Voltron‘s third season is almost upon us. I got the chance to speak one-on-one with Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery about last season’s big reveals and what’s coming next.
Looking for something to pass the time until Voltron season 3 drops on Netflix? I’ve got you covered. I had the chance to ask Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery some of my burning Voltron questions. From what’s going on with Allura’s powers, to how the Paladin’s friendships were forged, to what secrets are still to be uncovered… we discussed it all.
Dig into the full transcript of that interview below. But beware: there are significant spoilers for Voltron season 2.
Hypable’s exclusive interview with Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery
Allura discovered during her showdown with Haggar that she had some powerful abilities. How do you foresee those powers might alter Allura’s approach to the war with the Galra?
Joaquim Dos Santos: I think she’s still in the process of figuring that all out herself. So, I think as those bits of story were dropping on the audience, they were dropping on Allura too. She was as surprised as anyone.
Lauren Montgomery: There’s certain things that she knows she can do. She’s aware of the fact that she’s kind of blessed with this same ability that her father was, and that certain other Alteans were. Where they have this special quintessence bond, where they can manipulate things in a way that others can’t. And then she knows that she can change shape and change color, like pretty much all Alteans can. But there’s, well, you kind of saw it in her face when she fought Haggar in the end. This resistance that she has to Haggar’s magic was completely new to her and she had no idea.
So, yeah, it’s just one of those things where it’s definitely interesting to see she’s gaining these powers. We don’t know where they come from; even she doesn’t know where they come from. So that is definitely going to influence her in her approach. Is it going to make her more confident? Or is it going to make her more unsure of these powers that she has? That’s yet to be seen.
JDS: Yeah, I think also it was a great character beat when her and Shiro were sneaking off of the ship, and they couldn’t escape, and you clearly saw that she wasn’t, at that point, quite battle tested. Maybe didn’t quite know what she was doing. By the time she was squaring off against Haggar, she’d started putting the pieces together a bit more. I think that sort of character evolution will continue to carry on throughout her storylines.
When it comes to the history of the Paladins and Voltron, Allura is still remaining tight-lipped, though the truth about Zarkon’s involvement has already come to light. Is there more about Voltron’s origins that we’ve yet to discover?
JDS: There is more to Voltron’s origins than we’ve yet to discover. [Laughs]
LM: It’s hard, I think. She has this knowledge. She knows what’s happened behind the scenes. But the other Paladins don’t. And so she has to make this decision: do you be completely transparent, tell them everything, knowing that it might be a turn-off and you might lose the only people that you have at your disposal to help you, or do you hold that back and hope that once they’ve gotten out there and they see how important this mission is, then you can release that information to them, just once the off-putting piece of information isn’t going to make them bail.
So, it’s this kind of a thing. You’re like, ‘At what point do I tell them?’ And I think that’s what she and Coran are struggling through. They’re not trying to be villainous in any way, but they know they’re at a disadvantage. They don’t have a ton of people. The Alteans are gone. And they just happened to find these pilots, that happen to bond with these lions. They don’t want to risk losing that by telling them too much, too soon.
JDS: I think she’s, on some level, coming to terms with the truth herself and how that all plays out in front of everybody else. I think for her it’s a difficult emotional journey, but when you really think about it, she’s got a variation on the old Obi-Wan Kenobi problem. There’s a bit of a grey area back there. It’s not all good and bad.
LM: And also just the fact that it is 10,000 years for the galaxy, for the universe, but for her it’s practically yesterday. So, it might be just something that she’s not necessarily ready to talk about.
We also discovered in season 2 that Haggar is not Galran, as many of us assumed, but is actually Altean. Does this potentially open the doors for other Alteans having survived the genocide?
JDS: I mean, I think it’s a fair assumption. It’s a neat reveal because I think it was all sort of tying with the idea that she had kind of had more of a black and white view of Altea and the Galra. And this sort of flipped the entire script on her. I think if people are asking the question, the door is definitely open. Without giving any spoilery spoilers, we’re neither confirming nor denying whether there’s more Alteans.
That theme of identity and family played heavily into season 2. Not only with Shiro’s struggle as one of two pilots of the Black Lion, but also Keith’s discovery that he was part-Galran. Will Keith be at all tempted to search for information on his mother, or other members of his Galran blood family, or is he completely secure in the Paladins being his family now?
