Revised personality (post-canon-update)
The anime Toward the Terra consists of twenty-four half-hour episodes. Through most of them, Keith does not consciously question the life he is leading. Subconsciously, he simmers with doubt, self-loathing, and hatred of the system that created him, but consciously he never admits to the doubt. He does not believe that any other possible life exists for him: he was created to defend the system, which was created to defend humanity from itself and the universe from humanity. He builds himself, or lets himself be built, on this, until he is a cruel and hateful person with little hope of redemption.
Only at the end of episode twenty-two, with Matsuka's sacrifice to save him, does Keith begin to doubt. Even then, he keeps those doubts very self-contained and under the surface, and he denies their existence to others. Not until the last few minutes of the show does he finally turn on the system and begin to make choices of his own. He spends most of the following few minutes bleeding and dying. So that's not a lot of help for building a new personality. We're going to need to look beneath the surface at the things that motivate him throughout the show and his brief moments of vulnerability, and then we're going to have to extrapolate from that.
Facts.
Keith is angry at the system. When finally pressed to kill Jomy and assent to the eradication of the Mu, he first hesitates, then responds, "Shut up! Do not trifle with my mind!" and shoots Grandmother--a symbolic and futile gesture (until Jomy picks up on it and blasts her), but one that expresses what he's wanted to say but not felt capable of saying for a very long time. With the destruction of the Superior Domination system, he spends his anger and is at peace: "There's no need to thank me. I just did what I wanted, for the first time in my life." Given a second chance to live in the City, however, Keith may rage again when he encounters similar situations. He has been a pawn and a tool his entire life, and he hated it. He will not stand to see people and systems try to use others in this way again. From someone who loathed and feared free will comes someone who is a champion of it, even if he doesn't always know how to say so. On that note...
Keith does not know how to express his feelings. Telling Grandmother to "shut up" and then shooting her is the only way he has of showing his anger and hatred. But this doesn't just apply to those emotions. Keith has been taught all his life to suppress and overcome all human emotions, and now he doesn't know how to deal with them healthily. This, of course, is the same as before...the difference is that now he knows it and is trying to work through it.
Keith is lonely. He has shut out almost everyone all his life, and he now regrets it. He expresses this with his last words: "I'm alone, right to the very end." It's not unreasonable to assume that a part of him always craved love and affection--he just denied it as being a sign of weakness and failure.
Keith regrets the way he lived his life. He says, near the end, "Those who fully live have no regrets." But it's obvious that he hasn't fully lived, and he knows it. The only thing in his life he doesn't regret is the choice he made at the end.
Then there's more we can extrapolate.
Keith is still questioning. In his last moments with Jomy, he asks him if they did the right thing. He still doesn't entirely trust himself to make decisions. He's not used to it. He'll try, but he'll still find himself turning to others to give him guidance and make his decisions for him if he's not careful.
Keith still bears guilt and self-hatred. For the right reasons this time, though. He realizes now how incredibly wrong the way he lived his life was and recognizes that a lot of pain and suffering came of it. He doesn't loathe his very being the way he did before, but he questions whether he even deserves the second chance the City gives him. There's pain and guilt in his voice when he speaks his last words. He feels the regret and the guilt deeply.
And then there are other things, things that aren't really changes, but which were hidden beneath all his layers of obedience before. Keith is a very strong-willed person; it's just that he's bent that will to the demands of a system from day one. He feels intensely and, when he can manage to express those feelings, does that intensely too. He's also a protector. When he's young, his immediate instinct is to protect people and take care of them. He holds back sometimes even then because he doesn't know if that's his purpose, because he's not supposed to show those feelings, because his orders tell him to do otherwise. But now he has no reason to hold back. That part of him can resurface.
Ultimately, the plain truth is that Keith has lived less than seventeen years and spent very little of them actually confronting himself and opening up to other people. It's going to be a new experience for him, and he won't really know how to go about it. He doesn't know what normal boundaries are, either--when he was a teenager and Sam was hurt, he immediately went to his bedside with a plushie without questioning whether this was "appropriate" or not. Of course, he won't exactly be a bundle of affection, either, but that's more because he doesn't know how to be than because he's a cold person.
