the character Kyle is a nightmare for the story thats meant to be so progressive. from the start he is the whipping boy and that was made clear from the very first moments of the show. he was 'taken out' during a training session and his 'friends' gathered around to complain about it to his face, when their inaction got them all 'under fire' they blamed that on him as well. they literally blamed someone out of the session for their standing around being targets. any time Kyle is shown, with a single exception after this point that i recall, he is being abused by his 'friends' and everyone thinks that abuse is fine, including the audience. clearly.

a couple of examples of that regular abuse include theft of his rations to give to others, it was indicated to be a regular thing for the crew, they need food for something they take his and only his. he is starved for days to make a 'cake' for someone else when everyone could have donated and had only slightly less rations across the board. to be fair that was all a fiction but later it was the 'fond memory' he drew on to represent their friendship. the conditioning is so pervasive he thinks being abused and starved, because the others insist and do not give him a say, so that others can have fun is friendship.

also they are soldiers in an 'evil horde' known for meting out harsh punishments unilaterally. well his friends blamed a failed mission on him and if it were actually serious about the whole military aspect and Hordak being a real threat, Kyle would have likely been shot. a single person cost them a victory they needed and was regularly blamed for trouble after all. the minute they needed someone to take the blame for failing the mission, he took the fall in spite of not actually being at fault.

yes he got a moment of badass saving his 'friends' later in the show. he was given a dash of apparent character development which ended with him thinking a fictional event was a great day with his friends. how sad is that, the memory he turned to was abusive to a sickening degree and he thought fondly of it. i have to be honest i never understood how anyone could actually consider what they did to him as 'friendship' and to this day i dont see anyone else pointing it out which i figure means they dont recognize it for what it is or are so in denial because it is that horrific to think about.

i have suspicions as to why nobody talks about this rather twisted aspect of the show but it runs afoul of 'not going to start down that path unless specifically asked' conditions, nobody asked.

i dont like a number of other things in the show but this was particularly appalling because it is largely considered perfectly acceptable as far as i can tell and made it impossible for me to look at it in a positive light in general. i love the art, the animation was better than it had a right to be imo and the story on whole was good even the aspect i take issue with, it is all to believable for the situation. with the exception of Kyle surviving 'who messed this up' it just had a lot of elements scattered about that i cant ignore when its presented as such a great 'nearly perfect' show. nobody wants to pick at the seams because itll unravel pretty quick if they do