Voltron Season 4 Rewrite

"Code of Honor" Rewrite Analysis

As I've said before, this episode is the one that had the least amount of changes made to it. However, there were a few changes, along with some added details that I'd like to draw attention to to give some deeper analysis into what my intentions were behind certain things in this episode.

-The opening scene remains exactly the same, simply because it's important to show the Galra transporting quintessence, and it makes for a good opener to transition to the Blades. One detail I'd like to point out here, though, is the way Keith has no problems speaking up against Kolivan (ex. "Keith looked off to the side, a fire flashing in his eyes at the mention of Voltron. He could've let it go; instead, he reached for the hard drive in his suit."), but when it comes to speaking against Shiro, he can't do it (ex. "Keith's eyes ignited in much the same way they had earlier in his argument with Kolivan, but this time, Keith remained silent. After all, Shiro wasn't the same as Kolivan."). Keith continues to defer to Shiro because he's used to it; he doesn't defer to Kolivan in the same way. Especially when he disagrees with Kolivan's and the BOM's "code of honor".

-The only scene I really changed was Lotor's scene, which got reworked completely. In the show, he has this useless conversation with Haggar in which he flaunts about how he's the one in control of the Empire (but two episodes later he doesn't even care about staying in control...yeah, what even is Lotor's character). So instead, I had him and Acxa talk about the rebels, and we witness him telling her to set up a false supply ship in the rebel's territory, which as we know, ends up getting Regris killed. By the way, the only reason they knew the Blades were onto them was because Keith got them caught in the opening scene on that infiltration mission. Keith indirectly caused Regris's death. He's also the one who wanted to check out the ship even after Kolivan said something was wrong, which also contributed to Regris dying. You bet the poor boy is beating himself up over Regris's death. Let the angst flow through you.

-They then mention Zarkon's recovery coming to an end, and Lotor reveals his code of honor, which isn't really a code of honor at all. The only reason he wants Zarkon to have a fighting chance is because he has his entire future planned out. He wants to win the Empire and he wants to do it his way, the way he's always imagined it, and he's always imagined winning a fight against Zarkon as opposed to just taking the Empire while Zarkon was weakened. The damn perfectionist needs everything to go exactly how he's always planned it.

-As for the reason he's getting support, he states that, "Even the densest of Galra will understand that my father will not be pleased with any of them for showing me their support in his absence". He's using fear to ensure that Galra soldiers will side with him—not so different from his father, eh. Additionally, the only reason he's able to manipulate them this way is because he knows his father, and he knows his father will be enraged at anyone for supporting Lotor in his absence. In other words, Lotor is aware of how much his father hates him and is using that to his advantage. Poor boy...what a dysfunctional father-son duo.

-The rest of the episode is pretty much the exact same as the actual one. Lance in particular is upset about Keith never being around 'for the performances', as we see when he calls him out when Kolivan initially calls for backup and then calls him out again when they're performing and he doesn't show up, which Allura quickly reprimands him for.

-One of the reasons this episode was so good was because of the beautiful juxtaposition between the lion's performing on Reiphod and Keith's BOM mission, where one is all colorful and happy and excitable while the other is all suspenseful and dramatic and tense. Seriously, if you don't remember the fantastic scene switching and juxtaposition of these scenes, and if reading it in my writing didn't give you chills, go rewatch the episode. The scene transitions in those parts were sooooo chilling. In an attempt to mirror how incredible those transitions were, I attempted to juxtapose the scenes by using similar wording at the end and beginning of each scene.

Ex. "Reiphod roared with excitement as the lions spun in formation into the sky". Right after this line, I transition with, "Keith's ears roared with the rush of his own blood". The use of the word 'roared' in both sentences helps juxtapose the scenes in the transition to mirror how they did it in the show.

Another ex. "his body had little control over itself as he floated through space". This is immediately followed by, "The lion's were in perfect control and sync as they swerved into the air". In this case, the word "control" juxtaposes the two scenes in the transition. These are the only two times it does this, though, I believe. The show only did it twice, too, but wow is it such a beautiful scene when you watch it, and I hope I did it some justice by using the word play that I used.

-I almost cut out the scene where Allura confronts him by herself simply because I didn't see what it contributed to the story. I didn't really understand why they chose Allura to randomly confront him, but now I think I do see some use for it. I think the point of this scene was to show that Allura alone couldn't convince Keith to stay with Voltron. Someone else will have to do it, if not just all of them confronting him together in a more helpful manner. Due to this, I think it is a very important scene to show and thus I decided to keep it in.

-I changed the scene where Allura sees Keith leaving with the Blade while they're handing out supplies to be in Keith's POV instead. Keith continuously watches Shiro being a leader, and he doesn't think he can ever live up to it, which is a big part of why he pulls away so much.

-In the final scene, when Hunk asks Keith why else he was pulling away other than just the whole leader-complex ordeal, I noted that Keith decided not to tell them the truth and instead makes an 'excuse' about leaving on a long mission. The truth was that he rejects people before they reject him because he's afraid of letting people get close to him; that's why he was pulling away from the group. His paladin vlog literally says this, like, word for word. So that's the truth, he just decides not to say it to them because he doesn't want to open up about it—especially since they were just staring at him with such judging eyes a tick ago.

-I'll be honest, I wanted to just get rid of Regris because his character serves zero purpose, just like 95% of the Blade of Marmora, but I love the lizard boy, so I kept him just to kill him off. Rip. Regris deserved better, honestly.

Alright, those are all the details, additions and changes I made to Voltron Season 4 Episode 1: Code of Honor. By the way, in case you didn't catch it yet, the title refers to the Blade of Marmora's "code of honor", which Kolivan quotes at one point (I added this, the actual episode never really even tries to explain this title). Lotor also quotes that he has a code of honor, so yeah, that's where the title comes from. Anyways, the end of this episode where Keith leaves is super sad and nothing much really changed in this rewrite of mine.

Next time, Voltron Season 4 Episode 2: Reunion.

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