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icharchivist · 3 years

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The thing that's on my mind the most about The Strength to Wield is, if Mordred is apparently Ywain, then who is Vane supposed to be?? He clearly got a lot of the same motifs as Ywain, so was he just a red herring or did they split Ywain into two characters? Is Vane supposed to be just an ordinary dude? That would actually fit pretty well with his character but I just, I want answerssss

OH GOD YEAH

y'know i'm like, really glad to hear that, because i know with friends we have been going on and on about "of course Vane must be Ywain, it's a given" for YEARS so when the Ywain reveal happened in StW i was just. so distraught?? and i felt like i must have built up that theory with friend with no real basis but i'm just so happy that any Vane Connaisseurs were sharing this one theory enough to be completely dumbfounded by this reveal.

also sorry i rambled a little, so, under cut

this was really unexpected because, yeah Vane has all of the Ywain's motif, his name could be a way to pronounce Ywain's name (esp if adapted from english accents that would put the tonal syllab on the "wain" part and make the "y" a little more muted), and of course, the Lion Knight in general when we have Vane with a Lion skin AND his CA name that has consistantly been about Lion.

And it fucks me up too because Arthur also has the Lion motif in his own CA, which for so long i thought was just because he took after his mentor, and probably it is meant to be since it's still the same name as Vane's, but it's especially distracting now knowing that Arthur and Mordred's shared unit don't have the Lion motif carried over in their CA. The moment Mordred is involved we're losing the Lion motif while we're being told that Mordred IS the Lion Knight???

And i know it was overreading because gbf tend to freely adapt the myths, so of course it was only a 1% possibility, but there's also the fact in the myth Ywain and Gawain are cousins, which was Vane's Past Theory Free Real Estate for a long time, especially since they share similar physical features and we know Vane's parents died when he was young leaving possibilities for weird stuff with his family to be talked about in the future.

Now that Mordred is Ywain, it would be really puzzling to have him linked to Gawain in any shape or form (because for starter then Uriens could have asked help to Dalmore instead of Feedranche if their family was linked, feels like therefore this connection is lost in the adaptation. Which isn't specifically a bad thing! it's just, one i overthought too much about to not at least mention it)

(UNLESS we want to start to look at the timeline and do we want to. But anyway, we know that therefore the War that destroyed Merlin's kingdom happened about 13 years ago due to the kids ages, setting it happening when Sieg/Aglo were 18, Gawain/Lamorak were 16, Percival/Lancelot were 14, and Vane was 12. Which doesn't give us a lot of information except if any of the war stuff we learn in Savior of Dalmore regarding the Dalmore situation would be linked, considering the flashback would be around that time, or if it was when Gawain waas younger, there's still the battle against Wales that gained Dalmore the alliance with Wales in the years that followed. Linked? maybe not but i thought about it so i might as well share)

Back to Ywain, was Vane a redherring or did they change their mind in recent years?

There was another theory way back when that Vane could be based on Agravain, which could make sense but we're losing the full Lion motif. That said if any of the theories linked to Ywain were too much, Agravain is *checks the wiki* Nephew to Arthur, brother to Gawain and Gareth (remember when Gareth was a character in that franchise? good times.), Half brother to Mordred, the killer of Lamorak and killed by Lancelot. Once again, gbf and its adaptation and all of that but man would that be ironical. Especially since from what i'm reading Agravain is a bit of the opposite of Ywain in term of what an asshole he was VS the kind lionheart.

But Ywain, in the myth, is indeed son of King Uriens, and a few trivia about his origins fits the Mordred we know and love pretty well (first character of the myth to have been associated to Arthur just like he's always been by his side, or the fact his parentage was never lost or adapted differently compared to others knights which gives all the more account on wanting to keep it that way).

And i do prefer Vane to at least not have royal blood per SE, though we could have done more about his parentage in general, i like the idea that he's Just Some Guy, it's just we were ready to accept gbf's Ywain as "Just Some Guy" so this is a twist.

And meanwhile making Mordred into Ywain seems to also eventually erase the dread caused by knowing Mordred should be Arthur's killer. (though personally i feel like on top of it not fitting the kids, the fact both of them nearly died in Camlenn while it was where the myth kills Arthur and Mordred feels like call back enough to know Mordred will never turn on Arthur now. I mean on top of Everything about Their Friendship This Event.).

Overall it is an interesting twist in and of itself, it is just bewildering after years where we were all pretty much convinced Vane was Ywain.

but so yeah i do wonder now, is Vane like... an OC, based partially on Ywain with Ywain role split between him and Mordred, or based on Agravain?

I don't know if we'll ever get any answers about all of that but this does feel weird to knock off what was one of the biggest theory about Vane's inspirations at least.

so yeah i'm intruigued, i've been thinking about it a lot too and it's a bit hard to let go of Vane=Ywain. Perhaps it WAS indeed a redherring because i don't think i would be freaking out that much about Mordred being Ywain if it hadn't been for that to start with aahah

but man idk. I think eventually now that we know how Vane was orphaned yet still it was framed in kind of a mysterious way, i feel like until the day they actually dive in Vane's backstory i'll always be sort of confused.

but yeah many thoughts i feel you so much and i have so many questions. I don't know how or when we'll get answers to any of them though but m AN.

#infullmoon #head full #this event was a lot to think about #hope you don't mind the ramble machine DLKFJDF #ichafantalks gbf #ichablogging gbf #ichablogging 4kishi #ichareply #also you're free to come and ramble about any of this anytime o7 love thinking about them

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