girlfailuregawain

[girlfailuregawain]

the friar from much ado about nothing after his faking a death scheme actually works: wow, I can't wait to tell my friend in verona about this one weird trick!

[girlfailuregawain]

you don't need to write a dark deconstruction of Peter Pan where he's willing to kill people and his state of eternal childhood makes him morally ambiguous, JM Barrie already wrote one and it's called Peter Pan

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People will be like I love Greek mythology but I hate everything that involves incest, infidelity, violence, slavery, misogyny, undeserved suffering, questionable relationships, ethically dubious heroes and gods,and morality that is foreign to me.

[girlfailuregawain]

Japanese folklore is like what if there were an animal that talked to you and German folklore is like Stop Going Into The Woods and English folklore is like btw there's a ghost now and Russian folklore is like if you go mining it's gonna be weird and American folklore is like what if there were like a guy

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listening and learning

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more areas of overlap that i don't have room to edit in: unfashionably religious, significant scars, terrifying grandfather, hates killing people, fractious barons, etc etc etc

[girlfailuregawain]

The best part of growing older is the ever-increasing amount of people you can pull the "where's your mom at" on. Like no son I'm not having this kind of beef with you, that's beneath my dignity, but I'd like to have a word with whoever was supposed to raise you about whether they know how you're acting in public. Yeah I'm 30 and you're like 25 but that's irrelevant here.

Sure, you can stab me over it. See how much that'll help you. Send me to Hell today and I'll be having this talk with your grandma.

[girlfailuregawain]

Josh Tufts, Magnum Mysterium | Behance

[girlfailuregawain]

“Men at Arms is a direct attack on the idea of monarchy and aristocracy that so much “high fantasy” is based on; Jingo is a fantasy war story that denies the reader the “fun” of seeing a war break out and ends up attacking the concept of war; the character of Rincewind is a subversion of the whole idea of heroism. Monstrous Regiment is a meditation on feminism, Cherry Littlebottom and other female dwarfs a commentary on gender identity and trans people, Thud! a statement against ethnic hatred. But all this deconstruction and subversion didn’t come across as having to eat your vegetables, the way literary fiction often does. And it didn’t come across as a bitter, guilty pleasure either, the way people geek out about the horrifying viciousness of “low fantasy” worlds like A Song of Ice and Fire’s Westeros. Pratchett somehow made his progressive, subversive work as tasty a snack as any of the high fantasy he was subverting. Much of that candy coating was humor–the ability to laugh, as he once argued, being our brain’s way of extracting pleasure from the otherwise painful process of recognizing uncomfortable truths.”

—

Arthur Chu breaks down the importance of Discworld in his farewell tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett, A Guide to Escape from Escapism (via landunderwave)

Part of why it worked was because Pratchett didn’t sneer at heroism or idealism, he showed how good intentions go bad and over the course of centuries things fossilise and need to be replaced, and most importantly, he showed the heroism of the small.  Yes, he showed the other side of the coin, the darker side of the heroic and epic, but he didn’t use that as an excuse to go Martin’s way of “this is what it’s really like: murder, rape and treachery under all the fine words”.

People like Vimes who stuck to duty even in his worst hours, when he was sunk in self-loathing and alcoholism, a dangerous man who sabotaged himself half-intentionally, because it was in his bones and because (as we got to know in “Night Watch”) he also had his own ideals and idealism that he doggedly held on to, even when half-ashamed of that.

He permits honour to exist in his world, even if it’s not kings and knights in shining armour.

It may be low fantasy, but it’s never vile.  Even when he’s showing us what real evil looks like.

(via tartapplesauce)

[girlfailuregawain]

~ Florence Harrison, "The Defence of Guenevere" from Early Poems of William Morris (1914)

via internet archive

[girlfailuregawain]

the more i read about arthuriana the more i am convinced this is singlehandedly the best thing humanity has created. people through the ages just loved making up stories about their favourite fictional guys with swords

[girlfailuregawain]

Illustration by Lavera Grace for The Grimms' fairy tale The Six Swans

[girlfailuregawain]

life is so good when ur reading a book and taking it w u everywhere like your little child

[girlfailuregawain]

SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON .

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[girlfailuregawain]

is this too niche

[girlfailuregawain]

So far Diu Crône is a hilarious read because you can tell the author had massive beef with the French treatment of the legend and how it handled Arthur and just...actively and enthusiastically rejects any plot lines related to it.

Arthur? Is a good man who has the respect and honor of all of his people. Succeeds in the virtue test over everybody else in the court.

Lancelot? At peace with himself and has his own lady love.

Guinevere? Happily married to Arthur and absolutely hilarious. I just love her here.

Gawain? Not only does he achieve the Holy Grail, but he becomes immortal.

Camelot? Never falls.

At one point Guinevere's accused of adultery and while Arthur's upset and unsure, he rejects the idea of burning her at the stake because "Wow people would understandably think I'm insane and my reputation would be ruined. Best to wait and see :)" Like I just know that Heinrich von dem Türlin was giving the most BOMBASTIC of side-eyes to the Vulgate Cycle at that moment. I can't believe fandom drama goes that far back.