Preferred Couple among them is Keith/Shiro rather than Keith/Lance. Although both ships are popular, the fandom is much more peaceful and many fans enjoy both.
  • Similarly, Shiro/Curtis and Shiro/Adam are enjoyed much more by the Asian fandom than the Western fandom.
• Gotta Ship 'Em All: As evidenced by the Friendly Fandoms with Korra and the many shipping tropes on this page, many fans are keen on shipping just about every character with everyone else, no matter how minor or obscure.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Moments of comedy or awesomeness earlier on can lead to much darker echoes later in the show:
  • Keith piloting Black to save Shiro is a moment of awesome in Season 2, as Keith quietly and respectfully requests Black's help and the Lion agrees to work with him. Cue Season 3, and Keith is begging Black not to power up in response to his presence, as that means he has no choice but to assume Shiro's role. Unfortunately for Keith, once again, Black wakes up.
  • Lance's "jealous boyfriend" moments over Blue, declaring them "best buds for life, for real!" and telling Keith to keep his hands off Blue as she and Lance are "very happy together!" become devastating when Blue locks Lance out in Season 3 to take Allura on as her pilot, and then (in Lance's opinion) proceeds to co-operate more fully with Allura than she did with her Earthling pilot. It's mixed with irony too, as Keith didn't take Lance's Lion... but Lance took over Keith's.
  • Lotor telling Haggar that he is not like his father in Season 3 becomes this in the Season 6 finale when Lotor does indeed become like his father.
  • Similar to the above, after all the speculation that he was still alive, the Paladins defeating and stranding Lotor is a lot harder to watch with the knowledge that it apparently killed him. And his agonizing screams suggested he died in horrible pain as well.
  • Every scene on Olkarion becomes this after Honerva's robeast destroys the planet and kills a huge portion of its population, apparently including Ryner.
  • The endless harassment campaigns, doxxing and death threats done by rabid shippers towards both the staff and each other in the name of attempting to make their favorite ships become canon canon all ended up being All for Nothing since no shipper was particularly pleased with the outcome, as the Official Couple Allura/Lance ends with Allura dead and Lance The Mourning After, while the other pairing Shiro/Curtis was an admitted Author's Saving Throw that did very little to patch the damage caused by Adam's death.
  • During The Journey Within Keith, driven crazy by space madness, lashes out against his team wondering if the paladins are even friends or just strangers held together by coincidence. He's thankfully proven wrong when the team find their way back to Voltron with The Power of Friendship. However, due to the last-minute changes made to the show's ending and the resulting epilogues' insinuation that the paladins are The Friends Who Never Hang, Keith's meanspirited comments come off as true after all.
  • After the controversy over The Legend of Korra and its handling of romance, the showrunners mentioned that the show would not focus heavily on romance and would not engage in romance for the sake of it. Come Season 8, many fans feel that the romance between Allura and Lance reduced Lance into a Satellite Love Interest, and the reason the Author's Saving Throw at the finale failed to work was because it felt like an unearned Token Romance. The second one may also count as Hilarious in Hindsight depending on how Narmy you view the scene.
  • Lotor told Allura that he tried to save a planet from Zarkon's wrath by working with the inhabitants to harvest quintessence. At the time, we had no idea if he was telling the truth or trying to win her trust since they were traveling to Oriande. Then we find out in season 8 that he wasn't lying about that and we see Zarkon destroying the planet just to spite his son.
  • While Adam's death was a firestorm in its own right, the controversy it caused wound up being the tip of a greater iceberg due to being indirectly responsible for the show's Audience-Alienating Ending. The original finale was intended to be much more open-ended, but in order to appease fans who were upset at Adam's death, it was changed to show Shiro conclusively marrying and kissing another man. Shiro's epilogue had heavily mixed reception at best, and the knock-on effects for the endings of the other characters in order to accomodate it ended up being widely disliked on the whole, even by fans who had less strong opinions on Adam, with many believing the original planned ending would've been preferable and that they should not have changed it.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • The Season 3 finale puts a lot of Zarkon and Haggar's interactions in a new light, such as despite being quick to lash out at his subordinates for failure, he never did so to Haggar. Haggar's Undying Loyalty especially seems to imply that despite losing her memories she still loved her husband on some level.
  • Katie / Pidge's gender reveal scene, more specifically Shiro's reaction to it ("Owning who you are will make you a better Paladin"), takes on a new light when we find out that Shiro is gay. It's even more heartwarming as Pidge's VA came out as a lesbian after Season 1 and later non-binary after Season 6 as well as Acxa's VA coming out after the show ended.
  • Though Shiro's wedding at the end of Season 8 is contentious, one of the common arguments for why the ending leaks had to be fake was because it was seen as unlikely that a gay wedding and kiss would be allowed when the showrunners faced a lot of difficulty being allowed to confirm Shiro as gay. With the confirmation of the leaks, it's shown the executives really did have a change of heart at some point.
  • Though it doesn't last long, Lotor evidently cared enough for Narti to give her Kova, who was once his own cat.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Several fans felt that Sendak was likely not dead after being ejected from the Castle of Lions by Shiro and when he returned in Season 5, they were right.
  • Many fans have expressed hope that Lotor is likely still alive after being stranded in the rift in the Season 6 finale as a result of the Voltron vs Sincline fight. Even Coran's voice actor Rhys Darby thinks that he survived the rift. As Season 8 reveals, even if he did survive the initial stranding, he died sometime thereafter and is obviously long deceased when Honerva finds his body.
  • Fans have also expressed the belief that Adam is still alive after his ship is shot down by Sendak's fleet in Season 7, given that his death is not shown on screen, and an Unknown Character who appears to match Adam's hair and skin color can be seen watching the Black Lion fall from space in the season finale, despite the only other characters shown during that sequence being Hunk's family looking at the Yellow Lion's crash site.
  • Many fans believe that Zethrid and Ezor actually survived the explosion of part of their ship in which Keith and Acxa escaped, given that they were only knocked out and that the ship didn't get destroyed. Jossed by one of the storyboarders, who confirmed that at least Ezor died, though that hasn't stopped fans from believing that she survived. In NYCC 2018, it was confirmed by the showrunners that Zethrid survived, satisfying many. And then it turned out that said storyboarder was a Lying Creator ^note sort of - Ezor's survival was actually a last-minute change, so the storyboarder was being truthful at the time of their comments, as it's confirmed in Season 8 that both Zethrid and Ezor survived.
