Of Swords and Parasols

A Lyric's vid of Heather Dale's Mordred's Lullaby, written from Morgan's POV and using the tradition of Morguase as his mother and Arthur and Merlin killing hundreds of babies and toddlers and not managing to get the one they were after in the first place.



It is an earworm. Such an earworm.

This is an Arthuriana retelling from the POV of Mordred, called Medraut here. It's a book I really really liked, and then I really really didn't.


This is based on earlier celtic versions of the story, and focuses on the relationship between Medraut and his legitimate half-siblings, Lleu and Goewin, and his frustrations regarding his parentage and inability to inherit. His voice is outwardly calm, but inwardly seething and rather fascinating. Goewin appears to be loosely based on Morguase, save that she's largely a good person (of course, she also didn't have the crappy childhood) and is a far better candidate to rule than anyone else in the book, including her father. Lleu is somewhat sympathetic due to a sickly childhood, but he's also spiteful and well on his way to being a vindictive bully. I somehow ended up accidentally shipping Goewin/Medraut, and suspect Medraut would have had an easier time dealing with his issues if she was the heir.


I liked the first 3/4 a lot and thought Wein did an excellent job with the world and characters, despite my dislike for Lleu, and my only real issue was how Morguase was "Evil Evil EEEEEEVIL and abusive in every way!" and given no character or motivation or background beyond that. And then I got to the last 1/4 where Goewin is literally sent away so that the climax could be "All the world's ills will be solved if men just admit they love each other and embrace their manly bonds and are freed from EEEEEVIL women!"


I have the other two books in the series and will at least read the next book because it's about Goewin and because I really liked it until it went south for me very quickly in every possible way (I'd say "except for rape," but there was a bit that was basically "maybe I should rape you to prove my power!" and the themes of dubious consent in the backstory.) but I'm very sad it didn't live up to my expectations.

There are I think 2 books in the series that I haven't read yet because they're not out in paperback. Morris's Squire's Tales series is a usually-lighthearted, frequently-cynical (that's the default, actually) MG retelling of various Arthurian legends, usually avoiding the best known parts save as subplots. (Also, I can't remember if Merlin was ever even mentioned.) Mallory is frequently Morris's base, though he also alsoincorporates De Troyes and the older Welsh stuff.


The first two books-The Squire's Tale and The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady-are Gawain-centric, retelling a variety of Gawain stories and a few extras through the eyes of his squire, Terrence. Terrence will remain Gawain's squire forever because it's more fun that way. The third book is Lynnette and Gareth's story, The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf, told almost entirely through Lynnette's POV. Book four is Parsifal's Page, told through the POV of Piers, a blacksmith's son. The Ballad of Sir Dinadan is the first (and only, so far) book told through the knight's POV and incorporates "Tristan and Isolde," as well as other The Princess, The Crone, and the Dung Cart Knight is the one most centrally based on De Troyes and is told through the POV of Sarah, another OC central character. The Lioness and Her Knight retells Ywain and Laudine's tale through the POV of Laudine's companion, Luneta, made Gaheris and Lynnette's daughter for the purposes of the series. The Quest for the Fair Unknown is about the French tale of Beaufils and the Grail Quest.


I read these largely as I acquired them as opposed to in chronological order, but they stand alone very well. It's a shared universe with characters that show up frequently (Gawain and Terrence most notably, but Morgan and Lancelot have a habit of suddenly popping up and Kay has a habit of tagging along-sometimes to laugh and point-and/or have practical if grumpy opinions, and generally be secretly smarter and wiser-and more crotchety-than anyone else once he's matured a bit) but the books are largely self-contained and offer few spoilers on other books, though some characters have interesting growth throughout the series. (It actually made me interested in how Lancelot grew and changed throughout, if mostly off screen, and that's rather unprecedented.)


