#malory readalong

[exercise-of-trust]

thoughts on malory’s le morte d’arthur book 1; i am on mobile and can’t put in a cut and i am so sorry guys

uther’s a dick

merlin’s a dick

“and then the king sent [the duke of cornwall] plain word again, and bade him be ready and stuff and garnish him, for within forty days he would fetch him out of the biggest castle he hath”

what the fuck kind of nunnery did morgan le fay “become a great clerk of necromancy” at

“then the queen made great joy when she knew who was the father of her child” the fuck madam you were the one who suggested fleeing uther’s castle because you didn’t want to sleep with him, this is entirely out of character even for the very limited characterization we have for you so far

the two knights and two ladies who deliver baby arthur wrapped in cloth of gold to merlin at the privy postern gate... just. go along with this whole thing?? like, never tell anyone that the king told them to take a royal-looking baby and hand it to a scruffy old man out the back door. what is going on with you people.

“i was never your father nor of your blood, but i wot well ye are of an higher blood than i weened ye were” sir the king personally paid you rich rewards to take care of this child; coincidentally the pregnant queen suddenly became not-pregnant with no resulting child, where the fuck did you think this baby came from

“when sir kay saw griflet on foot he rode on king nentres and smote him down, and led his horse unto sir griflet, and horsed him again” that’s got to be so embarrassing; you were unhorsed not because you were a king or in any way a threat but because your enemy’s seneschal was helpin’ out a pal and you were handy, also after that i cannot take any of the subsequent horse-swapping seriously

it’s really interesting that ban and bors tell arthur that the eleven kings ranged against him are good men and valiant warriors and that they would probably get along quite well given the chance - and arthur says “yeah but at the moment they’re trying to kill me,” which is quite a reasonable response, but it shows a tension between respecting a noble enemy and not respecting people who want you dead in a way that’s a lot more thoughtful than i had expected from a book that had just had three full pages of aggressive horse-thieving

“and it is time to say ho! for god is wroth with thee”

echoing elucubrare’s confusion; what the fuck is up with borre

WHY does merlin insist on fucking with arthur by turning up as a) a sherwood churl in black goatskins and russet, b) a small child, c) a wise old man who is not himself. why does he keep doing this.

i maintain that if you sleep with your sister when you are not aware that she is in fact your sister you cannot be held liable for that. (in fact, given how often arthur has to keep proving his claims to the throne, it’s not entirely impossible morgause herself might have no idea either?) now, if god decides that your body must suffer for your foul deeds and those foul deeds include sending a boat of babies out to be drowned, you did bring that one on yourself, but because that’s not actually the foul deed in discussion here i don’t think this is very fair

also because i didn’t say it before: i don’t think it counts as “within wedlock” to sleep under false pretenses with a woman whose husband you only killed three hours before, and whom you have not yet actually married. like correct me if i’m wrong but i think the “wed” part of “wedlock” inherently requires a little more ceremony than “not technically married to anyone else anymore”

thomas malory stop contradicting yourself challenge

“for king rience had purfled a mantle with kings’ beards”

don’t fucking drown children holy fucking god!!

the moral compass of this book swings around more wildly than my gender identity

closing point: not to get too into all my opinions about knightly culture but arthuriana was really formative to baby-eli’s opinions about honor and whether it is better to live a coward or die a hero, but since then he has been exposed to much more nuanced takes on that topic and is now very surprised to come back to malory and see griflet and arthur almost get killed because they won’t back down from fights they shouldn’t have picked, and have it be treated as perhaps not-wise, but also not obviously stupid and unreasonable. it’s very weird.

[exercise-of-trust]

i’m way behind on this so expect a whole bunch of these posts this coming week as i catch up, anyway here’s some thoughts on le morte d’arthur: book 2

look just in my personal opinion: this is not a particularly demanding catalogue of virtues. "he must be a passing good man of his hands and of his deeds," which, thomas malory i know you have described multiple knights as being this so far, "and without villainy or treachery, and without treason." which. again. seems like a low bar to clear! further qualifications include: "a clean knight without villainy, and of a gentle strain of father side and mother side," again, presumably things that many if not most of you have???

