Keith Keiser

Keith Keiser is a main protagonist in the long-running webcomic Twokinds by Tom Fischbach.
He’s a pessimistic, but strong-willed 19 year old Eastern Basitin who, after being incriminated for the deaths of his parents, was banished from his homeland and only allowed to return should he be able to bring the Human Grand Templar, Trace Legacy with him.
Along his quest, he’ll befriend both the Amnesiac Trace and his new Tiger Keidran fiancée, Flora and then the Wolf Keidran Natani who, after a botched attempt at assassinating all three, will join the group and, in the end, even become Keith’s love interest.
==Appearance==
Like all Basitin, Keith is a short, slim but muscular, somewhat felid humanoid with light brown fur and hair, clawed paws, a long tail and large pointy ears.
He has medium-length hair and yellow eyes with no apparent sclera or pupils, except in a few panels. Following his duel against Alaric in Chapter 11, Keith was left with a permanent scar over his right eye and a slash on his right ear.
He originally wore a typical basitinian armor, with a blue (later dark aquamarine) long-sleeved shirt, light brown pants, a black belt and cape with metal shoulder pads and a metal helmet with a lightning symbol on it, a memento from his late father which Keith had to always bring with himself as part of the punishment for his patricide.
After the Basitins Isles Arc, he started dressing much more casually, usually with brown pants and a aquamarine t-shirt.
When on Ambassador duty, he dons a black full-body armor with golden linings and a red cape.
As of late, Keith started growing a bit of a goatee, much to Natani’s amusement.
==Personality ==
At the start of the comic, Keith was a very aloof and bitter person as a result of his dark past and it was initially very difficult for him to warm up to people, especially to Keidran, towards whom he became prejudiced after a romance with one ended in tragedy.
Unlike the amnesiac Trace and the childish Flora, Keith, who had been travelling Mekkan on his own for years, was much savvier about the world and the untrustworthy people in it, and his training at a warrior since a very young age also made him much more willing to get lethal when dealing with such threats, as the Magi brothers would soon learn the hard way.
Cold as he may have been, Keith never truly lacked in conscience and, under his indifferent façade, he’s a caring, often emotional person willing to best any odd to protect his friends.
In that last respect, a great issue Keith had to overcome was his unwillingness to let go of his loved ones, caused by the sheer amount of friends and family he lost throughout his life, feeling responsible for each and every one of their deaths. His stubbornness over staying with those he loved almost cost him his life more than once, such as when he was willing to give up his vital energy just to have Laura’s apparition stay with him. In the end, thanks to support from all his friends, Keith learned to move past his losses and enjoy life with the people he still has.
Keith was, originally, just as adherent to the laws and customs of Eastern Basitin as any other of his kind (even the more nonsensical ones, such as the Easterners’ enforced curfews and censorship of feet). However, his upbringing from his mother, a member of the much more free-spirited Western Basitin, allowed Keith to think outside of the box and act unorthodoxly or even unlawfully when the situation called for it. When push came to shove, Keith was able to defy the very laws of his people in order to do what he knew was right. After the events of Chapter 11, Keith saw first-hand just how self-destructive the blind lawfulness of his culture is and, nowadays, he’s much less strict towards himself and other and takes the laws of his people much less seriously, to the point of not even caring about his role as ambassador, except when he can use his position to help his friends.
Despite having grown out of the Lawful Stupid mindset of his people, Keith has remained a mostly no-nonsense, deadpan individual, though much more fun-loving when around close friends and even capable of an occasional joke…they seldom land, but he tries.
One aspect of his people that he shed with much more difficulty was their extreme prudishness, which made things difficult for him when dealing with the Keidran, who, on the contrary, have little to no nudity taboos. His modesty, however, helped him bond with Natani, who was very uncomfortable with nudity as well due to him being secretly born a female.
