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paladin-pile:

flamingheadphones:

flusteredkeith:

joaquim and lauren: there’s a difference between “killing himself” and “sacrificing yourself for the greater good”

me:

Okay but it makes me extremely happy that they said this as it’s a very personal subject for me.

I come from a military background. For the first 13 years of my life, I lived on military bases around the country since my dad was a US Army soldier from 1987 until he retired in 2013. My brother was born in 1997 and myself in 2001, so we were born into the military lifestyle, and I’ve honestly never been prouder of anything else.

For 18 months at a time my father would be sent away on deployments to the Middle East to fight the ongoing war on terrorism, putting himself in extreme danger and pushing himself to his limit alongside his military counterparts in order to defend our country. He missed birthdays, Christmas, New Years, and large portions of mine and my older brother’s lives in order to fight to create a country in which we could grow up safe and unharmed.

I constantly reiterate the fact that Voltron is not just a show about adventures and shipping and comedy. It’s a show about war and the fight for freedom, a message that I grew up with.

Keith is an amazing example of the modern soldier. He doesn’t think of himself, he thinks of the cause and his brothers in arms, which is exactly how soldiers are trained to think. My dad was rigorously trained to never think of himself as an individual, but to instead put his brothers and sisters in arms first, thinking only of the fight and the goal, as that is the only way to win a war. This is exactly what Keith’s mindset is.

Does Keith have some deep-seated issues? Yes, he most likely does. Abandonment by his mother and implied abandonment by his father are extremely conducive to a poor mental state. But what Keith did was not reckless. He was not simply trying to kill himself. Keith knows that he has reasons to stay alive - learning about his heritage, being there for Shiro, and his friends. He was not just trying to commit suicide.

He was making a sacrifice for a cause that was bigger than himself.

It saddens me when I see posts that Keith was being reckless and stupid for attempting to sacrifice himself, as it pushes the idea that soldiers who sacrifice themselves on the battlefield are not of sound mind and are being “reckless.” My father watched men and women die for their country during his deployment, and none of them were being reckless. They were laying down their lives because they believed that the cause they were fighting for was bigger than themselves. They made a decision not because they wanted to die, but because they were willing to do so if it meant that their deaths could lead to a safer world.

Keith nearly sacrificed himself not because he was depressed or wanted to die, but because he wanted to fight for the cause. It is constantly ingrained in his mind that the Paladins are too valuable to die, while all around him he’s watching other members of the rebellion lay down their lives for the cause with no protests. Keith does not believe that being part of Voltron makes his life anymore valuable than the rebel fighters, and this is not a sign of self-hatred. It’s a sign of humbleness and of a soldier.

Now, did Keith’s depression make the decision to make the sacrifice himself an easier one? I can agree with that. But he was not killing himself because of his pain. He was sacrificing himself to save the universe.

So please stop saying that Keith was trying to commit suicide and “needs help” because of it. Keith definitely needs to talk to someone about his depression, but his attempted sacrifice was not reckless or irresponsible. It was brave, and he deserves to be recognized for that.

Reblogging for the commentary