the number of prophecies in this goddamn thing is matched only by the number of times these knights bullheadedly insist that they can overmaster their own fates, which in theory is very hot but in practice is just stupid given how many of these things do actually come true

like don’t get me wrong struggling with your destiny makes you 100x more attractive but sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor

"then the most part of the knights of the round table said that balin did not this adventure all only by might, but by witchcraft" i'm not sure how to explain to you that when the criteria for sword-drawing involve moral fiber instead of muscle, might alone just will not fucking avail you.

i knew revenge was a big deal with this story but i was unaware of HOW big a deal it was

balin is imprisoned for killing arthur's cousin; the lady of the lake wants balin's head for killing her brother and the lady's head for killing her father, balin gets the lady of the lake's head for killing his mother, it's just turtles all the fucking way down isn't it

"the which was an orgulous knight"

obviously murder is bad under any circumstance, i get that, but. like. if your brother murders your lover in cold blood, it's not like you're just full of murderous intent toward your brother for no good reason.

"whereby asked thou it?" "for i would wit it"

i do not see why the dwarf seems to hold balin liable for lanceor or colombe's death when the former came after him for the express purpose of kicking his ass and the latter slew herself for dole and sorrow?

i feel like i need to make a whole disclaimer that as a general rule i am of the opinion that there are few to no good reasons for killing anyone but in this specific context i'm also not sure what a lot of these people were expecting to happen to them when they killed other people's relatives or challenged people who are demonstrably better knights than they are. malory assigns blame in weird ways.

merlin what the fuck is with you and disguising yourself all the time

THOMAS MALORY STOP SPOILING YOUR OWN FUCKING STORY CHALLENGE

more seriously - i certainly didn't come in expecting to be on the edge of my seat, because i'm already familiar with the general arc of the canon. but malory keeps doing this thing where he catapults you out of the flow of the story with something like "and as it telleth after in the sangreal, that sir percivale's sister helped that lady with her blood, whereof she was dead," or "wherefore sir gawaine revenged the death of his father the tenth year after he was knight, and slew king pellinore with his own hands" or a two-sentence summary of the entire story of accolon and arthur and morgan switching the scabbard of excalibur. like, just doing a search of the table of contents, we are going to get a longer and more detailed account of at least two of those events in future books! and this isn't even in the same class as merlin's extremely specific prophecies; these are malory speaking as the narrator, and it's already difficult enough to get immersed in the story when the language is archaic and the rest of the descriptions are dry, but constantly getting dragged in and out of the future like this just makes it worse.

holy christ there is so much murder going on

"and when balin was weaponless he ran into a chamber for to seek some weapon, and so from chamber to chamber, and no weapon he could find, and always king pellam after him"

holy CHRIST

okay plot-relevant deaths so far: arthur's cousin killed by balin, the lady of the lake's brother killed by balin, the lady of the lake's father killed by the sword-lady, balin's mother killed by the lady of the lake, the lady of the lake killed by balin, lanceor, colombe, king nero, king lot, a bunch of unnamed knights in battle, herlews le berbeus killed by garlon, perin de mountbeliard killed by garlon, garlon killed by balin, garnish of the mount's girlfriend, garnish of the mount's girlfriend's boyfriend, garnish of the mount, balin, and balan, and it is entirely possible that i've missed some because so many fucking people die in this book

"and launcelot with this sword shall slay the man that in the world he loved best, and that shall be sir gawaine" GAY

[exercise-of-trust]

le morte d’arthur notes for book 3, someone help these boys. uhhh also warning for mention of canon sexual assault.

i'm so accustomed to adaptations where arthur and guinevere are at least sort of in love that it was a little bit of a surprise to get here and remember that guinevere really. did not have much of a choice in marrying arthur. her feelings on the subject aren't mentioned, and given how later in this book malory is very free about showing when a maiden is in love with the knight she's going about with i have to presume that if guinevere had wanted to marry arthur malory would have mentioned it.

"for i must by reason ye are my nephew, my sister's son" time for some *drumroll please* nepotism

'but this child will not labour for me, for anything that my wife or i may do, but always he will be shooting or casting darts, and glad for to see battles and to behold knights, and always day and night he desireth of me to be made a knight' tor honey i'm sure you're passingly well-visaged and passingly well made of your years but also i have to say i really prefer gareth's method of achieving knighthood. please do your chores kid.