After overcoming his bigotry towards Keidran thanks to his friendship with Flora, Keith became arguably one of the most openminded individuals in the cast, especially considering he hails from a culture of xenophobic isolationists: he quickly started respecting Natani’s complicated orientation, in spite of the implied homophobia in the Eastern Basitin’s culture, learned to implement techniques from other cultures in his fighting style and, overall, has no patience for racism from any of the other characters, such as with “Red” and, occasionally, with Trace as well.
Despite being apathetic most of the time, Keith is quite emotional deep down: in spite of the pretty much darwinistic training he endured throughout his childhood, he’s not afraid to cry when grieving over a lost loved one and, in his worst moments, Keith can also become very wrathful, though even that anger is often born of fear over losing those he cares about.
According to Alaric, Keith used to be very different as a child: contrary to the serious pessimist he is today, in his childhood Keith was a cheerful, fun-loving kid with little care for combat and discipline, showing just how much his experience as an outcast jaded him throughout the last 6 years of his life.
==Biography==
=== Background===
Keith was born somewhere between the years 462 and 463 from the mixed-race marriage between the Eastern Basitin Arms General Cornelius Keiser and his wife Cathleen, a Western Basitin whom Cornelius managed to make an Eastern citizen thanks to bureaucratic help from his friend, the Intelligence General Albion Alabaster.
A runt by Basitin standards, in part due to his protective mother making him start training a couple years later than most Basitin children, Keith was raised very strictly, sometimes abusively so, by his father, who wanted to toughen him up. His mother, in turn, would treat him with kindness, nurturing a cheerful, fun-loving spirit unlike any of Keith’s peers, with the exception of Nickolai Alaric, “Nick” as Keith would call him.
The two became best friends and would spend their days hanging out without a care.
One day, however, things took a turn for the sour as Cornelius’ crime of harboring a Westerner started being uncovered. That night, a desperate, drunk Cornelius revealed his plan to leave the Isles with Cathleen (leaving the then 13 year old Keith on the island, as he was still too weak in his eyes) to Albion. Unwilling to let his friend fall in disgrace over a Westerner, the Intelligence General quickly went to Cathleen and brutally killed her in her own house.
Upon coming home, Keith found his mother’s corpse and, thinking that Cornelius was the murderer, raised his spear against his own father when the latter arrived home shortly after, drunk out of his mind. Devastated at the sight of his dead wife, Cornelius allowed himself to fall on Keith’s spear, killing him, to the horror of both a traumatized Keith and General Alabaster, who promised right then to make Keith pay for what “he” did.
Put on trial for both of his parents’ murder, Keith was banished from the Basitin Isles, with only a raft, some supplies and his own father’s armor with him. Alabaster decreed that Keith would be pardoned only if he managed to retrieve the Grand Templar Trace Legacy who, on top of being an important public figure, had just recently started a genocidal campaign against all non-humans, making Keith’s task pretty much impossible.
Alaric’s attempts to defend his friend from his unfounded charges were met with dismissal and, eventually, with a strike at his left eye by an enraged Alabaster, which left his eye permanently scarred. Alaric would then spend the following 6 years training become the Master General of the Eastern Basitin, so that he’d have the resources to enact revenge on those who banished Keith and ensure a better future for his old friend.
After a long journey across the sea, a barely alive Keith was found stranded on the coasts of the Fox Keidran Tribe by Laura, a kind girl who mended to him.
The two teenagers quickly fell deeply in love and, in spite of the tribe’s prejudices against the Basitin boy, they soon planned to get married. However, in the end, all of the tribe’s bigotry against the interspecies couple did get to her and, uncertain on what to do, she didn’t show up at the wedding and seemingly disappeared, rumors spreading that she was seeing another man ( in ambiguously canon supplemental material, it’s revealed that Laura’s two cruel sisters, who wanted Keith all for themselves, manipulated the girl into leaving him).
Heartbroken and with newfound bitterness against all Keidran, Keith set off to search for Trace Legacy, this one chance at returning home being all he had left.
