Saturday, June 9, 2018

'Toon Reviews 17: Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 2 Episode 8: The Blade of Marmora


The Blade of Marmora







This episode begins the next phase of the plan to defeat Zarkon by allying with the Blade of Marmora. 
In addition to consisting of Galra members against Zarkon, more interesting details are revealed about how the organization works.  Their base is located between two active black holes.  The members are also suspicious of newcomers and aren’t easily convinced to join the alliance, even if they’re the universe’s best defender.  These reveals add on to the creativity of their environment and the believability of its members’ mindset.  They’re fighting against their leader, so that gives great cause for caution. 
As for the Paladins, Keith is the standout character for this episode.  When approaching these Galra traitors, he’s completely anxious to get there, and snaps at the rest of the Paladins as they partake in their usual small talk.  Keith is known for attitude issues, but when you consider Keith observing his Galra blade in prior episodes, his outbursts have more weight to them than usual.  Of course he’d be anxious to meet these rebels so to learn more about the artifact to find out the truth about his upbringings, a very relatable desire.  The Blade of Marmora only allow two Paladins to speak with them, and Keith is chosen to go with Shiro. 
However, it’s Keith’s ties to his blade that becomes a drawback when the whole group accuses him of stealing it even though he had it all his life.  So, Keith is thrown into challenges to get the Blade of Marmora on the Paladins’ side, prove he didn’t steal the Galra blade, and possibly learn about his past.  The catch is that every challenge is a grueling fight that gets harsher every time, and everyone shoots down any valid statements of how unfair they are.  It’s remarkable to see how much hardships Keith’s willing to put up with to get what he desires.  It doesn’t paint the Blade of Marmora as very sympathetic though.  They may be understandably wary of outsiders, but Keith’s a main protector of the galaxy regardless.  It doesn’t warrant this magnitude of tortures. 
What they do to Keith gets worse when they mess with his desires, starting small with creating a vision of Shiro to get Keith to hand over the blade, and then tapping into Keith’s bigger desire to learn his background.  At least out of this vision, we do get an interesting look at Keith’s Earth life in which he had a human dad who got the Galra blade from his mom whom we get an interesting suggestion for who she is following Keith ending his suffering.  Knowing that he promised Shiro to lead the team someday, Keith decides that learning where he came from isn’t as important as being there for others and decides to give up his blade before anyone can save him. 
Through this gesture, the blade grows in size because Keith is of Galra blood.  When you put this and the vision together, this concludes that Keith’s mother was from the Galra Empire which is interesting trivia for this character and something intriguing to look into in episodes to come.  Keith’s development does wonders for him not just with the insight on his background, but also how what he learns helps him overcome his attitude faults to become a better leader. 
It helps the whole episode come together as a great step in our heroes’ plan especially when short scenes of Haggar interrogating Zarkon’s crew to find the traitor bring a strong sense of urgency.  Above all, it leaves us with a strong, thought-provoking watch. 9.5/10

The Ranking
  1. Shiro’s Escape
  2. Greening the Cube
  3. The Blade of Marmora
  4. The Ark of Taujeer
  5. Eye of the Storm
  6. Across the Universe
  7. The Depths
  8. Space Mall
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where the Paladins split up to get the appropriate components for their Zarkon defeat plan and we focus on what Keith and Hunk get up to.
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