As mentioned before, the books are rather cynical and Morris is prone to portraying many more famous figures as rather ridiculous and/or overdramatic, and frequently foolish. In early books, many of then tend to remain that way throughout, though eventually more and more characters grow wiser throughout the course of the story. TBH, The Ballad of Sir Dinadan went so far into the cynicism that I think Morris didn't have nearly as much left for the rest of the books. The cynicism in that one was a but much for me but it's probably my favorite of the ones that didn't have a female POV (the three with female POVs aren't my favorites just because they have a female protagonist-though I'm not about to try denying that that's likely a factor- but they also tend to have more character growth, particularly for the lead and the lead's self-awareness, and have ome of the more interesting main plots.) if only for Dinadan, Kay and Bedivere going around shaking their heads in hooror at idealistic fools, and for having the whole "epic romance that spans years" thing ending with the lovers mutually being all "If I were to get married, I'd marry you, but really, I prefer just being single..."


The books vary in quality, as most series do, though I don't think there are any thatwould qualify as bad. Though, due to the nature of the various legends and their having plot similarities, some plots draw inescapable comparisons to others. For example, Parsifal's Page and The Quest of the Fair Unknown deal with a young man who's only exposure to human society is his mother entering the wide world with no clue how people think and operate, and who makes endless "social blunders" and has a habit of asking questions non-stop. I prefer Beaufils to Parsifal as a character (though, like Lancelot, I find this Parsifal much more interesting than I usually find the character) and think The Quest of the Fair Unknown is a better book than Parsifal's Page, but there's no escaping the feeling of rehashing familiar ground a lot of the time.


Regardless, while not perfect, the books are very fun and have some interesting commentary on various legends and the behaviors of mythic figures, and there's a heavy trend of stories reshaping themselves and growing with every retelling, which is a narrative trope I have a bit of a thing for.

You know, if the point of the last 2 episodes was to show what an incredibly horrible person Arthur is and how he makes a terrible king and how he and Merlin are incredibly sexist and have serious spikes of hypocrisy, I could understand these two episodes. As it is, I'm pretty sure we were supposed to see Arthur as strong and brave and a great leader, and Melin as Tragic.

( sigh )

So, still only worth watching for Eva Green and Claire Forlani as Morgan and Ygraine, and for the general takes on them (with loads of Fail in the execution) and for the fact that it has Gawain and Kay, and kinda...not worth it otherwise. (Guenevere I like/sympathize with but not the way I want to, and the writing of her story just makes me feel bad for Tamsin Egerton, who deserves better material.)

I should find me some Claire Forlani movies to watch now.

…

I see what you did there re: Uther-Ygraine-Merlin-Morgan-Uther.

I’ll let you know what I think of it after we see how it plays out.

So, basically, this episode was about how Claire Forlani is hot and a fabulous actress, and how the show should be about Morgan and Ygraine.

( spoilers )

So, when someone titles something The Idylls of the Queen and subtitles it “A Tale of Queen Guenevere,” I, uhm, expect the focus to be on Guenevere, not on Kay? Though, unlike the last time this happened to me, it was not all icky and traumatizing and was quite good! Also, uhm, I like Kay, and most authors these days either forget he exists, or have him show up for 30 seconds/2 pages and be a bully and/or drunken lout.

Based on both the older Celtic versions and Mallory (and framed more through Mallory) The Idylls of the Queen is a murder mystery that uses the mystery to frame a criticism of some of the chivalric interpretations of heroism, and the treatment of various characters (especially women) in the medieval myths. The plot, in essence, is that a knight is poisoned at Guenevere’s dinner table, and it’s believed that Gawain was the intended target. Guenevere is cast as the prime suspect, and it’s assumed that any knight who was at the dinner would also become a suspect if he put himself forth as her champion, and so several knights set out to find Lancelot, who is off gallivanting around, having adventures and seeking glory. The questers we follow are Kay (our POV character, who is not a bully, drunk or lout, but is quite sharp tongued) and Mordred. The groundwork is laid for Mordred’s future actions, and while he isn’t quite a sympathetic character, his situation is sympathetic, and his approach to it is very honest and pragmatic.

