tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59420369450275225522024-02-20T17:02:59.938-06:00Camelot's LibraryDedicated to reviewing books about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round TableStoryteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-61471678542421477512020-07-23T13:57:00.002-05:002020-07-30T21:32:09.499-05:00SamoaPhoenix Compare and Contrast: Cursed Novel vs. Netflix Show<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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As promised last fall, now that the Netflix show has dropped I will be doing a compare/contrast between the book and at least episode one of the show.<br /><br />
<b>Spoilers for both book and show</b>; I suggest you go back and read my <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2019/10/samoaphoenix-guest-review-cursed.html">review</a> of the book if you want to know my thoughts on it as a standalone work.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>Episode 1: Nimue</b><br />
I did a Netflix watch party with Story to view this one and after some technical difficulties, it worked OK. The most annoying thing was we also had Discord running in the background so that we could chat aloud while we viewed the episode, and there ended up being quite a bit of echo as our microphones picked up the show as it played on our computers. If we do it again, will probably try to come up with another method, but in the meantime we will be watching separately.<br />
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On with the review!<br />
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Frankly, there really isn't much to contrast. Episode one is pretty much straight out of the book from our introductions to Nimue, Arthur and Merlin up until Nimue's village has been burned by the Red Paladins and she is confronted with a pack of wolves while wielding the mysterious sword her dying mother gave her. This isn't too surprising given that the book pretty much existed only to be made into a Netflix series as part of the relentless pursuit of the next Game of Thrones; there really wouldn't be one without the other.<br />
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We do get a couple of tantalizing glimpses of the end of the book where Nimue has been riddled with arrows and is floating in water as our opening scene. This is an interesting slight change to what is being used as the “hook” for the story entire, as the book begins with Nimue's village getting destroyed and then goes back and introduces everyone. Other than showing us that brief shot of what one assumes will be the end of Season One, episode one of the show puts everything back in chronological order. It's an interesting choice that different flash-forwards are used as the openings, but still the same basic technique of introducing an event one assumes will be explained later in order to grab and hold your attention.<br />
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The show seems to be set much more firmly in a fantasy universe and not in any semblance of a historical time and place, as I suspected it would, and it is better for it. Place names are so far less important than they were in the book. I hope this continues, as one of my major gripes about the book was it couldn't quite seem to decide whether it wanted to be in a purely fantasy realm with made-up location names or a quasi-historical medieval Europe with familiar location names that nevertheless bore no resemblance to their actual positions on a real map. I really hope the show has just decreed we're in fantasyland and stays there rather than trying to have it both ways.<br />
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The other major thing to comment on when talking about the book versus the show is of course that the characters are being interpreted by actors. So how are they doing? Most of the characters in the show are pretty much how they are described in the book, at least in terms of personality and behavior. Katherine Langford's <b>Nimue</b> is headstrong and impulsive. She hates being treated as a freak by the rest of her village except for a few personal friends who like her despite her oddities and how careless of others she can be when she gets the bit between her teeth and her bullheaded stubbornness takes over. She longs to escape and see the world as her friend Gawain did. Devon Terrell's <b>Arthur</b> is charming, mildly roguish, and more worldly than Nimue but still a little naive. His black skin versus her white skin is pretty much irrelevant, as this is shown to be a comfortably multi-race world, at least in terms of the cast's skin colors. (There are no remarks about “moors” or any other archaic terms for black people used.) The pair are obviously attracted to each other. <b>Father Carden</b> is both grandfatherly and sinister. King <b>Uther</b> is blustering and inept. The biggest liberty taken from the book is Gustaf Skarsgard as <b>Merlin</b>. He has all of the characteristics of his book counterpart—constantly drunk, annoys the shit out of everyone, a consummate manipulator, and is trying desperately to keep people from realizing he's lost his magic. Skarsgard has added some personal flair; instead of coming across as a bitter, brooding combination of Tyrion Lannister and Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish from Game of Thrones, he's more akin to Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow if he were in Game of Thrones instead of sailing the high seas. It's not what I was expecting (Story is delighted because she loves Jack Sparrow) but it's a legitimate take on the character.<br />
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Will I continue? I am still not sold on watching the entire series. I wasn't overly fond of the book—it was too violent for a YA title, and the ending in particular soured me on it as a whole, despite some of the things it did well—and as faithful as the show is being to the book I don't hold out much hope I will like the show any better. Story is going to continue, as the show's first episode made a much better impression on her than it did on me—but then she didn't read the book. We'll see how she feels as she makes her way forward, and whether I can muster the wherewithal to continue despite being pretty sure I know what's coming.<br />
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Stay tuned.
samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-29522071864497281682019-12-19T20:12:00.000-06:002019-12-19T20:21:31.243-06:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: The Guinevere Deception<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Guinevere Deception</u></strong><br />
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<b>Author:</b> Kiersten White<br />
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<b>Publisher:</b> Delacorte Press<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>352<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Courtesy of goodreads) </span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 10.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes a new fantasy series reimagining the Arthurian legend, set in the magical world of Camelot.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution--send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fail. </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The catch? Guinevere's real name--and her true identity--is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old--including Arthur's own family--demand things continue as they have been, and the new--those drawn by the dream of Camelot--fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur's knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I needed something to clear out the bad taste <i>Cursed</i> left in my mouth. This one has been on my to-read list, and when I heard Story was reading it too, I eagerly got it out of the library.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Spoilers, etc…</span></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Twist: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Guinevere” is actually someone else, sent by Merlin to look after Arthur since magic has been banished from Camelot in the wake of a war with the evil Dark Queen (this part of the premise reminds me of the TV show </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Adventures of Merlin</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> starring Colin Morgan). The real Guinevere died and was replaced by this other young woman, who is at least part fae, and she is determined to fulfill her mandate and protect Arthur by every means within her power. Even if it means secretly using forbidden magic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, and Lancelot is a woman disguised as a man, though where she falls on the gender identity spectrum I’m not sure.</span><br />
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Plot: </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">We pick up with Guinevere riding with an entourage to be married to Arthur. Only we’re very quickly told she’s not Guinevere, she’s actually Merlin’s daughter being sent to protect Arthur from some unnamed looming magical threat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once the marriage takes place, not!Guinevere (for the sake of brevity I’m just going to refer to her as Guinevere, since by the end she actively chooses the Guinevere identity and has forgotten her true name) has trouble juggling pretending to be someone else, hiding her magic, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> keeping up the persona of a demure wife and queen. She wants badly to root out the threat to Arthur and prove her worth as a guardian, since their marriage, while cordial, is still a sham. To that end, she identifies two people, the Patchwork Knight and Rhoslyn, who seem supernatural and becomes fixated on them as the threat to Arthur and Camelot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">While she investigates, she also makes friends with her maid Brangien and Percival’s overlooked sister Dindrane, and begins a back-and-forth dance of flirtation and distance with Arthur’s nephew Mordred. Eventually she discovers Rhoslyn is a member of a small group of minor magic users who wish no harm on Camelot even though it has outlawed them, and the Patchwork Knight is actually Lancelot, a non-magical young woman with dreams of knighthood. The real threats are Camelot’s greedy neighbor Maleagant, and the Dark Queen, ruler of Faerie and enemy of mankind. Arthur and Merlin had previously bound her with the help of Excalibur, a magic-absorbing sword, leading to the outlawing of magic in Camelot to keep her influence at bay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the meantime, Merlin allows himself to be defeated and imprisoned in a cave by the Lady of the Lake as revenge for an unnamed but grievous slight. He and Arthur reveal that Guinevere was actually sent to Camelot to protect her from the Lady’s impending arrival, not to protect Arthur. Her purpose shattered and her mentor unavailable, Guinevere isn’t sure where she belongs or what she should do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guinevere is kidnapped by Maleagant. Lancelot and Mordred come to her rescue, and in the process of trying to escape Mordred tricks Guinevere into using her power to release the Dark Queen. Arthur arrives, and allows the Dark Queen to escape rather than kill Guinevere--since she is part fae Excalibur would kill her, too. Mordred tries to get Guinevere to join him in taking back the world for the wild and magical, but she refuses and returns to Camelot with Arthur and Lancelot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the first book of a planned trilogy, so there is quite a bit left unresolved and a lot of hints of what else is to come.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Characters:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guinevere: We never find out her real name in this book, but I suspect from the evidence--she is Merlin’s daughter and apprentice--it might be Nimue, Vivian, Niniane, or some variant thereon. It’s heavily implied, though she herself is ignorant of it, that she is also the daughter of the Lady of the Lake. She is missing big chunks of her memory thanks to a mind wipe from Merlin. She is afraid of water and avoids it at all costs, a fear I suspect was planted by Merlin to keep her mother from finding her and taking her back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She is constantly leaping to hasty conclusions and then running with them as if they were fact. This leads her to be fruitlessly chasing Rhoslyn and Lancelot for much of the book, determined that they need to be dealt with </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">right now, </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and getting upset when Arthur doesn’t consider them a priority over negotiations with Camelot’s neighbors. It also means she’s blind to some things that are pretty obvious to the reader but need to be saved for official reveals later. She has an unrequited crush on Arthur--while he values her highly, he only wants to see her as a confidante and is afraid to open his heart further, while she secretly wants more from him than a pretend marriage but isn’t sure she can ask for his love. She’s also attracted to Mordred, conflicting her further, and seems to compensate by throwing herself into her female friendships with Brangien, Dindrane and eventually Lancelot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur: A good king and charismatic leader, despite being so young--he’s eighteen to Guinevere’s sixteen. He is gentle, sweet and patient, and typically for Arthur perhaps too concerned with running his kingdom and not enough with what’s going on right under his nose. The death of his first love left him very reluctant to form romantic attachments for fear that his personal feelings will get in the way of doing right by his kingdom, even though he does care about Guinevere and I suspect might be attracted to her. I actually like this interpretation of their relationship, as it makes it understandable why Guinevere would look elsewhere for her emotional (and physical) needs even though she and Arthur do like each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Merlin: This guy ranks pretty high up in the Manipulative Bastard hierarchy of Merlins. He kidnapped Guinevere, manipulated and wiped her memory, and lied to her about why he was sending her to Arthur, in addition to arranging the violation of Igraine by Uther. We’re told he sees the future and that’s why he’s so scattered, and also why he does all of this terrible stuff. Once she learns of his betrayals and some of his lies, Guinevere is constantly wrestling with his “ends justify the means” morality and whether she wants to follow his footsteps with her use of magic. He ends up walled up behind rock by his former lover, Nynaeve, the Lady of the Lake, and smartly takes it as his due for everything he’s done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mordred: (this is a long analysis, sorry) First time in awhile I’ve seen a retelling where he is </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Arthur’s son. In fact, he’s older than Arthur, and like Guinevere is part fae. He is the son of Morgan, Arthur’s half-sister, and the Green Knight, but seems throughout the book to be affectionate and loyal to his younger uncle and holds the highest position of trust in Arthur’s court (the place most often occupied by Kay or Bedivere). Like a lot of Mordred portrayals, he’s described as quiet and observant, the one who stays in the background watching everything. Some people seem not to trust him because his constant observation makes them uneasy and Guinevere is wary at first because he is privy to a lot of secrets, but for 9/10ths of the book the distrust seems unfounded. He and Guinevere are attracted to each other, but they have the problem Gwen and Lancelot usually have in that they both love Arthur in their own ways and don’t want to hurt him but the chemistry between them is undeniable. Eventually they kiss, and seem to enjoy it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If this had been the biggest conflict with Mordred, since it’s definitely not new for this character to have a thing for Guinevere, I would have been more than OK with it. It’s a refreshing take on him. Most authors just stick him with being evil, or being conflicted but trapped by Destiny into betraying Arthur. He’s a really interesting character here, especially since he’s one of the few who knows Arthur and Guinevere’s marriage is only for show and seems to recognize that she might have sexual desires that her arrangement with Arthur isn’t filling. So for once his interest in her doesn’t come off as skeevy, just morally gray. K.M. Shea’s take on him in her </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">King Arthur and Her Knights </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">novellas is the only other interpretation I can think of that is more a departure from the norm while still keeping believably within Mordred’s established set of traits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then we get to The Betrayal, and I found myself disappointed in White, who had been doing so well with keeping things fresh up until then. Like, I could make a joke about “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” but here it’s surprisingly not appropriate. The more I think about it, the more it actually doesn’t make sense on several levels. He is revealed to have been a mole for the Dark Queen all along, wanting to end rise of men and bring magic back to prominence. OK, even laying aside the abrupt turnaround which to me had no foundation in his character up until that point and reminded me of Hans’ poorly handled plot-convenient turn to evil in </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, if this really was his goal all along, it doesn’t explain why he needs to trick Guinevere into doing his dirty work. Since it turns out he’s also half-fae, why couldn’t he have just gone out and used his own blood to revive his grandmother? Or why couldn’t he at least have abused his position of trust to arrange Arthur’s death, since that would likely mean the fall of the rule of law in Camelot and magic would have a better chance to flourish in the resulting chaos? He’s had years to do just that. Nope, Mordred just betrays Guinevere and Arthur out of the blue, does a Darth Vader “come with me, screw all these other people” speech, and when Guinevere turns him down rides off somewhere, presumably to pop up again in a future book. I just...no. It doesn’t sit right with me. If Mordred </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to Betray Arthur in order to Be Mordred (he doesn’t), then having a forbidden thing with Guinevere and having that blow up in everyones’ faces to me should be enough. I’m not even a Mordred fangirl like Story, and this just doesn’t fit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brangien (Brangwain): Guinevere’s maid, and former maid to Queen Isuelt as in legend. In the original, Brangien was the one who gave Isuelt the love potion that tragically tied her to Tristan, but here it was Brangien and Isuelt who were secretly lovers. Tristan helped Brangien escape Mark’s wrath, and now the two of them live in exile in Camelot. As one of her duties is Guinevere’s appearance, Brangien is the one who makes sure the clueless Guinevere is dressed and behaves appropriately in each situation. Brangien is also a minor magician; she can cast small spells like protection and location using herbs and knot magic. She and Guinevere become good friends and have several escapades together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tristan: One of Arthur’s inner circle, and the most recent addition after he and Brangien sought shelter in Camelot. He knew about Brangien and Isuelt as well as Brangien’s magic powers, and the two of them are friends and co-conspirators in trying to keep an eye on Isuelt from afar. Guinevere later saves his life with her magic after he takes a poisonous wolf bite meant for her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lancelot: Called The Patchwork Knight for most of the book due to his/her ragged appearance. I assume White’s choice of this moniker is a reference to T.H. White’s “The Ill-Made Knight,” the third major subsection of </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Once and Future King</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and de Troyes’ “The Knight of the Cart.” S/he makes a habit of saving people, when not competing in a tournament to earn the right to become a knight of Arthur’s court. I’d at least figured out it was probably Lancelot, primed by </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cursed</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> also keeping Lancelot’s identity a secret through an obvious codename for someone whose real name the readers will instantly recognize, though I did not see the gender reveal coming. About two thirds of the way through the book Guinevere learns that Lancelot is actually female, at least physically. Obviously in this quasi-historical strictly bi-gender-roled medieval society women aren’t allowed to become knights so even if she sees herself as a woman, like Mulan in order to become a warrior she’d have to pass as male. Guinevere thinks s/he is an enemy of Arthur trying to infiltrate the court, until Lancelot saves her life and tells her side of the story. Typically for Lancelot s/he’s an unbeatable fighter and has a hero complex. In the end Guinevere chooses her as her special protector, since Arthur will always have to think of the kingdom’s interests before his queen’s. Again, a clever take on the original relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dindrane: She was really fun. Percival’s maiden sister, she is sharp-tongued, prone to jealousy, and at first seems like she’s going to be the stereotypical Mean Girl. Until Guinevere decides she likes Dindrane’s spirit and cleverly befriends her instead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bors: A, well, boorish knight, one of Arthur’s inner circle. Guinevere tricks him into thinking he’s defeated a dragon and feels terrible about changing his memories as Merlin did to her. It looks like Dindrane is going to twist his arm into marrying her whether he particularly wants a wife or not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maleagant: A self-proclaimed king whose lands border both Camelot and the Picts. He was one of Uther’s knights and after Uther’s death has conquered some territory and set himself up as a rival king to Arthur. At first I thought his traditional kidnapping of Guinevere wasn’t going to happen because we had several scenes with Maleagant scattered through the book (usually that’s the only reason he appears, to be used in the Knight of the Cart kidnapping plot), but right at the very end it happened, and Lancelot did indeed come to rescue her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Percival & Blanchefleur: One of Arthur’s knights and his wife. Dindrane is stuck in their household since she isn’t married, and she and Blachefleur despise each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lady of the Lake (Nynaeve/Nimue): An equivalent in power of the Dark Queen, who seems to rule the woodlands and have control over plants and animals; the Lady of the Lake controls water. She chose to side with Merlin and Arthur in the war with the Dark Queen and gave Arthur Excalibur, but since seems to have changed her mind and is now not very happy with men. Probably because Merlin stole their daughter. It’s hinted we’ll see more of her in a future book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ector & Kay: Arthur’s foster father and brother. In this version they were mercenaries. When their young charge pulled the sword from the stone and they realized he was the son of Uther they ran away to hide him and themselves for several more years; as a result, Arthur grew up seeing firsthand what life for the average person under Uther was like and vowed to change it. They are rude, cowardly and uncultured (one of two typical portrayals of them, the other being wise and nurturing family to the future king), and Guinevere does not like them very much.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Backstory (characters already dead before the book begins):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uther, Igraine and Gorlois: (trigger warning) Theirs is the grimmest version of their story: Merlin disguises the lustful Uther as Gorlois, who sneaks in and rapes Igraine when the real Gorlois is already dead. The result is Arthur, as Merlin planned. Igraine then dies. Igraine and Gorlois had a loving relationship, which Uther grew jealous of and he decided he wanted to experience what it was like to sleep with a woman who believed herself truly in love with him, even if he had to accomplish it by the worst deceit imaginable. Uther by all accounts was an awful guy, and only other bad guys like Maleagant liked his rule.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elaine: Arthur’s first love, so I’m not sure which Elaine this makes her--none of the ones that I can find were ever Arthur’s lover. Apparently that’s now a catch-all female name in Arthurian retellings when an author doesn’t feel like either using the character’s original name or just making one up whole cloth (since </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cursed</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> did it as well, calling Arthur’s mother Elaine). In this case I think this character should have rightly been called Lionors, if she was called anything out of the legend. She died in childbirth, making Arthur wary of giving his heart again. She’s also Maleagant’s sister and had begged Arthur for mercy on her brother, while Maleagant had been perfectly willing to use her pregnancy to control Arthur, further complicating the antagonistic relationship between the two men.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Isuelt, Mark, Gawain, Morgan le Fay and The Green Knight are mentioned or make cameo appearances. Also some knight named George, who is not an Arthurian figure and seemed kind of a random addition to the Round Table. Especially since he’s not the one who “defeats” the dragon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wish this was the book getting adapted into a Netflix series instead of </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cursed</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Everything that </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cursed</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tried to do (except be a Game of Thrones clone), this book does a hundred times better. I was constantly saying to myself, “Hmmm...</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">interesting</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” in a good way. The only thing that brought it down was the handling of Mordred’s betrayal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.75 stars rounded up to 4.</span><br />
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</span>samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-83259932009971736842019-12-19T20:10:00.000-06:002019-12-19T20:30:41.446-06:00Review: The Guinevere Deception<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Guinevere Deception</u></strong><br />
<b></b><b>Author:</b> Kiersten White <b> </b><br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Delacorte Press<br />
<b>Pages: </b>340<b> </b><br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's boarders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution: send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife...and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fall.<br />
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The catch? Guinevere's real name - and her true identity - is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.<br />
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The keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old - including Arthur's own family - demand that things continue as they have been, and the new - those drawn by the dream of Camelot - fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur's knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.<br />
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Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long, knotted black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods towards Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?</td></tr>
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All right. Back in the saddle. Let's see if I remember how to write one of these. It's only been... (checks notes) five years. Yeah, okay. Hi everyone, I'm back.<br />
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This is probably the most conflicted I've been about a book in a long time. There are parts of it I love. I love them so much. They are so original and engaging and smartly done. And then there's, well, the ending. But we will get to that!<br />
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<b>Warning for Spoilers</b></div>
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<a name='more'></a><b>The Twist</b></div>
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So the book seems to start off straight forward enough with Guinevere traveling from the convent to Camelot for her marriage to Arthur. Except surprise! This isn't actually Guinevere. The daughter of Leodegrance died in the convent (of an illness, thankfully) and Merlin decides to have his, er, 'daughter' magically take her place as a wife for Arthur to protect him while Merlin is banished.<br />
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That is actually just the first twist in the book. There are delightful twists and turns throughout, on both the legend and within the story. Lancelot is a woman! Isolde and Brangien are the ones in love! Mordred is...eh... But the biggest twist on the story itself is that Merlin didn't send this not!Guinevere to protect Arthur, he sent her to be protected by Arthur because he knew he was about to get his ass locked in a cave by the Lady of the Lake. I have lots of feelings about this twist, which is one of my two big disappointments. The other, as I'm sure you've guessed, is the handling of Mordred. Because I am always disappointed with the handling of Mordred.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Plot</b><br />
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The book can pretty easily be divided into two parts - the part where not!Guinevere believes she was sent to Camelot to protect Arthur and the part where not!Guinevere believes she was sent to Camelot to be protected. From the beginning of the book until this reveal, not!Guinevere has a single-minded focus on protecting Arthur from this magical threat Merlin has warned her of. Her primary form of magical protection is knot magic, usually done with her hair. She spends a fair amount of time getting thin iron wires made so she can create knots that will disrupt any magic trying to enter Camelot and places them at the entrances to the castle. This work is quite difficult for her because a- magic has a price and b- magic is banned in Camelot so not!Guinevere has to do everything in secret and on her own. <br />
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Early on in her arrival in Camelot, not!Guinevere's maid Brangien takes her out to see the training grounds where the knights train and aspiring knights fight each other in the hopes of earning a chance to become a knight through a tournament. The crowd favorite right now is known as the Patchwork Knight and yup, it's exactly who you think it is. Not!Guinevere is immediately suspicious of this knight because this is how a magical threat could potentially get close to Arthur. Despite Arthur's assurances that he's set things up so that it isn't possible for fae creatures to approach him this way, not!Guinevere tries to follow the Patchwork Knight and ends up finding an associate of theirs. A woman named Rhoslyn who, outside of not!Guinevere's work, is soon brought before Mordred, Arthur's nephew and closest companion/regent, for judgement after it is discovered that she is using magic. She is banished for this crime and not!Guinevere follows her out of the city, where men are waiting to attack Rhoslyn as soon as she is alone. The Patchwork Knight arrives to fight them off and they disappear into the forest. Not!Guinevere wants to follow them, but before she can Arthur summons her north to help him with a treaty with the Pictish King.<br />
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It is on the way back from this meeting that we see the danger that magic and the fae can pose to Camelot as Arthur and his entourage are attacked by creepy, poison wolves as they try to journey through the forest at night. Tristan is poisoned and nearly dies, but not!Guinevere risks using magic to save him, which is noticed by Mordred. He promises to keep her secret which deepens the already growing friendship between them.<br />
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A few days later, during a hunting outing, not!Guinevere is once again attacked by a creepy forest creatures. This time the Patchwork Knight saves her. Not!Guinevere is injured in the process and the Patchwork Knight takes her to Rhoslyn for healing. It is here that we learn a- that the Patchwork Knight is Lancelot and that Lancelot is a woman and b- that Rhoslyn means no harm to Arthur, she was just unwilling to give up the power that she learned from her mother and grandmother. Uncertain since all of her suspicions were incorrect, not!Guinevere decides to go see Merlin, with Lancelot's help, so she can learn from him what the threat is and perhaps get a little more direct help. When they arrive at Merlin's cave, not!Guinevere in her impatience tears down his magical ward, allowing the Lady of the Lake to find him. The Lady accuses him of stealing something from her and then buries him in his cave.<br />
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Not!Guinevere and Lancelot race back to Arthur and not!Guinevere tells him what happened to Merlin and begs him to come and help. It is here Arthur reveals that Merlin knew that this was coming and that he sent not!Guinevere to Arthur not so that she could protect him, but so he could protect her. This twist is kinda meh because it completely deflates not!Guinevere and removes what little agency she had. It also doesn't really do anything as a reader because we have been treated to little interludes between the chapters of something that is trying to use magic to get to Arthur. So it rings hollow and is frustrating to watch not!Guinevere shift to believing that she is nothing more than a burden because we know that she isn't.<br />
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After the reveal of why she was sent to Camelot, not!Guinevere is left someone aimless as she tries to figure out just what, exactly, her role is in Camelot. Arthur asks her to take on her queenly duties and she ends up overseeing the tournament that will see Lancelot made a knight. Lancelot defeats four knights - Tristan, Gawain, Bors, and some yahoo named George- and fights Arthur to a draw. She gets made a knight and the tournament is followed by a celebration.<br />
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At the celebration, not!Guinevere is kidnapped by Meleagant, who has been a minor thorn in Arthur's side throughout this whole book. Lancelot eventually shows up to rescue her, with Mordred waiting in the wings to aid the escape. When Meleagant gives chase, Mordred convinces not!Guinevere to wake the trees in the hopes that they'll stop Meleagant and his men. She does so and Meleagant is killed. It is then revealed, in a WTF twist (and not a good WTF twist) that Mordred has been working with the fae Dark Queen for...a time (possibly the whole time?) and has been working with Morgan Le Fay to try and bring her back after Arthur destroyed her. Not!Guinevere and Lancelot try to stop him, but they are no match for him and not!Guinevere doesn't have the power to control the trees now that the Dark Queen is awake again.<br />
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Arthur shows up, intending to kill the Dark Queen again, but Mordred puts not!Guinevere between them. Excalibur has the power to unmake magic and not!Guinevere is just enough magic that if Arthur were to go through her to reach the Dark Queen, he would kill her. For the first time in the entire book, Arthur puts someone else above his kingdom and chooses not!Guinevere, allowing Mordred to escape with the Dark Queen. Not!Guinevere, Lancelot, and Arthur return to Camelot where they await the Dark Queen's next move.<br />
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<b>The Characters</b><br />
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The identity of not!Guinevere is a mystery the entire premise of the book is built on and also one the book isn't all that interested in answering. Sometime before the book begins, Merlin uses magic to implant memories in not!Guinevere's mind of the real Guinevere's life so that she'll more easily be able to fit-in at Camelot. Not!Guinevere eventually comes to realize that in doing this, he also wiped away much of her memories before that moment, including her real name. There's also evidence that Merlin changed aspects of her mind to make her more malleable to his will. Not!Guinevere seems incapable of questioning Merlin. Even after it's revealed over and over that he lied to her, she still trusts him and looks to him for guidance. I believe he also instilled within her a deep-seated fear of water. Not!Guinevere cannot cross water without descending into a panic attack that makes her borderline catatonic. I am eagerly awaiting the moment she finally falls into the water because I think that's the moment we'll finally learn just who (or what) she really is and what exactly Merlin did to her.<br />
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As far as her characteristics go, she's really difficult to pin down because she is so driven to do what Merlin wants. But at her core she is a kind character and a good friend, especially to the women she meets along the way (specifically Bragien and Lancelot). She wants to do the right thing but struggles with the fact that she doesn't know what the right thing is. She's good at magic and sees uses for magic and isn't quick to condemn people who use it like Bragien or Rhoslyn, but at the end of the book she has made the choice to let magic die in service to Arthur and Merlin's vision. That choice felt so hollow, especially since there is reason to suspect that Merlin has terribly violated this character's very sense of being. I'm interested to see just who this character becomes once she is finally free of Merlin's influence.<br />
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The Arthur-guilt is strong with this version of Arthur. As is so often the case for Arthur, guilt drives him to inaction. Guilt over the death of his first love, Elaine, drives him to keep his distance emotionally from not!Guinevere. Guilt over his handling of Meleagant's initial betrayal keeps from actually doing anything to stop the man who keeps threatening everything he built in Camelot. Guilt over the thought of those who may die in war keeps him from doing anything when not!Guinevere is kidnapped by Meleagant. In the end, he can't even stop the Dark Queen because that would mean hurting not!Guinevere. It is clear from the reaction of the characters around him that Arthur is a dearly loved King who is trying to build Camelot into something great. As usual, the Arthur-guilt isn't really presented or interrogated by the text as a flaw, it's just Arthur making hard but right choices. But I am hopeful that this is something that is looked at more closely in future books, especially since not!Guinevere is already so unsatisfied with the way Arthur holds her at arm's length.<br />
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I rolled my eyes so hard when Lancelot first appeared in the book as the ~mysterious~ Patchwork Knight who was so good at fighting and who everyone was so impressed with and wanted to meet. I was not impressed when not!Guinevere became suspicious of Lancelot for working with Rhoslyn because this was Lancelot--of course Lancelot wasn't actually going to be a threat to Arthur. But then Lancelot rescued not!Guinevere from evil magic animals and was revealed to be a woman and suddenly I had heart eyes. Lancelot as a woman is so much better than Lancelot as a man. Everything that bothers me about Lancelot's character was suddenly new and exciting and worth exploring now that the character was a woman. I was impressed and ecstatic that she was the best and cheered her on as she beat up on Arthur's knights and fought him to a draw in the tournament. I was really charmed by her friendship and loyalty towards not!Guinevere. I got mad at Mordred for hurting her at the end. I was so happy to see her named as the Queen's protector at the end of the book.<br />
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Merlin ends the book locked up in a cave and good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. His presence looms large over the entire book even though he himself only appears in two short scenes--one where the Lady of the Lake locks him in that cave and one where not!Guinevere tries to contact him in a dream after she has been kidnapped by Meleagant and he is useless in both cases. Not!Guinevere and Arthur both have a lot of faith in him, so it's hard not to get caught up in that as you're reading the book. But over time you learn about his lies to not!Guinevere and the way he stripped away her memories and possibly freewill to the point where he becomes somewhat sinister presence lurking beneath the surface. I was so frustrated when we see him again in not!Guinevere's dream--where she cannot find her past because Merlin ripped it away and he warns her that if she stays, she will be found. I so badly wanted her to be found. To see her grow beyond whatever limitations this sinister old man has placed on her. <br />
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Meleagant received a pretty interesting take for a character who is so often portrayed as a one dimensional villain. He gains a connection to Arthur as he is the brother of Elaine, Arthur's first love who died in childbirth. Meleagant used her to try and destroy Arthur, intending to kill Arthur after they were married and use their child as a means to steal the throne. When this plot was discovered, Elaine intervened and begged Arthur to spare her brother's life. He banishes both of them and has regretted that decision ever since as Elaine died and Meleagant continues to threaten his hard earned peace. There was a lot that could have been interesting here as Meleagant is shown to be quite cunning and it was a nice change to see his kidnapping of Guinevere tied entirely to an obsession with Arthur instead of a sexual obsession with her. Unfortunately, Meleagant is killed by trees at the end of the book and we will not get to see him develop further as a villain.<br />
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Brangien is delightful. I especially enjoyed the twist that saw her as Isolde's love interest instead of Tristan. She's quite prickly while also loyal and devoted to her job as not!Guinevere's maid. It takes some time for not!Guinevere to become friendly with her and it's not until after not!Guinevere catches Brangien using magic to try and contact Isolde that a close friendship really begins to develop between the two. I'm interested to see how Brangien continues to develop going forward, not just with her relationship to Isolde but regarding her illegal use of magic as well.<br />
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Well, I suppose there's no putting it off any longer. It's time to talk about Mordred. I was very wary of this character to begin with because not!Guinevere was nervous about the fact that he was always watching her and Brangien didn't like him. I was thinking 'oh, here we go again, evil Mordred alert'. And then he proceeded to spend pages and pages not doing anything to warrant that suspicion. He was kind to not!Guinevere and Brangien (if not a little snarky) and he seemed to have a close relationship to Arthur more akin to Lancelot or Kay that a traditional Mordred. Early on in the book there's a moment where they're all at the market and not!Guinevere notes how Mordred never haggles with the vendors--he always pays their asking price. His logic is that he can afford it, so why shouldn't he pay full price? At that moment, I couldn't take it anymore and jumped to near the end of the book and read the bit about Lancelot rescuing not!Guinevere from Meleagant with Mordred's help.<br />
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That was all I needed to hear. Mordred was good and was going to stay good so I wholeheartedly threw myself into enjoying his character. And he was just wonderful. He was a good friend to not!Guinevere and Brangien. When he sees not!Guinevere use magic to save Tristan from murder wolves, he agrees to keep her secret. He and not!Guinevere developed a romantic attraction for each other that I was ALL IN on because finally, a Guinevere/Mordred ship that wasn't going to squick me out because it was all about Arthur or she was trying to be a mother figure to him. It was so good and I was really enjoying it and then...<br />
<br />
...and then the rug got yanked out from under me and I just really don't know what to make of Mordred's turn or the way the book ended. Like, I can almost understand. I can almost make it work because it's revealed that Mordred is half-fae, the son of Morgan le Fay and the Green Knight, grandson of the Dark Queen. And I could very easily see this half-fae siding with Arthur and Merlin in the hopes of forging a peace between men and fae, only for Arthur and Merlin to essentially turn on him in the 11th hour by banning all magic. If that's the back story, then it makes some amount of sense. But there is a great deal of ambiguity regarding just how long Mordred has been working for the Dark Queen. I am hoping that it is a recent turn but it might not be. It's never said outright when he joined forces with his grandmother and a reader could fall either way depending on where you put the emphasis in his dialog.<br />
<br />
But it just doesn't make sense. Either way, really. Like, if it's revealed in later books that it was a recent turn, I think I'll be able to make peace with it (if it's revealed he was working for the Dark Queen the whole time, that's going to break the series for me--there's no coming back from that), but I won't be happy about it. This isn't the character I spent 318 pages delighting in--who was so unfailingly kind to everyone he met. Who took not!Guinevere and Brangien to a shitty play and giggled with them about it afterwards. Who claimed to love Arthur so much that he struggled with his growing feelings for not!Guinevere. This twist came out of nowhere and not in a good way. Not in a way where I can look back through the book and see this being set up. This twist wasn't earned and honestly, it kind of ruins the book for me. Not just because I am a Mordred fangirl, but because I hate twists that aren't earned. They're cheap and they're lazy and I wish they would go away.<br />
There are ways the series could recover going forward, but man, I don't have the same faith in it that I did for the first 318 pages.<br />
<br />
The Lady of the Lake shows of briefly to accuse Merlin of stealing something from her and then locks his ass up in a cave. It's pretty obvious that she was referring to not!Guinevere, so I am interested to see how that unfolds going forward. Kay and Ector show up briefly. They're hired swords who raised Arthur and are pretty boorish. Not!Guinevere comes to the conclusion that Arthur is as good as he is because he grew up under the hardship of living with them. Tristan is there as a Knight of the Round Table and a good friend to Brangien. He was banished along with Brangien for some reason even though she was the one in the romance with Isolde, so we'll see if his story unfolds further as we go on. Percival, his wife Blanchefleur, and sister Dindrane all are part of a minor side story about Dindrane being unmarried and depending on Percival for everything, which Blanchefleur doesn't like. Not!Guinevere strikes up a friendship with Dindrane, which causes her to rise in stature and at the end it looks like she is probably going to marry Sir Bors. Perhaps this is the foundation for a Grail Quest down the line? Bors also nearly slays a dragon but not!Guinevere intervenes to save it and gives Bors a falls memory (and a fairly disgusting one so he won't dwell on it) of killing the dragon.<br />
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<b>Overall</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
There was so much I was enjoying about this book. It has some truly delightful turns, the mystery regarding not!Guinevere is engaging, the characters are fleshed out and enjoyable. I was prepared to give this book 5 stars for the first 318 pages. But man, that ending. That ending ruined the book for me. That's hard to say because I liked so much of it and I think it can be salvaged in future books...but it could also be made worse. And not knowing where it's going leaves me with just this book and a lot of conflicted feelings. So I guess I'm going to have to settle for a conflicted rating.<br />
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3 Stars. Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-49178476363976649042019-10-21T21:08:00.000-05:002019-10-23T21:24:15.220-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: Cursed<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Cursed</u></strong><br />
<b></b><b>Author:</b> Thomas Wheeler & Frank Miller<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>416<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(courtesy of goodreads) <b style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Lady of the Lake finds her voice in this cinematic twist on the tale of King Arthur created by Tom Wheeler and legendary artist, producer, and director Frank Miller (300, Batman: The Dark Night Returns, Sin City).</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /></span>
<i style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whosoever wields the Sword of Power shall be the one true King.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">But what if the Sword has chosen a Queen?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">Nimue grew up an outcast. Her connection to dark magic made her something to be feared in her Druid village, and that made her desperate to leave…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">That is, until her entire village is slaughtered by Red Paladins, and Nimue’s fate is forever altered. Charged by her dying mother to reunite an ancient sword with a legendary sorcerer, Nimue is now her people’s only hope. Her mission leaves little room for revenge, but the growing power within her can think of little else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">Nimue teams up with a charming mercenary named Arthur and refugee Fey Folk from across England. She wields a sword meant for the one true king, battling paladins and the armies of a corrupt king. She struggles to unite her people, avenge her family, and discover the truth about her destiny.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #c6aec7; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">But perhaps the one thing that can change Destiny itself is found at the edge of a blade.</span></td></tr>
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Just out this month, and soon to be a Netflix TV series, I was at first excited to hear there was a new book centered on a teenage Lady of the Lake who wields Excalibur herself instead of giving it to Arthur. Does it deserve the hype?<br />
Spoilers under the cut.<br />
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This book was advertised (as I saw it) as a graphic novel, illustrated by renowned comic book artist Frank Miller, who is best known for putting dark and gritty spins on the stories he tells. In fact, it is not a graphic novel, but a full novel with occasional illustrations. It is gory enough to take its place in Miller’s canon, so it earns its stripes on that point. It is in my opinion a little grim for YA, but that’s what it’s billed as, probably just because the protagonist is a teenager—that seems to be the only standard for determining whether or not to call a book YA these days. I wonder where marketing peoples’ heads are sometimes.<br />
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This book is already in production for a Netflix original series next year, starring Katherine Langford (of 13 Reasons Why) as Nimue, Devon Terrell (best known for playing young Barack Obama in a biopic) as Arthur, and Gustaf Skarsgard (son of Stellan and brother of Alexander) as Merlin. I am already deeply curious what they’re going to change from book to film, especially with the choice to cast a black man as Arthur when he’s described and depicted in the book as white, so when it comes out I will try to do a compare and contrast (which we haven’t done for an age on this site!) at least of the first episode.<br />
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<b>The Twist: </b>Excalibur (here called the Sword of Power or the Devil’s Tooth) chooses Nimue, not Arthur, as the One True Ruler. The entire Arthurian legend is re-framed not only as paganism vs. the newer religion of Christianity, which is fairly common in modern Arthurian retellings, but as Fey/supernatural creatures vs. humans. The Fey are the underdogs, having recently become the object of genocide by the Red Paladins—kind of part Crusade, part Inquisition, the worst of late medieval Christianity all rolled into one delightful package but targeted at Fey rather than Jews and Muslims. Nimue becomes one of the leaders as the Fey decide to fight back. The story takes place all over a pseudo-historical Europe rather than just in England, if the place names are to be believed—half of the locations are real names and half seem to be made up.<br />
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<b>The Plot:</b> The timeline jumps around a little bit at the beginning in order to dump us straight into an action scene and get all of that boring establishing stuff in later, but things settle down into linear time after that. Nimue has grown up in an isolated village of Sky People, one of the many tribes of the Fey. The Red Paladins, led by the sinister Father Carden, attack the village and slaughter everyone. Nimue escapes with a strange sword her mother had been hiding, with the injunction to bring the sword to the wizard Merlin. In the process of escaping, Nimue kills first some wolves and then Red Paladins, and acquires the name the Wolf-Blood Witch.<br />
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Nimue encounters Arthur, a human mercenary, and the two fall in together. In traveling to try to figure out how to get in contact with Merlin they discover that the Red Paladins have been systematically wiping out every known tribe of Fey. Refugees from the slaughter like Nimue and her young friend Squirrel have been gathering in a series of caves near a mountain town called Cinder. There we learn the history of the sword: it is a magical Fey-made blade, and whoever holds it can claim the title of the One True King. Therefore, a bunch of people who covet that title are now after Nimue. Nimue wavers when she sees how badly the Fey need a leader, but decides to honor her mother’s dying wish and take the sword to Merlin.<br />
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Merlin has been working for Uther, the current king of…England I guess, but place names are so mixed up it’s hard to tell. When Merlin discovers the Sword of Power has appeared, he determines to destroy it rather than let everyone tear Europe apart trying to claim it. At this he fails, and Nimue, with the best of intentions, decides to keep it for herself and claim the title Queen of the Fey.<br />
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A lot of ugly, bloody fighting later, Nimue and the rest of the Fey refugees take over the fortified town of Cinder but end up boxed in by the Red Paladins and Uther’s army. Nimue agrees to trade herself for the chance for the rest of the Fey to escape. This of course sets off a series of betrayals by just about everybody in power, the result of which is an unfortunate and annoying cliff hanger where the fates of most of the main characters are uncertain. Presumably there is more planned.<br />
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<b>The Characters:</b><br />
Nimue: At the beginning of the book she is hated and feared despite being the daughter of the respected village druid because she bears scars from an attack by an evil bear spirit. Her scars and their signification of her special connection to the spirit world are built up as important at the beginning of the book but then rarely come into play after her village is burned. She has powerful magic of some kind that she only barely understands, and at the moment it’s unknown how she will acquire the nickname Lady of the Lake as she doesn’t seem to have a particular affinity for water. With the Sword of Power she acquires a formidable reputation and becomes a hero to the Fey that are left, eventually briefly gaining the title Queen of the Fey. She tends to act with her heart more than her head, which makes her temperamental and impulsive. She and Arthur are attracted to each other from the first. At the end of the book she is shot a bunch of times, Boromir-style, and falls into a river, but her body is recovered by a mysterious group of beggars in the epilogue so it’s implied she might not be dead.<br />
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Arthur: A young mercenary who gives up his career and wanderlust to protect Nimue, as he comes to believe in her and her cause. Though he appears to have no connection to Uther or any other royal house, it would not surprise me to learn that he actually is the true Pendragon son who supposedly died at birth but is rumored to have survived. If that’s the direction they go in a future book, it would be an unusual take to have Uther and Arthur set up as rivals rather than father and son.<br />
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Merlin: Nimue’s birth father. Merlin is hundreds of years old, and once wielded the Sword of Power until it fused to him (which of course puts me in mind of Ruber from Quest for Camelot, though I doubt the reference is intentional). The fusion was killing him until he stumbled upon Nimue’s mother, who healed him but at the cost of his magic power. He has been treading a thin line ever since trying to keep people from finding out. Pretty much everybody hates him, but he has managed to stay alive this long because he’s good at making promises, being sneaky, and pitting people against each other to keep the heat off himself. He comes across as a drunken Littlefinger from Game of Thrones most of the time, with a few flashes of actual goodness because he’s decided now that he knows of her existence he does care about his daughter and is willing to give up his own self-interest for hers. He’s actually not all that far from a standard Arthurian Merlin, since he plays the mysterious magician, has striven to be a bridge between Fey and humanity, and always has his own agenda.<br />
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Morgan: In a certain amount of irony given that she’s usually monikered “le Fay,” she’s a plain vanilla human who has decided to side with the actual Fey and is helping to hide Fey refugees driven from their villages by the Red Paladins. She’s also Arthur’s half-sister as in legend, though on which parent’s side I’m not entirely sure.<br />
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Lancelot: For most of the book he’s known as The Weeping Monk, and about midway through we get the reveal that his real name is Lancelot. (It comes at the end of a chapter and I could almost hear the “dun dun dun!” in the soundtrack.) He is one of the top warriors of the Red Paladins, but is shown to be somewhat reluctant when it comes to massacring Fey. He seems to doubt the surety of their mission that all the others fanatically take for granted. Gawain eventually spots Lancelot as a Fey himself, explaining his supernatural talent for fighting and why he seems unbeatable. It’s actually a creative twist on Lancelot’s backstory, following the spirit of it rather than the exact history: raised by one type of people while born of another, placing him in an uncomfortable limbo where he fully belongs to neither. In the end he does switch sides because he sees a mirror of himself in Squirrel and can’t stand to see him hurt.<br />
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Gawain/The Green Knight: Gawain <i>is</i> the Green Knight here, which is quite an interesting take. He and Nimue are from the same village and she grew up with a certain amount of hero-worship of him—she admires him most because he had the audacity to go out into the wider world. He becomes one of the leaders of the Fey resistance. He is apparently killed by the Red Paladins’ torturer, though I’m not sure if the weirdness that happened to his body at the end where it gets covered in grass is just him being absorbed by the earth or whether the authors plan to bring him back as literally green in a later book. Which would be funnier but I’m not sure these people have that type of humor.<br />
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Uther/Vortigern: Uther kind of takes both parts, since he is alive and the ruler of some large, indeterminate swath of land that seems to encompass England and some portion of what is now France but it’s revealed he’s actually the son of a peasant and not the legitimate Pendragon king. Merlin serves him because…reasons.<br />
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Tor: Here he is Arthur’s father, the first time I’ve ever seen Arthur’s father be someone other than Uther, Ector, or completely unknown. I would have put it down to the authors just picking an obscure Arthurian name out of a hat, but he’s recognizably Tor in that he’s a commoner who decides he wants to be a knight so he puts on armor and rides around doing heroic deeds and talking himself up until everybody just believes he is a knight. There’s enough there to draw a parallel to the original Tor’s story.<br />
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Igraine: Here called Elaine, but I don’t think she’s any of the Arthurian Elaines, I think the authors just slurred the name a little into something more modern-sounding that was still an Arthurian callback. Anyway, she’s Arthur’s long-suffering mother. Both she and Arthur's father are dead before the book begins.<br />
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Percival: A Fey boy, the only survivor from their village besides Nimue and Gawain. He goes by Squirrel for most of the book and only at the end after Lancelot saves his life does he reveal that his given name is Percival.<br />
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Bors/Bedivere?: Arthur’s rough, crude mercenary captain when we first meet them. What makes me think of Bedivere even though he’s called Bors is that Nimue cuts off his hand. In some versions of the legend a missing right hand is Bedivere’s defining trait.<br />
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Ector: The Lord of Cinder, the town that first gets taken over by Red Paladins and then the Fey. He’s not very happy about either invasion but likes Nimue and the Fey more than the Red Paladins and is inclined to at least cooperate with them.<br />