"and half by force he had my maidenhead, and at that time he begat my son tor, and he took away from me my greyhound that i had that time with me and said that he would keep the greyhound for my love" what the fuck. you rape a woman and steal her dog and this is presented as doing her a favor! what the fuck! i hate this book!

"therefore i will slay him, said gawaine, with a sword that was sent me that is passing trenchant" gawaine i love you but you need to fucking chill. you too gaheris, you and your "ye shall not so at this time, for at this time i am but a squire and when i am made knight i will be avenged on him." boys. boys please not at the wedding feast.

how do a white hart, a white brachet, and sixty more black hounds get inside a hall; do you not have doors - how does a fully armed knight on horseback do it too?? do you not have any rules about who can and can't get in? guys please

"uncouth men ye should debate withal, and not brother with brother" for actual character purposes i like almost every other gawaine better than malory's, but for, like, interesting personality purposes i very dearly love this violent puppy who's loyal to his family and his family alone

this very, very, very violent puppy

"why have ye slain my hounds? said sir gawaine, for they did but their kind, and liefer i had ye had wroken your anger upon me than upon a dumb beast" he has a point

"right so came his lady out of a chamber and fell over him, and so he smote off her head by misadventure" he does not have a point

"ah! then are ye nephew unto king arthur, said the lady, and i shall so speak for you that ye shall have conduct to go to king arthur for his love" time for even more *drumroll please* nepotism

"but anon as sir tor espied the white brachet, he took her by force and took her to the dwarf" well looks like the dog-thieving apple doesn't fall far from the dog-thieving tree, does it now

one of these days one of you idiots is going to cut the head off some knight or other at the request of a lady and it's going to turn out that he was innocent the whole time

"then he rode a wallop till he had a sight of the two pavilions"

why do you all keep carrying around these decaying heads. give them a decent burial and just own up to the whole thing when you get back to court!

"for that lady was your own daughter" pellinore why do you have so many surprise kids scattered around the country

are we. are we not gonna address the whole deal with the two knights who just went around hollering about how they were going to poison king arthur? are we gonna come back to that at all? no? okay

i'm. exhausted. and i'm pretty sure arthur is Done with this as well. boys please cool it with the murder i'm fucking begging you

[exercise-of-trust]

le morte d'arthur book 5! i have slept maybe 90 minutes out of the past uhhhhhh 38 hours? so this might not make sense but i said i'd catch up this week and i'll do it if it kills me

i genuinely love how arthur's response to the emperor of rome demanding tribute is "have you considered that i might actually own your empire instead." it's the most high-stakes "no, you" that i've seen in a long time and i admire him for it.

"also he had gotten with him fifty giants which had been engendered of fiends" you know what, fine. i've almost completely lost the ability to be surprised by anything at this point

well i guess we have answer to the question of "is guenevere not in love with arthur or not demostrative about her affection" now? she clearly seems to have some opinions about at least the combination of arthur+lancelot leaving

the whole "raised by a foster family" thing often makes me forget that arthur really does have a pretty full complement of living relatives and they don’t even all want him dead - "thy cousin sir howell," for instance, whom i have never heard of until this very moment

"then sir gawaine was sore grieved with these words, and pulled out his sword and smote off his head" goddamnit here we go again

i keep waiting in vain for more detail on when and how lancelot showed up at camelot? if we're just not going to get it at all that's fine but if this is another example of malory's wholly nonlinear storytelling approach i will be wonderly wroth

"'- for i call it folly, knights to abide when they be overmatched.' 'nay,' said launcelot and the other, 'for once shamed may never be recovered.'" remember when i said baby-eli got a lot of their thoughts about honor from malory-based arthuriana? anyway i’m curious which characters have which opinions on the subject so i’ll probably keeping noting that as i go

"thou speakedst cowardly; for thy words grieve me more than all the loss that i had this day" case in point

"at last lucius smote arthur thwart the visage, and gave him a large wound" i forget who put this in the readalong tag earlier and i'm too tired to go look but i'd like to second the motion for more arthurs with cool facial scarring. he and henry v should start a club.

