Same Old Thing

I found it hard to enjoy Avalon High because of its relation to EVERY OTHER HIGH SCHOOL MOVIE. They all have the same stereotypes: nerds getting bullied by jocks, the cheerleaders as the popular girls, so on and so forth. Although this book did have a lot of cliche moments involving the social circles of high school, I did enjoy the twist of almost all of the characters representing someone from the King Arthur timeline. I loved how Will had a lot of the same characteristics and values as King Arthur, how Lance sort of represented Lancelot, how Morton was Merlin, and especially how Ellie was given qualities of both Elaine of Castolat and the Lady of Shallot but ended up being neither. All in all cool idea but all high school movies are kind of the same in the end. This book kind of had "Sky High" vibes.

Not bad at all

While some of this novel was difficult to get through considering it was written for young teens (I must admit I was unable to finish it), there were a lot of details I still really enjoyed. Firstly, I enjoyed the title of the book/ high school; Before this class, I never would have known what it meant, but now that I know that Avalon represents the place in which Arthur returns, I can now appreciate it. I also liked Ellie's own opinion of her being named after the Elaine; the fact that she finds her to have been a weak female character really felt relatable to me since I felt the same way. Cabot did a great job of showing the realistic modernization of aspects of the stories we have read. 

Chivalry in Politics

In the Knight Life, King Arthur makes some very controversial claims while he is giving his press conference and while participating in the debate. Many of these are issues that he commented on are still issues that he sees today and I thought that it was something that are political leaders in the world could look at today. However, some of the things that I found interesting was how he handled himself during these moments. Before his press conference, he said to Gwen and Percival that he was going, "to be utterly candid and not lie" (David 174). I thought that this was interesting because it felt like he was almost following a code of chivalry at the podium, something that he would have remembered from his days as a King. I feel like this is something that we don't see with many politicians anymore, no matter the party, and it was an interesting aspect to look at. In addition, during the political debate, he also was very confused when the other candidates did not actually answer the question, "You didn't answer the ques... they didn't answer the question" (David, 258). I think that this is another thing that current politicians could take into consideration because nowadays they never answer the actual question. I think that King Arthur places an important role in that because he wants people to trust him as that was such an important aspect in Camelot.

Some things don't age well

Knight Life has aged about as well as these graphics from the PS2 game tie-in for the 2006 KIng Arthur movie

Part of the charm of the Arthurian mythos is the timeless nature of the characters. It is (relatively) easy to drop these established characters into medieval chicanery and have it come out enjoyable. More difficult is transposing the characters into the modern world, either through reincarnation or the literal fulfillment of Arthur's prophesied return, as is the case in Knight Life. The primary danger here is that the book is a product of it's time. While I'm sure the idea of a businessman politician who spoke frankly, off the cuff, trusted his gut, and refused to back down or change course once he made a decision sounded appealing in the 1980s, the political realities of today make that description uncomfortable to say the least. Good thing Arthur is, well Arthur, and not a violent egomaniac...... right?

Confusion With The Sword

So I am going am address the confusion with the whole situation with Sir Bedivere and the sword. Now the knights and knights Arthur caught themselves in an absolute predicament with Arthur being wounded and everyone else submitting, but himself. Even after Arthur question his actions of disobedience and such it still leaves a question unanswered. Now I have read some comments about this and they all seem to make sense and the one that stick out the most is the representation on the sword. It is a one of a kind, powerful, well known weapon that is used and when someone who is not used to that is able to wield that. You have to think whaat kind of confidence or power this might have given him. I think one of the reasons he didn't throw it down is because of how he felt. Sir Bedivere probably thought for that time he was invincible and able to take anything and anyone on that challenged him while in posession of Excalibur. I relate this to how I would kinda feel if I had the opportunity to hold a real lightsaber. I don't know if I would ever let it go or what I would do with it.

