My Creative Interpretation of “Armor” of John Bengan

We lived in different ways. We always taught ourselves to be more innovative and be diligent
in our works despite of having financial needs. We tend to do something risky in order to achieve
a better life or living. Basically, we do not know how life is going to be. The “Armor” of John
Bengan, it is a kind fiction story which the protagonist of the story is a gay. The “Armor” which
is the title of the fiction has an in – depth meaning throughout the story. In the fiction it revolves
around Ronnie the main character of the story. He is gay individual with talents in arts wherein
he was involved in a illegal activity or simply as a shabu or a drug user and he discovered hope
by simply competing in a Miss Gay contest at a Mintal Gymnasium. The place where the story
revolves within the Mintal area which is one of the barangay in Davao, City. Around the streets,
blocks , internet café ,place of Ronnie and gymnasium is where the story takes place. There are a
lot of characters that are involved in the fiction story. The characters are Oliver, Biboy, Death
Squad, bald man, Tiago, and the competitors of Ronnie in pageantry. This story has a unique
style which caters different viewpoints regarding on the issue of Death Squad and a member of a
LGBTQ+ community because Ronnie, the main character here is that he had a participation as a
gay in both the public and private sphere, as well as his passion to showing his creative side as an
artist. On the first part of the story, Ronnie was seemed busy because he came from seamstress
and brought the newly mended sheath dress that he would wear for the incoming pageant. Then
later on, Oliver was introduced in the story. He is the neighbor of the Ronnie. He also the one
who warned Ronnie that he is on the list. Right from the beginning, because of Ronnie’s
involvement to drugs, he wanted to commit suicide because of the fear that hitmen will come and
shot him down because at the first place he is a user not a pusher. He doesn’t want to be exposed
to that kind of dying , so he plans to kill himself before it happens, and have is own death.
Ronnie stays true to himself and to the others and we saw it in the story. We saw different
terminologies on how the society called the gays, they called it “bayot” and “gwaps” in the story.
Ronnie's persona also debunks the preconceptions that homosexual people are bad or products of
evil, moving away from the widely held belief that sexual predators are insidiously linked to
being gay. We can observe that Biboy is true friend of Ronnie. Biboy was Just within the texts
in the story, Ronnie let Biboy to come in the lanlord’s property and Biboy responded it that it
was small but cozy. Biboy is characterized by the author as a tall, attractive young man with a
solid, nimble body and long arms. Biboy was the one who assisted Ronnie with the pageant's
armor outfit.
From the story, we can determine that Biboy assisted Ronnie in developing his own self-
defense and confidence as a result of how society views the LGBT community today. The rising
action of the story started when Ronnie and Biboy showed no signs of negativity or sexual
aspects. We could make a possible thought to it that Biboy respected Ronnie and Ronnie
respected Biboy too. Secondly, Ronnie had spent his money on his straight ex-lover at the time,
according to the text. Then Ronnie learned that his ex-boyfriend had married and that the girl
was expecting a child. Ronnie is so depressed as a result of what occurred back then that he
wishes to terminate his life. In such scenario, he was the victim of patriarchy's tyranny, which
took advantage of homosexual men's yearning for love in a homophobic environment. From the
perspective of the straight guy in the narrative, gay men are objects subject to illusionary desire,
and paying them a little attention allows straight men to exploit them in terms of money,
emotions, and time. The fact that Ronnie's boyfriend married the girl with whom he became
pregnant gives the idea that gay relationships are merely for fun, a passing period in straight