i honestly don't even know where to start with the whole priamus business. i mean i completely understand making stupid decisions because you're just That Gay for a complete stranger, but i have a lot more trouble (at least personally speaking) with "i'm going to convert to christianity because i'm so wildly gay for this random stranger." this isn't even one of the nice gawaines!! priamus why

"but in that stour was sir chestelaine, a child and ward of sir gawaine slain" hey remember how i said i wasn't able to be surprised by things anymore? apparently that was a lie. i mean - wasn't gawaine himself supposed to be just barely old enough to be a knight?? how does he now have a child who is of sufficient age to apparently also be a knight and get killed in battle?? i fucking give up i'm not conscious enough to try to figure this out

thomas malory please explain the timing of your events challenge

[exercise-of-trust]

le morte d’arthur book 4, thank god i’m finally almost caught up so i can actually start looking at the readalong tag again

because i am thinking about destiny and agency again (i say "again" like i'm ever not) i'd like to give a shoutout to merlin/nimue. merlin is well aware his attraction to nimue is going to get him locked in a cave for his troubles, and would like to avoid it, but he also seems completely incapable of not following her around like an idiot until she gets so sick of his advances that she locks him in a cave. also, given that she had to make him promise to stop trying to cast spells on her, i really don't feel an excess of sympathy for him, but it makes you wonder - how much of what he feels for nimue is real (for a given value of real), and how much is prophecy, and is she aware of that and what does she think of it??

"alas, said arthur, yet had i never rest one month since i was crowned king of this land"

to continue what i was saying last time about demonstrations of love, arthur goes to war and decides he wants guinevere to come with him, and her answer is "sir, said she, i am at your commandment, and shall be ready what time so ye be ready." she's not exactly enthusiastic about it! @counterwiddershins did raise the possibility that maybe she's just not very demonstrative with her affection which is a good point! so we'll just have to see what she's like when lancelot shows up

how was kay not on the round table already?? who is that kay got passed over in favor of them?? you were willing to just take a hundred knights from king leodegrance without further qualifications but you still haven't put your own seneschal and foster-brother on the table??? arthur????

i mean. you wonder what the other knights in the dungeon thought of arthur for agreeing to fight in an ignoble cause. i mean even if it is for all their freedoms, so far eighteen of them have starved to death rather than fight against ontzlake for damas, you'd think they'd be more annoyed at him for selling out.

"then sir accolon began with words of treason" he's literally just saying "you don't have a weapon, you are bleeding all over the place, i don't want to kill you so please surrender so i don't have to," i would think actively trying not to kill your king even when you have no idea he's your king is like, the opposite of treason

"this sword hath been in my keeping the most part of this twelvemonth" wait what when did i lose track of time this badly

am i to understand that accolon's "jesus save my lord king arthur, and king uriens, for these damosels in this ship have betrayed us" was ironic

"god knoweth i have honoured her and worshipped her more than all my kin, and more have i trusted her than mine own wife and all my kin after" until this moment you have not said a single word about morgan. where is this coming from.

blanket disclaimer murder is bad aNYWAY morgan le fay shows an incredible deal of agency and gumption here and i like her a lot

THOMAS MALORY WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE AGAINST GAWAINE

"as the book rehearseth in french, there were many knights that overmatched sir gawaine, for all the thrice might that he had: sir launcelot de lake, sir tristram, sir bors de ganis, sir percivale, sir pelleas, and sir marhaus, these six knights had the better of sir gawaine" bro please leave him alone please god

"and then they began to strive for the lady; for the knight said he would have her, and the dwarf said he would have her...and so they went all three unto sir gawaine and told him wherefore they strove. 'well, sirs,' said he, 'will ye put the matter in my hand?' 'yea,' they said both. 'now damosel,' said sir gawaine, 'ye shall stand betwixt them both, and whether ye list better to go to, he shall have you.'" he's a good boy, thomas

pelleas that's incredibly sweet but you deserve better. honey. please. grow a spine.

i'm so incredibly confused by this entire episode. was gawaine's entire plan to screw pelleas over?? i really don't understand what's going on here

well marhaus seems like a very decent fellow and he is also incredibly boring to read about

"that will we not, said they, for an we do battle, we two will fight with one knight at once," what the fuck! you can just do that! you can just stack the odds like that! what the hell!

