So I was rewatching The Black Paladins (s6e5) and when talking about Keith, Haggar says that his connection to shiro leaves him "vulnerable to persuasion." What do you think she meant by that?
That Keith would be so easy to manipulate, that Shiro could just lead him on and lure him into a trap and Keith would be willing enough to believe it. It’s weird, because it seems like Shiro contradicts Haggar’s orders a bit. Here’s the conversation between them:
“Yes, but how am I to lure them away?”
“The Red Paladin’s connection to you runs deep. Deeper than the others. He believes there is good left inside you, which leaves him vulnerable to persuasion. You will exploit this weakness.”
It seems to me that maybe Haggar wanted Shiro to convince Keith they were on the same side, to put on an act. If he had feigned innocent, gone wide eyed in a moment of supposed lucidity and begged for Keith’s aid, Keith would led his guard down immediately. He’d be so eager to help Shiro, maybe even hold him in his arms again–and Shiro could just catch him unaware and run him right through with his quintessence blade.
But he doesn’t. He still lures Keith away, as Haggar ordered. But he takes him to Haggar’s cloning facility–as if to reveal the truth to Keith and destroy it. And, with whatever last strand of willpower he had, I think he wanted Keith to kill him too. He preys on Keith’s weakness for him, sure. But he doesn’t ever try to appeal to this notion that he’s still “good” as Haggar suggested. Time and again, he tries to egg Keith on and rile him up.
He tries to hit him where it hurts–saying he was abandoned by his family, saying that he should have done the same, calling Keith completely worthless. Claiming that neither of them will leave here alive, that the Shiro Keith once knew is gone for good. And when Keith confesses his love, when Shiro sees there’s no way he has what it takes to destroy him? He admits to believing he’s murdered their entire team. It’s the final blow, the most awful thing he could do, and yet–Keith still believes he’s redeemable and worth saving, even in spite of everything Shiro tried to do to convince him otherwise.
I think it’s possible Shiro knew on some level that maybe only one of them would make it out of this, and he wanted it to be Keith–tried to push him to fight back at every turn. Because if he had went with Haggar’s exact plan, it would have been far too easy to use Keith’s love for him against him, to be his ruin.
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theartofmadeline
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