===Finding Trace Legacy===
Keith first appears in the story in Chapter 2, when he goes to the tavern of Trace’s fiancée, Maren Taverndatter, in search of him. Trace reached the tavern just as his racist, unnamed, red-haired friend was assaulting Keith for being a beastman. Trace broke up the fight and Keith, who finally found the Templar, filled the latter in on his predicament and asked for his help and the human, who, after undergoing amnesia, had now become perfectly personable, obliged.
Conflict arose, however, when Keith met Flora, a Tiger Keidran and trace’s new lover; Keith’s prejudice against her kind, along with Flora’s mischievous personality, lead to the two of them having a very rocky start to say the least. This escalated when, after being manipulated by her arranged groom, Sythe, Flora almost killed Trace before quickly regaining her common sense, but not before Keith witnessed her attempt and drove her away, much to the fury of Trace, who left keith behind (on a tree) to go console Flora.
After days of searching for the human and the tigress, Keith found them and, after helping with defeating the evil god Ephemural, made amends with the duo, the three now returning to their journey. Although still frenemies, Flora became more sympathetic towards Keith after learning of his heartbreak at the hands of Laura and Keith, in turn, learned to tolerate Flora’s playful nature much more and even warm up to Keidran as a whole thanks to her, to the point of berating Trace when the latter considered breaking up with her due to her race.
===Meeting Natani===
A new danger soon presented itself when Sythe’s uncle, a Wolf Keidran Duke, sicked two Wolf assassins on the trio: Natani and Zen, the infamous Magi Brothers. Natani lured Keith away from Trace and Flora by conjuring a magical apparition of Laura and proceeded to shoot him with a poisoned arrow. Keith, who was immune to poison like all Basitin, recovered from the wound and joined Trace in his fight against the assassins, stabbing Zen almost fatally with his sword before the latter teleported away. In their fight against Natani. Trace’s evil side suddenly took ahold of him, summoning a giant, black dragon who attacked the entire group, the Dragoness Lady Nora arriving just in time to stop the beast and save the four of them, including Natani who had to reluctantly join the main group, since a Wolf Keidran like him would be killed on sight travelling alone in human territory. Keith was none-the-merrier about flora and Trace accepting the man who had just tried to assassinate them into their group.
When making a stop at a hostel for the night, Keith decided to take a bath in the bathhouse, where the vapors blocked Natani’s sight as he entered the same bathhouse until it was too late. To both of their discomfort, Keith discovered Natani was actually physically female, but identified as a male. Initially dismissing Natani’s transgenderism as a delusion, Keith would later become more understanding and respectful towards the wolf’s preference and, in turn, Natani shed a lot of his gruffness when around Keith, now the only person other than his brother Zen to know and keep his secret. Over time and throughout various Keidran heat cycle-related shenanigans, Keith and Natani would bond greatly, with even some romantic tension in the mix. Keith also helped keep Natani’s gender a secret to the rest of the cast various times: on one occasion, in order to protect Natani’s secret when eric’s slaves, Mike and Evals, saw him naked, Keith went so far as to pretend he had dark powers with which he had transformed the wolf, when, in fact, the Basitin have the distinction of being the one sapient species to NOT be able to use magic.
===Return to the Basitin Isles===
After striking a deal with the slave merchant Eric Vaughan, the group embarked on a voyage to the Basitin Isles, so that Keith could return home.
After 6 years of exile, the Basitin finally set foot back on his homeland, immediately met by an enthusiastic Alaric, now the Master General, and Albion Alabaster, baffled and furious as Keith’s quest was designed to be impossible.
Despite having being reaccepted into the Island, Keith had to first stand trial to be fully pardoned and regain full citizenship. In the meantime, Keith dueled a guard, much to the young Madelyn’s wonder, so that he and Natani could go to the cemetery so as to pay a visit to Cathleen’s grave. There, Keith revealed how he became an orphan, still believing his father to be his mother’s killer.
The two were then reached by the Basitin messenger, Lynn, who notified Keith that a girl was looking for him and that Alaric wanted to meet him at the bathhouse. Later he and Alaric made up for lost time before the General revealed a dark secret to Keith: Humans, Templars to be precise, were building magical towers on the Island, with support from the Generals. The Generals’ goal was to use the mana from the towers to defy the Basitin’s physical inability to use magic and finally shed the disadvantage they always had to Humans and Keidran. FurthermoreAlthough shook, Keith kept his mouth shut as demanded by his friend.
