@the-wenzel and @arahir made really perfect comments about this as well. You can read that post here.
So—I’m fed up. And I know that’s an entitled thing for me to say as a fan of a series, because if I don’t like the way a story’s going I can always hop ship. Note that the Voltron showrunners and writers can do whatever they want, and I respect their creative freedom; I believe the crew shouldn’t have to cater to the whims of their fanbase.
That being said, I’m going to go ahead and bitch about Keith’s treatment as a character, and the way it punishes fans for empathizing with him. Understand that this isn’t me yelling into a bullhorn, “GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, VOLTRON CREATORS!” It’s me yelling into my blog-pillow, “DEAR GOD, I HOPE THE VOLTRON CREATORS MAKE A TURN-AROUND WITH KEITH’S CHARACTER!” There’s a difference. At least, I hope there is.
1. Keith’s not perfect, but he’s definitely kind
I should begin with another disclaimer: I know Keith’s not a perfect person. I’m not standing on a soap box proclaiming him a precious cinnamon roll who’s done nothing wrong. Remember this moment? “You’re putting the lives of two people over the lives of everyone else in the entire galaxy!” He gets right up in Pidge’s face, and follows her when she tries to walk away.
Keith’s right, here. In the grand scheme of things, they need to put the galaxy first. But he lets his anger get the best of him, and it results in a cruel delivery. And Keith never apologizes for raising his voice like this, even after he goes through a similar arc in season 3 where he loses Shiro and the team tries to force him to move on (and, like Pidge, he eventually decides to put the team first).
Out of everyone on the team—besides Shiro—I feel like Keith should relate to Pidge the most. There are a lot of parallels between how they deal with the loss of their loved ones. It would have been very poignant to show Keith and Pidge talk about these things, rather than present parallels like this and never actually…explore them?
I mean, both those clips came from the same episode—the Voltron crew want us to see the parallel here. Yet these two rarely exchange a word outside of battle.
So that’s all to say that there’s been at least one time when Keith was brash and came off as cruel to me. I do wish Keith and Pidge had settled this canonically. The rest of the time, though—? Keith’s not given to callousness.
You’ll notice that Keith’s more likely to accept others’ mistreatment than defend himself, as @ilovelocust points out with this painful post. It’s not like he means to make trouble with people. Actually, while the team labels him coldhearted, KEITH IS AN EXTREMELY KIND PERSON. Please read this post by @dent-de-leon about Keith’s kindness. There’s this idea amongst fans that Keith and Lance’s rivalry is mutual, but you can tell by season two that Keith wants no part in it:
Lance thinks Keith wants to steal his Lion, and Keith does his best to politely apologize and try to explain rather than fighting back. Lance doesn’t like that he has to share the pool with someone, but Keith tries to mediate the situation and work out a reasonable solution. Lance angrily yells that Keith’s a hothead, yet he says nothing in his own defense. Keith could have easily let himself continue to be baited by Lance, but it’s obvious he doesn’t like having a temper and does his best to keep those kinds of emotions in check. You can tell he really wants to bridge that gap, and makes a conscious effort to do so. He didn’t have to do that.
Keith doesn’t bully Lance like Lance bullies Keith. He fights back at first, and then he does his best to put the whole rival thing to rest. But, like Arahir said, the team…doesn’t ever seem to see Keith’s kindness. There’s this great moment where Hunk stands up to Allura on Keith’s behalf, and I’m so grateful for that—but that’s all we get, as far as I can recall. Keith and the others aren’t friends like Pidge and Lance and Hunk are…like Coran and Allura are.
It really feels like most of Team Voltron are just… not Keith’s friends. Like, they tolerate him as a Paladin and because he’s close to Shiro? But Lance’s attitude towards Keith has really poisoned relations with most of the others.
To conclude: the concept of Keith as the fiery, emo bully does not actually reflect the canon story. And once you realize how kind he is—how desperately he cares about Shiro in particular—the more you start to empathize with him. Which is unfortunate, because the show…tends to treat him like shit.
