Honerva

 Sorceress Honerva (Witch Haggar) is a secondary antagonist in the classic combining mecha anime series, Beast King Go Lion (Edited to become the Lion version of Voltron, Defender Of The Universe ). Combining mysticism and mad science in the Galra Empire, it was she who provided Emperor Daibazal (King Zarkon) and Prince Imperial Sincline (Lotor) with a long string of DeathBlack BeastMen (Ro-Beasts) sent out from Planet Galra (Planet Doom) to destroy the peaceful planet Altea (Arus) and its stalwart defender, Go Lion (Voltron). In keeping with her status as a sorceress, Honerva keeps a cat familiar, a deadly blue beast named Jaga (Coba) whose power and intelligence belies its small body and animal form.

Role in Go Lion
From the start of the series, she is a close adviser to Daibazal, and is said to have inspired much of his evil, from the decades-ago invasion of Altea, to the lives thrown away in Galra's deadly gladiator arena. Under her guidance, Daibazal's ships scour the Earth, which had recently suffered the Third World War, for survivors. Five space explorers returned to find their world gone and themselves taken to Galra as slaves. Escaping, they made for Altea, where Honerva warned they could possibly awaken the ancient and mighty Go Lion, broken apart by a goddess as punishment for Go Lion's arrogance. When her prediction came to pass and repeated enemy attacks failed to stop Go Lion, Honerva herself traveled to Altea with Jaga. There, she stalked, isolated, cornered and assassinated team member Takashi Shirogane (Sven, who survived in the American version), believing that this would spell the end of the Go Lion team's ability to combine into the super robot. When the planet's surviving royal, Princess Fala (Allura) took Shirogane's place, this continued the deadly stalemate. Numerous BeastMen, spells, poisons, plagues and schemes came and went. While Daibazal became increasingly frustrated, he would turn his wrath on his former best general, Sadak (Yorak), and even his own son, Sincline - but never Honerva. Honerva kept a large monster-making factory on a section of land near Castle Galra, a laboratory even more hellish than the rest of the planet. At times she would aid Prince Sincline in schemes to impress his father, but seemed to hold him in some kind of disdain as well. Honerva survived for reasons unknown and for one that was very well known - she alone controlled the process by which beasts and sometimes men (like the fallen failed Commander Sadak and Prince Avok of Heracles) were turned into rampaging giant monsters.

Two of Honerva's most notable schemes involved faking death and faking rebirth. When Princess Fala seemed to take ill and die, her teammates mourned and prepared to bury her. But when Sincline and Honerva tried to steal her body, they realized the death had been faked to make kidnapping the princess easier (In an ironic edit, the Voltron Force caught on to the scheme far earlier than the Go Lion team did). A later scheme near the series' end had the long-lost son of Minister Raible (Coran) return amid rejoicing that fell away when it was discovered that the young man in question was a clone under the control of Galra, who assassinated Lady Hys (Nanny) before being killed himself. Fala found that the gravesite of Raible's wife and son had been violated by Honerva for this scheme. (The Voltron edit, restricted by disallowed mentions of death, awkwardly stated that the wife and son were alive in another dimension).

The Last Of Honerva
A few lucky breaks and hard-fought battles allowed the Go Lion team and its allies to begin to force Galra back, until Go Lion was able to enter Galra itself and fight on the enemy's home front. Enraged, Daibazal tried to have his son Sincline arrested for failure, but Sincline turned the tables on his father, overthrowing him and then setting him up to die in a battle with Go Lion. Honerva became enraged at this, at last revealing that she herself had been Daibazal's mother, possibly the one who put him on his throne, and that she despised her grandson Sincline for being part-Altean, the result of Daibazal's capture of an Altean woman he soon grew bored with. Sincline turned back her attacks, killed Jaga the cat, and finally his decidedly unloving grandmother, who predicted before she died that Sincline would not be on the throne for long. In fact, soon after, Mother, son and grandson joined each other in death. Their empire fell apart, leaving the universe in peace.

Differences in Witch Haggar
TBC...