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Keith Character Analysis - Re: Parents
Dec. 6th, 2018 06:19 pmIn terms of how he relates to others, Keith varies to extremes with little to no shades of greys. It’s either hate, neutral/minimal opinion, or I would die for this person I’m not joking. Which leads me to believe Heath, Keith’s dad, never moved on from Krolia. If this is the case, is the type of role model he had in his early formative years, well it’s no surprise how intensely Keith latches onto someone when he feels they’re worth it.
He ingrained this idea that once you find your one, that’s it, even if they abandon you. And yes, I use “abandon” because that’s how Keith viewed Krolia’s leaving until he actually met her. Not because his dad framed it that way, as I said, Heath loved Krolia. But Heath also provided little to no explanation to Keith as to why his mother was gone, and after he died Keith was left in the foster system where he most likely picked up this vocabulary.
We see Keith do this with other monikers- hot head, lone wolf, discipline case. When it’s something he doesn’t really want to think about, Keith tends to take up what’s most often said and feed it back out as a way to ignore it. But he wouldn’t parrot if he didn’t on some level already feel that way. Which means even before his dad died, Keith held a lot of formless resentment towards his parents, and it’s telling that he remained consistently ambivalent towards them up until he spent two years in isolation with one of them where he learned about their choices.
It’s not that Keith doesn’t love his dad or admire who he was, we see during the Marmora trial and in flashbacks that Keith holds a lot of respect and sentiment for the man. But he also viewed Heath’s decisions to continue working a dangerous job while being a single parent, choosing to risk his (and Keith’s way of) life running into a burning building, as choosing others over Keith.
And in the Quantum Abyss when Krolia leaving comes up, Keith frames it the same way- You had to go, the universe needed you more than I did.
So for Krolia to correct him and say the exact opposite, that she left because she chose him, chose Keith, over literally everyone in the entire universe including herself and his father… I cannot fully comprehend how significant that was for Keith.
With all this considered, Shiro and Keith’s relationship leading up to Kerberos is very interesting. On the surface, it appears Shiro does the exact thing Keith’s parents did by choosing to go on that mission. But Keith never seems to resent Shiro for that choice.
This may in part be because the first time we see Keith in the show, it’s when Shiro has just returned, to him, from the dead. But beyond that, Shiro’s decision is one Keith could truly relate to because Shiro chose himself. At a time when everyone, Iverson, Sanda, Adam, were telling him no, Shiro chose the Kerberos mission because it was his dream, because he worked hard for it, fought for it, earned it.
At a time when no one else was, Shiro had to choose himself. And in a world where his mom left him, his dad died for others, where everyone else wrote him off and no one ever picked him, Keith too had to choose himself.
He ingrained this idea that once you find your one, that’s it, even if they abandon you. And yes, I use “abandon” because that’s how Keith viewed Krolia’s leaving until he actually met her. Not because his dad framed it that way, as I said, Heath loved Krolia. But Heath also provided little to no explanation to Keith as to why his mother was gone, and after he died Keith was left in the foster system where he most likely picked up this vocabulary.
We see Keith do this with other monikers- hot head, lone wolf, discipline case. When it’s something he doesn’t really want to think about, Keith tends to take up what’s most often said and feed it back out as a way to ignore it. But he wouldn’t parrot if he didn’t on some level already feel that way. Which means even before his dad died, Keith held a lot of formless resentment towards his parents, and it’s telling that he remained consistently ambivalent towards them up until he spent two years in isolation with one of them where he learned about their choices.
It’s not that Keith doesn’t love his dad or admire who he was, we see during the Marmora trial and in flashbacks that Keith holds a lot of respect and sentiment for the man. But he also viewed Heath’s decisions to continue working a dangerous job while being a single parent, choosing to risk his (and Keith’s way of) life running into a burning building, as choosing others over Keith.
And in the Quantum Abyss when Krolia leaving comes up, Keith frames it the same way- You had to go, the universe needed you more than I did.
So for Krolia to correct him and say the exact opposite, that she left because she chose him, chose Keith, over literally everyone in the entire universe including herself and his father… I cannot fully comprehend how significant that was for Keith.
With all this considered, Shiro and Keith’s relationship leading up to Kerberos is very interesting. On the surface, it appears Shiro does the exact thing Keith’s parents did by choosing to go on that mission. But Keith never seems to resent Shiro for that choice.
This may in part be because the first time we see Keith in the show, it’s when Shiro has just returned, to him, from the dead. But beyond that, Shiro’s decision is one Keith could truly relate to because Shiro chose himself. At a time when everyone, Iverson, Sanda, Adam, were telling him no, Shiro chose the Kerberos mission because it was his dream, because he worked hard for it, fought for it, earned it.
At a time when no one else was, Shiro had to choose himself. And in a world where his mom left him, his dad died for others, where everyone else wrote him off and no one ever picked him, Keith too had to choose himself.
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