in every single one of the end-of-season battles, Keith is the only character who’s consistently singled out. so if Keith is written as the main protagonist, consistently isolating him during these crucial scenes makes a lot of sense.
Keith’s arc is broken up into 3 parts, and each part takes 2 seasons (1/3 of the show) to complete.
part 1: accepting his race
s1: Keith didn’t know his Galra heritage, he was unstable, and couldn’t control his impulses. he tried to battle Zarkon alone, and although this was the ultimate goal of the team, he was really only thinking of himself here. Keith completely ignored his teammates, and the whole point of their mission (to rescue Allura from Zarkon’s ship).
s2: Keith knew of his Galran heritage by now and used it to help accomplish the team’s goal. he was thinking of the others this time…to an extent, but he was still mostly focusing on proving himself and didn’t really care that isolating himself on Zarkon’s ship might not be the best way to win the battle. Keith insisted on this course of action to prove himself as an important member of the coalition, despite his race.
Part 2: accepting his worth
s3-4: although the team had accepted his race, Keith still felt left out because of his new position as the Black Paladin. he ended up joining the Blade of Marmora to find himself and his place in the universe, since he didn’t see any future for himself within Team Voltron with Lance as the new pilot of the Red Lion. Keith felt so worthless to the team and the universe by s4 that he recklessly tried to sacrifice himself for the sake of the coalition.
s5-6: Keith found Krolia, and discovered maternal love during their 2 years in the quantum abyss. he returned to the team and in the battle against Lotor, we saw him act as a strong leader who saw his worth on the team, who was self-assured and confident in his actions and commands. Keith had now accepted his place on the team, as well as his heritage. but his arc isn’t over yet.
Part 3: accepting love
now we’re on the third part of Keith’s arc. he’s accepted his race and accepted his worth on the team: now he just has one thing left. accepting love.
the beginning of this part of Keith’s arc came when his leadership arc was ending: in the battle with Shiro and Kuron.
he battled Kuron, and by the end of the battle he had learned to admit his familial love for Shiro.
and who fought Sendak with Keith at the end of s7? yeah, Shiro. Keith helped Shiro defeat Sendak at the end of s7.
look at this shot, it’s practically the same as the one with Keith when Kuron was about to defeat him.
Shiro had been defeated, but then Keith came and saved him.
Keith fought Shiro, accepted his love, and worked with him to defeat evil. and now Keith and Shiro (and Krolia) have their happy ending. Keith has found his family, and this battle signaled the end of the “familial love” portion of his arc.
but there was a second battle in s7, which is set up to finish Keith’s story as the protagonist in s8. Keith has accepted familial love, so what’s left? romance.
in the second fight, Lance helped Keith defeat Haggar’s robot. Keith figured out how to defeat it, but he couldn’t do it without Lance.
this was their battle where they worked together to defeat evil, like the one with Keith and Shiro in the previous episode.
but they haven’t fought each other yet. and for Keith to accept Lance’s love, that needs to happen. Lance needs to battle Keith, and at the end of the battle Keith will accept Lance’s love, finishing up his story.
Okay so I know everyone and their dog has speculated basically every onscreen galra to be mixed race / half-galra, usually with only half a shoelace and three pieces of lint’s worth of evidence. Thus, I think it’s only fair I get to have my fun.
Keith didn’t know who he was from his Galra side, and neither did he know about the paladins side.
Shiro tells Keith they’re a family and they are,
but Keith always pushed people away, and it made him look selfish and cold,
It was him protecting himself the only way he knew back then.
and in season 4 we see him making a choice.
Keith left his friends his family,
So when Keith left, he had made a solid choice. Keith decided to be alone. Keith knew it,
and Lance did too,
Say whatever you want, but other than Shiro, Lance is the one that knows Keith the most. Lance knows Keith, and he knows what Keith is scared of,
Lance knows Keith is scared of doing things right, to confront the problem,
Keith did run away. Keith was scared to get closer to the team, to get closer to Lance.
Lance was finally in a place where he was accepting Keith,
Lance was feeling ready,
For what?
