Owain and His Armor - Character Analysis
Disclaimer: this is relatively surface-level research, meaning I didn’t go much deeper than some Wikipedia articles, Britannica, and a handful of other sites. I’m not a historian or Welsh, I’m just some mentally ill American teenager, so please don’t take my word as gospel.
Between the mid-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, there was a Welsh aristocrat named Owain Glyndŵr. For clarity's sake, I will be calling Owain Glyndŵr, Glyndŵr, and BF!Owain, Owen. Glyndŵr was the last native Prince of Wales and led a fifteen year long revolt against English rule in Wales. He was the pioneer of the first Welsh parliament under his rule. However, because of his position as head of the revolt, Glyndŵr was a fugitive and constantly on the run. In folktales created after his disappearance, he is depicted as wearing numerous disguises; the most prominent being speculation that the Welsh religious poet, Siôn Cent, the family chaplain of the Scudamore family, was Owain Glyndŵr in disguise. His burial place is unknown and has been a subject of speculation and theorizing for centuries.
Both Owen and Glyndŵr are the last—if not technically the last, then the last true—Prince of Wales[land], are considered a fugitive in their native land, are constantly on the run until their disappearance, and disguise their identity.
My assumption is that Owen was the last Prince of Walesland seeing as Mordred is the nephew of King Arthur in this depiction. Mordred was the final King of Walesland before it fell—which we know has happened in the last handful of years—so it is possible that Owen was not truly the last prince, and instead one of Mordred’s sons was. However, I doubt Mordred’s two ambiguous sons would be featured or even exist in this telling because they are just that unimportant in Arthurian legend—so unimportant that one doesn’t have a consistent name and the other is never given a name at all.
I don’t feel like I need to explain the concept of Owen being a fugitive under the eyes of Walesland. That’s literally just canon, so let’s move on.
I know Owen doesn’t technically disappear, but Owain, the Prince of Walesland, does. I cannot rationalize the people of Walesland knowing where he went or that he ran away. We know Mordred is a liar and the knights of the round table believed his lies. It’s even more likely that the uneducated commonfolk of the kingdom would believe anything he tells them. He could’ve told the people that Owain also died or that he was executed for his assassination of the king. If we go under the assumption the people did know that he ran away, he still disappeared. No one from his native kingdom—if any of them are alive—knows where he is and no one from Bannerfall knows who he is. The boy, Owain, the Prince of Walesland, the son of King Arthur, a knight of the round table, effectively does not exist anymore.
Despite no one knowing who is under the lion helm, the lion continues to wear it. He continues to disguise his identity from everyone; not for the reason of his oath, but for the reason of guilt, feeling undeserving, and, perhaps subconsciously, to protect himself from someone trying to track him down. Owain Glyndŵr is depicted in folklore by having the reasoning of the last item. I believe Owen is a more cowardly version of Glyndŵr, which I’ll discuss more about later.
Owain Glyndŵr has a, rather well known and popular in Wales, coat of arms or banner. It is separated in four boxes with a red or gold lion on the opposite color background. I’ll put a picture at the bottom of this post. A red and gold lion, that sounds familiar—especially with all of the context for who Owain Glyndŵr was and how he maps onto BF!Owain that I just provided. There is so much interesting significance of this banner, but it’s not really relevant here. If you are interested in that sort of thing, I’d definitely recommend looking into it. What is relevant here is the lions. The lions on the banner are typically viewed as a symbol of royalty, strength, and pride, much like what a lion itself typically represents.
Ironically, Owen does not embody any of the elements the lions of the banner represent, at least not on more than a surface level. He used to be loyal, but he isn’t anymore. He is physically strong, but mentally fragile and struggles in most situations that require more than physical attributes. He isn’t prideful at all. On the contrary, he has an incredibly negative view of himself. He isn’t truly prideful in the Blue Kingdom; he has a sense of duty to it and its people, but it’s not pride. I’d say he has a feeling of responsibility and a respect for it, but pride implies arrogance and I don’t think Owen is capable of arrogance—he’s too blunt and honest for that.
Historically, lions have also represented courage, loyalty, and leadership. These attributes also have an intriguing relation to Owen. Courage is something Owen is capable of and often presents himself as possessing, but a defining part of his backstory is an action that shows lack of courage—he runs away. Courage defines most knights and Owen is no exception. His lack of courage and overwhelming amount of courage that he presents himself with defines him in such a unique way. There’s also his loyalty, which he has almost to a fault. “Never abandon your charge” is a tenant he embodies so fully because there was one time he was forced to break it. He abandoned Walesland and his father, which were charges. I think leadership is the one that Owen’s characterization has the most conflicted relationship with. We know he is incredibly avoidant of being a leader in any sort of official sense, but in almost every situation, his nature is to take charge. It’s an intense internal conflict that might be rooted in the fact that, as a prince, he was raised to be a leader. But, that’s speculation and I will be writing a post about that eventually.
I looked into what red and gold represent and tried to connect them, but it wasn’t really anything too huge. I might make a smaller post discussing those connections, but I’m tired and this is over 1k words so… Have a good timezone and share your own thoughts, bye :)
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