#i liked Persia Woolley’s gawain he was balanced

[queer-ragnelle]

arthurian adaptations fail the orkney brothers time and again. gawain is either virtuous or irredeemably sinful there’s never an in between which is where he belongs. he and agravaine are never the foils they should be and neither are nuanced characters at the same time. agravaine is given the murder of morgause which is missing the whole point of his character and that of gaheris. meanwhile…gaheris…exists. he should be gawain’s shadow and the most irritating person to agravaine in the universe. gareth is usually okay but his relationship with his brothers and lancelot needs to be strained to the breaking point, and I also think he should be on good terms with kay instead of framing him entirely antagonistic. mordred needs to be agravaine’s little buddy. it’s one of the best parts of the vulgate and some stories include it but they manipulate each other and that’s the wrong approach. they can’t know what they have is messed up, they don’t see it, they’re just hanging out and people die around them. none of the bros abuse their wives. i cannot stress this enough. non-negotiable. in fact their wives love them all dearly. an acquired taste. if you know you know. thank you.

[queer-ragnelle]

I think Arthurian authors should leave more things ambiguous instead of struggling to reconcile all ten billion texts into one narrative.

Like it’s frustrating when the Post-Vulgate doesn’t show key events on page. It just tells the reader what happens through abstract references that are incomprehensible without footnotes. However, it’s kind of given me a diabolical idea…

Gawain is tough to characterize. He just has a lot of facets that don’t always mesh easily. So authors tend to pick one end of the spectrum and lean in. Cherith Baldry deleted the Welsh faction entirely to avoid the blood feud. Lavinia Collins’ and M. K. Hume’s Gawain is extremely aggressive and hostile toward women. Persia Woolley manages to have a somewhat balanced Gawain, but I dislike her take on Ragnelle and Gingalain so…meh. Phyllis Ann Karr’s Gawain comes with all his “canonical” virtues and vices, but he’s still so flat compared to what she managed with some other characters. My beloved Gwen Rowley did better. Gawain is peak Maiden’s Knight with his Green Knight history intact. His relationships with both Ragnelle and Lancelot are compelling. And Lamorak exists! But Rowley’s genius is carefully writing around him so he never crosses paths with an Orkney son. He’s only present in Lancelot’s (and Morgause’s…) point of view.

Anyway, my authorial plan is to sort of build off the Post-Vulgate’s refusal to elaborate and Gwen Rowley’s clever trick—write around something so the shape of its absence offers the reader an opportunity for interpretation. Robin Hobb does this beautifully in the Tawny Man Trilogy. She just…cuts away at specific moments to hide information from the reader and leave it to their imagination.

So among other things, I plan to leave the circumstances of Pellinore’s death murky. Like way murkier than I’ve ever seen it done.

For starters, I’m leaning into the Post-Vulgate (bear with me, it’s juicy). Tor gets awkwardly involved and “fails his flesh,” as the prophecy foretold, essentially leaving his injured father for dead. By mistake? On purpose? Who knows! Gawain and Gaheris pass Tor on the road heading the opposite direction. Then they happen upon Pellinore, wounded and wailing for his son, who’s well away from there by this point. Now’s Gawain’s chance to finish his father’s killer off and flee, except that Tor saw him... “A king for a king.” Or he could heal him, except Gaheris advocates strongly against this... “His mother’s talent…” Or he could bring him to a monastery to receive confession before he dies, which is Pellinore’s desire... “Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him.”

But just before Gawain comes to a decision…the perspective switches to Ragnelle.

Next we see Gawain, several days have passed, and his lady has heard some really sus rumors. Supposedly the King of Wales’ was unceremoniously buried by the monks of a local monastery in their run of the mill cemetery. When brought before King Arthur, the monks claim the Welshman died from “wounds of demonic proportion,” and warranted a swift interment to avoid contamination of the hallowed grounds as such evil can wrought. But when Ragnelle confronts Gawain about it all, his behavior only serves to befuddle her equally as much as it does the reader. Gawain, Gaheris, and Tor hold their peace (at least for book one hehe). So…what happened? I don’t know. Death of the author. You decide.