We never got to see because Keith was pulling away,
Keith choose to be alone, and Lance got very hurt.
Lance has never been afraid to call Keith out,
and he still isn’t,
Keith’s biggest fear is the team not accepting him, not wanting to be with him if he’s not the leader,
That’s why he left. That’s why he chose to be alone. He didn’t want to get hurt, and he wanted to give the team a good leader,
Keith was protecting himself and the people he loved the most,
So when Keith left, he was alone. He didn’t have anybody. Keith loves the team, they’re really important to him, so when he found out something could happen to them,
He was willing to die for them,
Keith’s way of showing his feelings is through action,
Lance is more vocal, but he’s a man of actions too,
Voltron is very important to Lance. It’s his second family and everyone knew that, everyone except Keith,
So now that Keith back, and has this mentality,
It hits home run for Lance,
Now that Keith’s back with the team, Keith knows about his Galra line. He and Krolia bonded. He knows now that he’s not alone,
So now he wants to bond with the team, he’s trying to keep them safe, to show them he cares,
But after being in space for so long, and left alone with his thoughts and the teams,
Keith starts remembering his past, his doubts, his fears,
The team pulling away. The team not accepting him. It makes Keith very anxiose,
and very scared,
It made Keith go back to his mentality to push people away,
But this time he can’t or better yet they won’t let him go away,
Keith isn’t a person of words,but when he says things they mean a lot,
It can either hurt the team,
or bring them together,
Keith is slowly but surely getting there. Keith is getting close to the team,
and he started with the one person he was impressed by,
The one that has fears, but still confronts them,
Keith isn’t only talking to Hunk, he’s talking to himself. When Keith gets scared he runs away,
it makes him look like he only thinks of himself,
But his action prove other wise,
but Keith still thinks the paladins are with him or follow his orders just because he’s the leader,
There’s one person out of all of them he listens to it the most,
Lance.
Keith convinced himself that Lance only saw him as a leader because of this,
Keith really thought Lance was going to him because they were getting closer, they were being friends, but Lance said this,
Ouch, Lance basically said he went to Keith because he was the leader, like he didn’t have a option,
That’s it. Keith accepted that Lance didn’t want to get close to him, that he didn’t want to be his friend. Keith convinced himself that Lance is around him or reaches out to him because he’s the leader.
But we all know Lance is a liar.
Shiro was back, Allura, his crush was there. The whole team was there, Lance could have talked to anyone, but he chose Keith. Not only because he was the leader,
but because Lance trusts Keith. Keith is more than a leader, more than a half Galra, he’s the future. Future what? Only Lance knows.
Going back to Lance lying about going to Keith only because he was the leader, why didn’t he go talk to someone when he was insecure in season 6?
Yes, Lance and Shiro were having problems, but he also had problems with Keith. Both of them butted heads all the time, but he still went to him.
So why didn’t he go to Shiro when he was feeling insecure?
He preferred to talk to the fucken mice rather than talk to the LEADER or confess his love to Allura. Like, *INHALES* BOY.
In conclusion, Lance gave Keith the idea that he was only around him because he is the leader. No one else, but him,
Lance really pores his heart when he says “Team leader” but for Keith it’s a reminder of how Lance only see’s him like that.
Both of them need to talk and Lance has to be the one that admits their friendship, because he’s the one that has been rejecting it since season 1,
and for that to happen, something has to happen to one of them.
bringing this baby back cause we about to reach,
Alright, we’ve been praying since season idk for Black Paladin Lance.
When Allura is talking about the Black lion, there are three heads that pop up.
Shiro, Keith, Lance.
Shiro was meant to be the one that piloted Black the most, then Keith, and then Lance with the less time.
If Keith is taken by Hagger and or brainwashed, Red would somehow be involved. Keith and Red still have a connection and the foreshadowing from the past episode is beaming. So if Keith takes Red, what would Lance pilot?
I was maybe thinking he would go back to Blue, like we see here.
but honestly, Blue would hold him back, so then who would he pilot?