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Lunette: Uther’s mother in this version. She doesn’t seem to have much connection to her original counterpart; she was the wife of the king but gave birth to a stillborn son after his death. In order to retain power she paid a peasant woman for her baby, passing off the child as her own and raising him as a Pendragon king (though it’s implied that her legitimate son somehow survived and was smuggled away; at the moment we’re supposed to think it’s the Ice King of the Vikings, but no surprise if it turns out to be Arthur because we only have Merlin’s word, and Merlin is above all a liar if it serves his purpose). Uther has her killed when she reveals the truth about his parentage.<br />
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Guinevere: She makes her appearance at the last minute to save Arthur and the Fey who are attempting to escape to a new life, just when I was thinking we might get an Arthurian story without a Gwen. In another somewhat unusual twist, she appears to be a Viking warrior. They also seem to be hinting at a future love triangle between Nimue, Arthur, and Guinevere (since Arthur is being set up to think Nimue is dead, but because I know this kind of tropey storytelling, inevitably she’ll turn out to be alive just when he’s moved on. Cue teen angst.) Ugh.<br />
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It should be noted that there are a ton of other named characters who have no connection to Arthurian legend that I have not talked about here. It’s a very long book with quite a few subplots, most of which aren’t worth mentioning because they’re just an excuse for more gore and misery.<br />
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<b>Overall:</b> As a story, I am quite unimpressed with this. It’s obvious it’s trying to be a Game of Thrones ripoff with the Arthurian legend pasted over it, and in some spots the paste is super thin. They really play up Frank Miller’s involvement, but there aren’t all that many illustrations, and I am not a fan of the art style, which is blocky, Picasso-like, and not very evocative.<br />
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The story is hampered by lack of any sense of physical place or distance between locations. The use of some actual place names in the real world and some made up names was really confusing and kept throwing me out of the story. Some of the places mentioned are really far apart and would take a long time to travel between, and there seems to be zero sense at all that England is an island since there's a lot of fast-travel between France and England. I wish they had just made up their minds to either set it in the real world or in a made-up fantasy land rather than trying to have it both ways.<br />
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The characters are all right, and the most interesting and unique thing about this story is the connections made to their legendary counterparts and how those expectations are played with. The authors delved deeper than most people writing mainstream contemporary Arthurian retellings usually do, which is impressive. The best parts are when the story veers away from trying to be Game of Thrones and leans into putting its own twists on Arthurian stuff, like everything they did with Lancelot’s backstory.<br />
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I have zero plans to continue with any future books. I will watch at least the first episode of the Netflix show, but if it closely follows the book I don't anticipate enjoying it much, either.<br />
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Two stars.samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-55731181213907174642019-07-23T19:26:00.001-05:002019-07-23T19:26:58.506-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: Knights of the Round Table: Geraint<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Geraint</u></strong><br />
<b>Author:</b> Gwen Rowley<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Berkley <strong>Pages: </strong>352<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(courtesy of Amazon) Powerful warriors of nobility and honor, the Knights of the Round Table fought for king and country, rescued damsels, and went on dangerous quests. But true love may be the most perilous quest of all…<br />
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Sir Geraint is one of King Arthur’s ablest knights but is considered impulsive by his father, the king of Cornwall. When he rashly marries Enid, a beautiful and mysterious swordswoman, Geraint’s decision sparks questions about whether the love that’s captured his heart so suddenly is a blessing—or a curse…<br />
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Used to the gentle ladies of Camelot, Geraint is at once infatuated with and suspicious of his bride, a strong and independent warrior woman, gifted with magic powers by the Lady of the Lake. Enid has come to Camelot to secretly learn the fighting techniques that may help her small, peaceful tribe resist a rumored invasion. When she realizes that Geraint may not trust her, Enid is torn between fierce loyalty to her people and a powerful love for her husband that no magic can cure.<br />
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Fearing that Enid has been deceiving him, Geraint takes her on a dangerous journey that will not only test her true feelings but determine whether the differences that attracted them will fuse into a real, long-lasting love—or tear them apart and ignite a senseless war between their two kingdoms…</td></tr>
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At this point I figured I’d already done the other two books in this sort-of trilogy (still not sure whether it’s a shared universe between books or if they’re each meant to be standalone) so I might as well finish it off. These books are pretty good vacation reads so I took a digital copy along to a family reunion.<br />
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Spoilers, etc…<br />
<b>The Twist </b><br />
The original Geraint and Enid tale appears in the Romances section of the Welsh collection the Mabinogian along with two other stories that are also duplicated in Chretien de Troyes’ canon (though in de Troyes’ version the knight’s name is Erec instead of Geraint). It is one of those stories that only real Arthurian buffs will even recognize, though you do see it pop up occasionally with authors seriously up on their Camelot lore. I understand from Story’s reviews awhile back that Persia Wooley includes their romance in her wide-reaching Guinevere Trilogy. Sarah Zettel in her quartet Paths to Camelot combined Geraint with Gaheris in her novel-length take on the story (For Camelot’s Honor) to create one composite character. But those are the only ones I know about.<br />
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Rowley has shifted the location of the story from Wales to Cornwall. Geraint is the only son of the king of Cornwall (who is not Mark). Enid is the daughter of the chief of a nearby Celtic tribe. Rowley does an interesting play on Enid first appearing before the court at Camelot in rags by having her in revealing Wonder Woman-esque leather garb that is functional rather than decorative, which of course makes her stick out like a sore thumb among the ladies in their embroidered dresses that cover everything but their head and hands. Enid tries to fit in for Geraint’s sake, but she’s also basically an idealized Amazon: tall, muscled from combat training, long blond hair, and model-gorgeous. She’s also gifted with battle and stealth magic that has temporarily turned her into a literal Wonder Woman. She can’t help but stand out.<br />
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Following the basic outline of the original story, after their marriage the rumor begins to spread that Geraint is neglecting his duties as a knight because he is so intent in doting on his wife. But really what causes the rift between them is lack of trust rather than Geraint feeling like she’s a liability to his reputation, though that’s kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. In this version, on their quest he never orders her not to speak to him as he does in the original; the silence is mutual thanks to their constant butting heads whenever they do try to talk. But by the end all their secrets and assumptions have been aired thanks to being in near-constant peril and they decide to stay married. There is no interlude with winning a falcon for Enid as in de Troyes’ version of the tale (a plot device Sarah Zettel did use in her retelling).<br />
<br />
<b>The Plot</b><br />
The heart of the story really is about the logical fallout of instalove and what comes afterward, which I think is unusual and admirable. Geraint and Enid meet, lust deeply for each other and marry within a few days even though they both privately worry that they’re being too impulsive. But the other person is just soooo deliciously sexy, and even though Enid offers the option of coupling with no commitment, Geraint hedges towards marriage and Enid decides “what the hell, he’s hot, and Cornwall technically isn’t too far from my home so I can still see my family” and agrees.<br />
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In the beginning they are blissfully happy, especially with how compatible they are sexually. But they also fully intend to honor their vows, come what may. Enid extracts a promise from Geraint that they will agree that she has some secrets she’d sworn to her father she wouldn’t reveal and that previous promise trumps even their marriage vows temporarily. She’ll tell him everything when the time is right. Thus they both congratulate themselves on finding the perfectest, most understanding partner ever and all is right in their little world.<br />
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Reality intrudes with a vengeance. They begin to discover that all their assumptions about the other were completely wrong. Geraint had assumed that Enid had been forced to learn to fight because her male relatives abandoned her or are weak or something, and now that they’re married she has a strong man to protect her so she’ll happily give up being a warrior. Enid had assumed that Geraint would be totally fine with her being a warrior, because he so admired her in their initial meeting when she easily defended herself from bandits. Geraint also realizes that, on second thought, he’s really not OK with her keeping secrets. They have an ugly fight about all of this.<br />
<br />
At the same time, Geraint’s dedication as a knight is called into question. It’s mostly the work of a jealous fellow knight, but Enid and her growing reputation as an outlier/potential witch get dragged into it, and the result is that instead of going on a diplomatic mission for Arthur as had been planned, Geraint takes Enid home to Cornwall. All through the journey they can’t look at each other without starting a quarrel, even though they both regret the breach and miss the great sex. But Geraint just can’t get over that Enid is keeping secrets and that she takes her role as a warrior woman seriously, and in the face of his anger Enid can’t bring herself to give up her secrets.<br />
<br />
The tension continues through their visit to Geraint’s family. Geraint’s father finally suggests that Geraint take Enid on a tour of their kingdom. Ostensibly this is to introduce her as the future queen, and to see if more time together can heal the breach between the new couple. Really, it’s a secret reconnaissance mission for Geraint. Geraint’s father has been hearing rumors that a nearby tribe might be preparing to ally against him with the invading Saxons. Geraint is urged by his father to wipe out the tribe if he determines they could even remotely be a threat, but Geraint is determined to doggedly stick to diplomacy and only use violence as a last resort. Of course, what no one but the reader is aware of thanks to Enid’s assiduous secret-keeping is that the tribe in question is Enid’s own.<br />
<br />
During the journey, their party is attacked multiple times by mercenaries working for the Saxons. Geraint and Enid save each other several times. The tension between them ebbs in the face of this proof of the other’s loyalty. Enid breaks down and reveals more of the secrets she’d been hugging close. By the time the truth about Geraint’s charge from his father comes out, while Enid is angry that Geraint had possibly been going to kill her family and had the audacity to remain butthurt about her secrets when he was keeping some of his own, she cools down quickly because she sets against that all the times they’ve saved each other. Plus the sex is still mind-blowing (they’re back to that again).<br />
<br />
So the first meeting with Enid’s family goes great thanks to Geraint and Enid’s united front. Turns out Enid’s tribe was going to ally with whoever didn’t attack them first anyway, so they fight with the Cornwall troops against the invading Saxons. Team Cornwall wins decisively despite things looking dicey for a bit because without reinforcements from Camelot they’re outnumbered. Geraint is badly wounded in the battle but survives. In the end everyone goes home happy.<br />
<br />
<b>The Characters</b><br />
This really is the Geraint and Enid show. None of the other characters that I can find have connections to Arthurian legend. They appear to all be original characters to Rowley. Arthur barely warrants a cameo, and Guinevere gets even less. Lancelot is mentioned, but neither he nor any of the other Round Table members appear. I thought that Morgause was going to turn out to be behind the Saxon invasion, since she was the source of most of the troubles in both Lancelot and Gawain’s books that weren’t directly caused by the lead characters’ actions, but no. She only warrants a passing mention as well.<br />
<br />
Geraint: The son of the king of Cornwall rather than the king of Dumnonia (part of Wales) in this version. A gifted diplomat and capable leader, he made a mistake early in his career as a knight that led to unnecessary bloodshed, and thus remains steadfast in his commitment to talk first and fight only when absolutely necessary. However, he is of course a really great fighter as well. He has a strained relationship with his father because his father views him as terminally impulsive (not an unfair accusation), and Geraint is determined to prove him wrong while unable to help being terminally impulsive.<br />
<br />
He's definitely the more flawed of our two leads, though to be fair Enid is just as impulsive and willing to make snap assumptions as he is. Geraint adds some entitlement issues and white knight syndrome to the mix—he is fixated on protecting Enid no matter how much she proves she’s more than capable of defending herself, and it nearly gets him killed in the end. In my opinion he really doesn’t deserve her, since she’s willing to try to change to suit his culture but he’s not willing to make concessions in return.<br />
<br />
Enid: Her tribe has not embraced the continental culture of knights, armor, chivalry and so on and appears to have remained more true to their Celtic roots. Enid is a warrior woman, one of the few whose job, while respected in her tribe, goes against traditional female gender roles for both her people and Geraint’s. Her role is to instruct boys and young men, give them confidence in themselves and their skills (including lovemaking as well as combat), and then release them to become full men ready to fight the tribe’s enemies and to please their wives in bed.<br />
<br />
Enid’s unusual vocation is the source of only half the problem between her and Geraint. The other half is her obligation to keep secret her mission given to her by her father and the Lady of the Lake. Enid was sent out alone to go to Camelot and secretly learn all she could of their fighting techniques, which she would then bring back to teach the men of her tribe. For protection while out in the world, she was blessed by the Lady of the Lake with several gifts, including invisibility at will, unearthly beauty (not that she needed it) and strength beyond any mortal man’s. But in order to maintain these gifts Enid must complete a ritual every third night in a still body of water. So not only is she less than forthcoming about the location of her tribe and why she is wandering around alone in the first place, but she also has to sneak away frequently for her magic. All of this builds up and while at first her mysteries are exciting to Geraint, it doesn’t take long for the novelty to wear off and for him to realize he married a complete stranger. And his distrust and anger don’t exactly inspire Enid to be forthcoming, understandably. But in their own ways they decide to remain steadfastly committed to making the marriage, however hastily contrived, work and eventually muddle their way past all the initial pitfalls.<br />
<br />
The Lady of the Lake: The source of Enid’s magic powers, and though she doesn’t warrant more than a very brief cameo her presence looms large in the background as Enid’s patron deity. Not sure if it’s the same Lady of the Lake who raised Lancelot or not.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall</b><br />
A different kind of love story, one in which the focus isn’t on the characters coming together but on characters who came together too fast and then have to answer the “now what?” question. So despite the characters’ flaws I found the base premise overall a refreshing change. You don’t see many love stories about commitment in spite of stupid mistakes and legitimate reasons to separate. In the end Geraint and Enid discover that despite everything they really are compatible.<br />
<br />
Three stars.samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-54170049086672191522018-12-27T19:58:00.001-06:002019-07-23T07:16:46.167-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: Fall of Knight<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Fall of Knight</u></strong><br />
<b></b><b>Author:</b> Peter David<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Ace<br />
<strong>Pages: 347</strong><br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(courtesy of goodreads) In Knight Life, King Arthur was elected mayor of New York City. In One Knight Only, Arthur was voted President of the United States. Now, Arthur has become head of his very own church as Arthur Penn reveals his true identity, and the existence of the Holy Grail, to the world.</td></tr>
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I finally got around to finishing the trilogy! Happy New Year to all!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>Spoilers, etc…</b><br />
<b>The Twist:</b> King Arthur has been reawakened and now has to find his place in modern times. In book 1, he ran for mayor of New York City as step one of Merlin’s grand scheme to get him back into power. Joining him from the past are Merlin, immortal and aging backwards so he's a too-clever-for-his-own-good kid, and Percival, who drank from the Holy Grail and has thus agelessly weathered the centuries since Camelot’s fall. Guinevere/Gwendolyn Queen is a reincarnation, so Arthur had to win Gwen back all over again. All the twists carried over to the next two books. In <i>One Knight Only</i>, Arthur had been elected President of the United States but stepped down after making a bargain with the Devil to kill Osama bin Laden (under a different name) after the latter paid a sniper that put Gwen in a coma. They later found and used the Holy Grail to cure her. Other mythical/religious/historical figures from outside of Arthurian legend have a habit of popping up in this trilogy, like Gilgamesh.<br />
<br />
<b>The Plot:</b> This book picks up a year-ish after the events of <i>One Knight Only</i>. Arthur and Gwen have been in hiding since her restoration thanks to the Holy Grail, since people will have some serious questions if the former First Lady who was very publically transformed into a vegetable thanks to a well-placed bullet turns up completely healthy. Unfortunately, someone takes and then leaks a picture of them on their boat in the Pacific and word gets out.<br />
The confirmed existence of the Holy Grail causes a massive worldwide crisis, especially when Arthur dares to suggest that Jesus wasn’t the son of God; he might have been just some dude like Percival who drank from the Grail and became immortal. (Even though Arthur wasn’t really serious when he first made this suggestion, it turns out to be exactly right. At the end of the book we discover Jesus has been hiding in plain sight as a Secret Service agent this entire time. Because why the hell not.) Obviously the Catholic Church, as well as many other Christians, takes a very dim view of this attitude. Meanwhile, lots of sick people hoping for a miracle start following Arthur around begging for a drink from the Grail. Arthur, Gwen and Percival end up pinned in Arthur’s private retreat in Central Park, unable to go out because of the mobs of people asking for miracles and protesting Arthur’s suggestion that Christ wasn’t divine. Some people even start to worship Arthur as a divine figure himself, something that makes them all uncomfortable but that they don’t seem to be able to prevent.<br />
A businessman by the name of Seltzer turns up with a plan to market water from the Holy Grail, diluted so that no one becomes immortal. Unable to see another way of using the Grail’s powers to help all the people who could use it, Arthur agrees, and this seems to settle things for a little while. Meanwhile, someone in possession of the Spear of Destiny (a counterpart of the Grail, supposedly the spear that pierced Christ on the cross) wounds Merlin and then Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, kidnaps the injured wizard and takes him out of play. Merlin is unable to warn Arthur about the Spear until almost too late, nor is he able to aid him in more than a rudimentary way.<br />
Turns out Seltzer is really a 16th century alchemist by the name of Paracelsus, who has been striving to acquire both the Spear and the Grail so that he can use them to wipe humanity off the face of the earth because we’re dirty polluters, humans are a disease, and so on. I was kind of fuzzy on his motives. (This really has nothing to do with the real-life Paracelsus, who is credited as the father of toxicology among other things.) Either way, all of that positive energy that had been going out into the world via the Grail’s diluted healing powers has been building up negative energy in the Grail itself, and now Seltzer can unleash the chaos in a firestorm upon the world. Arthur rushes to confront him at Stonehenge and try to prevent the apocalypse.<br />
Long story short, Arthur succeeds, though the Grail, the Spear, and Excalibur are all destroyed in the process. Arthur starts a TV show on PBS with Gwen and Merlin.<br />
<br />
<b>The Characters:</b><br />
Arthur: This is still a pretty accurate Arthur. He does tend to get paralyzed with guilt over not being able to help everyone, is idealistic to the extreme, and is fiercely protective. Peter David goes out of his way to draw a lot of parallels between him and Jesus, and seems through Arthur to be crafting some commentary on the origin of a myth vs. the reality.<br />
<br />
Guinevere: Gwen continues to function as Arthur’s rock and moral compass. The two of them are actually very well matched, since Arthur does listen to her advice sometimes. They also talk about how Arthur’s relationship with the original Guinevere ended (she was actually executed for her adultery with Lancelot even though the legend said Lance rescued her in the nick of time), and how much he regrets how things fell out between them. He is still amazed he got a second chance.<br />
<br />
Merlin: We learn Merlin’s backstory over the course of this book, and it’s unlike any other backstory I’ve ever seen for him. He was the gentle son of a cruel warlord who set out to hunt the last unicorn on earth. When the unicorn is injured, it begs Merlin for a mercy kill, which Merlin reluctantly grants. That night the unicorn’s corpse is paraded around the warlord’s hall and the warlord takes credit for the kill, but the dead unicorn’s magic is so powerful that it creates the Grail and the Spear when they contact its blood, before setting the hall (the present-day site of Stonehenge) on fire. Merlin, in possession of the unicorn’s horn, is spared everyone else’s fate of being burned to death. He crafts Excalibur from the horn, and spends the next several thousand years keeping an eye on these artifacts. He loves Arthur more than anything but expresses it by bossing him around.<br />
<br />
Percival: As the immortal Grail Knight, he seems to share a special bond with the Grail and is content to just spend hours watching it now that he has it back after all the centuries since its loss. He is eventually killed by Paracelcus with the Spear, ending his long life at last.<br />
<br />
Nimue/Vivian: (She uses both names in this story, and is an amalgamation of the Lady of the Lake and Merlin’s lover/betrayer) Of course in any Arthurian finale story we have to have her in play to remove Merlin as a factor if nothing else. The goddess of all the earth’s waters, she seduced Merlin the first time centuries ago and then imprisoned him in a cave from which it took him a very long time to escape. She’s back again, and at first is colluding with Paracelcus to destroy humanity. As changeable and forgetful as the tides, you’re never sure which side she’s on or what she’ll do next. She’s immensely powerful, and even Merlin treads cautiously when dealing with her.<br />
<br />
Nellie (reincarnation of Elaine of Corbenic) cameos, though she spends most of this book in a coma thanks to the machinations of the Church trying to get their hands on the Grail by using her as bait to lure in Arthur.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall:</b><br />
3 stars.<br />
This book gets in some witty lines, but overall was just kind of…odd, and was kind of a chore to get through. It does some interesting things with Merlin’s backstory and how that weaves into the present day, and of course there’s the twist with Jesus still being around, but I find it difficult to conjure up strong feelings one way or the other about it. One wonders if the musings behind this book’s concept were inspired by the <i>Da Vinci Code</i> controversy, since this was being written at about the time that book caused a mini-mass crisis of faith over Jesus’ divinity.<br />
<br />
This trilogy was obviously a sort of thought exercise for Peter David. He's not the only author to ask "what would it look like if King Arthur appeared in modern times?" In this case he chose to set it in a very specific moment in history, and as a result even fifteen years later the books already feel dated.samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-69608554632455070692018-07-30T18:06:00.001-05:002018-07-30T18:06:24.903-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: One Knight Only<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>One Knight Only</u></strong> <b></b><b>Author:</b> Peter David <b></b><b>Publisher:</b> Ace <strong>Pages: 373</strong> <strong>Synopsis: </strong>(courtesy of goodreads) King Arthur--in his modern incarnation as Arthur Penn--has been elected President of the United States. But with political power comes powerful enemies. An assassination attempt against Arthur puts his beloved wife Gwen in a coma--and her only hope lies in the lost Holy Grail.</td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
I read Story’s copy of the first book in Peter David’s Modern
Arthur trilogy (<i>Knight Life</i>) back in college. I remember the
basic outline and characters, and that it was entertaining and
creative. However in the time since I hadn’t been able to get ahold
of books 2 and 3 because they’re out of print and only book 1 is
available in ebook form. Story has copies but we live far apart and
usually when we see each other we’re busy doing other things. But
during my most recent visit to her place (I was there to see her
community theater production of Beauty and the Beast because if
Arthurian stuff is her jam, Beauty and the Beast is solidly mine) we
had some downtime. I had also found a copy of book 3, <i>Fall of
Knight</i>, in a used bookstore. Thus, I had the time and inclination
to burn through this in a few days. I’ll do <i>Fall of Knight</i>
too once I’ve read it.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
A note about the author and the series: Peter David, aka “PAD,”
is best known for his comic books, licensed fan works, and movie
novelizations. This trilogy is his only foray into Arthurian lore,
though he has penned other works based on famous tales such as Peter
Pan and Oliver Twist. <i>Knight Life</i> was originally published in
1987 and was the first novel he ever sold. It was updated and
re-released in 2002 in anticipation of the publication of the other
two books in the trilogy. The updated version was the one Story and I
read, and the one more widely available today. It is kind of obvious
even reading the updated version that it was intended to be a
standalone, because it is quite different in tone from <i>One Knight
Only</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>Spoilers, etc…</b><br />
<b>The Twist: </b>King Arthur has been reawakened and now has to
find his place in modern times. In book 1, he ran for mayor of New
York City as step one of Merlin’s grand scheme to get him back into
power. There were a lot of fish out of water jokes as medieval,
chivalrous Arthur struggled to adapt to the complexities and
contradictions of life in late 20<sup>th</sup> century America.
Joining him from the past are Merlin, immortal and aging backwards so
he's a too-clever-for-his-own-good kid, and Percival, who drank from
the Holy Grail and has thus agelessly weathered the centuries since
Camelot’s fall. Guinevere and Lancelot, however, are
reincarnations, so Arthur had to win Gwen back all over again. That
was several years prior to <i>One Knight Only </i>but all the twists
carry over to this book.
<br />
<br />
<b>The Plot: </b><span style="color: #181818;">This book was not at all
what I expected, but then I’m not sure what I was expecting. What
it really is at its core is Peter David working through his feelings
about 9/11, as many creatives did at the time. The fruits of their
labors appeared in print over the following few years, and lo, this
book was published in 2004. It also means this book is pretty dated
and will only continue to grow more so as time passes.</span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><br />I remember </span><i>Knight Life </i><span style="color: #181818;">being
funnier, though this gets in a few witty moments. We're missing
Merlin, one of the major sources of humor, for most of this book
since he has been turned into a statue.<br />Actually, a lot has
happened in the interim between the two books. Not only is Merlin a
statue, but Arthur has been elected President of the United States. A
terrorist event equivalent but not exactly identical to 9/11 happened
while Arthur was mayor of New York, which brought him to the national
stage. The bin Laden-figure (differently named but still obviously
Osama bin Laden) is still out there and making threats as Arthur
prepares for the State of the Union address. </span>
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="color: #181818;">Gwen, the First Lady,
is shot leaving the Capitol Building and becomes a vegetable. Arthur
makes a deal with Miss Basil, Merlin's assistant/murderer who turns
out to be a basilisk and it's implied also the literal snake from the
Garden of Eden. Miss Basil gives Arthur a choice: she can either heal
Gwen or kill not!bin Laden. Arthur chooses killing not!bin Laden, and
also agrees to step down from the presidency in exchange.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #181818;">Meanwhile, Percival is out on a quest of his
own and stumbles across Gilgamesh (two thirds god, one third moral,
as he likes to constantly remind everyone, which is how he's still
around and millennia older than Arthur), who appears to have taken
possession of the Holy Grail on an island somewhere off South
America. He takes Percival prisoner but Percival escapes and makes
his way back to tell Arthur what he's discovered. Arthur of course
jumps at the chance to heal Gwen so together with his former Chief of
Staff Ron and Gwen's personal assistant Nellie they fly to the island
for an epic showdown with Gilgamesh, Miss Basil, and not!bin Laden
(who of course being the Devil, Miss Basil went back on her promise
to kill and instead transformed into another basilisk).</span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><br />There was a lot more straight up
supernatural in the second half of this book rather than a blend of
supernatural and modern life as there was in the previous book. I was
kind of puzzled by a lot of the author's choices and a good chunk of
what happens on Gilgamesh's island is batshit insane. What was there
was good and a well-constructed story and the characters were
interesting. Though I don't really see any direct analogues to
previous Arthurian Grail Quests other than fighting dragons
(basilisks in this case) and warriors of myth to get to the Grail, I
guess it counts as its own version of a Grail Quest.</span><br />
<br />
<b>The Characters:</b><br />
Arthur: I admit I like this characterization of Arthur. He's
really trying to do the right thing, but he's also very human.
Without Merlin's advice he's kind of adrift, and when Gwen gets shot
he loses his compass and sense of why he was trying to get into
power. So when he sees a chance to possibly restore them both he
jumps at it. He ends up in a lot of philosophical arguments with
Gilgamesh over bouts of swordfighting. His “the terrorists hate
America because we have freedom of speech” monologue sounds almost
adorably naive in 2018, the era of Fake News where someone can just
choose not to believe facts because those facts don't fit into their
previously held worldview and it's considered a legitimate stance to
take.<br />
<br />
Guinevere: She spends a good chunk of the middle of the book in a
coma, but the rest of the time she is pleasant and loyal and everyone
loves her as First Lady. (How more people aren't suspicious of their
true identities when they have President Arthur Penn married to
someone named Gwen Queen I don't know) I also enjoyed her chewing
Arthur out at the end for stepping down from the presidency—girl's
got some backbone and isn't just a pretty face. Gwen was in an
abusive relationship with Lance in the last book and that still
occasionally haunts her.<br />
<br />
Merlin: God I missed this little shit. He was one of the best
things about <i>Knight Life, </i>and he's only in this book at the
end. A creature of endless snark, this Merlin is a half-demon and has
aged backwards through the centuries so while he was an old man in
medieval times now he's a kid. In the interim between books he was
turned into a statue by Miss Basil, leaving Arthur bereft without his
advice or his magic. They take him along to the Grail island and he
is cured of his statue-ness there. So we do get a little of his
quips, but not as much as I'd like. In this story his annoying
unhelpfulness is kind of endearing instead of irritating because
everyone's aware he's doing it on purpose.<br />
<br />
Percival: This is one of the Arthurian retellings that has
Percival as a black man, in this case a Moor from Islamic Spain who
came to Arthur's court instead of having him be from the realm of
Faerie. Yes, in a book about post-9/11 America one of the main
protagonists is Muslim, which kind of tells you where Peter David
stands on the whole “are all Muslims evil?” thing. (Also not!bin
Laden only pays lip service to Islam and most of his followers
worship him instead.) Percival drank from the Holy Grail and became
immortal, and also can heal from anything. It's mentioned this is the
only reason he's survived centuries of racism. In the last book we
first meet him as a drunken homeless bum, though he has cleaned up
since then. Like a lot of Percivals he is infected with wanderlust so
even though he is loyal to Arthur he isn't always around and is off
having his own adventures.<br />
<br />
Elaine of Corbenic: Gwen's faithful assistant Nellie is revealed
at the tail end of this book to be a reincarnation of Elaine in a
sort of weird way. Turns out she had a drunken three-way with Gwen
and Lance in college that first Lance and then a disgruntled reporter
want to use video of (because of course Lance taped it without Gwen
or Nellie's knowledge; he was that kind of sicko) to tarnish Arthur
through Gwen. I suspected from her name that Nellie might be one of
the Arthurian Elaines, and I figure an illicit, regretted three-way
kind of fits in with the fucked up sexual misadventures Elaine of
Corbenic and Lancelot have in the legend where Elaine pretends to be
Guinevere in order to sleep with him and satisfy his erotic fantasies
at the same time. I suppose we're lucky Nellie doesn't have a kid
whose name starts with a G that resulted from that three-way, though
admittedly that would have been the icing on the cake.<br />
<br />
Lancelot and Morgan le Fay are mentioned but they both died in the
last book so of course they don't appear. Poor Mordred doesn't even
warrant a mention. I can't figure out if Chief of Staff Ron Cordoba
corresponds to anyone in the legend but maybe that will be revealed
in <i>Fall of Knight </i>and it will all make sense. Or maybe he
really is just a random modern guy who stumbled into this
supernatural world of knights and demons and gods and is meant to be
the audience surrogate and nothing more.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall: </b>
<br />
3.5 stars rounded up to 4.<br />
I was entertained, but this also dredged up a lot of memories from
the immediate post-9/11 era and made me sad to see where we are now
politically—bitterly divided and still arguing about whether anyone
other than straight white men have human rights. If only a
resurrected King Arthur had been mayor of New York instead of Rudy
Giuliani and then got elected president as an Independent. A lot
would have been different, that's for sure. Though then he would have
stepped down because of a deal with a backstabbing basilisk and gone
to fight the hero from the world's first epic poem in order to obtain
a magical cup that cures everything including death...so there's
that.samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-64078333070248361812018-05-06T20:00:00.000-05:002018-05-06T20:06:11.151-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: Knights of the Round Table: Lancelot<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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<img alt="Lancelot (Knights Of The Round Table, #1)" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1174141757l/365197.jpg" /></div>
</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Knights of the Round Table: Lancelot</u></strong> <b></b><b>Author:</b> Gwen Rowley<br />
<b></b><b>Publisher:</b> Berkley (Kindle edition)<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>362<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(courtesy of Amazon) <b 14px="" font-family:="" font-size:="" georgia="" merriweather="" serif="">Strong and powerful warriors of nobility and honor, the Knights of the Round Table fought for kings, rescued damsels, and undertook dangerous quests. But true love may be the most perilous quest of all…</b><br />
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: merriweather, georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" />
<color: 14px="" font-family:="" font-size:="" georgia="" merriweather="" quot="" serif="">Sir Lancelot, First Knight of King Arthur’s realm and the Queen’s champion, cannot be defeated by any earthly man—as long as he keeps his oaths to Arthur and Guinevere. Though arrogant and supremely confident, he will be brought to his knees by a mere maiden: Elaine of Corbenic. Together, they will have a son, Galahad—the knight destined to find the Holy Grail.<br />
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: merriweather, georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" />
<color: 14px="" font-family:="" font-size:="" georgia="" merriweather="" quot="" serif="">Lancelot du Lac is the greatest knight of a peerless age, blessed by the Lady of the Lake with extraordinary military prowess. His fighting ability has earned him a place at King Arthur's side, but the powers the Lady has given him come with a terrible price.<br />
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: merriweather, georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" />
<color: 14px="" font-family:="" font-size:="" georgia="" merriweather="" quot="" serif="">Elaine of Corbenic is struggling to hold her impoverished family together. The keep is a wreck and the peasants, starving, are on the brink of rebellion. Elaine's father is obsessed with finding the Holy Grail, and her older brother, maimed by Lancelot in a joust, is a bitter drunkard. Without a dowry, she has little hope for the future.
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: merriweather, georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" />
<color: 14px="" font-family:="" font-size:="" georgia="" merriweather="" quot="" serif="">Incognito, Lancelot rides into Corbenic on his way to the king's tournament. He finds the practical Elaine irresistible. Thoroughly dismayed when she reveals her contempt for "Lancelot," he must face his own arrogance to win her hand. For only with Elaine at his side will Lancelot have the strength to free himself from the enchantments that bind him…</color:></color:></color:></color:></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #181818;">I swore I would never read
this book. I liked Rowley’s </span><i style="color: #181818;">Gawain</i><span style="color: #181818;"> a
lot, sure, but her Lancelot was such an ass that I didn’t think I’d ever want
to read about him in this universe. But it was always niggling at the back of
my mind, wondering whether Rowley actually redeemed Lancelot, since some of his
douchiness appeared to be not his fault. Thus when I found this book for $2.99
as an ebook and I had some time, I gave in. It should be noted that when I was reading the second half of this book I had a severe concussion; whether or not that impacted my impressions I don't know for absolute certainty but I don't think it did.</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #181818;">Spoilers, etc…</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>The Twist: </b>Elaine
of Corbenic is Lancelot’s true love, not Guinevere!<o:p></o:p></div>
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The biggest twist that stems from this, and I don’t think
I’ve seen this done in any other retelling, is that Lancelot and Guinevere are
half-siblings, and that explains why they’re so close, why they’re so
compatible, and why they appear to have a secret aspect to their relationship.
Yes, you read that right. Lancelot is King Ban of Benwick’s legitimate son by
his queen, stolen by the Lady of the Lake after Ban’s death to be raised in
Avalon. Guinevere is Ban’s illegitimate daughter by Leodegrance’s wife. So
there is no sexual aspect to Lance and Gwen’s relationship in this story, but their
odd closeness that is noted by others is explained by them being secretly
brother and sister.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no tricking of Lancelot by Elaine. All of their
relations are 100% consensual. The Elaine-disguising-herself-as-Guinevere thing
is a rumor that starts once Elaine turns up at Camelot with Galahad. It’s
implied the rumor was perpetuated, if not begun, by Morgause in order to cause
problems between Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Elaine and thus weaken
Camelot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Plot:</b> <b> </b>Lancelot
du Lac is miserable. He’s caught between his oaths to obey both Arthur and
Guinevere—they’ve ordered him to do contradictory things, and part of his deal
as Avalon’s representative in Camelot is that he can’t break an oath or the
Lady of the Lake will forswear him. So he runs away, determined to return
incognito to fight in the tournament Arthur had forbidden to him and Guinevere
demanded he compete in: this way he is technically obeying both of them. But he
knows that he can’t escape the noose being drawn around his neck as Arthur and
Guinevere are increasingly at odds—over the nature of Lance and Gwen’s
relationship. There is no way for Lancelot to extricate himself from the
situation without compromising himself that he can see, when all he wants is to
be Arthur’s loyal knight and Guinevere’s bestie without either of them being
mad at him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He accidentally stumbles into Corbenic and meets
practical Lady Elaine. The pair are immediately smitten (r/e:instaLove, urgh)
and embark on a flirtation, complicated by the fact that at first she doesn’t
know it’s Lancelot, and isn’t exactly a Lancelot fangirl after one of his more
spectacularly callous moments several years previous when he crippled her older
brother in a tournament. Rowley dodges the cliché “you lied to me!” plot by having
Elaine figure out who he really is fairly quickly, but by the time she does
they’ve spent enough time together that she realizes he’s grown up somewhat
from the oblivious ass who accidentally ruined her family. Or she’s too head
over heels to care. Rowley wants us to think it’s the former; I’m inclined
towards the latter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All of Lancelot’s efforts to dodge compromising his oaths
appear to have been in vain. The Lady of the Lake has withdrawn her favor and
Lancelot is grievously injured in the tournament (previously he had been
magically invulnerable). He manages to get himself back to Corbenic where he is
tended by Elaine and her lady-in-waiting Brisen, who had been one of Morgana (le
Fay)’s apprentices. He recovers, and, deciding he’s been rejected by both
Arthur and the Lady, asks Elaine to marry him and they plan to settle down at
his home at Joyous Guard. However, both Arthur and the Lady’s favor is restored
to him because Arthur has decided he needs to campaign against Emperor Lucius
and wants his best fighter back, so Lancelot rides off to battle leaving Elaine
unwed but pregnant with Galahad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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More than a year later, Lancelot has still not returned
to Corbenic. When Elaine hears he is finally back at Camelot, and troubled by
the rumor that he has resumed his illicit relationship with Guinevere rather
than return to her, she sets out with baby Galahad in tow to confront him. In
the process she inadvertently tips the fragile balance between Arthur,
Guinevere, and Lancelot, and Lancelot once again finds himself trapped by his
separate oaths to king and queen. This time, as in Malory, he goes mad and runs
away to live in the forest as a wild man (this seems to happen with interesting
frequency to Arthur’s knights when they’re stuck in a moral conundrum).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Elaine returns to Corbenic to wait for Lancelot’s return.
She is tricked by Morgause into being trapped in a perpetually-burning tower,
saved Sleeping Beauty-style by Brisen to be imprisoned there in deathless sleep
until the greatest knight ever comes to get her out. Of course that’s Lancelot.
(We firmly establish it’s not Gawain, though Rowley makes it clear Gawain is
the better man.) After yet another year Lancelot does turn up, regains his
senses, and goes to rescue Elaine. They somehow wind up in Avalon where
Lancelot has to fight the Green Knight. The Lady of the Lake rejects meddling
in the World of Men, at least for the time being, and Lancelot and Elaine
return to the mortal world where they marry and set up house at Joyous Guard.
Arthur meanwhile has finally discovered the truth about Guinevere’s origins and
the pair of them have made up, so Lancelot is free to serve them if called but
he will always be able to come home to Elaine and Galahad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The concept of the Holy Grail is bandied around, especially
by Elaine’s somewhat-senile father Pelleas, but there is no actual quest for a
physical cup.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Characters:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Lancelot: It’s hard to get a bead on his character
because he behaves completely differently when he’s around Elaine than he does
anywhere else. He’s not as much of an outright jerk as he is in <i>Gawain</i>, but he’s just sort of oblivious
to the way his actions affect others. He feels bad when he realizes he has hurt
other people, but he seems utterly baffled about how to prevent it and has a
tendency to try to avoid his problems as much as possible and hope they’ll just
go away. Thus his running away when Arthur and Gwen give him contradictory
orders. When Elaine is around he is kind and protective, and solicitous even of
others. Her influence seems to fade the further away he gets from her, since he
has every intention of abandoning her “for her own good” after he goes off to
war (not knowing he left her pregnant). He spends a lot of mental time
handwringing and acting as if he’s caught up in forces beyond his control, when
really he still does have choices on how to respond to the things that happen
to him. Which I guess is an improvement over the usual “fight everything in
sight and then come home and pant after Guinevere” Lancelot of the original
stories, but it does make him hard to like.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Elaine of Corbenic: Elaine too is hard to get a bead on
because her character also changes when Lancelot’s around. Usually she is
practical and levelheaded, and seems to take disasters in stride. She is always
thinking ahead, and always planning to make the best of things—except where
Lancelot is concerned. She seems the type to protest bedding before wedding, at
least on principle, but nary a peep do we hear about her reputation or the
possibility of a child. Both times Lancelot runs out on her she decides to
passively wait him out and see if he returns. She never gets angry with him for
abandoning her with a bastard child. Again, I suppose this is an improvement
over the conniving Elaine of Corbenic who schemes to rape Lancelot (twice!)
knowing full well he’s in love with another woman; Elaine here is certainly
likeable and seems to do a good job as Lancelot’s anchor. She is just slightly
too passive for my taste, especially compared to the fiery Aislynn from <i>Gawain.</i></div>
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Arthur: Everyone adores him; we don’t get to see as much
of his flawed side as we did in <i>Gawain</i>
as he is justifiably suspicious of the amount of time Lancelot and Guinevere
are spending together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Guinevere: While not as annoying as she is in Rowley’s <i>Gawain</i>, she is still pretty selfish for
most of the book. She doesn’t notice the strain her demands for attention and
obedience put on Lancelot; she’s just so desperately lonely that she doesn’t
seem to care when a deeply frustrated Lancelot tries to point out the damage
their closeness is doing to both of their reputations and to their
relationships with Arthur. She’s afraid if Arthur finds out she’s illegitimate
he will have even more ammunition to put her aside for someone else, since
she’s already having trouble conceiving. With the eventual loss of Lancelot as
her confidant she finally does turn to Arthur and they reconcile. Arthur still
refuses to put her aside even after forcing Leodegrance to tell him the truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Brisen (Dame Brusen): Here Elaine’s lady-in-waiting, she
was also one of Morgana’s favorite apprentices but abandoned it to serve the
Corbenic family. Obviously she doesn’t help Elaine trick Lancelot into sleeping
with her; she mostly serves as a sounding board for Elaine and as a healer when
any of the characters need medical assistance, and she saves Elaine when
Morgause tries to kill her. She also has a crush on Elaine’s crippled brother
that remains unrequited for awhile even though all the other characters are
aware of it and like to needle them both.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Gawain: Good old honorable, dependable Gawain. Lancelot
is constantly jealous and has the sneaking suspicion that without the Lady’s
invincibility protection, Gawain would be the better knight in addition to just
being overall a better man. So just seeing Gawain or hearing him mentioned
makes Lancelot jumpy and irritable. As it should. We get hints that Gawain
isn’t as perfect as Lancelot believes, which is fine, a too-perfect Gawain
would also be annoying, but he does serve here as an excellent foil to Lancelot
in just about every way. It’s mentioned he and the Green Knight had their
run-in before this story begins; for a little while I was afraid we were going
to give the Green Knight story to Lancelot instead, which would have upset me
greatly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Green Knight: The Lady of the Lake’s consort. While
he was Lancelot’s instructor in the fighting arts, he also appears to have been
less than pleased with the Lady’s attempt to raise Lancelot as a “pet” human.
Thus he frequently appears in order to taunt Lancelot and eventually fight him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Lady of the Lake: Ruler of the faeries and Lancelot’s
foster-mother. Her reasons for taking Lancelot as a child are somewhat
ambiguous, as she seemed to want to give Arthur a part-magical champion but
also just wanted to experiment with raising a mortal child. Elaine tries to
convince Lancelot that what the Lady did to him was actually wrong and cruel,
since Lancelot’s mortal mother was still alive and perfectly capable of raising
him. Lancelot is still determined to fulfill what the Lady told him was his
destiny: serving Arthur as Avalon’s representative, even though he himself is
somewhat dubious about the Lady’s intentions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Galahad: The son born to Elaine while Lancelot is off at
war. Galahad is the name Lancelot used when trying to travel incognito when he
and Elaine first meet; it’s implied it was the original name his parents gave him
before the Lady of the Lake stole him and (I guess) rechristened him Lancelot
du Lac. Elaine named their son in honor of this and to make sure Lancelot knows
the child is his. Galahad is golden-haired and cherubic and takes after Elaine
much more than dark-haired Lancelot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Agrivaine: One of Gawain’s brothers. There is a small
take-off on Agrivaine “catching” Lance and Gwen together as proof of their
affair, though it does not lead to anyone’s death fortunately.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Morgause: Randomly turns up to cause trouble for everyone
whenever a push towards chaos is needed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lancelot’s cousins Lionel and Bors make cameo
appearances, as does Elaine’s father Pelleas. Morgana is mentioned frequently
but never actually appears, same with Leodegrance. Leodegrance is the cause of
a lot of Guinevere’s unhappiness, as he sought to undermine her marriage to
Arthur by destroying her confidence that Arthur could like her for who she is
as revenge for Guinevere’s mother abandoning him to have an affair with Ban.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Overall</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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3.5 stars graded down to 3. Rowley does some creative things
with the legend but I still couldn’t get into the characters.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />samoaphoenixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242792352139325665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-42418851527484014562017-05-15T23:07:00.000-05:002017-05-15T23:07:02.052-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: Endings (King Arthur and Her Knights, Part III)<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</div>
</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: </strong>Endings<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> K.M. Shea<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Take Out the Trash<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from Goodreads) The thrilling conclusion to the
King Arthurs and Her Knights series!<br />
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Britt has finally settled into her life as King Arthur. Her knights know who
she really is, her lands are peaceful, and she has friends and family who she
loves. But all of this is threatened when Rome, led by Emperor Lucius, invades.<br />
<br />
In order to repel the Romans and ascertain Camelot's survival, Britt must
achieve Merlin's greatest dream: to unite all of Britain. <span style="color: #181818;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>The Twist: </b>See
my <a href="https://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2015/08/samoaphoenix-guest-review-king-arthur.html">earlier review of the first five books in this series</a>. A young woman is
pulled back from the 21<sup>st</sup> century to take the place of a vanished
King Arthur and begins to build a unique, and ultimately legendary, kingdom.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Spoilers, etc…</span></b><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<b>The Plot: </b> This book covers a lot of ground. Maleagant
returns as predicted and kidnaps Britt, mistaking her for Guinevere (yeah, this
dude’s really not that bright). Most of Britt's closest circle (and Lancelot,
despite his unfortunate part in the debacle that occurred the last time Britt
was kidnapped) set out to search for her. In the ensuing quest, we also get:
the conclusion of Ywain and Laudine's love story, the Holy Grail, Pelleas and
Ettard, a short humorous jaunt into Tristan and Isuelt, and the Loathly lady
(which I had been hoping Shea would do a spin on), before coming to the main
conflict of the story, which is Emperor Lucius' invasion. This serves as the
final battle for King Arthur, and encompasses both Vivien and Lancelot's
respective betrayals. Britt is indeed wounded fatally at the end, though it's
Vivien who deals the blow, not Mordred. All of the magic users combine their
power to send Britt back to her own time, which Nymue had figured out was
possible but had been waiting for Britt to ask to go home. Modern medicine
saves Britt, but she is devastated at the loss of all of her friends at Camelot
even though it means she gets to see her 21<sup>st</sup> century friends and
family again. Trying desperately to
settle back into life as an innocuous young woman instead of a medieval king,
she goes to a job interview only to find most of the Round Table has found a
way to follow her into the future—they sealed themselves in a cave, similar to
Merlin’s end in legend—and are now ready for her to be their leader once again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It's time to unite not just All of Britain, but the
world. I for one bow to our new immortal Arthurian corporate overlords. (yep,
they’re all immortal like Britt. Can’t see that causing confusion after they’ve
benevolently taken over the world for its own good.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Characters:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Britannica Arthurs/King Arthur/Galahad: I’ve long suspected that the solution to
“Arthur’s” death would be to send Britt back to the future, as it were. My
guess was that Merlin and the other magic workers would put her into some kind
of magical stasis, since she’s already functionally immortal and the story goes
that Arthur lies sleeping in Avalon to be awakened when he’s most needed, but
in this I was incorrect. They just pop her back to the moment she left so that
modern medicine can save her from her fatal wound. Britt then rattles around
Europe for months as a medieval sword instructor, trying to get past how much
she misses everyone from Camelot before deciding that they would want her to
live her life to the fullest. To that end she starts applying to nonprofits,
figuring she might as well work for a cause she believes in. She gets a job
interview with a company she’s never heard of, walks into a boardroom, and
finds it filled with most of her closest circle from the Round Table, all in
modern clothes. They make her CEO of the company they’d formed, Avalon, and
prepare to get started changing the world for the better. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Merlin: Finally gets his head out of his ass and admits
to Britt how deeply he loves her, and what a terrible wrong he did by bringing
her out of her own time. He and Britt rediscover their old easy closeness. Of
course he comes forward in time with everyone to find Britt in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, where they will presumably pick up a real romance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lancelot: Ah, this dude. Still his obnoxious prat self,
and I like how Shea cleverly managed to make Britt’s death the fault of his
betrayal, but it has nothing to do with Guinevere. He finally works up the
courage to have it out with Britt about why she doesn’t like him. She rips into
him, accurately accusing him of only doing great deeds for his own glory, not
selflessly as her other knights do. Lancelot, his fragile ego hurt and
unwilling to admit that he knows she’s right, in a fit of anger tells Vivien
about the power of Excalibur’s scabbard to prevent its bearer from getting
wounded. Thus Britt not having the scabbard’s protection when Vivien attacks
her is entirely his fault, and he willingly takes the blame. This moment is
really his turning point, where he sees what his selfish, prideful actions have
cost. So he makes the decision to come forward in time with the rest of the
Round Table and serve Britt again instead of staying in the past when he was
most famous. Britt is touchingly glad to see him at her reunion with her
companions. He turns out to have been her earliest riding instructor when she
was young.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mordred: This was
one of Shea's best twists to date. Turns
out he's the brother of one of Ireland's most powerful kings, sent in secret to
scope out Camelot to see if it was worth joining. Mordred found Britt exactly
as great as advertised, became one of her biggest supporters, and convinced his
brother to join the alliance when it mattered most. When Britt is sent back to
the 21<sup>st</sup> century, he chooses to stay behind and rule Camelot in her
place (leading to the legend that he had usurped “King Arthur”). Britt accepting his loss is one of the most
bittersweet moments in the series because he was awesome from beginning to end
and she held him equal to Gawain in her heart. What a welcome departure from
the majority of other Mordred portrayals, where even when his intentions are good
he ends up stuck with the Grand Destiny Of Being the Betrayer. I loved that
Mordred ended up being one of the most loyal of all, and the one that chose to
sacrifice going to the future with the others and the chance to see Britt again
in order to continue her dream in the England she left behind. I was so hoping
Shea would go in this direction for him, given that from the start except for
being evasive about his origins he had every appearance of goodwill.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ywain: He of
course has the expected problem with staying away from Laudine too long. She
throws him out, and Britt and the others have to pep talk the overdramatic
young man into returning and really listening to Laudine this time. He does
eventually acquire a lioness, though the details on that are vague. He stays
behind with Laudine and to support King Mordred instead of going to the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Gawain: Still the same old loyal sweet Gawain, though a
bit oblivious about women despite being the Maiden’s Knight. Of course he comes
to the future with the rest of the Round Table.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ragnelle: In this version, she’s one of Nymue’s
handmaidens and has a small amount of her own magic. She is sent to retrieve a
magical necklace for her mistress as part of the Pelleas/Ettard plot and
develops a crush on Gawain. She tries to trick Gawain into marrying her, but is
thwarted by Britt actually figuring out the answer to her traditional riddle.