Just Throw the Sword Bedivere

I'd love to know what's going on inside Sir Bedivere's mind right about now. His fellow knights are all but extinguished and his king is wounded so much so that he can't walk by himself. So, naturally, he brings his king to cover away from the fight, which is fine. These actions all make it seem like Bedivere truly does care for his king, however, when Arthur asks one request Bedivere he seems to blatantly disobey his king. I would like to know why. Was it because he actually despised his king and the possibility of the other knights of the round table dying was just too much? Or was is the sword talking to him telling him to keep it? Tennyson writes that "He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seemed Better to leave Excalibur concealed" (Tennyson 58). Eventually Bedivere ends up completing the task (3rd try) however I still want to know he directly went against his king's dying wishes.

Camelot Crumbles

Not to bring up politics but…I relate this ending scenario of Camelot to today’s political problems. Today I see our political world as broken, quarrelsome, and a complete mess. Funny how today, we can still easily relate to the medieval times of King Arthur and the Round Table.

From Malory’s excerpt explaining the downfall of Camelot, their opposing views and sides that each knight choses to be on (Lancelot or King Arthur) creates a large dispute. This dispute broke the world which they all once thrived in. Sir Gawain says to King Arthur, “My good uncle, it was my pride and my stubbornness that brought all this about, for had I not urged you to war with Sir Lancelot your subjects would not now be in revolt” (Malory 519). The anger and opposing opinions lead to the death of many important characters that we have been following.

Also, like our political world today, people of higher power—the knights of the Round Table—betray their position in which they serve and create worse situations. Sir Modred should have never betrayed his own father like he did.

In my opinion, I believe Camelot will never come back from such a tragedy due to the destruction in their system and the loss of their King.

 

The Frusteration

Why the hell did Sir Bedivere not listen to King Arthur, two times. It's stuff like this that frustrates me about these stories; they stress the importance of something so much and so many times, like the wits of Arthur or the loyalty and chivalry of his knights, then those concepts are turned in their heads, but not in a fun 'plot-twisty' kind fo way. Like Lancelot's affair with Guinevere; that turned out to be fun for no one. But even smaller examples like this, Sir Bedivere not listening to Arthur's literally DYING wish, two times! Because he doubts hi wits?? :"The king is sick and knows not what he does" (Tennyson 96). Throwing the sword into the lake is utterly crucial, and it almost didn't happen to Sir. Bedivere's 'slip-up'. Annoying..

Soap Opera on Steroids

As I was reading "The Candle in the Wind", a lot of the events that occurred were like a soap opera on steroids. Every time something happened, one party tried to respond in extravagant fashion. The first example of this is when Arthur has a "bad feeling" about his son Mordred and his immediate response is to put all babies of the same age out to sea! To me, there must have been a less intense way of solving this issue. Another example is the way the whole adultery situation was handled. It seemed a little bit excessive to bring a crew of 14 knights to try to catch a woman cheating. It also makes me wonder how Lancelot managed to kill Agravaine and escape unharmed, especially with Mordred there, whom Lancelot has sworn to never harm.
Chapter 8 reminded me of all of the movies that depict violent criminals finally being captured only to be rescued by their clan from captivity, despite the imminent threat of escape. Lancelot was almost guaranteed to try to rescue Guenever, but there still wasn't enough in place to halt his rescue attempt.

Not like they used to be

Honestly Sir Bedivere bothered me so much in this poem. I mean your King is dying before your eyes and you cannot follow his simple orders?? King Arthur orders him to toss Excalibur into the waters but he does not do it. Not only does he not follow orders once, but twice! Even after the first time King Arthur called him out, he tried again. Sir Bedivere no longer seems like a knight. At one-point Sir Bedivere tries to make an excuse for why he will not throw Excalibur into the lake, "The King is sick, and knows not what does" (line 97). Sir Bedivere tries to justify his actions by placing blame on his King. I think that Sir Bedivere not following what King Arthur ordered him to do shows that the time of knights is over. No longer do knights follow a king. The “code of conduct” a knight is required to follow seems to no longer apply. I think that knights no longer hold the power they once used to. If anything, their credibility is gone. I mean King Arthur trusted Sir Bedivere to throw away Excalibur and he could not follow it. I think it shows that Kings do not have the power that they once had. 

