In defense of Sheith: Power imbalance, brother figure, truth about media influences
Power imbalance is an argument used by Klantis against Sheith. It states that Shiro is 7 years Keith’s senior and his mentor, which warrants it an unhealthy ship. The argument is perfectly logical, but it remains abstract in nature. I will be using the argument in an abstract manner against Klance first, then I will be addressing the theory’s application in reality.
Power imbalance as a argument falls to invalidate Sheith as it will also invalidate Klance. Power imbalance is found in all relations, from friendships to relationships and familial relations. There are also instances of power imbalance in Klance, for example, Keith is known to be a superior pilot compared to Lance, while Lance is known as the sharpshooter of the team. Keith is held in higher regards for his piloting skills, which causes Lance to express some of his jealousy and bitterness through his verbal skills. Keith almost never defend himself against Lance when Lance makes fun of him because 1. Keith can’t be bothered/sees the truth in the abuse that Lance had hurls at him and thus doesn’t fight back (his character studies/metas often cite his insecurities as the reason, so essentially, Lance is poking fun at Keith’s insecurities eg calling him a dropout) 2. Lance often passes off his insults on Keith as a joke and thus other characters (including the audience) believes that it is simply a banter between characters and does not think twice of such incidents. It may seemed like a joke but they stays on Keith’s mind. eg his vlog talking about how he couldnt connect with people
The underlying power imbalance is due to Lance’s wit and the fact that he is pro-social. He knows the Vol-tron cheer because he hangs out with other people (it is a group cheer so one is only introduced to it in a group) while Keith doesn’t and thus he doesn’t know the cheer. Keith’s cluelessness is stemmed from his ignorance of cheering, a people-activity that he had unlikely been a part of, so Lance is more priviledged in that aspect. Keith’s ignorance of said cheer was also the joke in that scene, and Lance had mocked him with “we will work on it” like Keith is an idiot and that he was supposed to know what Lance was talking about. It was a scene where the audience laughed at Keith, and since Keith doesn’t understand what’s going on, he is not laughing along, and that’s a code red when it comes to jokes. One can joke at another’s expense if it is consensual and that everyone is having a good time. Furthermore, it is an issue that Keith brings up probably months after that incident and blamed it on the fact that HE couldn’t connect with people, not because people didn’t bother explaining/teaching him how to better socialise. Lance’s superior wit and social skills had been used against Keith in this simple scene.
(before yall lance stans get on my ass ill let you know that i love lance, but what he did wasnt very nice. yes it is just a kids show, but sheith is being held to a high pedastal while lance isnt. it is just hypocritical to dismiss this incident as a case of abuse due to power imbalance just because you love lance.)
Now onto addressing Shiro’s mentor status and his brotherly role. First of, I believe that it is not the best idea for one to date their mentor/brother figure as it is a breeding ground for grooming, however love also means trusting that said grooming doesn’t happen, love also means to not groom. A simple example, your parents are far wiser than you, older than you, richer than you etc but they don’t use it to groom you (unless they are abusive). People are not passive objects that let theories unfold on them, we make choices to not hurt others. An abled body person has certain priviledges over a physically-disabled person so that does mean that they aren’t allow to fall in love and get married? That is ableist and condescending towards people who are less priviledged.
From a more psychoanalytical POV, dating a brother figure is considered to be rather perverse, but we must be reminded that modern psychology is built on extremely Western values/culture. In Northeast Asian culture, it is perfectly normal and romanticised for a 3rd year high school male student to want to date a 1st year high school female student and vice versa. In my schooling experience, some pre-teens and teenagers have formed pacts where they address each other as a brother/sister and care for each other as such. Some of them also ended up dating their ‘older brother’. This clique behaviour is paralleled in Western alternative culture where wolf-kins form their community and goes around doing stereotypically wolf stuff and treat each other like brother/sister in their pacts. This pattern is believed to aid in teens’ identity-formation and thus normal in puberty, where teens try to find themselves outside of their home/family which could include forming familial ties with other non-family peers. Given Keith’s age, this could explain why he said that Shiro is like a brother to him, it is basic teenage psychology and if you don’t know bat shit about it and assume that Keith thinks of Shiro as a literal brother, then you’d be pretty dense. He could have been just expressing a hyberbole to get his intense feeling across during an occasion where someone he loves is literally leaving him, he’d express his deepest feelings for Shiro to stay.
In Western vocabulary of sexuality, it is often commented upon men that they’re ‘a daddy’, or ‘an uncle’, or ‘a bear’. (okay granted uncle would have been more in niche communities and you might not have heard it before but im just trying to make a point here) It doesn’t mean that someone literally wants to fuck their dad or a bear, but rather the person they’re describing bear attributes to maybe a dad or a bear. One may argue that ‘oh you’re fetishizing bears/fathers’ and no, they’re not, they’re fetishizing a trait associated. I am an Asian woman so I know fetishization and its impact better than most of yall Klantis. I know fully and well the impacts of fetishization but fetishizing bears/fathers have no social cost. (also data on klanti’s overwhelming white demographic: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNLlB64PD9k0bxG1bw3Crq5DE_VQhY_on_orWtuGIogN9gAQ/viewanalytics)
In Northeast Asian vocabulary of sexuality, ‘father’ and ‘bear’ are unheard of, but ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ are. (Feel free to correct me, I got my sources from reality TV shows/dramas lmao media shapes sexuality so it is valid evidence) Nobody wants to fuck their siblings, in fact, they think that it is really gross. It is like watching those sister-centric anime and be like “oh shes hot” but when they think about their actual sister they’d be like “lmao ew wtf my sister is gross af” and they will start listing at least 100 things about their sisters that they hate. Again, people are not passive objects that just swallow whatever media tells them. In fact, media can be used to deter such perversions. Eg if you are a child and you’re watching some serial killing movie, you parents would frown upon and condemn it. This is socialisation, where one sees something and then process other’s reactions to it to cement their beliefs. If you see pedophilia on TV and everyone around you are like eww wtf, you’re most likely to follow it as we are social creatures.
This is why I am fuckin pissed when Klantis attack Asian artists. We have different values/different take on sexuality. Just because modern psychology (with Western roots) says that it is perverse to date a familial-figure doesn’t mean that it is universal. (Therefore I argue that psychology is not an empirical science and the argument that Western Klantis propose are not to be applied to Asian Sheith shippers.) PLEASE LEAVE ASIAN ARTISTS ALONE. Stop forcing your values down our throat under the pretension of ‘progressiveness’. It is fucking insulting, condescending and racist. You have already colonised China, is it not enough? Do you have to force our beliefs to be aligned with yours, whilst disregarding our cultures? Are you seeking to colonise our minds?
(If you still don’t understand why I am outraged, just read Freud and how psychology came to be, please, stop being so ignorant and harasse people for it. I will be addressing Klanti’s arguments from a sociological POV in my next post)
note: part 2 is justifying power imbalance since i kinda digressed on western vs neasian shippers out of anger