Britt then advises her to try developing a relationship with the oblivious
Gawain normally by spending time with him. She is part of the group that comes
to the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Vivien: In the end it isn’t her black magic that makes
her dangerous, it’s sheer malice and desperation. Turns out she’s a spy for the
Romans. She tries to steal Excalibur thanks to Lancelot cluing her in to how
valuable it is but ends up with just the sheath, which she destroys after
managing to evade Merlin’s wrath. She’s the one who shoots Britt in the back
with a crossbow after Britt kills Lucius and wins the day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Kay: The world’s most supportive and protective older
brother. He and Morgan are a developing item by the time this book rolls
around, which is an unexpected but refreshing pairing. He of course comes to
the future to find Britt. Turns out he was her first sword instructor when she
was young, and the first person to tell her the tales of King Arthur.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Pelleas: A knight in love with Lady Ettard, a minor
landholder. He finds a necklace that actually belongs to Nymue and gives it to
his love, not knowing it’s a magic necklace that will make every unattached man
fall for her and anyone already in love with her obsessive. So of course when
Britt & Co. try to help him win Ettard, he gets insanely jealous when the
others also start showing signs of attraction (except for Britt, who is not
into girls as we’ve already established thanks to Vivien, Merlin, who is in
love with Britt, and Lancelot, who loves no one but himself).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ettard: I’m not sure what to make of her character. She
seems embarrassed by all the attention the enchanted necklace brings, yet at
the same time she wears it constantly because she’s afraid she’ll lose Pelleas’
regard if she takes it off. Yet she also seems to find Pelleas fawning over her
kind of annoying and is constantly throwing him out. This is an Arthurian
legend that doesn’t make much sense, and Shea’s attempts to bring some kind of
logic to it are admirable but it seems like it’s a story that doesn’t want to
make sense. Love makes fools of us all, right?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Maleagant: His kidnapping of Britt, who in fairness
happened to be dressed as a woman at the time, ends up being fortuitous because
it turns into an alliance with his much more reasonable father, King
Bagdemagus. I enjoyed Britt needling Maleagant immensely.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Nymue and Morgan: Show up to help with the wounded for
the final battle. They combine their powers with Merlin to send Britt back to
her own time. Morgan joins the group who comes to the future with Britt. Nymue,
already immortal, comes through the flow of time naturally.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Guinevere: She and Britt have become good friends, and
Guinevere is a willing colluder in the plan to keep everyone outside of the
Round Table from realizing that Britt is a woman by posing as ‘Arthur’s’
closest lady friend so that other women don’t try too hard to win ‘him’ for
themselves. Somehow in the thousand years of history things got twisted so that
Arthur and Guinevere were married. Guinevere in fact ends up falling in love
with and marrying Mordred after Britt gets sent back to her own time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tor, Bors, Ector, Lanval, Ulfius, Agravain, Gaheris,
Gareth, Bodwain, Blaise, and all of the kings like Lot, Pellinore, and Ban who
served under Britt in the battle against Lucius remain behind in the past. We
don’t hear what happened to Morgause—presumably she also stayed with her
husband and remaining three sons. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Percival, Bedivere, Lionel, Griflet and Griflet’s love
interest Blanchefleur are part of the group that comes to the future. They also
bring Cavall, Britt’s mastiff.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Overall</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I have enjoyed this series immensely. It rarely went in
any direction I expected (my only successful predictions were sending Britt
back to the future after the final battle and Mordred turning out to be a good
guy), but it did stay true to the adventurous and hopeful spirit of the
original legends. It has often been a puzzle to me how, if Arthur really was
such a good king, everything fell to pieces so quickly in the end and Camelot
faded into legend, in some retellings in less than a generation. Here, Mordred
continues the legacy in medieval England, and Britt and her new Round Table can
continue it in the future. The characters were super fun and a joy to follow
around, even when wanting to punch Lancelot. I always looked forward to the
next installment. The image of Mordred talking Lancelot into wearing a dress
alone is worth the price of admission for me, and that bit in fact showcases
how well Shea knows these characters—Mordred’s gift for reading people and his
silver tongue, and Lancelot getting talked into doing outrageous stuff thanks
to his massive ego.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I think I could to have done without the whole ‘they’re
all immortal’ thing, because living forever comes with its own basket of
problems that other sci fi and fantasy authors have explored in great detail. Whenever
an author uses this trope as a conclusion to a story, it makes me
uncomfortable, imagining all the future scenarios where things could go
horribly wrong despite current good intentions. I think I’d have preferred if
both Britt and her knights just slipped into the timestream and aged normally
once they were out of the cave and (in Britt’s case) in her correct time. But
that’s really my only major gripe about the series conclusion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Five stars for this book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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Four overall for the series.<o:p></o:p></div>
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-78224118368498324512016-03-02T22:53:00.000-06:002016-03-02T22:53:31.778-06:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: Endeavor (King Arthur and Her Knights, Part II)<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Endeavor</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> K.M. Shea<b> </b><br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Take Out the Trash<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>112<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from goodreads) Only a few weeks have passed since Britt—or, as most know her, King Arthur—was outed as a girl. Britt’s relationship with her knights is strained and precarious, Lancelot is mucking up everything from tournaments to questing, and Merlin starts to act strangely when a beautiful girl named Lady Vivien comes to Camelot.<br />
<br />
Can Britt reclaim her knights’ loyalty? Will Merlin finally realize how much Britt means to him?<br />
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #181818;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="color: #181818;">Spoilers, etc…</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="color: #181818;"></span></b></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Twist</b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
See
my <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2015/08/samoaphoenix-guest-review-king-arthur.html">earlier review</a> of the first five books in this series. Basically a young
woman is pulled back from the 21<sup>st</sup> century to take the place of a
vanished King Arthur and begins to build a unique, and ultimately legendary,
kingdom.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Plot</b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Britt’s
Round Table is growing up. They’re spending more and more time away from
Camelot on quests, and Britt is having some difficulty adjusting to their
prolonged absences. Especially since
pesky Lancelot insists on hanging around and Britt’s relationship with Merlin
is still strained since he learned she has feelings for him. On the (maybe?)
upside, the newest knight in Camelot, Sir Mordred, is making himself useful in
whatever ways he can manage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When word comes of a strange stone that can conjure
storms and a knight who guards it, Ywain slips off alone to tackle the
adventure himself. Britt and Merlin are distracted from pursuing him by the
arrival of a new lady at court, Lady Vivien. Her intentions are clearly
sinister and she has some command of black magic, and Merlin continues to
distance himself from Britt as he investigates. Britt and Mordred, at Merlin’s
insistence to get her out of Vivien’s way, set off on a quest for a mysterious
shield with Britt taking the alias of “Galahad,” and after she defeats the
strange knight who guards it they take the shield (which, incidentally, they
agree is a really crappy shield and they’re not sure why it’s so important to
anyone).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Eventually word comes that Ywain has been captured by the
knight who guards the storm stone, so Britt and a company of knights set off to
rescue him. They discover when they arrive that Ywain has killed the stone’s
guardian, married his wife, and has become the new guardian. Britt isn’t sure
how she feels about this—she’s used to thinking of her knights as untried boys,
but now she has to adjust to the idea that they’re mature enough to marry,
settle down, and rule their own lands and they won’t be by her side the
majority of the time. Complicating matters further, Merlin decides that the
best course of action to thwart Vivien—who is more powerful than he
anticipated—is to pretend to be in love with her himself so she thinks she has
power over him. He wakes Britt up at dawn with the intention of saying goodbye
to her before he has to pretend to be in Vivien’s thrall, but ends up revealing
more of his own deep feelings than perhaps he wanted and leaves Britt in utter
confusion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Characters</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Britt Arthurs/King Arthur/Galahad: Still on tentative
ground with most of her knights since the reveal of her true gender, though she
is slowly winning back their trust. This book reveals exactly how awful her
future life is destined to be: Merlin has realized that by pulling her back in
time in the manner that he did, he’s essentially made her immortal. She won’t
age, the passage of time will have less meaning for her, and she won’t die (I
guess unless outright killed—that part still constitutes a potential unexploited
loophole). For someone as dependent for emotional support on relationships as
Britt is, this is as close to hell as you could probably get, since she will be
doomed to watch people she adores grow old and die for eternity. Luckily or
unluckily, Merlin hasn’t gotten around to telling her yet. She still has a (she
believes) unrequited crush on Merlin, but it doesn’t blind her to his faults.
She and Lancelot are being much more open about their distaste for each other,
while she and Guinevere are finding a surprising rapport. Britt still finds
Guinevere annoying, but seems to be growing fond of her nonetheless. She is
also surprised how much she is coming to like Mordred, since in her vague
memory of Arthurian legend he was involved somehow in Arthur’s downfall. She’s
apparently taking on the additional persona of Galahad as an alter ego, so
presumably in the future when she goes out questing it will be as Galahad and
not as King Arthur.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Merlin: He really can be dense. In the pursuit of
protecting Britt he’s doing a great job alienating her instead, trying to keep
secrets instead of sharing his worries about Vivien. Merlin and Britt are cute
as a couple, but since Merlin can only seem to manage to get his head out of
his ass every once in awhile it’s going to be a long haul. I really hope he
gives up this notion of pretending to be madly in love with Vivien before she
poisons him. Or traps him in a tree or a crystal cave. Or Britt just chops off
his head with Excalibur out of sheer frustration.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Lancelot: Man I want to slap this guy, which I assume was
Shea’s intent in writing him this way. He’s annoyingly perfect and pretty
openly scheming to use any weakness he finds in Britt for his own gain. I don’t
think he wants to replace her as king, he just seems to want as much positive
attention from others as he can garner, and Britt’s open dislike is an obstacle
to other peoples’ unadulterated admiration. He’s also disturbingly perceptive,
accurately deducing that the current problems between Britt and Merlin have their
origin in Merlin’s rejection of Britt’s romantic feelings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Mordred: I still can’t figure this guy out or what Shea’s
ultimate plans for him are. He seems to be going out of his way to be
supportive when Britt needs it, especially as she starts to realize that all of
her closest friends and confidantes are going to be pulling away from her in
the near future due to other obligations. Yet he openly admits he won’t say
anything about his family or his past, other than vague hints that he’s done a
lot of traveling. He does have the traditional Mordred gift of always saying
exactly the right thing at the right time. I really want him to actually turn
out to be the trustworthy guy he currently appears to be (since in the earliest
legends about him he wasn’t Arthur’s betraying bastard son and it would be a
cool twist to have <i>Mordred</i>, of all people, as an unequivocal good guy),
but there’s enough mystery still surrounding him that I won’t pin any hopes on
it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Ywain: Feeling that Britt is holding him back, Ywain slips
out alone when he hears about an adventure. The early part of the Knight of the
Lion story begins here, though we mostly find out about his conquest of
Esclados (who isn’t named in this version) and his marriage to Laudine in
hindsight. There is some potential trouble if he is called away in the future
and isn’t around to defend the storm stone—possibly a subplot of a future book
if Shea plans on continuing with the Knight of the Lion storyline of Ywain
betraying Laudine's trust to return if he leaves.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Guinevere: She’s not exactly a deep thinker, but she’s
sweet and her heart is in the right place (except for her bizarre crush on
Lancelot). While Britt finds her silly, she also feels somewhat protective of
Guinevere and defends her when Vivien tries to bully her.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Vivien: A mysterious lady who comes to court and
immediately sets Merlin on edge. Though the daughter of a lord, she has
somewhere picked up a knowledge of dark magic and Merlin determines that she
has set her sights on forcing King Arthur to marry her. Her spell isn’t working
because she doesn’t know “Arthur” is actually female, but that apparently won’t
hold her off forever and she is vicious enough to try to murder Guinevere in
front of both King Arthur and Merlin. So Merlin decides the best way to protect
Britt is to let Vivien think she has him under her control. We’ll see how badly
this backfires (since the appearance of Viviane in legend usually=doom for
Merlin).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Laudine: She doesn’t get much time onscreen so it’s hard
to get a read on her. Her worries about Ywain’s loyalty being to Arthur first
and her second aren’t unfounded, because, hello, Ywain has served Britt for two
years and he’s known Laudine for less than a week. Of course he’s going to feel
more loyalty to Britt/Arthur until he’s spent more time with his wife. I’m
surprised nobody makes that point when Britt frets about Laudine asking her
never to call Ywain to Camelot, a request that affronts Britt because she
doesn’t want to lose Ywain as a close friend. Laudine doesn’t feel secure with
her new husband yet, and understandably so, especially since there’s so much at
stake with someone from their castle needing to protect the storm stone and she
married the dude who killed her first husband a few days ago. She's not exactly
in a stable situation here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Blaise: Briefly shows up at the chapel where the weird
shield that Britt quests for is being kept. He advises Britt that Merlin is
terrible with figuring out how to deal with feelings and to be patient with
him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Percival: King Pellinore's eldest son and a new knight to
Camelot. He seems relatively level-headed, especially when compared to Lancelot
and his crowd.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The Orkney brothers, Morgan le Fay, Pellinore, Lot,
Calogrenant, Esclados, Nymue, Ector, Kay, Bors, Lionel, Tor and a few others
I'm probably forgetting are mentioned or make cameo apperances.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Overall</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This is a solid entry to the series, though my favorite
is still <i>Enlighten. </i>I am enjoying seeing the evolving relationship
between Britt and her knights, and the problems that are coming up now that
Britt's reign is largely established.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Four stars.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 16.8667px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No release date or title on the next book in the series, but when it comes out I will of course make an attempt to read it. </span></span>Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-55979437576868837582015-08-05T12:51:00.001-05:002015-08-05T12:51:29.112-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review: King Arthur and Her Knights, Part I<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><b>Title: </b><u>King Arthur and Her Knights Series (Enthroned, Enchanted, Embittered, Embark, and Enlighten)</u><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> K.M. Shea<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Take Out the Trash<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>~600 for all five<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from Goodreads) After posing with a rusty sword for a photo in a British graveyard, Britt Arthurs is pulled through time all the way back to the age of King Arthur where the shockingly young and handsome Merlin is waiting for her. The wizard has some bad news: the real Arthur has run off with a shepherdess, and whoever pulls the sword from the stone is to become the King of England. Unfortunately for Britt, the sword slides out like butter when she pulls it after fighting with Merlin. Long Live King Arthurs!</td></tr>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<b>King Arthur and Her Knights Series<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>--Enthroned<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>--Enchanted<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>--Embittered<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>--Embark<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>--Enlighten</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There are five fairly short ebook-only novellas in this
series already and more planned. Due to their length, I will review the first
five all together. The next book, <i>Endeavor</i>, will be released in late
2015 so I will try to review it in a timely manner. When it comes time to
discuss plots and characters, I will do the plots of each book, the characters
that appear in more than one book (most of the important ones do), and then
characters that are unique to one book.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Spoilers, etc…<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b></b></div>
<a name='more'></a><b>The Twist</b><o:p></o:p><br />
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<br /></div>
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This series retells Arthurian legends with the premise
that ‘Arthur Pendragon’ is in fact a twenty-first century woman named Britt
Arthurs, brought out of the future to fill Arthur’s place when the real one
runs away with a shepherdess instead of becoming King of All England.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s just as complicated to pull this off as you might
imagine. Story tells me there are several retellings that exist which pull
modern people back to Arthurian times (I admit I’ve only read part of the one I
know about, Twain’s <i>A Connecticut Yankee
in King Arthur’s Court</i>), but no other that she knows of that has a female
time traveler taking the place of Arthur himself. I imagine most of the time
traveling storylines are self-inserts, written by people who wish they
themselves could visit Arthurian Britain for whatever reason. This is
definitely not wish fulfillment, or if it is then K.M. Shea is an interesting
brand of masochist. This feels more like a ‘what if’ scenario that nagged an
author until she had to write about it. The situation Britt finds herself in is
anything but enviable as she is faced with stepping into the shoes of a literal
legend and in the process must give up everything she knew and held dear,
including her own identity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Plot(s)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<u>Enthroned:</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Britt Arthurs is an American tourist in twenty-first
century England, on vacation with some friends to view historic sites. When
Britt touches a rusty old sword stuck in a stone, however, she is transported
magically back to Arthurian Britain. There she is met by Merlin, Ector and Kay,
who inform her the real Arthur has run away so Merlin cast a new spell on the
Sword in the Stone. The next person who touched it who could pull it out (i.e.
is destined to be King) would be brought back from whatever century that
happened to be. They are dismayed to discover the candidate is a woman but
quickly decide her femininity can be hidden by binding her chest, disguising
her female figure with armor, and giving it out that ‘Arthur’ has fay blood
which explains why ‘he’ is so delicately pretty (for a man). Britt at first
thinks the whole thing is a dream or a prank and reluctantly plays along as she
is hustled around fulfilling the role of ‘Arthur’ in Merlin’s grand plan to
unite all of Britain. Eventually she accepts that it’s all real, but by the
time she does she has gone through all of the various trials of pulling the
sword from the stone and is about to be crowned King. In the meantime she has
won over the hearts of the common people and quite a few knights.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Merlin takes her to get a new sword from the Lady of the
Lake, and Britt demonstrates her unique brand of people skills as she demands
Excalibur from one of the most powerful magical entities in Britain while
somehow managing to keep Nymue from getting mad enough to kill her. Then she
must face her first battle as King, as Lot has formed an alliance with several
other kings to challenge ‘Arthur’s’ right to the throne. Britt wins the battle
and has survived her first test in her path to becoming the legendary King
Arthur<b>.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<u>Enchanted</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Britt is just starting to sort-of settle into her role as
King of All England when she gets a warning from Nymue that Lot’s wife Morgause
and their four sons are on their way for a visit. Morgause arrives and promptly
puts a spell on every man who is not 100% devoted to ‘Arthur’ so their devotion
belongs to her instead. Britt flounders as she struggles to figure out a way to
break the spell, a feat even Merlin can’t figure out. She also recognizes she
needs to make allies of Morgause’s sons, particularly the eldest, Gawain, who
she knows is destined to become one of King Arthur’s greatest knights. Britt
eventually figures out with Nymue’s help how to break Morgause’s spell by turning
her men’s hearts back to her and making their loyalty ironclad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Morgause works out Britt’s secret and is delighted; her
whole purpose in setting herself against her ‘half-brother’ Arthur was because
she believed a woman should be on the throne of England. She promises her
loyalty and the aid of her sisters Elaine and Morgan, and as a token of
goodwill leaves her sons as ‘hostages’ to become part of Arthur’s court so in
the future Lot will be no threat. She also reveals Lot already has an attempt
on Arthur’s life in motion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Britt, Merlin, Kay, and her other protectors work to
thwart the assassination. Merlin reveals just how extensive his powers are and
that he’s willing to use all his skill to keep Britt alive. They survive, and
are much stronger and more united thanks to Morgause’s meddling.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Embittered</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Britt discovers Leodegrance has the Round Table, which
she knows is key to forming Arthur’s legendary court. However, the King wants
‘Arthur’ to marry his daughter Guinevere in exchange for giving up the table.
Knowing Guinevere and Lancelot will one day betray her (there’s also the pesky
fact that ‘Arthur’ is secretly a woman so her marrying anyone is tricky at
best), Britt has to figure out a way to get the Round Table without having to
get married. In the meantime, Lancelot himself has arrived at Camelot and Britt
is unable to get rid of him as she longs to do because he is the son of King
Ban, one of her closest allies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Britt and her court hear that Leodegrance is under siege
from Maleagant and forms a scouting party of herself, Merlin, Kay, Ywain,
Gawain, Lancelot and Pellinore to see what can be done. Britt winds up fighting
Maleagant herself and defeats him, and must then diplomatically refuse
Guinevere’s hand again without giving up either of the real reasons. She
discovers the pursuit of doing the right thing by everyone in her kingdom has a
high cost, and will probably cost her personally the most of all.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<u>Embark</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Britt finally has the Round Table in her possession and
is ready to create her legendary council of knights. To her mild chagrin,
Guinevere has also come to stay at Camelot, though fortunately not as
'Arthur's' future bride. While holding a tournament in Guinevere's honor, Britt
grants the request of Tor, the son of a cowherd who wishes to become a knight.
Beginning with him, she instigates the Fellowship of the Round Table and
declares that she will be sending them out on quests for honor and glory, and
to defend the weak, as the need arises.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The first quest to present itself is that of the white
hart and hound, on which she sends Tor, Gawain and Pellinore. She sneaks out
with them herself, but is soon caught by Merlin and Kay. To make it up to her,
Merlin takes her to visit his foster-father, Blaise. Blaise suggests to Britt
that the legends of King Arthur she knows from the 21st century may have gotten
changed from the truth over time, so perhaps she shouldn't rely on them so much
to determine what is or isn't going to happen and just concentrate on being a
just and fair ruler. Britt takes this to heart as she and Merlin deal with a
plot against her life that potentially involves the Orkney brothers, of whom
Britt has become extremely fond.<b> </b>Unbeknownst to anyone but his cronies,
the culprit is actually Lancelot, looking to discredit some of Arthur's
favorites.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Enlighten</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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This book starts off rather slowly, with Britt expressing
her distrust of Lancelot with her closest companions. Lancelot, eager to gain
favor and sensing her dislike, invites her out on a companionable ride with
him. Britt gets kidnapped by a local baron who, unaware he's captured King
Arthur, wants 'him' to serve as his champion in a petty dispute with his
brother. Britt agrees to fight as a ploy to be released, but the champion of
the opposing side turns out to be Lancelot, also in disguise and part of a
search party looking for their missing king. Lancelot is not a very good loser
at the best of times, and when Britt defeats him he stabs her in the back. At
that moment the rest of the search party consisting of Bedivere, Ywain and
Griflet appear, realize who it is Lancelot has just unchivalrously stabbed, and
begin medical treatment. In the process they discover the king they had come to
respect and adore is a woman.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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They don't take the surprise at all well. Britt flees
with a badly wounded shoulder while the knights return with their news to the
rest of the Round Table. Most of the knights who didn't already know the secret
also feel outraged and betrayed. While they argue, Britt, believing Camelot has
fallen apart with the revelation, accidentally stumbles upon the real Arthur
and gets a pep talk. She returns to Camelot and manages through sheer force of
personality to regain control--and by telling the truth (except for the tiny
detail that she's from the future). The knights agree to continue following her
as 'King Arthur' and it looks like they will give her a chance to regain their
trust. Anyone not in the Round Table, however, will not be told the secret.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Characters</b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<i>More than one book:</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Britt Arthurs/King Arthur: Britt is uniquely qualified to
step in as King Arthur, which I guess is kind of the point in the Sword in the
Stone choosing her—for all intents and purposes she <i>is</i> Arthur, and it’s kind of a chicken-or-egg question how much is
Britt as herself and how much is Britt following what little she knows about
the Arthur legend. Shea does a good job addressing most of the physical issues
of a woman in her twenties passing as a fifteen year-old-boy who has to
supposedly ‘grow’ into a man. The only thing not addressed is how they manage
to conceal Britt having her period, which I admit I’m kinda curious about. It’s
sort of a big point in any good narrative where you have a woman passing as a
man for longer than a month.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Because she’s a 21<sup>st</sup>-century American woman,
Britt is much more idealistic and empathetic than a medieval man would be, and
she has the rights of women in particular keenly in mind. She has an
unconscious charm about her that people are drawn to without quite realizing
why (including, I admit, the reader). She sees the best in everyone, which
turns out to be a strength and a weakness. In unguarded moments she can be
sarcastic and abrasive, to the puzzlement of most of her counselors except Kay
who seems to find her random outbursts of strange slang amusing. Britt’s
homesickness for her true time and family have turned her into an insomniac,
which only adds to ‘Arthur’s’ mythos because it gives ‘him’ and air of
melancholy to be found wandering around Camelot’s walls like a ghost every
night. She develops a crush on Merlin, the revelation of which nearly tears
them apart in <i>Embark</i>. As the series progresses she becomes more and more
comfortable in her assumed role, and begins to care deeply about her knights
and the brighter future she's trying to build.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Merlin: Merlin in this version is not an old man, nor
does he age backwards; he pretended to be an old man when he was actually a
young teenager so Uther would listen to him. He’s now in his late twenties. His
powers, however, are not a deception; though not as powerful as a true fay,
he’s probably the most powerful mortal magic-worker alive. He starts out an
utter douchebag, and fairly typically for a Merlin retelling plays everything
by his own rules and annoyingly doles out information on a need-to-know basis.
He is so focused on moving the pieces in his master chessboard in order to
unite Britain that he completely misses that he’s screwing with the lives of
real people, Britt in particular. Then he actually starts to get to know Britt,
and a remarkable thing occurs. He realizes what an awful thing he did to her in
pulling her out of her own time, away from the people who loved her and
everything that was familiar. He can’t send her home; going forward in time is
apparently impossible even magically. So he begins to subtly try to make it up
to her behind the scenes. A Merlin who actually regrets his meddling and does
something about it! It’s at about this point, towards the end of <i>Enthroned</i>, that he also starts to see
what a great king Britt will make thanks not to some grand and glorious
Destiny, but the person that she is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Then something terrifying happens. Thanks to getting to
know her, he starts to fall in love with her. He is far gone by the end of <i>Enchanted</i>, where he practically drains
himself defending her from Lot’s assassins. From the things he says, it’s
pretty clear he did it not to preserve the subject of his Grand Plan or even
because he was protecting his king, but because he didn’t want anything to
happen to the woman he loves. He was also reluctant to reveal the full extent
of his powers to her until that moment because he was afraid she would fear
him. When he discovers she reciprocates his feelings, in his horror at the
implications for his Grand Plan he reacts in the worst way possible: he denies
his own strong feelings so vehemently that he badly damages his friendship and
working relationship with Britt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Kay: Oh my gosh Kay is awesome. This is one of my
favorite versions of him. He's grouchy and brooding and shy, but is definitely
fiercely loyal to Britt. Britt constantly is trying to get around the
restrictions he places on her for her own safety. He is one of the few, along
with Ector and Merlin, who know Britt's secret from the beginning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Bedivere: 'Arthur's' marshal, and one of the few knights
in her small inner circle of royal officials who wasn't told about her gender.
He takes the news particularly hard, but eventually decides to give Britt a
chance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Ector: A fatherly figure who mostly stays in the
background but is there for emotional support when Britt needs it. Turns out he
knew the whole time where the real Arthur is and has visited him a few times,
but respected his choice to not take his birthright and choose his own destiny.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Nymue: The sharp-tongued Lady of the Lake. She and Britt
have a fight over Excalibur but later become allies. Pretty much all the female
characters find out Britt is a girl before the male characters and Nymue is no
exception.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Pellinore: An experienced knight, king and questor who is
constantly after the Questing Beast, but takes time out to assist Britt.
Originally an ally of Lot's, he is now a member of the Round Table despite
being a King in his own right. Britt enjoys having him around and trusts his
experience with quests, even though he can be flighty when he gets distracted
by the Questing Beast. His eldest son is Percival, who has been mentioned but
thus far has not appeared as a character in his own right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Ywain: Son of King Urien, one of Britt's enemies, but
has defected to 'Arthur's' side without his father's knowledge. While a bit
overeager, he is incredibly loyal. He has a hot temper, and takes the news of
Britt's gender extremely badly, accusing her of lying about everything, not
just being a woman. Eventually his temper does cool and he decides the ideals
of Camelot are more important.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Griflet: Ywain's constant companion, another eager
young knight in 'Arthur's' court, and a distant relative of Bedivere. More
even-tempered than Ywain, he looks to Lancelot for advice about courting the
woman he loves and seems to be doing rather badly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Gawain: Eldest of the Orkney brothers, Britt knights
him and makes him part of the Round Table. His first quest as a knight takes
place in <i>Embark. </i>He's a relatively quiet and even-tempered young man,
given the title of the Ladies' Knight thanks to what he learns on his quest. We
discover just how awesome he is when it is revealed he knew all along 'Arthur'
was a woman--Morgause told him--and has been loyally keeping it to himself and
quietly trying to assist with the charade whenever possible. He talks his
fellow knights down from their initial rage over the revelation and primes them
to listen to Britt herself when she returns.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Lancelot: One of the things that turned Britt off
about Arthurian legends in general is the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere.
Thus she is inclined to distrust Lancelot from the moment she meets him. This
is another bizarre chicken-or-egg moment because it's Britt's prejudice against
him that is driving the status-hungry Lancelot away from her. Not that I think
he'd make that great an ally even if she had been nice to him from the
beginning since he's clearly out only for his own glory and he's jealous of the
devotion Arthur/Britt commands. The section in <i>Enlighten</i> following
Britt/Arthur's kidnapping is somewhat amusing, because Lancelot thinks “of
course the one time I didn't actually wish harm on the king and was trying to
play nice, something bad happens!” It's hinted that now that he knows Britt is
a woman he plans to attempt to use the knowledge to seduce her into giving him
more power.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Guinevere: Britt is also inclined to distrust Guinevere
upon meeting her, but she feels sorry for the princess's unfortunate position
as a pawn to her father and finds it difficult to dislike her. Guinevere seems
mostly a harmless, though not very bright, flirt. She also finds out Britt's
secret and is unfortunately inclined to treat 'Arthur' as she would another
woman.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Agravain: The second eldest of the Orkney brothers, he
becomes Gawain's squire. He takes the revelation that their king is a woman
surprisingly well and decides to support Gawain in loyalty to Britt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Gaheris and Gareth: Still young boys in this version,
they look up to their 'cousin' 'Arthur' as another parent figure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sir Tor: Shows up when Britt is granting boons to the
peasantry and asks to be made a knight. While unskilled, he shows promise. His
first quest is a success, and he also gains a dwarf squire to help him train.
This sequence is very similar to how things occur in Gerald Morris's <i>The
Squire's Tale</i>. Of all the knights who did not already know Britt's secret,
he takes it the best, believing that since Britt saw fit to knight him despite
his own humble background, he's fine with their king's unusual origins.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Morgan: Has been told by her sister Morgause about the
true identity of their half-brother Britt/Arthur and also seems delighted with
the turn of events. She loyally supports Britt however she can. She and
Lancelot severely dislike each other.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Cavall: Britt's mastiff, trained by Kay to be her
companion and protector. Not all Arthurian retellings include Cavall so I was
pleased to see him here as an unjudging comfort to the out-of-pace Britt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><u>Enthroned:</u><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Ban: Lancelot's father and one of Britt's early allies in
the war against Lot. Britt can't afford to offend him, so she can't get rid of
his distasteful son without a good reason.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Lot: Morgause’s husband and the father of the four Orkney
brothers. He puts together a coalition of kings to oppose 'Arthur's' lordship
of all England. He a treacherous man (typical of Lot in Arthurian retellings),
he tries to kill 'Arthur' from afar in <i>Enchanted </i> but does not actually appear.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Urien: Former member of Lot's coalition, but like Lot
kept at bay because his son Ywain is a 'hostage' of 'Arthur' (really the
younger generation all want to serve Arthur, even now that they know she's
really Britt).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><u>Enchanted:</u></i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Morgause: Lot's wife and a powerful enchantress.
Originally she had set herself to oppose her half-brother, but once she discovered
he'd been replaced by a woman she became an ally and promised the additional
support of her two sisters Elaine (Urien's wife and Ywain's mother, whom we
have yet to meet) and Morgan. All she wanted was to see a woman on the throne,
and to her the current situation of a woman in disguise as a man as King seems
a pretty good solution.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><u>Embittered:</u></i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Leodegrance: Owner of the Round Table, which Britt is
eager to get her hands on. Also the father of Guinevere. He is a grasping man,
willing to practically sell off his daughter for his own gain, which turns
21st-century Britt off completely.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Maleagant: A duke and ally of Lot's coalition to oppose
'Arthur.' He demands to marry Guinevere after laying siege to her castle, and
Leodegrance is ready to give in to appease him. Britt serves as Guinevere's
champion and defeats him. Those of us who know the Knight of the Cart story,
however, also know he likely won’t stay gone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><u>Embark:</u></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Blaise: Merlin's mentor, he plays the role sometimes
traditionally assigned to Merlin of being a wise old hermit dispensing advice.
He has a fun sense of humor and enjoys teasing Merlin, to the delight of Britt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><u>Enlighten:</u></i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Arthur: Here we meet the real Arthur, happily married to
his shepherdess and living a humble life. He helps show Britt that she has
already started to make a difference in England even if she was unaware of
it--the common people are less harassed by evil knights and landlords since she
started sending her knights out on quests to right wrongs and see justice is done.
Ector has been telling him about his female replacement, Britt Arthurs, enough
that he recognizes her right away when she shows up at his farm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mordred: He shows up at the very end, leaving lots of
questions. Who the hell is this? He's obviously not Britt's son (I had a guess
that when he did appear he'd be Britt and Merlin's child that they had to have
raised in secret because they didn't want anyone to know King Arthur is a
woman), so I have no clue who his parents are (perhaps Morgan's son?) or what his
agenda is going to be or if he even has one. I assume this will be revealed in
later books. I did not expect Shea to introduce him to the storyline this
early.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Overall:</b></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite the short length of each of the stories, I find
what Shea is doing with the legends really interesting. She obviously knows
even the obscure ones relatively well and has done her homework on the
evolution of the Arthurian mythos, if her author's commentary is any
indication. She's making deliberate choices on her huge cast of characters'
personalities and actions, sometimes combining who they are in different
versions of the legend to make one composite character (she goes into detail in
commentary about her process for combining Morgause and Anna, for example).
While the Arthurian legends tend to be male-heavy, she never forgets the ladies
and their roles—it's not just Britt and the dudes kicking ass and taking names,
nor is it all about the women while the men have adventures in the background.
As I mentioned before, this kind of 'time traveling into Arthurian legend'
story lends itself easily to self-insert, especially when the time traveler is
a woman, but that's obviously not what this is. This is building upon the
admittedly strange premise that King Arthur actually was as idealistic and
awesome as the legends say, but it's because 'he' was actually a woman from the
21<sup>st</sup> century who ruled in a completely different way than anyone
medieval Europe had ever seen before and thus made a massive impression.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In my opinion, <i>Enlighten</i> is the best of the five
thus far. The others are good, but the fifth book takes it up a notch. They
should be read in order, however, or it will be hard to keep characters and
events straight and follow the progression of relationships.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Average 4 stars for all 5 novellas.<o:p></o:p></div>
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-33390078946211655312014-08-22T09:59:00.000-05:002014-08-22T10:01:41.159-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review/Reread: The Legend of the King<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</div>
</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Legend of the King</u></strong><br />
<b></b><b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b></b><b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Books<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>295<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Sir Terence has come a long way since he first left his guardian twenty years ago and joined the insolent Gawain as his squire. Dark Forces are at work in England, and Terence and Gawain had set off once more in service of King Arthur, but this time the two friends are sent on separate missions. At last, a true Knight of the Round Table, Terence has no time to rest on his laurels, but must continue his work to protect King Arthur and the peace that the king and his knights have created for England. Unfortunately, the king's enemies are at work as well. Morgause and Mordred had spies even at Camelot itself, and together mother and son attempt to divide the Fellowship of the Round Table, bring Camelot to ruin, and place Mordred on the throne.<br />
<br />
In this final installment of the Squire's Tales series, Terence and his fellow Knights of the Round Table must ready their swords, enchantments, and wit to come together in a last stand to save Camelot. The characters Gerald Morris has brought to life throughout his series--Terence and Gawain, Lynet and Gaheris, Luneta and Rhience, Dinadan and Palomides--each have an important role to play if they are to defeat their enemies. Only by maintaining their faith, selflessness, and honor, can Morgause and Mordred banish and defeat the dark magic from England forever. </td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Legend of the King</i> was published the year after I
graduated from college. I had been dreading it for a lot of reasons, since it
had been established since the previous book’s release that this was the last
of the Squire’s Tales and it was obvious a lot of beloved key characters would
die. In the end of this series, it was also a sort of final good-bye to my
teenagehood and an assertion that yes, indeed, I had entered the adult world
for good. I had outgrown these books and was ready for what came next, just as
the characters are all finally ready for what comes after their final adventure
for Camelot. An ending and a beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
this re-read I have been both eager to get this final book over with and fine
with putting it off. Some of the delay between the reviews for this book and <i>Squire’s Quest</i> were the two sessions of
Camp NaNoWriMo in which Story participated (that knocks out April and July for
both reading and writing reviews) but neither one of us has been particularly
inclined to prompt finishing the series. This re-read has stripped away a lot
of the nostalgia I feel for this series and revealed significant flaws in books
I once loved (though nothing can dampen my love for <i>Savage Damsel</i>) and I know there have been a lot of elements that
Story has been deeply unhappy with that have made the series overall less
enjoyable. But we agreed for the sake of other projects we must proceed with
the final review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spoilers,
etc… and warning for almost 4,000-word review.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Twist<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As
you know, this is the final Squire’s Tales book, and that means it retells the
end of Camelot. Due to things he’s established earlier in the series (such as
the long-ago ending of Lancelot and Guinevere’s affair, which plays a significant
part in how the Round Table was divided in legend) Morris has to play with
events somewhat. He uses the memory of the affair, the resentment of younger
knights who have been unable to gain glory for themselves because older knights
like Gawain and Lancelot are so well-established, as well as the outside threat
from the army Mordred has built up to break up the Round Table and eventually
destroy Camelot and Arthur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My
favorite twist is how Morris uses Gaheris being the one in legend who kills
Morgause.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Plot<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a
departure from all previous books, Morris switches between different
characters’ perspectives (Dinadan, Terence, Agrivaine, Lynet, Luneta, and
Guinglain) to tell his story. He begins where Dinadan left <i>Squire’s Quest</i>, traveling to meet Palomides in the Middle East.
After sorting out the mess left at the end of the debacle between Alis, Fenice,
Cligés and the caliph (and being very disrespectful to Alis, claiming that he
was insane and creepy to be obsessed with his fifteen-year-old bride instead of
under the influence of a magical potion—where the heck is this hating on Alis
coming from, Mr. Morris?) Dinadan and Palomides have a visit from a djinn, who
warns them all is not well in England. The pair set off across Europe, hoping
to get there in time to make a difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile,
Mordred’s army, which he picked up somewhere and has somehow been gaining
massive numbers (wtf, how are there this many greedy minor lords and
mercenaries to suddenly have twice as many trained fighters as Arthur’s regular
army?), has been ravaging the English countryside claiming that Arthur ordered
all the destruction. Thus within a few months pretty much all of England is
transformed into a smoking husk of what it was during the majority of Arthur’s
rule, populated by people living in abject poverty and terror of their ‘mad’
king. Gawain is sent home to Orkney due to word of part of Mordred’s army
massing there, Terence is sent to spy on Mordred himself in the east. Terence
gets captured and learns that Mordred has ambitions beyond his mother’s plans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain
reaches Orkney to discover his home fief under siege by Mordred’s men with
specific orders to kill Gaheris. Lynet and Gaheris through some careful deception
manage to escape with their tenants and leave the army believing Gaheris was
‘killed’ in single combat with their ‘champion’ (Gawain in disguise). The three
nobles then beat a hasty ride back to Camelot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
Camelot, Morgause uses her spy Mador (taking Mordred’s traditional role here since
in this version Mordred is already banished) to stir up Agrivaine and some
other young knights to ‘contrive’ to catch Lancelot and Guinevere alone
together as proof of their nonexistent continuing affair. Per the legend,
Agrivaine and many other young knights are killed in the assault on Guinevere’s
rooms and Lancelot flees. Arthur is forced to put Guinevere on trial. The trial
looks as though it will be a mere formality and Guinevere will be acquitted
when Lancelot, misinformed that the Queen is to be executed, breaks in to save
her. Gareth is killed defending the gate, also per the legend. Arthur, letting
grief and fury for once override his good sense and missing most of his council
that would normally talk him out of it, marches on Lancelot’s home at Joyous
Guard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On
their way south, Lynet, Gaheris and Gawain hear of the troubles at Camelot and
deduce Morgause is behind the whole thing. Determined to end her threat once
and for all, Lynet sells her soul to Hecate, the first evil Enchantress and the
power behind Morgause, in exchange for knowledge of Morgause’s whereabouts and
past. She determines Morgause is hiding at Lynet’s old home in Cornwall. The
three travel there, prepared for a fight both physical and magical. Gawain
fights Morgause’s pet dragon at the gates while Gaheris and Lynet confront Morgause
and her lover Lamorak. Lynet determines that Morgause accidentally tied her
life to Gaheris and due to that teeny tiny loophole Gaheris alone can kill his
mother. Gaheris beheads Morgause and is killed by Lamorak, who is in turn
killed by Gawain. Lynet, who as part of her own bargain with Hecate tied her
life to her beloved husband’s, also dies as Gaheris’s life fades. Gawain
returns to Arthur alone and in his empty grief volunteers to fight Lancelot in
single combat. Neither man manages to kill the other over two days of
spectacular swordsmanship but eventually peace is mediated. As penance for his
affair Lancelot is ordered to travel England confessing his sins to every holy
man he meets and then must leave England. Over the course of his travels he
meets Guinglain and the pair travel together so Guinglain can escape the
devastation of Mordred’s army. They pass the remains of Camelot, now destroyed
by Mordred’s forces while Arthur and the knights are away. The noblewomen and
commoners who were there were all slaughtered or taken prisoner. Lancelot
leaves England as promised—to gather his own French army to help Arthur fight
Mordred.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Luneta
and Rhience are summoned to a gathering of all good magical entities in
England. They are told that with the death of Morgause—which also spelled the
final defeat of Hecate thanks to Lynet taking power from her and then using it
solely for the sake of others—there is less need for the Seelie Court in the
World of Men. Eventually it will become dangerous to those of magic to be in
the mortal world so Ganscotter gives them a choice: stay, but much weakened, or
return to the Other World permanently. Most choose to go but Luneta and Rhience
decide to stay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
the final battle between Mordred’s forces and Arthur’s at Barham Down (Camlann),
most of what is left of Arthur’s inner circle is killed, including Terence,
Gawain, Kai, Parsifal, Tor, and Ywain. Griflet is killed preventing Mador attacking
Arthur’s forces from behind. Lancelot’s reinforcements from France defeat
Mordred’s but are too late to save what was left of Arthur’s army. Arthur
strikes down Mordred; Terence believes he saw Mordred mortally wound Arthur but
isn’t sure in the moment of his own death. In a scene highly reminiscent of
C.S. Lewis’s final Chronicles of Narnia book <i>The Last Battle</i>, those killed at Barham Down and the massacre at Camelot,
as well as Nimue, Lorie and Ariel, meet those who had previously died in Arthur’s
service, including Bedivere (aka Reepicheep, if you know <i>The Last Battle)</i>, and they all troop down to the sea bearing
Excalibur and Arthur’s sleeping body. Ganscotter meets them there with two
boats. Arthur is put into one, accompanied by Morgan, until he wakes again when
he is called. Everyone else gets into the other boat and sails for home and
Avalon at last.<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
mortal England, Dinadan and Palomides arrive to discover they missed the final
battle by mere days. They meet up with Rhience, Luneta, Guinglain and a few
other survivors. The little group agrees that they will work to keep hope alive
in England for the rest of their lives and they will not let the legend of the
great King Arthur die away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Characters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
are so many character returns and cameos I will only discuss the major ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arthur:
We don’t see until this book how much Lance/Gwen affected him. He never really
got over the hurt, but he never worked it out with them, either. He just let it
fester rather than drag the whole thing up again. This is fairly typical of
modern Arthur portrayals to one extent or another, though in this case he was
trying to let bygones be bygones rather than burying his head in the sand. A
problem I have with just about everyone in this book is the personality seems
to be sucked out of them (Gaheris, Lynet, Dinadan, Rhience, and to some extent
Gawain are the exceptions), leaving just shells going through the motions
rather than the people we got to know in previous books. The only time we see
personality from this Arthur is in his conversation with Guinevere. I don’t
really understand how his not-death works; Terence thought he saw Arthur
wounded by Mordred but then nobody can find his body. He turns up sleeping on a
litter borne by most of the series’ ladies and we are assured by Ganscotter
he’s not dead and will wake again in the future when he’s needed, with no
explanation. Is it a spell? Is this a side bonus of using Excalibur? Was this
always supposed to happen if Arthur fell in battle? A little more exposition or
previous hints that this was possible would have been much appreciated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Guinevere:
She and Arthur finally have meaningful, healing discussions about the affair,
but about fifteen years (or however long it’s been) too late. After her kidnap
by Mordred when his forces destroy Camelot, we do not see her again. We learn
her fate indirectly through Dinadan: as in legend, she has secretly taken
refuge at a convent and plans to take vows as a nun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain:
We don’t see much of his trademark wit in this book. He does take part in the
traditional combat with Lancelot after the deaths of his brothers, two of which
Lancelot was responsible for. After honorably giving up on a chance to kill
Lancelot he seems to snap out of his fog of grief and becomes more like himself
again, and in the end he and Lancelot forgive each other. He is killed at
Barham Down in a last glorious charge and appears on the shore to send off
Arthur and then sail for Avalon with his wife Lorie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lancelot:
Another victim of this book’s lack of personality syndrome, he never exhibits
the self-deprecating humor he showed in <i>Dung
Cart Knight</i>. He just kills a lot of people, but seems to feel worse about
his past affair with Guinevere than anything else. When he goes around
confessing this is chief on his mind. Eventually he figures out he was sent to
get reinforcements for Arthur as part of his penance, but bad weather delays
his troops until only moments too late. He survives the battle, becomes the
caretaker of his own future tomb (mentioned in <i>Dung Cart Knight</i>) and takes up the name Jean le Forestier again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gaheris
& Lynet: This is one of the most meaningful, fitting ends for a set of
characters I have probably ever read. I thought it was so perfect that instead
of tying her life to something tangibly permanent, Lynet chose to tie her life
to the man she loves, since, as she claims, love is the most permanent thing of
all. The situation in which they die is almost identical to the night they
first declared their love for each other: in the same castle, confronting their
adversaries in the middle of the night. Gaheris fights in the exact same way
and is wounded in the same place as he was before. Only the outcome is
different since it ends in their deaths, but they are shown together again at the
end, bound for Avalon with everyone else. If my favorite set of characters had
to die, this is exactly how it had to happen. They are the ones who finally
defeat the series antagonist, not Gawain or Terence. I haven’t quite let go of
the idea of naming future children after one or both of them. I love these two characters
as they are portrayed in this series that much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Luneta
& Rhience: Luneta is grief-stricken at the deaths of her parents but still
decides not to go live in the Other World. They want to stay and protect what
is left of Arthur’s England and the memory of it. In the end they adopt an
orphan girl they find, name her Morganna, and raise her at Rhience’s home fief
in Sussex. Luneta leaves a female steward in charge of Orkney. She is the last
of any of Arthur’s direct family left in the World of Men, though she is only
distantly related to him through her great-grandmother Ygraine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dinadan:
While too late to help in the final battle (not that he was much of a fighter
anyway), Dinadan takes on the role of a bard singing heroic tales about Arthur
and the Round Table. Takes some of Bedivere’s traditional role since it is
supposed to be Bedivere who survives to tell the tales of Arthur but Bedivere
died in the last book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Palomides:
A wise and virtuous Moorish knight. After helping Dinadan prevent war between
Constantinople and the Turkish Muslims, he and Dinadan disappear from the
narrative until the very end when they arrive in England too late. They plan to
travel Europe telling of Arthur and the Round Table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Guinglain:
Still kind of an enigma, he seems content to float around and let things happen
to him and trusts that they’ll work out. He imparts some wisdom on Lancelot
when the latter comes to confess and ends up traveling with him. He witnesses
the aftermath of the battle and eventually returns to his hermitage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Morgause:
The breakdown of Camelot can pretty much be laid on her. It is revealed that
while unknowingly pregnant with Gaheris, Morgause went to Hecate and asked for
her life to be tied to the person reflected in a mirror. Thus she seemed
immortal but later realized that Gaheris represented a loophole: since he was
inside her at the time she was reflected in the mirror, her life was also tied
to his and he could kill her if he chose. She didn’t dare kill him for fear she
would also die, but it explains her special hatred of him growing up. With her
death and Lynet’s selflessness, the door between the World of Men and Hecate’s
black realm is closed forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mordred:
Morris does a weird thing in the middle of this book where he looks like he
might actually, if not redeem Mordred, at least have him break free from
Morgause and pursue his own life. Turns out she had him under a spell the whole
time to keep him from questioning her. Does this deter him after her death from
continuing exactly as she would have wanted? Nope. This is kind of a big deal
for this character, but as he’s done with past mind-altering spells and potions
Morris acts as if Mordred would have done the exact same thing if there had
been no magic involved. I know things have to happen as they did in legend and
Mordred and Arthur have to kill each other at Camlann, but I don’t understand
why Morris chooses to throw this mind-control thing at us and then not do
anything with it. I guess it’s to make Mordred a sympathetic victim instead of
a pure villain but it doesn’t work very well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Agrivaine:
Of all the point of view characters, this is the only one Morris had not used
in a previous book. Agrivaine is easily manipulated by Morgause and Mador into
leading the attack on Lancelot in Guinevere’s rooms. Morris even manages to
give him fairly believable motivations. He appears at the shore to escort
Arthur’s body, though even he seems surprised at his presence there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Morgan:
Is first seen fetching all of England’s enchantresses so they can be informed
of the consequences of Hecate’s defeat and make their choice. She then plays
her traditional role of Arthur’s caretaker in deathless sleep until they are
both summoned again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whatever happened to…? The fates
of major characters not already mentioned.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lyonesse:
Is seduced away from Gareth by Mordred and then murdered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Piers:
Goes to the Other World with Ariel when all of the other good Faeries are
offered the choice to stay or leave the World of Men. His parents are mentioned
as already living in the Other World. He’s also described as huge and a head
taller than just about everyone else. This amuses me because even though this
is the stereotypical look for a fantasy-world blacksmith, I know a few people
who are blacksmiths for a living and none of them are particularly tall or
hugely muscled. They’re incredibly strong but they don’t look like Ahh-nold in
his prime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sarah:
Is seen bearing Arthur’s litter. Killed in the massacre at Camelot?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Connie,
Parsifal’s wife: Is seen bearing Arthur’s litter. Killed in the massacre at
Camelot?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eileen:
Is seen bearing Arthur’s litter. Killed in the massacre at Camelot?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Brangienne:
Now the Mother Superior of her convent, the convent where Guinevere has taken
her vows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bors
& Lionel: Bors is killed in a skirmish with Mordred’s men before Barham
Down. Lionel disappears after that. Both are seen at the shore with the other
dead who are seeing Arthur’s boat off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Charis:
Of all past major characters she is the only one whose fate we never learn. She
does not appear at the shore with the other women bearing Arthur’s litter.