uwaine is also a very sweet boy and i like him but he is equally boring to read about. there are few things less interesting than a litany of the assorted minor knights that are getting defeated.

closing point: thomas malory get the fuck up out of your grave i'll fight you for gawaine's honor

[exercise-of-trust]

le morte d’arthur book 7, GARETH TIME MOTHERFUCKERS

i'm vibrating with glee i fucking love gareth and i love this story let's GO

i love that gawaine is the one who first sees them coming and tells arthur that strange adventures are come to hand; i refuse to believe that the other orkneys didn't recognize gareth and gawaine being the first to notice his arrival is just confirming my personal canon about this. he was probably leaning out the window fussing because gareth was five minutes late.

gawaine and lancelot are just hovering over this poor boy like the concerned mother hens they are and gareth just wants to have a real adventure of his own, stop it gawaine you're embarrassing me. malory wrote one good story and this is it

"sir, said beaumains, i will no reward have: i was this day made knight of noble sir launcelot, and therefore i will no reward have, but god reward me" he's so excited to finally be a knight, and to have been knighted by lancelot, i love him so much

i'm a little afraid to ask if there's been a movie made about this book because on the one hand i think there's massive comedic potential in the whole business with gareth repeatedly threatening to slay the green knight unless linet spares him, but on the other hand there are so few good arthuriana movies i'm not sure i want there to be one

just spent fifteen minutes digging out the old kids' book boxes for that version of the kitchen knight with the illustrations by trina hyman and yes it is just as pretty as i remembered it being, god i love this story

i like how as we work our way through percard pertolepe perimones and persant the amount of arguing it takes before linet agrees to spare them decreases noticeably

i'm a little offended that sir persant's personal litany of the most renowned knights in the world doesn't actually include gawaine but you know what? i'm enjoying myself so much i'll give malory a pass on it this one time.

"madam, said the dwarf, he is the king's son of orkney, but his name i will not tell you as at this time; but wit ye well, of sir launcelot was he made knight, for of none other would he be made knight, and sir kay named him beaumains." if you're going to give her all this other identifying information then. i mean. what difference is his name really gonna make.

would it be unreasonable to assume that gareth is so unconcerned about fighting a knight whose might increases until high noon because he is maybe very familiar with another knight whose powers work in a similar way or -

"if thou have so done, said beaumains, meseemeth it was but waste labour, for she loveth none of thy fellowship, and thou to love that loveth not thee is but great folly" what a little shit. i love him.

"and thus by assent of them both they granted either other to rest; and so they set them down upon two mole-hills there beside the fighting place" the rest of le morte is fake, this is the only story malory ever wrote

i - okay, i can completely understand wanting revenge on one knight who killed your brother, and maybe two if you're not quite sure which of them it was, but hanging every knight from that court even when you're sure it wasn't them is a little much; again, murder is. bad.

you do realize that instead of kidnapping his dwarf while he's asleep you could just. ask him. i'm pretty sure he'd tell you if you asked given how he's already told persant?

what IS IT with this family and knights who get beheaded only to have their heads magically reattached moments later. is it the curse of the orkneys to be tormented by decapitation-related adventures

"fair lords, said sir ironside, i cannot tell you, for it is full hard to find him; for such young knights as he is one, when they be in their adventures be never abiding in no place" kids these days, running all over the place not bothering to answer their phones, you know how it is

okay canon says what it says but i'm continuing to ignore gawaine's insistence that he had no idea who gareth was just because it's so much funnier that way

"but well i wot my mother is there and all my brethren, and they will take upon them to seek me" local boy is fine, mom, i can do a quest by myself, leave me alone -

okay, it sounds like this ring was meant to keep the wearer from harm, and to increase their beauty, and the color-swapping thing was a bug that the developer just couldn't get out of it and so marketed it as a disguise feature instead

i thought. i fucking thought carados and turquine were killed in the last book. what the fuck malory -

"and there he saw written about his helm in gold, this helm is sir gareth of orkney" so, like how you sharpie your name on your towels when you take them to summer camp

"then they rose both, and embraced either other in their arms, and wept a great while or they might speak, and either of them gave other the prize of the battle. and there were many kind words between them" you idiots. you fucking idiots. i love you so much.