LM: You know, I think it’s a little bit of both. I think there are certain people out there, if you’re dealing with the situation where you find out later in life that you have family out there, you’re definitely going to be tempted to look for them. But you’re not going to just throw away the family that you have to do so. We’ve opened that door, we look forward to possibly expanding on it later down the line. But, for now, they still have a pretty important thing that they have to take care of and he can’t just turn his back on it yet.
JDS: And I think there was something too, within the body of that episode, when Keith did find out that he was able to unlock the blade. I think him letting go of that and accepting the Paladins as family, and accepting the situation, is more important than his personal gain. I think that allowed the blade to kind of open up and allow him to accept his position in this bigger scheme.
LM: He’s not going to do anything out of selfish want any more. He knows what needs to come first before he goes and pursues his own interests.
That discovery also caused some friction between Allura and Keith when she learned about Keith’s heritage. They seemed to reach an accord by the end of the season, but, understandably, Allura has some complicated feelings when it comes to the Galra. Is that friction truly resolved? Or will we see it rear its head again?
LM: I think we’ve given Allura her journey. She started with a very black and white view of good and bad. Galra and Altea. And now we’ve shown she went through that personal internal process with Keith, where she was unsure how to handle it at first, but then she ultimately came to that realization, which is that it’s not black and white. It’s grey.
And by the end of the season we see her working alongside Kolivan and Antok, going in to fight the Galra. So I think she’s kind of come to terms with it now. She understands what the bigger picture is. She understands that not all Galra are bad, and that includes Keith.
JDS: Yeah, and I think just, you know, purely from just a visual standpoint, it was neat to see her working alongside two Galra agents. And then that revelation that the big bad that she was fighting was Altean and that just solidifies it.
On the next page: The rise of Lotor, Lance’s insecurities and searching for a new leader
Zarkon’s defeat, however temporary, at the end of season 2, was very unexpected. With Lotor making his debut as the big-bad in season 3, how will his approach as an antagonist differ from his father’s? Zarkon became very single minded in his obsession over Voltron, so will Lotor be able to separate that from the Galran Empire’s ultimate goal?
JDS: I think so. Without giving too much away, how Lotor differs from Zarkon, I think it’s safe to say that they would have different approaches. He doesn’t necessarily have the same tie that his father did to the Black Lion. Like you said, the Black Lion almost became this pure obsession at all other costs, at the risk of [Zarkon’s] entire Empire, he was going after the Black Lion. So I think Lotor has a more measured approach.
LM: And it’s just interesting to play with different approaches with villains. We’ve done the Zarkon thing and we took him down his road. And you bring in another villain and you don’t want to do the same thing over again. We’re always looking for what’s interesting and different about this person’s approach. So, definitely look forward to Lotor doing things differently.
One thing I loved in season 2 was Shiro and Keith’s friendship being a key driving force throughout. It’s been evident since the first episode that not only they, but also Hunk and Lance, have an incredibly close friendship. Will we ever discover how those friendships were originally forged?
JDS: For us, we’re like origin story freaks. We would have loved to just do an origin story throughout the entire first episode and season. But then we wouldn’t have much regular story to tell if that were the case.
LM: The problem we run into is the show is called Voltron. But if you focus too much on origin stories, Voltron wasn’t around back then. So we can hint little bits here and there, but a lot of our story is in the present and being tackled as we see it.
JDS: But we do absolutely love all that stuff. So we would love to explore more of it. And again, we’ll never confirm nor deny whether we do.
Pidge also made a significant breakthrough in the search for their family when they discovered that Matt had been liberated from a Galra prison ship. Could a potential reunion soon be on the cards as more alliances are forged with Voltron?
LM: That’s the idea. The interesting thing is that he’s no longer with the Galra. But now she doesn’t necessarily know where he is.
JDS: It’s almost like a worse situation.
LM: She’s like, ‘I know he’s not with [the Galra], which is good, but I have no idea where he ended up.’ But as they go out and explore this galaxy, there’s definitely more leads that she can come across. And ultimately, I think, we all wanna see her get back with her family. And it’s just a matter of when does that happen within our story. We’ll find out.