Presumably she continues to rule Logres in the World of Men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Laudine:
Goes to the Other World because she would have had to surrender her magical
beauty if she stayed. Ywain chooses to stay without her and dies in the final
battle, and is seen at the shore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Three
stars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Comments on the series<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite
having outgrown this series—it is very YA and aimed more at late preteen/early
high school age—I still enjoy a good chunk of it. Particularly the first three
books, <i>Dung Cart Knight</i> and <i>Lioness</i>. I have some nostalgia for The
Squire’s Tales as a formative part of my young adulthood and influencing how I
thought about ‘big picture’ things like faith, the difference between truth and
illusion, being yourself instead of what others expect, and keeping your word. However,
this series of critical rereads has highlighted major issues I didn’t notice
before. Inconsistencies and problematic aspects plague these books, enough that
the whole series is tainted to an extent. The last three books in particular
display an obvious lack of care, as if the author couldn’t wait to get them
over with and the editor couldn’t be bothered to call him on it. This attitude
is an upsetting one, borderline insulting, to longtime fans of the series.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On a
more positive note, what I think stands out about this series is not only the moral
underpinnings (sometimes confused, but usually workable) and the humor, but the
introduction into YA literature of more obscure Arthurian characters. Everybody
knows King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Queen Guinevere, and Wizard Merlin. Most
people have probably also heard of at least one or two supporting characters like
Morgan le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, Mordred, Kay, Gawain, Gareth, Bedivere,
Galahad, and Percival who occasionally appear in Arthurian books and media when
creators are delving pretty deep into the Camelot canon, at least for mass
consumption (ex. <i>The Sword in the Stone</i>,
<i>The Adventures of Merlin, A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, </i>etc…) Who
outside established Arthurian fans have heard of Dinadan, Gaheris, Lynette the
Savage Damsel, Yvain of the Lion, Laudine, and others Morris utilizes for feature
characters? A lot of these great characters I met for the first time through
The Squire’s Tales. In glossing over a lot of the Lancelot-centric tales, largely
not using Merlin at all, and frequently having Arthur and Guinevere as mere
backdrop characters (though in theory the series does revolve around Arthur, it
is telling Morris does not begin with Arthur’s origin story, but rather
Gawain’s), Morris introduces a wealth of other stories that teens might not
have discovered otherwise. There’s more to Camelot than just Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot
and Guinevere, and Morris shows off how much Arthurian canon there is to be
plumbed and just how wide a range these stories have. Some medieval aspects are
severely dated and Morris tries a hand at updating them for modern teenagers
with mixed success. He himself is a product of his own time and prejudices.
This doesn’t mean I give him a pass when his books have problems, but that I
read them with a grain of salt and acknowledge the problems when I come to
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall
I’m glad I reread the series and examined these books critically. They were an
important part of my literary life. Such works always bear revisiting, even if
they don’t hold up with the nostalgia goggles removed.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-82063292459080084362014-08-22T09:58:00.003-05:002014-08-22T11:40:19.089-05:00Review: The Legend of the King<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</div>
</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Legend of the King</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Books<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>295<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Sir Terence has come a long way since he first left his guardian twenty years ago and joined the insolent Gawain as his squire. Dark Forces are at work in England, and Terence and Gawain had set off once more in service of King Arthur, but this time the two friends are sent on separate missions. At last, a true Knight of the Round Table, Terence has no time to rest on his laurels, but must continue his work to protect King Arthur and the peace that the king and his knights have created for England. Unfortunately, the king's enemies are at work as well. Morgause and Mordred had spies even at Camelot itself, and together mother and son attempt to divide the Fellowship of the Round Table, bring Camelot to ruin, and place Mordred on the throne.<br />
<br />
In this final installment of the Squire's Tales series, Terence and his fellow Knights of the Round Table must ready their swords, enchantments, and wit to come together in a last stand to save Camelot. The characters Gerald Morris has brought to life throughout his series--Terence and Gawain, Lynet and Gaheris, Luneta and Rhience, Dinadan and Palomides--each have an important role to play if they are to defeat their enemies. Only by maintaining their faith, selflessness, and honor, can Morgause and Mordred banish and defeat the dark magic from England forever. </td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Is the Arthurian mythos more than Arthur’s death? I think Gerald Morris would answer that question with a ‘yes’. But I also don’t think he’s sure. And I think that uncertainty has wormed its way into the subtext. I have one more book to go and only then will I know if the Squire’s Tales will forever be defined by Arthur’s death or remembered for something more." <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">X</a></blockquote>
(Also, this book is not, in fact, about Mordred and Morgause working together to banish the forces of evil and I am done with book blurbs forever). <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Warning for Spoilers</b><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> <b>The Twist</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So this is it. The Death of Arthur. The Fall of Camelot. The Battle of Camlann. The end of the Squire's Tales series. The end of the story.<br />
<br />
As the far as the Fall of Arthur goes, it's pretty standard fair. There's really nothing new here. However, for the Squire's Tales Series, there is a new twist. Each chapter has a different POV character (Terence, Dinadan, and Lynet are the only ones who repeat). Every chapter has is it's own character beat with the story only loosely flowing together. Characters pass in and out of Arthur's war with Mordred--some playing an integral role while others are left to pick up the pieces. <br />
<br />
So, to that end, I'm changing up the review. Instead of looking at the plot, then the characters, I'm going to look at the plot and characters together as they appear throughout the story. Because this book is so focused on the character beats, there's really no way to pull the two apart. <br />
<br />
<b>The Plot/The Characters</b><br />
<br />
<i>Chapter One- Dinadan</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"His humor and grief are so real and so human that they truly breath some much needed life into this drudgery." <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2014/03/review-squires-quest.html">X </a></blockquote>
The book opens with Dinadan, picking up where <i>Squire's Quest</i> left off. While on the road to Constantinople, Dinadan and the envoys from Acoriondes are captured. Dinadan manages to escape with the help of his music and Palomides' timely arrival. After diffusing a situation caused by Alis' infatuation with Fenice (he accidentally since a love letter to a neighboring ruler who also goes by Phoenix), the two friends kick back and enjoy their reunion. Their enjoyment is cut short, however, when a djinn shows up and reveals that Mordred has gone to war against Arthur. Dinadan decides to return to Britain and Palomides agrees to go with him.<br />
<br />
I love Dinadan. Like in <i>Squire's Quest, </i>Dinadan is a giant breath of fresh air. I'm very pleased Morris decided to begin the book in his perspective, as it gives a lighter tone to what is otherwise a relentlessly bleak book. I'm pleased to see Palomides again too. I just wish we had gotten to see more of these two.<br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Two- Terence</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"To Gareth, Lancelot is the greatest knight there is and he won't hear anyone say boo about his hero." <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/02/reread-savage-damsel-and-dwarf.html">X</a></blockquote>
Gareth arrives at Camelot in a sour mood and immediately gets drunk along with Agravaine, Florence and Lovel. Gawain can't abide with their ridiculousness and goes to a council with Arthur, Kai, and a handful of knights. Mordred's army has been spotted in Cornwall and Scotland, so Gawain and Terence split up with Gawain returning to Orkney and Terence looking in on Mordred's activities in Cornwall. Before setting out, Lancelot, Gawain, and Terence return to the tavern for a drink only to find Gareth brawling. Turns out, Lyoness and Mordred have hooked up and Gareth has been turned out of his castle. Lancelot tries to help, but only ends up making the situation worse as Gareth turns his malice on Guinevere and her affair with Lancelot. Terence knocks Gareth unconscious and the next day, Gawain and Terence take their leave. <br />
<br />
I'm...not enamored with this portrayal of Gareth. Gareth's first and foremost characteristic is that he is loyal to Lancelot above all else. He sides with Lancelot over his family. He bears no ill will toward Lancelot or Guinevere after their affair is revealed, which is why he is standing by Guinevere's side, unarmed, when Lancelot comes to rescue her. I don't care how drunk or bitter Gareth is, he's not going to air out Lancelot's dirty laundry like that. Nor am I particularly pleased with how Lyoness is handled. His portrayal of her character may have been selfish to the extreme, but her refusal to marry the Red Knight showed that she had her limits. I just can't see her having ambitions beyond her own castle or betraying her marriage to Gareth. <br />
<br />
Like most of the female characters from Morris' books, Lyoness dies off screen. Murdered by Mordred when she outlived her usefulness. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Three- Agravaine</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"That’s why I have argued that the ‘angry youths who just want war’ is a problematic trope for the legends that needs to die out. Because if the younger generations do not hear Arthur’s call for peace, prosperity, and justice—if they remain selfish and hungry for their own blood soaked glory—than the legend is nothing more than ‘the death of Arthur’." <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">X </a></blockquote>
Agravaine journeys to the ruins of a chapel to meet with Morgause. Morris actually does a really good job here and it makes me wish he'd written a whole book from the perspective of an unreliable narrator like Agravaine instead of constantly going to the straight man, because he's really good at this. He weaves back and forth effortlessly between what Agravaine wants to be true (he is valued by his mother, he is smart and cunning, he succeeds in everything he attempts) and what is actually true (Morgause doesn't value him, he isn't smart, and his plans only succeed because of the actions of others).<br />
<br />
Morgause convinces Agravaine to strike at Arthur through Lancelot and Guinevere and tells him to get the help of Mador de La Porte (a minor knight who often aligns with Mordred). Mador conspires to send falsified letters to Lancelot and Guinevere, arranging a meeting in Guinevere's chambers while Agravaine organizes a bunch of young, angry, blood thirsty knights to catch Lancelot and Guinevere in the act. At least Gareth gets a moment of redemption here. Now sober, he refuses to partake in Agravaine's raid. <br />
<br />
Ten knights end up 'catching' Lancelot and Guinevere. Determined to protect the Queen, Lancelot does battle with all of them. The chapter ends when Agravaine is killed. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Four- Lynet</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Like Gawain, Gaheris is very smart and practical but unlike Gawain he's a terrible fighter (in something that later becomes a thing, it's pointed out that Gaheris prefers to stay on defense on the battle, allowing his enemy to tire out)." <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/02/reread-savage-damsel-and-dwarf.html">X</a></blockquote>
We join Lynet and Gaheris in Orkney, which is under siege by Mordred's men. It's a dire situation, made a little better by the well known and much missed banter between Lynet and Gaheris. After calling for a parlay, Mordred's envoy agrees to let everyone go free in exchange for Gaheris. Gaheris wants to agree, but the villagers talk him into fighting. Gaheris is trying to get his head around this show of loyalty when he catches sight of the knights coming to take him prisoner and a new plan forms. Lynet disguises a recently deceased soldier as Gaheris while he goes out and fights Mordred's biggest, strongest knight in a trial by combat. During the battle, Lynet escapes with the townspeople. Terrified, Lynet waits hours, only to have Gaheris show up arm in arm with Gawain, who was the biggest strongest knight in Mordred's army. Gaheris and Gawain faked the battle, faked Gaheris' death, and then ran off in the confusion. From there, the three decide to return to Camelot. <br />
<br />
As always, both Lynet and Gaheris are sharp. Not much gets past them and their romance is as scarppy as ever. Gawain and Gaheris also have excellent brotherly banter. As far as tone goes, this chapter is most similar to Morris' early books. Which, as far as I'm concerned, makes it the best chapter in the book. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Five- Terence</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Just imagine how fascinating this book could have been if Guinglain, Galahad and Mordred go on this adventure for the grail together and along the way they’re horrified of what’s become of Arthur’s kingdom. Like, I adore Arthur in this series and I think he’s a fantastic king, but there’s some shit going down in his kingdom that doesn’t really reflect well on him." <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/75869674727/more-squires-tales-fair-unknown-fills-me-with">X</a></blockquote>
Terence makes his way across England, following the trail of Mordred's White Horsemen. He comes across ravaged hermitages and farms and the few people he encounters believe that is is Arthur's men who destroy their livelihoods and killed their family members. Leaving them to their grief, Terence tries to sneak into Mordred's camp, only to be captured because a spell from Morgause allows him to sense Terence's presence and a spell from a hag causes Terence to believe he's in a forest when he's really in the middle of Mordred's camp. And I'm sorry, but I laughed as seeing Terence so thoroughly played. Of course, then Mordred just has to make the classic blunder and has Terence tied up instead of just killing him right away, as he's supposed to. He and Terence exchange information, because of course they do. Mordred is about to kill Terence with Terence's enchanted knife, but it's gone and that distracts Mordred enough to just leave BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES. The knife then frees Terence and he escapes out into the night. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Six- Arthur</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"My only complaint about this growth that Guinevere goes through over this course of the book is that it all happens off screen. That you only see it from the perspective of other characters is a travesty." <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2012/12/reread-squire-his-knight-his-lady.html">X</a></blockquote>
Arthur visits Guinevere in her chambers, where she's been imprisoned, and they hash it out. Every grievance they've ever had with each other over their marriage is laid out in the open. And I can't for the life of me figure out why this chapter is in Arthur's perspective and not Guinevere's. We know how Arthur feels on this matter. Even though he's never been a POV character, we've had a book's worth of text spent on examining his anguish over Guinevere's betrayal because Terence sympathized with Arthur. We also had a whole book examining Lancelot's shame over his behavior because Sarah sympathized with him. What we have not had, and are sorely lacking, is Guinevere's perspective on what happened because no one ever sympathized with her. The moment where we finally (and <i>only</i>) hear her perspective on those events should not have been when she was on the defensive against Arthur. It should not have been when we were fully immersed in his anguish when we should have been immersed in her despair. <br />
<br />
I want to know what Guinevere thinks of all this--how she feels about the affair getting drudged up again after all these years. Does she trust Arthur? Did she start off trusting Arthur, then slowly gave into despair when he didn't come to her? What does she feel when she learns he never really forgave her for what happened with Lance--when she finally sees the depths of his anger? How betrayed does she feel when she realizes she spent all these years recognizing the pain she caused him and trying to make amends only to learn that not once, in all their years together, did Arthur ever try to understand what happened from her perspective? That she was a child married off to a man with an impossible distance between them that he, as the adult and the one with the power, never made any attempt to close. Where the hell is Guinevere's voice in this series? Where is the voice of the most important female character in the Arthurian mythos, period. <br />
<br />
Arthur then sets up the trail to ensure Guinevere will be found innocent, and even if she isn't, he cam pardon her. Bishop Nacien, Sir Parsifal, and Goodwife Grete are the judges. The trial itself is fun to read, as Goodwife Grete eviscerates Mador and his charge of treason. Mador tries then to accuse Lancelot, but that doesn't work and Parsifal and Kai prepare to take him out. Then Lancelot rides in, killing Gareth on accident and abducting Guinevere over her protests. Arthur, in a truly sensible and kingly decision, orders his knights to march on Joyous Garde. Because of course he does. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Seven- Lynet</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In this book, Lynet is the main character and every other character is secondary to her. As it really should be, because in the original story Lynet was something fierce and there really needs to be more stories out there about her. I really enjoyed how Morris kept the heart and soul of this character from original story (a character with a quick and brutal tongue and never lacking an insult) while still allowing her room to grow over the course of the story." <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/02/reread-savage-damsel-and-dwarf.html">X</a></blockquote>
Lynet, Gaheris, and Gawain come across Griflet, who has fled Camelot. He tells them of Lancelot and Guinevere's 'betrayal' and how Arthur has marched on Joyous Garde. Gawain accuses Griflet of cowardice and he takes his leave of them. Our three heroes talk among themselves and determine that Morgause must be behind this divide in the Round Table (I...she rescued Mordred at the end of the last book. Why do people keep forgetting about her and the threat she poses?). Gaheris suggests they go after her (about freaking time) and Lynet tries to figure out a way to track her. <br />
<br />
A crow happens upon Lynet while she goes off to think and offers to take her to someone who can give her power. This someone is Hecate, who, as far as I can tell, is responsible for creating The Enchantress (that great force of evil in the world apparently must be given by another while The Enchanter's power is his own and static). Lynet tells Hecate she wants power to locate Morgause and Hecate tries to tempt Lynet with greater, more dangerous power (essentially to make Lynet the next Enchantress). Lynet refuses and Hecate says that in order to gain power, Lynet needs to tie her life to something or someone else--making her immortal so long as this person or object is whole/alive.<br />
<br />
Lynet returns to Gawain and Gaheris and tells them that Morgause is at her old home. The three begin to make their way there and during the journey, Lynet finds herself growing less and less human. In the courtyard of the castle they find a dragon waiting for them and Gawain fights it while Gaheris and Lynet go to confront Morgause. Like the legend, Gaheris walks in on his mother and Lamorak sharing a room (likely they had sex earlier, but this is a children's book and Morgause is doing work while Lamorak slept). Gaheris and Lamorak battle it out while Lynet studies Moraguse, who is clearly terrified by Gaheris' presence. Lynet figures out that Moraguse bound her life to herself so she couldn't be killed, except she was pregnant with Gaheris at the time and he's the only person who can kill her. Morgause tries to goad Lamorak into killing Gaheris, which only sends him towards her. Knowing that Morgause needs to be stopped at all costs, Gaheris cuts off her head only to be mortally wounded by Lamorak. Gawain arrives then and kills Lamorak. Lynet collapses, revealing that she had tied her life to Gaheris' and will now die with him. <br />
<br />
This section is really quite excellent. It's a great twist on the traditional story of Gaheris killing Morgause after he finds her in bed with Lamorak. Gaheris actually has a reason for killing Morgause beyond finding her in bed with another man and truly gets to shine as a hero in a moment that is most often a dark mark for the character. It's great for Lynet too, who usually fades into the background after the Beaumains adventure. The two work together in a desperate attempt to save Camelot and quite simply it's a beautiful moment for both of them. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Eight- Terence</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As for the ladies, they were even worse--simpering wraiths of soppy sentimentality. It was enough to make one root for the dragons." Author's Note, pg 283</blockquote>
You want to talk about simpering wraiths of soppy sentimentality, Mr. Morris?<br />
<br />
Terence hangs around Mordred's camp for a couple weeks because why not. Mordred can sense your location and cause you to hallucinate a forest where there isn't one (one would also assume Mordred's hag should be able to conjure soldiers where there aren't any, just to keep Terence on his toes, and make the ones who are there invisible. But nooooooo). This is totally a sound and sensible plan, Terence. And what pisses me off is that it works and Mordred doesn't catch him. Because these characters--these <i>male</i> characters--really aren't characters at this point. They are plot devices.<br />
<br />
Terence wakes up in the middle of the night, having overslept, to the sound of Mordred and the hag having a conversation a few feet away from him. Now that Morgause is dead, Mordred is having a moment of clarity and has realized just how much she had manipulated him and kept him complacent to her plans. Now that she's no longer in control, he's just gonna go wreck shit because he can. To make his point, Mordred kills his illusion creating hag because of reasons. Terence finally has the information he wants and decides to hightail it back to Arthur to tell him Mordred is coming. <br />
<br />
Arriving at Joyous Garde, Terence finds a dire situation. Gawain is there, depressed because of what happened to Gaheris and Lynet. Arthur is out of his mind with rage--truly believing that Lancelot and Guinevere betrayed him because of course he does. Kai and Parsifal both have tried to convince Arthur he's being an idiot to no avail and Terence has no better luck. Well, maybe Lancelot is being more sensible. He is with Guinevere, after all. Surely she's told him what a twat he was, riding in like that, killing Arthur's knights and essentially abducting her while she shouted at him to stop. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"So you can execute her? I'm sorry, sire. Though I die for it, that I cannot do." pg 169.</blockquote>
Simpering wraiths of soppy sentimentality <i>indeed</i>. <br />
<br />
I'm sorry, but where is Guinevere in all this? After the trial, we never hear from her again. She is mentioned by other characters. She is fought over by Arthur and Lancelot as though she is nothing more than a slab of meat. She has no voice. She is an object and I am offended. I am offended at Arthur and Lancelot acting like such ninnies. I am offended that Arthur is so blinded by his rage here that he will not even consider the possibility that he is wrong or realize that Lancelot honest to god believes Arthur intends to execute Guinevere. I'm offended that Lancelot's insistence that he's protecting Guinevere from execution doesn't cause Arthur to go 'what the hell are you talking about? I would never kill her' (as he does after the trial by combat when Bishop Nacien shows up to mediate). I am offended that Lancelot, so concerned with Guinevere well being, has apparently not spoken to her in the weeks since he abducted her. I am offended that Gerald Morris has the gall to describe the ladies of previous children's retellings as 'simpering wraiths of soppy sentimentality' when his <i>male </i>character act like this. When he goes on to completely erase the voice of the most prominent Arthurian female character. I am offended that Morris doesn't even consider Guinevere's agency when it comes to the determination of her own fate (stay with Lancelot or go with Arthur).<br />
<br />
You cheered for the dragons, Mr. Morris? Right here, right now, I'm cheering for Mordred. He's evil. At least he has an excuse for making poorly thought out decisions. <br />
<br />
Arthur and Lancelot agree to trial combat with Gawain fighting on Arthur's behalf. Gawain nearly wins the first day, thanks to his sun strength, but then calls a parlay because he can't kill Lancelot while he's helpless. He calls for the battle to start the next day in the afternoon where the advantage will be Lancelot's. This time Lancelot nearly wins, but can't bring himself to kill Gawain. They seem to be at an impasse when Bishop Nacien shows up and our oh so intelligent male characters finally discover they've been fighting over nothing and this whole thing could have been solved weeks ago if they'd just listened to Guine--wait, no. She's not mentioned outside of the affair. Which Lancelot still has to atone for according to the Bishop. He has to travel around Britain confessing to holy men and then leave England. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Nine- Luneta</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This is what I mean what I talk about the isolation and dis-empowerment of the youth in Arthurian legends." <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81352441828/youth-count-for-the-squires-tales-what-is-the">X</a></blockquote>
Luneta wakes up in the middle of the night to the realization that her mother is dead. She and Rhience decide to set off for Orkney the next night, but Morgan le Fay arrives before they can leave. She's summoning all the enchantresses in the land to a meeting with Ganscotter. They spent weeks traveling across Britain at a magical speed, collecting a dozen other enchantresses, before finally arriving at Laudine's castle. To their delight, Ywain is there as well, because Laudine has held him back from the fighting due to the fear of her own safety. <br />
<br />
They arrive at the Henge to find everyone else in England who has fairy blood gathered there as well, including Piers and Ariel. Ganscotter announces that because of Lynet's sacrifice--using Hecate's power for a selfless act without care to her own well being--was enough to lock Hecate out of our world forever. There will never be another Enchantress, so there's no longer a need for the Seelie Court to play a role in the world. Ganscotter says that no one is required to leave, but those that stay will lose their power and will be at risk as men turn against them. Piers and Arial both retreat to the Otherworld. Laudine wants to go as well, since she'll lose her beauty if she stays, but Ywain decides he must go help Arthur. The two separate and I can't help but feel a great deal of sympathy for Laudine. She's lived a lifetime of people abandoning her and she knows her only power comes from her beauty...I know Ywain feels strongly that it is his duty to serve Arthur, but I wish he had taken a moment to consider how awful the world was for Laudine before she gained her great beauty and the little bit of power that came with it. Luneta and Rhiece decide to stay as well in order to save a little girl they saw in Ganscotter's dark vision of the future. <br />
<br />
It's important to note, Ywain is the only named character from his generation to fight with Arthur against Mordred. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Ten- Guinglain</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"He then sided with Mordred in revealing Lancelot and Guinevere's affair to the court. Like... not a good guy. But instead we get this wide-eyed child who is the most naive character Morris has ever written, and after Parsifal that's saying something." <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2014/02/reread-quest-of-fair-unknown.html">X</a></blockquote>
Lancelot journeys across England confessing and eventually runs into Guinglain, who has no real interest in hearing his confession but indulges Lancelot anyways. He then decides to travel with Lancelot because his hermitage is about to be overrun by the White Horseman. They talk to a lot of priest--some who care about Lancelot's sin and give him penance, some like Guinglain who don't care. Lancelot visits Pedwyr from the sixth book, who had built his tomb, and apologizes that he won't be able to be laid to rest there. From there they go south and find Godwulf's (from <i>Lioness and Her Knight</i>) hermitage completely destroyed and all but one of the inhabitants massacred. They pass Camelot and discover that the White Horsemen have dismantled it stone by stone and taken most of the ladies captive--including Guinevere, Sarah and Eileen. <br />
<br />
Finally, they meet up with Bishop Nacien and Lancelot cusses him out. Arthur needs him now and he's being forced to leave England forever. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"'Did I say forever?' Archbishop Nacien asked quietly." pg 227</blockquote>
Piss off, dude. Seriously. Nacien claims that what he really wanted all along was for Lancelot to go to France and raise an army for Arthur, but I call bullshit. If that was the point, why not just send him to do that. Mordred's army was breathing down their necks. Why the hell would you let Lancelot dither around the countryside talking to monks when we're in the middle of a war Lancelot could easily change the tide of. This is more evidence of the plot driving the characters of this book instead of the other way around. Anyways, Lancelot leaves for Benouic and Guinglain continues on to where Arthur is in Dover. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter 11- Terence</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"All Arthurian authors struggle with this question. And it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that yes, the legend is defined by his death. I mean, the arguably defining book on the subject is titled ‘The Death of Arthur.’ That would seem to be the closing argument on the subject." <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">X</a></blockquote>
You know, as boring as I find this portrayal of Mordred and despite wishing that Morris had done something more innovative, I gotta hand it to the guy. He spent arguably all of his life being controlled by Morgause. And the moment he is free of her, he burns Camelot to the ground and starts decimating what's left of Arthur's army through a very clever hit and run raiding strategy. Makes you wonder what he could have accomplished if he'd been acting on his own the entire time without Morgause clouding his mind. He might have actually killed Terence when he was supposed to. <br />
<br />
Mador is sent as an envoy to Arthur's camp to brag about Mordred destroying Camelot and taking Guinevere hostage. Then he tells Arthur he has two hours to surrender and smartly retreats. Terence goes after him to see where Mordred's camp is, but Mador is going the wrong way and Terence's fairy friend Robin sets him straight. Arthur's army is able to get the jump on Mordred and sends the White Horseman scattering. Terence and Gawain then go to the beach where they heard an army gathering right before they attacked Mordred. They find Mador, who was plotting a trap for Arthur, expecting Terence to follow him and give Arthur a false location. They also find the body of Griflet, who came back with a contingent of knights and put a stop to the ambush at the beach, giving his life in the process. <br />
<br />
Gawain is injured, so he and Terence hurry back to the came so Gawain can receive treatment, but it doesn't look good for him. They find more of Mordred's ships on the water and honestly, where, when, and how did he build this army without anyone noticing? Ships, white horses, enough murderous citizens to outnumber Arthur's army...this stuff doesn't just grown on trees. <br />
<br />
Realizing that is hopeless, Arthur tries to tell his knights to flee, but they won't hear it. They assemble their army on Barham Down, presumably Camlann was unavailable, and charge against Mordred's army. There's a back and forth between the two armies. Arthur starts off well, then Mordred manages a push back. Gawain miraculously shows up in a feat of strength that really doesn't receive an explanation but Mordred eventually gets another push back. Lancelot shows up with his army. Terence sees Arthur battling Mordred. He gets Mordred, then goes down himself. Terence tries to go after him, then gets struck down. <br />
<br />
Terence wakes up to find Bedievere waiting beside him and that's cheating. Bedivere retrieves Excalibur from Mordred's body and takes Terence to the sea. As they go, the rest of Arthur's knights pick themselves up off the battlefield and follow them. Terence has no idea what's going on, but Gawain seems to know. This is never explained. All the knights who died before the battle are already at the beach, even Agravain which doesn't make much sense. Then the ladies come, processing with Arthur's body. Eileen and Sarah are both there, which suggests that Mordred killed them sometime after taking Camelot (do you know how angry I am to see Sarah die off screen and not go down fighting against the man who murdered her fiance?). It's worth noting that neither Kai's wife nor his son are mentioned here at all. <br />
<br />
Arthur, who appears to be peacefully sleeping, is placed on a barge along with Excalibur. Morgan, who received this offer from Ganscotter earlier, gets on the barge with him, to wait with Arthur until he's called into the world again. The barge pulls away from the shore and disappears out into sea. Ganscotter turns to those assembled on the beach and asks if they want to go home. <br />
<br />
And I have so many questions. What is home? Is it the Otherworld with Piers and Ariel and Laudine? Is it somewhere else? If it is somewhere else, will Gawain be able to be with Lorie (the reason it had to end like this?) or will they be forced to remain separated? If it's the Otherworld, why aren't Piers, Ariel and Laudine at the beach? What happened to Arthur and why? Will the other characters, Arthur's Guard of Honor as Gawain calls them, be there when he wakes up? If so, why did he need to go? If not, what the hell was Gawain talking about? This ending for Terence and Gawain-- the ending that was supposed to be happy and their reward for staying apart from their loved ones in service to Arthur--is entirely unsatisfying. <br />
<br />
<i>Chapter 12</i>- <i>Dinadan</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Is Camelot more than it’s destruction? No. Not in this series. Not while Arthur claims that there is no one qualified to rule after him outside of Mordred who showed up a month ago." <a href="http://xn--is%20camelot%20more%20than%20its%20destruction-jn42a/?%20%20No.%20%20Not%20in%20this%20series.%20%20Not%20while%20Arthur%20claims%20that%20there%20is%20no%20one%20qualified%20to%20rule%20after%20him%20outside%20of%20Mordred%20who%20showed%20up%20a%20month%20ago.">X</a></blockquote>
Dinadan and Palomides arrive days after the battle ends because Lancelot stole all the ships out of France. They come across what's left of the battlefields where Guinglain--cheerful as ever--is burying the dead. Guinglain isn't sure what happened during the battle. He knows that Mordred is dead and his army was crushed, but he can't find Arthur's body and has only found a few of Arthur's knights. <br />
<br />
After they spend a few days burying bodies, they go to Brangienne's convent to see if she can tell them more. Now the Mother Superior, Brangienne tells them that Lancelot has retaken Jean Le Forestier's name and has gone to Pedwyr's tomb. She also tells them that Guinevere has joined the convent under the name Sister Arthur. <br />
<br />
From there, they meet up with Rhience and Luneta, who found the girl they were looking for and intend to raise her as their own. They then go on to Godwulf's hermitage. The new hermit asks Dinadan to play and he gives in to despair, claiming that he has no music left now that there is no hope in the world. Guinglain convinces him that there is still hope among them and Dinadan plays the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight. The book ends with the group separating. Luneta and Rhience return to Sussex with their adopted daughter. Guinglain goes back to his hermitage to rebuild and Dinadan and Palomides travel through England singing the tales of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, trying to keep the legend alive. <br />
<br />
This also isn't a very satisfying ending. Beyond the absolute despair that really isn't lifted, despite Guinglain's best efforts, am I really supposed to believe that Mordred got everything? There's no talk of Palomides and Dinadan going to any courts to tell their stories. We don't even know if any courts survived. Charis? Philomena? Obviously there are still people in Orkney and Sussex, but you're not really left with the sense of any grand scale beyond Godwulf's hermitage. Does anyone come in after Arthur or is England left to just be city states? Where is Constantine? Why wouldn't Luneta claim her heritage as Arthur's great-niece. What about Kai's son? There's more do this ending than Dinadan and his stories. Camelot may be gone, but something has to grow up in it's place. The ending seems all the more hopeless by Morris not even bringing it up. <br />
<br />
<b>Overall</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If the battle at the end is not about ‘who rules’ but instead ‘how do we do better’, then Camelot is about more than it’s destruction. If Arthur manages to teach the generation after him and impart his wisdom, then the story isn’t about his death, but his legacy." <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">X</a> </blockquote>
There's some really good stuff in this book. The two chapters from Lynet's perspective are just brilliant and I kinda wish the whole book had been kicked back to her. Then the mortal stuff could have ended with the death of Morgause and we could have seen more about how things were going down in the Seeli Court--why must Arthur sleep, how do they feel about the door closing, Otherworld vs Afterlife-- instead of another unoriginal version of Arthur and Mordred's battle. <br />
<br />
There was also some stuff in this book that was really bad. Not nearly as offensive as <i>Squire's Quest</i> or as bland as <i>Quest for the Fair Unknown</i>, but still pretty bad. The erasure of Guinevere when telling the fallout of her affair with Lancelot is unacceptable. Many of the characters act in opposition to their established characteristics to further a weak plot. The battle between Arthur and Lancelot is just bizarre considering how easily that should have been solved. Mordred's decision to continue to Morgause's plan after learning she had been controlling him is just off and the fact that he does so well without her his borderline unbelievable. <br />
<br />
Finally, I must voice my own disappointment that so much time is spend destroying Camelot and no time is spent on building what comes next--whether that be in the human world or the fairy underworld. A poor attempt is made to reinsert hope into the narrative during the last two pages, but it's not nearly enough after everything that's happened. It ends up affirming the fear I voiced during my <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">addendum</a> to the <i>Squire's Quest</i>. The Squire's Tales will forever be defined by the death of Arthur because Morris leaves no room for it to be defined by anything else, and that's disappointing. <br />
<br />
3 Stars.Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-66036539602707151582014-03-31T23:05:00.002-05:002014-03-31T23:08:06.168-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review/Reread: The Squire's Quest<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Squire's Quest</u></strong><br />
<b></b><b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b></b><b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin<br />
<b>Pages: </b>275<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) <i>Why is it, Terence wondered, that the things you know most surely are always the things you can't demonstrate to anyone else?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>And why is it, after all these years, that Terence is still just a squire, offering advice on how best to scrub rust spots from armor? But Squire Terence has more to worry about that his place on the social scale. For all the peace and prosperity that have made England famous across Europe, Terence is uneasy. After nearly six months without contact with the World of the Faires--not even from his old friend the mischievous sprite Robin--Terence is sure something is rotten in King Arthur's court. And while the squire is always on the watch for the latest plot of the enchantress Morgause, he now also has suspicions about Mordred, King Arthur's misbegotten son, who has appeared at court. Is Mordred after Arthur's throne?<br />
<br />
In this ninth rollicking adventure in the Squire's Tales series, Terence's efforts to defend the Fellowship of the Round Table lead him on his farthest, and most fantastic, journey yet--a quest that ultimately brings Terence rewards he never imagined or expected. </td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
is the first book in the series to be released with only the new, more serious,
cover designs. In these final two books I feel this is appropriate as the mood
shifts towards the twilight years of Camelot. There is still plenty of humor to
be had but it is tempered with the revelation that this golden age must come to
an end—likely sooner than anyone wants or expects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
timeline is still completely messed up and none of the time periods the
characters give in this story match up with anything logical, but at this point
I’ve just decided to ignore it and stop trying to figure out how old everyone
is. It will just give me a nosebleed. Sarah alone is anywhere from sixteen to
twenty-six and it just gets worse from there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spoilers, etc…<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Twist</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re
back to Terence as the point of view character after six books away. Morris
uses him to retell not only Mordred’s attempt to undermine Camelot from within,
but one of Chretien de Troyes’ lesser-known tales of Alexander, one of the Greek
Byzantine Emperors, and Cligés. In this version, Alexander falls in love with a
grown-up Sarah from <i>The Princess, the
Crone and the Dung-Cart Knight</i> but is murdered before he can marry her.
Cligés is his brother in Morris’s version, not his son. Interestingly, some
scholars consider the story of Cligés to be a parody of the Tristan and Isolde
romance, but Morris chooses to take it seriously and the adulterous love
stories of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristram and Iseult are shining examples
for Cligés and his love interest Fenice. The whole Courtly Love trend is still
going strong in song and poetry despite the fact that Lance and Gwen have been
separated for years and Tristram and Iseult are long dead in this universe.
It’s sort of commentary on how not every import from Arthurian Britain has been
a good thing for the rest of Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Plot<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bear
in mind that the major theme of the book is the difference between truth and
lies, and being deceived by outward appearances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Terence
is anxious, as things seem to be settled in Arthur’s Britain but he’s had no
contact with the Faerie world for months. Camelot is playing host to a
succession of leaders from across Europe, as the fame of Arthur and his knights
has spread far and wide. When one delegation from the Holy Roman Empire leaves
(giving us our first brief glimpse of the foolish and overly-romantic Fenice)
another party from the Byzantine Empire arrives. The Emperor, Alexander, takes
one look at Sarah, who is there visiting, and falls madly in love. Egged on by
his brother Cligés, he sets about courting her in the most outrageous way
possible, as dictated by the ballads of courtly romance. Sarah is at first
disgusted by these over-the-top displays and rebuffs him, but over time she
begins to soften towards Alexander, who despite his outlandish notions about courtship
proves himself at every turn to be a good, honest and noble man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile,
the mysterious Mordred arrives at court and begins to ingratiate himself with
everyone. Arthur realizes that he is Mordred’s father and secretly admits it to
his most trusted inner circle, but Guinevere begs him not to reveal it publicly since they still haven’t recovered from the damage her affair with Lancelot did
to all of their reputations. Arthur agrees, though he is uncomfortable with the
deception. Mordred continues to make himself visibly useful and Arthur awards
him more and more positions of trust, wanting to believe his long-lost son will
make a good king after him. Terence deeply distrusts Mordred after hearing
Guinglain speak of him in the previous book, and attaches himself to the young
knight like a burr. All he can come up with, however, is speculation and
possible coincidence. After consulting with his new friend Acoriondes, Emperor
Alexander’s steward who is used to the Byzantine court’s intrigue, they
conclude that Mordred is either exactly what he appears to be or the most
devious plotter they've ever seen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sarah
accepts Alexander’s proposal at last, but a message arrives (conveniently
delivered by Mordred) saying Alexander’s uncle Alis has usurped the throne.
Alexander rides home to Greece, accompanied by Terence, Gawain, Dinadan and Mordred,
prepared to win back his empire by force. Through some skillful diplomatic
maneuvering on the part of Terence, Acoriondes and Dinadan they find the whole
thing was a series of misunderstandings orchestrated—they later learn—by
Mordred for his own sick pleasure (mirroring Mordred’s betrayal of Arthur in
legend where he sends false messages to Camelot telling them Arthur died in
battle and tricking Camelot into attacking its own king). When everything looks
like it’s going to be cleared up with no bloodshed, Mordred poisons Alexander
in a fit of rage that his plans were thwarted. Teenage Cligés takes the throne
with Alis as regent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain
returns to England, Mordred strikes out on his own and Terence and Dinadan
agree to stay in Greece for awhile as guests of Acoriondes. While there they
witness the marriage of Alis to Fenice and the affair between Fenice and
Cligés. The lovesick pair manage to thwart delicate diplomatic relations
between three powerful rulers in pursuit of pretending they are Lancelot and Guinevere,
and the cost of their make-believe is all-out war in southern Germany. They
blithely return to Greece to continue their affair without realizing the damage
they caused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Terence,
Acoriondes and Dinadan take a detour to Delphi where Dinadan and Terence are
led into the Greek equivalent of the Other World to visit the Oracle. There
Terence finally gets the answers he has been seeking about Mordred’s
intentions. They return to Athens to discover Cligés and Fenice have faked
their own deaths, and, à la Tristram and Iseult, have shut themselves up in a
“love grotto” of their own. They are of course discovered and Alis is killed in
the process. Fenice and Cligés are locked away in separate rooms for the rest
of their lives and as further punishment each night are given a potion that
will make them believe they are together again. Acoriondes is named regent
until the child the wayward pair conceived during their brief tryst comes of
age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Terence
returns to England to discover Arthur about to name Mordred his heir and reveal
his paternity. Terence adds a revelation of his own: Mordred’s mother is none
other than Morgause, and she conceived and raised Mordred to destroy Arthur’s
kingdom. Mordred tries to stab Terence in the back but discovers Terence planned
for that, wore chainmail under his clothes and deliberately offered himself as
a target as public proof of Mordred’s inner nature. Morgause rescues Mordred
and they ride off together to continue to create mischief. Members of the Faerie
court appear and reveal that Morgause cast a spell to keep them out of the
World of Men until Mordred’s parentage was revealed. Arthur makes Terence a
Knight of the Round Table. Terence proposes to his beloved Eileen at last,
Gawain make a snarky remark, and all things seem to end happily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For
now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Characters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mordred:
Morris’s portrayal of Mordred has reinforced my opinion that Morris didn’t
really want to write these last three books and therefore didn’t put as much
effort into the new characters as he might have. He went to a lot of trouble
throughout this series to redeem Gawain from his treatment at the hands of the
French bards who downgraded Arthur’s best knight in the Celtic stories in favor
of Lancelot, and then a lot of trouble to redeem Lancelot from listening to the
bards too much. However, he takes Mordred, who in the original non-French
stories was a close relative of Arthur’s (but not his son) at face value from
Malory—as the incestuous son of Arthur and his evil half-sister who wants to
destroy all his father built. Morris could have chosen to make Mordred more
complicated but instead he’s a means to wrap up the series in a neat little bow
in terms of Good versus Evil. In past books it usually isn’t that simple.
Indeed, after reading the earlier books I predicted Mordred when he appeared would
be Morgan’s son since it’s stated she’s in love with Arthur, and as Morgan’s
son would have had much more conflicted motivations than as the blackhearted son
of the series antagonist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mordred
as he’s portrayed here is faithful to most other stories about him: he’s a
gifted diplomat and people-pleaser. He always knows exactly what to say in any
situation, and it’s this trait that makes Arthur believe he will be a good
choice to continue working for peace in England. Terence discovers the one
chink in Mordred’s calculating façade: he can be goaded into acting impulsively
out of spite. And you won’t like him when he’s angry. His skin turns green and
he transforms into a giant creature fueled by rage…wait. Wrong story. Never mind.