  • A lot of fans who were left disappointed with the finale, felt that Allura isn't dead and believe that there's always an option for her to return back to see her team one day along with seeing her and Honerva's Heroic Sacrifice as a non-fatal one. This interpretation is one supported by the creators.
• I Knew It!:
  • Several fans had guessed Pidge was a girl before the series' release based on her voice actor (Cross-Dressing Voices is far less common these days, even when playing younger children) and the classic series Viewer Gender Confusion.
  • Many fans predicted that Keith is part-Galra before season 2 came out. It was not only confirmed but also a focal point of the season.
  • Some had predicted that the "strong emotional interactions" between Keith and Allura in season 2 would be about his Galran ancestry and that the two would have Ship Tease moments due to them being the Official Couple in all previous incarnations of the franchise.
  • Some fans figured that the Weblum Galra wasn't Lotor, and was in fact a female Galra with a secret agenda. It turns out to be Acxa, one of Lotor's generals.
  • Many fans correctly guessed that Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid would turn against Lotor in the antepenultimate episode of season 4.
  • Several fans correctly predicted that Narti would be killed off during season 4, given her absence in the clip that was posted before the season featured only Lotor, Acxa, Zethrid and Ezor in the ruins of Daibazaal.
  • The season 5 trailer confirmed fan speculations of Sendak's return and the appearance of the White Lion.
  • Several fans knew that Zarkon would be killed off sometime in the series, which happened in season 5.
    • A sizable chunk of the fanbase correctly assumed that Lotor would kill him.
  • Many fans correctly guessed that Haggar was an Altean in season two after she shapeshifted into a duplicate of Shiro in the end of season one.
    • Not only that but a sizeable chunk correctly guessed that Haggar is Lotor's mother since the latter resembled the former due to the fact that he's half-Altean.
  • Many fans correctly guessed that the enemy who knows Voltron's weaknesses in the tweet from the show's official Twitter account just days before the season six trailer would be Sendak.
  • Some fans correctly guessed that Lotor would return being evil in the season 6 finale; or rather that he was never entirely good since the way he and his generals parted ways in season 4 felt suspicious and there were subtle hints afterward that he was working toward an ulterior agenda.
  • "The Black Paladins" outright confirmed that Shiro is indeed a clone.
  • Combined with this, others also predicted that the real Shiro was trapped inside the Black Lion.
  • Many fans correctly guessed that Romelle would appear in season 6.
  • One fan made a joke post on Tumblr declaring Keith was a dog person. Keith adopts an alien wolf in season 6.
  • Most fans were hoping that the Altean race were far from being eradicated and that Allura, Coran and Haggar were not the last of their kind. Come season 6 and they were correct.
  • Several fans theorised that one or two of the Paladins may be part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, with the popular candidates being Shiro, Keith, Lance and Pidge. At SDCC 2018, it was confirmed that Shiro had a boyfriend prior to the show.
  • Many fans were correct that Acxa would pull a Heel–Face Turn in season 7.
  • Others were correct in that Earth would construct their own Voltron equivalent, although most thought it would be more of an expy of the original Vehicle Voltron and/or the unadapted Gladiator Voltron.
  • Many fans correctly guessed that Zethrid and Ezor survived the blast in season 7.
• Iron Woobie: Shiro's life is one unending Trauma Conga Line. Heavily implied to have no living family, suffering from a terminal illness that would soon cripple and eventually kill him, driving himself to become as accomplished as possible before his illness kills him, to the point his lover Adam leaves him over his need to chase his dreams. Said dream ends up getting him captured and enslaved by the Galra, who then torture and experiment on him until he develops PTSD. Then he dies during the fight against Zarkon, remaining as a disembodied spirit inside the Black Lion forced to watch a clone of himself take his place among the team. Said clone, who went through his own hardships, is forcefully brainwashed by Haggar into turning against the team and nearly killing Shiro's best friend Keith. Shiro's soul is eventually transplanted into the clone's body, which according to Word of God merged their consciousnesses and memories of everything including all the suffering the clone went through. Shiro nearly dies a second time when it seems like the clone body is rejecting his soul. Once he finally returns to Earth, he finds out Adam was killed by the Galra years ago. Despite all that he's been through, he continues to try his damn hardest to lead the heroes in the fight against the Galra and all other threats to the universe.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The main problem fans had with the third season was that it was only seven episodes long, as opposed to thirteen in the previous two seasons (although the first season put the first three episodes together into one). This is because Season 3 was originally going to be thirteen episodes long, but was then split into two seasons that would be released only two months apart (As opposed to the six to eight month wait between previous seasons) in order to avoid Awesomeness Withdrawal.
  • Seasons 4-6 got a bit of this reaction as well, since, while a couple of interesting plot points did come up in those seasons, they were still only 6-7 episodes long.
• It's the Same, So It Sucks: The final battles with the Arc Villain often check all these copy-pasted plot points:
  • The villain busts out a Humongous Mecha specifically design to fight Voltron that they never used before.
  • The Mecha is hyped as the greatest threat the team has ever faced, that would require them to connect with their lions like never before. This was said almost word for word each time.
  • The enemy would curbstomp Voltron so thoroughly that you wonder why wasn't it the mightiest weapon in the universe.
  • Through the Power of Friendship, Voltron eventually fights more evenly against the threat. However, the fight would devolve into clashing beams of light.
  • At the very end, it's down to a single member's unorthodox thinking that brings an end to the battle. (Shiro's phasing through and grabbing Zarkon's bayard; Allura's decision to feed Lotor's quintessence and her decision to redeem Honerva).
• It Was His Sled:
  • Pidge being a girl is such an early spoiler and is just so hard to talk about her without mentioning it that it's a well known fact among fans.
  • In Season 5, Keith's mother, Krolia, showing up and interacting with him has since become public knowledge once she became trending in basically every social media, specially Tumblr.
  • Come Season 7, news of Adam's death spread like wildfire.
  • Likewise, the show closing off on Allura sacrificing herself and Shiro having a Last-Minute Hookup wedding also became well-known.
