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ganymedesclock · 6 years

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With Krolia’s appearance there’s been an entirely predictable surge of fanart and speculation around Keith’s parents, so, I wanted to make a post talking about Keith’s Dad, what we know about him, and a few major inferences we can make.

Appearance

Keith’s dad is taller than his son. Specifics are hard to finesse given s2e8 doesn’t give us very good shots to work with and he hasn’t appeared in the posters for seasons 1 and 2, but he’s fairly tall by human standards. Eyeballing here, he would seem to be half a head taller than Keith- Shiro’s height.

This would make him shorter than his partner, Krolia by a pretty impressive margin- Krolia would be at least a full head taller if not moreso.

Keith’s father seems to have gray or slate-blue eyes. While it’s possible (and I’ve speculated before) he may have the same purple eyes as his son, I’ve moved away from that headcanon, since Keith is more likely to have inherited those eyes from Krolia. Either way, specifics are difficult in the heavy sepia tone of the dream.

His most noteworthy feature, besides his height, is a good-sized diagonal scar notching his right eyebrow. He has thick, dark brows, strong cheekbones, a straight nose and an angular jawline. In the dream, he appears with stubble along the bottom of his chin, but not on his upper lip.

He speaks with a low, soft voice, with a noticeable southern accent. His word choice is pretty casual but he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to colloquialisms.

Keith’s father has short, shaggy black hair, and it seems that Keith inherited both his skin tone and hair color. He appears to have wide shoulders, giving him a sturdier build than Krolia’s more typical-for-a-galra whippy physique- in this sense Keith seems to take after his mother more than his father.

The Shack

Keith’s father appears to have a personal connection with the shack and it may be a place from Keith’s past- as the dream takes place within it, and Keith’s father states “You’re home,” implying the shack was at least for a time, a home to Keith. Keith also states he felt lost and “drawn out to” the shack when his instinct seems to naturally point him towards certain things of significance to him.

It’s more likely that Keith’s father, rather than Keith himself- the latter being a recently-expelled student without an obvious job or income- was the original architect of the shack, or at least, heavily renovated it to make it a livable place. Thus, there’s some things we can infer about Keith’s father from the nature of the shack.

Visually, the shack is very humble. It has curtains and a table, but the curtain is effectively a piece of sheer cloth tacked to the wall in strategic places and the table is a slab stacked on top of concrete bricks. The couch has a blanket, suggesting it doubles as a bed, and the walls are discolored and partially cracked.

This would seem to suggest Keith’s father is someone of very limited means, and possibly- like Keith himself when he withdrew to the shack- someone trying to avoid calling attention to himself by retreating from society. The drab colors of the shack match the clothes Keith remembers his father wearing- a palette of grays, browns, and whites.

However, “impoverished” is not the only message sent by the shack. It’s also rather crowded- and what it’s crowded with.

A simple shelf has been built into one wall and filled with books; more books top the cabinet and are stacked under the table, and several boxes full of more books are tucked in the corner. Another box full of what appear to be rolled posters or maps is near the shelf.

The reading material in the shack is not referenced so far, so we can’t guess at subject but they appear to be fairly thick volumes, in decent condition (not yellowed or battered-looking) and they have monochromatic, dull dust jackets.

Besides the books, one wall features a large poster that looks like specs for some form of hovercraft. (this picture also shows off a fair number of the books referenced before; note the labels affixed to some of them). Besides the large cork board, small notes appear tacked to the wall near the poster.

Also, in contrast to the very humble furniture, the shack is rather heavily technologically equipped. In the wide shot in the dream (first picture at the top of the post) there’s a desk with a computer keyboard, and several unknown machines are littered around the room. Most notable is the tall cabinet, which conspicuously, in the dream, Keith’s father makes his first appearance fiddling with one of the dials, appearing to tune it like a radio. (Personally, I find this very suspicious given that in s1e1 Pidge was canonically able to listen in on extraterrestrial radio chatter given a setup that she could build on her own and carry in a backpack)

While it’s ambiguous how much of this Keith brought in starting his own work looking for the Blue Lion, I’m very skeptical that again, a freshly-expelled student without a job brought all of these books, papers, and the cork board with its pins and strings in to accommodate it.

Especially not Keith- who has been shown to keep very spartan quarters in the castleship and as of s2e6 everything he owned could fit in a single, not especially heavy bag.

That in the dream, his father is the one tampering with the equipment while Keith in the shack never touches it would further suggest that it isn’t Keith’s setup- it’s his father’s. Quite possibly Keith didn’t even know what to do with it.

It’s also noteworthy that the shack, viewed from the outside, seems to have both an antenna and a small, boxy, metallic attachment that would seem to be a generator.

Assuming the shack and most of its furnishings are the handiwork of Keith’s father, with Keith himself only bringing to it a backpack’s worth of belongings and the papers/photographs relevant to his personal study of Blue’s cavern, this implies several things about Keith’s father:

He is a resourceful person, having possibly constructed a one-room house off the grid and assembled furnishings. Someone who makes the most out of very little- and can work pretty well with bare minimum.

