Trashy Quiznak [Voltron WA 2017]

VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDERS SHOWRUNNERS ANSWER 5 QUESTIONS

[article from online]
[season two spoiler warning]

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VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDERS SHOWRUNNERS ANSWER OUR 5 BIGGEST QUESTIONS ABOUT SEASON 2

Keith's heritage, Shiro's lion, and more.

BY JOSHUA YEHL
After binging Season 2 of Voltron: Legendary Defender on Netflix, we were left with yet another pile of mysteries, so we hopped on the phone with showrunners Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery to get some answers to our five biggest burning questions.

IGN: We find out about Keith's connection to the Blade of Marmora and how he is part Galra. Why did you decide to make him part Galra? And will we eventually meet his parents?

Dos Santos: I think Keith being part Galra was something we had in our head since the earliest time we were developing the show. I think it was just when we were going to reveal that information, one of the things that we noticed from first season was fans are reacting like "hey, we hadn't really figured out a lot about Keith," and we were intentionally keeping that a bit more mysterious. I think Keith as a character is more guarded. And so in Season 2 when we were finally able to do this big explainer episode, we still wanted to explain that he's got Galra heritage but he's sort got a shady past. You don't know exactly what went down or how it went down. Even the way he is able to find out about his past is sort of through re-living a virtual mindscape. His history wasn't even real events with his dad, it was this sort of subconscious manifestation that explained everything to him. But yeah, for sure I think there's a path that we were intentionally trying to keep hidden in the first season that we let a little pin light on in the second season. That for sure is something I think we want to explore moving forward.

Montgomery: It still remains to be seen. We know who his dad is but we don't know who the other half of his family is, so it's something that... and we don't even know where that's going to go. We don't know if he's going to find that person or if he's just going to find the story of that person. Yeah. But we definitely want to explore that and take it further.

Dos Santos: I think for us, one of the issues we ran into early with developing characters was you had three characters that were really similar in structure. You had Lance, Sven from the original show, and Keith who all occupy this really similar space. So making Keith one, a hothead, and two, have this lineage was a way for us to differentiate him from other characters.

IGN TV: Season 2 saw each lion unlock a new feature. How did you come up with those new abilities and will we be seeing the lions do even more new things?

Dos Santos: I think the idea is that the lions and the paladins and their relationship and all that stuff is kind of ever-evolving. We don't want to say any specifics, like "yeah there's definitely more coming." But I think it's safe to assume that that relationship and that bond only grow stronger over the course of the series.

Montgomery: And it's not just lion-related. Obviously the paladins need to bond more with their lions and strengthen that relationship, but there's also the evolution of Voltron himself, and when they combine to become Voltron, and the stronger a team they become, the better they work together, the more they're able to unlock with Voltron.

We really wanted to kind of make sure that the weapons the lions ultimately manifested were things that harken back to what is the essential quality of those lions and what is the personality of those lions.

You have the yellow lion, which is kind of a heavy armor sort of guy. And he's a little slow, so when he gets his upgrade, you get something that helps him out. He gets even more armor, which is his personality, but he also gets these boosters that allow him to move a little quicker because that's something that lion lacks.