• Jerkass Woobie: Prince Lotor. Ambitious, competent, and constantly outsmarting the Paladins to succeed where his father failed. He also has two undead parents who are dark shadows of their former selves, and were horribly abusive to him growing up. Haggar treats Lotor as a thorn in her side and a figure to not be trusted, while Zarkon's only focus is on Voltron. He was exiled for being too kind to his subjects, who were then all murdered by Zarkon as punishment, and has to prove himself despite accomplishing more in a few episodes than his father has in two seasons. As of Season 4, he's become an outlaw of the Galra Empire, his own father tries to kill him, and his three formerly loyal generals betray him after he killed Narti for being an unwitting spy for Haggar. Despite his megalomania, it's hard not to pity him on some level once he ends up alone after all his ambitions are foiled. The same goes for him in Season 6. Whilst he may have committed absolutely monstrous acts, gone insane, and been Evil All Along, it's incredibly difficult not to still find yourself both satisfied and sad when the Paladins leave him for dead. Even Allura is mournful for him.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Shiro, besides being shipped with all the other Paladins and Matt, also gets shipped with several of his enemies, with Sendak being the most popular. There's also people who like to ship him with himself.
  • Allura gets this too, having been shipped with every Paladin, Coran and basically every female character.
  • Lance is also very popular for shipping; besides Allura and the rest of the Paladins he's also paired with Lotor and many of the various female aliens.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • Shiro is hugely popular with gay men due to his noticeable Heroic Build and overall design which embodies the "ikahomo" archetype of Bara Genre works, and which is subjected to many fanservicey moments, as well as his personality being an appealing mixture of masculine yet sensitive. Confirmation that Shiro was indeed canonically gay and was in a romantic relationship with another man in the past only made him even more popular with LGBT fans.
  • The Galra characters get this a lot. Many of the male characters such as Sendak, Prorok, and Thace are popular with gay male fans due to their designs having elements of The Bear. While the female Galra like Acxa, Zethrid and Trugg have strong gay female followings of their own, helped by Zethrid and Ezor becoming a couple later on.
  • Pidge's lack of gender conformity means she's popular with transgender fans, some of whom headcanon her as also transgender or more recently, non-binary, following her VA confirming to be such in 2018.
• Like You Would Really Do It: In the finale, Allura's fate has gotten this from several fans, who refuse to accept her as truly dead. Lauren Montgomery confirmed that it's supposed to be seen as something that can potentially be reversed.

M - R

• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Prince Lotor is the handsome, charismatic son of Zarkon and Honerva. Returning when his father is incapacitated, Lotor uses his charisma to win the Galra to his side and proves a deadly enemy of Voltron with his brilliance. Even when Zarkon awakens, Lotor changes gears to ally with Voltron, eventually killing his father and becoming the new head of Galra. Manipulating the Paladins, it is eventually revealed Lotor has preserved the Altean race, albeit while harvesting some for their Quintessence, leading to a massive confrontation. Despite his evil actions, even Allura acknowledges Lotor's good intent in the end, and he remains one of Voltron's most utterly brilliant and capable adversaries.
  • Honerva, aka High Priestess Haggar, is Prince Lotor's mother and the ruthlessly capable force behind Zarkon's throne. Nearly eliminating Voltron and all of her opponents in one fell swoop during one gambit, upon regaining her memories, Honerva ends up manipulating the entire Altean colony founded by Lotor into her pawns by using their belief of Lotor as a savior. Using them to assist her in opening up the path to reality itself, Honerva intends to find a reality where she is happy with her husband and son, deciding the rest can burn, before realizing her errors and having a chance to fix it at cost of her life.
• Memetic Badass: Allura, Shiro, and Pidge receive this, being considered the 3 members of Voltron that are the most competent, capable, and skillful, often portrayed as a Power Trio who is pretty much solving the entire plot by themselves while the others do either secondary tasks or fail until they call one of these three. Canonically, they are more often than the others portrayed as level-headed and even Only Sane Man depending on the situation, the trio is also the one to most often come up with plans and ideas for the team. However, the others are still very much capable fighters.
• Memetic Loser: Keith, Hunk, Lance, and sometimes Coran. In no small part due to Hunk and Lance's Flanderization and being reduced to mostly Comic Relief and spending Season 2 generally Out of Focus, they are usually seem as less competent than the others in the team, despite showing that they are very capable fighters, while Keith's Base-Breaking Character tendencies make some fans think he is too much of an emo and/or hotheaded to be as good as the more level-headed other three. Coran sometimes falls into this based on playing Comic Relief too often.
• Misaimed Fandom: The debate regarding Pidge's gender can get very aggressive and abusive towards anyone who dares suggest Pidge is a cis girl, or uses she/her pronouns in regards to her, ignoring that Word of God has repeatedly stated that Pidge is female specifically (to the point that disputing it has become a Berserk Button for them) and that she was made one in VLD to add more female representation to the show. Nevertheless several scenes in particular are frequently held up as "proof" of Pidge's non-female status, and it's common to see accusations of transphobia, bigotry, and representational erasure, even though none of them can agree on what the exact alternative representation that's being erased even is.
  • One part of the crowd insists Pidge is a canon trans man, even though the show itself points out that that her male identity was a temporary disguise to avoid getting caught by the authorities. Likewise, some of them interpreted the reveal scene as her literally coming out as transgender, even though flashbacks show she was already fine presenting as female in public beforehand, and would have continued to do so if she wasn't caught.
  • One part of the crowd insists that Pidge is canon nonbinary, due to a panel in the first issue of the comic where Coran talks about the Paladins and their inexperience while Pidge is the only one in the shot. This panel is often cited by the Misaimed Fandom to be evidence that Pidge is canonically nonbinary and goes by "they" pronouns, and that referring to Pidge as female or using "she/her" for Pidge is transphobic and wrong. However, the full context of the scene makes it evident Coran is using "they" to refer to the Paladins as a collective group rather than Pidge specifically, and all other official media released after the show had come out has consistently referred to Pidge as female and uses female pronouns exclusively (with the exception of some promotional material for the first season, by way of keeping Pidge's gender a secret).
