I wouldn't say that about Owyn. By the end of things, certainly, but at the beginning, he's just a green youth with zero experience with danger or adventuring - you can't call someone courageous and loyal unless they've had a chance to put those qualities to the test. BaK is very much a "coming of age story" for him. Certainly, Gorath's influence helped, but initially at least, they DO have very, very few things in common.
both look past their races natural inclination to hate each other
I'd argue that wasn't much of a factor with Owyn. It likely helped a lot that he was from the Eastern Kingdom (Timons or Tiburn, depending on the adaptation), living far from the moredhel border, and thus likely had neither direct nor second-hand experience with moredhel, nor personal baggage along the lines of "Those bastards killed my father/brother/son". Though he's initially wary when they first meet, it shows that the moredhel have likely been a rather distant issue to him until that point, and he's far more open-minded, non-judgemental and generally curious (like he is about everything - I remember the book has a nice scene where Gorath compliments Owyn's desire to "understand" things and it really sounds like he respects him there), which probably really helped Gorath warm up to him, as well.
If there's a pattern, it's that Gorath seems to get along swimmingly with those who don't approach him with automatic suspicion and hostility (e.g. Owyn, Dolgan, Katala), which kind of makes sense: To an edhel, with their much greater sensitivity to body language and subtleties in communication, something like Jimmy's tendency to frown and be terse and snappy at him would feel like the equivalent of constantly glaring daggers and making rude gestures.