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men's life. There was no confrontation with his former lover in the text, and he didn't mention it
at all. He showed no hatred for his lover, and simply learned to accept it and let misery embrace
him. The personality of Ronnie had a development in the context. The development he had
undergo when he experienced when he loss with his boyfriend. We can easily define that being
gay is hard to be accepted in the society and community yet nowadays the people gradually
accepted the gays and other members of it in the society. The quality of being different or as a
gay in the story really stands out. The fact of being different is where the climax of the story
started. We could see how the main character portray of being innovative, being conscious,
creative, enthusiastic, and diligent person. With the helped of Biboy they had created one of the
beautiful costume which will be worn in the coming pageant. Evidently, joining the Miss Gay
Pageant in their small community and winning the grand prize is the best way for him to gain
visibility. For these oppressed populations, pageants, however sexist they may be, are a stepping
stone to empowerment. Mostly because Ronnie and the other contenders have formed a
community, demonstrating that they exist and can be seen by the rest of the world. While
promoting gay men's visibility, this community demonstrates to the goals for achieving culture in
which they live that they can stand out, that their presence is as important as anyone else's, and
how they can make a difference. The story has a great falling action in which the pageant
candidates, depending on the country they represent, symbolize how they have common
experiences, but these experiences are not universal.
They have the same intellect but take different tactics, wishing to represent various countries
and expressing a desire for various things. It takes a look at some of the most well-known
international pageants, such as Venezuela, the United States, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and the
United Kingdom, to show how pageantry is ingrained in the culture of these countries' women,
and how these contestants perform the Latina, American, or European beauties who win beauty
pageants. Remarkably, the main character was chosen as a candidate of the United Kingdom.
There was different interpretation when gay men are chosen to be one of the contestants which
has to be perfectly represent it with confidence and be eloquent for the entertainment of
everyone. The pageant has started in the gymnasium. We could visibly read the unique taglines
that has been used during the introductory speech of the gay candidates. These taglines has been
used to create a big impact to the audience and to the judges. This type of language implies their
identity and it represents their effort that has to be identified by the community. In addition, the
main character has a great assignment which is to represent the Wonderful Britain and he sees it
as a great challenge and opportunity and he interpreted it as thinking of the country as the home
of the royals in United Kingdom. These intertextual characters are people who energize and
inspire him, leaders who reject convention and manage their country with elegance, and who
have a lasting reputation and legacy. He considers the opportunity to fortify himself and gain
substantiality, power, and originality in order to recover the recover the chance to win the
competition. In the story, we can truly see that they both made an Armor that is inspired from
King Arthur.

The Armor itself used to depict the emotional stresses. Biboy and Ronnie had made a strong
bond in the story. The armor first cures him from the anguish of his existence, which he
constructs with Biboy, diverting himself from self-alienation, finding a true friend, and then uses
it to show himself as a powerful leader. The usage of the armor emblem represents his violation
of the societal standards that come with being homosexual, demonstrating that gays are not
simply the sissy ones, but that they may have whatever personality that they choose. On this part,

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we can identify that it has a conflict between the person and the society. Why does it have
conflict between community? Because as what been plotted in the story it has several conspiracy
topics that was indeed it may happened in real life. We can also identify what was the role of the
bald man throughout the story. We may wonder what was the role of the bald man when the
pageant is ongoing and the main character was on the stage.
We may think that the bald man is part of the Death Squad or something but the seconds
before he stood up beside Biboy is quite confusing where we can see that the main target here is
Ronnie and the main character here grasped himself and did not believe what happened on that
night and the author never told what happened next to the end of the story. It was mysterious
how the gone and the readers might think he was shot by the bald man and why Ronnie wasn’t
shot by then. Obviously, the reader’s perspective that the character of Biboy is gone. We can say
that the ending is tragic but it is still confusing because the author never continued the next event
on that night. The conclusion here is that the continuation of this story depends on the
imaginative minds of the readers. Basically, there deep or unfamiliar words in English that can
be seen in the whole story. We can also identify that the story is life changing to the readers.
Ronnie’s character here has a long-run role from the start to the last part of the story because it
does not only focuses in a simple manner but it has a wide perspective context to evaluates
reading comprehension, the reading skills and the openness of having a unique and different
identity of a person in the society.

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