(Though the image of Hulk!Mordred is hilarious, and now you know how much of a
nerd I am.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dinadan:
This is the most we’ve seen of him since he was a title character. He supplies
most of the comic relief throughout this fairly heavy story. Ostensibly, he’s
along for the ride because he’s done quite a bit of traveling around Europe (I
guess in the years since Tristram and Iseult died) and speaks several different
continental languages. I feel bad for him because he can’t get away from heroic
retellings of Tristram and Iseult’s doomed affair, when he was there and knows
the whole thing was really incredibly pathetic, petty and sad. In the end he
stays behind in Greece to help negotiate peace between the Byzantines and the
empire of the Islamic Turks as his old friend Palomides leads the Turkish army.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fenice:
It occurs to me Morris’s strong condemnation of the childish behavior of Cligés
and Fenice where they’re only concerned that their love story mirror a romantic
ballad may be some sort of oblique reaction to the Twilight phenomenon, which
was at its height when this book was being written. Cligés and Fenice’s selfish
love and other characters’ pithy comments about how damaging a story about
selfish love can be when stupid people believe it sounds like many things I’ve
heard people say about the Twilight quartet (I refuse to call it a saga). I’ve
read the first book and it is indeed a story about two selfish young people
drawn into a damaging, obsessive relationship that bills itself as a story
about the truest of all True Love. And it has fooled a lot of people into
believing that’s what true love is, and the way they want their relationships
to be. I’ve also heard the argument that it’s just a story and as long as
people know it’s fiction it can’t be damaging. I’m sure most people who read it
know that sparkly vampires don’t exist (and the ones who don’t have bigger
problems). The issue is the relationship dynamic portrayed, and how it’s
marketed within the text as desirable. People have a harder time separating
fact from fiction in that area. In this story, Cligés and Fenice have the same
trouble with separating the real Lancelot/Guinevere and Tristram/Iseult
relationships from the fictional ones the bards billed as a romantic ideal. I
could be reading way too much into this. Morris has had other foolish couples
who want to live in ballad-land in previous books and this could simply be one
more set. But the remark about what happens when stupid people take to heart a
stupid story struck me. In this case, a story isn't just a story and can in
fact cause real-world harm. There isn't much to say about Fenice herself as a
character as she is shallow and empty-headed long before she meets Cligés.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cligés:
Cligés seems to be dependable enough in the beginning of the story even if he
is full of romantic notions about Courtly Love. He appears to want to be a good
ruler after Alexander dies. Then he sees Fenice and goes off the deep end,
becoming a different character entirely. Again, I wonder if this is commentary on
Twilight and teenage characters that have some semblance of personality and
ambitions until they meet their True Love and then can think of nothing but the
object of their affections and become insufferable morons from then on out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Alexander:
I will admit he is kind of annoying at first but as Sarah discovers he does
grow on you. Particularly when he shows his sense of humor. I really wish Sarah, instead of ignoring him at first, had said she wanted to spend time with him to
get to know him better (i.e., date), and then she’d see about taking his
proposal seriously. It would have saved everybody a lot of grief and headaches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Alis:
I feel awful for him since he’s just a pawn. He agrees to marry Fenice out of
duty when he thinks Alexander and Cligés are dead and then discovers he can’t
get out of it. Then Cligés and Fenice proceed to play him for a fool in pursuit
of their little game of ‘pretend to be Lancelot and Guinevere because it’s the
most romantic thing ever’ by giving him a potion that makes him think Fenice is
his dead wife. It’s really kind of sickening what they do to this guy and the
cruel lengths that they go. In the end I think they do actually drive him mad
when all he was guilty of was trying to do the right thing for the empire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Guinglain:
Appears briefly twice, content in his role as a holy man. Terence consults him
on what to do about Mordred since Guinglain’s sole purpose seems to be to serve
as some sort of spiritual radar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arthur:
Here we see Arthur’s willingness to trust as a weakness rather than a strength,
as he so desperately wants to believe in Mordred he is willing to give him
positions of trust without him really proving himself. I do still like his
sense of humor. Arthur quote of the book (in response to Terence’s willingness
to kill himself at Arthur’s command): “If I ever command you to throw yourself
from this tower, have me locked up, won’t you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain:
Doesn’t appear much except to occasionally make a smart remark and offer
advice. He travels with Terence to Greece but does not participate in Terence’s
adventures there and returns fairly quickly to England.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kai:
One of the few who outright distrusts Mordred, and says so. Most people assume
this is just Kai being Kai except those like Terence and Gawain who already had
reason to suspect Mordred. Kai’s job by this point has morphed into more of an
event planner, making sure all the guests to Camelot are fed and housed
comfortably, organizing banquets and tournaments. He grumbles about all of this
and as a man of action is not always happy with diplomacy but understands the
need for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Oracle: The fascinating part of this non-Arthurian character is he/she is nonbinary,
both male and female simultaneously and also neither. Other characters use the
male and female pronouns interchangeably when discussing him/her, sometimes in
the same sentence. She/he seems to be a combination of the Sybil (female seer
associated with Delphi) and Tiresius, the blind (male) seer from Greek myth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Guinevere,
Lancelot, Griflet, Palomides, Morgause, Morgan, Ywain, Tor, and Agrivain are
mentioned or make cameo appearances. Tristram and Iseult are mentioned
frequently even though they are both dead. Bedivere is murdered by Mordred, the
first of Arthur’s trusted inner circle (though least used in this series since
he only appears as a character of any note in <i>Ballad of Sir Dinadan</i>) to die in the fight against Morgause’s
plots. I was disappointed not to see Kai or Dinadan’s reactions to his death
since they were closest to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite
its darker tone I like this book much better than <i>Fair Unknown</i>. Probably just from having Terence back as the point
of view character. It doesn't seem as confused as <i>Fair Unknown</i> and has one major overarching theme to tie it all
together. It’s not a favorite book but the new setting and characters are
interesting and memorable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Four
stars.</span></div>
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-8938598109353532272014-03-31T23:05:00.000-05:002014-03-31T23:05:02.278-05:00Review: Squire's Quest<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Squire's Quest</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin<br />
<b>Pages: </b>275<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) <i>Why is it, Terence wondered, that the things you know most surely are always the things you can't demonstrate to anyone else?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
And why is it, after all these years, that Terence is still just a squire, offering advice on how best to scrub rust spots from armor? But Squire Terence has more to worry about that his place on the social scale. For all the peace and prosperity that have made England famous across Europe, Terence is uneasy. After nearly six months without contact with the World of the Faires--not even from his old friend the mischievous sprite Robin--Terence is sure something is rotten in King Arthur's court. And while the squire is always on the watch for the latest plot of the enchantress Morgause, he now also has suspicions about Mordred, King Arthur's misbegotten son, who has appeared at court. Is Mordred after Arthur's throne?<br />
<br />
In this ninth rollicking adventure in the Squire's Tales series, Terence's efforts to defend the Fellowship of the Round Table lead him on his farthest, and most fantastic, journey yet--a quest that ultimately brings Terence rewards he never imagined or expected. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So, a couple years ago, when Samoaphoenix gave me this book for Christmas, I did start reading it. And it was awesome because ~*Sarah!*~. But then Sarah's part of the book became really uncomfortable and Mordred showed up and his part was like nails on a chalkboard. I got about a quarter of the way through and stopped. That means technically I'm done with the rereads and this is my first impression of the book instead of second+. <br />
<br />
<b>Warning for Spoilers</b><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><b>The Twist</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Gerald Morris says in his notes that the romance <i>Cligés</i> by Chretien de Troyes makes up the backbone of Squire's Quest. I'm going to go through the basic outline <i>Cligés</i> here because I'm not actually convinced Morris read it. In the quick skimming I've done to prepare to the review, it's become obvious that Morris fantastically missed the point. <br />
<br />
Here's what Morris has to say about <i>Cligés</i> and Chrietien's other romances in his author's note:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But what a love Chretien's "courtly love" was! In his tales, knights swore eternal faithfulness to their mistresses--rather than to, for instance, their wives--and their mistresses ruled these lovesick knights with an iron hand. Also, nearly all Arthurian love stories end tragically. For some reason, it was considered romantic to die for love. Not half-witted: romantic. (pg. 274)</blockquote>
For those following along at home, you'll remember that Morris made a similar claim in <i>The Lioness and her Knight</i> and I called him on his misrepresentation of Chretien's Romances:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Morris says that the Tale of Yvain is a rare story for Chretien de Troyes because it involves two people whose love leads to a marriage instead of an extramarital affair. This seems strange to me because Erec and Enide's romance leads to a marriage-- one that eventually becomes unhappy, but still. A marriage is a marriage. Cligés has a romance that begins with an extramarital affair, but ends with a marriage. Perceval too has a romance that ends in a marriage.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In fact, the only story of de Troyes' that ends in an extramarital affair and not a marriage is the Dung Cart Knight. That is the odd one out. This one is par for the course.</blockquote>
In fact, my Everyman edition of Chretien's romances, translated and annotated by D.D.R. Owen says that for Chretien love is only ideal when it <i>ends in a marriage</i>! (pg 510).<br />
<br />
So, <i>Cligés</i>. The story of <i>Cligés</i> begins with Emperor Alexander of Greece and Constantinople. Upon reaching adulthood, Alexander decides to leave his home in Constantinople and travel to Britain to meet with the great King Arthur. While there, Alexander falls in love with Arthur's niece Soredamor. The two get married and have a son, Cligés. After a few years of happiness in Britain, Alexander's father dies and the messenger who was supposed to bring him this message lies and claims that Alexander died on his way to Britain. Alexander's brother Alis claims the throne, but eventually Alexander gets word of this and marches on Athens. Alexander and Alis come to a peace treaty where Alis will continue to rule the empire as regent, but will take no wife or have no children so that Cligés can eventually inherit the Empire.<br />
<br />
Alexander then dies and untimely death and, at the insistence of his advisers, Alis reneges on his deal with Alexander and selects a wife--Princess Fenice, eldest daughter of the Emperor of Germany. Unfortunately for Alis, Fenice and Cligés take one look at each other fall madly in love. Leading up to the wedding night, Fenice begs the aid of her nurse Thessala to keep her from having to consummate her marriage with Alis because she does not want to conceive a child with him and thus deny Cligés his inheritance. The nurse concocts a potion that will cause Alis to believe he is consummating his marriage with Fenice, but it's only in his dreams while in real life she remains untouched. <br />
<br />
Then there's a war with the Duke of Saxony where Cligés is awesome. Then Cligés goes to Britain and participates in a tournament where he is awesome (beats Lancelot and fights Gawain to a draw). Then Cligés returns home where he finally confesses his love to Fenice. The two concoct a plan to fake Fenice's death so she and Cligés can live out their romance in secret. All goes well until a hawking knight finds them and the two are forced to flee to Britain. Cligés enlists the help of his Great-Uncle Arthur to reclaim his birthright, but then news comes that Alis has died. Cligés and Fenice return to Greece as the new Emperor and Empress and live happily ever after (not a tragic death in sight).<i> </i> <br />
<br />
Squire's Quest, on the other hand, follows Terence as he worries about the lack of contact from the Fairy Otherworld. Alexander lavishes Sarah with romantic notions while she freaks out, but eventually she gives in after seeing how brave he is. Then Alexander is poisoned by Mordred and his Uncle Alis takes the throne in the stead of his brother Cligés. Alis marries Fenice, but she loves Cligés and the whole story is played out much like Tristram and Iseult from <i>The Ballad of Sir Dinadan</i>. <br />
<br />
<b>The Plot</b><br />
<br />
We begin in Camelot, where Arthur is hosting delegates from the Holy Roman Empire and Terence is fretting over his lack of contact from the Otherworld. To make matters worse, Sarah arrives with a message from Morgan le Fay: Morgause is back and plotting again to kill Arthur. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately, all of Terence's worries are put on the back burner as the delegates from the Holy Roman Empire leave and Emperor Alexander of Rome (from it's seat in Constantinople) arrives. Arthur has Kai put together feasts and tournaments to honor his guests, but things are thrown somewhat of kilter when Alexander sees Sarah at dinner and falls madly in love with her. A whole chapter alone is devoted to his romantic overtures along with other acts scattered throughout the first half of the book. And this is one of the first instances in the book where I start to see red, because Sarah freaks out. Ignoring that in <i>Cligés</i> Alexander and Soredamor were too embarrassed to talk to each other and basically needed Guinevere to lock them in a room together, I really hate how the rape culture staple of 'if she says no, she really means yes' is presented here without any commentary calling it out as problematic. I will talk about this in more detail in the character section. <br />
<br />
Near the end of the tournament, Mordred finally arrives after taking his sweet time getting from Galahad and Guinglain in the woods to Camelot (the book states that it's been six months since Fair Unknown--for more 'oh god, the timeline!, please see this <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/79659167050/what-the-fuck-morris-youre-just-doing-this-on">post</a>). He has his presentation at the Round Table and tells the story of his conception. Now it's Arthur's turn to have a 'surprise, it's your kid!' moment the way Lancelot and Gawain did in the last book. Arthur decides to test Mordred to see if he's qualified for kingship, leaving him as regent with Bedivere while taking the rest of the court to Brittany. While they're away, Count Anders (who Mordred had 'placated' in his first test of kingship) tries to usurp Arthur and takes Bedivere hostage. Arthur races back and, with the help of Alexander and Terence, manages to defeat Anders and take back his kingdom. This part of the story mirrors pretty closely the Count Angres portion of the <i>Cligés</i> story. In Chretien, Arthur actually leaves Angres in control of the kingdom while he summers in Brittany and Angres turns on him. In Squire's Quest, like with <i>Cligés</i>, Arthur only wins back his throne through the help of Alexander, who changes his insignia to match that of Count Anders and infiltrates his castle. <br />
<br />
Sarah is so taken with Alexander's showing of bravery that she finally agrees to marry him. Just as they are preparing for the wedding, Alexander receives news from Mordred (who has very likely killed the real messenger) that his Uncle (as opposed to Brother) has usurped his throne. With Gawain at his side, Alexander rides to Athens to take back his crown. But his counselor Acoriondes thinks something is amiss and, along with Terence, sneaks into Athens to find out why Alis would betray Alexander (in <i>Cligés</i>, Alexander figures out that something is wrong and sends Acorionde to speak with Alis). Acoriondes discovers that an English messenger (possibly Mordred, possibly someone working for him) arrived some months ago claiming that Alexander had died in a forest fire (mirroring the messenger sent from Alis to Alexander who didn't deliver his message from Alis and instead claimed that Alexander had died so Alis could assume the throne). But it's okay because it was all one big misunderstanding! Alexander breaks out some wine to celebrate, and promptly falls dead of poison <strike>because Mordred.</strike><br />
<br />
Cligés is declared Alexander's successor, but as he is too young to assume the throne, Alis is named regent. Gawain returns to England with most of the knights Arthur sent to aid Alexander, but Terence and Dinadan decide to stay behind (so does Mordred, although he parts ways with Terence and Dinadan immediately). Dinadan is all excited because they'll get to see a wedding after all. Alis, believing he was now Emperor of Rome (via Constantinople), inquired to the Holy Roman Empire for a bride so he could conceived a son and heir, and they responded enthusiastically. Despite the whole thing being a misunderstanding, Alis is now stuck with the marriage--he tries to pass it off to Cligés, who stupidly passes it up (you'll note that this doesn't mirror what happens in <i>Cligés</i>, where Alis is pushed into marriage by his advisers in direct opposition to the treaty he made with Alexander before the other died). <br />
<br />
So the wedding between Alis and Fenice occurs, and it is hands down the most amusing part in the entire book. Morris has great fun with the bureaucratic headache caused by a catholic marrying a Greek Orthodox. The pinnacle is the actual ceremony, where the two priests race to see who can finish the ceremony first while Dinadan runs color commentary (bless you Dinadan for making this book bearable). Of course, because this is a romance, Cligés and Fenice take one look at each other during the ceremony and fall madly in love. <br />
<br />
Next is the Duke of Saxony part of the story. Unlike in <i>Cligés</i> where the Duke is actually attacking and actually trying to win Fenice back (she was supposed to marry him, see, before Alis' offer arrived), in Squire's Quest the whole thing is a fake battle so both the Holy Roman Emperor and the Duke of Saxony can save face--the Emperor can marry Fenice to whoever he likes and the Duke gets some more land. It's an interesting concept, and Dinadan breaking down sobbing after a German soldier they made friends with his needlessly killed by Cligés (bless you Dinadan for making this book bearable) is the most heartbreaking part of the entire book. But in the end, this section really only serves to make Cligés look as horrid and unhinged as Tristram in <i>The Ballad of Sir Dinadan.</i> In Chretien's book, instead of fake kidnapping Fenice to trade for land, the Duke of Saxony has actually kidnapped Fenice and attacked the German/Greek camp. It doesn't read as Morris' regular play on events. He actually flips the sequence of events (In Squire's Quest, is a fake battle, then a fake tournament, in <i>Cligés</i> it's a tournament, then a real battle). And the whole thing is just weird. It's weird that Morris went so far out of his way to change it. It's weird that he goes so far out of his way to make Cligés and Fenice look bad when, out of all king/queen/knight love triangles in the Arthurian mythos, these two are the most sympathetically portrayed and actually have a pretty heavy grievance against Alis unlike Guinevere and Lancelot or Tristan and Isolde. <br />
<br />
From here, Squire's Quest diverges completely from <i>Cligés </i>as Terence, Dinadan and Acoriondes take a trip to Delphi. Acoriondes wants to show them more of Greece, but Terence is much more interested in the rumors that Delphi serves as a gateway to other worlds. His hope to make contact with greater powers comes to pass as Dinadan's fairy friend Sylvanus (actually Dionysus) joins them. He takes Dinadan and Terence to <strike>Elysium</strike> Tartarus (no, Morris says Elysium, but that's where heroes go--this place is filled with the pain and suffering of those who did wrong in their mortal lives so it's Tartarus) to meet with the Oracle Tieresias. <br />
<br />
Tieresias is actually a character from Greek Mythology. He was the Oracle of Thebes who was cursed to spend seven years as a woman after offending Hera and then either made that mistake again and was blinded by her or offended Athena who blinded him. Here Tieresias is a blind seer and intersex/nonbinary (I can't tell if the presented dual sexuality is by birth, curse, or choice) and is referred to by male and female pronouns by him/herself and the other characters. The conversation between Terence, Tieresias, and a nearby Sisyphus who is busy pushing his rock up a hill ended up really bothering me and I wrote another <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">addendum</a> about what the subtext of this scene says about the Squire's Tales series and the legend as a whole. Eventually, Tieresias tells Terence that Mordred is the son of Arthur and Morgause and is most definitely part of her plot to destroy Arthur. Dinadan and Terence return to the mortal world to find that several weeks have passed. Acoriondes, who slept through the whole thing, is suddenly worried about what may have occurred in Athens while he was away and insists they return to the city. <br />
<br />
They arrive back in Athens to the news that Fenice and Cligés are dead. Fenice died first of an unknown aliment and was buried in a tomb that used to be the summer home of a wealthy merchant. After she was in the tomb and it was walled off, it was discovered that Cligés had sealed himself within her coffin the night before. Terence and Dinadan are immediately suspicious and go to check out the tomb. Turns out it's a love grotto, much like Tristram and Iseult put together in <i>The Ballad of Sir Dinadan</i>. Terence and Dinadan take Acoriondes there to reveal the lovers, but Acoriondes' squire has arrived first and discovered the pair. Cligés cuts off his leg just as Terence, Dinadan and Acoriondes arrive. The three prepare to face off against Cligés, with Fenice shrieking in the corner. Then Alis arrives. Realizing he's been dumped, Alis flies into a rage and tries to strangle Fenice. Cligés kills him and Terence and Acoriondes incapacitate Fenice and Cligés (This is in direct opposition to <i>Cligés </i>where Cligés and Fenice manage to flee before Alis can discover them, he dies while they're away, and they return to rule the empire). The two are sentenced to a lifetime imprisoned (as Fenice is pregnant), apart, with Thessala's potion to haunt their dreams.<br />
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Terence returns to Britain (Dinadan goes off on more adventures, intending to meet up with Palomides) right as Arthur is about to publicly acknowledge Mordred as his son and heir. After Arthur's confession to his people, Terence reveals himself and tells Arthur that Mordred is also the son of Morgause. Mordred flies into a rage and tries to kill Terence, but Terence was prepared and now Mordred has to square off against Arthur and Gawain as well. Morgause, also hiding in the crowd, puts everyone to sleep except Terence. Just as they're about to face off, the Seelie court arrives to aid Terence, Morgause's spell having been broken. With no other option, Morgause takes Mordred and flees. Terence publicly confesses his love for Eileen, asking her to marry him properly, and Arthur finally knights him (much to poor Gawain's dismay).<br />
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<b>Characters</b><br />
<br />
Cligés and Fenice are done a huge disservice in this book. Actually, having skimmed <i>Cligés</i>, I don't really understand Morris' choices here. He's obviously had a longstanding beef with the idea of courtly love and he's been mocking the whole idea since the first book of the series. As early as <i>The Princess, The Crone, and the Dung Cart Knight </i>he's been taking some pretty low shots at Chretien de Troyes for apparently espousing this idea in all of his romances. And, yes, Chretien deserves some of the blame for introducing the idea of courtly love through <i>Le Chevalier de la Charrette</i>, he doesn't deserve as much blame as Morris has been heaping on him because he <i>hated</i> the idea of courtly love. <i>Le Chevalier de la Charrette</i> was written for his patron at her request and most scholars think he left it to a clerk to finish because he so despised the adulterous premise of the story. <i>Cligés</i> as a story is decidedly anti-adultery. Specifically, it's anti-Tristan and Isolde. Chretien constantly condemns both the story and the characters through his story and characters. So I don't understand why Morris chose to have Cligés and Fenice completely enamored with Tristram and Iseult to the point where we basically get a poorly made copy of their story (much like Galahad's Grail Quest was a poorly made copy of Parsifal's) when Morris could have actually done something really interesting with the characters while keeping an anti-Tristram and Iseult message (Fenice loves Cligés and wants to help him protect his birthright from Alis, but also not want to go down as an adulterous like Iseult--just like Fenice in the original). <br />
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Beyond this, I don't have anything to say about these two as characters because they aren't characters. They want so badly to be Tristram and Iseult and live out their tragic love that there is nothing else to these characters. They are flat, poorly made cardboard copies of Tristram and Iseult. There is nothing interesting or innovative about them and they are more horrifying than Tristram and Iseult because they don't have the love potion to fall back on as an excuse.<br />
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Dinadan is amazing and the best part of the book. His presence, especially in the later half of the book with Terence in Greece/Germany, is probably to help the reader recall the Tristram/Iseult debacle as we descend into take two (and the characters, as it's pretty easy for him to predict what Cligés and Fenice are going to do based on his familiarity with courtly love stories). As much as it probably sucks to be him, living through that nonsense again, bless him for his role. His humor and grief are so real and so human that they truly breath some much needed life into this drudgery. And, despite Dinadan being a part of both stories, his involvement is the only part that doesn't feel stale. <br />
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Mordred is the same boring, evil character he was in the last book. I said all I wanted to about the handling of this character in my review of <i>Quest for the Fair Unknown </i>(well, in my addendum to the review), so I won't get into that again. I will say that I got super irritated with Terence's constant 'he's evil!' internal narration. I would have loved to enjoy Mordred as he was presented in the text--thoughtful, diplomatic, and inspiring--and then been 'surprised' when he turned out to be the worse. Instead I had to deal with Terence mentally shouting 'EVIL' every time Mordred did anything and that was super tiring. <br />
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Sarah was amazing and Alexander was okay--better when he was away from her. Alexander takes one look at Sarah and falls madly in love with her. Following the advice of Cligés, Alexander attempts to woo Sarah via courtly love where no matter how hard Sarah protests and tells Alexander to get away from her, it actually means that she's madly in love with him. While Morris does call this out as problematic within the context of courtly love being silly and stupid, he doesn't call it out in the context of the real world where where this is an actual fucking thing girls and women have to deal with. He doesn't call it out as problematic in the context of a world where we're still trying to teach boys that no means no. So, as much as I like Alexander outside of his wooing of Sarah and as much potential I think the two of them could have had as a couple if Morris had chosen to actually develop them outside of this nonsense, I can't support this relationship. Yes, Sarah agrees to marry Alexander because she sees that he's brave during the fight against Count Anders. But actually we're not in Sarah's head so we don't actually know what she's thinking. Maybe she just gave up because it's a good match and everyone is telling her she should take it. <br />
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Also, I get it, Morris. You hate courtly love. But I don't see why the Alexander and Soredamor romance, which was largely about two people <i>afraid</i> to admit their feelings for each other, deserved to get caught in the crossfire. <br />
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Alis is just a sad character. It's hard to say that this is different from his portrayal in <i>Cligés</i> where he is also a rather sad character. Here Alis is just trying to do right when he thinks his nephew is dead/when his nephew actually dies instead of just letting conniving advisers lead him around when he thinks his brother is dead/when is brother is actually dead. I will say he is portrayed much more sympathetically here than in <i>Cligés</i>, especially after he takes Thessala's potion and becomes completely hapless. <br />
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Kai is awesome, as always. He and Terence are the only two suspicious of Mordred and rails against Arthur's decision to give the boy more power. He also grumbles a lot about hosting all these delegates from other countries. I would have liked to have seen more of Kai. I would also have liked to hear more about the wife and son we've apparently forgotten all about. <br />
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Arthur...it's the same Arthur. Good king. Great sense of humor. Loyal to a fault. And with a big heaping of Arthur guilt over his betrayal of Guinevere with a woman he met in the woods while she was having her affair with Lancelot. This Arthur guilt leads to his decision to start training Mordred as his heir despite just meeting the boy and not knowing anything about him. Then Arthur says one of the most infuriating lines in the whole book, suggesting that no one in the younger generation is fit to rule after him. I talk about this a bit in the <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81141206641/so-apparently-addenda-to-the-camelots-library">Sisyphys addendum</a> and then some more in this third <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/81352441828/youth-count-for-the-squires-tales-what-is-the">addendum</a> because seriously? We're really going to forget about all the awesome youngsters who have appeared throughout the series (are we really going to forget about <i>Sarah????</i>). Okay then. <br />
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Bedivere has no lines in this book. He stays behind in Camelot with Mordred when Arthur takes the court to Brittany. He's then 'captured' by Count Anders and then murdered by Mordred and what the fuck? You can't <i>kill</i> Bedivere? He's supposed to be the last one standing!<br />
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Acoriondes has an expanded role in the book from his part in Cligés where he just took Alexander's message to Alis. Here he strikes up a friendship with Terence and Dinadan and is their cultural translator as they travel through Greece and Germany. Gawain appears briefly to hang out with Terence and lead the army against Alis. Guinevere and Lancelot are here and Arthur finally sort of talks with them about their affair when he confesses that he's Mordred's father. Morgause shows up at the end to challenge Terence but ends up having to flee. Guinglain makes an appearance as someone Terence goes to for advice when it comes to dealing with Mordred (because you would so know from the nine lines he spoke in your presence). Anders and Thessala play the same roles here as they did in <i>Cligés.</i><br />
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<b>Overall</b><br />
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When I finished this book I thought it was okay. A smidgen better than <i>The Quest for the Fair Unknown</i>, but not nearly as good as the rest of the books in the series. As I wrote this review and read through the original <i>Cligés </i>for comparison, I came to think this book was really poorly done and actually probably worse than <i>The Quest for the Fair Unknown</i>. And then I reached the scene that broke me. In <i>Cligés</i>, a group of doctors have come to Athens right as Fenice 'dies'. They immediately suspect that she's faking to get away from her husband. They plead with Alis to let them reveal Fenice's trickery and he agrees. They then proceed to <i>beat Fenice to near death</i>. They whip her. They melt lead on her body (specifically <i>through</i> her hands which--along with who rescues her calls for some pretty explicit Christ imagery). They are about to put her on a fire and burn her alive when thousands of ladies see what they're doing, break down the door, and throw the doctors out the window and into the courtyard, killing them. '[N]o ladies ever did a better job!' Chretien writes (ln. 6050). <br />
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In Squire's Quest, a doctor comes to examine Fenice after she has taken 'ill' and miraculously 'cures' her. Fenice claims that he hurt her and in a fit of rage Cligés throws a doctor off a cliff. The scene is meant to reflect poorly on Fenice and Cligés, who are willing to murder to protect their adultery. <br />
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I say fuck that. I cannot accept this reinterpretation of this scene. I don't know how you read that scene and think 'you know who is the real victim here? Those poor doctors.' I felt sick reading it and even sicker when I realized that Morris' sympathy had gone to these monsters over Fenice. This is worse than when he mocked Dindrane's sacrifice in <i>The Quest for the Fair Unknown. </i>This re-imaging of this scene is abhorrent and unacceptable. And I hate this book because of it.<br />
<br />
Last time I tried to be fair. I'm going to be fair this time too and not give this book a 1 because at least it's well written and Dinadan. But between this, the obtuse handling of Cligés and Fenice, the rage inducing handling of Sarah's romance, Mordred, and all the stuff I talked about in the addenda...I can't. I can't give this book a 3.<br />
<br />
2 Stars. Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-86355396996623475512014-03-25T23:32:00.000-05:002015-08-06T16:36:26.258-05:00Muppet King Arthur Chapter Four Review<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>Muppet King Arthur, Chapter Four</u></strong><br />
<b>Written By: </b>Paul Benjamin and Patrick Storck<br />
<b>Artist: </b>James Silvani<br />
<b>Colors: </b>Eric Cobain<br />
<b>Letterer: </b>Deron Bennett<br />
<b>Assistant Editor:</b> Jason Long<br />
<b>Editor: </b>Aaron Sparrow<br />
<b>Designer: </b>Erika Terriquez<br />
<b>Cover: </b>David Petersen<br />
<b></b><b>Publisher:</b> Boom Kids!<br />
<b>Pages: </b>22<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher trade) A Tale of Chivalry, adventure, chickens, and magic! The tale of King Arthur has been told many times over the centuries, but never before has it included robots, knock-knock jokes, and boomerang fish! The Muppets bring you this beloved classic in their signature style, adding twists and turns to the quest for the Holy Grail that would make a sane driver pull over and ask for directions! Will the Frog King save his beloved England from the curmudgeonly Sam of Eagle? Will the Lady of the Lake get back on the festival circuit? Will they find a carpenter capable of making a round table? Find out in MUPPET KING ARTHUR!</td></tr>
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More Muppets (that cover is GORGEOUS)!<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Warning For Spoilers and General Silliness</b><br />
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<i><span style="color: #274e13;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #274e13;">Kermit: It's the <u>Muppet Show</u> with our very special rendition of King Arthur! YAAAAY!</span></i><br />
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<i>It's time to play the music,</i></div>
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<i>It's time to light the lights,</i></div>
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<i>It's time meet the Muppets</i></div>
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<i>On the Muppet Show Tonight!</i></div>
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<i>It's time to put on makeup</i></div>
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<i>It's time to dress up right</i></div>
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<i>It's time to get things started</i></div>
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<i>Why don't you get things started</i></div>
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<b>Starring</b></div>
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Kermit the Frog as King Arthur</div>
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Miss Piggy as Morgana Le Fay<br />
Gonzo the Great as Sir Lancelot Du Lac<br />
Camilla the Chicken as Lady Guinevere<br />
Animal as Sir Gawain<br />
Robin the Frog as Sir Mordred</div>
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Fozzie Bear as Sir Percival</div>
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Rowlf the Dog as Merlin the Magician, PHD (Prestidigitating Hound Dog)</div>
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Sam Eagle as Sir Sam of Eagle</div>
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Statler and Waldorf as Ye Olde People Who Heckle from the Balcony that's always there</div>
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Rizzo as Sir Rizzo </div>
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Sweetums as Sir Sweetums<br />
Honeydew and Beaker as Sir Honeydew and Squire Beaker<br />
Link Hogthrob as Sir Hogthrob<br />
Pepe the King Prawn as Pepe the Fisher King Prawn<br />
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<i>It's time to get things started</i></div>
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<i>On the most sensational, </i></div>
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<i>inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational</i></div>
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<i>This is what we call the Muppet Show!</i><br />
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<a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2012/09/muppet-king-arthur-chapter-three-review.html">Previously on Muppet King Arthur</a>--</div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Who's there?</span></div>
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Err, it's me, guys. Storyteller Knight. The reviewer?</div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: No, no. You can't be her. She disappeared many moons ago and hasn't been heard from since.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: To our great relief.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">::guffaw</span> <span style="color: #4c1130;">guffaw::</span></div>
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Haha, guys. Very funny. Look, I know it's been over a year since the last Muppet King Arthur review was posted. It's been something of a year. But I'm here now and this is the last one. So let's just get this over with. <br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">Hilarious. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; text-align: center;">Mahna Mahna: Hilarious!</span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span><span style="color: magenta; text-align: center;">Snouths: Doo Dooo Doo Doo Doo!</span><br />
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You're not in this one either!<br />
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<a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2012/09/muppet-king-arthur-chapter-three-review.html">Previously on Muppet King Arthur</a>, Kermit!Arthur wasn't at all pleased with the state of his kingdom. He decided to take the knights on a quest for the betterment of his people. Robin!Mordred suggested a quest for the Holy Grail. The Knights of the Septagonal Table followed the map to E. Bay to speak to the auctioneer, who had sold the Grail to Scooter of Arimathea. Upon finding Scooter, they learned that he was only a go-fer and that the Grail actually belonged to Pepe the Fisher King Prawn. Pepe drove a hard bargain, but eventually bartered the Grail away for visitation rights, chocolate brunches every Sunday, a pony, and a good reuben. Upon arriving back at Camelot, the Knights of the Septagonal table learned that Robin!Mordred had partnered with Sir Sam of Eagle and seized the throne from Arthur!<br />
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And now for the thrilling conclusion. <br />
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We begin outside the gates of Camelot where Robin!Mordred, Sir Sam of Eagle, and Professor Plot's robot army have barred Kermit!Arthur and the knights of the Septagonal Table from entry. Robin!Mordred demands that the Grail be turned over to him, as he is through being a supporting character!</div>
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Gonzo!Lancelot is ready for a fight. Fozzie!Percival thinks the robot army is one of the toughest crowds he's ever faced. Animal!Gawain is ready to rock out. Rolf!Merlin is ready to take off. </div>
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But fear not! Because Kermit!Arthur has a plan! He demands that Robin!Mordred call off his army and let this conflict remain between them. Robin!Mordred agrees and challenges Kermit!Arthur to single combat. Kermit!Arthur scolds him, saying that violence isn't the way they do things in the swamp. If Robin!Mordred wishes to do battle with Kermit!Arthur, he'll have to do so in accordance with family tradition. </div>
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Good grief. Do you know how much pain and anguish could have been avoided if the real Arthur and Mordred had decided to settle their differences with a pun-off?</div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: Says you! I think this book could use a little more pain and anguish!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Yeah. For someone other than us!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #20124d;">::guffaw</span> <span style="color: #4c1130;">guffaw::</span><br />
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Sir Sam of Eagle is not so sure about this, as their robot army outnumbers the Knights of the Septagonal Table 50 to 1. But Robin!Mordred's promise to <i>pun-ish</i> Kermit!Arthur leaves Sir Sam feeling so good about the whole thing that he wagers a week's worth of armor polish against Fozzie!Percival that Robin!Mordred will win (Fozzie!Percival's promise that he'll help Kermit with the puns doesn't hurt either). Then, to ensure that the whole plan is fool proof, Sir Sam of Eagle puts into motion a plot involving the red herring at the snack table. But as this is the pun issue, I'm not going to spend too much time worrying about it.<br />
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Fozzie!Percival explains the rules (one contestant asks a question, the other responds with a pun), the terms (the winner gets Excalibur, the Holy Grail, and the Crown), and then lets loose a pun at Sir Sam of Eagel's expense. </div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Hey Knight, how about we challenge you to a pun-off.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: If we win you have to put this review out of its misery!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;">::guffaw</span> <span style="color: #4c1130;">guffaw::</span></div>
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Just as the pun-off is about to being, Camilla!Guinevere arrives to cheer Kermit!Arthur on. Thoroughly put out by this, Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fey wrangles Gonzo!Lancelot. Together they plot a devious scheme to breakup Camilla!Guinevere and Kermit!Arthur. From there, Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay suggests to Kermit!Arthur that he call out Robin!Mordred on his cowardice. Kermit!Arthur thanks her for her suggestion, but says that if he can't take Robin!Mordred with good, clean humor, he doesn't deserve to win.</div>
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Fozzie!Percival calls the contestants to the center of the ring. Sir Sam of Eagle foreshadows a dastardly double cross. Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay turns Sir Hogthrob into a tree because she can and it's this exchange that essentially kicks off the pun-off. </div>
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From here on out, they do not stop. Nine frames are devoted to the first round of Kermit!Arthur and Robin!Mordred's pun-off. Highlights from the text include:</div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Robin!Mordred: Why don't royal alarm clocks work?</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Kermit!Arthur: No bells.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Kermit!Arthur: What did the first knight in line and the last knight in line say when they saw the dragon charging the guy in between them?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Robin!Mordred: Mid-Knight run!</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: purple;">Robin!Mordred: How did Sir Spam survive the virus attack?</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Kermit!Arthur: By saving all his <i>chain mail</i>. </span></blockquote>
Here we pause so Waldorf and Statler can heckle their little hearts out from the balcony that's <i>always there.</i><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Well what else are we supposed to do?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: Our heckling saves the audience from pulling a groaning. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;">::guffaw</span> <span style="color: #4c1130;">guffaw::</span><br />
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Over in Kermit!Arthur's corner of the ring, Rolf!Merlin worries that Robin!Mordred may have gained the upper hand. Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay once again gets on Kermit!Arthur to call out Robin!Mordred on his cowardice. Subliminal messaging on her part, as we'll discover when Kermit!Arthur and Robin!Mordred return to the center of the ring where Kermit!Arthur savagely turns on Robin!Mordred. It only takes three panels for Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay's plan to come to fruition. <br />
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Wait, what? Hold the phone! Pause the review! I've gotta switch from my silly Muppet reviewer hat to my more serious, meta Arthurian reviewer hat because these two pages are really important.</div>
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Kermit!Arthur, most likely goaded on by Miss!Piggy Morgana Le Fay and her 'cowardice' subliminal messaging, starts a pun at the expense of Camilla!Guinevere. And instead of taking it and proving just how evil, awful, and generally unfit he is to be king, Robin!Mordred essentially forfeits the match by refusing to respond and hurt Camilla!Guinevere's feelings. Then, just to hammer the point home, Kermit!Arthur shouts out the answer and causes Camilla!Guinevere to burst into tears. And he does all this five pages after delivery this line:</div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Kermit!Arthur: If I can't take Mordred with good, clean humor then I don't deserve to win.</span> </blockquote>
This pun is neither good nor clean and Kermit!Arthur knows it. He immediately drops to his knees and begs Camilla!Guinevere for her forgiveness. He then gives this speech:<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Kermit!Arthur: I was told that I was able to pull Excalibur from the stone because it was my <i>destiny</i> to unit Britain. I'm here to serve my country and <i>unify</i> my people, <i>not</i> to fight them. Maybe I'm not the right frog for the job. </span></blockquote>
This is actually really important in the context of Arthurian meta. First off, <i>Kermit!Arthur screws up</i>. Actual Arthur from the legend has a long history of screwing up. I cheekily refer to it as Arthur guilt. Arthur hates hurting the people he cares about and when he does, instead of addressing the hurt, he ignores it because he would rather let the wound fester than cause more pain trying to treat it. And as time goes on and more and more people are hurt, Arthur essentially becomes paralyzed. He can't make a decision without risking causing harm to someone he cares about, so he doesn't make any decisions.<br />
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And the reason Kermit the Frog is actually so brilliant in this casting (aside from the fact that both characters are the heroes in their stories) is that he kinda has the same thing going on. Kermit doesn't really like conflict. He pretty much allows the Muppets to run wild--trying delicately to herd them in the right direction without hurting anyone's feelings. Of course, unlike Arthur, Kermit has a breaking point where he snaps and yells at everyone. <br />
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That's what we see here. And it comes after a long build-up of Kermit!Arthur taking it. He takes it from Sir Sam of Eagle--deciding he would rather win the hearts of the people than fight Sam. He takes it from Camilla!Guinevere--just letting their relationship meander along when he doesn't really feel it. He takes it from Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay over and over and over again. So, because this is Kermit!Arthur and not just Arthur, he finally loses his temper and snaps. This allows him to clear the air and mend broken bridges where the real Arthur would never allow himself to snap. <br />
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So there's that. Next is Robin!Mordred, who has done his best to help Kermit!Arthur since he became king. And Kermit!Arthur...has kinda treated him like crap. He didn't allow Robin!Mordred a chance to try out for the Round Table. When Kermit!Arthur tries to come up with a worthy quest for the Septagonal Table, it's Robin!Mordred who suggests the Holy Grail, but despite this Kermit!Arthur tries to leave him behind (and would have if the other knights hadn't spoken up for Robin!Mordred). <br />
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I really like that Robin!Mordred's arc and reasons for betraying Kermit!Arthur are built up over two issues. But I <i>really</i> like that he doesn't answer the chicken pun. Robin!Mordred isn't the evilest evil that ever eviled. He's hurt and angry and lashing out in an ill advised way. But his anger is at Arthur and he's not going to trample over innocent Camilla!Guinevere to get back at Arthur. <br />
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And I LOVE IT! Seriously, did I just get the fairest, most evenhanded portrayal of the Arthur/Mordred conflict from <i>the Muppets?????? </i>I DID! This book is amazing and I love it!<br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Yes. A wonderful, tragic, heartfelt book!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: No, you're thinking of the one where everyone dies. This one has a happy ending. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Not for us!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;">::guffaw</span> <span style="color: #4c1130;">guffaw::</span><br />
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Ahem. Anyways, Robin!Mordred is so moved by Kermit!Arthur's willingness to give up the throne for the good of the people that he renounces his claim to the throne. All around them the crowd cheers '<i>Long Live King Arthur!'</i><br />
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To further prove that he's better than the actual Arthur, Kermit!Arthur gives up his claim to Camilla!Guinevere's hand and praises the love she and Gonzo!Lancelot share. Kermit!Arthur hopes that one day he will be lucky enough to find a love as deep as the love they share (while Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay coughs in the background). <br />
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However! While Robin!Mordred has given up his claim to the throne, Sir Sam of Eagle has not. And he still has Professor Plot's robot army at his back. In fact, these <i>Plot Devices </i>(I told you, the puns go to the end of the book)<i> </i>are the most dangerous weapons in all of Britain. <br />
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Wait? Plot devices? Pepe the Fisher King Prawn has a thing or two to say about that. <br />
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Pepe the Fisher King Prawn flips a switch on the grail. It causes a disruption in the Professor Plot's devices, causing them to break apart and collapse. The day is saved!</div>
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Except it's not, because Sir Sam of Eagle kindly asks you to turn your attention to the red herring, which he tainted with Professor Plot's mind control potion. He commands his new minions to join him in his battle against Kermit!Arthur. Unfortunately for Sir Sam of Eagle, Animal!Gawain was the only one who ate the red herring. </div>
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Kermit!Arthur takes Sir Sam of Eagle aside and points out that he isn't exactly happy in Britain. Maybe it would be better if he went elsewhere--found a new place to call his own. Professor Plot suggests they join the Spaniards and travel the world. Sir Sam of Eagle things this is a fantastic idea and together they head off to Spain with the help of Sir Cumnavigate.</div>
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In his finale act of the book, Kermit!Arthur gets down on one knee and proposes to Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay. This is where the book goes off the rails for me. I don't really appreciate Kermit!Arthur's line that he's only proposing because that's what the script says. I get that an aspect of the Kermit/Piggy relationship is that they never really say 'I do', and if they do it has to be an act. But since they don't actually say I do and instead get engaged...I kinda wish the Arthur/Morgana shippers had been thrown a bone. It's not often you can root whole heartily for this ship. </div>
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Also, Camilla!Guinevere and Gonzo!Lancelot get engaged. As do Excalibur and the pair of scissors from Janice!Lady of the Lake's rock paper scissors gag in the first issue. I don't know. To celebrate all these happy romances, Kermit!Arthur declares the beginnings of Britain's very first variety show in order to showcase his people's talents. Waldorf and Statler get in one last shot, and then, well...</div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Hey, we made it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: How do you figure? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: The balcony is starting to fade away!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">::guffaw</span> <span style="color: #4c1130;">guffaw::</span></div>
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So, if you couldn't tell--</div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: We could!</span></div>
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If you couldn't tell, I loved this issue. I love the handling of Robin!Mordred's character. It's everything I've ever wanted from the Arthur/Mordred conflict and I can't believe it took freaking Muppets to get it. The pun-off was brilliant, as was the blatant use of the deus ex machina (hey, if you've got it, you might as well use it). I do quibble at the handling of the Kermit!Arthur/Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay romance, but that's mostly a quibble. </div>
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Perhaps my biggest complaint is the handling of Sam Eagle throughout the entire series. I really, really wish Sam had been cast as Sir Kai instead of playing this original character. Then you could have had him trying to get Kermit!Arthur to actual lead his kingdom (which Kermit!Arthur keeps ducking). This would have built up spectacularly to his and Robin!Mordred's decision to defect because Kermit!Arthur isn't taking his responsibilities seriously. </div>
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I don't know This is the most morally ambiguous Arthurian retelling I've ever read. I can't help but wish they had gone all the way and cut Sir Sam of Eagle's rather silly role as an antagonist who wants to overthrown Arthur because he didn't like how the contest was wom (also, Sam's always been pretty big on rules...I have a hard time believing he wouldn't just grudgingly go along with it until Kermit!Arthur blatantly breaks the rules). </div>
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As with the last two issues, the art here was wonderful. I haven't talked much about the costuming of the characters, but those were perfect too. Especially Robin!Mordred's tiny black armor and Miss Piggy!Morgana Le Fay's dragon dress. It's just great. It's all great. You should read it. </div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">Waldorf: Hey, hey Knight!</span></div>
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What is it, guys?</div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Statler: Now?</span></div>
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Yeah, sure. Now's good. </div>
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(<i>Seriously, read this book!</i>)</div>
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<font-family: 12.600000381469727px="" alatino="" font-size:="" georgia="" line-height:="" linotype="" palatino="" serif="" utopia="" xx-small=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Disclaimer- I do not own the Muppets, especially not Waldorf and Statler. Their heckling bits were only included because it seemed like the thing to do in a Muppet review. Especially since I absolutely adored this book. I make no money off this blog.</span></font-family:></div>
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Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-182921994711758912014-02-11T01:02:00.000-06:002014-02-11T01:02:05.363-06:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review/Reread: The Quest of the Fair Unknown<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Quest of the Fair Unknown</u></strong><br />
<b></b><b>Author: </b>Gerald Morris<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Company<br />
<b>Pages: </b>264<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) On her deathbed, Beaufils’s mother leaves him with a quest and a clue: find your father, a knight of King Arthur’s court. So Beaufils leaves the isolated forest of his youth and quickly discovers that he has much to learn about the world beyond his experience.<br />
<br />
Beaufils’s search for his father is more difficult than he’d imagined—when a traveler asks him “What is your father’s name?” Beaufils replies “Father, I suppose.” He doesn’t have much to go on when he arrives at King Arthur’s court. There, at a meeting of the Round Table, Beaufils is not the only one surprised when a mysterious dish appears and a voice commands the court to seek this vessel: the Holy Grail. He doesn’t hesitate to join King Arthur’s knights on their quest. Beaufils quickly learns, though, how one quest can lead to another. After accompanying Galahad for a time, Beaufils parts ways with this holiest knight of all to help a new friend, Lady Ellyn, fulfill her own quest, whether she knows what it is or not.<br />
<br />
Beaufils’s innocence never fails to make his companions grin, but his fresh outlook on the world’s peculiarities turns out to be more of a gift than a curse as they encounter unexpected friends and foes.<br />
<br />
Oh, and what about Beaufils’s quest?</td></tr>
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<br />
This was my first disappointment in the Squire’s Tales
series since <i>Ballad of Sir Dinadan.</i> I
just…I don’t like this story. It has a few likeable elements and a healthy dash
of Morris’s trademark wit that always makes me laugh out loud, but at the same
time, it’s a <i>weird</i> story. It doesn’t
really match up with any of Morris’s others, and to boot it throws the timeline
of the series into total disarray. Even on a second go-round years later, Story
and I can’t get all the elements to match up in a way that make any sense no
matter how much we discuss it. And I’m still not all that fond of it even on a
second try with fresh eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><br /></b>
<b>Spoilers, etc…</b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b>The Twist<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This is a mashup of Galahad’s Grail Quest from the <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i> and the Fair
Unknown story of <i>Lybeau Desconus</i>,
along with a bit or two from Malory (according to Morris himself in his
Author’s Note). The hero is Beaufils, a young man who innocently starts out on
a quest to find his father and as usual for a Morris hero, finds and loses much
more. Galahad is the secondary protagonist, though I’m not sure I’d go so far
as to label him a hero.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Plot<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Beaufils begins his story much like Terence and Parsifal
began theirs in earlier books, growing up with no knowledge of the world
outside their perfect forests and then being thrust unceremoniously into real
life. I almost heard Navi from The Legend of Zelda yelling “Hey! Listen!” every
so often. Indeed, one could find themselves a little tired of this trope in
Morris’s books of following around the Perfect Fool, someone incredibly
innocent who learns the ways of the world on his adventure. Actually, 3/4ths of
this story feels like a rehash of <i>Parsifal’s
Page</i>, with the slightly-different protagonists bumping into a slightly-different
set of magical adventures.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Beaufils on his way to court encounters Galahad and
Mordred. The juxtaposition between this pair is very interesting. I’ll let
Story talk more about Mordred’s characterization because I know she has lots to
say on this subject. I’ll probably have some comments in the next book when
Mordred is a feature character. What’s of note to me here is that this is the
only time the super-holy,
stick-so-far-up-his-ass-it’s-coming-out-of-the-top-of-his-head Galahad comes
off as a human being, when he stands in contrast with Mordred’s willingness to
attack Beaufils from behind without provocation. Beaufils even in his innocence
immediately recognizes Mordred as someone full of darkness and hatred. ::sigh::
Play the Empire Strikes Back March. Or maybe the Jaws theme. Either way, you
get the idea. Thanks, John Williams, for providing us with some really great
‘aah! bad guy!’ music.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Anyway, Mordred rides off somewhere, perhaps to return to
his mommy, and Galahad and Beaufils head off to Camelot to find their fathers. Galahad discovers his father is Lancelot,
conceived at some point when his mother Elaine had been enchanted to look like
Guinevere. Then the Holy Grail appears and many of the knights, including
Galahad, set off to seek it. I doubt Morris intended to make a Monty Python
reference at this point, but I couldn’t help hearing Graham Chapman as Arthur
going “Good idea O Lord!” when the booming voice announces the quest. Arthur in
fact doesn’t think it’s a good idea since half his knights are leaving on this
quest and Morris was probably deliberately trying to do something different,
but I heard the voice in my head all the same. I think that speaks more to the
pervasiveness of Monty Python’s version of this story than anything else.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Beaufils travels with Galahad, who is eagerly confessing
his nonexistent sins every chance he gets, and eventually they run into Gawain
(Terence is off asking his father Ganscotter about Morgause’s latest plot).