  • Both crowds point to a scene in season 2 where Pidge has a hard time deciding in which bathroom she must go when they are in the space mall and decides to hold instead of going to either, which they take as confirmation of her being non-binary or transgender, since that is indeed an issue that both groups face in real life. This despite the scene in context being a gag about Pidge having no idea which restroom was for which gender, because alien color coding can't be assumed to be the same as it is on Earth (itself also being the subject of a Brick Joke when it is later revealed that Keith is half-alien).
• Misblamed:
  • When Season 7 was released, Netflix promotional images for the show featured Shiro's sexuality prominently◊ or suggested Adam and his relationship◊ with Shiro◊ would be more important than they ultimately were, leading to much criticism aimed at Dreamworks and the show's staff for baiting the LGBT Fanbase. Regardless of the debate over whether comments actually made by the staff themselves qualify or not, such promotional images are the responsibility of Netflix's marketing team, not the show's creators. It's not the first time nor the last that Netflix has gotten into hot water for creating promotional images that severely misrepresent the works they're for, in particular involving the subject of inflating the prominence of minority representation.
  • The show is sometimes accused of deliberately engaging in queerbaiting with the Keith/Lance relationship and exploiting fans by tricking them into believing that an onscreen romance might happen between the two. However the creators have not only mentioned being surprised the ship was as popular as it was, but also confirming explicitly in interviews that there were zero plans for the two to have a romance together (making it one of the only pairings in the entire show to get an official Ship Sinking ahead of time), and also explaining in response to aggressive fan campaigns to get them to change the story, that even if any of them wanted Keith/Lance to be a couple, it couldn't happen due to Production Lead Time.
  • The show's lack of any continuation or expansion post-controversial S8 finale has been blamed on all manner of Epileptic Trees, such as the creators' fear of reprisal from the fanbase, a punishment from WEP license es for altering the characters in ways they disapproved of, or poor merchandise sales. An interview panel from the show's voice actors in 2021 revealed that the cause was far more mundane and corporate: a Big Damn Movie followup was in the planning stages, featuring the return of Allura and an older Lance, but was scrapped after Dreamworks Animation signed a new exclusivity deal with Hulu, which meant DWA's contract with Netflix was prematurely ended and prevented continuations with the property. Likewise, the official spinoff comics were terminated not because of poor reception or fandom backlash to the ending but because of Lion Forge's takeover by Oni Press.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If Haggar hadn't crossed it before, she certainly did in the fourth season finale when she tried to wipe out a third of the Galra Empire, including several planets and countless people, all to destroy Voltron, the Blades of Marmora and the resistance against the Galra in one fell swoop.
  • Zarkon definitely crosses it by declaring his son Lotor a traitor and marking him as his empire's public enemy number 1, along with telling his forces to hunt and kill him on sight.
  • For those who don't see Lotor as a Jerkass Woobie, him killing Narti after discovering that Haggar is spying on him could definitely count and to others, his actions during the Season 6 finale most certainly count, to say nothing of betraying countless Alteans who had worshiped him as a saviour by trapping them and killing them by harvesting their Quintessence for research purposes.
  • Commander Sendak crosses it in Season 7 when he decides to destroy Earth and carries the plan even after Admiral Sanda sells him Voltron.
• Narm:
  • In Season 3, as Shiro drifts off into space, right as he believes he's about to die his last thoughts are of the time spent with the paladins. They're all touching, emotionally charged moments... except for Hunk's, which is of him goofing off but is presented with as much drama as all the others.
  • Lotor's ships. Lotor's first meteorite ship look down right silly with its large "head", muscular "arms" that sway when the ship move. The second one is even worse, because it's a pair of legs. The way it sway when flying look like it's dancing in the wind.
  • The reveal in that there had been a Time Skip between Seasons 6 and 7. A serious moment becomes harder to take seriously hearing characters saying it had been three decafeebs since Voltron disappeared.
  • Voltron's wing upgrade, introduced in Season 7. Instead of the Black Lion's wings opening elegantly, it generates a pair of disproportionately large, boxy rockets that utterly dwarf it, and look ridiculously incongruous with the rest of its upgrades.
  • What upgrade does Voltron get to finally defeat Honerva once and for all? They up the ante on the wings and grown an entire spaceship out of its back that's so big and boxy, you can barely see Voltron or Honerva's machine after its formed. It ends up making the final shoving match look like this one enormous starship flying aimlessly on its own.
  • Shiro and his wedding to Curtis. Controversy aside, it's still a jarring and downright silly choice to have as the literal final scene the show closes off on, especially since it's a character Shiro barely interacted with and it comes at odds with Shiro's previous characterization as a Determinator Married to the Job.
• Narm Charm: Shiro's wedding does have its contigent of fans pleased to know he did get a happy ending and found a Second Love after everything he went through, and it is a portrayal of a same-sex wedding and kiss in a show aimed at younger audiences.
• Nausea Fuel: The brief shot we get of Lotor's decayed corpse in "Knights of Light, Part 2". To say that it doesn't look good is an understatement.
• Obvious Judas: Lotor being anything but a villain was no surprise to those familiar to his past incarnations, especially when he used phrases such as "I would have waited an eternity for this", which has been said by other heroic characters such as Megatron.
• Older Than They Think: Shiro. Because his 80s counterpart was killed off rather early in GoLion and renamed Sven in Voltron, many people mistake him for an entirely new character rather than an Ascended Extra.
  • While Legendary Defender is the first Continuity Reboot of the franchise in TV, both Devil's Due (an imprint of Image Comics) and Dynamite comic runs for the franchise predated this by over a decade. In fact, ideas of an Continuity Reboot TV series for the franchise existed all the way back to 2004, when Kickstart and World Events Productions planned to do a new show that would serve as a reboot to the Lion Voltron series titled Voltron Interactive before it was scrapped and ultimately replaced by Voltron Force with a sizzle reel of an animation test for the scrapped reboot that has since circulated online.