"for after sir gareth had espied sir gawaine's conditions, he withdrew himself from his brother, sir gawaine's fellowship, for he was vengeable, and where he hated he would be avenged with murder, and that hated sir gareth" i mean fair murder is bad but this wouldn't be a problem if malory didn't seem dead set on giving us murder-gawaine instead of dame ragnell gawaine or sggk gawaine or mabinogion gawaine or l'atre gawaine, which are four whole gawaines that would have been better than this one and i'll die mad about this -

but that aside - this is still far and away my favorite book so far and i highly doubt i'll like any of the coming ones much better. god i fucking love gareth guys.

[exercise-of-trust]

le morte d’arthur readalong notes, book 6

i am very fond of lancelot, really i am, i just wish malory weren't quite so obvious in the narration which knights he likes best. it tends to make me like them less. i like lancelot! but i would like him more if i didn't have malory singing his praises nonstop

...is the vulgate the thing i have to read if i want to understand what the fuck is going on with lancelot's family tree? i'm still new to this and still very confused

okay t h white is a coward for omitting the kissing in the whole mess of lancelot crashing in belleus's pavilion and almost killing him. that makes the story so much better, holy shit

i realize it's absolutely ridiculous for me to expect any kind of timeline consistency here, but i feel obliged to point out that unless time has been passing in really, really weird ways, it seems a bit of a stretch for mordred to be a knight yet, and yet here he is?

"and sir mordred brake a spear upon him, and sir launcelot gave him such a buffet that the arson of his saddle brake, and so he flew over his horse's tail, that his helm butted into the earth a foot and more, that nigh his neck was broken, and there he lay long in a swoon" i fully acknowledge the futility of asking this, but at this particular point in the already dubious flow of this timeline is this in any way a reasonable - oh never mind. i fucking give up.

for all the rumors that are apparently circulating about lancelot and guinevere and how they're so obviously in love with each other, we still haven't gotten any proper on-page interaction between them and i don't know if malory is trying to build suspense or if he just doesn't think it's important but i really, really wish he would stop presenting us with conclusions before he's gotten around to the evidence part

it's really difficult for me to be objective about the lancelot of the text? because t h white rewrote so many of these lancelot stories so closely to the originals, and malory gives so little information about what's actually going on in lancelot's head that it's very difficult not to just project all of the extra modern complexity onto him just for a break from all of the monotone rescuing

this last point ended up being way too long to fit in the list format so it gets its own paragraphs. i keep trying to write out what, specifically, is bothering me about it, without much luck, so i’m just going to leave some disjointed thoughts here and hope they make sense to other people, or they’re enough of a reference for me to rewrite from later when i feel like a human being again.

so, i don't really like what lancelot does in the whole incident where he takes out the three knights pursuing kay, and makes them surrender to kay, and runs off with kay's armor in the middle of the night. because, and i think this might just be a side effect of too much rosemary sutcliff as background noise during last night's knitting vigil from hell, it feels like a kind of fundamental stomping all over kay's pride? thats not quite right but it’s close. anyway a lot of sutcliff's writing focuses on relationships built around people standing on their dignity to varying degrees, but a common theme is "some people will not thank you for helping them, even when you are able to fix the thing in question, because you will have hurt their pride."

and with malory it's weird because he seems perfectly fine with young knights taking on challenges too big for them and then refusing to back down because Honor and Chivalry and also pride, and he also seems to attach some degree of moral value and, again, Honor, to things like "number of times you've been knocked off your horse" or "number of fights you've won/lost." basically, whether, and to whom, and under what circumstances you yield all seem to be Important, in some way that seems at least partly connected to your honor and reputation as a knight. but malory doesn't have a problem with lancelot making decisions about that kind of thing for other people; kay doesn't get a choice in whether or not he's credited with the defeat of the three knights who came after him, or any of the other knights lancelot defeated in his armor. and malory doesn't even tell us how kay feels about the situation, because the story is about lancelot, and lancelot is the hero, and therefore all his decisions are good ones. disregard any concerns you may have about the agency or desires of other individuals involved i guess.

(there’s a 20% chance i’m onto something here and an 80% chance i’m going to reread this later and think “what the blithering fuck” so we’ll just have to see how that shakes out)