Next comes my favorite part in the book, the Carl of Carlisle’s castle, because
this feels like something straight out of a fairy tale to me. The group begs
shelter at the castle, which is full of filth. The Carl is a huge, slovenly
man, but his wife and daughter are beautiful and clean and utterly normal. This
immediately puts everyone on their guard. Galahad freaks out and thinks the
daughter is tempting him by virtue of being female and conventionally
attractive, which we’ll sadly learn is a pattern with him. Gawain and Beaufils
think there’s something strange going on but are willing to let it play out and
see where it goes. The Carl asks to have his head cut off. Galahad runs away
for fear of endangering his immortal soul, again establishing a pattern with
him. Gawain, hesitantly, does as requested. The Carl and the castle are
restored to normal, and the Carl explains that for his lack of hospitality to a
beggar he was cursed until he humbled himself to the point of death. His
daughter Ellyn, who has become friends with Beaufils, joins them on their
quest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Most of the rest of the book also feels like a fairy
tale, but a not-very-focused one where you feel like there’s a lesson to be
learned but you don’t quite get it at the end. Beaufils and Ellyn have several
more adventures with and without Galahad and Gawain. Eventually they come to a
castle where its mistress has been transformed into a dragon and can only be
restored if she receives a kiss from the son of Arthur’s greatest knight. Of
course we, the readers, can see where this is going because even if we weren’t
familiar with the legend it’s obvious who Beaufils’s father is. Everyone
assumes Galahad is the answer, but predictably Galahad believes he’s being
tempted, freaks out, attacks the dragon and runs away. Ellyn stays to tend the
dying dragon while Beaufils chases Galahad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
The pair end up in the Grail Castle (not the one from <i>Parsifal’s Page</i>; here, asking questions
is exactly the wrong thing to do) where they are invited to drink from the
Grail, forget the outside world, and be at peace. This is perfect for Galahad, but
Beaufils still has cares in the outside world he’d rather not forget about. He
is ejected unceremoniously from the Grail Castle but is rescued first by Gawain’s
faerie wife Lorie and then by Terence and Gawain himself. The trio goes back to
the dragon’s castle, Beaufils kisses her and of course it works even though
none of them has any idea why except Terence (who obviously has a good guess as
to Beaufils’ identity). Ellyn decides to stay with the restored dragon lady and
the other three questors head back to Camelot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
On the way, Ganscotter turns up and tells Beaufils his
true name: Guinglain. The group comes across a hermitage and through a case of
mistaken identity Guinglain decides to stay and become a holy man (one of the
themes of this book is the various degrees of holiness in people). He casually
reveals his name to Gawain, who is startled because he’d always intended to
name his son that. They realize the truth, and then Gawain and Terence ride
back to Camelot to warn Arthur about the coming threat from Mordred.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>The Characters<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
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Beaufils/Guinglain: What sets Guinglain apart from
Parsifal is that while Guinglain sees plenty of the nastiness and evil of the
world, he is not broken by it. By the time the Grail Castle appears, Guinglain
is well aware of the consequences of the choice he makes there, but makes that
choice anyway. At that point, like his father, he still has more to do before
he can rest. Guinglain doesn’t remain ignorant and naïve as the story
progresses, but he finds his own way to enter the adult world without having to
embrace the dark side of human nature in himself. So in that way he still
remains innocent and childlike, with the grown-up awareness that the darkness
is there and must be fought. I actually found him kind of bland and not a very
interesting character.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Galahad: Hard to like, but Morris has tried to give him
sympathetic qualities. I almost wish we’d spent more time with him, as annoying
as he can be, to get more insights on <i>why</i>
he is the way he is. He was raised by women, so why is he terrified of them and
has nightmares about women chasing him? Was he abused by his mother and the
other nuns at the convent and that’s why he shows symptoms of PTSD? What set
him on this path where he is so deathly afraid of spiritual corruption that
it’s a neurosis? He obviously does want to do what’s right, so why when others
are in danger or asking for his help is his first instinct to assume he’s being
tempted? Guinglain only is able to speculate based on what he sees of Galahad’s
actions and while he doesn’t condemn him because he sees Galahad is trying his
best to be a good person, he often does think that there must be something
wrong with Galahad’s view of the world to only see the potential corruption in
everything. It’s nice that Galahad finds peace in forgetting the world, but one
wonders what happened prior to this book to traumatize him so badly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ellyn: The Carl’s daughter who joins Beaufils. The quest
becomes her quest for awhile, to find out where she belongs. She hates that men
treat her either like an ornament or a siren because she’s pretty, and likes
Beaufils because he treats her as he treats everyone else. When I first read
this book I thought she and Beaufils were going to become a couple, but on this
second read I don’t see it at all. Indeed, I think without being 100% explicit
Morris has had Ellyn fall in love with Synadona, the dragon lady. When she
stays behind at the castle as ‘chief confidante’ to the restored Synadona, I
suspect (and it’s heavily implied) it is also as lover. Guinglain reads to me
now as asexual; he knows the hows and whys of sex but seems not to feel
attraction himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Gawain: Gawain appears multiple times over the course of
the book and is the same old wonderful levelheaded Gawain. He takes the possibility
that he might have a son in stride from the very beginning but also doesn’t
seem too interested in becoming any kind of father figure. He never tries to
instruct Guinglain the way he once did with Terence, even though Guinglain
shows he’s inherited the instinct and reflexes to become a proficient fighter.
At the end of the book when the truth is uncovered he doesn’t express any kind
of obligation or apology for not being there while Guinglain was growing up. I
actually feel kind of bad for Lancelot because Gawain at least gets to know his
long-lost son over the course of questing. Galahad is at court for about thirty
seconds and is now permanently at the Grail Castle, so Lancelot really gets the
short end of the stick if he wanted any interaction with his son who just kind
of “poofed” out of nowhere and is gone again for good.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Bors: We meet brothers Bors and Lionel and proceed to
have a very convoluted lesson in the nature of honor and priorities which seems
to contradict the lesson Gawain learned in <i>Squire,
Knight & Lady </i>about keeping your word. Bors is tricked into making a
foolish promise to a beautiful lady (we’ve seen this setup before too in
previous books) and ends up making a series of mistakes that lead to lots of
guilt but eventually he gets over it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Lionel: I will admit watching him kick the crap out of
Bors was kind of fun, because at that point Bors had been an idiot and deserved
it. It was odd and rushed how quickly Lionel forgave Bors after that, though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mordred, Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Kai, and Lorie
(Ragnell) all make cameo appearances. This is the first time we’ve seen Lorie
and Ganscotter since <i>Squire, Knight &
Lady</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Overall<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This book is the beginning of the end, and one I get the
sense Morris really didn’t want to write but felt obligated to because in
writing this series he had to retell one of the most famous Arthurian stories:
Galahad’s Grail Quest. Thus, though he dutifully tells Galahad’s story, the
focus isn’t on Galahad and indeed Galahad, supposedly the best of all knights,
becomes sort of an anti-hero, a protagonist but not really someone you
particularly like or root for. I’m not really sure this story was necessary
since other than briefly introducing Mordred as a future threat it doesn’t
advance the main narrative and in fact confuses the timeline quite a bit, even
more than it was already confused by all the trips to the Other World. We also
already had a Grail Quest, and the explanation for the two different grails I
found weak at best. So overall I’m not sure why this book exists. A lot of it
is been-there-done-that and the new characters are not particularly memorable
or (in Galahad, Bors and Lionel’s cases) all that likeable. It’s not a ‘bad’
book, per se, it just leaves me with a sense of “what the heck did I just read?”
at the end.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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2.5 stars rounded up to 3.<o:p></o:p></div>
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-8837452138948562562014-02-11T01:01:00.001-06:002014-02-17T14:16:41.620-06:00Reread: The Quest of the Fair Unknown<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Quest of the Fair Unknown</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author: </b>Gerald Morris<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Company<br />
<b>Pages: </b>264<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) On her deathbed, Beaufils’s mother leaves him with a quest and a clue: find your father, a knight of King Arthur’s court. So Beaufils leaves the isolated forest of his youth and quickly discovers that he has much to learn about the world beyond his experience.<br />
<br />
Beaufils’s search for his father is more difficult than he’d imagined—when a traveler asks him “What is your father’s name?” Beaufils replies “Father, I suppose.” He doesn’t have much to go on when he arrives at King Arthur’s court. There, at a meeting of the Round Table, Beaufils is not the only one surprised when a mysterious dish appears and a voice commands the court to seek this vessel: the Holy Grail. He doesn’t hesitate to join King Arthur’s knights on their quest. Beaufils quickly learns, though, how one quest can lead to another. After accompanying Galahad for a time, Beaufils parts ways with this holiest knight of all to help a new friend, Lady Ellyn, fulfill her own quest, whether she knows what it is or not.<br />
<br />
Beaufils’s innocence never fails to make his companions grin, but his fresh outlook on the world’s peculiarities turns out to be more of a gift than a curse as they encounter unexpected friends and foes.<br />
<br />
Oh, and what about Beaufils’s quest?<br />
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Oh this book. I have so many issues with this book. I could easily write a review longer than the book laying out all the problems with it. I won't do that here--I'll stick to reviewing it within the context of the legend as that's what this blog is for. <br />
<br />
It's really disappointing, actually, because Morris has done so well up until this point. It's almost though he really didn't want to write this book and put as little effort into it as possible. <br />
<br />
<b>Warning for Spoilers</b><br />
<b></b>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><b>The Last Time I Read this Book</b><br />
<br />
This book lost me on page four. Page four is where an old man declares our illustrious hero Beaufils to be seventeen years old. This cannot be the case within the context of the timeline and the canon characterization Morris diligently setup and maintained throughout the series. I can't go into all the reasons why it didn't work here as it's outside the purview of this blog and all the inconsistencies in the timeline alone made up a 2,000 word post. <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/75759904701/i-have-so-so-many-issues-with-gerald-morris">So I'll link to that as an addendum</a>. As the book goes on, more and more comments and plot points make it clear that the timeline is well and truly broken and that it wasn't just a one off mistake. Personally I found the broken timeline so distracting (Samoaphoenix will attest to the fact that I went off on it immediately) that I was never really get into the story of this book. <br />
<br />
I did a little better this round but...let's just say that the broken timeline isn't the only flaw within this book. <br />
<br />
<b>The Twist</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I will give Morris credit for doing something I've long wanted to see: he forged a relationship between the second generation characters of Camelot. Most writers will either ignore these characters entirely or isolate them. If they have friends, it's with the older generation and their peers are their enemies. Here, the quests of Beaufils (find his father/his purpose in life) and Galahad (find the Holy Grail) are tied together and the two spend a good deal of time traveling together. It's not perfect as I wouldn't exactly call the two of them friends. Still, it's nice to see two characters who never meet in modern texts interacting politely together instead of the author completely ignoring the fact that they would likely be peers and friends. That was nice to see.<br />
<br />
Other than this minor twist, the stories are fairly straight forward and don't deviate much from their original texts. And where they do deviate, it's something of train wreck.<br />
<br />
<b>The Plot</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I'm trying to figure out the best way to start this section and the more I look at the legend for comparison/contrast, the less I understand Morris' choices. If you've read my commentary on the broken timeline linked above, you know that one of the considered and discarded theories for why the timeline is broken is that Beaufils was raised in the Otherworld where time is funky. This doesn't work become some commentary by the other characters make it clear that Beaufils was raised in the real world. Which is a bizarre choice because <i>Guinglain's mother was a fairy!</i> Like, what was it, Morris? Gawain's already married to a fairy so you didn't want a repeat of that (nice excuse in a book where you're taking your second run around the Grail Quest)? Come on, let's just admit that Gawain has a type and move on. <br />
<br />
Morris' Fair Unknown begins with Beaufils burying his mother and deciding to set off to Camelot to find his father. In Renaut de Beaujeu's <i>Le Bel Inconnu</i>, Guinglain finds the dead body of a knight and decides he wants to be one. This one opening scene sets up some of the major pitfalls of this book. The first is the two source stories. <i>Le Bel Inconnu</i> is not that original of a story when compared to the texts Morris has already covered--Percival's Grail Quest and Gareth's time as a Fair Unknown being the most obvious. And <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i> is technically not about Galahad or the Holy Grail (more on that later). So in order to set these two stories in the Squire's Tales series, Morris had to do a lot of tweaking in order to make them original and substantive. This leads to the second problem, in tweaking Morris lost the heart of these stories. Morris has done a great job of tweaking the tale throughout the series to point out the absurdity in the original legend. He laughs with the stories as he keeps the overarching plots and themes in place. Here, it's almost as though he's laughing <i>at </i>the stories. Themes are discarded and the plots are lost as different characters step into roles that were not meant for them. The opening scene is a perfect example of this. In Morris' tale, Beaufils is an innocent young man who has just lost his mother and is off to find his father. In the original, Beaufils sees a dead knight and decides it's the life for him. I understand why Morris changed it--this is almost exactly the same setup as Percival's decision to become a knight. But in changing it, Morris makes Beaufils a hero when the original character is in a much better position to play a Lancelot from the second book, Gareth from the third, or Tristan from this fifth. Guinglain is not a good guy and in attempting to make him into one, Morris loses the poignant setup that made Squire, Knight, Lady and Savage Damsel so brilliant. <br />
<br />
The first major plot point tied to <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i> is the trial of the Siege Perilous. I'll talk about that when I reach Galahad's character. The next story is where Morris comes closest to his usual flair for humor and deconstruction. In <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i>, Galahad arrives at court with neither a sword nor a shield because he knows god will provide. The sword he draws from a stone that proclaims it can only be used by the best knight in all the world. The shield is hidden away in an abbey with the same warning, except if anyone tries to take the shield, a knight dressed in white will knock him from his horse, steal the shield and return it to the abbey where it awaits Galahad (the last knight who tries to take it is actually told to return it to Galahad). In Morris' version, the whole thing is a con by robbers who will knock out the knight when he tries to take the shield and steal his money. Beaufils figures this out and takes care of the robbers, allowing Galahad to take the shield. It's probably one of the best moments in the book, and yet I still can't shake the feeling that Morris is laughing at the story here rather than with it. <br />
<br />
As always in these stories, Gawain is the breath of fresh air that keeps the story afloat. He meets up with Beaufils, Galahad and Bishop Baldwin during their quest for the Holy Grail. They end up coming across the castle of the Carl of Carlisle. The Carl is a hairy giant and his castle is ill-kept (over run with animals, garbage littered everywhere, beds and tables covered in dust). The Carl is also a terrible host. Galahad and Baldwin find the place to be a cesspool of temptation and decide to leave, while Gawain (ever the oathkeeper), says that it would be rude to leave their host without taking leave and insists them must stay. The Carl comes upon them as they are trying to leave and says that Galahad must kill him in order to escape. Galahad decides it's another temptation and he and Baldwin take off before the Carl and do anything to him. The next morning, as Gawain and Beaufils are taking their leave, Gawain's unfailing politeness causes the Carl to have an epiphany and he begs Gawain to cut off his head. After some thought, Gawain agrees, and his blow breaks the spell in the Carl and returns his castle to its former glory. The Carl confesses that he was once as rude and oafish as he appeared and once upon a time insulted an old man who turned out to be an enchanter and cursed him (it was Ganscotter). The curse could only be broken if he humbled himself to the point of death, and Gawain's beheading did the trick. Like the shield story, it works well with what Morris does best. It differs from the original in only a few places. Different characters--Beaufils and Galahad join Gawain and Baldwin instead of Kay--and an added curse being the majors ones. In the original, the Carl made a vow in his youth to test his guests and while Baldwin and Kay fail, getting the crap beaten out of them after they insult the Carl, Gawain withstands the tests while never speaking a rude word to his host. Gawain's politeness breaks the Carl's vow and he joins the Round Table as one of Arthur's knights.<br />
<br />
After these two relatively well done tales, Morris moves on to the Sacred Forest, where the trouble starts again. Here, Gawain, Beaufils and the Carl's daughter Ellyn travel through a forest where they come across narrow-minded hermit after narrow-minded hermit. It's only after they decide to leave the path that they come across a kindly hermit who aids them on their quest (telling Gawain that the grail is not for him while sending Beaufils and Ellyn on their way). In <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i>, this is a story about Lancelot. Lancelot travels from hermitage to hermitage learning things about himself (like the fact that Galahad is his son). <br />
<br />
In his author's note, Morris says one of the problems with <i>Queste del Saint Graal </i>is that the author was trying to write an irreproachable hero who could achieve the spiritual quest for God. This, according to Morris, makes Galahad difficult to like. While I haven't actually read <i>Queste del Saint Graal, </i>I know enough about it (and my perusal of the text for this review only confirms this theory) to say that Galahad's likability doesn't suffer from him being the perfect hero, it suffers because he's not actually a character. He's an extension of Lancelot--he's Lancelot's way of attaining the Grail while still allowing Lancelot to have his affair with Guinevere. Lancelot is the second most important character in this story and he gives up the Grail Quest halfway through. Despite the fact that Percival and Bors are Galahad's traveling companions, Lancelot has almost double the amount of page time than they do. So to remove Lancelot from the forest of hermits removes the symbolism of the scene where Lancelot accepts that he can't achieve the Grail and passes the quest onto the better version of himself. Taking Lancelot out of the scene removes this character arc and replaces it with some rather straw-man commentary about dogmatic thinking. One that I personally could have done without since Morris covered it pretty thoroughly in the sixth book. <br />
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After parting ways with Gawain, Beaufils and Ellyn meet up with Bors and Lionel and I will discuss their adventures in their character section. From there, they travel to the Otherworld and meet up with Galahad again. They are promptly captured by knights who want Ellyn to give a blood sacrifice and heal their mistress. They promise it won't kill her, but Beaufils explores the castle and finds several women who participated in this blood sacrifice and now lie dead below the castle. Galahad insists Ellyn partake in this sacrifice, insisting that it is the purpose of a woman to give her life like this. Ellyn eventually decides not to, and the woman asking for the blood sacrifice dies. Like the hermit story, this grates against the original story. First of all, Galahad, Percival and Bors are all adamantly against Dindrane (Percival's sister) doing the blood sacrifice, whereas here Galahad wants Ellyn to do it. Second, this is almost a pre-Grail sacrifices that calls back to de Troyes' Grail Quest--the suffering of the ruler is tied to the suffering of the land and only great power can heal them. Morris condemns that sacrifice here, making the suffering maiden a wicked murder who brought her condition upon herself and the willing deaths to heal her meaningless. Galahad says to Ellyn that giving her life for another is the perfect symbol of womanhood and we are meant to view his opinion of suspect. But Dindrane's sacrifice was so much more than a one for one exchange. She restored a land, showed Galahad, Percival and Bors how to get to the Grail and foreshadowed their sacrifices. If, as Morris says, the point of this story is the spiritual quest for God, then Dindrane achieved this before any of her companions--<i>she found the Grail first</i>. To be clear, I'm not saying that I would prefer to see the blood sacrifice or that I think the story is empowering. I just don't like how Morris essentially condemned Dindrane's actions, making her out to be a fool compared to his heroine. There's more to this story than what he waters it down to. He's laughing at Dindrane and I don't take kindly to that. <br />
<br />
Finally Beaufils, Ellyn, and Galahad arrive first at the climax of <i>Le Bel Inconnu</i>, then swing into the climax of <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i>, before returning to the climax of <i>Le Bel Inconnu</i>. I will get into those stories in the character section, but the book ends with Galahad living out the rest of eternity blissfully in the Grail Castle, Ellyn staying in the Otherworld with Lady Synadona in the closest thing Morris ever gets to an LGBT+ relationship, and Beaufils returning to the world of men, learning who his father is (it's Gawain) and deciding to become a hermit. <br />
<br />
<b>The Characters</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Here's the thing about Guinglain--he's actually a giant ass. Like, this is a dude whose first quest is to go rescue Queen Esmeree, who has been turned into a serpent, but he keeps getting side tracked. One of these side quest is rescuing and falling in love with the Maiden of the White Hands, fairy ruler of the Golden Isle. But he's got this quest, so instead of explaining himself, he sneaks out in the middle of the night without telling the Maiden where he's going. He rescues Esmeree and she wants to marry him, but he decides to go back to the Maiden of the White Hands. She's not happy with him, eventually forgives him, and then he sneaks out <i>again</i> to attend a tournament. So she bans him from her lands and Guinglain goes on to marry Esmereee (this is why I wasn't surprised that there wasn't a romance in this book--honestly, who would you pick?). He then sided with Mordred in revealing Lancelot and Guinevere's affair to the court. <br />
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Like...not a good guy. But instead we get this wide-eyed child who is the most naive character Morris has ever written, and after Parsifal that's saying something. As the only person he ever met was his mother, Beaufils doesn't understand anything about how the world works. His narration is little more than shock, awe and naivety. The size of the city astounds him. Every person he meets is pleasurable to look at and he reacts with confusion or mimicry when they're horrible. He enjoys things he should find disgusting such as moldy bread. It's just really hard to care about this character who I have no real way to relate to. I honestly think this book might have been better if Galahad had been the narrator. At least his struggles with his religion and living up to all he feels is expected of him is a realistic struggle--especially when compared to a person's very first introduction to human society. <br />
<br />
One of the things I think writers struggle with when it comes to Galahad (but don't really seem to realize) is that he's not a character. He's an extension of Lancelot. And that struggle comes through loud and clear here. Galahad is actually a pretty enjoyable character before he meets Lancelot and has his paternity revealed. After that, he's constantly praying, confessing, and every person he meets exists to tempt him away from his path. It's almost as though, when Galahad sat in the Siege Perilous and drew his divine right sword from it's stone, all the worst aspects of Lancelot's character--the stuff he left behind when he found peace as a woodcutter-- imprinted onto Galahad. And poor Galahad is forced to spend the rest of the book running from it--to find a way to be his own character. In a way it's only fitting that Galahad ends the book at the Grail Castle and drinking from the cup--the cup that gives the gift of peace due to forgetting the world beyond the castle. In the end, Galahad casts Lancelot out of him, but in doing so he reveals that there was never anything there to start with. <br />
<br />
Also, one of the weird aspects of Galahad's character in this is his fear of women. I'm not sure if it's in <i>Queste del Saint Graal</i> (I know Galahad spends a lot of the story with Dindrane, who he respects, so clearly it's not a fear of all women as it is here). I wish the source of the fear had been addressed somewhere in the book instead of the blanket statement that Galahad is just afraid of everything. Like with Tristan and Isolde in the fifth book and Laudine in the seventh book, I can't help but find a more sinister subtext (abuse from the nuns who raised him). Like Tristian, Isolde, and Laudine, it's played for laughs and that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. <br />
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Bors and Lionel are two brothers Beaufils meets early on in the book after two bandits accost him on the road. They direct him to Camelot and teach him some things about the way the world works. As it usually goes, Bors is the much more serious of the two brothers (since he was one of the three Grail Knights and is usually pretty religious in the adaptations that include him) while Lionel is much more laid back. In <i>Queste Del Saint Graal, </i>Bors is the only one of the three knights who has lost his virginity, his tests are supposedly much more vigorous. Bros goes through three distinct trials--combat against Priadan the Black, choosing between rescuing his brother Lionel or rescuing a maiden, and choosing between sleeping with a maiden or allowing her to kill herself and her servants. Bor defeats Priadan but doesn't kill him, and rescues the maiden over his brother, and refuses the maiden and reveals her to be a fiend. The consequence of this is that Lionel is pretty pissed that Bors saved someone else over him and tries to kill Bors. Bors refuses to fight Lionel and it's only after Lionel has killed a priest and a knight who tried to come to Bors' aide that he finally calms down.<br />
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Morris cleverly ties all these tests into one silly story as he's ought to do. When Beaufils and Ellyn meet up with Bors while on the Grail Quest, his horse has been stolen by a group of bandits. While traveling, the three meet up with the beautiful Lady Orgille leading about her horse. Bors begs her to let him take the beast so he may bring the bandits who stole from him to justice. The lady puts up a big fuss, insisting that this is her most favorite horse in the whole world and that she would be heartbroken if anything happens to the beast. Bors promises to be careful, takes the horse, and promptly loses it to the bandits (I find this whole section particularly amusing because while searching for information on the Sacred Forest, I discovered that there's a tale where a character named Bors (may not be the same one) is a horse thief and steals from Arthur, Sagremor, Bedivere, Lucan, and Kay). Bors returns to the lady in defeat and she makes him swear an oath to return to her side whenever she calls for him. Bors, Beaufils and Ellyn set out again and find the bandits torturing Lionel. Bors is about to save his brother when Lady Orgille summons her back to his side. Bors is forced to abandon his brother who is instead rescued by Beaufils. They next find Bors battling Sir Erskine, who is the actual owner of the castle Lady Orgille resides in and she has stolen it from him. He's trying to get it back, but Orgille uses horse stealing bandits to entice knights to fight him on her behalf. Beaufils and Ellyn manage to talk Bors into giving up his vow and letting Erskine go free. They return to Lady Orgille's house to retrieve his horse, and then make their way to a hermitage so Bors can confess. This hermit hates his job and tries to trick Bors into being his slave in exchange for his forgiveness. Lionel joins them at this point and roughs up Bors before roughing up the hermit for trying to take advantage of his brother. The hermit quits in anger (Beaufils later takes over for him). Later that night, Lady Orgille shows up at the hermitage and tries to beg Bors for forgiveness. He tells her to get lost. And thus Bors' trials become much more entertaining and a lot less deadly. <br />
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Morris' original character Ellyn takes on a couple legendary characters in this book. The first is obviously the daughter of the Carl of Carlisle. In the legend the Carl offers his daughter's hand in marriage to Gawain after the knight helps him overcome is vow. That thankfully doesn't happen in this book and instead Ellyn simply asks for the chance to travel with Gawain and Beaufils. Her next role is that if Dindrane in the castle of the ill-maiden that I spoke about above. Finally she plays the role of Helie, lady-in-waiting to Queen Esmeree. In the original story, Helie journeys to King Arthur's court to request the aid of a knight to save her lady form an evil sorcerer. In a scene that plays similar to Lynette and Gareth, she's infuriated and leaves in a huff when The Fair Unknown is chosen as her knight. He follows her and eventually wins her over to his side. Here, obviously, Ellyn isn't working for Lady Synadona when she meets Beaufils. Instead, they come across Lady Synadona's castle while searching for the Grail. After they save Lady Synadona from her curse, Ellyn decides to stay behind as her lady in waiting with some language that strongly implies the two are now lovers. One one hand, it's nice to see Morris finally drifting away from heterosexual romances in his books. On the other hand, it's a bummer that the relationship is only implied and never confirmed. <br />
<br />
Lady Synadona, formerly Esmeree the Blonde in the legends (oh my god, a Gerald Morris name change that gets weirder than the original). Like in the original story, Synadona has been turned into a dragon by a sorcerer. The sorcerer has the power to turn people's fear and hatred back on them, so of course he is defeated when he tries this on Beaufils, because he doesn't feel fear or hatred (I am rolling my eyes so hard right now). They then find Synadona who confesses that only a kiss from Arthur's greatest knight can change her back into a human. The others think it's Galahad, since he's the son of Lancelot. Unfortunately, Galahad freaks out and mortally wounds Synadona. Beaufils tries to bring him back, but Galahad makes it to the Grail Castle first and Beaufils returns empty handed. So he kisses Synadona and she changes back into a human. I suppose it's fortunate we're spared Beaufils waffling back and forth over whether or not he wants to marry her, because Synadona only has eyes for Ellyn. <br />
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Gawain, as always, is what makes this book. He meets up with Beaufils and Galahad early on in their quest for the grail and plays his role in the Carl of Carlisle story (which, honestly must have freaked him out more than he let on considering his history with beheading games). He then journeys with Beaufils and Ellyn through the Sacred Forest. At the end of the forest he's told the Grail isn't his quest and, despite his protestations, forced to part ways with Beaufils and Ellyn. He turns up again at the end of the book with Terence and figures out that he's Beaufils' father at the very end of the book. <br />
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Mordred has nine lines in the book and under normal circumstances this would only earn him a line along the lines of 'Mordred shows up in the beginning of the book and Beaufils determines he's the most evil evil that ever eviled after he speaks a handful of times'. However, I have problems with Mordred's presentation in this book, so I'm just going to link you to my <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/post/75869674727/more-squires-tales-fair-unknown-fills-me-with">second addendum</a>. I'll just say that after Morris' innovative handling of several other characters throughout his books, it's super disappointing that he took the laziest route possible with Mordred.<br />
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Guinevere appears when Beaufils and Galahad arrive at Camelot and scolds Arthur for being a giant troll. Arthur is a giant troll, having a bit of fun at Beaufils' expense after the young man accidentally sits in his seat during dinner. He then oversees the Siege Perilous and second coming of the Grail Quest. Kay is there too and the two of them have a grand old time snarking at each other and everyone else at the table. Parsifal and Lancelot are at this meeting too--Parsifal to say that he's already found the Grail and doesn't need another go and Lancelot to confirm that Galahad is his son and then decline to go on the quest (really throwing the whole book out of order). Bishop Baldwin makes an appearance, really only to play his role in the Carl of Carlisle story. Lorie shows up at the end to help Beaufils get back to Ellyn after the knights in the Grail Castle dump him in the middle of no where. And, as a nice hat tip, Geoffrey of Monmouth shows up as Arthur's clerk. <br />
<br />
<b>Overall</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
How to rate this book. There are a lot of factors that go into rating a book. I have the general guidelines listed in the sidebar, but at the end of the day my rating comes down to gut instinct. Unfortunately, my gut instinct says that this book isn't very good. Except that doesn't seem fair. Objectively, ignoring my problems with the timeline and some of the adaptation choices, it's a well written book. And it's relatively enjoyable simply by nature of being an easy read. If I were to compare it to the Merlin Trilogy, I would rank it above Hollow Hills and Prince and the Pligrim which I gave 2 Stars. I would rank it above Crystal Cave which got 3 Stars. I might even rank it above The Last Enchantment which I gave 4 Stars. <br />
<br />
However, if I were to compare this book to the rest of the series, which consistently gained four and five stars... it's deserving of 2 stars. Compared to the rest of the series, it's not well written. The broken timeline is a huge problem as are some of the bizarre choices Morris made with regards to the legend. <br />
<br />
If this was a stand alone book, I'd probably give it a 4 Stars. But it's not. It's part of a incredibly well done series and it's a bad book when it's held up as a part of that. The Last Enchantment made some choices that not only elevated it above the Merlin Trilogy, but elevated the trilogy itself in some way. Fair Unknown makes choices that reflect badly on the whole of the Squire's Tales and it's hard not to look down on it for that.<br />
<br />
I really want to give this book 2 stars. Compared to the rest of the books in the Squire's Tales, it deserves it. Compared to the rest of the books on the blog, it doesn't and that makes me feel as though I'm being unfair. In the interest of trying to be fair, I'm going to grudgingly give it 3 Stars. But know in my heart, it's never going to get more than 2. Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-35041430225067851232013-12-28T18:09:00.001-06:002013-12-28T18:25:29.712-06:00SamoaPhoenix Compare and Contrast: The King's Damosel vs. Quest for Camelot<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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The King’s Damosel</div>
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Avon, 1976</div>
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143 pages</div>
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Quest for Camelot</div>
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Warner Bros. Studios, 1998</div>
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93 minutes</div>
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So this review is going to be slightly different in
format, because in addition to comparing Vera Chapman’s novel <i>The King’s Damosel</i> to the original
legend, I will also be discussing how it differs from the animated movie <i>Quest for Camelot</i>, which credits this
book as its source material.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Warning for Spoilers and Trigger Warning for Discussions of Rape</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a name='more'></a>First, some background. I first heard of this book when
watching <i>Quest for Camelot</i> with Story
in our room in college. In the opening credits, the movie quickly flashes these
words: “Based Upon <i>The King’s Damosel</i>
by Vera Chapman.” Story and I both went “Wait, this movie is based on a book?
What book?” We looked it up and discovered that such a book did indeed exist,
but it was long out of print so we could not get our hands on it to compare the
two. Several years later I came across a battered copy in a used bookstore. I
purchased it but over the years since have been avoiding reading it, for two
reasons: 1. I have a major soft spot for the movie and worried that reading the
book would ruin it for me even more thoroughly than The Nostalgia Critic has
(seriously, his review is hilarious but it makes me question my sanity for
liking this movie) and 2. I knew the book uses the modern trend of having
Lynette being in love with Gareth but unhappily married to Gaheris. This is a
complete 180 from Gerald Morris’s take, and I dearly love his explanation for
why Lynette spends most of the story with Gareth but apparently randomly ends
up with Gaheris at the end of Malory’s “Sir Beaumains”.<o:p></o:p><br />
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However, I screwed up my courage and decided this was the
year I would actually read <i>The King’s
Damosel</i>. Thus, here is my review, laced with comparisons to what the movie
version eventually became.</div>
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I very quickly determined that the movie is extremely
loosely based on the book. Character names and roles were dramatically changed.
While Chapman’s version puts a feminine twist on “Sir Beaumains” and The Grail
Quest by focusing on Lynett, the stories are still very recognizable from the
originals. <i>Quest for Camelot</i>…well,
not much really stayed over. Lynett randomly became Kayley, though she retains
her Chapman-given tomboyishness and that she was raised as a boy by her sonless
father, Sir Lionel. Lynett’s loves Gareth and Lucius were combined into Kayley’s
love interest Garrett (a modern movie <i>removing</i>
a potential love triangle? Thank goodness for small favors!). Lynette’s sister
Leonie was cut entirely. Juliana was promoted from governess to Kayley’s
mother. Ruber, the Red Knight, had his goal shifted from marrying Leonie and
taking over her lands to killing Arthur and conquering all of England. He also
became the main antagonist when he’s in the book for about 30 seconds. The Quest
for the Holy Grail becomes a quest for a stolen Excalibur. Lynett’s hawk Jeanne
became Garrett’s falcon Ayden/Silverwings (whoever made this decision knows
nothing about hawks; the females are the ones people catch for use because
they’re bigger and stronger). The two-headed dragon Cornwall & Devon is
unique to the movie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The book begins, interestingly, with the double wedding
of Leonie and Gareth and Lynett and Gaheris, with Lynett absolutely dreading it
because she’s in love with Gareth. We then flash back to Lynett’s rape as a
child (more on that later), and then to Ruber’s invasion a few years later.
Very little time is spent on the Beaumains plot, though a fun twist is that
it’s tomboyish Lynett who is mistaken for a kitchen boy and given the name Pretty
Hands. We never see why she’s in love with Gareth, we’re just told that she is.
This book also does an injustice to Gaheris, I think. We’re told he’s crude and
brutish, but we never see it. He wants to be married to Lynett as much as she
wants to be married to him, so on the wedding night he refuses to consummate
the marriage then leaves and we never see him again. I wish we’d gotten some
proof Gaheris deserves the bad rap he’s given in the marketing on the cover and
inside the front of the book, which seems to paint Gaheris as Lynett’s rapist.
In fact, it’s Bagdemagus and the rape happened years earlier. Gaheris, I think,
is actually being pretty honest in refusing to have sex with someone he’s not
interested in and knows is not interested in him even though they are married.
A lot of men back then would have either done what they saw as their duty or
secured their hold over “their” property by raping an unwilling wife on their
wedding night, because even today in most places marriage isn’t legal until
it’s consummated. Gaheris’s refusal to do so I think actually speaks fairly
well for him. He certainly doesn’t hurt Lynett any more than she’s already been
hurt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Lynett in despair goes to King Arthur and begs for a job
so she won’t have to face life with an absent husband who doesn’t want her. He
makes her The King’s Damosel, an official messenger. She spends the next
several years riding around accompanied by Lancelot, Perceval, Gwalchmei (not
Gawain), and Bors as her backup when she delivers messages from Arthur.
Eventually she meets up again with Bagdemagus. He captures her, but her knights
break her out and Lancelot kills Bagdemagus. They are all captured by Morgan le
Fay who hands Lynett over to Bagdemagus’ men. Lynett escapes and winds up lost
in some caves where she meets Lucius, a blind young man who is mostly the basis
for Garrett. He was blinded not in an accident but from spending several years
a prisoner in the caves. He was found and raised by a seer, the Sybil, who
admits to Lynett that Lucius is dying. Lynett has fallen in love with Lucius
and decides to set out to seek the Holy Grail. Lucius asks since she is seeking
a cure to save his life if she could also ask for his sight.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Obviously none of this happens in <i>Quest for Camelot, </i>which is filled with dragons, ogres, half-men
half-metal creatures, magic plants and other imaginary beings, dreams of
knighthood and random happenings. Really the movie has almost no connection
with the Arthur legend other than the side characters of Arthur and Merlin and
the constant chatter about Camelot and Excalibur (which btw does not appear in
the book). Excalibur stands in for the Grail as a magical cure-all at the end.
However, here the movie and the book differ in a striking way.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the movie, when Excalibur gets put back in the Stone,
it magically cures everything within Camelot of all ills, if only for a few
seconds—except Garrett’s sight. I’m still not completely sure why the
filmmakers chose to do this, especially in light of what happens in the book at
this point. In the book, Lynett finds the Grail by (of course) asking a
question in the traditional hall with the Fisher King—the test that Percival
fails in legend. She heals the Fisher King and carries the Grail back to Lucius
with the injunction that he can choose to be healed of his illness <i>or</i> have his sight restored, not both. He
chooses sight because he so desperately wants to see his love. He dies of his
illness after a month of bliss. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about this choice,
probably because it’s not the choice I’d make. I’d personally rather live a
lifetime blind than have a month of sight, particularly if I could spend that
lifetime with the love of my life and my death would mean leaving my beloved partner
alone. However, it poses an interesting question about the nature of happiness:
choosing a short time of absolute bliss or a lifetime of ups and downs. I know
which I’d pick, but not everyone is the same and in that way it is
thought-provoking. In the face of this, the movie having Garrett’s blindness be
the one thing Excalibur <i>doesn’t</i> cure
feels like even more of a cop-out than it already did from just watching the
movie alone. I think I know why the movie creative team did what they did: they
wanted to avoid backlash about curing a disabled main character by magic, but
this flies in the face of the source material, which had the character make a
definite choice that not all readers might agree with and stick to the
consequences of that choice. Or we could have seen that there was at least one
other thing Excalibur couldn’t cure to soften the blow.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>On the Rape
(trigger warning and swears for salkjsdfsntsFAIL):<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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This book is not a kids’ book, what with extramarital
sex, talking severed heads and so on involved in the plotline. This makes it a
somewhat surprising choice for an attempted Disney-ripoff adaptation in the 90s
given the sheer number of much more kid-friendly Arthurian works to pick from.
Sure, this was the era when Disney tried an animated kid-ifyed version of <i>Hunchback of Notre Dame</i>, but at least
that movie paid some tonal homage to its dark source material. <i>Quest for Camelot</i> is so utterly sweet
and cute and so full of whimsical fantasy except for a few bizarre turns here
and there I pity any kid who actually got his or her hands on <i>King’s Damosel</i> while still a child. Less
than twenty-five pages in, Lynett is raped by her father’s friend Bagdemagus at
thirteen. Yeah. Not something you want kids stumbling on, particularly girls
looking for strong female heroes to idolize. Bagdemagus believes her dressing
and acting as a boy and trying to learn how to be his page is actually all a
giant ploy begging for sex. Because women who appear to like doing “man-only”
things are really just pretending interest so they can be that much more
attractive (insert Fake Geek Girl™ tangent here). Anyway, he blathers the usual
pre-rape excuses about how she’s been “asking for it” when she tells him no,
proceeds to rape her, again spouts the cliché line about how the hype didn’t
live up to the product, and rides away, leaving her alone in the woods. Merlin
shows up randomly at this point and tells her to pick herself up and get over
it. Which apparently she does, though she harbors some resentment that she
takes out on Bagdemagus later to her own detriment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There are a lot of things that bother me about this
scenario. First, the rape-as-origin-story for a lead female character is really
problematic. In this day and age it’s really overdone, though it might not have
been when this book was published in 1976. It takes away agency she might have had by
making her the victim of something that was done to her that she then has to go
off and avenge. This is particularly annoying with Lynett, who has a perfectly
good reason later to go off adventuring: she has to save her lands from being
taken over by Ruber, and she was already a tomboy who wanted to be a knight to
begin with so she really didn’t need a revenge incentive. She also doesn’t
particularly want to be married to Gaheris even without the problem of her not
being a virgin bride.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Second, telling a
rape victim “oh well, it’s not like your virginity was that important to you
anyway, no big loss right?” is heavily insulting even outside a culture where
female premarital virginity is important. Dude, it’s her virginity, not yours.
It should have been her choice when or when not to give it up even if she
didn’t value it in the marriage market. I get that you (the author, through
Merlin) are trying to say female virginity is overvalued in society and is
often mixed up with purity, but you don’t say that to a thirteen-year-old
virgin who was literally just raped in front of you. You also don’t say to your
raped character “You have to forgive him” and then tell us throughout the book
her lack of forgiveness is her greatest failing. Choosing to forgive such a
wrong is important in order to not let it ruin your life with bitterness, but
it’s a process. Forcing it on the character as a necessity in order to escape
peril later in the way that the book does I find extremely uncomfortable.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Third, and most important, Lynett fails to ask Merlin the
obvious question: <i>where the fuck were you
when he was raping me?</i> Merlin seems to know all about it, which means he
either knew beforehand (being Merlin) or he was <i>watching</i>. Which just makes it worse. If Lynett isn’t going to say
it, I will: <i>What the HELL</i>, <i>douchebag</i>. This is the problem I had
with Merlin in Mary Stewart’s trilogy about him and it turns up here again.
Just going along with what you’ve foreseen as Destiny means you come off as an
enormous asshole because you sit back and watch when stuff like this happens
instead of trying to prevent it. This is possibly one of the most annoyingly
mysterious and unhelpful versions of Merlin I’ve read to-date. I wanted to
throttle him every time he showed up after that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Overall</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I liked the book more than I was expecting to given what
I knew about it going in. I did find myself rooting for Lynett over the course
of this short novel. It does have the sense of epic wonder and tragedy that
makes Arthurian legends work so well. But I can’t get behind how the rape was
done and there were some key characterizations missing (like Gaheris and
Gareth) that would have made the story much more nuanced.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Despite its problems and gaping plotholes (and one enormously
annoying song I can’t stand) I still like the movie. It’s a cute diversion and
occasionally has some good concepts. There are just plenty of things I wish
they’d done differently, particularly now that I’ve read the source material.
They’d have had a stronger movie if they had.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
3 Stars on The King’s Damosel<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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3 Stars on Quest for Camelot<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-82446518301371036062013-10-27T19:41:00.000-05:002013-10-27T19:53:45.309-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review/Reread: The Lioness and Her Knight<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Lioness and Her Knight</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b></b><b>Publisher: </b>Houghton Mifflin Company<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>343<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Lunet is tired of living in dull Orkney with her mother and father (who happens to be the most boring knight of King Arthur's Round Table). She prides herself on always getting what she wants, so when the opportunity presents itself, she jumps at the chance to stay at a family friend's castle near Camelot. Her handsome cousin, Sir Ywain--a young knight seeking adventure--arrives just in time to escort her.<br />
<br />
Along the way they pick up a knight-turned-fool named Rhience, whose wit and audacity set many a puffed-up personality in its place. Before arriving at Lady Laudine's castle, the trio stops at Camelot, where they hear the story of the Storm Stone, a magical object deep in the forest that soon sweeps everyone into a web of love, betrayal, and more than a bit of magic. <br />
<br />
Filled with broken promises, powerful enchantresses, unconventional sword fights, fierce and friendly lionesses and damsels in and out of distress, <i>The Lioness and Her Knight</i> proves itself as witty and adventuresome as the rest of Gerald Morris's tales from King Arthur's court. </td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">This
is, I think, the first of the Squire’s Tales books I read originally while
actually knowing Story and her interest in Arthurian legend. Morris typically
had a year or two in between the release of each book in the series, and
sometime between <i>Dung-Cart Knight</i> and
<i>Lioness</i> I made the jump from high
school to college where Story and I met. So this may or may not have been the
first Morris book she saw me reading, though <i>Savage Damsel</i> is another contender for that title since I’ve reread
it so often.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Spoilers,
etc….</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <b>The Twist</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the story of Ywain (or
Yvain), one of Arthur’s lesser-known knights, told from the perspective of
Gaheris and Lynet’s daughter Luneta. Ywain’s relationship with his lady,
Laudine, as well as several other tales involving him and the lion he
eventually acquires, are retold. According to Wikipedia (make of that what you
will), the original was an unusual medieval romance because two characters who
are in love actually get married to each other instead of other people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Plot</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">Sixteen-year-old Luneta of Orkney has
the most boring parents in the world. At least, according to her. It appears
neither Gaheris nor Lynet bothered to give their daughter much detail on the
adventure that brought them together and Luneta has grown up under the impression
they are the most ordinary people possible. Like several other Morris
protagonists, Luneta longs for excitement and adventure without really knowing
what those entail. She also prides herself on her ability to manipulate people
and is a little spoiled in that she expects to get her way eventually.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">Adventure arrives in the form of her
distant cousin, Ywain. He drops by Orkney on his way to Camelot not long after
Luneta and Lynet have had yet another fight and agrees to escort Luneta to
visit Lynet’s friend Laudine in Salisbury (it’s a lot of L-names to keep track
of. Sorry about that). Like Luneta, Ywain dreams of great adventures. On the
way, the pair encounter a knight, a lady and a man dressed as a fool. The fool
wittily mocks his two companions and asks to join Luneta and Ywain. He
introduces himself as Rhience, a young man who lost a fight to Laudine’s
husband, Sir Esclados, after disturbing the magical Storm Stone, and Esclados
made him promise to dress as a fool for an entire year and not lift a sword
against any man. Ywain sees this as an opportunity for adventure and after
seeing Luneta and Rhience to Esclados’ castle he disturbs the Stone himself,
hoping to provoke a fight and not realizing the knight is the husband of
Luneta’s hostess. Ywain kills Esclados but falls in love with Laudine at first
sight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Luneta, after seeing how rough Esclados
had been with Laudine, determines that Laudine and Ywain are a good match
despite that whole killing Laudine’s husband hiccup, and sets about scheming to
get them together. She succeeds, but then Ywain rides off seeking more
adventures. However, he gets so caught up in winning tournaments and soaking up
knightly glory he forgets to return at the appointed time. Laudine, prompted by
her evil steward Malvolus (shades of Shakespeare’s </span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Twelfth Night</i><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">), sends Luneta to find Ywain and tell him he needn’t
bother coming back. On hearing the news, Ywain loses his mind and runs off into
the forest. Luneta, joined again by Rhience, goes to find him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">They discover Ywain living in the woods,
naked and practically a wild animal. Without a means to cure him they settle
down to wait at the abode of Godwulf, an unusual hermit who has been feeding
Ywain and keeping him from freezing to death. Luneta is led to the Other World
and becomes an enchantress thanks to the tutelage of her aunt Morgan le Fay. It
is there she finds out her mother isn't as ordinary as she had assumed, but is
also a protégée of Morgan’s. Like Lynet, when the time comes for her to leave,
she picks the healing potion to bring back with her. Upon rejoining Rhience,
Ywain and Godwulf, she uses the potion to bring Ywain to his senses. Ywain and
Rhience escort her back to Laudine’s where she is promptly locked up and sentenced
to death by Malvolus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">Rhience and Ywain return just in time to
rescue Luneta, having picked up an unusual traveling companion: a lioness they
rescued from a dragon that Rhience has dubbed “Lass”. Lass kills Malvolus and
Rhience and Luneta spend the next several weeks teaching Laudine how to run a
castle without a domineering man telling her what to do. Ywain slips off with
Lass, not wanting Luneta to try to get him back together with Laudine. He feels
he messed up too badly to be forgiven. Luneta and Rhience have to find him
again, however, when they encounter a lady named Philomela nearly assassinated
in the woods. Philomela has been looking for Ywain to be her champion in her
cause against her treacherous sister Philomena who is trying to steal her
inheritance. They are set to have a trial by combat but Philomena got to
Camelot first and got all the other knights to promise not to help Philomela.
Ywain is the only knight of note left.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">Luneta and Rhience locate Ywain, who has
wandered into the land of Diradvent. The lord of the land and his two henchmen
have been taking women as tribute from a neighboring kingdom they defeated in
battle and forcing them to embroider as slave labor. Ywain, Luneta, Rhience and
Lass set the women free and dethrone the lord, leaving one of the women behind
as the new ruler.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">Luneta manipulates Ywain to agree to be
Philomela’s champion against his better judgment. When they arrive at Camelot
they discover the other champion is Gawain and now that both knights have given
their word they won’t back out of the trial even though with all the facts it’s
obvious which sister is telling the truth. Luneta uses her magical skills to
rig the fight so the two men are fighting with bendable swords rather than live
weapons, leading to one of the funniest fight scenes Morris has ever written—and
he wrote Gareth in single combat with a fish. King Arthur imposes a time limit
so if neither knight can overcome the other the trial goes to his judgment. Arthur
shows his own skill at manipulation (though I suspect it might have been Kai’s
idea) to get Philomena to confess her treachery. Philomela, however, has become
BFFs with Laudine and decides to go back there and cede her lands to her
sister. The group escorts her back to Salisbury, where Luneta uses a final bit
of manipulation to get Ywain to the point of apologizing to Laudine, though the
choice to reveal his identity is his. Laudine and Ywain are finally reunited.