• One-Scene Wonder: Sven only gets a couple minutes of screentime, but he instantly gained a fandom thanks to being a alternate reality version of Shiro and blatant Mythology Gag to the original show's beloved Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • The bearded female dish washing employee at Vrepit Sal's voiced by Cree Summer (who also voices Haggar) has gained some popularity from fans, following her ten-second appearance in "Space Mall". Even the writers acknowledged her that she reappears in the Seasons 7 and 8 finales.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The show became known, or rather, infamously known, for its online fandom's misdeeds and the explosion of drama surrounding its Bury Your Gays incident more than anything else. The brutal ship wars, accusations of pedophilia towards and by shippers thrown all around, the age-discourse and threats towards the voice actors and writers. Infamously, one Klance shipper outright blackmailed the creators by refusing to take down pictures of storyboards from a tour of Studio Mir that could have gotten them sued by DreamWorks unless Keith and Lance got together in-show. It has since become known as one of the most toxic fandoms around, together with Rick and Morty, Steven Universe, and Undertale.
• Pandering to the Base: Word of God admits that the epilogue in which Shiro gets married was an attempt to do this for the LGBT Fanbase, specifically using the word "pandering" to describe it.
• Periphery Demographic: The show's intended demographic was 6-11 year old boys, but the show ended up becoming quite popular with female fans and fans from older age brackets as well. The showrunners have admitted that this was intentional and deliberately aimed later storylines towards those older audiences despite early opposition from executives.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading:
  • The exact nature of Keith and Shiro's relationship with each other. They're the closest of the main paladins, but because the show doesn't get around to explaining Keith's backstory until two thirds into the show, it's not clear for a long time exactly when or how they got to know each other and what kind of bond they shared, and whether it was friendship, familial, or something else. Of course there's the official Word of God-supported stance that the two are very close friends. At one point Krolia mentions Shiro having helped raise Keith, and he does have some (admitted by Word of God to be unintentional) resemblance to Keith's father, suggesting a fatherly role^Although... Given Keith's own extreme resemblance to his mother and certain other similarities with how his parents met, others interpret the resemblance as yet more Ho Yay of the Generation Xerox-induced Like Parent, Like Spouse kind. However, this is contradicted by flashbacks which show Shiro as closer to a Big Brother Mentor instead, and Keith himself also describes Shiro on two separate occasions as brotherly (although more literal interpretations of those lines also received pushback from Word of God). Meanwhile, because up to that point the two share quite a lot of Ho Yay, because Shiro fulfills quite a few of the roles a love interest normally would towards Keith^Explanation 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 ex-boyfriend Adam, and because neither have any other viable love interests to speak of aside from Shiro's Last-Minute Hookup brought about by an Author's Saving Throw, bolstered by Shiro being gay and thus Incompatible Orientation not being an obstacle, others interpret them not as The Not-Love Interest but as each other's Implied Love Interest instead, despite the show's indications otherwise.
  • After previous seasons established that Acxa and Keith shared some sort of unspoken bond (which fans originally interpreted as sisterly, motherly, or as a Worthy Opponent), Season 7 has a few moments of heavy Ship Tease that appeared to suggest Acxa had romantic feelings for Keith, leading a lot of fans in the audience to believe that she was being set up as Keith's Implied Love Interest. However nothing ever comes of it, and in fact the following season focuses much more heavily on her budding Les Yay-heavy friendship with Veronica.
• Popular with Furries:
  • A running gag on Tumblr is that Krolia is converting people into furries. For that matter, a lot of the Galra are a Little Bit Beastly to begin with, so...
  • One of the allies working with the Voltron Coalition seen in the Season 4 finale is Matt's co-pilot Olia, who also gets some of this due to coming from a race of canine-based humanoid aliens.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Far too many due to the prominence of the shipping Vocal Minority, but among the most common ones:
  • Klance = Keith/Lance
  • Sheith = Shiro/Keith
  • Hidge = Hunk/Pidge
  • Allurance = Allura/Lance
  • Lotura = Lotor/Allura
  • Shidge = Shiro/Pidge
  • Shallura = Shiro/Allura
  • Kallura = Keith/Allura
  • Plance = Pidge/Lance
  • Kidge = Keith/Pidge
  • Hunay = Hunk/Shay
  • Pallura = Pidge/Allura
  • Lancelot = Lance/Lotor
  • Shance = Shiro/Lance
  • Hance = Lance/Hunk
• The Problem with Licensed Games:
  • Voltron VR Chronicles is an embarrassingly short (1 hour of gameplay to be precise) virtual reality game that was supposed to be the first of a five episode series. Its short length, uninspired gameplay, and the niche nature of VR products, in general, ensured it was a One-Episode Wonder. Not even the focus on fan favorite Lance could convince people to buy it.
  • Voltron: Cubes Of Olkarion, a project that was made as part of a coding contest before being released to the public as a PC game in July of 2019, is a technically impressive effort given the minimal resources afforded to the contestants. Unfortunately, said resources ensured that it is an In Name Only adaptation that uses Voltron elements as little more than decoration for a board game.
• Retroactive Recognition: Did you know that Alfor's second voice actor Sean Teale would later play Eclipse in The Gifted (2017), a couple of months after season 3?
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Many of Lance's detractors started to warm up to him starting in Season 3 and onward, as he shows more humility and kindness towards his teammates while his Casanova Wannabe traits are downplayed in favor of him serving as The Heart to the team.
  • Keith's maturity in Season 6 did a lot to redeem him in the eyes of his broken base. He's still impulsive, but much less rash and more skilled as a team player. His backstory is finally delved into in greater detail, giving a lot of context to his previous actions.
  • The MFE Garrison cadets introduced in Season 7 were initially disliked due to the large amount of focus and Character Shilling they received compared to the main paladins despite being Flat Characters. Season 8 finally gives them some much-needed fleshing out and Adorkable traits.
  • After spending most of the show as one of the more notorious instances of a wasted character, "The Grudge" in Season 8 finally provides Acxa with some backstory and character focus to flesh her out, as well as context and resolution for her controversial actions in the previous season.
• Rooting for the Empire: Despite all his evil, Lotor is so incredibly charismatic and badass that many fans found themselves hoping that he would take down the Paladins in Season 6. The fact many found him sympathetic, both intentionally and not so much didn't hurt at all.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: For the most part, the Lance/Allura romance is reasonably low-key and not this trope. However Season 8 dedicates a very large amount of screentime to it to the point that it dominates scenes involving either character. Due to the show ending in Allura sacrificing her life not long after their Relationship Upgrade and leaving Lance a widower, the sudden increase in focus it received right beforehand appears gratuitous in its wake.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Accusations that Shiro's friendliness towards the rest of the team was a sign that he was a pedophilic sexual abuser, often coming from people who are fans of ships threatened by Shiro/Keith (and, by extension, other Shiro/Fellow Paladin ships), is so rampant in parts of the fandom that eventually one of the voice actors for the show posted a message calling it out (as well as related abuse towards his voice actor).