The Black Lion,
The reason why Lance wasn’t picked by Black was because he was being selfish, Lance wanted the spotlight, and it’s more than getting attention or being your moment, it’s about connecting with the lion, connecting with their teammates. Lance was only thinking about himself
While Keith was thinking about Shiro. How much he respects and looks up to him.
How he thought he could never be like him,
But the Black lion was proving him wrong.
Shiro told Keith he wanted him to lead Voltron,
Keith rejected that idea because that would mean to lose Shiro, again.
But if it meant that he could help his brother and the others than he would do it.
Now the same thing is happening between Keith and Lance. Keith has chosen someone to lead if he’s not there,
and he chose Lance.
But Lance seems like he doesn’t want it anymore,
Because it would mean that Lance would lose Keith,
Look:
Keith:
Lance:
It’s the face of not wanting to lose something special to you.
Keith was able to connect to with Black because he had a strong connection with Shiro. Keith respected and valued Shiro, just like Lance with Keith.
Keith knew he could never replace Shiro.
Just like Lance accepted he could never be like Keith,
It’s like when they were back on Earth,
Keith:
Lance:
If Keith is in danger than that would mean Lance would have to take charge for a minute.
Considering how hurt both of them were leaving the situation, they may never hook back up again, but, I think in a meta sense there’s no particular reason to doubt that those feelings were genuine, both ways, as Lotor says they are- yes, he had an ulterior motive for Allura’s trust but the way he opened himself up and made himself vulnerable to her in a way she was immediately able to hurt him over is actively contrary to those ulterior motives.
He needed Allura’s help, but by the time things went downhill, she meant infinitely more to him than just a meal ticket. Considering we see their first kiss after the point the jig’s decisively up, it would make total sense for the writers to inject some thread of sinister insincerity into his behavior- we’d be on high alert for it. And yet that entire scene is…
browntiger15 asked: Been thinking a lot about names lately, and especially Lotors. Like, do you think Lotors name is of altean origin or galran? Or was it made up and Lotors name is unique? Or did zarkon and haggar not even name Lotor and he got the name some other way???
While galran is a made-up language it’s worth noting several characters have real words as names and these names tend to be significant to their characters, e.g. “Prorok” is “prophet” in I believe [edit: Polish]. This applies to a couple of galra-named objects, as well- “Komar” means “mosquito” in the same language and it pierces planets to drink the life out of them.
In this sense given “Lotor” means “rascal” (hence why it’s part of the scientific name of the raccoon, Procyon Lotor) I think it suggests a bit of contempt on the part of whoever named Lotor since the appropriateness of all the names so far would imply Lotor means at least something similar in galra culture. After all, it’s pretty widely known throughout the empire at the time of s3e1 that the Prince is… not looked upon fondly. If the translation of his name basically means that the son of Emperor Zarkon is named something like “disappointment” or “scavenger” or “thief” that’s… something all right.
And while Haggar and Zarkon were both rather distant to Lotor in his infancy, from what we saw, I don’t think either of them would willfully abdicate power over him. They might assign first a doctor or nurse to take care of him and then give him to Dayak once he’s old enough, but they wouldn’t let either the nurse or Dayak actually name him, or make big decisions that obviously change who he is as a person.
I would also guess it would be a galran name, rather than an Altean one, given Zarkon’s contempt for the culture and Haggar’s seeming disorientation at the time of his birth. Haggar herself was pretty distant from her culture at that point, and I think it’s fair to assume “Haggar” is a galra name rather than an altean one like “Honerva” so when she’s not even using her own Altean name, I doubt she’d bequeath one to a child.
I saw all this happening some point after Lance kissed Keith. The McClain fam instantly knows whats up, especially Lance’s sisters, who will no doubt tease him about it because they already know who Keith is from Lance’s complaints about his rival and his mullet lol
Like everything I post this one started with a random thought. But as I re-watched Blade of Marmora’s episodes, rather than finding answers I ended up with even more questions.
