#but he's actually deeply traumatized and shutting off emotions as a coping mechanism as we've seen rand do COUNTLESS times | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

markantonys · 8 months ago

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i have spilled so much ink about gawyn but really i only need 2 passages to explain why he is Like That

1. My blood shed before hers; my life given before hers...That was the oath he had taken when barely tall enough to peer into Elayne's cradle. ... Gareth Bryne had had to explain to him what it meant, but even then he had known he had to keep that oath if he failed at everything else in his life. (LOC prologue)

2. From Morgase, Queen of Andor, to her beloved son, Gawyn. May he be a living sword for his sister and Andor. (ACOS prologue)

like yeah, no wonder he does what he does in AMOL. people will be like "gawyn is so stupid for not thinking about the fact that his death would hurt egwene" as if he's being maliciously stupid and careless, when in fact, he has such little self-worth that he genuinely does not consider himself a valuable human being whose loss would impact anyone or anything. his life given before hers. a living sword. this has been his mindset since toddlerhood and nobody ever noticed it enough to try and counteract it. gawyn is exactly what rand would have been like at the last battle if he hadn't had a mental health intervention.

#SAD ABOUT GAWYN HOURS #god i would die if the show portrayed the oath-swearing onscreen as a flashback cold open. it is THE formative event for his character!!#gawyn trakand #wot #wot book spoilers #gawynposting #gawyn and rand really are foils in so many ways #the way they are objectified and viewed as weapons (by themselves as well as by others)#but gawyn has been raised that way since birth whereas it's a new thing for rand #so rand has childhood friends & family & memories to remind him that he IS a person. gawyn doesn't.#his own mother taught him to view himself as a sword for others' use (but she wasn't being malicious that's just what being a royal is)#and then if you look at some of gawyn's behavior it's SO similar to how rand behaves #what really struck me is during the coup when gawyn shuts down and becomes very cold and emotionless #and min and readers are like 'oh my god he's a sociopath'#but he's actually deeply traumatized and shutting off emotions as a coping mechanism as we've seen rand do COUNTLESS times #but we're in rand's head and we're not in gawyn's so we have more sympathy and understanding for rand #'how can the other characters who don't have the benefit of seeing inside rand's head misinterpret his trauma behavior as assholery?'#well

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