#Anyway completely agreed with you prev bom is not doting on poor precious Keith

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

Agreed so much!!!! People don't talk about BoM's racism because honestly? If anything their racism felt more realistic and closer to being reflective of reality and has better chance at being a criticism of actual racism compared to Allura's "reverse racism" arc they made.

Like yeah sure BoM wants to stop the empire, but also they are so..... white saviour about it? Like they just refuse to even engage let alone even talk to people they are supposed to be saving, they refuse to get any allies that weren't Galran and only ever teamed up with voltron (despite voltron being the strongest weapon literally making the team the most important ally) because one of them turned out to be a "True Galran". And even after all that the only person they even let join in their missions is said half-galran despite that guy being the new leader of voltron team and therefore has more responsible towards them Keith!!!! (As you can see I am still pissed about Keith abandoning the team and still be considered good choice as a Black Paladin, like shut up dude!! Shut up!!!)

Like i don't want to compare real life politics and issues with goddamn fictional characters but BoM remind of 'progressive' white spaces? Where they claim they want to support marginalized communities and yet they also tend to speak over them and while not actively hostile they certainly do not support marginalized communities until and unless one of them is there.

Also being Galran is very much a source of pride. It's almost revered as their literal calling sign only activates because of True Galran shit or whatever, as if being galra is something is extremely special and unique and not just another species who is currently in the power through colonization across the universe. (Not really a great message to portray in this day and age, especially when one of the shows selling point is it's diverse cast)

And thing this could have been interesting! To me this came closer to being a reflection of racism and how covert it can be even among well meaning individuals, cause just look at everywhere. Hell look at tumblr fandoms themselves, despite claiming to be progressive and accepting only caters to white fans and can be actively hostile towards fans of colour especially black people. So it could have been interesting if the writers had criticized it!!! But they didn't because writers can't not make Keith the specialist boy ever and nothing about him is wrong which includes his backstory team of white saviours.

So yeah agreed with you that they would not dote on Keith when he looks nothing like them. Sure BoM works more with him over other characters but at the end he's still just half galra. And that's not even getting into nearly every Galran's personality being stoic and cold with ~evil~ thrown in when not bom, i swear the only reason they are so goddamn popular is because of them being spy ninja furries because beyond that it's just bland. Anyway cheers to Ulaz for being the only actual ally so sorry about what happened king

Honestly screw fanon romantic and platonic relationships. Tell what character pairings (with little to no interactions in canon) which fandom insists would be great friends but you know it in your heart would kill each other without hesitation

[kismetconstellations]

"#There's a lot to be said about how the show is choke full of white saviour troupe and I am sick of pretending it isn't#Anyway completely agreed with you prev bom is not doting on poor precious Keith#If anything he's getting thrown into the brig because Keith cant not be against authority he doesn't like to save his life#Too bad the one of the only interesting thing about Keith was taken as well#I also want to add Ulaz canonically was going against Kolivan's orders while Thace was loyal#Ulaz would beef with them too let's not lie to ourselves"

The wider fandom's insistence on infantilizing Keith drives me up the wall. I've had multiple conversations with @sockdooe where I assert- and maintain- that certain Keith fans would (and some, in fact, do) headcanon Shiro as not just "adopting" and "raising" Keith, but also giving birth to him, breastfeeding him, bathing him, and changing his diapers. And, these same fans get so attached to their self-indulgent fanon, they actually get upset with Shiro for not canonically coddling Keith. Who is a full-grown legal adult throughout the bulk of the show.

As annoying as this trend is when you're a Shiro fan who takes major issue with him being reduced to Keith's living emotional crutch both in-universe and amongst the fanbase, on some level, it at least makes a modicum of sense. Shiro is innately warm, gentle, patient, nurturing, and willing to die to protect the people in his care. The fans who connect with Keith's trauma of being orphaned young and ending up in the United States foster care system see how Shiro interacts with all of the Paladins and Pidge, in particular, and want that for their favorite. And, fanfiction is, by nature, self-indulgent and often a way for authors to live vicariously through the characters, finding a measure of healing and catharsis in giving their favorites the happy lives the series proper might have denied them. And, that the authors feel, perhaps, that they will never have, themselves.

Characterizing the Blades as one big loving tribe, however, is so contradictory to the way they're shown to be in canon, it does my head in.

Galra are, with very rare exception, stoic soldiers who pride themselves on eschewing emotional attachments, or bloodthirsty conquerors and gleeful sadists who live by the philosophy "[insert arbitrary achievement here] or death". Just as you said, while presented to the audience as the "good" Galra who are working to take down a fascistic empire, the Blades keep their ranks closed off to anyone who is not of Galra lineage, and Kolivan tells Keith point blank when castigating him for going back to save Regris that each and every member of the organization is well aware that "the mission is more important than the individual". That's why we see Ulaz and Thace unflinchingly commit suicide in service of a goal they see as greater than themselves.

