I was thinking about the whole 'You're my brother, I love you' line a lot. On my free time, I decided deconstruct the whole moment and to pick apart the structuring of how it was said.
People on tumblr seem to make the line out to be simply 'You're my brother. I love you.' which isn't exactly the quote that was said. The actual transcript of the moment was more like:
Keith: Shiro, please. (pause) You're my brother. (pause) I love you.
FYI, Netflix subs the scene as:
Keith: Shiro, please. You're my brother. (gasping) I love you.
There are in fact three pauses in moment between each sentence, each pause is about one second long, give or take. These pauses are extremely important that people tend to gloss over, I noticed. People also seem to forget/ignore the first few words Keith said being 'Shiro, please'. Â But actually, the 'Shiro, please' is quite important to the moment as well.Â
> [Shiro attacks Keith, Keith blocks the attack] - After about a 2-3 speaking pause as Keith was pinned, Keith began to speak. During this pause, Keith was trying to think of something to say to get Shiro to stop, he was pinned after all.
> 'Shiro, please.' was Keith simply pleading for Shiro stop. It didn't work.Â
> 'You're my brother.' was Keith trying to connect with Shiro by trying to get at their strong bond. It didn't work.Â
> 'I love you.' was Keith's final attempt to try get in touch with Shiro. It finally caused a reaction, unlike the first two attempts.
The pauses in the middle of the sentences was Keith trying to think of ways to get Shiro to stop. Seeing how there’s three attempts made, the ‘I love you’ was Keith’s final gambit to get Shiro to stop. Keith resorted to saying that because if pleading or even offering their strong brother-like bond wasn’t going to work, what was? His true love for Shiro was.
TLDR; The whole 'Shiro, please. You're my brother. I love you.' moment was the three attempts Keith made to try get at Shiro. Out of the three sentences, two failed (’Shiro, please’ and ‘You’re my brother’) and only 'I love you' managed to get through to Shiro. ‘I love you’ was Keith’s final and ultimatum to get Shiro to stop, which finally garnered a reaction.Â
Keith’s love was the only thing Shiro reacted to. Not pleading, not even their close familial-like bond, but just his pure devoted love to Shiro.