So let’s start with the question that triggered all this. Do all ceremonial weapons transform? So far we have only seen two Blades whose weapons have done so- Krolia and Thace.
The rest of the series didn’t really give me any answers to that lol. But a re-watch did give me neat little insights.
First up, Ulaz. We all flipped when we saw Krolia wearing a Blade Leader uniform, but was it just me who never noticed up until now that Ulaz was also wearing a different Blade uniform?
It wasn’t the same as the one Krolia and Kolivan wears, but it was also different from that of the other Blades. Ulaz went back to his base to “contact the Leadership”, which means he’s lower ranked than a Leader but is higher ranked than the rest.
Also, when he told the paladins to find out how Zarkon’s tracking them first before going to Blade HQ or else they’ll destroy everything they’ve worked hard for for centuries, this possibly sheds light on when the Blades were formed. And considering the war has been going on for ten thousand years, it means the Blades have actually done a very impressive feat in such a short amount of time. They managed to have operatives like Ulaz who freed a human prisoner who ultimately became the paladin of the Black Lion, Thace who worked directly under Zarkon, Krolia who was trusted by the fearsome warlord Ranveig enough to gain high level security access and run her own base, keep the existence of the Blue Lion a secret, and even save Earth which would later be the home planet of all the future paladins of Voltron.
The other thing about this episode was how Ulaz clearly held back when he infiltrated the Castleship.
As he said to Allura, if his intention really was to kill them, then they’d be dead by now. Which implies the Blades have a deep code of honor where they don’t kill needlessly, and Keith embodies this. Some people have mentioned Keith’s kill rate ie druids, Macidus, and Sendak. But if you look back, he did those not even for self defense but to protect others- namely Thace + the other paladins.
Next, Regris. Watching Regris’ episode, as ironic as it sounds, actually really shows how much Kolivan cares for his operatives, especially Keith who he had been especially strict to and personally trained.
As soon as Keith brings in Regris he puts some kind of patch on the tailed Blade’s shoulder.
(and this actually answers my question on how he Blades give first aid. At first I thought their suits might have some advanced biotech like how Keith nearly died during his BoM trials and suddenly he was completely okay?!?!?! I wonder if Kolivan put one of these on him after lol) And after they lost Regris, he waited for Keith. Who else is with me in HC’ing Kolivan totally broke protocol here? A lot of people are saying he’s so cold, Keith could’ve died. But he could’ve left Keith to die as well, and yet he didn’t.
I hope this clears whatever doubts you guys might have about the Blade of Marmora being Keith’s found fam, just as it was a true family to his mother. It breaks my heart to think how Krolia must have felt finding out Ulaz, Regris, Thace, and Antok were gone only through Keith’s memories during their time in the quantum abyss. And how he lost three of them right in front of his eyes.
My take on why Keith is misunderstood and wrongly labeled as a “discipline issue” child.
Keith was such a quiet and sweet boy even as a baby, and he stayed that way growing up with his father, who considered Keith as his whole world. Keith was his dad’s little ray of sunshine, and laughed and smiled a lot as we saw him do with Hunk early on in the series.
But that all changed after his father died. Keith, who grew up with a single dad, and was most likely bullied by other kids for his walls and quiet and aloof personality (towards everyone else other than his father), didn’t have many friends. He only had his dad. And his dad was his hero. Losing him meant losing everything.
All alone and with no one to help him properly grieve, that’s when Keith became irritable- just as we saw him do so in season 3 after Shiro died. And this is a very human reaction, and not just his “Galra side” or Hot Head™️ coming out.
Keith is also extremely talented and smart, so it’s easy to imagine that he got on the nerves of some teachers and classmates who saw Keith as some cheeky know-it-all, especially when he corrects their mistakes (as he does to Lance, and we all see how Lance reacts every time 💦). It doesn’t help either that he doesn’t really care much for hierarchy and authority. Keith is someone who treats everyone equally and whose respect you have to earn. Hence, why adults/people of higher standing like Commander Iverson wrongfully consider him as a kid with discipline issues. If anything, part of it is probably just their pride 😤