Luneta realizes she is in love with Rhience, whose year as a fool is up and he
has regained his identity as a knight and the son of a lord (thus suddenly
bringing him to Luneta’s attention as a potential suitor, which she hadn’t
really considered before when he was dressed as a clown even though it’s fairly
obvious in the second half of the book Rhience is in love with her).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Characters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Luneta
(Lunete): Laudine’s servant who helps Ywain and Laudine get together and is
later rescued by Ywain from being burned at the stake in Chétrien’s original
version here is the daughter of Lynet and Gaheris. Luneta is a skilled
manipulator, but like Jane Austen’s Emma eventually gets her comeuppance for
trying to arrange everyone’s lives when she accidentally gets Gawain and Ywain
to fight each other. Trained by her great-aunt Morgan le Fay as an enchantress,
Luneta appears to be more powerful than Lynet but like Lynet will never be
truly powerful because she won’t devote herself entirely to magic. I really
enjoyed Morgan and Luneta’s affectionately antagonistic relationship as two
people used to getting their own way bouncing off each other. Luneta keeps her
head in a crisis and is an equal traveling companion for Ywain and Rhience. A
running joke through the book, also incorporated into the title, consists of
referring to both Luneta and Lass as ‘lioness’. Thus the book’s title could
refer to Ywain and Lass or it could be about Rhience and Luneta.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rhience
(Calogrenant): Though not Ywain’s cousin in this version, it is his defeat at
the hands of Esclados that prompts Ywain to visit the Storm Stone. Rhience is
the son of a nobleman who has already gone through several careers as a monk
and a knight before his present occupation as a fool due to his promise to
Esclados. He is still trying to figure out what he wants from life and
eventually finds a goal in Luneta. Rhience has an acid tongue and a habit of
finding the humor in everything that luckily most people don’t take seriously
because of his fool’s clothing. Story and I had a disagreement while we were
reading about whether or not he crosses the line when he mocks Laudine. Story’s
opinion (as I understood it) is that Rhience’s humor becomes mean-spirited at
that point because Laudine isn't smart enough to keep up or even realize she’s
being made fun of. In particular Story objects to Rhience making fun of Laudine
for being in a borderline abusive relationship with Esclados, about which she
has a point because abusive relationships are not something to mock. I think
Rhience has such a low tolerance for people who do stupid things that the only
way he can deal with it is to mock because he can’t understand why someone
would choose to do something nonsensical. And he does gain more sympathy for
Laudine as Luneta consistently defends her hostess even though she herself
doesn’t respect Laudine and finds her weak and silly. For the most part I enjoy
his incongruous humor, though I leave it to readers to decide for themselves
whether he crosses the line with Laudine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ywain
(Yvain): He swings between reasonably intelligent and being a complete idiot
without warning for most of the first half of the book. Though an excellent
fighter, he still has a lot to learn about what it really means to be a knight.
Once he actually loses his mind from the grief of forgetting about Laudine and
then regains it, he becomes much more sober and levelheaded. Also much less
annoying. I particularly like his reaction when he discovers Luneta has gotten
him stuck fighting Gawain: “if you hadn’t saved my life so many times, I feel
sure I’d strangle you now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Laudine:
The jury’s still out on how intelligent Laudine actually is because she acts
like a complete airhead most of the time. However, I do think she is a victim
of a society telling her that the only worth a woman has is her beauty. Any
intelligence she has, she has suppressed or funneled into a fantasy world where
she thinks only of herself and refuses to accept reality. She is a minor
enchantress in this version but uses her powers only on beauty. Slowly she
comes into her own as the domineering men in her life are removed and she
learns the value of her own backbone. She bravely helps Rhience and Ywain
rescue Luneta from Malvolus and learns to make decisions for herself rather
than agree with whoever is the dominant personality in the room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Esclados:
For all that he doesn’t spend much time in the story, he has a pretty big
impact on it. He is the catalyst for Rhience and Ywain’s adventures and his
death of course touches off a major crisis for his wife Laudine. He seems to
not pay much attention to Laudine and what little attention he does bestow is
gruff and disapproving. Laudine appears to fear him while he’s alive but
venerates him after his death because to her he represented security.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain:
He makes a few appearances at the beginning of the story. His most important contribution
is at the end where he and Ywain end up in a trial by combat where neither
wants to fight the other. However, what I did like about this situation is why
they won’t back out of it: both men have gone through a singular life-altering event
where they gave their word and failed to keep it (Gawain with the Green Knight
and Ywain with Laudine), and now refuse to make the same mistake in
compromising their honor again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Morgan:
As I said before, I enjoy her relationship with Luneta. Luneta, Sarah, Gawain
and Terence are probably the only people in the World of Men who refuse to be
overawed by Morgan and actually call her out when she does things they don’t
agree with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lynet:
It probably shouldn't surprise readers of <i>Savage
Damsel</i> that sharp-tongued Lynet has an antagonistic relationship with her
just as spirited teenage daughter. It makes me wonder if Morris had a teenager
himself in the house when he was writing this, because most of his previous
teenage characters have been unusually mature. Lynet and Luneta come to a
meeting of the minds after Luneta has been off adventuring and has become an
enchantress herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gaheris:
If he weren't already married to Lynet, I’d marry this version of Gaheris
myself. He continues to be hilarious and practical; it is his idea to smash the
Storm Stone at the end and free Laudine of its curse. He’s also good at
soothing his prickly wife and daughter, which is a really excellent skill for a
father caught in the middle to have. It’s particularly impressive given he grew
up in a household of men since his sister must have died when he was quite
young and his mother of course didn't give a damn about her children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
did want to comment specifically on the characters we meet in Diradvent, in
particular Dorothea and Sir Carius. The story takes a very dark turn at this
point, where Luneta, Rhience and Ywain discover the female slaves forced to sew
in a windowless dungeon until they starve or are beaten to death. One of the
women, Dorothea, has survived ten years of this horror and seems to be
suffering from some version of Stockholm Syndrome where she has convinced
herself that this is actually a good life. She has been so badly traumatized
that when the women are freed, she stays behind and continues to live and sew
in the dungeon by choice. It’s an incredibly sad image Morris paints of her
sitting in the dark with her back deliberately turned to the light. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sir
Carius, nominally the lord of Diradvent, claims he was forced to do all of
these horrible things by his right hands The Brothers. Actually he and his daughter Floria remind me
of the ordinary people of Germany during the Holocaust: they knew what was
going on and chose to turn a blind eye not only because they were afraid of Hitler’s
enforcers but because many of them benefited from Jews being forced from their
homes and businesses and from the stolen possessions of the millions murdered
or deported. Sir Carius and Floria benefit from the profits of the slave labor
and are well aware why they are living so well, and they choose a life of
luxury over doing the right thing even after the Brothers are dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arthur,
Kai, Guinevere, Lamorak, Dinadan, Agravain, Gareth, Lyonesse, Bedivere,
Lancelot, Florence, Lovel and Alardin are mentioned or make cameo appearances.
This is, I think, the first book in the series where someone does not make fun
of Griflet at least once. Original Morris characters Terence and Eileen also show
up, and there is a reference to Piers as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I like this book a lot. The characters are witty and enjoyable, the story moves
at a good pace, and as usual there are some profound words to take away (though
not as many as in <i>Princess, Crone and
Dung-Cart Knight</i>, sadly). The emphasis in this book appears to be keeping
your word and doing your best to do the right thing—or not—and the consequences
of those choices. Also that manipulating people, even if you think you’re
helping them, is not always best. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Four
stars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Sidenotes</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
is probably the biggest time jump in Morris’s universe—it’s been at least
seventeen years since the end of <i>Savage
Damsel</i> at the beginning of this book, since Gaheris and Lynet’s daughter is
now all grown up. How long it’s been since <i>Dung-Cart
Knight</i> is harder to say, but my guess is it’s been ten to twelve years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Next
up: the beginning of the end (even though Morris drags his feet and takes three
whole books to do it). Yeah, you knew it was coming. After all, the ultimate
King Arthur spoiler is: <span style="color: #ffffcc;">everybody dies</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
we were all having such fun. On that cheerful note, see you at the next review!</span></div>
Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-20468177231030634432013-10-27T12:22:00.001-05:002013-10-27T19:54:34.983-05:00Reread: The Lioness and Her Knight<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Lioness and Her Knight</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Harcourt<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>343<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) <i>Riding through the great courtyard ringed with banners of the Round Table knights, Luneta felt very alone and uncharacteristically shy. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Luneta is tired of living in dull Orkney with her mother and father. She would much prefer the rich pageantry of court. And Luneta prides herself on always getting what she wants, so when the opportunity presents itself to stay at a family friend's castle near Camelot, she jumps at the chance. Her handsome cousin, Sir Ywain--a young knight seeking adventure--arrives just in time to escort her. Along the way they pick up Rhience, a young man living as a fool for a year. <br />
<br />
Together they are about to step into a web of love, betrayal, and more than a bit of magic. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Morris says that the Tale of Yvain is a rare story for Chretien de Troyes because it involves two people whose love leads to a marriage instead of an extramarital affair. This seems strange to me because Erec and Enide's romance leads to a marriage-- one that eventually becomes unhappy, but still. A marriage is a marriage. Cliges has a romance that begins with an extramarital affair, but ends with a marriage. Perceval too has a romance that ends in a marriage.<br />
<br />
In fact, the only story of de Troyes' that ends in an extramarital affair and not a marriage is the Dung Cart Knight. That is the odd one out. This one is par for the course.<br />
<br />
Also, this cover is weird because they characters look like they're ten. I don't fancy it. Nor am I really thrilled with Luneta standing behind Ywain and the Lioness, both of whom are secondary characters to her. But that's a rant for another day. <br />
<br />
<b>Warning for Spoilers</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b><br /></b>
<b>The Last Time I Read This Book</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Sorta like Parsifal's Page, I kinda knew originally going into this one that I wasn't going to be thrilled with it. Like Percival, I have a very distinct characterization for Yvain in my mind and this character is nothing like him. So I knew going in it was going to be hard to hook me and honestly, throughout the book I found very little to be impressed with. I made my complaints known to SamoaPhoenix, who kept insisting I table my complaints till I reached the end. So I did and... I'm not going to say the final battle makes up for all the weaknesses of the plot, but this book definitely has one of the most enjoyable endings that I have ever read.<br />
<br />
<b>The Twist</b><br />
<br />
Following up his adaptation of The Dung-Cart Knight, Morris has decided to tackle another one of Chretien de Troyes' romances. This is the tale of Yvain. In the original story, Yvain decides to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who suffered a defeat at the hands of Esclados. Yvain kills Esclados and then has the great misfortune of falling in love with the knight's widow, Laudine. With the help of Laudine's servant, Lunete, he manages to win Laudine's hand in marriage. Unfortunately Yvain is young and dreams of glory, so he decides to go on some adventures. Laudine requires that he return after one year. Yvain gets so caught up in his adventures that he misses the deadline and is barred from ever returning to Laudine's side. He goes through a series of adventures and eventually wins back Laudine's love. <br />
<br />
Morris twists this story up by telling it from the perspective of Luneta, who is not a servant to Laudine but instead the daughter of Gaheris and Lynet. I really like that Morris chose to write another book from the perspective of a female character and that this one came right after Sarah's book. But aside from Luneta taking the lead, this one really doesn't differ from de Troyes' story all that much. <br />
<br />
<b>The Plot</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Can you imagine having Lynet as a mother? I would love her a best friend, I don't think I would be able to stand her as a mother. And neither can Luneta. Chaffing over how dull life is in Orkney, Luneta gets her parents to agree to send her south to stay with a friend of theirs living near Camelot. Conveniently, Luneta's cousin Ywain soon after this and Luneta is able to convince her parents to let her go south with him instead of traveling with them. Along the way, the meet the fool Rhience who confesses to once being a knight. Then he made the mistake of seeking adventure and coming across the Storm Stone. He was defeated by the stone's guardian, Esclados, and forced to spend a year dressed as a fool. Hearing of this grand adventure, Ywain immediately sets off for the Storm Stone, dragging Luneta and Rhience with him. <br />
<br />
The story follows de Troyes' pretty much point by point. It turns out the friend Luneta was to stay with is Laudine, wife of Esclados. So Luneta is in their castle when Ywain kills Esclados and is able to help him hide and it's here that he falls in love with Laudine. After revealing himself and pledging himself to Laudine, Ywain seeks adventure and goes off to duel in tournaments-- with the one year time limit put in place. He misses it and Luneta is kicked out for his failure. When she finds Ywain, he goes mad after learning Laudine has banished him. From there Ywain, Luneta, and Rhience go on all sorts of grand adventures which include stopping a knight for stealing a maiden's land, rescuing a group of women who have been forced into slave labor, finding Ywain's lioness, and helping to settle a dispute between two sisters. Finally, Ywain returns to Laudine and, with Luneta's help, is able to convince her that he is truly sorry for hurting her and she welcome him home while Rhience and Luneta return to Orkney to live happily ever after.<br />
<br />
<b>The Characters</b><br />
<br />
What I like about how Morris handles Luneta's characters is that he takes this one rather minor event from the Yvain story and turns it into a giant character trait that needs to be dealt with. Luneta is manipulative. She is used to not only getting her way, but directing people toward doing what she thinks is best for them. We see her do this with her parents, we see her do this with Laudine and Ywain. And throughout it all you have Rhience scolding her, telling her it's up to others to make their own destiny and she shouldn't be interfering. What I like most about her ending is that Luneta doesn't stop manipulating or interfering. She becomes better at judging when she should get involved and when she should walk away. The text never punishes her for her manipulation-- she does feel bad about getting Laudine and Ywain in the mess that they're in, but in the end she uses her manipulation to fix it. It's a powerful message, especially for young women reading, that these sorts of traits aren't inherently good or bad. It's all about how you use them.<br />
<br />
Ywain is a weird character when it comes to a Morris story. Normally a knight like this-- the companion to the female lead who isn't her romantic interest would be something of a silly fop. Ywain is not a silly fop. He is quite intelligent and is really good a coming up with innovative solutions for the obstacles he faces. And yet he is also so hungry for glory that he spends most of his journey with Luneta day dreaming. And he uses his position as escort as an excuse to go find the Storm Stone. AND he leaves Laudine to go fight in tournaments and gets so caught up in that he forgets to come home. So he's very different from Morris' typical characters who are either silly or incredibly intelligent in that he gets to be both. And he learns so much and grows so much from the chance to be both.<br />
<br />
The original Yvain tale begins with Sir Calogrenant regaling a group of knights with a story of his failure. Years before he disturbed the Storm Stone and was defeated by it's guardian. Here that character is a fool named Rhience who went by the name Sir Calogrenant as a knight because he thought it sounded more knightly (and Brother Matthew when he was a monk because he thought it sounded more holy). Rhience spends most of the book dressed as a fool as Esclados defeated him on April Fools Day and decided a fitting punishment for his defeat would be to have Rhience spend a year dressed as such. This seems to come from a line early in Yvain where both Calogrenant calls himself a fool for disturbing the Storm Stone and disturbing Esclados' peace and throwing away his weapons to join Esclados in his castle. It's an interesting twist on this early part of the story and a nice way to slide in a character who had a small role in the original into a much larger role. <br />
<br />
Laudine's characterization is probably where I became most frustrated with this book. Like Tristan and Iseult from <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/05/reread-ballad-of-sir-dinadan.html" style="text-decoration: underline;">The Ballad of Sir Dinadan</a>, Laudine is a character stuck in a shitty situation. But instead of trying to help her or having any compassion for her position, most of the characters look down upon her and mock her for her inability to stand up for herself. While we only see one interaction between Laudine and Eslcados in the book, but from the way he talks down to her it was clear to me that their relationship was at the very least emotionally abusive toward her. He was portrayed as incredibly controlling of her actions and companions and there's definitely a reading in here that Esclados essentially gaslit her into believe that she had no value outside of looking pretty. And instead of helping her or at least approaching the problems she faces with compassion and kindness, Rhience and Luneta declare Laudine hopeless and contemplate leaving her to fend for herself when she is surrounded by more characters who want to take advantage of her. Rhience was the worst because he knew Laudine was afraid, but his way of helping is to present her with riddles that he knows will go over her head and then refuse to help her any further when she doesn't get it.<br />
<br />
And it gets worse when you consider how this character was presented in the original legend and how she could have been translated to a modern audience. This is a character who, when she finally gains control of her own destiny and the ability to choose what she wants in life, gives Yvain a swift kick in the ass when he treats her poorly. In Morris' version, it's not Laudine who turns on Ywain for not returning after a year, but her manipulative and overbearing steward who wants to marry her. And it's just disappointing that after having such a good track record with his females Morris gives Laudine no agency what-so-ever. And not only does he present her as an object to be won over by various characters, he mocks and derides her for how he chose to write her. And that is highly, highly problematic. <br />
<br />
Esclados is a difficult character to write about in modern retellings because he doesn't do anything wrong in the original story. He's just defending his land against dumb adventurers who keep disturbing the storm stone. Morris goes a little ways to making him unlikable in his treatment of Laudine (which he then doesn't follow through on because Laudine is a object to move the plot forward, not a person). But otherwise you do feel sorta bad for the guy when Ywain kills him because he can. <br />
<br />
Morgan le Fay is still the best aunt. And an even better great aunt as she teaches Luneta in the ways of the enchantress (like her mother before her, aw). And what we see of the two of them is amazing because Luneta and Morgan just go out of their way to troll one another. Luneta has very little respect for authority at this point and Morgan thinks her pupils should shut up and listen. It makes for a beautiful few scenes that are over far too soon. I need more of Morgan hanging out with her pupils, please (that Morris never wrote a book with her as the focus is a travesty). <br />
<br />
One of the adventures that takes place in de Troyes' Yvain is the Castle of the Most Ill Adventure. In the story, Yvain comes to a town where all the common folk his passes by insult him and refuse him hospitality. When he finally arrives at the castle, he finds a room filled with three hundred poverty stricken women forced to sew day in and day out. The young king of their land came to this castle and finds himself forced by the king of the castle to take part in a strange tradition where he must fight the sons of a demon for accepting their hospitality. About to lose to the demons and fearing for his life, the young king agrees to send thirty maidens to the castle each year, but at their defeat this pact would be broken. The next day, Yvain is forced to fight the demon sons. He wins, orders the king to free the women, and turns down the king's daughter's hand in marriage. <br />
<br />
Morris' story is a little more down to earth. The King of the Isle of Wright fought Sir Carius in a war and was defeated. In order to keep his throne, the King of the Isle of Wright agreed to send 30 women to his castle as servants where they are forced to sew the finest clothing and embroidery in the land. The next day, Ywain, Rhience, and Luneta are forced to fight the two 'demon' men who serve Sir Carius and wish to kill them for knowing too much. The group succeeds and Ywain banishes Sir Carius and his daughter from the castle and turn it over to the care of the women who were forced to work there. Some of Morris' best work is in here as the interaction between the lead characters and the captive women becomes a truly haunting tale of the price of survival and how difficult it can be to find happiness again after the walls of captivity come down. <br />
<br />
Another adventure from the original Yvain is the story of two sisters who are war over their inheritance. One insists that their father had a will that split the estate between them while the other insists that there is no will and as the oldest, she inherits everything. The younger decides to go to Arthur's court to receive assistance, but the older arrives first and secures the help of Gawain (and everyone else is conveniently unavailable because Melegant is causing mischief). So the younger sister strikes out from court to find Yvain because she believes he is the only one who can help her. She manages to track him down and together they return to Arthur's court for the battle. Because of reasons Yvain and Gawain don't recognize each other when they begin fighting and they do battle all day long. When dusk approaches they finally talk to each other and with this they recognize the other and declare they can no longer fight the other (when Arthur asks what's going on, they both declare the other won. The ladies depending on you for their inheritance appreciate this about face, boys). Arthur rightly takes the decision of trial by combat way from the two of them and orders the older sister to split her inheritance with the younger sister.<br />
<br />
Morris puts the best twist on this ever. First, he makes the older sister truly evil and has get all the knights in Camelot agree not to aid her younger sister and then tries to have her murdered while she is out searching for Ywain. Then, he has Ywain not at all down with this trial by combat nonsense and Luneta essentially manipulates him into agreeing. This backfires in their face when they discover that Gawain is the knight Ywain will be fighting (he agreed before he realized how truly awful the older sister is and now can't get out). Luneta, desperate to make this right, begs Arthur to set a time limit on the trial so Ywain and Gawain don't hurt each other too badly. Then, Terence has a bright idea and Luneta and Lynet use their enchantress powers to set it into motion. They cast a spell on the swords Ywain and Gawain use so they're essentially rubber swords so they bend when they hit something instead of cut. Ywain and Gawain get a few blows on each other (and even manage to wrap their swords around the other) before stepping back to stare blankly at Arthur. Unfortunately, Arthur is the biggest troll ever and demands they finish out the hour for his enjoyment. At the end, Arthur rewards the lands to the younger sister, who in turn returns the whole thing to her older sister and goes to live with Laudine. <br />
<br />
Man, Gawain messes everything up in this book. First he holds the little party where Ywain hears about the storm stone in the first place. Then he talks Ywain into leaving Laudine to go fight in tournaments around the country. And finally he agrees to be the champion of the older sister without first hearing both sides of the story. Fortunately for us, we get to see him get beat up with a rubber sword in the end, which makes it all worth it. <br />
<br />
Gaheris and Lynet are up north being the best parents ever. They come south at the end of the book to see this tournament. Lynet helps Luneta with the spell to make the swords rubber and Gaheris is the only one smart enough to suggest destroying the storm stone so Laudine doesn't have to worry any longer about it cursing her land with storms whenever some foolish adventurer decides to disturb it. Agravain gets a brief appearance here to complain about how he doesn't get to go on any adventures and fight with Ywain when he sneaks off to see the storm stone before him. Arthur is the biggest troll ever, as stated above. And Morris, in a nice twist, decided to make Ywains lion a lioness who is a giant sweetheart who loves him and Rhience because they saved her from a dragon. <br />
<br />
<b>Overall</b><br />
<br />
This book is on par with the rest of the series so far. For me, it's not the greatest thing ever like <u>The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady</u> or <u>The Princess, the Crone and the Dung Cart Knight</u> (I like the books with long titles), but it's up there with the rest of the series. There are some parts I don't agree with (the whole of Laudine's character) and some parts I absolutely adore (rubber sword battle). It's a good, solid book, but not a favorite in the series. 4 Stars. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-73490942198201115692013-06-23T21:38:00.001-05:002013-06-23T21:59:14.047-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review/Reread: The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Title: <u>The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight</u></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Company</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Pages: </strong>310</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Ever since that tragic night when her mother and guardian were murdered, thirteen-year-old Sarah has been living on her own and searching for the knight who was responsible. Her quest for revenge leads to an even greater adventure when she witnesses Queen Guinevere being kidnapped. Soon Sarah finds herself accompanying Sir Gawain and Squire Terence on a remarkable journey to rescue the Queen. In their travels they meet, among others, a mystery knight traveling incognito in a dung cart, a faery who becomes Sarah's first friend in a long time, a reclusive monk who plans to spend the rest of his life building a tomb for Sir Lancelot, and a princess who might have a little more gumption than she appears to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the plot thickens, Sarah finds out more about the people she's met and befriended, as well as about herself. She begins to learn the true consequences of vengeance and what it really means to be a princess.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In this funny and unforgettable sixth novel, Gerald Morris creates yet another tangled web of magic spells, enchanted castles, mystery knights, revenge, and heart-pounding adventure. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
have nothing much to say about the covers, or commentary about the first time I
read this book (which was in high school). Let’s get this party started!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spoilers, etc…<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Twist</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It sometimes mildly
annoyed me as I observed Story reading her way through these books for the
first time back when we were in college that she was able to tell what the main
plot of most of the books were merely by their titles (the exceptions are the
three with the word ‘Squire’ in the title). In this case, she knew immediately
that this book was Morris’s version of the abduction of Guinevere by Meleagant
and her rescue by Lancelot. Morris of course puts his own spin on things; this
is post-affair Guinevere and Lancelot where they have each decidedly gone their
separate ways and Lancelot is accompanied by two original Morris characters:
Nimue and Merlin’s daughter Ariel, who we met in <i>Parsifal’s Page</i>, and our main character, Sarah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Plot</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This story takes
place three years or so after <i>Parsifal’s
Page</i> ends. Sarah is a thirteen-year-old girl who has been living on her own
in the woods, dreaming of revenge on those responsible for the murders of her
mother and her Jewish guardian. She encounters Sir Kai and Queen Guinevere
traveling through the woods, and witnesses their abduction by Meliagant. Helped
by Morgan le Fay in disguise as a crone and page-turned-smith Piers from <i>Parsifal’s Page</i>, she makes her way to
Camelot to tell Arthur. Arthur sends her with Gawain and Terence to search for
the missing pair, and sends Piers to try to find Parsifal to see if he can come
back from the Grail Castle (he’s there visiting) to help. Piers, not sure if he
can find Parsifal in time, goes to Jean le Forestier/Lancelot to beg his
assistance instead. Lancelot agrees but is not particularly well-equipped for
the journey, which leads to the scene of him riding in the dung-cart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain
and Terence are not happy about having Sarah along on the quest, and they leave
her behind with Ariel, who had appeared to give them directions, at the first
opportunity. They don’t realize Sarah, informed by Morgan le Fay that the
knight who had a hand in murdering her parents is involved somehow in the
kidnap plot, has her own agenda for wanting to come. Ariel and Sarah meet up
with Jean!Lance, and the threesome continue on together. They encounter several
interesting characters, including a knight who has the same foolish notions of
knightly honor Lancelot once espoused (this guy reminds me of season one-Zuko
in <i>Avatar: The Last Airbender</i> with
the way he whines about honor); a monk guarding Lancelot’s future tomb (kind of
morbid but I like his backstory); the knight who killed Sarah’s parents (Sarah
kills him and discovers it does little to help her state of mind); the
Vavasour, a vassal of Meliagant who tries to prevent them from going further; and
finally the Sword Bridge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
make their way to the castle where Guinevere and Kai are being held, but are
forced to leave Ariel behind because an enchantment prevents those of the
Seelie Court (nice faeries) from entering the land of Logres. They discover
Logres is ruled by the vapid, naïve King Bagdemagus, controlled from behind the
scenes by his son Meliagant. Bagdemagus has another child, a daughter Charis,
who is about Sarah’s age. Charis has been pretending to be foolish and
brainless for years to get around her brother, but eventually begins to
discover her own strength as she helps Lancelot and Sarah try to rescue the
queen and Kai. Meliagant goes through the motions of accusing Guinevere of
being unfaithful to Arthur with Kai and condemns them to death. Lancelot agrees
to be their champion in trial by combat, but Meliagant, with the help of
Morgause who has been orchestrating this whole thing all along, kidnaps him and
basically buries him in a hole to keep him from showing up to the fight. In
searching for Lancelot, Charis and Sarah stumble across Terence and Gawain, who
made it to Logres but are too weak or injured to fight. The girls are forced to
improvise. Sarah fights Meliagant herself in disguise as a boy, while Charis
figures out at the last minute where Morgause stashed Lancelot and goes to dig
him out. Lancelot, Charis, Gawain and Terence all arrive at the trial in time
to help Sarah defeat Meliagant, though it is Lancelot who strikes the final
blow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All
of Morgause’s spells break when Meliagant dies, and everyone begins to recover.
Charis comes into her own as her father’s regent, giving Sarah her own castle
and parcel of land to rule, taken from the Vavasour. Piers, Nimue and Morgan le
Fay all arrive, Piers with news of a grand feast at Camelot in Sarah’s honor,
Nimue to greet her daughter and Lancelot, and Morgan to reveal she was the
crone who helped Sarah, because Sarah is actually her niece, the daughter of
Morgan, Morgause and Arthur’s sister. Once everyone is well enough to travel,
the group sets out towards Camelot, with Lancelot finally ready to return as a
knight and Sarah renouncing her revenge on those who had a hand in her mother
and guardian’s deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
book is chock-full of little verbal gems. Below are some of my favorites:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Terence:
“Arthur trusts Piers because Piers is trustworthy, not because he’s important.
Two very different things.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain: “Few people are both, in fact.” (pg 54)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain:
“You may have faith in this, sirrah. If you put your hand on my arm again, I
will cut off your fingers and provide you with five more holy relics.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Terence: “Guaranteed to protect the faithful from frauds.” (pg 64)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lancelot:
“If your honor was so slight as to be lost by falling in a river, it is not
worth having.” (pg 123)</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Brother
Constans: “He hated because he was a man who hates, and that was his own choice.
It is the same with every hatred.” (pg 132) </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sarah:
“Ariel knows how much that knight deserved to be killed! That wasn’t cruelty—it
was justice!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lancelot: “It usually is.” (pg 171)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Gawain:
“I’ve been hurt worse.”<br />Terence: “Really, milord? When was that?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain: "All right. I've been hurt nearly this bad before." (pg 245)
</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Kai:
“If you doubt my own word, I would be happy to ask my brother about the
specifics of feudal law.”</span><br />The Vavasour: “Why should I care what your brother
thinks? Who is your brother, anyway?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kai: “His name is Arthur Pendragon.” (pg 282)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Characters<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lancelot:
Is this really the same overdressed oblivious peacock we met in <i>The Squire, his Knight, and his Lady</i>? The transformation
is now complete. New Model Lancelot is thoughtful and restrained, with a
newfound confidence that stems from discovering your own self-worth from within
rather than worth given to you by others. He even has a sense of humor. I
commented in my review of <i>Parsifal’s Page</i>
on Morris not humoring Piers’s desire to be called Pierre in Part 1 of the
story. He does the same sort of thing with Lancelot here, which I appreciated.
Even after the readers and his fellow characters have confirmed he is Lancelot,
Morris consistently refers to him as ‘Jean’ throughout the book. It might have
been done to avoid changing the character’s name mid-book, but from a symbolic
standpoint I appreciated it. It is also revealed as per the legend that
Lancelot was raised for a few years by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Guinevere:
I also like what Morris did with Guinevere here. We get a fairly good look at
her even though she stays somewhat in the background. When we last saw her as
more than a cameo, she was an oblivious young woman interested only in fashions,
her own beauty, and Lancelot’s attentions, culminating with her dramatic
rejection of Lancelot at the end of <i>Squire,
Knight, Lady</i>. I like that Morris has her obviously still interested in
fashions and gossip—in essentials she’s the same person even after seven years
without Lancelot—but she is much more mature, has grown into her role as queen,
and is clearly loyal to Arthur alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kai:
Sir Kai continues to be awesome. He still keeps his dry sense of humor even
when badly wounded. He is the first person to believe in Sarah and continues to
do so throughout the book. It turns out he is a friend of Sarah’s guardian, as
the two were imprisoned together in Dolorous Guard before Lancelot rescued
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Meliagant
(Meleagant): Like many manifestations of this character, he seems to believe
that kidnapping a woman is the way to win her heart. When he finds ‘evidence’
that she and Kai have sexed it up in their dungeon cell (bloody blankets
Guinevere was using for bandages since both Kai and Lancelot are wounded), he
plans to try and execute her for adultery against the King (though he has a
Freudian slip and claims it’s him she betrayed). He is in fact a pawn of
Morgause, though he does not seem to be in love with her as Lamorak was. He is
ruthless and cruel, but not particularly clever and as self-deluding as his
father in his own way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gawain:
Gawain and Terence are back! Their brotherly camaraderie has been much missed.
Watching them troll the Pardoner when they first set out on their rescue
mission is a lot of fun. Both of them spend most of the later part of the book
out of commission, though they try their best to help Sarah and Charis set
things right. Gawain has telling things to say to Meliagant about Morgause
getting rid of her minions once they've ceased to be useful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Morgause:
She is back with a vengeance after her defeat at Terence’s hands in <i>Squire’s Tale</i> and sort-of reappearance
in <i>Ballad of Dinadan</i>. She seems to
have originally orchestrated the kidnap plot to get rid of Guinevere and Kai,
two of Arthur’s mainstays, but modifies her plans to also get rid of Lancelot
when he shows up out of exile. While defeated at this turn, she is back to stay
for the rest of the series as the shadow in the background, waiting to pounce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bagdemagus:
Charis sums him up best: he only believes what’s comfortable for him; truth
upsets him, so he ignores it. He, Griflet and Lancelot were once friends back
when Lancelot also had a head for nothing but fashion. He is completely
controlled by Meliagant and seems to have no problem with this, continually
asking for his son after Meliagant is beheaded in front of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Morgan
le Fay: We see more of Morgan’s dark side in this book, as she encourages
Sarah’s ruthless quest for revenge even as she helps her seek the people
responsible (who happen to also be the people responsible for kidnapping
Guinevere and Kai).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sir Pedwyr (Pedivere): A knight Lancelot
defeated for murdering his own wife and then sent off to the Pope to ask for
forgiveness. The journey changes him so much that when he returns to England he
becomes Brother Constans, the monk building and guarding Lancelot’s future
tomb.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arthur:
He does not fall apart at Guinevere’s kidnap, though he wants to go rescue her
himself. Gawain, Terence and Bedivere persuade him that this is not the best
idea. He and Bedivere stay behind to pretend all is well and continue ruling
the land. They eventually have to deal with some minor uprisings organized by
Morgause.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Pardoner: This is not an Arthurian character, but he appears elsewhere:
Chaucer’s <i>Canterbury Tales</i>. In the
frame story of the <i>Tales</i>, a group of
characters meet on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and tell each other stories to
pass the time. One of these frame characters is The Pardoner. Morris’s Pardoner
is exactly the same in appearance, speech and actions as Chaucer’s. I read
Morris’s version first, and was extremely pleased to recognize this character
when I read the original <i>Tales</i>
(though I was not pleased to see the character himself, as, like Sarah, I find
him utterly despicable: a 12<sup>th</sup>-century profiteer who plays on the
faith and fears of others to enrich himself, much as certain characters in the
media and televangelists do today). Morris uses this character to point out
that such people are anything but harmless, and can in fact find themselves
responsible for great and terrible wrongs. This is Morris’s only direct reference
that I know of to a non-Arthurian work in the series (aside from the Greek
myths he alludes to in <i>The Squire’s Quest</i>),
though the <i>Canterbury Tales</i> sort of
counts because one of the frame characters (The Wife of Bath) does tell a
version of The Loathly Lady.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gareth,
Gaheris, Lynet, Bedivere, Griflet, Parsifal, Conduiramour, Nimue, Igraine and
Sir Turquin are mentioned or make cameo appearances. Original Morris character
Piers, now at least seventeen and described as tall and powerfully built after years
as a blacksmith’s apprentice, and his parents Marie de Champagne and Trebuchet
also appear or are mentioned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b>
<b> </b>After two
stories that are somewhat duds for me, Morris is back in form. This story is
fun and serious at the same time, with some cogent things to say on the nature
of hatred, revenge, scapegoating, honor, friendship, and leadership. This is a
wonderful cast of characters who are great to watch grow and develop. I will
leave it for Story to gush over the Girl Power aspects of this book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Five
stars.</span>Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-72419038103960161772013-06-23T21:38:00.000-05:002013-06-23T21:59:44.980-05:00Reread: The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Houghton Mifflin Company<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>310<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Ever since that tragic night when her mother and guardian were murdered, thirteen-year-old Sarah has been living on her own and searching for the knight who was responsible. Her quest for revenge leads to an even greater adventure when she witnesses Queen Guinevere being kidnapped. Soon Sarah finds herself accompanying Sir Gawain and Squire Terence on a remarkable journey to rescue the Queen. In their travels they meet, among others, a mystery knight traveling incognito in a dung cart, a faery who becomes Sarah's first friend in a long time, a reclusive monk who plans to spend the rest of his life building a tomb for Sir Lancelot, and a princess who might have a little more gumption than she appears to.<br />
<br />
As the plot thickens, Sarah finds out more about the people she's met and befriended, as well as about herself. She begins to learn the true consequences of vengeance and what it really means to be a princess.<br />
<br />
In this funny and unforgettable sixth novel, Gerald Morris creates yet another tangled web of magic spells, enchanted castles, mystery knights, revenge, and heart-pounding adventure. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br />
<br />
<b>Warning for Spoilers (this got really long...)</b><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<b>The Last Time I Read this Book</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I confess, dear readers, the first time I read this book, I was determined to hate it. I knew from the title exactly what I was in for. Dung-Cart Knight gave it all away. Morris was retelling Chretien de Troyes' <i>Le Chevalier de la Charrette</i> (<i>The Knight of the Cart</i>). Lancelot-- who I was quite happy to watch waste away as a woodcutter forever while being miserable at how awful he was in the second book-- was about to get his redemption. This was a thing I DID NOT WANT! Morris had laid out the absolute best story anyone could ever tell about Lancelot, and now he was going to ruin it by letting the silly sop have his redemption story and maybe kick up his affair with Guinevere again (because the affair is kinda the big thing in <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>). BOO HISS! Go back to your woodshed, Lancelot! <a href="http://storytellerknight.tumblr.com/tagged/I-hate-Lancelot">I hate you</a>!<br />
<br />
But then I started reading it and *~Sarah~*!!!!!!!!!<br />
<br />
Okay, so here's my thing (and it's <i>my </i>thing-- you are welcome to your thing): I love the action chick. I love female leads who pick up a weapon and fight alongside the male characters. And this isn't to take away from Eileen, Lynette, Brangienne or any of the awesome ladies who have appeared in Morris' series so far. They are all amazing and wonderful and I love every single one of them. But at the same time there's an extent to which it's... it's disappointing and frustrating. I think I would have a better time with it if some of the male characters weren't fighters, but every single male lead in this series knows how to pick up a weapon and defend themselves. You have characters like Gaheris and Dinadan who prefer not to, but they know how. The female characters haven't been able to defend themselves-- they are defended. And I'm not saying that ever female lead needs to know how to fight, but the fact that none of them can protect themselves in a fight has been a sore point for me. All I needed was one to fix what was largely becoming a growing imbalance of power (now we just need a male lead who doesn't know how to fight and never learns-- I'm not holding my breath). <br />
<br />
And that's why this book is so important and so wonderful. Because I get Sarah, who early on in the story receives a sword and learns how to use it. But Ariel also makes her return and her goodness and warm heart provide a much needed light for Sarah in the darkness. And then a young girl named Charis is introduced and she uses her intelligence to outwit all those around her. This is a 300 page book about women helping each other to save a woman from the clutches of another woman. Lancelot is here, but he's not important. This is Sarah's story. This is the story of a young girl who picks up a sword after her family is brutally murdered, but her story is defined by her relationships with other women (unlike the typical action chick, who is often defined by the men in her life). It's a beautiful, joyous thing and I never thought I could love a book that tells this story so much. <br />
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<b>The Twist</b><br />
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So, I kinda already gave the twist away in gushing about how much I love this book. But, much like his earlier books, Morris introduces an original character as a vehicle to tell this very famous story. We've done Terence, who is the best. Then we did Piers, who was Terrence 2.0 and didn't really gel that well. This time, Morris does what I wish he would have done in <i>Parsifal's Page</i> and uses a female original character as his narrator. This creates huge swaths of distance between her and the two original characters who came before her and keeps her from seeming like a copy of Terence the way Piers does. Sara is both wonderful in her fierce pride and heartbreaking in her tragic back story and lust for vengeance.<br />
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The other big difference beyond Sarah's narration is that she is actually the hero of this story, not Lancelot. In previous books, the original characters never actually stole the spotlight from the legendary knights they travel with. Terence comes closest as he and Gawain share the spotlight, but you still didn't see Terence taking Gawain's place in the Green Knight challenge. But Sarah does take Lancelot's spot in the trial by combat for Guinevere's life (Lancelot still kills Meliagant, but only after he's been essentially been defeated by Sarah and it's only because of a wayward ram that Lancelot needs to jump in). In the first two books, Gawain is the hero, Terence is the sidekick. In <i>Pasifal's Page</i>, Parsifal is the hero, Piers is the sidekick. In this book, Sarah is the hero and Lancelot is <i>her</i> sidekick. <br />
<br />
<b>The Plot</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Morris admits in his author's notes that he's pretty much following the plot of <i>The Knight of the Cart</i> without much deviation and I don't disagree with him. The beginning and ending of the book deviate the most, with the middle section pretty much following along plot-point for plot-point. <br />
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In Chretien de Troyes' original tale, Meleagant has been kidnapping Arthur's knights and ladies and is holding them prisoner in a place Arthur will never be able to find. The only way to free them is to send a knight to a prearranged spot to do battle, but that Meleagant will only engage if the knight is accompanied by Guinevere. Kay manages to trick Arthur into giving him this honor. Gawain thinks this is an incredibly stupid move and gets leave to follow the two. <br />
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This book starts with Sarah, who is trying to find the knight who incited a village riot that led to her mother and male guardian being murdered. Instead she stumbles Sir Kai escorting Guinevere back to Camelot (in secret, we learn later). Although she knows that Kai isn't the knight who caused the murder of her family, Sarah decides that his sword would come in handy in her attempts for revenge and tries to steal it. Kai, being Kai, catches her. He and Guinevere immediately take pity on her and Kai decides to give Sarah the sword he had just purchased from Trebuchet as a gift for his two-year old son (Kai and Connoire got married and had a baby!!!!) and then teaches her how to use it because Kai is the very best ever.<br />
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While Sarah is getting water for their lunch, Meliagant shows up. He attacks Kai on horseback when Kai is still on the ground because Meliagant is the worst ever and Kai is wounded. Guinevere manages to bargain for his life and both of them are hauled off to captivity by Meliagant, but not before Kai is able to not-so-secretly direct Sarah to Camelot ("Camelot, by the way, is south of Bristol"-- you're lucky Meliagant is an arrogant villain, Kai). Sarah then goes to an old crone in the woods for help, because she knows of no one else in the area who might help her. The crone (it's Morgan) takes her to Belrepeire where Sarah is able to get the help of Piers and rides with him to Camleot. This section includes the best cameo ever by Piers' mother and highlights a major theme in this book-- women having connections with other women is so critical to their success in the world. Sarah connected with Guinevere before she connected with Kai. Sarah went to an old crone for help after the two were abducted. Lady Marie tells Piers what a putz he is for wanting to ride out in the middle in the night and insists that Sarah eat warm food, have a warm bath and sleep in a warm bed while spending the whole night mending Sarah's clothes. Piers thinks she's being silly, but shifting to a woman's POV let's us see how practical Lady Marie is in her own way and in her own world and how stupid Piers' idea was. <br />
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From there, Sarah arrives in Camelot and meets with Arthur, Gawain, Terence, Bedivere, and Piers and tells them what has happened. We learn that there is unrest in the kingdom, which keeps Arthur from going to rescue his wife and instead Gawain and Terence are sent, with Sarah tagging along to show them where Guinevere and Kai were taken and where Meliagant went from there. Piers is charged with going to the Fisher King's lands to find Parsifal, but since that is magic fairy nonsense, Piers instead goes to get Lancelot. This is convenient because when Gawan and Terence decide to ditch Sarah because they think the quest is too dangerous for a young girl, she's able to join up with Lancelot instead. <br />
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This is where we hit the middle section that doesn't deviate much from the original story (with the exception of early in their quest where Gawain, Terence and Sarah travel with Adrian the Pardoner who tries to con our far too intelligent characters out of their hard-earned money for fake holy relics and a fun scene where we see Griflet get his comeuppance). On their way, Gawain, Terence, and Sarah first pass an exhausted horse, and then a knight in full armor riding in a dung-cart (it's Lancelot) while village children mock and throw things at him. Although Gawain et all feel bad for the knight and want to help him, the knight is quite insistent that they continue on to save Guinevere. He's certain they will succeed in their quest, but he'll be right behind them should anything go wrong. This parallels Lancelot riding in the dung-cart for part of his journey in <i>The Knight of the Cart</i> in order to gain information on Guinevere's whereabouts. There's some conflicting symbolism in the two books, which I will talk about when I analyze Lancelot's character. <br />
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From there, Gawain, Terence and Sarah come to a crossroad in the forest, where a young maiden awaits to give them directions. In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, it's just a girl. Here it's Ariel, daughter of the Lady of the Lake and friend of Piers, last seen in <i>Parsifal's Page. </i>She confirms what they had already begun to suspect based on where Guinevere and Kay were taken and where the knight took them-- that Meliagant has kidnapped the two. Ariel also tells them that the only way to enter Meliagant's kingdom is through the Underwater Bridge or across the Sword Bridge and that once they are in, they will not be able to leave until they have completed their quest. This is all done around one of my favorite things in Morris' writing-- Gawain and Terence trolling people who are completely aware of it and troll right back. And then together they end up trolling the old mythology of the story they're in. <br />
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The next morning, Gawain and Terence pull a dick move and ride off without Sarah, leaving only Ariel to watch over her. Fortunately, Lancelot shows up in his in his guise as Jean le Forestier. Since Gawain and Terence have decided to take the Underwater Bridge (as they have a history with underwater bridges), Sarah, Lancelot and Ariel take the Sword Bridge. They continue through the plot of <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, fighting a knight at a ford, finding the tomb where Lancelot will be buried, stopping at the home of the Vavasour, and beheading a knight they meet along the way (who turns out to be the knight who incited the riot that killed Sarah's family, but she also discovers the plot goes beyond him). Sillier aspects of the story, such as Lancelot sleeping in a bed he, because of his affair with Guinevere, has no business sleeping in causing it to set on fire and a woman who will only let Lancleot sleep in her home if they have sex are cut from this retelling. Thankfully. <br />
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The three finally reach the Sword Bridge. In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, the Sword Bride is a sword blade as long as two lances stretched out over a roaring rapids with the sharp edge turned up. It's affixed to two trees, and on the other side are lions and leopards, oh my! Lancelot removes his armor from his hands and feet because... of reasons... and crawls across, receiving wounds to his hands, knees and feet. Here the bridge is essentially the same-- a long sword blade with the sharp end turned up stretched over a chasm so deep they can't see the bottom. This one also cuts through anything. Lancelot first tries to cover his hands with armor (because this one is much more sensible than the original) and swing along the underside. He tests this theory and the sword immediately cuts through a double layer of iron and through Lancelot's hands, nearly reaching the bone. The only thing it can't cut through is Sarah's sword, as it was forged by Trebuchet. Lancelot decides to tie Sarah's sword to his chest and then slide along the Sword Bridge. Of course, as he is only slightly more intelligent than his original counterpart, Lancelot immediately finds himself stuck out on the Sword Bridge when it cuts through the rope holding Sarah's sword to his chest. Sarah has to jump onto his back and reach around his neck to hold the sword in place. This scene on the Sword Bridge is one of the best Morris has ever written. It is crazy intense, as one wrong move cuts both our leads in half. It takes them less than two pages to cross the bridge, but it feels much longer. The Sword Bridge collapses as soon as they're across, and Meliagant and his men show up a moment later to take them captive. <br />
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From here, the story deviates from the original again. In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, Lancelot immediately does battle with Meleagant. Bagdemagus manages to stop the fight in exchange for the two fighting again a year later. Guinevere snubs Lancelot, he is sad and goes away. Guinevere thinks he has died, so she is overjoyed when he comes back and they have sex. Lancelot bleeds on the sheets from his wounded hands and feet and Meleagant is able to use that proof that Guinevere is being unfaithful with Kay (who is also wounded). Lancelot and Meleagant fight again, Bagdemagus breaks it up again-- insisting they keep to the year from now timeline. Meleagant then has Lancelot imprisoned in a tower. Lancelot manages to get leave from his imprisonment to go fight in a tournament, and then returns when the tournament is over. Meleagant's sister figures out where Lancelot is imprisoned and rescues him so Lancelot can make his trial by combat with Meleagant, where he kills the knight. <br />
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Here, Lancelot and Sarah are taken prisoner by Meliagant. His younger sister, Charis, befriends Sarah and helps Lancelot and Sarah discover the location of Guinevere and Lancelot. During their conversation, Guinevere ties to mend the wounds on Lancelot's hands with her bed sheets (the area is enchanted so wounds won't heal). The next day, Meliagant is able to use this to claim Guinevere is having an affair with Kay, and Lancelot agrees to his trial by combat-- set for the end of the week. The next day, Lancelot has disappeared. Sarah and Charis travel all over the kingdom, trying to find him. They eventually stumble on Gawain and Terence. Gawain has been badly wounded during the Underwater Bridge trial, and an enchantment on the land to keep the fairy court out means that Terence is constantly on the verge of passing out. With no other option, Sarah takes up the challenge against Meliagant. During the battle, Sarah learns that Meliagant was involved in the death of her family and there is still one member of this plot unaccounted for. While she is fighting him, Charis has figured out where Lancelot is being kept and frees him. After Sarah has essentially defeated Meliagant, he cheats and nearly kills her, but Lancelot comes in at the last minute and kills him. <br />
