- “A purple dragon named Spyro. Amazing. Of course, there were unsubstantiated rumors of a purple dragon countless generations ago, but most consider it hearsay, gossip, legend. It's hard to believe, difficult to fathom, amazing to comprehend...er...um...”
- —Volteer
Volteer is a yellow dragon who appears in The Legend of Spyro series. He is the Electricity Guardian Dragon.
Character Development
Volteer was designed by Jared Pullen, lead concept artist of The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. The Electricity Guardian was originally a deep blue color, with a purple secondary tone to his chest and armored spine regions, but that caused him to become too close to Cyril's main color scheme. Once the Electricity element was established in yellow, the skin color of choice for Volteer became apparent.[2]
Appearance
Original Design (2006-2007)
In his original design by Krome Studios, Volteer is a yellow-scaled dragon with light yellow stripes on his body that resemble lightning bolts. He has yellow eyes, a blue scaley underbelly, a blue pair of wings with battered, yellow battered membranes, and blue horns. He has blue spines on his back, blue claws, a tail spike, and three blue crests on his shoulders, one on each of his elbows and ankles.
Dawn of the Dragon Design (2008)
In his Dawn of the Dragon redesign by Étranges Libellules, Volteer remains largely the same in overall appearance, but has a more muscular build and doesn't have the lightning-shaped stripes on his body his previous design had. His wings are no longer battered, and due to time constraints, they share the same model as Ignitus's wings in the final version of the game.
Personality
- “Nimble in both deed and mind, Volteer is the most intellectual of the Guardians. He enjoys using big words and inserting barely relevant facts into discussions.”
- —The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning website character description
Quickwitted and fleet of foot, this lightning dragon says more than necessary and simply explodes onto any subject that sparks his interest. Volteer is the most intellectual of the Dragon Guardians; he is a scholar, greatly invested with studies, moreso than his fellow Guardians[3], making him well-versed in lore and legend of the dragons of old. As an old dragon of words, his spectacular speech will sizzle your sound sensors and burst your brain cells, and according to Sparx in The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, his stories "will put anyone to sleep". Volteer may very well have swallowed a Thesaurus with all that he can fit into a sentence! Nevertheless, he is a friend and fellow to all, though none can keep that electric tongue of his from constantly wagging.
Abilities
Being the most excitable of the four, Volteer is best suited for battles in the air allowing him to whip, whirl, flash, and fry enemies that may whizz by.
Story
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning
In the past, Volteer along with other Electric elemental Dragons used the fortress of Concurrent Skies as a private study, from which to best observe and unlock the mysteries of electricity.[1] Volteer would later participate in the ongoing war against the Dark Master's armies, until he and the other remaining Guardians were driven back when many Guardian dragons were lost.[4]
Volteer was one of the four Guardians who guarded the dragon eggs inside the Dragon Temple. When the Temple came under attack by the Dark Armies, he warned Ignitus of the coming battle and fought alongside Cyril and Terrador to defend the Temple, while Ignitus worked to save the egg that contained the prophesized purple dragon Spyro. By the time Ignitus returned, Volteer and the other Guardians had been overruned by the dark forces, and all the other eggs had been smashed.
Sometime after their failure, Volteer went on to fight alongside his fellow Guardians with their army of Dragon Knights against the forces of the Dark Master for the islands. When they were beginning to turn the tide in the war, a large, powerful black dragon named Cynder came, easily decimating the Dragons and captured Volteer and the Guardians, all except Ignitus. Cynder took Volteer to Dante's Freezer where she drained his elemental power into a crystal and held him prisoner for years. Spyro would eventually rescue Volteer from the depths of Dante's Freezer and returned to the Temple where the Electric Guardian trained Spyro the art of Electricity. Afterwards, Volteer told Spyro and Ignitus what happened during his capture and Ignitus sent Spyro to look for the other Guardians.
The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night
Weeks later when the Temple was under attack by Gaul's army yet again, Volteer and the others fought back and drove them out. After the invasion, Volteer couldn't believe, as well as the other Guardians, that the Chronicler existed and sent visions to Spyro. In response to the Night of Eternal Darkness approaching and the dark omens that surround it, Ignitus afterwards, sent Volteer with Cyril to go to the mainland to learn what news they could.
