I absolutely refuse to believe that Lotor was evil the entire time. He's too good. I love him too much. So I made an explanation for it.
He had tried. He had tried so damn hard to fight it, to go against that growing aggression, that madness. He had been fighting it almost his entire life. It was when he was a teenager that he first felt the tinge of madness. The desire to destroy, a rage that he couldn't find a cause for. For a while, he had been able to spend the rage by training. Flying through asteroid belts, sparing with his generals or with drones, anything to exhaust himself as much as he could. But as the centuries passed, it got harder. A lot harder, until he set the goal of saving the Altean race. A purpose, he had a purpose. But that lurking madness...it was always there.
There began to times of darkness. Blackouts, some would say. He could never recall what he had done during those times and there was never any warning for when they would come. To those on the outside, he barely changed. They never knew of the warring sides within him. When he would come to, he would often have a headache. At times, it was easy to ignore. Others, he would find a way to excuse himself and lay in his bed in total darkness for several hours, wondering what he had done.
Of course, he had seen the monument the Alteans had built for him, and the names listed under it, but the explanation had been they had gave their lives for a good cause. By the time he had realized what was actually happening, it was too late. The line between the personalities had become so twisted and dimmed, he struggled to find a balance between them.
He had thought he found that balance with Allura. Being on the castle of lions had brought a peace to him that hadn't known before. That prison cell she had kept him in, he was able to focus there. He went several days without a headache, meaning several days without having one of his blackouts.
He wasn't sure exactly when they had started up again. Possibly when the white lion had attacked him. But it was back. When Romelle had shown up in Castle of Lions, the harsh reminder had hit him like a brick to the face about what he had done. But he hadn't been given a chance to even try to explain. Not that he could blame them. He shouldn't have kept that information from them, but he had been so afraid of losing Allura's trust. And he had lost it anyway.
Then there was that last battle. He had tried to avoid violence. He had been fighting a blackout. He knew it was coming this time, as they had been coming more and more often, staying longer. But then she had said it. Damn her, she had said it! She had said he was like Zarkon. And that had snapped the last bit of control he had, and the madness had took over entirely.
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Burning. He was burning and aching and something was trying to carve it's way out of his skull with a dull spoon. Slowly, his eyes cracked open, only out of the instinct to see where he was and what was happening. At first, everything was a blinding white. He clenched his eyes closed again, and focused instead on his breathing and collecting his thoughts. Every single breath hurt. Broken ribs? He was prettys sure that had to be it. When he felt ready again, he opened his eyes slowly. There was white, but also specks of darkness that twinkled outside, like some type of reverse sky. He was in a ship, but all the power was down. Very quickly, with an explosion of pain behind his eyes, the memory of the fight came back. Every bit of it, the madness that had taken over, his generals leaving him, Allura and Voltron saying he was no better than Zarkon, and the unbelievable amount of power that Voltron had shot at him. And with that, another explosion of pain, and he lost consciousness.
Lotor wasn't sure how long he was there. He faded in and out of consciousness, the times he was awake full of pain and agony. It hurt to move, to breathe, to think. It hurt to live. He had given up by now, honestly. Let death take him, he was more than ready. The time he was awake was spent longing for the bliss of unconsciousness.
Sometimes he would dream. Or remember? What was it that the paladin's had said about death, that life flashes before your eyes? Perhaps that was happening, he was just dying, slowly. He would see memories of his childhood. Diyak, giving him his lessons with that blasted bat of hers, smacking him with it every time he answered something wrong, made a face she didn't like, or if she just felt like it. He could remember the frustration at never making her happy during their lessons. Memories of the kitchen, where the meals for the week were the same every week, without fail. The language lessons, history lessons, battle training, learning to fly the ships, proper manners expected of him. He remembered his universe-wide hunt for Alteans, the effort put into his project to save them. The horrible things he had done to them. Through it all, he saw what he did during all his blackouts.
If only there was a way he could go back in time and fix it. Either find a way to stop the blackouts, or to just go ahead and tell the Paladins and Voltron about them. They could have either killed him, or locked him away until something was found to stop them. If only he could have told Acxa and his generals about them. Maybe they would have helped. But he had been too much of a coward to tell anyone, and now he was going to die alone in this Quintessence field, the universe a mess because of him. There was no way to tell anyone that he was sorry.
Sooo, what you think? I could continue this technically, but only if people want me to.