There’s a sentiment I’ve seen circulating ever since season four’s
premier that the Blade of Marmora willfully and readily sacrifices their
members without giving a damn about their lives, and that Kolivan especially is
cold and doesn’t care at all about the Marmorites who die on their missions.
This is a sentiment that I strongly disagree with, because I feel that evidence
to the contrary is all over their
appearances in the show itself, to the point where you have to be willfully
ignoring the canon in order to express it.
Let’s look at Kolivan in specific. We’re first introduced to Kolivan in
2x08 when Shiro and Keith visit the Marmora base in the hopes of forming an
alliance. Kolivan does not greet them warmly; instead, he greets them
professionally, albeit with a slight edge to his voice. He knows who they are,
he says, and he affirms what Shiro says when Shiro says that he must know that
one of their own sent them. The fact that Ulaz sent Shiro and Keith to the
Marmora base is something Kolivan is not happy about. However, more
specifically, Kolivan is not happy about the fact that Ulaz died to save Team Voltron:
Ulaz broke protocol in two major ways: He divulged information about
the Blade of Marmora to Team Voltron, and he also gave his life to save theirs.
Kolivan disagrees with both of Ulaz’s actions. He does not feel that
sacrificing his own life to save Team Voltron’s was the right choice for Ulaz
to make. This is not because he doesn’t see the potential value of Voltron
(rather, he agrees that they would be fortunate to have the Red Lion on their
side in terms of crisis), nor is it because he has any particular beef with
Team Voltron themselves. Rather, it’s because Ulaz was a highly competent,
capable agent of the Blade of Marmora. He was a member of Kolivan’s team. And
to lose him to what Kolivan feels was a rash, impulsive action is not something that sits well with
Kolivan. In fact, one could say that the hard edge that he uses to greet Shiro
and Keith here is slight resentmenttoward them for being there before him,
alive and well, when Ulaz had to die in order to make that happen.
That said, it’s true that this is a lot of inference. One could easily
argue that Kolivan is just upset because Ulaz divulged the location of the Marmora
base. So let’s fast forward to 2x12, when everyone learns that Thace has been
compromised, and thus the plan to infiltrate Zarkon’s ship has hit a rather
rough snag.
Kolivan is the one who points out that they haven’t heard from
Thace—and that, indeed, Thace was supposed to contact them two vargas (hours)
ago. Note that when he adds that line about how Thace was supposed to contact
them, he looks down and away, breaking eye contact with Shiro. Looking down and
away like that, with slightly narrowed eyes, is upset body language. The fact that Thace is out of contact, and
that he missed the appointed contact time (when ordinarily he wouldn’t) is clearly
upsetting to Kolivan. And it’s not
upsetting just because he’s lacking information, but because of what it means. As Antok points out, Thace could
be captured. As Kolivan himself suggests,
he could have been killed. Kolivan’s
upset at the fact that Thace did not contact them when he was supposed to is
upset at the idea which he is already thinking about, though hasn’t voiced: The
idea that Thace was killed aboard Zarkon’s ship, and that’s why he hasn’t contacted them the way he was supposed to.
And it doesn’t end there. Although the fandom has been insistent that
the Blade of Marmora is bad for Keith because they (and Kolivan in particular)
will “teach him to sacrifice himself,” what we see in canon is actually in
direct opposition to that suggestion. In that very episode, 2x12, the ones who
we see calling for reckless potential sacrifice are not the Marmorites, but rather Team
Voltron, spearheaded by Allura herself when Kolivan says they must abort
the mission because Thace has been lost.