The book is actually very critical of Lancelot (though tempered by being filtered through Kay’s dislike of him in this version) in a way I appreciate. But then, I’ve never been big on the whole “perfect adventurous heroic knight who just happens to stumble across heroic deeds in the nick of time” thing. And, uhm, may sometimes sulk at Kay and Gawain getting shouldered aside for him. I think I’ve mentioned that in other recent Arthuriana I’ve posted on. At the same time, it uses the same mentality to have various cameo appearances by minor female characters and have them voice their own (not always favorable) interpretations of chivalric actions. Guenevere is an adulteress, but for once we’re actively discouraged from judging her for it, or viewing her as weak, though she is also cast in the traditional idealized Lady role, a combination we don’t often get. There’s also this utterly fabulous bit where Morgan ruthlessly dissects all the typical arguments about her being jealous of Guenevere, and the more negative interpretations of her, while still maintaining her role as antagonist. Oh, and it remembers that there were multiple Gueneveres, which most don’t.

The book doesn’t quite reach the level of a full on deconstruction of medieval ideals of chivalric heroism as applied to Athurian myth, but it comes close, and is a very good read.

19 x Camelot (1967)
48 x First Knight
23 x Guinevere (1994)
33 x Knights of the Round Table
13 x Lancelot du Lac
75 x Merlin (1998)
59 x Mists of Avalon
38 x Tristan & Isolde (2006)

   
   

icons @ my lj

Actually, First Knight is a pretty decent movie, if you like this sort of thing, aside from the incredibly silly casting of Lancelot.  Not brilliant, but not awful either.  The movie, that is.  Really, I’m not sure if it’s the writing of Lancelot's character, or just the fact that I don’t like Richard Gere. I mean, I don’t remember who was big in 1995, but surely there was someone around more dashing and likable, or at least less smug and smarmy. But in the first half of the movie, it’s like they’re going out of their way to make him unlikable, and only tolerable when he’s being devoted to Guenevere. He does improve in the second half, though. Also, he has quality emo hair. Or 90s hair. I’m not sure there’s a difference. I may have a thing for emo hair.

Going into the movie, I basically remembered:

-That I loved loved loved Guenevere, and that this had been the first time I encountered something that that not only featured her prominently (I’d encountered a couple other things that were sympathetic to her, but she wasn’t really there) but also attempted her POV.
-That it was an Abducted Guenevere plot, and while it used the medieval versions, it was more de Troyes than Mallory. And, well, I prefer de Troyes to Mallory.
-That Melwas/Meleagant was the villain, and most forget he even ever existed.
-It was very very pretty. (But then, aren’t most historical movies?)

The movie is at it’s best when it’s focusing more on the Courtly Love aspect (or at least as close as modern cinema gets to the medieval ideal of Courtly Love) and less on the “Our Love is Forbidden! Forbidden! So Forbidden that she told him to get lost a lot and he didn’t listen!” (Lancelot in the first half falls into the “You like me! You know you do! Admit it!” mold, hence my not liking him.*) But the plot as presented is a kind of plot that I tend to be susceptible to, though exclusively in quasi-fantasy medieval settings.

But mostly, Guenevere. I knew that Julia Ormond was basically my definitive Guenevere and that, between this and Sabrina, I had a huge crush on her in the 90s, but rewatching it, I realized that she was basically my definitive Lady, in that any time I encounter historical or fantasy fiction with a Lady character, this is what I expect. Lately, I’ve realized that while I like many of the traits associated with “tomboys” in fiction-strong-willed to the point of stubbornness and even bullheadedness, always speaks their mind exactly, not afraid to get dirty/tear her clothes if the situation calls for it, etc, but particularly the stubbornness and forthright speech-are all traits that I like, but I tend to get frustrated by “rascally tomboys.” Or rather, not by the tomboys themselves, but by the narratives acting like these personality traits are just a phase she’s going through that she’ll outgrow, as opposed to her actual personality. Anyway, Guenevere here has many of the personality traits typically associated with tomboys, while beings 100% a Lady. (I’ve started rereading Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books and a lot of the same is true of Eilonwy, though she and Guenevere are completely different characters. I‘m not sure when I first read the Prydain and Westmark books, but I know I was very young at the time.)