Alaric, however, had something even grimmer to reveal to Keith: if he wants to prove himself truly loyal and be welcome in the Island again, Keith will have to kill Natani, who the Templars believe to be a spy. Keith was, thus, left with a sadistic choice between his homeland and honor or his friends.
The next day, Alaric set up a trick to reunite Keith with a long-lost acquaintance…and make it as embarrassing as possible: a now mature Laura was the girl looking for Keith, as she had set out to search for Keith at the Isles, remorseful over her past cowardice. Discovering the true reason behind Laura’s abandonment, an initially furious Keith soon forgave her, his feelings for her returning.
Laura’s return in Keith’s life only frustrated Natani, worsening the wolf’s already conflicted feelings towards the Basitin, which in turn lead to the relationship between the two getting somewhat tumultuous, not helped by Keith’s internal conflict over the orders he received.
Things take a grim turn when Trace is abducted so that his magic may fuel the tower. In the meantime, Natani confided his backstory to Keith, explaining how a soul-fracturing spell that was cast on him by a wizard he and Zen had to assassinate forced Zen and Natani to link their souls together. Natani’s trust in him made Keith even more conflicted over having to kill him, not helped when General Alabaster paid the boy a visit, spurring him to do the deed. Keith finally mastered the strength to attack a betrayed Natani, but after a short battle, Keith lost his resolve and, tormented by his tragic crossroads and the guilt over having disobeyed his people, the Basitin tried to kill himself, Natani stopping him just in time.
Seeing that he failed to kill the wolf, General Alabaster ordered that the hotel Keith and his friends were in be burned down, to the horror of his initially reluctant soldiers; Albion would’ve had his revenge on Keith yet. After barely escaping the fire thanks to Natani’s magic, the group was finally told the whole truth by Keith, about the reason Trace had disappeared, about the plot unfolding in the Islands, about everything. Initially furious at Keith, who didn’t blame them one bit, the group immediately set out to stop the Generals, as Eric had come to a disturbing realization: due to close contact with magic bringing long-term damage to a Basitin’s mind, it became clear that the Templars were building the tower so as to brainwash the Basitin into mindless slaves; and, indeed, the Generals had already gone insane from their unnatural usage of magic, while the Basitin King, Jade Adelaide had come down with a grave sickness.
The heroes, including Laura, had to take matters into their own hands, since alerting the authority would be pointless, as the sheer bureaucracy required for the consequent trial would waste time until it was too late. So they split up: Natani and Flora faced the Arms General; Eric, Laura and. Later, Kat confronted General Alabaster and Keith set off to duel Alaric on his own. There was little to nothing Keith could do to reach out to his brainwashed friend, and a brutal duel broke out between the two. In the end, a wounded Keith mastered what little strength he had left to strike at the bridge the two were standing on, making it crumble under Alaric’s feet. As the later finally came back to his sense, Keith made a desperate attempt at saving his childhood friend, but Nick slipped out of his hands and into the cliff below.
Exhausted and devasted, Keith was then retrieved by Natani and the others as they finally reached the tower, ready to destroy it. However, Alabaster and his soldiers ambushed them, intending to bring them all to “justice”; but, luckily, the King, who had willed herself out of her sickness, confronted him. Desperate over his crumbling plans to “empower” the Easterners and “avenge” Cornelius, Alabaster, completely mad with power, defied the King’s orders and attacked the heroes, awakening Trace who, now in his powerful, evil state, became a threat himself.
The situation became dire and, when Alabaster intercepted the last bit of mana Natani had left, it all seemed hopeless. Laura, however, gave Natani the necklace Keith had gifted her with (which contained a little bit of mana crystal) and distracted the Intelligence General, allowing the heroes to finally destroy the tower and save the Basitin, even if the resulting explosion incapacitated most of the cast, killed Alabaster and left Laura herself fatally wounded. As Lady Nora came to rescue Trace and Laura from the explosion, the vixen was already beyond saving, as she merely got to live on long enough to die peacefully in Keith’s arms. A despaired Keith had her cremated, as is tradition for the Keidran.