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From there, the story wraps up happily. The enchantment on the land is broken and everyone begins to heal from their wounds. Charis gives Sarah the Vavasour's castle. Morgan arrives and reveals that she is the crone (as if we hadn't already figured that out) and that Sarah's mother was her youngest sister, making Sarah Morgan and Arthur's niece and Gawain's cousin. In the end, Sarah finds happiness with her new family and friends and gives up her quest for vengeance, sparing the life of Adrian the Pardoner, who was the final member of the conspiracy that killed her family. <br />
<br />
<b>The Characters</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Sarah- At the beginning of the story, Sarah reads as though she was one of Morris' original characters. By the end, we learn she is the daughter of Dioneta, a lesser known sister of Arthur from a 14th century Welsh retelling. In a future book, we will find Sarah playing the role of Soredamor from the Cliges myth. So Sarah very neatly straddles being both an original character of Morris' while at the same time having strong ties to various characters within the legend. <br />
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I've already gushed above about why I think Sarah is an amazing and important character and one who I personally was waiting the whole series to see. But I do want to note how disappointing it is at the end of the book that she gives up her sword. Throughout the story Sarah is consumed by grief over the death of her family. A big part of the story is her learning to move past that through the friendships she makes. Early on, happiness is followed by pangs of grief and guilt that she is moving on while her mother and guardian lie dead in the ground. That grief slowly goes away and is replaced by the knowledge that her family would be grateful to see her moving on and finding people who care about her as much as they did. And all of this paired with Sarah giving up her sword at the end kinda comes together in this horrible moment that strongly suggests that the only reason a woman would want to pick up a sword and learn how to fight is if she is inherently broken in some way.<br />
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This is a horrible message. Again, there is nothing wrong with female characters who don't fight (although I can't shake the feeling that there is something problematic about that when all of the male characters do). But there is also nothing wrong with female characters who do fight. And to have the the only female character in this whole series so far who picks up a weapon and learns to fight being coded as damaged and broken is really fucking problematic. This is a trope we see far too often in stories and media and the sad thing is that Morris was avoiding it until the very last page. It's fine for Sarah to decide she is done with killing and let Adrian the Pardoner go free (he laid the seeds that Meliagant was able to use to push forward the riot that killed her family). I'm down with an overall message of nonviolence and that revenge doesn't get you anywhere. But for her to give up her weapon-- a weapon that has done a hell of a lot more for her than kill people or have we forgotten how fucked we would have been on the Sword Bridge without it?-- in the moment when she essentially 'heals' from the death of her family is both heartbreaking and incredibly frustrating and I so wish Morris hadn't included it. <br />
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I still think I would have been perfectly fine with Lancelot staying forever in his woodcutters cottage and never coming back to the world of knighthood. But if you're going to bring him back, this is the way to do it. I love that Lancelot is never absolved of his shitty behavior in the second book. The differences between the Lancelot presented here and the character in <i>The Knight of the Cart </i>are probably best presented in two scenes-- where Lancelot rides in the dung-cart and where Lancelot fights the knight at the ford. <br />
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In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, the dwarf driving the cart tells Lancelot that within 24 hours he will know where Guinevere is being held, but only if he rides in the cart. Lancelot hesitates for a moment, before climbing into the cart. He is consumed by courtly love-- the rules of which say his honor and his dignity are secondary to his devotion to Guinevere. But the cart is one that carries criminals as a form of humiliation and by mounting it, Lancelot's true face is symbolically shown -- he is a criminal who has betrayed his king and country through his affair with Guinevere. In Morris' version, this is meant to show Lancelot's growth. The Lancelot of the second book would never have debased himself so by riding in a dung-cart knight as a way to get where he was going but save his strength at the same time. He never would have allowed Gawain to continue on the quest unchallenged. Here we see a Lancelot who knows what an utter shithead he was to everyone who was ever good to him and now it's on him to do everything in his power to make it up to them-- including riding in a dung-cart despite how humiliating it is. <br />
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At the ford, a guardian knight challenges Lancelot three times, but he isn't listening. The guardian knight charges and unhorses Lancelot. Angry, Lancelot crushes the guardian knight's leg and demands a fair fight, whereupon he unhorses the guardian knight and is about to kill him when the guardian knight's lady demand he be spared. In Morris' version, that's the sort of dick move the Lancelot from book two would have pulled. This Lancelot is over it. While leading the horse carrying Sarah and Ariel across a river, the guardian knight demands he stop and do battle. Lancelot deliberately ignores him. The knight is first hampered by his horse refusing to go into the water. By the time the knight stops fussing with his horse, Lancelot is too close for his lance to be any good. When the knight draws his sword, Lancelot slaps the horse's rump and sends it running back to dry land, causing the knight to fall into the river. Lancelot saves his life, and the knight cries about how his honor is ruined by Lancelot ignoring him. Lancelot insults him and the knight attacks. Lancelot spends two minutes knocking the knight to the ground before the knight finally yields, thanking Lancelot for the honor of fighting him. Again, not only a sharp contrast to the knight in de Troyes' story, but a sharp contrast to the man Lancelot was in the second book. <br />
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One more, fun Lancelot thing before we move on. In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, Lancelot goes through the first half of the story without ever being named-- he is simply The Knight of the Cart. Here, Lancelot goes through the first half of the book before announcing to anyone that he is actually Sir Lancelot, preferring to go by Jean. I really like how Morris was able to work in this aspect of the original story (Lancelot concealing his name) without being annoying about it (Lancelot isn't trying to hide his identity, he has simply taken on a new one). Like Trevisant being introduced in the first book only to have his place in Arthurian lore revealed in the fourth, Lancelot taking on a new identity shows how much foresight Morris has put into this series and just how much setup there is in the previous books. <br />
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Awesome Kai is awesome. He gives Sarah his sword and teaches her how to use it. After being wounded by Meliagant, he has enough sense to tell Sarah to go to Camelot. Then poor Kai has to suffer most of the story in Meliagant's dungeon. At the end, when he's released, he helps Charis set up all the tools she needs to take over ruling her father's kingdom while ensuring she is surrounded by good men. He then confesses to Sarah that he knew her guardian-- the Jewish cloth Merchant Mordecai. When Kai was held captive by Sir Turquin (referenced at the end of the second book), he was forced to share a dungeon with all sorts of 'outcasts', including Mordecai (why Turquin thought this would be humiliating for Kai, I don't know, but he really didn't do his research on that one). Kai knew who Sarah was the moment he met her, and part of the reasons he gave her his sword was because he suspected his friend Mordecai had been killed. Which is why Kai is the very best ever. <br />
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What more can be said about Gawain, at this point? He and Terence are still questing and still being the very best at everything, ever. They are absolutely wonderful to Sarah (teasing her a bit early on over her disbelief in the existence of fairies). Terence and Gawain face off against the Underwater Bridge, which is much better than whatever went on in <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>. Here it has a seven headed monster at the end of it where the heads you see are fake and the heads trying to eat you are invisible while in the original story it's a narrow, underwater bridge that Gawain slips off of and spends a few days afterwards bobbing up and down in the water trying not to drown before he is rescued.<br />
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Meliagant is the lackey here. He doesn't really have a reason for doing what he does beyond being awful and Morgause needs him too. He says a few things that make it sound like he wants Guinevere to fall in love with him, but it's hard to know if he really means it or if he's using that to keep people from suspecting Morgause's involvement. Here Meliagant is skilled at manipulating his addle-brained father, unlike the original where Bagdemagus had a much tighter leash on Meleagant. One thing that Meliagant does desire (which also gets him into trouble) is to best Lancelot instead of just letting Morgause handle it. He finds on Sarah a small vial which had belonged to her mother. It contains a potion which causes a person to unknowingly speak their thoughts, but Sarah manages to convince him that it was a gift from the Lady of the Lake to Lancelot and doubles the strength of whoever drinks it. Instead of checking with Morgause to see if this thing is safe, he drinks the vial before his fight with Sarah and she is able to use his thoughts to give her an advantage during their fight. <br />
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Bagdemagus is a knight in the vein of the old Lancelot and Griflet-- to him knighthood is defined by courtly love and pretty clothing and not by deeds and actions. Meliagant uses Bagdemagus' obsession with fashion as a way to keep him from checking in on Guinevere and Kai, but Lancelot is quickly able to turn that back on Meliagant. He convinces Bagdemagus that his course clothing is all the current rage back at Camelot, leading to a hilarious scene where, for the trial by combat, Bagdemagus has redecorated the room with bales of hay and livestock (including an ill-tempered ram that interferes with Sarah and Meliagant's duel) while wearing a strange mixture of fancy court clothing with course peasant wear. Bagdemagus is the silly sort of character I prefer to see Morris mocking-- one who is so privileged that they cannot conceive at how ridiculous they sound. At one point, Bagdemagus complains at how uncomfortable his shepherd costume is and he cannot understand why shepherds would choose to wear them. Right, Badgemagus, because it's clearly a choice. In the end, he is really heartbroken by Meliagant's death, so much so that he takes bed and pretty much blocks out the experience. Sarah is able to help him back to his feet with the suggestion that he decorate her new castle (I don't know if you realize what you've unleashed, Sarah). <br />
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In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, Meliagant has an unnamed sister who helps Lancelot thwart his plans. While on the road, Lancelot is ferried across a river in exchange for dueling the knight who takes him across the strait. Lancelot defeats the knight, and as he is begging for mercy, a young woman (Meliagant's sister, although Lancelot doesn't know this yet) rides by on a mule. She tells Lancelot that this knight is a villain and demands his head. Lancelot and the knight fight again, this time with Lancelot stating he will forfeit if the knight manages to move from the spot where he is standing. Lancelot wins again, beheads the knight and gives the head to the young woman. She rides away, promising she will repay him one day. Here, this part is taken by Sarah and the knight who comes upon them is the one who incited the riot that killed her family. He challenges Lancelot to a fight in order to claim Ariel as his. Lancelot unhorses the knight, fights him on foot and manages to cut off the knight's hand. Sarah questions the knight and learns of Meliagant's involvement. He then attacks her and Sarah cuts off his head. <br />
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We don't actually meet Charis, Meliagant's sister until Lancelot and Sarah have arrived in Bagdemagus' castle. Charis initially presents herself as brainless and dull as a way to keep Meliagant from thinking about her. When she hears Meliagant's guards talking about how the beat Sarah (they were lying), she goes to check on the other girl. Sarah manages to convince Charis to let her out of her room and to help her find Lancelot. From there, Charis takes them to find Guinevere and Kai. Her friendship with Sarah causes Charis to blossom and in the end, through friendship and not out of duty, Charis manages to find where Morgause has hidden (a tower in the original, an invisible hut with no doors or windows so that Lancelot needs to be dug out of there). In the end, Charis takes over her father's kingdom. <br />
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Morgan le Fay spends most of this book disguised as an old crone giving Sarah advice as she continues to be the cool aunt. Morgause's magic during the death of Sarah's mother and guardian were too strong for Morgan to save them, but she was able to save Sarah and covertly look after her. Morgan points Sarah not only in the right direction when it comes to finding Guinevere and Kai, but also when it comes to finding the people who murdered her family. I just wish... I know that Morgan isn't the easiest character to get along with (unless, apparently, your name is Gawain), but I do wish she and Sarah had managed to connect when Morgan revealed who she really was instead of having this increasingly hostile relationship over the last few pages of the book. Morgan has spent a great deal of her life trying to protect her sister and niece and Sarah had come to depend on Morgan's crone persona, so it just rang hollow when Morgan was so haughty and horrible in introducing herself and immediately alienated Sarah. <br />
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In <i>The Knight of the Cart</i>, Lancelot comes to a church and prays. While there, an elderly monk tells him of tombs of some of the greatest knights ever within the crypt, with three spaces open for three of Arthur's greatest knights. There is also a large tomb with a prophecy about how the knight who lifts the slab will rescue the people Meliagant has taken hostages so of course Lancelot lifts the slab. Here, Lancelot, Ariel, and Sarah meet Brother Constans, who is guarding Lancelot's future tomb. <br />
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The Vavasour originally meets Lancelot when he is on his way home from a hunting trip. The Vavasour realizes that Lancelot is on his way to stop Meliagant, so he gives Lancelot a place to stay for the night and then has his sons show Lancelot the rest of the way. Here, Lancelot, Sarah, and Ariel come upon his castle and he insists they stay the night (going so far as telling Lancelot he will have to fight for the right not to stay the night). Ariel begins to feel ill within his walls as his castle has been cursed with the same enchantment to keep the fey out of Bagdemagus's kingdom. Sarah is about to use her vial to try and fix Ariel, but then realizes she has no idea what it does and thinks better of it. The Vavasour drinks it on accident and begins spewing forth his most inner thoughts, including plans to poison the trio. Lancelot knocks him out and give him over to an over-eager physician. Later, the Vavasour tries to find Meliagant to complain that Morgan le Fay has gotten into his castle and turned all his guards into badgers. Charis strips him of his lands and title and gives them to Sarah. <br />
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Guinevere is amazing! At the beginning she and Kai have snarky sibling banter that just breaks my heart because she is such a lovely character and I am just so sad that we don't see more of her. She truly is wonderful. She also manages to convince Meliagant to spare Kai's life. Later when we see her in the dungeon, she is quick to take care of both Lancelot and Kai, despite her situation. At the end she is shown developing a friendship with Sarah, Charis, Ariel and it's all so perfect. More Guinevere, please. <br />
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Arthur shows up at the beginning and wants to rush off to save Guinevere, but can't because of unrest in the land. Bedivere stands beside him as seneschal while Kai is away. Nimue appears at the end to tell everyone what a good job they did and to tell Lancelot he has more to do. Ariel gets to play a role of a minor character in this story when she tells Gawain and then Lancelot about the dividing path and the two bridges into Meliagant's kingdom. Then she hangs around and is amazing and wonderful. Morgause, despite being behind everything, makes one brief appearance to tell Meliagant to stop being a moron and to hide Lancelot away in a place that can't be found. Griflet appears, having purchased a charm from Adrian the Pardoner that will keep him from being unhorsed. This doesn't work and Griflet tries to get Gawain to fight the knight who unhorsed him. The knight tries to attack Gawain, but Sarah has his back and manages to unhorse the knight. While Griflet, the knight and Adrian fight it out, Sarah, Terence, and Gawain run for the hills. <br />
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<b>Overall</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This is my very favorite book in the Squire's Tales series. The ending was like a punch in the gut, but all it does is drop my desire to give this a million stars down to five stars. Sarah is wonderful, the majority cast of female characters is wonderful and even Lancelot isn't that annoying. READ THIS BOOK!<br />
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5 Stars. Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-36702655385999711462013-05-27T19:11:00.001-05:002013-05-27T19:38:20.151-05:00SamoaPhoenix Guest Review/Reread: The Ballad of Sir Dinadan<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</div>
</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Title: <u>The Ballad of Sir Dinadan</u></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b> </b>
<b>Author: </b>Gerald Morris</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b><b>Publisher:</b> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Houghton Mifflin</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Pages: </strong>242</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) Young
Dinadan has no wish to joust or quest or save damsels in distress or do any of
the knightly things expected of him. He’d rather be a minstrel, playing his
rebec and writing ballads. But he was born to be a knight, and knights, of
course, have adventures.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So
after his father forces his knighthood upon him, he wanders towards King
Arthur’s court, in the company of a misguided Welsh lad named Culloch. There
Dinadan meets Sir Kai and Bedivere, and the three find themselves accompanying
Culloch on the worst sort of quest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Along
the way, Dinadan writes his own ballads, singing of honor, bravery, loyalty,
and courtly love—and becomes a player in the pathetic love story of Tristam and
Iseult. He meets the Moorish knight Palomides, the clever but often
exasperating Lady Brangienne, and an elven musician named Sylvanus, along with
the usual collection of recreant knights and dimwitted defenders of chivalry.
He learns that while minstrels sing of spectacular, heroic deeds, honor is
often found in simpler, quieter ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
should be said that when I was initially reading through this series, this was
my least favorite by far. But I was determined to do this reread with an open
mind. I enjoyed it far more this time around, until I got to the end and
remembered why my overall impression was one of dislike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
actually don’t mind the old cover on this one, and the new cover is
surprisingly similar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWhzPcn4nYmnVNCOtDQl9z4wX5BIv7fXjLvJuLBenhn5HvkK_n_DqvPWvyZIpU9_g6B_WXBmq5EwX3FyEqsQHNmBFPxROLi1qHUu1jVXF8rqGLL3QrLemoJlZwpvVJLqNvEuqSDbKMY8E/s1600/9780547014739_p0_v1_s600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWhzPcn4nYmnVNCOtDQl9z4wX5BIv7fXjLvJuLBenhn5HvkK_n_DqvPWvyZIpU9_g6B_WXBmq5EwX3FyEqsQHNmBFPxROLi1qHUu1jVXF8rqGLL3QrLemoJlZwpvVJLqNvEuqSDbKMY8E/s200/9780547014739_p0_v1_s600.jpg" width="133" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Spoilers,
etc…</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Twist</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This book interweaves the telling of two Arthurian tales: Tristan and
Isolde, and Culloch and Olwen. Tristan and Isolde (here Tristram and Iseult, two
of various ways to spell the doomed lovers’ names), of course, is the more
widely known, possibly because of its parallels to the
Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle. We see it all through the eyes of Sir
Dinadan, a minor knight known in legend for being musical and occasionally
accompanying Tristan. Dinadan here is Tristram’s younger brother, and is one of
the knights who accompany Culloch on his quest to win Olwen (which starts out
in this book because Culloch wants to become a Knight of the Round Table rather
than the result of a curse). Olwen’s father is an ordinary man, not an ogre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Plot</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This story is a midquel of sorts, the only one in the series not to
advance the main narrative temporally. It begins during the years Gawain and
Terence are in the Other World in <i>The
Squire, His Knight and His Lady </i>and ends sometime before <i>Parsifal’s Page</i>. From previous books, we've already gotten some hints about the plot. A recap:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·
</span><!--[endif]-->Tristram
killed Marhault<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·
</span><!--[endif]-->Tristram
and Iseult are irrevocably in love (lust) due to a love potion meant for Iseult
and Mark<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·
</span><!--[endif]-->Palomides
is one of the best swordsman in England along with Gawain, Lancelot and Gareth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·
</span><!--[endif]-->Dinadan
is not good at the knightly arts and has a bit of a strong prejudice against
the fairer sex. He thinks all women are liars and treacherous backstabbers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
are two major themes at work in this book. The first is one Morris has touched
on before: the difference between the legends/ballads of great deeds and what
actually happened, whether things were more unbelievable or more mundane than the
legend. The second is the awful things that happen in the name of love but are
really petty, selfish and cruel. Like <i>Parsifal’s
Page</i>, this book is also divided roughly into two parts. We open with
Dinadan, the younger son of a nobleman who wants to be a minstrel. But that is
not a life for the sons of nobles (Gillian Bradshaw’s Gwalchmai faces a similar
problem). When his father knights him in a drunken fit of trying to make his
“namby-pamby” son a “man”, Dinadan takes this as an excuse to leave. He falls
afoul of a plot by a lady and a knight to steal another man’s lands. Finding
the truth to be far from what the lady had made him believe, he goes back to
confront the pair. In the ensuing scuffle he accidentally kills the knight and
the lady accidentally kills herself. Dinadan writes a heroic song about the
mishap, turning it into a fine and tragic tale. He falls in with a would-be
knight named Culloch, and when the pair reach Camelot they discover the tale of
Dinadan’s “heroism” has preceded them. Dinadan becomes a Knight of the Round
Table, while Culloch is sent to do a great deed and earn knighthood. Sirs Kai
and Bedivere accompany them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Culloch
soon hears of a king who has announced a series of tasks. The man who completes
them will win the king’s daughter Olwen as his bride. Culloch declares he will
take on the tasks over the objections of his fellow travelers. The tasks turn
out to be stupid, and Culloch cheats at all of them. Dinadan uses the time
questing to learn more about what his brother Tristram has been up to: namely,
being the biggest idiot the world has ever known. Dinadan also meets several
times with the fugitive Lady Brangienne, Iseult’s former best friend who was
involved in the whole love potion thing. Now Tristram and Iseult want her dead
so no one else can know about the potion. For awhile she hides out as a
lady-in-waiting to Olwen. Kai, Bedivere and Dinadan give up on Culloch and go
back to Camelot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Several
years pass, marking the beginning of Part Two. Dinadan is out questing when he
runs into Palomides, a Moorish knight visiting from Jerusalem to learn the ways
of English knights. They set off together to meet the famous knights Palomides
has heard so much about. Unluckily for them, the knights they run into are morons
like Tristram and Culloch. The pair have several adventures together while they
search for good knights for Palomides to meet. Eventually, Palomides returns to
Jerusalem. Dinadan runs into Tristram again. This is about where the book goes
downhill for me, so disgusted am I by the awfulness of what follows. Dinadan
determines to take Tristram back to their home, but Tristram steals a lyre
given to Dinadan as a present and goes racing back to Cornwall in disguise as
the minstrel “Tramtris”. (Great name, isn't it? Really shows what Tristram can
do when he gets inspired) Dinadan gets his lyre back, but “Tramtris” and Iseult
escape together and spend a blissful, if short, amount of time cavorting about
a cave they've shipped a whole bunch of furniture to with some sort of vague
plan to spend the rest of their lives playing house there. Since they’re about
five minutes from Tintagel it doesn't take long for Mark to find them. Mark
imprisons Iseult in a tower in Tintagel. Tristram, like a gnat drawn to a
fluorescent light, sneaks back in yet again. Dinadan arrives in time to
helplessly watch as Mark kills Tristram. Iseult in her shock accidentally falls
out the tower window and dies. This whole plot is so sickening with how
absolutely pitiful and pointless the situation is that even though it makes
sense character-wise it’s hard to read. Dinadan goes to tell Brangienne, who
has moved to hiding in a convent and is very content there. He asks if she’d
like to marry him, and she turns him down, to both of their relief even though
they agree they can’t imagine marrying anyone else. The book ends with Dinadan
singing a song about the unending love of friendship.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Characters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dinadan:
I admit I find Dinadan’s attitude about women puzzling at the very least. I
mean, he is deceived by one woman due to his ability to think with only one
head at a time and concludes from this experience all women are treacherous
shrews. How the heck is he generalizing like this from one experience? If he’d
met more women who were mean to him, like Gaheris in <i>Savage Damsel</i>, I’d sort of understand where he’s coming from. I’d
even get it if he thought all beautiful women were out for something since the
woman used her beauty as a weapon. But the first woman he sees while out
adventuring deceives him and from then on all women are clearly evil? Wow,
that’s shallow. Which I don’t buy, because the rest of the time Dinadan’s
pretty perceptive. He seems to have softened by the end of Part One, since he
helps a woman and her children get away from an abusive husband. In Part Two
he’s occupied with avoiding Tristram and helping Palomides, so nasty opinions
about women go to the wayside. I felt bad for him, stuck with an uncaring
father and Tristram as a brother. Tristram never recognizes him or even
remembers his name. In the end Dinadan has seen so much of the bad side of love
and lust that he’s relieved when his soulmate turns down his marriage proposal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Brangienne
(Bragwaine): Iseult’s sharp-tongued former chief lady who eventually becomes a
nun content with her life in a secluded convent. I didn't consider this in the
first go-round with this book, but upon a second read I suspect she might have
been in love with Marhault. Which may account for her and Dinadan not getting
together at the end of the book as I originally expected. Morris pulls this
last minute “let’s just be friends” stunt again later in the series, but I was
more prepared for it the second time and it bothered me less. In this
read-through, it also didn't bother me once I latched on to the theory that
Brangienne still mourns Marhault. Or she may be asexual and content with a
platonic relationship with Dinadan, an explanation I can also accept. Last time
I read this book I had no idea what asexuality was. But either way I feel much
better about the conclusion to Dinadan and Brangienne’s relationship this time
around even though it still feels a little abrupt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tristram
(Tristan): Tristram and Iseult are my least favorite characters in all of the
Morrisverse. Morris has made these two characters disgustingly pathetic to a
level I don’t think he ever sinks to again. It’s obvious he doesn't like them
and finds their vaunted “romance” an utter sham. With his Guinevere and
Lancelot, they each finally sort out their priorities. Even moronic Gareth has
some redeeming qualities: he’s loyal to a vow he took, and his devotion to
Lancelot’s memory speaks to some shade of moral character even if it is
misguided. Tristram can’t even do that, and his loyalty to Iseult was created
falsely by drinking a love potion. Even before he took the potion, he killed
Marhault from behind when Marhault had already spared his life. This is the
kind of despicable human being we’re dealing with. Tristram is also so mind-shatteringly
dumb that little moments like this one are par for the course:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Scene:
Tintagel dining hall. Dinadan and Palomides have asked to speak to Iseult
privately, pgs 170-171)</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mark: No one speaks to my wife without my
permission!</span><br />
Tristram: (completely serious): Here’s a
solution that will make everyone happy. Why don’t these knights give their
message to me, and then I’ll tell Iseult later, when we’re alone.</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yeah.
Cue reader facepalm or headdesk. I really, really dislike this guy. It’s hard
even to feel sorry for him in his few lucid moments where he’s reflecting on
where his life went wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Culloch:
A foolish would-be knight who thinks doing stupid tasks to win a bride will
make him a worthy knight. His legend is similar to a Greek myth or a fairy tale
where a hero or heroine has to perform impossible tasks in order to win their
true love. Morris takes this and shows how pointless just doing random tasks
that have nothing to do with your eventual goal in order to prove your worth
really is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Olwen:
Culloch’s eventual wife. She doesn't play much of a role other than punching
Culloch and storming out when he falls asleep at their wedding. Isbaddadon says
her vows for her, somewhat appropriate since he and Culloch are better matched.
Brangienne claims she’s not very pleasant, but we never see it so it’s
difficult not to simply pity her for being stuck with Culloch and Isbaddadon.
I’d be bad-tempered too if I were trapped with these two men in my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Isbaddadon:
Olwen’s father, whose name, I believe, is pronounced Isbathadon (a double d in
Welsh is a –th sound), he and Culloch seem two of a kind. Both are not too
bright and enjoy eating more than anything else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Iseult
(Isolde): We don’t meet Iseult in person until Part Two, but we hear a lot
about her before then from Tristram and others. She is obviously smarter than
Tristram, and extremely manipulative and conniving. It’s probably down to her
that Mark doesn't figure out what she has going on with Tristram when the entire
rest of the country knows. Dinadan finds her so pathetic that he doesn't even
use all the terrible stuff she does as more proof that women are evil. Her
death scene, where she ends up lying broken like a matchstick next to the
impaled Tristan, is one of the hardest things I've ever read and is the main
reason I didn't read this book again. And I probably won’t for a long, long
time, much as I enjoyed the rest of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Palomides:
A Moorish knight from Palestine. Yes, that means he’s black. No, Morris did not
make him up. And to those who say “there were no black knights in Arthurian England!”
I say: go do some research. Who do you think the crusaders like Richard the
Lionheart were fighting? Who ruled the Iberian peninsula during this time
period and gave us all those beautiful mosaic palaces? North African
Muslims, folks. They were the equals in combat with all the fancy knights in
shiny armor tramping through Europe to “reclaim” the Holy Land. And remember,
Morris’s universe is set in the thirteenth century when Arthurian legends were
recorded. He is perfectly correct in putting African knights into this context.
Morris also goes out of his way to point out that Palomides is a better knight
both in skill and honor than most of the knights Dinadan meets. He holds up
particularly well when compared with pathetic Tristram.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kai:
This is the most we've seen of him in a book thus far. He goes along on
Culloch’s quest to keep an eye on Bedivere and is extremely irritated at all
the foolish things Culloch does. He does come to respect Dinadan even though
Dinadan’s not much of a fighter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bedivere:
This is our first look at Bedivere in Morris’s books, though he was mentioned
at least once before. He is extremely humble, soft-spoken, and optimistic. He
is Kai’s foil, and the pair are close friends. Luckily for him, in this version
he’s not missing a hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mark:
Yet another crazy old Mark portrayal, a man already cruel and kind of nuts but
driven even more insane by Iseult constantly and obviously betraying him with
Tristram. He reminds me of the duke from <i>Moulin
Rouge</i> in the part where he screams “It’s not that I’m a jealous man…I just
don’t like other people touching my things!!!” In all the versions of Mark I've read, there has been only one remotely positive portrayal, and he never
actually appeared because he’d been dead for a thousand years (Susan Cooper’s <i>Over Sea, Under Stone</i>). Arthurian
authors just don’t like Mark for some reason, even if they don’t like Tristan
and Isolde, either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lamorak:
He makes a few appearances, randomly fighting Tristram over whose lady is more
beautiful (said ladies are never present for comparison). The only reason I didn't put him as a cameo is the role he plays in reintroducing Morgause. I
missed this entirely the first time I read it back in high school, but having
now read <i>The Wicked Day</i> I know that
Lamorak is Morgause’s lover. Lamorak in this version constantly makes
references to his love, a faery women who is never named. The woman herself
appears in Tintagel after using a magical drinking horn to publicly reveal
Iseult’s infidelity. This is the first proof positive that Morgause is still
alive after her defeat at Terence’s hands in <i>Squire’s Tale</i>, but if you weren't familiar with the original
stories it might have gone over your head as it did mine. No reference is made
as to why Morgause might want to cause chaos at Tintagel. I guess just because
she likes doing that kind of stuff, even though Tristram was doing very well
exposing the affair on his own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arthur,
Gaheris, Lynet, Gawain, Lancelot and Morgause are mentioned or make cameo appearances.
Marhault is mentioned a lot but he’s already dead by the time the book begins.
Poor Marhault. I liked him in <i>Squire’s
Tale</i>. Speaking of The Squire, this is the first of the Tales with no
Terence or Gawain. This probably contributed to my initial dislike of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
like the first three quarters of this book more than I did on the initial
read-through. Dinadan is much more likable and relatable than Piers, and it
was nice to see more of Kai and meet the awesomeness that is Bedivere and
Palomides. But I just can’t stand Tristram and Iseult. They’re not even tragic,
they’re so pathetic. But I do have to give props to Morris for purposely making
me feel this level of disgust about literary characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">3.5
stars rounded down to 3.</span>Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5942036945027522552.post-88606000000668240862013-05-27T19:11:00.000-05:002013-05-27T19:11:49.623-05:00Reread: The Ballad of Sir Dinadan<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"><tbody bgcolor="#c6aec7">
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</td><td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Title: <u>The Ballad of Sir Dinadan</u></strong><br />
<b> </b>
<b>Author:</b> Gerald Morris<br />
<b> </b>
<b>Publisher:</b> Sandpiper (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)<br />
<strong>Pages: </strong>245<br />
<strong>Synopsis: </strong>(from the publisher) <i>Dinadan rode out the front gate of his father's home, promising himself that he would never again enter those walls.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Young Dinadan has no wish to do any of the knightly things expected of him. But he was born to be a knight, and knights, of course, have adventures. So after his father forces knighthood upon him, he wanders toward King Arthur's court in the company of a misguided young lad named Culloch. There Dinadan meets Sir Kai and Sir Bedivere, and the three find themselves accompanying Culloch on the worst sort of quest. Along the way, Dinadan learns that though minstrels sing of spectacular heroic deeds, honor is often found in simpler, quieter ways. <br />
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<br />
Okay, so regardless of what the blurb on the back of the book says, anyone who knows their Arthurian lore knows by the name of the main character that this is Gerald Morris' taken on the timeless love story of Tristan and Isolde (I don't even know what's going on with you, book blurb. You're missing half the plot!).<br />
<br />
<b>Warning for Spoilers</b><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<b>The Last Time I Read this Book</b><br />
<br />
I enjoyed this book the last time I read it. There's a lot of good stuff going on here that make it a fun read. Dinadan, as always, is a wonderful character. He has a long history of being the straight man in a crowd of weirdos, so it's no surprise that Morris picked him as POV character in this book. There's no romance for Dinadan in this series, just the most wonderful friendship ever, which is a nice change of pace. There are some really wacky takes on the Culhwch and Olwen and Tristan and Isolde stories that I can't help but be fascinated with. <br />
<br />
This time... the parts that are good shine brightly. And it's a solid tale without depressing mid-section that dragged down <u><a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/05/reread-parsifals-page.html#more">Parsifal's Page</a></u>. But I often found myself wondering why on earth Morris decided to make some of the choices he did in this book. Choice which I feel tarnished an otherwise solid story. The good is really good and the bad makes me really uncomfortable. Thus I find myself somewhat conflicted.<br />
<br />
<b>The Twist</b><br />
<br />
Unlike the previous books, which have until now gone in chronological order, this book is a midquel. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this book takes place. It's starts while Gawain is away in the otherworld, fighting the Green Knight and then ends sometime after he's returned (this story takes place over a period of years-- real years, not fairy years). Also, it's the first book where neither Gawain nor Terence appear. So it's really no stretch to say that this book is something completely different from what's come before it.<br />
<br />
The two main tales in this story are the Culhwch and Olwen romance from the Mabinogion and the Tristan and Isolde romance. In the original Culhwch and Olwen romance, Culhwch is cursed so that he can only marry Olwen. Olwen's father, Ysbaddaden, won't concede to the wedding unless Culhwch completes a series of impossible tasks. In Morris's version, Culloch is a young man who wants to be a knight. While traveling with Bedivere (who has sworn to help Culloch become a knight) Kai, and Dinadan, Culloch hears about Isbaddadon's tasks for marrying off his daughter Olwen. Culloch is not that smitten with Olwen, nor she with him, but he enjoys 'Izzie's' feasts after he finishes every silly quest and is more that happy to continue. Bedivere, Kai and Dinadan eventually leave Culloch to this absurd challenge. But years later he his unhappily marrying Olwen. <br />
<br />
The Tristram and Iseult story is much more straightforward. Basically these are two of the worst people imaginable. The story is less about their destructive affair than it is about Iseult's attempts to murder the one person who knows why she and Tristram are in love-- her former maid Lady Brangienne. This allows the focus of the story to remain firmly with Dinadan while at the same time exploring just how dangerous this sort of courtly love can be. <br />
<br />
<b>The Plot</b><br />
<br />
There's really not much to this plot. No enchantress to defeat, no life or death challenge to overcome, no castle to save or grail to find. It's a slower, meandering tale about a young man who is a jerk, and how he learns to be less of a jerk through being surrounded by a diverse cast of characters. That's literally it. That's not to say there isn't some adventure. Dinadan does save a lord from having his lands stolen almost immediately after setting out on his own. And near the end he helps a king reclaim his land from some usurping youngsters. But overall it's a softer tale. The moments that carry the most weight are not the big flashy battles between knights, but when Dinadan rescues a young woman and her children from her abusive husband or when he rides as hard as he can so he can warn Brangienne that Iseult knows where she's hiding. The ultimate conflict is not when Tristram and Iseult get themselves killed for their love, but when Dinadan stands up and finally tells Tristram that they're brothers after shying away from such an acknowledgement for most of the book. The plot may seem to meander from one hapless adventure to another with nothing stringing these events together, until you realize that Dinadan is stringing these events together. The importance is not with the deed itself, but what the deed says about Dinadan and how much he is growing. More so than any other book, this is his story. And the fact that it is so character focused and so different from the other books is part of the joy that comes along with reading it. <br />
<br />
Throughout the previous four books, Morris has been wrestling with the theme of the reality of what happened vs. the story that is told. Oftentimes the reality is much more meaningful, but it doesn't fit into the box of the story people want to hear. To that end, Gawain often tweaks his tales so that they fits with what people what to hear even if it's not completely truthful and some of the meaning behind the reality is lost. The Ballad of Sir Dinadan is 242 pages (plus an author's note) exploring that theme to the bitter end. Dinadan is a minstrel at his heart-- he'd rather spin a good yarn than fight a battle. And big part of his journey is learning the power of stories. He learns he needs to be careful with what stories he tells about himself , lest he become far grander than he wants to be. He learn that he needs to be careful with how he tells stories about others-- not just because they may not appreciate it, but because you never know who is listening and those who know the truth may find the story to be painful to hear. He learns not to believe the tale and to always dig for the truth before trying his hand at creating the story. This book really looks at all aspects of that theme and plays them out in their various forms. <br />
<br />
<b>The Characters</b><br />
<br />
When you first meet Dinadan, you feel really sorry for him. He is the younger brother if Tristram, who already has the reputation of one of the greatest knights in the land. Like Gaheris in <u>The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf</u>, Dinadan sucks at fighting. However, as his father can no longer stand the sight of him, Dinadan finds himself knighted by the drunkard who passes out soon after. Burning with embarrassment, Dinadan leaves home, vowing never to return. He promptly finds adventure. He meets a beautiful woman and her entourage. The woman claims that her lands have been stolen by a recreant knight. Smitten by her beauty, Dinada agrees to go slay the knight in single combat. On the way to the castle which the knight has stolen for his own, Dinadan meets a kindly old lord who is the real owner of the lands and learns that the beautiful woman he is so smitten with is actually the thief. Burning with anger, Dinadan rides back to her camp to confront her. He gets in a luck shot to kill her knight, and then the lady trips and falls on her own knife. <br />
<br />
This is where you start to feel less sorry for Dinadan, as he is something of a sexist ass (a carryover from how his character was portrayed in the Savage Damsel and the Dwarf). Instead of thinking his treacherous lady was an individual person, he jumps to the hive vagina and assumes all women are wicked at heart. When he, Kai and Bedivere rescue Brangienne from Iseult's men, Dinadan cruelly torments her and makes up songs about how awful women are (as if the poor girl hadn't just gone through enough). But he reassess this really stupid position as he gets to know Brangienne, eventually rescuing a young woman and her children from her abusive husband. As the story continues on, you grow to like him again-- mostly for always playing the straight man, although he does have some moments that show the depths of his heart and his inherent goodness. <br />
<br />
The story of Tristan and Isolde goes that while escorting Isolde to her wedding, Tristan and the future bride accidentally drank a love potion meant for Isolde and her husband, King Mark. I really wish that Morris had either cut this aspect of the legend or actually done something interesting with it. As it stands, Tristram and Iseult drank the potion and Brangienne saw (which is why Iseult wants to kill her). And... that's it. Tristram and Iseult are meant to be condemned for the destructiveness of their love when the existence of the love potion means <i>they cannot help themselves.</i> The skeeviness of the potion in the early stories are usually mitigated by it eventually wearing off and the two still being in love with each other, but that doesn't happen here. I suppose there's an argument to be made that Tristram and Iseult drank the love potion on purpose (it's possible to argue both ways, and since we never hear about this scene from Tristram or Iseult's perspective, it's impossible to know). So the book basically goes on and on and on about how we're to condemn this destructive love and I just can't because of the love potion. Since we never see either of these characters before they drink the potion, it's impossible to know how much the potion is affecting their actions. Brangienne talks about having a close relationship with Iseult before she took the potion, but then seemingly has no problem writing Iseult off as hardhearted and cruel when she tries to kill her. That Brangienne never considers the possibility that this is not Iseult anymore but the love potion makes me sad (Tristram goes mad when he is forced away from Iseult-- it's not a stretch that her cognitive ability has been affected as well). That there is no attempt to undo the affects of the potion to see who these two people truly are without it makes me sad. That the incredibly complicated consent issues surrounding the potion are never even addressed and that Tristram and Iseult are just written off as destructive and horrible instead of victims is really upsetting. <br />
<br />
And, look, there is a way to tell this story to make this love destructive and to make these two characters horrible and I actually really like the idea of an Iseult who is cruel, cold and calculating instead of a kind and generous woman. I would love this story if it was not for the yucky consent issues surrounding the love potion. But I just can't get behind it completely as it stands right now. And it's just frustrating because it didn't even need the love potion-- it wouldn't have taken much to figure out another reason for why Iseult wanted Brangienne dead.<br />
<br />
Also, this is a continuation of the critique I made in <a href="http://camelotlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/02/reread-savage-damsel-and-dwarf.html#more">Savage Damsel and the Dwarf</a>: there is a line between mocking characters for their silly actions and mocking characters for being mentally disabled. I thought Morris crossed that line with Gareth, and I think he crosses it here with Tristram too. Tristram has taken a vow of silence, but he still talks constantly (without seeming to notice) and is surprised when people respond to his speaking or know about his affair with Iseult when he had just blurted out ever sordid detail (and this is further compounded by not knowing how much of this is caused by the love potion). And it's disappointing because characters like Griflet and Lancelot prove that he doesn't need to resort to this sort of mockery<br />
<br />
Brangienne was wonderful. She never hesitated to call out Dinadan on his shitty behavior. She's shrewd and knows what she needs to do in order to protect herself. It's so much fun to watch her and Dinadan go from two people who can barely stand each other to close confidant. It's even more wonderful when this relationship between them is reaffirmed as a close friendship and doesn't turn to romance. To see a man and woman in this sort of deep friendship without any romantic overtones is one of the most beautiful things ever and I love it. <br />
<br />
Dinadan meets Culloch on his way to Arthur's court and while Culloch skirts close to the line of being mocked for his mental ability, I think in the end it's safe to say it's his actions that earn him the scorn of his comrades. He's never able to remember Dinadan's name, but Dinadan never seems to take issue or think less of Culloch for it. Instead, it's Culloch's willingness to get himself wrapped up in Isbaddadon's tasks when so many good people (Kai and Bedivere) believe he has it in him to make it as a knight at Arthur's table is where he earns the scorn of the others. At the end of the day, all Culloch wants is a good drink and a good meal to find happiness, and find it he does at Isbaddadon's castle. I'd find it difficult to begrudge him that it it weren't for...<br />
<br />
Olwen. I hate what Morris did to Olwen here. Olwen is derided by Brangienne and Dinadan for being stupid and it definitely crosses that line because we never see Olwen do anything (Brangienne does talk about how difficult it is to be a maid to her, but that may just be Brangienne being fed up with the whole thing). She's mocked for having a hardy appetite like her father and Culloch. She's mocked for talking about Culloch as though he were her gallant lover, even though Brangienne points out that she really has no choice if she's going to save face. When Olwen finally loses it at her wedding when both her father and her husband turn up hungover, slaps them both and storms out, all anyone can thing of is mocking the two men. No one pauses to consider how Olwen, like Tristram and Iseult, might be a victim of something beyond he control. They just leave her to her fate. <br />
<br />
Isbaddadon likes his food and drink as much as Culloch. He has a short temper and is fairly rude (he tried to kill someone at the dinner table). He either really doesn't want to marry off his daughter or enjoys tormenting knights as entertainment. He spends years sending Culloch on silly quest after silly quest before finally either giving in or running out of ideas. <br />
<br />
Bedivere is awesome. He is the all around good guy of this book. He sees potential in Culloch and swears and oath to travel with Culloch until he either achieves knighthood or gives up seeking it. Bedivere goes into each and every quest hopeful that it will actually be something useful and always ends up devastated that it was just a silly errand. Finally he declares that if Culloch is going to continue to go out on Isbaddadon's quests, he has given up on knighthood and they part ways. Bedivere shows up again at the end of the book and drags Dinadan off to Culloch's wedding. Once again, he is hopeful that this is something worth doing. After the wedding, he apologizes profusely to Dinadan for being so wrong. My one complaint with Bedivere is that neither he (nor Kai) called out Dinadan's more sexist attitudes. I expected better of them, especially with Brangienne standing right there. <br />
<br />
Kai is awesome! Kai loves his idealistic younger cousin against his better judgement and after Bedivere makes his oath to Culloch, Kai asks Arthur for leave of Camelot to keep his cousin form making another stupid oath. He gripes and grumbles his whole way through Culloch's tests, but mostly leaves it to Bedivere to do the thinking and explaining and the find because it's all Bedivere's fault. <br />
<br />
In the original Culhwch and Olwen myth, Mabon, son of Modron, is an enchanter who was abducted as a child and who Culhwch needs to aid him in the tasks. Culhwch and Arthur's knights inquire with several animals as to the location of Mabon and eventually the salmon tells them (<a href="http://heatherdale.com/">Heather Dale</a> has a fantastic rendition of this part of the story). In <u>The Ballad of Sir Dinadan</u>, Modron is a merchant known for abusing his wives and children. Furious at how Modron treats his family, Dinadan plays a song and manages to call animals and fairies to him and a fox leads him to Mabon. Modron's first wife fled with the boy, but died in the forest. Her son was taken in by an elderly couple and lives a happy life. Dinadan goes back to Modron to rescue the man's current wife and children and takes them to live in the forest with the elderly couple and Mabon. I love this part of the book and the growth it shows in Dinadan's character and how Morris twisted the legend around (although I must call bullshit here because Modron was Mabon's mother in the original legend and reaffirming it so this character is known as the son of his father instead of his mother is super problematic). <br />
<br />
After leaving Culloch to his own devices, Dinadan meets a new traveling companion in Palomides. The Moorish knight has come to Britain to learn the ways of knighthood after meeting some of Arthur's knights in Jerusalem. They promptly stumble upon Lamorak and Tristram fighting over whose lady is fairer and Palomides is horrified. He tries to convince Tristram to give up his love for Iseult and you can imagine how well that goes. Palomides is also baffled by the idea that the purpose of knighthood is to serve woman and Dinadan has to assure him that this is a silly notion held only by the French knights and that Arthur commands his knights to help all people. The two eventually make their way to Cornwall, after first having been stopped by Lamorak, who gives them a silver drinking horn to give to Iseult as a gift from his fairy lover (guess who this is). This sets off a well known story from early Tristan and Isolde romances where Morgan tries to send a chastity horn to Guinevere (if the drinker is unfaithful, the contents of the horn will spill all over them), but Lamorak steals it and sends it to Isolde instead in an attempt to disgrace Tristan (like here, the two had been fighting over whose love was more beautiful). Here the drink spills all over Iseult, throwing Mark into a fury. It's his intent to have every woman in his castle attempt to drink from the cup. Palomides takes the cup and states that he will only allow that if the men attempt to drink first. When everyone freezes, Palomides destroys the cup. <br />
<br />
Palomides and Dinadan travel around Britain and eventually help a king retrieve his lands from some young usurpers. When that is finished, Palomides decides to return to his homeland as he has learned everything he wished to from Dinadan. I'm of two minds on this. First off, it proves Palomides to be the most sensible character we have met in this series so far as he is more than happy to take is leave of Britain instead of sticking around and trying to reform the more foolish and foopish knights. However, this is the most famous knight who is a POC and the first POC we have seen in Morris' books so far. And this well known, well respected and well regarded knight is worth... one half a book. It's disappointing to say the least that Palomides is so quickly shuffled off screen in such a way that the chances of him coming back are extremely unlikely. <br />
<br />
Lamorak is a knight who often crosses paths with Tristram. As both believe they are in love with the most beautiful woman in the land, they of course find themselves in deadly combat. These fights are never decided as Lamorak's fairy lady often rushes into save him before he and Tristram can get too far along. While Lamorak's lady is never named... I'm putting my money on Morgause. Mostly because Morgause is traditionally the lover of Lamorak, so there's that. But someone is also about to make a reappearance in a big way, and it makes sense to remind the readers of her cruelty and wickedness before reintroducing her as a villain (you'll remember I wanted Morris to also do this in the last book). <br />
<br />
Hermance/Hermind/Helius/Helake: While I am bummed that Palomides did not get his confrontation with the Questing Beast in this book, I am glad that Morris managed to sneak in this tale of the knight's glory. The story Morris tells is pretty close to how it appears in Malory and <i>Prose Tristan</i>. King Hermance (Armant) is killed by Helius and Helake (Helyus and Helake), two orphan boys he brought in and raised as his own. In the original, Armant was the ruler of an island, and his close friends bore his body to the mainland where they met Palomides. Here the young men throw Hermance's body in the river where his brother, Hermind (Marin), finds him and is later found by Palomides and Dinadan. The two agree to help Hermance overthrow the two men. Palomides slays one brother and Dinadan pushes the other out the window (and goes with him). Having won the day, they leave Hermind to his kingdom and part ways. <br />
<br />
Arthur shows up at the beginning to knight Dinadan. He is quick to do so, having heard the tale of how Dinadan saved a lord from having his land stolen. After listening to Dinadan stammer about how the story doesn't match with reality, Arthur knows he's got a keeper. Gaheris pops up in the middle to make friends with Dinadan while Tristram and Lamorak are fighting and helps Dinadan out with one of Culloch's quests. We finally hear the whole story of what happened to poor Marhault and how Mark tricked Tristram into killing him after Marhault fairly won the fight. Thus we continue feeling really bad for the poor guy from book one. Mark is caught in the center of Iseult and Tristram's destructive love, but does nothing to make it better. He seems to feed into Iseult's need to control people. I really don't know what to make of him collapsing to the ground sobbing after Tristram and Iseult run away. He kills Tristram at the end of the book and Iseult falls out a window a second later. <br />
<br />
<b>Overall</b><br />
<br />
I've been thinking about this long and hard and overall, despite all it's flaws and the problems I have with it, I like this book. It's an easier, more enjoyable read than Parsifal's Page and has better pacing, but it's not quite at the level of the first three Morris books. But it does some really cool stuff with the theme Morris has been playing with through all previous books and it's a nice breather before we dive into the second half of the series. Again, I wish I did half stars. But I don't and since I'm inclined to be generous with this book, 4 stars. <br />
<br />
Next up: SARAH!!!!!! Storyteller Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00970829217867262399noreply@blogger.com0