Fanon / Voltron: Legendary Defender

• Some people believe Matt, Shiro and Keith were a team in the Garrison, similar to how Pidge, Lance, and Hunk were.
• Word of God states that Shiro is the only Paladin conceived with a specific ethnicity in mind and the others were meant to be purposefully ambiguous. Most fans would decide that Lance is Latino (specifically Mexican or Cuban), Hunk is Hawaiian, Pidge is West European, and Keith is Asian (some believing Korean because of his voice actor Steven Yeun, and others believing Japanese or Japanese/Chinese-mixed, because of previous incarnations of the character). Lance would eventually be confirmed to be Cuban in the series itself, while supplementary material would confirm Hunk as mixed Samoan/African-American, and Pidge as Italian.
• Some fans like to think Allura is African or the Altean equivalent of such despite her being an alien. However, her voice actor has specifically denied she is black or any other specific real-world ethnicity. On top of this, the show has other characters (both Altean and human) who are drawn with overtly African features which Allura and her family lack, underscoring her ethnic ambiguity. Another subset headcanons Allura and her family as Desi, although again, see above.
• Fans like to reimagine Lance's Bayard weapon, which currently manifests as a standard laser blaster, as a sniper rifle to make it stand out from Hunk's similar but better weapon. Season 3 has Lance officially upgraded to a sniper rifle while using the red bayard. In Season 2, Lance is officially promoted to sharpshooter, while Hunk's weapon is more useful for wide range damage and cover fire.
• A large portion of the fandom, predominantly shippers, is convinced Keith is gay, to the point that a staff interview that mentioned Keith and Allura interacting more in the future led to a lot of panic, outrage, and accusations of gay erasure and queerbaiting, even though the show never indicates his sexual orientation in any direction whatsoever. Some of it has to do with the staff's work on The Legend of Korra which did have the main character end up in a same-sex relationship. However, the two head writers who pushed for said pairing have nothing to do with Voltron, and while there was a gay character, it ended up being Shiro.
• In a similar vein, Lance is believed to be bisexual or an Armored Closet Gay for shipping purposes. Similar to the above however, while Lance flirts with just about every female he sees (save Pidge, whom he mistook for a boy at first), he has shown zero evidence of being attracted to males. Jeremy Shada, during an interview at Wondercon in April 2016, flat out said Lance is only attracted to women. Most shippers of Keith/Lance are either unaware of this or have chosen to ignore him, and there was a large movement among fandom for bisexual Lance to happen.
• Of the paladins the one who was most popular for Het shipping was Shiro, whether it was as to pair him with Allura as the former Fan-Preferred Couple "Space Parents", occasionally with Pidge, or with females in many a Self-Insert Fic. Ironically, he's also the paladin who turned out to be canonically gay, rather than Keith or Lance.
• It was once commonly believed by parts of the fandom, especially Shiro/Allura shippers, that Allura is the same age as Shiro to avoid "age discourse" problems — despite staff comments hinting that Allura is closer in age to Keith or Lance than to Shiro, and the show going with a romance between Allura and Lance. It was also popular to portray her in fandom as the Team Mom as a counterpart to Shiro's Team Dad (making them the "space parents"), although she averts this in the actual show, displaying no particular motherly traits towards the group. Notably, the Voltron staff have acknowledged Shiro being the space dad but have never done the same for Allura being a "space mom".
  • At the Wondercon 2017 Voltron panel, Allura was confirmed by the showrunners to be a teenager multiple times. It was also stated by Kimberly Brooks that she doesn’t react well to kids, this effectively Jossed the idea of her being the Team Mom.
• Some Keith/Lance shippers like to believe that Shiro and Keith are actual brothers or step-brothers, particularly due to the show suggesting that Keith and Shiro have a past together and Keith stating he thinks of Shiro like a brother in Season 2. Jossed in Season 6, where it's shown that although Keith views Shiro in a brother-like light, they are not actually related in any way, and explicitly Jossed again by Josh Hamilton.