  • In Season 2, Hunk makes some insensitive comments and Allura expresses intolerance towards Keith after the reveal that he is Galra. Both of them apologize for it, and getting over it is a big part of Allura's Character Development, but to some parts of the fandom they're incorrigibly racist Jerk Asses.
  • Some people accuse Keith of being a Jerkass towards Allura who doesn't care how she feels because he did not want to rescue her from Zarkon at the end of Season 1, even though she made it clear this was what she wanted earlier in the season. Likewise his Character Development in Season 2 and his pain at her distrust towards him also indicate he really does care about Allura's feelings. However some fans accuse even that of being insensitive towards her despite Keith being respectful towards her and Allura concluding her own anti-Galra attitudes were unjustified.
  • Kolivan is gets this from fans who felt that he is to blame for Keith's departure from Team Voltron and joining the Blade of Marmora with one fanfic showing him becoming a jerk towards Keith and then non-fatally stabbing him as he felt that he failed in his position. The Blade as a whole can also get this treatment, even getting blamed for making Keith's potential mental health issues worse. The implication that Keith's mother was forced to leave him behind (and deeply regrets doing so) because of their mission philosophy has only fanned the flames.
  • In one of the more absurd cases, Romelle has received hate from many Lotor fans because she caused the paladins to turn against Lotor by... revealing the truth about him being Evil All Along and killing many Alteans, including her brother, which is something Lotor himself ends up admitting to.
  • Related to Die for Our Ship above: Adam has only shown up in a flashback for one scene in one episode, and has already garnered a nasty hatedom for getting angry with Shiro because the latter insisted on going to Kerberos, which led to them breaking up. Because of this, their relationship has been labelled "toxic", or Adam himself has been accused of being a bad boyfriend. Even though it was confirmed he and Shiro were a happy couple beforehand, and it was understandable that he would react in such a way, knowing that his boyfriend had an incurable degenerative disease with only a few years of good health remaining. Inversely, some Adam fans portray Shiro as an abusive and irresponsible partner for choosing to break up with him, pinning the blame for Adam's death on him directly.
  • Curtis has gotten a hatedom for being the one to marry Shiro and sinking a flotilla of ships with accusations that he was responsible for Adam's death, if not a murderer who engineered Adam's death to have Shiro to himself, for being the responder in the scene where Adam died. Nevermind the fact he wasn't giving the orders that killed Adam or the one who blasted Adam.
  • Lance sometimes gets this from Lotor/Allura, Keith/Allura, and Keith/Lance shippers who Flanderize his Dogged Nice Guy tendencies into being a full-blown Stalker with a Crush towards Allura, or accuse him of being an abusive or possessive boyfriend and claim that Allura sacrificed herself to get away from him. Elsewhere, some hardcore Keith fans portray Lance's petty Jerkass behavior towards him in the earlier seasons as Lance being a persistent full-blown abuser and bully to Keith, even though Lance eventually learns to respect him after some Character Development.
  • Some "Langst" fics give most of the paladins (often excluding Hunk) this in regards to their treatment of Lance, exaggerating their tendency to dismiss or get annoyed with him into being outright verbally or even physically abusive bullies who treat Lance as The Friend Nobody Likes so the fic can give him something to angst about. Granted, these fics do at least usually have them learn their lesson and get better by the end of the story, but not before being written in a manner often regarded as excessively hateful, which has had the subsequent effect of Lance becoming a huge Base-Breaking Character because of this.

S - Z

• Salvaged Story: Season 8 brings back Ezor and Zethrid and gives them a better ending, after Season 7 appeared to killed the two of them off in the same episode that implied they were a couple, adding to the show's bad reputation on LGBT issues. This change also addressed the backlash they received that their Relationship Upgrade coincided with them becoming Depraved Homosexual, as Zethrid and Ezor both undergo a Heel–Face Turn and redeem themselves explicitly due to their love for each other. In contrast to the extremely controversial response to Shiro's epilogue, although this change has also been subjected to heavy criticism for being extremely clumsy due to being so obviously last-minute that the edits to accommodate it suffer from Special Effects Failure, and hinges on Ezor doing a complete 180 from her last appearance, it's generally still considered an improvement over the original plan.
• The Scrappy: Admiral Sanda is not well-liked by fans, as she is an Obstructive Bureaucrat who stymies Sam Holt at every opportunity, leading to many pointless deaths at the hands of the Galra including Adam, Shiro's ex-boyfriend. Worse, she's a turncoat actively selling Earth out to the Galra. Even if she was genuinely motivated by a desire to protect what's left of Earth, audiences didn't believe her Redemption Equals Death deserved the sympathy and grand funeral the heroes gave her.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • While not nearly as contentious as the below examples, season 3 is where many started to see cracks in the narrative, with plot threads and hooks established in the previous seasons suddenly dropped completely or given rushed, anticlimatic resolutions, many seeing the Lion Swap as contradicting the established lore and rules about the Lions for the sake of a Mythology Gag and, most contentious of all, Allura being demoted from team leader to essentially Keith's Lancer, a state she remained in for the rest of the series.
  • Season 7 got a mixed reception after the highly acclaimed Season 6 due to a mixture of Bury Your Gays, the Lion Swap returning with a vengeance, and a number of weaker episodes.
  • Season 8, the final one has a reception that is almost entirely negative. Between extremely messy treatment of most of its characters, the deaths of Allura and Lotor (the former for being poorly set-up and needlessly depressing, the latter for being needlessly gruesome and killing an Unintentionally Sympathetic character), the poor quality of a number of other episodes, a very obviously last-minute Distant Finale that left many baffled, it's little wonder its audience score is so low. An attempted Author's Saving Throw for the above Bury Your Gays instance largely didn't work, especially in a year that included the finale of Adventure Time and the wedding special of Steven Universe.
• Ship Mates:
  • Many people who ship Keith with Lance also like to pair Shiro with Allura, Matt Holt, or Adam.