After the cast was treated back to health by Basitin doctors, Keith prepared for the trial he had to stand for defying orders (and curfew), resulting in the tower being destroyed and the three Generals dying, the King, seemingly, with them. To Natani’s shock, Keith was resigned and ready to get executed, feeling responsible over the deaths of his parents, his lover and his childhood friend. The trial, indeed, was clearly in Keith’s disfavor, as Albion Alabaster’s very son, Aster, would have overseen it and Madelyn’s defense of the boy was of little help. During the trial, Keith discovers the truth about his Western heritage on his mother’s side as well as his father’s innocence in Albion’s murder of Cathleen, the latter revelation worsening his self-guilt even further.
The trial concluded, as expected, with Keith being banished once again, but with the added punishment that Natani and the other outsiders involved (slaves excluded) would be put to death. Willing to fight and die rather than letting his friends be killed, Keith stood defiantly against the court, passionately denouncing the self-destructive, blindly lawful mindset of his people, a mindset because of which he had lost family and friends. Before things escalated further, Messenger Lynn and King Adelaide, who had “decided ignore her fatal wounds and continue living”, barged into the court, wherein they revealed the late Alaric’s ultimate plot: the General exploited all possible loopholes in the bureaucracy to ensure citizenship and an high ranking position for Keith, who had, technically, become the rightful successor to the position of Master General after defeating Alaric in duel; since he knew Keith’s role as general would’ve been challenged, Alaric decreed that Keith would be made the very first Ambassador of the Basitin, with Lynn accompanying him, thus compromising with the court, who would, in practice, still have Keith kept away from the Isles, even if they’d be forced to acknowledge Keith respectfully, as Alaric always wished.
Finally, Keith departed once more from the Basitin Isles, as he and the group, plus Lynn and a clandestine Madelyn, embarked once more, with Flora’s hometown of Edinmire as their destination.
===Aftermath of the Basitin Isles Arc ===
Throughout the journey, a mourning Keith obsessed over the loss of his beloved Laura. Natani, in an attempt to help Keith cope and move past her death, conjured a magical apparition of Laura that Keith could give a last farewell to. However, Keith’s grief made him delude himself that the apparition was the real Laura and decided to have her stay with him, in spite of Natani’s multiple warnings that the more the apparition was kept on the more Keith’s own life would be drained. Unwilling to let go of “Laura”, Keith ended up on the brink of death. To convince him to let go of the apparition, Trace, who had spent a few moments alone with Laura after Nora rescued them, showed Keith that “Laura” didn’t remember that interaction, since she was an illusion born from Keith’s own memories and, therefore, only knew what he knew. At last, Keith finally mastered the will to say farewell to the apparition, symbolically letting go of the real Laura as well, finally accepting her death.
Even though it would still take him a while for him to fully move forward, Keith finally started entertaining the idea of he and Natani eventually becoming an official couple, to the point of the two finally kissing. Indeed, the duo would only get closer and closer after all of these experiences.
After overcoming his grief over Laura, Keith still wasn’t fully emotionally healed. Remorseful over having killed his innocent father, Keith wanted to get rid of his helmet, the memento of his crime. Natani and Flora, however, talked him out of it, instead trying to make the helmet a reminder of good times spent together, as well as the reason why he survived his first encounter with Natani, who would have aimed for his head were he not wearing it.
===Natani's Coma===
Far away from the main group, Natani’s brother Zen attempted and failed to assassinate Trace’s old friends Karen, Maren and “Red”, along with Sythe, now reluctantly on their side, and the Keidran-Human girl, Raine. Captured but, eventually, allowed to join them like Natani did with the main group, Zen still had to wear an anti-magic shackle to gain the trust of Raine and the others, but, in doing so, unwittingly severed his psychic link with Natani that allowed the latter to live and so the wolf fell in a coma, to Keith’s devastation. When Trace was unable to do anything about Natani’s coma, anger overwhelmed Keith, who punched and verbally attacked the human, resulting in the two friends having a falling-out.
