#especially in the post-vulgate where gaheris goes on to servants about how she got what she deserved

[gellavonhamster]

Both texts, but in particular the Tristan, draw attention to Gaheris’s sustained looking at Lamerok’s exposed body. What does this gaze signify? It is tempting for modern readers to assume a homoerotic interest on Gaheris’s part, but, as Richard Zeikowitz emphasizes, not all gazing by men at men is necessarily erotic. Gaheris and Lamerok mirror one another: each regards the other knight as handsome, valiant and brave, and so, as Zeikowitz suggests, frequently the gazing knight identifies with the object of his gaze – he wants to be, not to have sex with, the man he is looking at. In his handsomeness and courage, Lamerok is a potential role model for Gaheris, but if Gaheris wants to identify with Lamerok, then he must align himself with the man who is having a sexual relationship with his mother. Gaheris quickly refuses the disturbingly incestuous implications of this, neutralizing the sexual ambiguity of the situation by killing his mother. Both knights are now morally obliged to attack the other because of the queen’s sexual behaviour, but the pair, at least in the Folie, are reconciled with one another once the disruptive woman is removed. There could be no clearer example of how speedily the profound, socially dominant bonds between men in chivalry can reassert themselves over a dead female body.

— King Arthur’s Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition by Carolyne Larrington