lctor:

to be completely blunt: the paladins have no idea what they’re doing. 

their goal to achieve peace by freeing the universe from the hands of the galra is admirable. their methods, however, are not. as things are now, they’re doing more harm than good. 

now, keep in mind i’m not saying lotor is the good guy here - from an objective standpoint, none of them are. 

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we’re being told the story from the paladin’s point of view, which makes us perceive them as “good”, while anyone and anything that gets in their way is “bad”. but protagonist isn’t the same as hero, and antagonists aren’t always the villains - an important distinction to make, in this case. (some examples i can name off the top of my head are megamind, death note & peter pan) 

side note: if this story were being told from lotor’s perspective, it’d be about an exiled prince struggling to reform the empire his father created because he’s sick of his old man’s ways, and voltron would be the “villain” that popped out of nowhere to ruin his plans. badly worded, but you get the point.

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the beginning of season 3 was the perfect example of that. the paladins liberated planet puig, got them to join their alliance, and once that was done they had no idea how to further go about their mission. 

i’m incredibly glad the writers made lotor himself point this out - because unless the paladins change their method, it’s always going to be like this. 

they free a planet. the galra strike. and boom - it’s part of the empire again. 

but lotor has an army at his hand, while the paladins have what? a 10.000 year old castle ship and a robot? 5 mini robots if you will? backed up by the “thinly spread defences” of the blade of marmora? 

this genius may not have a weapon as powerful as voltron yet, but he’s got an army. the amount of time voltron takes to defend one planet, he takes back 50 of them simultaneously. while the paladins may be strong in battle, they’re weak in war. 

lotor aims to integrate the newly conquered planets into the system of the empire while letting them continue to rule themselves (although his methods aren’t nearly as diplomatic as i’d like to believe). meanwhile team voltron practically go “you’re free now, baby. free. do what you want, we’re aware you have no experience managing things on your own whatsoever but you’ll do fine!”

not even taking into consideration that some of these planets have been enslaved by zarkon and haggar for 10.000 years. do they even know how to rule themselves anymore? voltron hands them ‘freedom’ with no outline of how to attain a manageable policy. that path leads down to poverty. famine. civil war. you name it. 

from their individual perspectives they’re all pursuing a “good” goal. but if we’re talking about what’s best for the stability of the universe, lotor’s leadership is way more functional than voltron’s current alliance.