Reflection and Analysis

VLD: Shiro and Keith's Relationship S4

After season four, what do you think Shiro and Keith's relationship is?

Their relationship is definitely a mentor/mentee type relationship with nothing romantic about said relationship. Mentor/mentee type relationships can range from older student/younger student, father/son, older brother/younger brother, uncle/nephew, older cousin/younger cousin, teacher/student, tutor/tutored. However, Keith's clearly declared that the mentor/mentee type is familial in nature during season two, but familial in nature doesn't mean blood related.

In the past, I've seen Sheith fans argue that one can interpret the relationship as romantic, but I've honestly been iffy on this. As each season progresses, it becomes harder and harder to interpret the relationship as having any romantic context within the canon material. Does this mean that people can't ship the two together romantically? No. Does this mean that people can't interpret certain scenes as romantic. No.

However, fandom's faced problems from the fandom anti who have mostly been Klance, but have also been most of the Klance fans within fandom. One of the points Sheith fans have made against Klance is that one honestly can't interpret their toxic bickering which continued even into season four as romantic, but the same goes for Shiro and Keith. Keith as I pointed out clearly labeled his feelings towards Keith as brotherly back during season two, but Shiro's relationship has constantly remained at a mentor stage to Keith even after Keith became the leader of Voltron.

Of course, there is the argument that Keith mistook his romantic feelings towards Shiro as brotherly, but isn't this a strawman's argument? By this I don't mean it's not a valid argument for arguing one's headcanon for the pairing, but it's not a valid argument for arguing the chances of the pairing being canon. Even the fact there are Childhood Friend Romances out there that started out being claimed as Like Brother and Sister, it's still not a valid argument.

While the above shift in tropes does happen in some series, it's actual occurrence is rare, but most of the examples I've seen people pulling from actual media involve the characters being in heterosexual relationships. That, or as the Not Blood Siblings trope says, "a common cop-out in anime, manga and soap operas, when a series is based on Brother-Sister Incest, is to reveal towards the end, or explicitly state in the opening monologue, that they're Not Blood Siblings." Voltron is most certainly not that type of show.

Also, if Keith wasn't Shiro's family, how could he be at the prelaunch with Shiro?

No, seriously.

I'd not caught this until someone posted clips of it online as it's very small and in the background and flashes by very fast, but before Shiro launched, he took Keith out to the space launch and showed him around. The chances of getting to go if Keith wasn't in some way family to Shiro are actually very slim. No, seriously, that's something which is reserved for family.

And no, Shiro and Keith aren't married. First, Keith very clearly says Keith is like a brother to him during season two, which means their relationship was platonic and not romantic prior to that point. Second, even if you take the ages in the official handbook as official, a year ago Keith would be seventeen, and you can't legally get married in the United States until you are eighteen without parental consent, which Keith would not have had. In Japan, it's actually twenty.

However, should one take those ages as official when all other sources say "five unsuspecting teenagers"? Teenager doesn't mean the same thing as "young adult" or "adolescent", but the only way for this age to actually be canon is for Shiro not to actually be completely Japanese like people suspect, but isn't that just another clue that he and Keith are related? I mean, what are the chances of both having alien blood in them that thus slows down the human aging factor?