i've been trying to write a proper post about this but i'm kind of just saying the same thing over and over and you can tell that i'm annoyed. but like... i really think a lot of people are misreading gwayne and daeron's reunion. i just don't believe that daeron would relate to gwayne the way he does if gwayne wasn't normally a positive influence on his situation. given the baseline ormund sets, i don't even think it would be possible for daeron to be as honest, assertive and insightful as he is with gwayne if gwayne hadn't made a long-term effort to validate his emotions and encourage him to speak his mind. gwayne is definitely far from perfect, but i still think they're pretty clearly telling us that gwayne normally tries pretty hard (accounting for the confines of his own abuse) and it's a shocking break from the status quo to see him giving up. this is not a representative sample of gwayne and daeron's relationship up to this point; this is a particular (possibly unprecedented) low.
also: gwayne threatens to leave in the reunion scene, but we're still implying that he's normally present. gwayne being absent can't be the status quo or, again, daeron would not relate to him this way (the most trusted person in his life*, the only person seriously competing with ormund for his affection) or talk this way about him leaving (as if he's breaking a promise). if the situation deteriorated in gwayne's absence, that means he was previously preventing or at least slowing its deterioration.
and gwayne doesn't just ignore daeron asking him not to leave; gwayne's arc in this episode is him making an active decision to stay. (arguably it's implied that he has a change of heart as soon as he looks back at daeron, but it takes until the window scene for him to commit out loud.) and that decision is not really framed as gwayne recognising and making up for past failures - that comes later, in the finale. in this episode, it's more like gwayne, shortly post-death-march, is finding the courage to recommit to a fight he's grown weary of after fighting it for so many years.
none of this is to say gwayne couldn't be doing more. whether gwayne is practically or psychologically capable of more is a much thornier question which i don't really have answers to at the moment. i'm just saying... he's definitely been doing something.
*most trusted =/= completely trusted. but like an 80% is still miles ahead of anyone else.
