You bring up some excellent points in this video about Shiro being a more emotional leader. I think that's why the team functioned so well back when Shiro was in the Black Lion cockpit, because he cared about his team and the people around him. He is there for them through thick and thin and it kinda makes me want to add to the comment I made on your previous video about the Lion swap. In that comment, I said how I thought Shiro was going to have leadership conflict with Keith as well as conflict over his position on the team now that there's no Lion for him to pilot. I also talked about Shiro finally dealing with his PTSD and becoming a co-leader of Voltron, piloting the Black Lion with Keith, since it would make no sense to kick him out of the cockpit forever after all that bonding with Black. I still believe all of that is true, but I never considered their positions after the war into my theories and so I'll probably give my theories a proper re-think when I have the mental capacity for it. Considering that Keith is much more of a general than Shiro is, I can definitely see him along side Allura as a bodyguard or something similar to that after the war, but I don't know what Shiro could be when the fighting stopped. We never found out what he considered doing when it was all over. I don't think Shiro would feel okay going back to Earth and staying there while adventures go on in the stars. He doesn't like to sit around. Maybe he'll become a teacher of some sort or he could become a diplomat and work along side Allura for peace, just as you suggested. Both positions seem viable to me since Shiro really acts like a mentor figure to more or less the whole team. Whatever happens, I know one thing; I want to see Shiro begin to heal. I want to see him deal with his PTSD and learn to live with what happened to him instead of hyperfocusing on everyone else's problems to ignore his own. It's great that he cares so much about the people in this war, but if all he does is look after others, he's going to burn out and I don't wanna see that happen to him.
To put it bluntly, it is. The show runners said it during an interview that it's sticking and the first couple seasons were nothing more then an elaborate explanation about why everyone's armours don't match right now.
Personally, even though I knew they were going to make Keith the Black Paladin, I was really sad it wasn't Lance. Allura makes sense, but making her both a princess and the Black lion, would be too much power. Plus, she's more of a diplomat than a battle strategist. Keith taking the Black Lion makes a lot of sense for his arc. It allows him to grow out of Shiro's shadow and focus on being a team player. Unfortunately, he's a terrible leader for this group (not that he can't be a good leader, but the dynamics are not in his favor). The traits that make him a good Red Paladin (impulsive, temperamental, single mindedness, goal driven, flexible) are prone to make him focus too much on one goal and not consider his surroundings. He doesn't know anything about utilizing his team's abilities or fomulating a basic, coherent team based plan. And when "Shiro" comes back, he's constantly second guessing himself. Being the Black Lion will help him grow, but he's already had the most screen time and story devoted to him out of all of the paladins. Lance possibly the person most like Shiro, outside of Allura. He's a strategist and makes really good plans when he had time to step back. He can list all of his teammates abilities, even in the heat of battle. He's usually, one of the first people to sacrifice his own interests for the group and cares about the people he's trying to save. He acts narcesistic only because he's trying to mask his insecurity. He's a terrible Red Lion because all of the traits that make a good Red Lion have always led to disaster for Lance. Acting impulsive and single minded has kept Lance from making good decisions and always makes him a laughing stock. But on the other hand, Lance has proven himself to be a great leader in the past. When the group splits up, he's usually the one with the plan, and the others have no problem following him. When Keith took over, Lance was the first to support him ahe the first to fairly critisize him. Lance was also the one to call out Keith's bad leadership decisions, and hold the team together when Keith was going off on his own. Even the show presented him as a viable option. While the other paladins trying on Black were played up for laughs, Lance was presented just as seriously as Keith and Allura, and it felt like a serious let down that he wasn't chosen. For God's sake, give the kid Somme development. He's earned it at this point.
I've lately seen too much foreshadowing on how they positioned Shiro, Keith and Lance in some scenes and how they also use the colors black, red and blue, for example when Shiro was fighting against Zarkon in the astral plane, some red stars were shown in the sky (meaning that Keith would be the next Black Paladin as we see it right now, maybe?) but there were also some blue stars too, or Voltron's head, it's obviously black because it's Black Lion's but inside it has red and blue. Ok, I'm being very conspirative here, it might be just a colour palette issue, but I don't think it's a mere concidence using always these three specific colors in certain situations. Remember when Allura gave the lions to each paladins and told them about their traits and personalities, when Black was shown it was obviously given to Shiro, but Keith and Lance were next to him in the same shoot (meaning that Black will be piloted by Keith in next seasons and maybe then Lance) , when Keith received Red, Lance was shown next to him too (and we know what happened this season).I know, this theory might seem like it makes no sense, that I'm just being paranoid with the colors and I don't know if I'm getting my point right but the thing is that I really think there's a possibility of Lance being the black paladin, it just that everything connects to me.
I could never put my finger on why I didn't like Keith as the black paladin once Shiro left. But this kind of sums it up. I care about the characters so much that when Keith ignored them, it irked me more than anything. Shiro is the best leader.
The lion switch BETTER be permanent! I JUST got over Shiro's disappearance, because if the real Shiro comes back and Lance stops being a paladin will ACTUALLY KILL ME
