#gawyn

In The Eye of The World, Gawyn’s clothing is described as red, white, and gold iirc, and very fancy for a man, but I didn’t want to do more red and gold clothing, so we get the green coat.

There’s nothing to indicate the style of the coat, so this is completely made up by me drawing inspiration from what a lot of fanart seems to show the fashion to be, and other clues in the books. Gawyn is a prince, so his dark green coat wouldn’t be plain. I’ve made it brocade, because in another book (I can’t remember which), Egwene dreams of Galad and he’s been described as wearing a blue brocade coat. So, I assumed that Andoran fashion for nobles at least, involves brocaded silk, even when it’s men’s clothing.

I wasn’t going to give him a frilly shirt like I did with Rand, because I hated painting that and I still don’t think it looks right, so Gawyn got a plainer lace up shirt. When Gawyn is wearing this outfit, he’s at the White Tower for Warder training, so I doubt his clothing would have been super fancy with lace and all. The laces were annoying, but I managed to figure them out.

The patterns are all texture overlays, as is the button, which I just copy/pasted multiple times.

The sword I’ve given him is the Heron’s Flight blade by Brendan Olszowy from Fable Blades, but we’re seeing it side on here. When I do the sigil version of this portrait, I’m going to move the sword so we can see the hilt and Gawyn’s face properly. Since he's holding a weapon, I'll probably do a "dirty version" for this portrait too.

Because I am impatient, I’ve left the brushwork on the hands messy. They could have done with extra work.

I wanted to make sure he looked like Elayne’s brother since the books make it clear that it’s obvious the two are siblings. He’s got the same colour hair and eyes as she does, and I hope I’ve given them faces that look enough alike that they’re related.

Gawyn is described as being one of the most handsome guys the girls have seen (until they see Galad – and there’s a hilarious passage where Egwene meets G&G for the first time and she’s gone so ga ga over Galad, and Gawyn is all “hello? I’m Gawyn in case you didn’t hear me?” But he’s good natured about it, probably used to it around his brother) so I’ve tried to make him cute enough to catch the eye of Egwene.

Now that I think about it, Egwene is the only girl who shows any attraction to Gawyn, which is odd if he’s meant to be a looker. Most of the other boys have multiple women interested in them, but sadly I think Gawyn’s role in the story was largely to give Egwene a boyfriend, so it may not have served to write in other love interests for him. And I guess no one noticing poor Gawyn is a device to play up the comedy of women swooning over Galad – G&G are together for most of the time until the tower split.

Gawyn cops a lot of hate in the fandom, and I can honestly see why. To me, he’s a very tragic character.

When we first meet him through Rand’s perspective in Eye of the World, he’s an absolute delight! He’s chill, seems to have a sense of fun about him, and is Elayne’s partner in crime. He’s nice to Rand, and it felt like those two would become friends later on in the story.

During the White Tower stint where he’s training with the Warders and the girls are novices, Gawyn has some hilariously fun interactions with multiple characters. The scene with Min and the Children of the Light book is fantastic. The Mat fight scene is one of my favourites – Gawyn is gracious in defeat and even says to Mat he’ll listen next time (when a boy with a stick says he can whoop his ass).

It’s when the Tower splits that the Gawyn hate starts. He makes a whole bunch of bad choices that lose him a lot of reader goodwill and seem blatantly stupid considering he’s in love with Egwene.

The tragedy of Gawyn is that he just can’t allow others to be the protagonist above him, and that he seems to have no moral code. He allies with Elaida because he’s pissed off at Siuan, but doesn’t really think it through or examine where his allegiances should be, and he doesn’t seem capable of committing to his actual duty to his sister and Andor, and then later to Egwene. I really really was annoyed with him for not immediately going to be Elayne’s First Prince of the Sword when she was fighting for the Lion Throne. Supporting his sister should have been his number one priority, not faffing about with Elaida’s Tower. He actually had an official proper duty to return to in Andor, while at the White Tower, he was just some dude leading soldiers.

He doesn’t seem to be able to handle being in someone’s shadow, which is ironic because he’s been overshadowed his whole life, by Elayne since she’s the Daughter-Heir, and by Galad because he’s better looking and a better swordsman. So it’s tragic that Gawyn can’t accept his place as secondary to Egwene. He can’t live in her shadow, and honestly, I relate to him so hard here. I don’t think I could handle being the partner of a super famous or successful or talented person – nothing you ever do would ever compare, and everything would always be about them in your lives.

And then, he goes and makes that silly decision with the Blood Rings. Sure, Egwene might have been captured by the Sharans if he had not, but he could have told her what he’d done any maybe they could have averted death by Blood Ring, not that it happened anyway.

His choice to 1v1 Demandred isn’t a bad one per se, but people hate on Gawyn because risking himself compromises Egwene, and he fails at killing Demandred. Remember, Lan makes the same choice, to 1v1 Demandred, and he’s bonded to Nynaeve, so his death would have screwed things up majorly for the Light too. We only forgive Lan because he succeeded and everyone is a Lan fanboy.

It’s so damn tragic how Gawyn dies in Galad’s arms, and while he’s dying, he regrets not being good enough, but he only wasn’t good enough at the things he shouldn’t have been attempting to do anyway, like outshine Egwene! If he’d been content to be in her shadow, he’d probably have been an amazing WarderHusband dude.

I guess the biggest tragedy for Gawyn was that he never learned. Never learned where his loyalty should have been or where his duties really were, and never learned that he didn’t have to be emulating Rand to be a hero – he could have been one by doing his damn duty!!

Anyway. I don’t hate Gawyn. I find him frustrating and tragic and will never forgive him for dying on Egwene (she should have had her happily ever after even if it was with this himbo dunce!) and making Galad cry.

So I really didn't intend for this to turn into a Gawyn retrospective. Oh shit! Did I just turn into a Gawyn apologist?