JDS: And in what way does that happen. What form does that take. Reunions aren’t always the greatest things in the world, so I think everything’s kind of on the table with that stuff. But again, going back to what we’ve been saying from the beginning. We love the fact that we can tell a giant serialized storyline because we’ve been able to pepper in all this stuff with Pidge throughout the body of the series. I think we’re hoping to do that with the other characters as well.
With Shiro being, presumably, AWOL heading into the next season, do you see Keith taking up the leadership mantle as Shiro wanted — or do you think the other Paladins may also step up in Shiro’s absence?
LM: It’s something that we’ve tried to do throughout the show. Which was that Voltron is ultimately the essence of teamwork. In the beginning, you clearly had Shiro who kind of knew what was going on. He was more of the strategist of all of them. Like the natural born leader. And you have a bunch of these other kids who kind of don’t really know what they’re doing but they’re along for the ride. We’ve managed to evolve them all to the point where they may not be perfect, they may not be at Shiro’s level yet, but they’ve definitely stepped up to a certain place. And so with Shiro gone, they all need to come together to fill that gap.
One thing that we’ve always tried to make clear is that it’s not really up to the Paladin or any person to give or hand down leadership of Voltron. So even if Shiro’s saying it and telling Keith he believes in him, ultimately it’s not really his choice. The Lion will have to accept Keith. Which we saw happen in that episode. But beyond that, teamwork is the core of Voltron. So even though you have someone like Shiro who seemingly is the leader, it’s still very much a team effort.
JDS: And I think it’s safe to say Shiro absolutely sees the potential in Keith. But none of our characters are perfect. Keith amongst them has got issues, on top of issues, behind issues. So he’s got a giant, sort of, I don’t want to say character flaws, but he’s got to make breakthroughs before he can step up. There’s just a long way to go from a character perspective for a lot of our guys. Keith amongst them.
Speaking of overcoming obstacles, toward the tail end of season 2, you touched briefly on the idea of Lance’s insecurities when it came to his place within the team. Is that an arc you’re hoping to develop over the course of season 3?
JDS: I think it’s an arc we’re hoping to develop period. Lance, he’s my personal favorite, and I think what’s really cool about him is that he got pigeonholed really, really early on as the goofball, and there’s so many more layers to that character. I think he’s been playing the longest of all the characters.
Hunk, in season 1, had a giant character moment where he stepped up to the plate. All this stuff with protecting the Balmera and understanding that Voltron means more to the universe. I think Lance has a way longer arc. Obviously, Pidge, Keith, and Shiro all have really strong through lines, but Lance has the most subtle through line.
LM: And it was interesting early on, when season 1 came out, I saw in the beginning there was a lot of people who were kind of put off by Lance. Because of all of his comments and his goofiness. But it seems as time went on, people started to figure out and see where it was coming from. Which was really just a place of insecurity.
He created this whole rivalry with Keith. Keith, he may have issues, but he’s not super concerned with what Lance thinks about him. But Lance is very concerned with how he looks to everyone, and how he fits into this world. And I think people started to pick up on who Lance was, and he wasn’t actually all bravado. It was all just a put on. Just a show.
And even down to the Blue Lion accepting him, we never really got to hear what the Blue Lion would look for in a pilot. And some have said, oh, it’s the friendly Lion, but really the Blue Lion is kind of like the mother Lion. She looks for potential in a new pilot. Something to nurture and foster. And I think she saw that in Lance. She saw someone who needed confirmation that they were valuable to this team. Even though they didn’t believe it in themselves.
And Lance, of course, takes advantage of that and is like, ‘Look, I’m the greatest. I’ve got the first Lion, woo-hoo.’ But it’s all just a massive put-on for him. So I think it’s something that may not have been hit hard over the head in season 1, but was kind of there. And then we just touched on it on more of a level in season 2, and that’ll ultimately be something that he needs to deal with moving forward.
JDS: It’s definitely his strongest through line. It’s exciting to try to plan for that. To see people come to a lot of those realizations organically. Because it was nothing that we were hitting too overtly on the head, until we got to Beta Traz. And it was like, oh man, he’s really dealing with some stuff here.