Someone with fairly significant technical skills, who could get all of this together, use and maintain it. Possibly having built the generator and wired things into the walls.

Highly educated, either self-taught or with impressive schooling. The books, the schematic posters, the equipment- that these things are maintained, when he seems to have shorted his own needs (the couch-bed) to maintain this.

Acting according to some kind of goal- the shack has the feeling of a research outpost.

Not picky or fussy, someone who seems to have lived in this very humble and potentially uncomfortable environment for a good amount of time. Again, much of the shack’s humbleness is echoed by Keith’s father’s appearance- the unshaven stubble, the humble, sturdy browns and grays.

Behavior (the trial dream)

It’s worth noting the trial is, partially, an unreliable narrator. We can see this comparing Shiro to his trial self. But Keith’s father appearing in the trial at all tells us something about him, and his relationship to Keith in particular.

When Trial Hologram Shiro shows up, the real one questions Kolivan about this- to which Kolivan replies:

His suit has the ability to create a virtual mindscape, reflecting its wearer’s greatest hopes and fears. And, at this moment, your friend desperately wants to see you.

So the second half of the trial is a fairly standard “get in your head and tempt you with what you really want’, but, it’s worth noting the context here.

Keith is injured, exhausted, and alone in an unpleasant environment. Without obvious enemies to fuel his contrarian streak or any clear objective in front of him to focus on, and as weak as he is (he basically passed out on the floor to begin this segment) he’s experiencing a very natural phenomenon: he doesn’t wanna be here. He yearns, specifically, for comfort, reassurance, someone to get him out of here and take him back home where he feels safe.

And this is exactly what hologram Shiro initially offers him- immediately greeting him warmly and soothingly, talking about how Keith won, he did it, he succeeded, he’s achieved amazing things and they can go back to the castle now.

The temptation the trial is dangling in front of Keith is that sense of reassurance. And the first party is one where we have a good sense of his relationship with Keith, and what that means.

Shiro wasn’t selected because he was there in person, he was selected by Keith’s mind, because when Keith is looking for someone to help and comfort him, he thinks of Shiro. Shiro who’s been there for him before, who he values his connection with very highly. Simply- Shiro, to Keith, is a kind of safety person. On a certain level, alone and miserable, what Keith’s mind kicks out is “I wish Shiro were here to help me.”

But even though Shiro was the main person in Keith’s life before Voltron, and in s3e1 Keith says Shiro was “the only person to never give up on me”- he’s not the only person that fits that bill.

The other person Keith wants to see... is his father. And the trial hologram of his dad exudes much the same kind of presence hologram Shiro does- this warm, soothing reassurance that everything’s gonna be all right, it’s gonna be fine. You’re safe now, Keith, you don’t have to worry, you can give in to your exhaustion and just... rest. The people that love you will take care of it.

Unlike Krolia- who Keith doesn’t appear to have a clear memory of, only a vague sense of “she was there up to a point and then she wasn’t”- Keith remembers his father clearly, and the implication of the holograms would suggest that Keith remembers his father as a kind, nurturing presence- even more than Shiro.

Because hologram Shiro, when refused even slightly, loses his temper- snaps at Keith, calls him selfish, storms off on him. Which is true to life in the sense that Shiro, while compassionate, is also pretty snappy- and untrue in the sense that Shiro is a lot more sympathetic to Keith.

But the hologram of Keith’s father, which should logically be less sympathetic, less supportive, and more manipulative than the real thing because it ultimately only exists to lure Keith off the proper path and into giving up... stands out noticeably compared to the first hologram.

He never once raises his voice, and as opposed to holo Shiro, who, again, tries to shut Keith down as soon as he starts disagreeing- the image of Keith’s father spends almost the entire scene with his hands outstretched, palm-up, towards Keith, the knife resting on his open hands.

In short, the impression given by Keith’s father is gentle and soothing. He presses very little, which is again noteworthy because the hologram’s objective is to manipulate Keith; that manipulation comes through in the form of repeated reassurances that everything will be fine, they’re safe here, it’s okay. Keith’s mother is coming home, they’ll be together, they need to catch up after how long they’ve been separated.

And Keith, in response... is surprisingly mild-mannered himself when it comes to his father. We wouldn’t expect Keith to apologize for running to Red during an attack.

In short, the implication is that Keith remembers his father as an incredibly gentle, emotionally nurturing person- someone who virtually never raised his voice, and someone who, even after years of separation and a lot of unanswered questions, he still views warmly. Between Krolia and Keith’s father, it seems like the latter was Keith’s primary caretaker, at least the one he remembered more strongly.

Keith also seems to remember his father as grieving. Not only this particular mournful look that he gives when Keith is about to leave the dream, but the weary way he says “Son, so many years have passed...”

Whatever was going on in their lives when Keith and his father were together, it seems to have been an emotional burden on his father, leaving him in Keith’s memory as kind of a melancholy fellow.

It’s also possible that Keith’s father not giving him solid answers and instead trying to reassure him was something else the trial took from real life.