But really, Guenevere:




*You know, I think the only Lancelot I’ve actually liked in these movies I’ve been watching is the one in Knights of the Round Table.

ETA:  BTW, i think my favorite bit may be when Lancelot is all "Here, let me tell you about the manpain that is why I am basically a vagrant swordsman." and her response is "You poor thing, that is an awful experience.  But you really should do something productive with your manpain."  Actually, no.  My favorite bit is when she outsmarts an attacker and throws him out of a moving carriage.

Today’s adventure into Arthuriana on film was Lovespell, a Tristan and Isolde movie from 1979 featuring Richard Burton as Mark. Which would probably explain why it sometimes felt more like a Mark movie.

It tries to be low scale and mythic at the same time, with mixed results. In particular, the low scale aspect makes some of the more melodramatic bits seem a bit out of place. Of the various Arthuriana adaptations I’ve been watching, though, this one may be the one that comes closest being faithful to the myth it’s based on, though it still takes liberties.

Researching it when I was trying to find any other Tristan and Isolde movie besides the one with James Franco and Sophia Miles (actually, there are several, I just can‘t watch any more of them unless I want to watch a German one without subs), I learned that a lot of people apparently find this to be something of a confusing jumble, though I didn’t really. But then, my fiction is rather prone to people dying of love, flinging themselves from cliffs because the sails were the wrong color, drinking love potions, and randomly ending up getting nursed by someone who just happens to have the same name as the person they were exiled for having an affair with.

Ok, I did raise my eyebrows a lot bit when, after Mark learns about the affair and throws Tristan in a cell, Isolde runs off to join a leper colony. Then Tristan escapes and comes to get her and she’s all “We can never be together and can never touch again because I may be a leper now!” Then he says they should run away together so she grabs his hand and off they go and it’s never mentioned again.

Yeah. I dunno.

Also, Wikipedia says the Franco and Miles version is based on this and I…do not see that at all and am assuming that someone who assumes that anything based on the same story something else is based on is based on the other adaptation and not the original story. They do both feature Isolde as the strongest willed-character and romantic aggressor and a more sympathetic Mark (Burton less consistently than Sewell, but still) but that’s about it. Oh, and Tristan has emo curls.

Incidentally, this is the extent of Tristan’s facial expressions:



and



Mostly the first.  Just add a half-smile sometimes, and that’s about it. Not that I had anything against him before, but it made me appreciate Franco a bit more! (I wonder if he had more expressions as Lancelot? I ditched Excalibur before he showed up. TBH, dude wasn't bad, just...there-ish?)

Last week (or maybe the week before) I tried reading Rosalind Miles’s Isolde trilogy. I made it about 40 pages before I was overwhelmed by how all other women were lesser being than Isolde and how her mother hated her forever and was eternally jealous of Isolde’s youth and beauty. Oh, and Isolde was Christian, and so far better and more progressive and virtuous than those pagan hussies with their icky rituals. (It was like a reverse of the Guinevere issue in the Mists of Avalon,/em> mini, save that it showed up immediately and there wasn’t a lot of pre-existing redeeming value.)

So, that was a bust. Hopefully her Guinevere trilogy is better. Because I have all of it.

Anyway, I have these other Isolde books, and am wondering if people have Thoughts about them.

The White Raven by Diana L. Paxson: Then one sounds like a Lets Try To Present It As Real History Would Have Been version.

Prince of Dreams by Nancy McKenzie: This one looks like it goes straight for adapting the Epic Myth aspect.

Iseult by Dee Morrison Meaney: Sounds like it focuses more on the romantic aspect than anything else.