Not my success but about ours

Chapter 2 really helped me understand the relationship between King Arthur and Merlin. On page 222 Merlin says “and what is going to happen there is nobody to tell you? Are you never going to think for yourself”? I feel like this is a very significant quote to understand Arthur and Merlin’s relationship because if someone else would have said this to Arthur they would have been killed. Therefore, Arthur having someone like Merlin plays a huge role in the success that Arthur has accomplished because Merlin keeps Arthur grounded in his times of success. Another reason that this quote is significant to the story is that it shows that Merlin is not only there for his own good but he is also there to help Arthur and Camelot. This chapter also switched my view on Merlin because before this chapter I didn’t understand why Merlin was so important to Arthur's success and this chapter showed me that if it wasn’t for Merlin, I don’t think that Arthur would be viewed as one of the most powerful Kings. Also makes me respect Merlin because he could have just let Arthur fail and he could have been the next person to take over Camelot but he put Arthur's success first.

Arthur as the antithesis to Jesus ???

While reading The Once and Future King, I was struck by how Merlyn and Kay had a conversation where they compare Arthur to Jesus Christ. Throughout the stories we have read we have seen King Arthur either being portrayed as a laid back king who lets his knights do his fighting for him or as a legendary leader that can do no wrong. When Arthur is fighting his war on the rival kings to prove that he is the rightful heir of the kingdom he says that he is doing it to, "institute a sort of order of chivalry" (White, 241). He believes that he is in the right as he is finally fighting a just war with just reasoning behind it. However, with the help of Merlyn, Kay realizes that Arthur is, "imposing his ideas on King Lot" (White, 261). I thought that this was interesting because they were not comparing Arthur as being the same as Jesus, but rather as his opposite. Jesus made the ideas available to everyone that wanted to accept it, but Arthur was forcing this idea down their throats that they needed to accept this new form of chivalry. It was also interesting to me that Merlyn did not flat out say that what Arthur was doing was wrong, but allowed for Kay to deduce this for himself. I feel as if this may come into play later that Arthur and Kay may not always see eye-to-eye on what is the best way to run the kingdom. I believe that Arthur looks more at restoring order in the kingdom, while Kay believed there should be more free will. 

How much mirror is too much mirror?

This poem left me with lots of questions surrounding her curse and her situation. The line is very grey with how she is allowed to look down on Camelot. She glances and sees different reflections out of the corner of her eye in the mirror. Would it break the curse if she blatantly used the mirror to stare down over the land? Lots of other questions remain as well. How did she receive the curse originally? How did she find out that she had the curse? Who decided that it was in her best interest to live in a tower all her life? Still, the poem was very intriguing to me. It was different to anything else we have read thus far because Lady of Shalott has a very artistic mind and the majority of the poem we as readers are tapped into this mind. It really makes me put myself into her shoes and think about what life would be like if I was to only be in one place, and to not be able to look at the only outside world I physically can.

Lancelot Does not Care

When we first started reading stories about Lancelot I thought they were pretty cool and that Lancelot was going to be an awesome addition to the Round Table, I was wrong. This guy is awful. In Le Morte d'Arthur he was total jerk to Elaine. Lancelot bombarded this family and totally ruined their lives. They did so much for him only to leave them and have Elaine die of a broken heart. Elaine was a maiden that would have done anything for Lancelot, instead Lancelot is focused on the one woman he absolutely cannot be with. That is just messed up, Guinevere is just leading him on for no reason and we just constantly read about their toxic actions. It does not take much to look past one's self, but with Lancelot that seems impossible. However, the most disturbing part of this story is the end after they find out Elaine had died. Everything went back to normal and no one seemed to care that this woman had died. It was even said in the story that "she is not the first young noblewoman to break her heart over" Lancelot (467). This simple quote alluded to the fact that there had been other deaths due to Lancelot's reckless behavior. To give Lancelot some credit he never lied to her, he told her the truth that he did not want to marry her. Regardless, Lancelot obviously knows his effect on people and always uses it to his advantage by destroying their lives in the process. 