• It has been believed that all Paladins (and Allura to a lesser degree) have varying levels of Big Brother Instinct for Pidge, since she is the physically weakest and smallest of the group. To some, she is actually aware of it and sometimes uses this to get an upper hand or getting out of the training early.
• Keith's surname is often given in fanworks as "Kogane", after his GoLion counterpart and the Comic-Book Adaptation of the original Voltron: Defender of the Universe. This is favoured by those who believe Shiro is Keith's biological brother/step-brother, who adopted the term "Broganes".
  • "McClain" and "Garrett" get tossed around fairly often for Lance and Hunk's last names, since they were also used in the Defender of the Universe comic.
• Many Shiro/Pidge shippers seem to have adopted Slav as a Shipper on Deck for the pair, especially after the look he gives Pidge in episode 10 of Season 2.
• Due to his past as a gladiator in Galra arenas Shiro is portrayed as having lots of scars all over his body besides the one on his nose. Some art by staff animators indicates that he has some on his arms, while scenes in the show suggest that at least his left arm and collarbone area doesn't.
• A lot of Blaytz/Galra Servant shippers believe that the servant was involved in the creation of the Blade of Marmora following Zarkon's fall into madness.
• Several fans believe that Keith's father is James Hawkins from the original series, given their resemblances.
• Fans believe that Lieutenant Ozar is an Altean himself, due to him having similar facial markings and ears as said race.
• Prior to the events of the flashback where Pidge decides to follow in her father and brother's footsteps (to Matt's clear dismay), she was not only bullied like we're shown but also ran afoul of false friends who used her to do their homework and other such user bully antics, leading her to give up on friends as a waste of time.
• Following Pidge's Gender Reveal, some fans interpreted her as a trans girl, a trans boy, or non-binary. The trans boy and non-binary headcanons have been Jossed by Word of God clarifying that she is a girl. Pidge's voice actor Bex Taylor-Klaus coming out as non-binary in 2018 has revitalized this to a degree, with some fans hoping/believing that Pidge will do the same.
• While Shiro canonically has PTSD, other characters are sometimes speculated to be neurodivergent as well. Some of the more common suggestions include:
  • Pidge, Keith, and Leifsdottir have autism. (Fun fact: Voltron Legendary Defender stories take up the second largest portion of the "Autism" tags on Archive of Our Own. Number one is My Hero Academia.)
  • Hunk has generalized anxiety disorder.
  • Lance has ADD/ADHD. (Fun fact: Voltron Legendary Defender stories also take up the largest portion of the "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" tag on Archive of Our Own.)
• Hunk was believed to have two mothers until the seventh season, in which he explicitly identifies both his mother and father in dialogue.
• Some fans have theorised that Lieutenant Hepta and the Operation Kuron general who announces that stage 3 is underway in "The Journey" are the same person, given they share the same character design, despite having different voice actors (Matthew Mercer for the former and Bill Millsap for the latter).
• For whatever reason, Keith is believed to be lactose intolerant. (An explanation for this stems from the headcanon that Keith is Asian, as many Asians are lactose intolerant.)
• Some fans believe that the red haired Altean seen in the end of season 7 could be Merla, though with an added Race Lift as Merla was a Drule in the original series and notable elements of the character were incorporated into Acxa. This seems to stem from Merla's pink hair being comparable to to the Altean girl's red hair, though it was jossed in season 8 with the character's name revealed to be Luca, though Merla does appear in said season.
• Several fans speculate that Acxa is part Dalterian due to similar horns as Trigel.
• Many fans believed Keith and Acxa were siblings who were Separated at Birth. This has been Jossed by Josh Hamilton as he has stated the two are not related in any way. The show itself later josses it as Krolia has never met Acxa before and light Ship Tease is given to Keith/Acxa.
• Similarly to Allura, Acxa is interpreted as black or the alien equivalent of such in human AUs, since all of the voice actors who have played her are African Americans.
• It is common in the fandom to give Romelle large breasts even though her bust size is depicted inconsistently throughout the series. Sometimes she has the same body type as Allura where she has smaller breasts but other times she appears to have very large breasts.

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