We know that Krolia is a soldier, on the lines of what has been, for the Blade, a very long and rather hopeless-seeming war. Before Voltron took the field, the empire had been steadily encroaching further and further, conquering more and more, and the Blade had their small acts of sabotage in the dark, for which many of them paid with their lives.

Keith’s father has to have known that. It’s very likely given the implications of the radio (and worth noting that the sound of garbled voices from the radio undercut a good part of the conversation Keith has with his dad) he was desperately looking for some kind of news from Krolia- possibly even a sign that she was still alive.

It’s stated in official sources that Keith lost his parents at a young age. He wasn’t a young adult the last time he saw his father- these memories are old, of a time when Keith was much smaller.

Most people, especially empathetic parents that appear to be making a lot of effort to be reassuring, aren’t going to want to tell a young child that their mother may have died in space fighting a thankless war and that an unstoppable space empire is going to descend on Earth to kill and/or enslave them all. There’s really no good way to soften the edges off that.

Putting it all together

So the implication here is that Keith’s father is a sort of humble, down-to-earth and gentle person, but with a keen intellect and very resourceful. He doesn’t appear to make his opinions very easily available, and possibly is even the type to bite his tongue on issues he doesn’t like.

Keith seems to recall him as a sweet and empathetic parent. It’s clear from the way Keith talks to him in the dream that he still has a lot of respect for him even after years of separation- he thinks fondly of his father, though there are also a lot of questions that Keith badly wants answered. And whether or not it’s the influence of the trial, at least what we’ve seen of Keith’s father so far suggests he’s a bit inclined to beating around the bush.

Implicitly from the face he makes at the knife and how he talks both about catching up with Keith and offering reassurances that Krolia will be coming as well- Keith’s father really wants his family to be together. This is likely the root of his somewhat mournful behavior- while he was raising Keith, it seems as if he was visibly upset that Krolia was no longer part of their lives, enough that this became an enduring part of how Keith remembered him.

As was him messing with the radio- seemingly, waiting on some word from her.

It’s also surprisingly easy for Keith, someone who has been shown to assume no one will miss him, to view his father as earnestly wanting him back, waiting for him with both literal and figurative open arms. If anything, the image of his father is hesitant, apologetic- seeking Keith’s consent to be there at all.

All of this seems to suggest Keith’s father is not a very confrontational person at all. If upset, he tends to suffer in silence, and this may be a way in which Keith takes after him- if we can assume Keith and his father share the same tendency to internalize and stew in feelings for long periods of time.

However, the implications of the shack would tell us that Keith’s father is not weak-willed or passive. The shack implies someone who’s able to endure hardship, practically solve problems and, if need be, get off the grid and stay off the grid for long periods of time. Living alone distant from society is difficult, and it’s not for everyone. That he would do so as a single parent raising his half-alien son would tell us that Keith’s father is made of some tough stuff.

That even with the trial having a vested interest in manipulating Keith, it’s hard-pressed to create a “convincing” scenario of Keith’s father losing his temper at him would tell us, rather than the man having no backbone, he cared about his son a lot.

Which makes a lot of sense, from what we see on Krolia’s end. Keith’s parents’ situation was not ideal, nor was it comfortable. They weren’t going into something where they could retire comfortably to the suburbs and have two-point-five children. Especially given the obvious and rather nasty prejudice the empire has against half-galra, Krolia was painting a big target on her back and that of her future children by choosing Keith’s father as her partner.

And yet- Keith exists. And unmistakably, what we see from both of his parents is they wanted him. Krolia- distant, pragmatic Krolia- unmistakably puts Keith as a very high priority, derailing the all-important mission in a heartbeat rather than gamble his welfare.

And as far as Keith’s father- it’s entirely possible he basically became a hermit just to protect Keith. He harbored some pretty terrible knowledge of what potentially was to come, what might be happening out there, what he might be completely powerless to stop- and for all the stresses of Keith’s family situation, Keith seems to remember his father as someone who, even in a disagreement- would never close himself off.

Right up until the end of the dream, Keith’s father stands back, not intruding, still offering the knife, that opportunity to go home, reconnect with both of his parents. There’s no “wrong answer” Keith can possibly give that will make his dad give up on him- which means breaking the dream, waking up, falls to Keith. Keith has to open the door and leave the protection of the shack to go to the Red Lion.

Significantly, in doing so, he’s taking up his mother’s cause- stepping into that same war against the empire.

But equally significantly, if the shack is something built by Keith’s father... it’s interesting that in basically his darkest hour pre-series, it was there for him. Interesting that the dream characterizes it as a fortress, in effect- that Keith’s father might not be fighting the empire, seemingly, but he was sure as hell prepared to hide a paladin of Voltron from attacking soldiers. Again, just because Keith remembers him as a very gentle and accommodating person doesn’t mean his father wasn’t a hard person to be on the wrong side of... just that his willpower seems to assert itself in very quiet ways.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Dad Kogane #Krolia #Keith #season 5 spoilers #readmore

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