The Three Faces of Fanon Sendak (and Why They Have No Basis in Canon)
Modern fandom loves a monster. More accurately, fandom loves to take characterizations to the extreme. Protagonists become innocent angels who can do no wrong; antagonists, regardless of canon personalities and behavior, become monsters with no redeeming qualities. This is a chronic issue affecting most antagonists in the Voltron fandom–most notably Lotor, wildly mischaracterized as a misogynist and general bastard. Most mischaracterizations aren’t quite so dramatic a diversion from canon, but are more widespread as to become the fandom default. I’m not going to name names, but certain members of the Voltron community have popularized a characterization of Sendak that has no foundation in canon, which can be split into three component parts: the sociopathic bastard, the blood knight in love with his own carnage, and the abuser. And they're all wrong.
The Sociopath
Sociopath: a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. Here is a link to the DSM criteria for antisocial personality disorder, the official designation for sociopathy in the psychology world. Feel free to peruse it at your leisure, but for now, the abbreviated version:
Impairments in self functioning: egocentrism, self-esteem derived from personal gain, power, or pleasure or goal-setting based on personal gratification, failure to conform to lawful or cultural ethical behavior. Sendak features neither of the above, stating outright that he “fight[s] for the Empire” and “conquer[s] in the name of Galra” (S1E1, 30 minutes in), and conforms to Galra ethical norms throughout his appearances.
Impairments in interpersonal functioning: lack of empathy or incapacity for mutually intimate relationships. Now, before you say anything about his treatment of Shiro, I would like to remind you that Shiro is an enemy combatant and hostage used against another enemy combatant, therefore Sendak’s interactions with him do not count toward this assessment. I would argue that we don’t have enough interactions between Sendak and other Galra to accurately assess this point.
Antagonism: manipulativeness or deceitfulness or callousness or hostility. This is another point I would argue that we lack the canon material to assess, considering that we only see Sendak in his capacity as a soldier of the Galra Empire.
Disinhibition: irresponsibility or impulsivity or risk-taking. This point we can assess from Sendak’s canon behavior, and he shows none of these traits. In fact, Sendak is characterized primarily by his adherence to duty (his persistence in retrieving the Lions, per his orders) and his capacity as a strategist (planning and executing the attack on the Castle of Lions).
Additionally, the DSM criteria requires that traits shown are present and stable across all situations and circumstances, are not normative for an individual’s stage of development, and are not due to psychological effects of a substance or medical condition. By the official criteria, we lack the criteria to categorize Sendak as a sociopath.
The Blood Knight
As an archetype, the Blood Knight is characterized by a love of fighting. In fact, nothing matters to the Blood Knight so much as a good fight–not victory, not the morals, not the motives of their allies, not even the glory, a Blood Knight just wants to throw down and wreak as much havoc as possible.
This is in direct opposition to Sendak’s canon characterization. As stated above, the hallmarks of his personality are his dedication to duty and his capacity as a strategist, and a significant portion of his strategy is limiting collateral damage. In chronological order, he: announces his intents and purposes to Team Voltron and provides them an opportunity to surrender peacefully and accepts an apparent surrender, fires only on the Castle and Voltron during his assault from the cruiser, and, most notably, targets only the Castle’s power source and takes Shiro and Lance prisoner during his takeover.
These last two are the most significant given the circumstances they occured under. Sendak had limited resources and a small window of opportunity to take the Castle, and to cause the most damage and put more of his enemies out of commission, he could have easily had Haxus set the bomb drone off in the Castle ballroom, where most of the Paladins were at the time, rather than specifically targeting the crystal on the bridge. Additionally, killing Lance and Shiro when he took the Castle would have eliminated two potential risk factors once inside, and would have been a reasonable course of action to force Pidge into turning herself over after she killed Haxus.
In fact, the only evidence for this characterization was his willingness to fight Shiro at the Castle entrance, and even then he allowed Shiro an opportunity to stand down and surrender before engaging him in combat. Sendak is, clearly, not a Blood Knight.
The Abuser
This is, hands down, the worst and most popular fanon characterization of Sendak. It’s literally everywhere, even in fics that don’t feature Sendak as a major character–I challenge you to find a Shiro-centric fic set in the canon universe that doesn’t feature Sendak as one of the people who hurt him during his time as a Galra prisoner–and is a particular staple of Shendak as a pairing. While I acknowledge that captor/prisoner dynamics are decidedly unhealthy in a relationship, it’s too common in AU to not be part of popular fanon characterization, and I have to ask: what the fuck is up with that?
Again, before anyone brings up Sendak’s canon interactions with Shiro, I remind you that Shiro is an enemy combatant, and therefore would not be treated the same way a peer or subordinate would be. However, these interactions need to be addressed to analyse the fanon characterization, so we’ll take the plunge.
The first direct interaction between the two is the fight outside the Castle of Lions, during which Sendak and Shiro appear almost evenly match and come to a stalemate that only ends when Haxus threatens Lance, distracting Shiro and allowing Sendak to gain the upper hand and knock Shiro out. Sendak seems to view Shiro as a worthy opponent–in fact, the whole fight is frame to show them as equals in battle–but is more than willing to use his more advanced prosthetic and Haxus’s well-timed distraction to gain the upper hand and defeat him. No pun intended.
The other three notable interactions, which I suspect are the root of the characterization, are his torture of Shiro to force Pidge to surrender, his verbal beatdown between Haxus’s death and Team Voltron retaking the Castle, and the breaking speech delivered in S1E9. Again, circumstances are important in assessing a character, and the only one I would argue might be an indication of abusive tendencies is the verbal beatdown in S1E5. The torture is brief, designed to guilt Pidge into surrendering to spare her companions, and could easily have been inflicted on Lance instead of Shiro. It was a means to an end, and the intended target was an enemy combatant. Similarly, the speech in S1E9–if that was, in fact, Sendak addressing Shiro and not the Castle using his voice to mess with Shiro–was against an enemy combatant and a means to an end, though what end we cannot know considering that Shiro panicked and spaced him. As for the beatdown in S1E5…there really isn’t an explanation for it, outside of Sendak venting his frustration on the only available target–Shiro. Not really an indication of anything except how worked up he is at that moment, and do note that he doesn’t so much as invade Shiro’s personal space as he does so.
Additionally, if you want an assessment of Sendak’s interactions with an ally and subordinate: Haxus. Sendak can be a little abrupt at times, but he also praises Haxus for good ideas and jobs well-executed, which does not indicate abuse of subordinates. So…the canon ‘evidence’ for Sendak as an abuser really isn’t much evidence at all.
In Conclusion
Fandom’s favorite monster is a baseless entity, with no foundation in Sendak’s canon characterization. He does not fit the DSM criteria for a sociopath. He does not fit the archetype of the Blood Knight, nor does he display a love for carnage. And canon holds no evidence for Sendak as an abuser that holds up under fire.
I am not going to tell you how to write Sendak. I won’t say my characterization of him is definitively canon, or that you should strive to emulate it. I certainly won’t suggest you paint him as a ‘cinnamon roll’ or imply that he’s innocent of all wrongdoing–Sendak is a commander of a military force, he undoubtedly has the capacity to kill when the situation calls for it. I will suggest, however, that you consider your characterization more carefully, and that you check that it lines up more closely with the canon one. A good rule of thumb: if placing your characterization of a canon character in the same situation as the canon character would result in a different outcome to the situation, you need to rework your characterization.