    • Keith/Lance fans who are opposed to Shiro/Allura or Shiro/Matt due to the age discourse, or detest Shiro/Allura due to the fact that Shiro is gay like to pair Allura with Shay. Some of them also shipped Lotor with Allura but Lotor's age is a confusing matter as he is over 10,000 years old but still physically young enough to be called a "brat" and his relationship with Allura was a Destructive Romance.
  • People who ship Shiro with Keith often also ship Lance with Allura.
  • Keith/Allura shippers usually like to ship Lance with Pidge.
• Shipping Bed Death: Lance/Allura wasn't exactly a top-five at any point, but it does have a following—and tellingly, a significant chunk of that following will tell you to not watch the parts of the show where it became out-and-out canon. To Allura fans, it read as a clumsy rebound relationship with a guy she had no obvious interest in before their abrupt Relationship Upgrade, and to Lance fans, it read as Lance being turned into Allura's Satellite Love Interest and him being the rebound just meant he was Always Second Best with his girlfriend, too. Their interactions never sold most of the audience on the couple, and the final fates of the characters involved made it completely undesirable.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • Brutal one between Klance shippers and Sheith shippers; Some Klance fans accuse Sheith of being an abusive or exploitative relationship and that its supporters are pedophiles due to the potential age difference between the two. Meanwhile some Sheith shippers accuse Klance fans of overreacting and argue that Keith makes more sense with Shiro because they have a friendlier and therefore healthier relationship. Echoes of the infamous Avatar and Korra ship wars, down to the same relationship dynamics at play for some of the pairings, come to mind, appropriately enough.
  • Bringing up the Keith/Allura pairing (which was the Official Couple of the old continuity) is one way to make Keith/Lance, Shiro/Keith, and Shiro/Allura shippers all act hysterical. Some have even labeled Keith/Allura a heteronormative ship while excusing Shiro/Allura even though both are heterosexual pairings, in the latter case involving a confirmed gay man. Meanwhile, many Keith/Allura fans tend to be vocally opposed to these other ships on principle and accuse them of constituting franchise heresy.
  • Accusations of pedophilia used to be commonplace towards Allura/any paladin other than Shiro due to the popular Fanon that Allura was an adult, but were eventually Jossed when Allura was confirmed as biologically a teenager, coupled with later seasons giving Lance and Allura heavy Ship Tease together.
  • Allura/Lotor shippers don't get along well with Allura/Lance or Allura/Keith shippers, since while Lotor receives a lot of Ship Tease with Allura, he has traditionally been a villain and enemy of Allura's, while Lance and Keith are heroic characters. The latter's suspicions were proven correct in Season 6, when Lotor turns against Allura. Allura/Keith and Allura/Lance shippers don't get along well with each other either; the former, which was the Official Couple in all previous incarnations of the show, accuse the latter, which is the Official Couple of this continuity, of being a creepy and abusive Dogged Nice Guy relationship, while the latter insists Keith's at-times harsh treatment of Allura would also be abusive and accuse the former of misrepresenting Lance's treatment of Allura.
  • A given with Shiro/Curtis. Given that Shiro was a Launcher of a Thousand Ships while this character has minimal interaction with him and doesn't appear until the last two seasons, even then minimally, and that the showrunners promised any canon romances would only take place if they happened naturally within the story, to say that whatever fans this ship managed to scrape up didn't stand a chance against the very pissed off fans of Shiro and... well, anyone else^* To wit, it's possibly the one thing Shiro/Allura, Shiro/Keith, and Shiro/Adam shippers can all somehow agree on, is an understatement.
• Signature Scene:
  • Especially due to its memetic popularity, the paladins' first trip in the Blue Lion became this.
  • Keith's fight with Shiro in Season 6.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The pilot serves as this for Season 1, since most of it is spent on establishing the characters and finding the Lions. Voltron isn't formed until the very last part of the episode.
• So Okay, It's Average:
  • The show has had quite the intensely vocal fandom, and after the massively unpopular and ship-shattering finale, an equally vocal hatedom to boot. Most viewers believe that it had a strong start with an intriguing take on the original premise, likable characters, well-done, dynamic animation for hand-to-hand combat sequences, and engaging plot hooks. Later seasons proved more divisive due to an increase in mature storytelling and themes but also debatable underuse of the mecha and Writing by the Seat of Your Pants leading to unfulfilling arc resolutions and meandering plot points. However, those who did not watch the show with a concern for Shipping, or who watched the show some time after it finished its initial run and thus avoided the fiercest drama, generally believe that while it squandered a lot of potential, aside from the poorly-received final season the show on the whole is also nowhere as terrible as a lot of the backlash would have you believe.
  • When it comes to specific seasons, Season 3 gets a lot of this due to the feeling that it's too focused on Keith at the expenses of the rest of the team, though this is due to the shortened episode order. However, said season was well received for introducing fan-favorite Lotor and his generals, along with Shiro's return and the Origins Episode "The Legend Begins".
  • A similar consensus was reached for Season 4, with several fans saying that though it is enjoyable, it's not as good as the preceding three seasons due to it being not as heavily serialized along with Keith being Out of Focus (though that's usually considered a plus among people who think he is hogging too much screen time in Seasons 2 and 3), ongoing plots from the previous seasons (such as Operation Kuron, Keith finding clues about his Galra heritage and his leadership arc) being ignored, Narti being a character who had potential getting killed off too soon, pacing issues, no confrontation between Team Voltron and Lotor's generals and how short the season was. There is a good reason why this season and Season 3 were planned to be one season and while episodes such as "Reunion" and the two-part finale "Begin the Blitz" and "A New Defender" were well-received, the other three episodes divided several fans, though "The Voltron Show!" is considered to be a Guilty Pleasure due to the Super Sentai shout outs.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The CG work suffers from one severe problem during battle scenes; namely, the Lions, Voltron, and the Robeasts never show damage. Galra fighters and spaceships get crumpled, dented, and wind up with holes punched in them, but anything that shows more complex movement ends up sparking at the most. This leads to moments like Pidge shouting they can't take another hit while Voltron looks like it's in peak condition, or the second Robeast outright shrugging off what were supposed to be devastating blows.