To the end, Keith remains calm and thoughtful--that controlled attitude won't go away. But it's more peaceful and genuine now, and when he has to break it to express his feelings, he will, rather than trying to shut them off. He also won't shut people out, at least not as deliberately as before. It'll be a slow process most of the time, save for when bursts of loneliness and emotional stuntedness push him further than he realizes. But he'll change.
Only at the end of episode twenty-two, with Matsuka's sacrifice to save him, does Keith begin to doubt. Even then, he keeps those doubts very self-contained and under the surface, and he denies their existence to others. Not until the last few minutes of the show does he finally turn on the system and begin to make choices of his own. He spends most of the following few minutes bleeding and dying. So that's not a lot of help for building a new personality. We're going to need to look beneath the surface at the things that motivate him throughout the show and his brief moments of vulnerability, and then we're going to have to extrapolate from that.
Facts.
Keith is angry at the system. When finally pressed to kill Jomy and assent to the eradication of the Mu, he first hesitates, then responds, "Shut up! Do not trifle with my mind!" and shoots Grandmother--a symbolic and futile gesture (until Jomy picks up on it and blasts her), but one that expresses what he's wanted to say but not felt capable of saying for a very long time. With the destruction of the Superior Domination system, he spends his anger and is at peace: "There's no need to thank me. I just did what I wanted, for the first time in my life." Given a second chance to live in the City, however, Keith may rage again when he encounters similar situations. He has been a pawn and a tool his entire life, and he hated it. He will not stand to see people and systems try to use others in this way again. From someone who loathed and feared free will comes someone who is a champion of it, even if he doesn't always know how to say so. On that note...
Keith does not know how to express his feelings. Telling Grandmother to "shut up" and then shooting her is the only way he has of showing his anger and hatred. But this doesn't just apply to those emotions. Keith has been taught all his life to suppress and overcome all human emotions, and now he doesn't know how to deal with them healthily. This, of course, is the same as before...the difference is that now he knows it and is trying to work through it.
Keith is lonely. He has shut out almost everyone all his life, and he now regrets it. He expresses this with his last words: "I'm alone, right to the very end." It's not unreasonable to assume that a part of him always craved love and affection--he just denied it as being a sign of weakness and failure.
Keith regrets the way he lived his life. He says, near the end, "Those who fully live have no regrets." But it's obvious that he hasn't fully lived, and he knows it. The only thing in his life he doesn't regret is the choice he made at the end.
Then there's more we can extrapolate.
Keith is still questioning. In his last moments with Jomy, he asks him if they did the right thing. He still doesn't entirely trust himself to make decisions. He's not used to it. He'll try, but he'll still find himself turning to others to give him guidance and make his decisions for him if he's not careful.
Keith still bears guilt and self-hatred. For the right reasons this time, though. He realizes now how incredibly wrong the way he lived his life was and recognizes that a lot of pain and suffering came of it. He doesn't loathe his very being the way he did before, but he questions whether he even deserves the second chance the City gives him. There's pain and guilt in his voice when he speaks his last words. He feels the regret and the guilt deeply.
And then there are other things, things that aren't really changes, but which were hidden beneath all his layers of obedience before. Keith is a very strong-willed person; it's just that he's bent that will to the demands of a system from day one. He feels intensely and, when he can manage to express those feelings, does that intensely too. He's also a protector. When he's young, his immediate instinct is to protect people and take care of them. He holds back sometimes even then because he doesn't know if that's his purpose, because he's not supposed to show those feelings, because his orders tell him to do otherwise. But now he has no reason to hold back. That part of him can resurface.
Ultimately, the plain truth is that Keith has lived less than seventeen years and spent very little of them actually confronting himself and opening up to other people. It's going to be a new experience for him, and he won't really know how to go about it. He doesn't know what normal boundaries are, either--when he was a teenager and Sam was hurt, he immediately went to his bedside with a plushie without questioning whether this was "appropriate" or not. Of course, he won't exactly be a bundle of affection, either, but that's more because he doesn't know how to be than because he's a cold person.
To the end, Keith remains calm and thoughtful--that controlled attitude won't go away. But it's more peaceful and genuine now, and when he has to break it to express his feelings, he will, rather than trying to shut them off. He also won't shut people out, at least not as deliberately as before. It'll be a slow process most of the time, save for when bursts of loneliness and emotional stuntedness push him further than he realizes. But he'll change.