You could almost argue that both factions of Galra, "good" and evil, are a death cult. But, I suppose that facet of their culture was irrelevant when the executive producers were determined to bludgeon the audience over the head with the Galras' supposed superiority at every available opportunity.

Anyway, the point is that warmth, compassion, and paternal instincts are an extremely scarce commodity among the Galra, and that includes the Blades. Ulaz was the sole member of that organization who defied orders and acted on emotion, blowing his cover and helping Shiro escape because he recognized the value in that "feeble creature's" fighting skills, natural leadership, and ability to instill hope in others (and was quite possibly, probably attracted to Shiro), and ultimately sacrificing himself to keep Shiro and the rest of the Paladins alive. And, he was openly scorned and belittled by Kolivan for it.

If fans have to have Keith babied and coddled by someone, his own biological father, or poor Shiro would be the most realistic candidates. Not the "benign" racists who nearly beat Keith to death under the guise of teaching him a valuable lesson about himself, and are barely affected by their comrades being killed.

I also just despise forcing cat-like behaviors and intergroup dynamics onto a race of humanoid aliens who have next to no feline characteristics aside from some of them being furry and having pointed ears. Are we just forgetting the Galra who more strongly resemble reptiles because they aren't as "attractive" as their furry counterparts? I love cats, and while they're commonly stereotyped as being little bastards, they absolutely are not unrepentant tyrants, colonizers, and sadists who threaten to turn pretty boys into their slaves, and torture prisoners.

I could go on forever about Keith's flagrant shortcomings (to put it mildly) as a leader; from acting selfishly and rashly due to his acute case of Chosen One syndrome, to abandoning the team, like you said, to disregarding his teammates' safety, to lashing out at them, Allura and Hunk especially, when frustrated despite being older than them. And, of course, how all of this is swept under the rug for an allegedly omniscient entity (Bob), Lance, the uncorrupted version of Zarkon, and Allura to tout his "greatness".

Then there's the fact that multiple members of marginalized communities (Shiro, "Kuron", and Allura) are used to foster his "growth" and uplift his character, only to be promptly cast aside like feces smeared on the bottoms of "MonSantos"'s shoes the instant they were no longer "useful". Keith willingly working with Zethrid and Ezor, another pair of sadists with Galra blood who captured, imprisoned, and were very eager to torture the team, singling out Pidge, the youngest, smallest, and physically weakest of the group as their primary target. And, most egregious and inexcusable, Keith referring to himself as a citizen of the Galra Empire and pledging to rebuild it.

Allura is punished for desperately wanting to connect with her lost people and culture, while Keith is rewarded and celebrated for choosing to work with other Galra over the humans he's meant to be leading and supposedly sees as his family.

Shiro and "Kuron", two disabled, gay, Japanese-American trauma survivors, and hundreds of other innocent presumably gay Japanese-American men (the other Shiro clones) were needlessly and brutally killed in service of Keith's character.

Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos wanted to kill Hunk, whose genealogy is half-Samoan and half-Black. (I assume they would have replaced him with Acxa, given her prominence in spite of her very confused role in the show's narrative.)

Scores of Alteans were manipulated, brainwashed, and exploited as cannon fodder, even after most of their race was annihilated in a blatant genocide, while the countless atrocities willingly committed by the Galra were excused as stemming from a "misguided sense of self-preservation".

Shiro and "Kuron" were deemed both disposable and interchangeable. Allura is made to sacrifice herself to atone for Honerva, another brown-skinned female Altean who willingly participated in the murder of innumerable other Alteans's sins. Shiro is repeatedly forced to mirror the only visibly physically disabled and heavily implied to be homosexual villain, Sendak, who was his personal tormentor and implied rapist.

This sort of thing is what happens when your Sci-Fi/Action cartoon made to sell toys to seven year-olds is helmed by a pair of hateful, unprofessional executive producers who despised characters that are inherently kind, compassionate, gentle, selfless, and pacifistic, and naturally embody heroic qualities. They reduce trauma survivors to narrative punching bags, use their white savior pet character as an outlet and mouthpiece to spread pro-conqueror and colonizer propaganda, and sabotage their own show, wasting all of the time, passion, and effort poured into it by the cast, animators, and composers. Purely because the character they intentionally made a gay, disabled man resonated with audiences, resulting in them being barred from permanently killing him.

And, absolutely had Ulaz survived, he would have been at odds with the rest of the Blades and likely excommunicated from their organization entirely, leading to him becoming a permanent part of Team Voltron who was forever skeptical of the ways of his former comrades. Unfortunately, his survival would have also resulted in him becoming yet another character tied to Shiro who was used to elevate Keith.

Honestly screw fanon romantic and platonic relationships. Tell what character pairings (with little to no interactions in canon) which fandom insists would be great friends but you know it in your heart would kill each other without hesitation