#been in an arthuriana mood lately
I feel like while people understand the gist of Gawain and his situation with his siblings, I feel like there’s a lot some people miss just how much Gawain is shouldering regarding their deaths, especially as the oldest of the Orkney siblings. Or maybe they do and I just want an excuse to talk about it. I’m making a post either way.
Gareth died because she was protecting Guinevere and Lancelot killed her and Gaheris. Fate makes that clear- what it doesn’t mention is why Gareth and Gaheris were there in the first place. In the Morte d’Arthur (which I personally use to fill in whatever massive holes Nasu doesn’t feel like writing about) and other Arthurian mythos, Gawain was supposed to execute Guinevere, but refused out of respect for his queen.
So, Arthur made his siblings do it instead. And they were killed because he didn’t do it in their place.
Reminder that his younger brother Agravain died shortly beforehand.
In one fell swoop, he lost his entire family. His mother was a witch that hated him and his kingdom, his siblings were dead, and the only people left were his father and his king- his uncle (or aunt, as far as Fate goes. It makes a lot of the ‘Gawain horny for Artoria’ jokes in Fate a lot worse, especially when things like the Morte d’Arthur make Gawain very implicit and proud about his familial relationship with Arthur, constantly referring to him as his uncle.).
Unlike Gareth’s more chipper voice line, here’s Gawain’s line for Gareth in FGO. (Shameless blog plug).
“Gareth is my little sister. If she wishes to fight as a knight… then I have no right to stop her. …That’s the way it is now, and that’s the way it always has been…”
In Arthurian mythos, Gawain was the one to bring Gareth to King Arthur’s court, and supported Gareth alongside Sir Lancelot against Sir Kay’s harassments. He loved his sister so much that, while he wanted to protect her, he also didn’t want to get in the way of her dreams. It shows that he’s not the typical ‘overbearing’ big brother, but one that wants to see his family happy- to see his sister happy, and believes he has no right to deny her happiness.
And then she dies because of his refusal to do one job, because his pride got in the way. He tried his best to be a good big brother, and failed. Again. And again. And again. Until he didn’t have a family left.
Lancelot kills Agravain. Lancelot kills Gaheris.Lancelot kills Gareth. Of course Gawain hates Lancelot, Lancelot smashed his family into pieces- literally. And while I like Lancelot, Gawain is an absolute saint for willing to put his differences aside in FGO.
The fall of Camelot progresses, Gawain loses more and more family, and then- there’s the final straw. His last sibling, Mordred, is the one that kills him. And he feels responsible for the death of his king because he both stopped Lancelot from helping, and because he wasn’t there to fight either.
And as a Servant, he’s forced to remember these things. He’s so fiercely protective of Leo in Fate/Extra because he feels as if he failed to protect the people he loved in life. It’s the same reason why he’s so staunchly loyal to the FGO protagonist and to Arthur. He’s the type who doesn’t let his pain go, and uses it to make him stronger. That’s why he has his ‘Nightless Charisma’ skill in FGO, because canonically he’s so deeply ashamed and disgusted at his actions in Camelot, that he carved the Lion King’s gift into his Saint Graph so that he’d never, everforget the horrors he committed, and use that strength to only help others from now on.
Gawain’s pain is briefly touched on in Extra, but only to the extent of him hating Lancelot for killing his siblings, but he holds so much more pain that the fact that he’s been able to grow and push on from it seriously cements how strong and how solid of a character he is- because even with all the guilt and self-loathing that he harbors, he’s still able to shine like the sun for others.
TL;DR: Give your Gawain a hug. He needs it.