  • When the spirits show up in "The End is the Beginning," Lotor isn't casting a shadow like the rest of them, and it's quite obviously the character's stock image.
  • The audio description for Shiro's epilogue in the final episode states that he married Adam instead of Curtis, indicating they either planned for the scene to originally feature a Back from the Dead Adam and did not update it after using Curtis, or it was a mistake due to lack of proofreading. The error has since been corrected.
• Squick: In an episode of Season 2, Coran comes down with a sickness called the "Slipperies", where he is constantly wet and slippery due to sweat and slides all over the place. It's hilarious, but also just sort of gross. The Paladins are also visibly squicked.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Shiro and Curtis, a bridge officer aboard the Atlas, also the one Official Couple to be together by the very end. While the two do exchange dialogue from time to time it's entirely in the context of mission commands, to the point the latter is never named directly except in subtitles. Nevertheless the last shot of the show is of them getting married. Somewhat understandable since it is a last-minute Author's Saving Throw and Executive Meddling made it difficult to put gay content in the show.
  • While it's generally agreed that Lance's feelings for Allura were well-written and established, her reciprocation comes a little out of left field for some (particularly her declaration that she'll "always love him"), especially as she had a previous love interest whom she chose over Lance and her feelings being overtly romantic weren't established until the final season.
• Too Cool to Live: Ulaz, a Ninja Scientist with a cool space station, and Thace, the first heroic Galra we're ever introduced to.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Pidge is very popularly headcanoned as a trans girl or nonbinary in some way due to an early storyline. They/them Pidge was particularly popular in early fandom days, but transgender or nonbinary she/her Pidge became more common by later seasons.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: For some, Keith's plot with the Blades of Marmora in Seasons 4 and 5. Not only does it come across as a wasted plot due to a lack of screentime and development for Keith but it also feels largely disconnected to the seasons' overall plots.
• Unexpected Character:
  • After the third Season 6 clip was released online, a lot of fans weren't expecting to see Nanny appearing in the show, but this time as Lotor's former nanny and a governess of the Galra Empire, rather than Allura's nanny in the original. In addition her name is now Dayak instead of Hys like her GoLion counterpart.
  • Merla's appearance in season 8 surprised many, who felt that Acxa had already taken her role, given her similarities to the character's DOTU counterpart.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Shiro in Seasons 3-6 is revealed to be a clone created by Haggar to spy on the paladins of Voltron and become a Manchurian Agent. The real Shiro, whose spirit contacts Keith within the Black Lion, disavows the clone Shiro and refers to him as "that thing" and a villain, and the season ends with his soul being uploaded into the clone's comatose body. However, up until the point where Haggar hijacked his mind, the clone Shiro had been shown as genuinely kind-hearted, heroic, and regretful whenever he hurt his friends, and also not so far gone that Keith was still able to successfully undo his brainwashing and bring him to his senses. Given all the effort spent to humanize him and develop him as an entity independent from the real Shiro, fans found his dismissal as a villainous Expendable Clone, and essentially death from having his mind overwritten with Shiro's, unnecessarily cruel. There is some attempt to justify this, with a line from Keith implying that the clone is brain-dead, but it was vague, and the fact that none of the characters even acknowledge the clone's humanity still rubs many the wrong way. However, as if to reassure worried fans, Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery explained that "Kuron's" consciousness was absorbed into Shiro's, with his memories and knowledge intact.
  • The creators, when speaking of Lotor, claimed that he wasn't a character who could get a redemption arc, and people forgot he was a villain. It's true that Lotor was hardly a saint; he tried to kill hundreds in the name of accomplishing his plans and deceived Allura, the woman he loved, to make it happen. But he was also a Child of Two Worlds who had sympathy for both, a Visionary Villain who had a genuinely good end goal, was an ally to the protagonists for half of his appearances, and a survivor of an abusive family. Allura tells him to his face that he's just like his father, which seems undeserved as his father's motives were truly selfish and he killed far more people. And when Honerva, his mother, gets redeemed while still living despite her attempt to destroy the universe in a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum, it makes the claim that Lotor was beyond saving seem even more myopic. His final fate and Family-Unfriendly Death, came across as bizarrely cruel when far worse villains got redeemed or at least died with dignity.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Acxa in Season 7. Her prior characterization was of her being a Noble Demon with extreme loyalty to Lotor and her True Companions. Since the plotline that would have explained her Heel–Face Turn was mostly cut, while her betrayal of Lotor due to having realized he's gone too far even for her is explained, her betrayal of her True Companions is not, resulting in fans seeing her as fickle and unreliable instead of heroic.
  • The surviving Altean colony, once Honerva finds them and uses them in her quest to find versions of Lotor and Zarkon who were alive and never became corrupted by Quintessence. Allura maintains that Honerva is manipulating and exploiting the Alteans, but they still commit planetary genocide on a regular basis, multiple times. Luca especially is an Ungrateful Bastard about how the people she tried to kill have rescued her from drowning, and are giving her medical attention. Sure, one gets a Heel Realization but by then it's too late and Honerva achieves a Near-Villain Victory. What's worse, they don't face any trial for their actions after Allura's Heroic Sacrifice, getting a slap on the wrist, nor are they ever forced to confront what they did to a galaxy that didn't kill Lotor.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Pidge's voice and the character's penchant for this trope in the original series led to many viewers initially thinking that Pidge had been recast as a girl, at least until Lance specifically calls him a boy. Of course, The Reveal is that Pidge here is a girl, leading to a Captain Obvious Reveal for some.
• Vocal Minority: The shippers are exceedingly loud in the fandom (particularly Keith/Lance supporters), even though the work has broad mass-market appeal and the majority of the fans aren't interested in the shipping wars.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Much like the creators' previous works, the show definitely stretches its TV-Y7-FV rating. It has scenes of torture (with PTSD), a surprising amount of violence that only passes because there is no onscreen blood, and quite a few side characters who die, some of those deaths being onscreen. We're even shown the rotting corpse of a prominent character.
• Win Back the Crowd: After two previous attempts to make Voltron sequels, neither of which were commercially successful, going for a full reboot would be this. Having veterans from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra leading production certainly helps. While the toys for this series also performed poorly, the show has garnered the most active fanbase out of any of the various offshoots.

---