Arthurian England Sux

Yesterday, Pokemon turned 30 years old! 

I am planning a trip next weekend, so I don’t know if I will be able to do a Saturday Note then. I will try, though.

Remember that, as it is Lent, if you have a Catholic parish near you, you will probably find a Friday night Fish Fry, if you feel like doing fish & chips that night.

Arthurian England Sux

So I’m reading Le Morte d’Arthur.

I’ve concluded that these people are violently insane.

Alright, for reasons that are unclear to me, in the same way that ‘fairy tale’ has been turned into a euphemism for everything being bright and colorful and twee, despite a lot of the old fairy tales being incredibly dark, ‘Camelot’, and ideas about the reign of King Arthur have become codes for idealistic, wonderful fantasy lands in the popular imagination. It’s back when things went right, when men were noble and honorable, fairness was the Law of the Land, and if only for a short time, all was right in the world. The Golden Age! The Kingdom of Summer! There’s a song about it.

And, okay, to be fair, there are plenty of adaptations in which Arthur’s kingdom is painted that way. Reading one of the medieval books right now, though, I can’t help but wonder if that’s a later imposition, a modern romantic idea painted onto something that wasn’t meant to be there, which is a bit funny, as these stories aren’t real history to begin with.

I find myself agreeing with Galahad’s sentiment in The Librarians; when someone tells him they have to restore Camelot, because those days were better, he sarcastically retorts: “Wild magic, cruel kings, mad wizards; yes, it was a pip!”

Back when BBC’s Merlin was still A Thing, we mocked how many episodes are dedicated to tournaments (it’s a lot). But compared to Le Morty Arthur, it’s pretty restrained. Knights are constantly jousting each other in this book, at the drop of a hat. And if you get beaten, someone will “avenge” you by trying to beat that guy. It’s not always in tournaments, as if knights had nothing better to do then try to knock over every single knight they run into, and you can’t swing a cat without hitting a knight or two somewhere. Many of these jousts lead to horrible injuries. Sometimes people die! Sometimes knights–even good guys–will use jousts as a cover to kill people! They don’t even hide it! Just lop off the head!

There are straight-up murders, too. Gaheris kills his mother when he finds her in bed with Lamorak, and then the Orkneys (minus Gareth) team up on Lamorak and try to kill him, only settled when Mordred stabs Lamorak in the back. Which everyone knows about, and no one’s happy about, but it doesn’t lead to, like, consequences for the Orkneys?? Lancelot suggests charging Gaheris with treason for murdering his mom, but that doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Then you have so many of the quests that appear throughout the story. Half of them are started because a knight comes across someone, or a relative of someone, who just got murdered, and then rides off to avenge the stranger. Which leads to complicated blood feuds that go on for years. 

Oh, and plenty of extramarital affairs.

To be clear, this isn’t to say that these are bad stories–they’re not! It’s absolutely wild that they contain so much violent whackiness, but Malory put these all together because he thought they made good stories. And he’s absolutely right. It is VERY entertaining to read stories that are just that wild.

What I object to is the weird idea that Malory’s version (or any of the medieval sources) present an idealized world, where everything and everyone was good. They weren’t! Can you imagine living in this world? A world where hundreds of knights are constantly duking it out with each other because of the pettiest motivations? Where the king of the country leaves to go conquer Rome and then does nothing with it? Where the queen can’t stop fonduing the king’s champion?

No! You don’t want to live there! Not even a little bit! It would suck! I wouldn’t want to live there!

It’s too wild of a ride for me.

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