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon
During the three years that Spyro and Cynder went missing, Volteer along with the other Guardians and surviving dragons went to war against the Dark Master Malefor himself after his resurrection. They moved to the Dragon City of Warfang where they waited for Spyro, Sparx, and Cynder's return all the while fighting Malefor's Grublin army.
During the events of Dawn of the Dragon, Volteer took part in distracting the Earth Golem as it was attacking Warfang. As Spyro, Cynder and Sparx were trapped in a city district, the Electricity Guardian came to their rescue by breaking down a door behind three enemies, letting them out of that area. After the Golem was defeated, Volteer watched with the other Guardians as Malefor revealed his plan and resurrected the Destroyer. Along with the other Guardians, Volteer ventured through the city's underground to confront the Destroyer and attack it before it completed the Ring of Annihilation and initiated the end of the world. When the attack failed however, the Electric Guardian helped move the inhabitants of Warfang underground in the hopes that they would be safe, not emerging until Spyro and Cynder defeated Malefor and prevented the destruction of the world. He looked over the horizon along with everyone else and witnessed the creation of a dragon constellation in the sky, signalling the beginning of a new age.
Relationships
Cyril
Volteer and the Ice Guardian Cyril notably don't get along well; both being annoyed at one another's personality traits (Volteer irritated by Cyril's ego and Cyril being annoyed by Volteer's constant chatter). Regardless of their rivalry, both Guardians are willing to work together when the time comes for the next course of action.
Gallery
- Main article: Volteer/Gallery
Trivia
- Even though he was still voiced by Corey Burton, Volteer sounds more tired in his single line of dialogue in Dawn of the Dragon.
- Volteer was originally going to have more than one dialogue in Dawn of the Dragon in numerous comedic scenes along with Sparx, Cyril, etc. that the developers had planned and in some cases even recorded, but they didn't have the resources or time to animate them.[5]
- Originally Volteer was going to be muzzled during his imprisonment in Dante's Freezer, with concept art showing the details for Volteer's muzzle and Sparx's ingame dialogue mentioning the Guardian being "gagged". While Volteer wasn't gagged in the final version of A New Beginning, the 3D prop of Volteer's muzzle can still be found in the game files.
- According to Jared Pullen, in response to Cynder's return to the Dragon Temple, the Guardians were intended to be in a debate over Cynder's return to Dragonkind. While Cyril opposed the decision, and Ignitus and Terrador strongly supported it, Volteer endlessly debated the pros and cons of Cynder's return until Cyril finally grew tired of all the assumptions and relented.[6]
- His Japanese name is translated to Korean as 보루테에루 (Boluteelu).
- After the battle with the Destroyer, both Volteer and Cyril strangely don't appear again in the same cutscene halfway through nor were given orders by Ignitus regarding the incoming world crisis like Terrador did. A model placement mistake however, will show Volteer's leg standing on the left side of the screen when Ignitus speaks to Sparx as they are about to go to The Burned Lands. Volteer and Cyril did appear in the game's epilogue and the post-credits cutscene.
- In A New Beginning and The Eternal Night, Volteer has holes in his wings, but in Dawn of the Dragon's art style, he doesn't.
- For unexplained reasons, Volteer isn't present in the Nintendo GameBoy Advance version of The Eternal Night.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 TLoS StoryScroll ElectricityGuardian. (Date Posted - Apr 12, 2016). DeviantArt
- ↑ TLoS DragonGuardian Volteer. (Date Posted - Apr 4, 2016). DeviantArt.
- ↑ Volteer is chiefly concerned with study, moreso than his elemental counterparts, and Concurrent Skies provided the most opportune place of residence in which to study his elemental art.. (Date Posted - Apr 12, 2016). DeviantArt.
- ↑ The Dragon's Vault Opened Once More. (Date Posted - Mar. 31, 2011). Blogger.
- ↑ Volteer- Not so chatty. (Date Posted - Feb. 2, 2009). Sierra Community Forums (inaccessible).
- ↑ A new beginning.... (Date Posted - Apr. 14, 2016). DeviantArt.
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