honestly the saddest part is that Team Voltron doesn’t know Keith was about to sacrifice himself to break the shield. nobody else knows he was fully prepared to die. this whole time Keith has been surrounded by death. people in the Blade of Marmora keep dying around him “for the greater good” so he thinks that’s what he should do as well.
Ahhh this is probably gonna get too personal for me to be answering, but like–basically, most people would classify suicide as purely selfish. And oftentimes, if you ever attempted something like that, the typical response would be anger. It would be people saying that it’s selfish to just leave everyone else behind to deal with the aftermath, and what will your family and friends say, how are they supposed to live with the grief, and so on. That’s how most people think, it’s just a natural reaction. But like, it doesn’t really help you when you’re in that position. It really just compounds the guilt and can make processing everything even more difficult to deal with.
If you’re ever in that position, being told you’re just creating a burden for others? That doesn’t really help you deal with it. It’s so much more important to be told that you should live on for your own sake. And yes, there are others who will love and support you, but that doesn’t have to be phrased as “you’re being selfish and letting everyone down and just abandoning them.” It’s so much more healing to hear that you should live for your own life and happiness and that you do have a place where you belong. Because when you’re in the headspace where you’d actually do something like this, that’s something you really need to hear.
I don’t think Josh meant that Shiro would try to guilt Keith or anything, I just think he was trying to say that Shiro would want to sit him down and tell him that you have to keep fighting no matter what–like how Keith always told him. “Stop talking like that, you’re gonna make it.” “Why are we even talking about this? Nothing is gonna happen.” “Fight it, Shiro!” And the list goes on. After Keith had constantly expressed the importance of Shiro never giving up, after he reignited that spark, I think it’s understandable Shiro would feel almost betrayed at the thought Keith would then just turn around and throw his own life away so easily.
Yes, he did it to save his friends. He did it because he felt the mission demanded it. And so this isn’t just someone dying for the sake of wanting death, but a “heroic sacrifice” and so on–but Shiro’s also been in that position before. He was ready to die for this cause, and Keith was there to pull him back from the brink every time. Shiro saw firsthand in Keith’s trial how much it would pain Keith to lose him, so how could he do that to Shiro? Why wouldn’t he be able to understand? “‘We all have to be there for each other,’” was something Josh said Shiro would tell him, after all. (source).
More importantly, what really made me feel better was those last few things Josh mentioned, about how Shiro would also say, “and ‘What would that have solved?’ And–‘You just wouldn’t be here.’” (same source). For Shiro, a victory won at the price of Keith’s life isn’t a win. You just wouldn’t be here. For Shiro, that’s the main takeaway. Not that Voltron or the coalition was safe, not that they had retaken nearly a third of the empire. But the Keith would just be gone, and I think it’s understandable for him to get emotional over that. He’s allowed to have his own feelings and beliefs too.
ifesbob 