Gowther? I Hardly Know Her!

Honestly, this post is almost embarrassing to write. It certainly will be a significant deviation from my usual analysis - while I generally can't be swayed from Marxism, feminism, and/or post-structuralism (or similar analysis which posits itself within the radical left of the political spectrum), when reading, Sir Gowther I found my blog post practically writing itself through the thought of one of philosophy, psychology and literary theory's most hated and debated:

Get Siggy with it

The titular knight's character progression falls almost uncannily into the Freudian five stages of psychosexual development. These stages deal with the sexual impulses of the child, and how they relate to the id, ego, and superego in determining his behavior through his development. The first stage is the oral stage which deals primarily with the act of breast feeding. As young Gowther does it, he displays demonic intensity which causes several deaths. This serves to establish his exceptionally strong libido from the beginning of the text, and a major theme ultimately his his superego adopting religious moralism in an attempt to tame this impulse of the id.

The second stage, the anal stage, is deemed unimportant and skipped as the narrative advances from him at age 1 to age 15. The third stage is the phallic stage. 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BFS

Here, Gowther expresses his libido through his phallic falchion, which becomes symbolic of his ego, as it was a weapon "he could hold but no one else could bear." (140-141). His excessive use of it for violence expresses that his ego is presently dominated by the id, rather than having balance between the id and the superego. The primary motivation in this stage is the Oedipus complex, to kill his father and gain sexual possession of his mother. While this is not explicitly acted on, it is implicit in the duke dying, essentially from shame for his son's actions (154). The Oedipal element is also present in Gowther's interrogation of his mother to find his father's true identity; he is beset on killing the correct target of his psychosexual envy. The fact that he has failed to do so causes him to fixate in the phallic stage, and much of his motivation in the remainder of the story, even as he progresses through the remaining stages, is brought by his desire to absolve himself of the sins of his heritage, and in that way "defeat" his true father.

The fourth stage is the latency stage. In this stage, the sexual desires are inactive. This is where Gowther travels to Rome. This brings much of the development of his superego, of which the Pope is symbolic. Through the humiliation of having to eat the leftovers of dogs, he is immasculated and cut off from his libido.

The fifth and final stage is the genital stage. This is the stage at which Gowther has matured as an adult with healthy non-incestuous sexual drive. He demonstrates this as he fights as a knight for the emperor - he has learned, through the temperament of his religious superego, to use his phallic falchion towards good Christian causes and to protect his sexual interest (the Emperor's daughter). The daughter's salvation from death and the Pope's redeeming affirmation: "Of God you are the child. No longer fear the warlock wild, for vanquished now is he." (673-675) are final proof that Gowther, through the redemption of Christian superego, has "vanquished" his real father and can finally escape his phallic fixation and live as a well-adjusted adult.

This analysis is silly, Freud is silly and I hope to never again find myself writing it.