Keith, with help from Kat, mended to a comatose Natani and, upon arriving to Human territory, Keith used his position as ambassador to seek help for his wolf lover, with no success whatsoever, as a war had just broken out between Humans and Wolf Keidran. Eventually, he, Madelyn and Lynn were confronted by three human mercenaries who wanted to be handed over the wolf: Sealenn, Landen and their leader, the adrakist Seraphina. A fight broke out and, after peacefully defeating Landen and Sealenn, the hotblooded Seraphina refused to surrender, with only combined efforts from the three Basitin, some human soldiers and the Royal Dragoness, Princess Reni finally taking her down.
A new problem soon presented itself, however, when three “Templars” attacked Edinmire. The three were, in fact, Wolf Keidran mercenaries, lead by the unscrupulous Clovis, who the Templars had hired so as to incriminate the Border Wolf Tribe and sever its diplomatic relations with the Tiger Keidran, who were visiting Edinmire as a special diplomatic occasion. Although the fake Templars were stopped thanks to both Trace and Reni, the attack resulted in Eric’s ship, on which a comatose Natani was resting, exploding, to Keith’s horror.
Luckily, after a deep confrontation with his own subconscious, Natani had already woken up on his own and escaped the burning ship, Kat and Laura’s ashes with him.
Although at first angry out of worry, Keith joyfully embraced the wolf, who had finally become more accepting of his female body thanks to his journey into the self, and finally revealed his secret to the rest of his friends.
===Arrival at the Legacy Estate===
After some troubles with the human soldiers that came with the group harboring a wolf, Trace, thanks to his status as Grand Templar, gave all his friends diplomatic immunity and, after reuniting with the secondary cast thanks to Reni, the heroes would then move to Trace’s Estate in the city. There, Keith and Natani, who shared the same room, finally got to spend some together and relax with all the luxury from the Templar’s Mansion, with Natani even entertaining the idea of finally sleeping with the Basitin, to Zen’s utter horror and an eavesdropping Keith’s fluster.
However, not even in the Estate would trouble end for Keith and his friends.
==Powers and Ability==
*Master Combatant: like most Basitin, Keith is very a very skilled fighter, martial artist and swordsman, his great agility and reflexes being his greatest asset. Despite being deemed a weakling throughout his childhood, in his late teens he’s now very strong for someone his build, being able to go toe to toe with the much larger Natani when sparring. Thanks to training with the latter, Keith implemented various Keidran techniques into his fighting style, giving him an edge against other Basitin, who are restricted to just the techniques of their people.
*High Intelligence: Keith is very smart and knowledgeable: on top of being a great tactician on the battlefield, he’s multilingual as he fluently speaks Basitin, Human and Keidran, the latter two being apparently self-taught during his travels, wherein he also learned a lot from each culture. On top of being book and battle-smart, Keith, in general, is a very sensible person and, on more than one occasion, had to act as a voice of reason for the cast.
*Diplomatic Authority: even if he was given the title of Ambassadorof his people to sugar-coat that he was exiled once again, in the territories of the Humans, who have a strenuous alliance with the Basitin, his position has helped bail him and his friends out of trouble on at least one occasion, as the human authority feared conflict with the Basitin.
*Poison resistance: a trait he shares with all Basitin, as the Basitin Isles have a toxic atmosphere that its inhabitants adapted to throughout the centuries. This helped greatly when he was shot with a poisoned arrow by an ignorant Natani upon their first meeting.
*Animalistic Physiology: as a Basitin, Keith has decently sharp claws and teeth. Thus far, however, he’s always remained civilized enough to never use them in battle.
==Trivia==
*Keith was the very first Basitin to appear in the webcomic, and one of only three to be in the main cast (alongside Madelyn, Lynn)
*Keith was the first character in the comic to swear.
