Hello and welcome to my kidge Ted talk. We’ve wrapped up season 8 and I’m sure everyone who wants to see it has seen it by now.
I figured I’d make a little post dipping into pidge and Keith’s relationship through the entirety of the show.
To my fellow kidge fans, we hear a lot of “kidge? They hardly interact.” Which is… not true. But even if they didn’t, why hate on creativity? I’m here to compile the moments that really set the kidge shippers into motion.
I’m on mobile, so unfortunately I won’t have too many pictures, but I’ll try my best. (I also have no idea how to insert a read more on mobile so I’ll apologize in advance)
Keith and pidge are often depicted next to one another.
Since the beginning of the show, the animators make it a point to depict them near one another. This is an obvious, as for half of the show they’re the “arms of voltron”. It makes sense, in the same way lance and hunk are depicted next to one another. However, after Keith is no longer piloting the red lion, these two are still always kept in a close proximity. Without getting too “shipper goggles” I’d like to point out that this displays a closeness between the two.
Now that we’re past the basic, surface level observation, I want to get a bit more into their character arcs.
Keith and pidge have one thing in common as kids: bullying. Pidge is picked on by kids in her class for being a nerd. Keith is taunted for being “emo” and the loss of his parents.
But they both have something else in common
They both have a similar “comfort person”. Pidge finds this in Matt (her brother). While Keith finds this in Shiro (someone he has regarded as being like a brother). These people inspire them and make them want to excel and do better, despite the bullies or feeling lonely.
Another big parallel is that these people who mean so much to them go missing and propels them both forward to start their arcs.
They become obsessed with finding them
While Keith finds shiro in the first episode, his journey is not done there. While pidge is looking for her father and brother, Keith is trying to discover where he comes from and how he’s related to the galra.
He ends up finding his mother around the same time pidge is reunited with her father. These arcs resolving around the same time is very harmonious and gives them both a sense of peace that makes them stronger characters.
Now that all that’s out of the way, let’s look into the big interacts they’ve had.
We get the Paladins learning to work together, which gives us this excellent “go loose, pidge!” Scene. They work well together from the get go. They are the arms of voltron, after all.
But there’s a dissonance when pidge tries to leave the team. Keith is furious. And I think this is more than a “The team won’t function” right sort of thing, but an abandonment issue. Keith has lost people. Being the arms of voltron, they are a team. If pidge leaves, Keith is alone in that regard and I think it’s evident in how happy he is that she decides to stay.
In the beginning of season 4, keith leaves voltron. They all go to hug him and pidge expresses how much they’re going to miss him. This is another display of closeness. As pidge is on the verge of tears at the idea of him leaving and he gives her a very soft smile that we rarely see from him. (I don’t have a picture of this my bad).
Keith returns to voltron. When he is down pidge helps him up. Not much to say about this but I liked this moment.
This is the big daddy of kidge moments for the show.
We gonna start with the obvious when they get captured. Lance is the first to move, being immediately taken down by Ezor. This is also huge for plance shippers, but I won’t get into that right now. Keith yells for them to let her go. He’s angry and panicked, but they have some sort of blaster pointed at him, showing that they deem him as a threat. He can’t do anything. This will connect to a point I’ll be making for season 8.
We get this cute little moment when pidge asks “what’s that?” And Keith tried to gently explain the drills to her, with a soft smile. This is behavior Keith doesn’t usually display. Zethrid was completely right when she says the team has a soft spot for pidge. Keith is no exception.
There is the scene when they’re fighting the Druid. From Keith’s vision we see him look from Kolivan to pidge. These are people he wants to protect and keep safe.
While they’re floating in space, throwing insults at each other, no one has anything to say about pidge. Because they don’t have negative feelings towards her.
In this same episode, we get the famous scene of pidge grabbing Keith while he’s hallucinating. I’ve talked about this in another post, but I’ll reiterate it here as well. Pidge is on the tail end of the chain when Keith starts swinging. She jumps up from the very end and goes to grab Keith, breaking the hold hunk has on him. This immediately snaps Keith out of it. The animators made it a point to have the person farthest away from him be the one to pull him back. Animating isn’t easy so this is something they had to have gone out of their way to do.
It’s another display of closeness. Much like in the scene with the Druid when he looks to pidge, this is someone he cares about.
Pidge and Keith didn’t get a huge focus this season (which I’m fine with. Gotta let the others shine). But there were two significant scenes that the kidge shippers lost their marbles over.
Not only do we see them sitting together through most of the season, but we get this cute lunch scene during episode 7. Judging by how most of the people kinkade and razavi interviewed were intruded on, I’d say this is probably no different.
There is a moment where Keith is looking at pidge, even afters she’s finished talking. He only stops when Razavi calls out to him. Through his portion of the interview, he visibly becomes more annoyed. At the end he’s asks “is this interview over now?” (Or something along those lines) indicated that he felt intruded upon.
Keith and pidge had seemingly planned to enjoy lunch with one another but were intruded upon, this accounting for Keith’s long look and continuos annoyance.
Then we have the hand grabbing scene. Keith could have reached for anyone; lance, hunk, allura. But as usual, pidge was closest to him. His focus in this moment doesn’t seem to be entirely on the team, but mostly in pidge. They’re clinging to each other and he’s trying with all of his strength to pull her back up.
When the Paladins finally disappear, Keith falls to his knees and begins banging on the ground in distress. Much like the scene with Zethrid and Ezor, Keith gets very panicked and upset when he can’t help those he cares about. He feels helpless.
But an important thing to note is that pidge is holding onto Keith as much as he’s holding onto her. This a mutual bond between the two. It comes back to the scene in space when she grabs him. They’re a figurative lifeline for one another. Both literally and figuratively trying to pull each other out of dispair.
Whether romantically or plantonically, I think it’s important to regard how close these two actually are. As Bex said and the writers and animators have indicated, they “secretly adore each other”.
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