*Due to his absence in Chapter 14, Keith is currently the only main character to not appear in every chapter after their introduction.
*Although seemingly heterosexual due to, so far, only feeling attraction towards characters that are physically female, Keith being in love with Natani despite the latter identifying as a male could mean Keith is at least Biromantic.
*fitting the militaristic, authoritarian culture he was born in, his first name, Keith, derives from “from the battleground” while his last name, Keiser, is probably derived from “Kaiser” , a term often used for a German or Austrian Emperor.
*He’s the only character in the comic to not have a pupils, or, at least, to have maintained this feature even after the comic’s art shift through the years.
*He’s the only main character to speak all three of Mekkan’s main languages (though, according to Clovis’ character sheet, there’s a fourth tongue, the Rune language, which Keith doesn’t speak).
*He’s very similar to Prince Zuko from “Avatar: the last Airbender” : both are emotionally tormented martial artists with severe daddy issues who were raised in a very strict, militaristic environment, knew kindness mostly thanks to their mother and were one day unfairly banished from their homeland when they were just preteens, with the conditions that they could eventually return only after retrieving an important figure; in addition, both eventually befriended their respective target, understood the fundamental flaws of their peoples and became a prevalent figure in that very society soon after (Keith became the very first ambassador of the Basitin, while Zuco became the new Fire Lord).
*In spite of being friends and assisting each other with mending to Natani when he was comatose, Keith and Kathrin are yet to interact on-screen.
*He’s described as “an angsty warrior” in the website’s description.
*He, Madelyn, Lynn and Sythe are the only four Main characters to have the same color for both their fur and their hair.
*He’s the only character to have physically defeated the Basitin General he was up against.
*Since his fight with Alaric left permanent scars on his right eye and ear, Keith's one of only two main character to have had a permanent change in their design, the other being Trace, who, after mishaps with black magic, ended up with his left hand permanently corrupted.
*Keith could be seen as an heroic foil to Clovis:
**Both know of Natani’s secret identity as a female-to-male Transgender, however, while Keith is a loyal secret-keeper and he and Natani started bonding over this confidence between them, Clovis cruelly used Natani’s secret to blackmail him and his brother Zen, threatening to reveal it to his misogynistic minions should they not obey him and mocking Natani over it;
**Both are attracted to Natani, but while Keith feels genuine, sentimental love towards him, to the point of loving his personality rather than his female body, Clovis feels nothing but lust for him, seeing him only as a woman with a nice body and a, as a mere perk, a feisty personality;
**Both are hybrids born from two races that normally despise each other (Eastern and Western Basitin for Keith, Wolf and Fox Keidran for Clovis), however, despite all the trouble it caused him, Keith made the most of his mixed ancestry, possessing both the easterners’ bravery and loyalty and the westerners’ free spirit, while Clovis spent his whole life in insecurity over his mother being a Fox and, on top of hating women because of it, decided to deny his vulpine roots all his life, killing and extorting to gain power and fix his hurt ego;
**While Keith is a prude like all Eastern Basitin, Clovis represents the worst possible manifestation of the Keidran’s infamous promiscuity, being a lecherous pimp aching to make any beautiful woman he sees his property;
**Keith strives to defect from the worst aspects of his home culture, first of all their isolationism and blind lawfulness, while Clovis delights in embodying all of the worst stereotypes about Keidran, being greedy, underhanded and promiscuous;
**Keith is an authentic official among the Basitin, but cares little about his position, Clovis is just a petty crime lord, yet wants to be acknowledged as a monarch;
**Parallels between the two are present even appearance-wise as they share a similar haircut, mostly yellow eyes and, when in his ambassador outfit, Keith shares the black, gold and red color scheme from Clovis’ usual attire.
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Category:Cure-Bringers
Category:Defectors
Category:Damsels
Category:Feminists
Category:Hybrids
Category:Rogues
Category:Samurais
Category:Servant of a Villain
Category:Karma Houdini
Category:Internet Heroes
Category:Fantasy Heroes
Category:Poor