 

I'm over this s***

                 I swear to GOD, I am so over Lancelot and Guinevere. Reading this a second time made me even more frustrated. First of all, why the hell would fighting against Arthur help Lancelot and Guinevere in their pursuit to hang out together unnoticed?? So many decisions in these stories seem so so arbitrary that it is actually infuriating. Second of all, I am sick of hearing about how great, handsome, competent, and valiant Lancelot is. He is a shitty person and the fact that I am constantly having to read these long descriptions of his great qualities is so maddening. Like, this whole story was just about how Lancelot is "the one who got away", and he literally caused the DEATH of Elaine, and what was the point of all of this? So Guinevere could feel more confident in his love for her???? And Guinevere sucks too! Aside from the fact that she cheats on her husband, she is also impulsively emotional, unstable, and bitterly jealous. Lancelot even calls her out: "Madame, this is not the first time your anger has been ill-founded" (Le Morte D'Arthur 472)

        Why did people at the time like reading stories about this? Honestly, these two characters are obviously the focal point of attention for readers at the time, but they are immoral. Their actions do not align with their extensively beautiful descriptions. Why were people attracted to stories about them then? I don't know, but I like to think that people nowadays would not find themselves as engrossed with the stories of these two. Cuz I'm #overit

Love Kills

After finishing this week’s reading, I automatically connected the theme to the larger theme of love. Love is an incredibly confusing concept, especially back then. I felt that the theme of love in this particular reading was incorporated into each scene. In my opinion, it seemed as though Elaine and Lancelot were not on the same page. While he did accept her token, she believed that he was accepting her as his lover. Elaine seemed like she ignored the fact that Lancelot never intended to be married, yet she kept loving him as her own, which lead to heartbreak. It also didn’t help that all of the knights around them expressed how the love between Elaine and Lancelot was strong.

I found it super interesting how the theme of love was directly connected to the death of Elaine, the Maid of Astolat. The intensity of her love for him lead her to allow heartbreak to kill her. That absolutely blows my mind! But, like in Romeo and Juliet, the love back then was viewed as so strong that if said couple cannot be together, that death was the solution. In the end, I feel bad for Lancelot, because while he did share feelings for Elaine, he simply did not intend on ever marrying. Unfortunately, he is the reason for the death of Elaine.

Master of Disguise

In the Fair Maid of Astolat I have noticed themes that I have seen in other works. The first is the idea of disguising oneself. Lancelot wishes to compete in the tournament but not be recognized as he tells Queen Guinevere, “I shall fight in disguise and against the king” (Malory 458). Other stories we have read so far in the class have also focused on the idea of disguising oneself. A few of the stories told of the time Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father, had Merlin cast a spell on him so that he looked like the Duke of Cornwall. Uther Pendragon did this because he loved the Duke’s wife, Igraine. Similar to disguising oneself, Lancelot once again refuses to tell people his name. People asked him countless times what his name was, and he refused to tell them. In the first story that we met Lancelot, Lancelot, or The Knight of The Cart by Chrétien de Troyes, he also refused to say what his name was. I feel like Lancelot really embodies the concept of anonymity. Time and time again in different stories Lancelot is unknown by name or in the cast of The Fair Maid of Astolat he is completely disguised.

So y'all just gonna let Lancelot kill a woman?

Bruh. Okay, so are we just going to completely ignore the fact that Lancelot basically killed a woman? I thought he was better than that. Maybe I feel a bit personally victimized because Lancelot was my favorite, and he killed a woman named Elaine which hits just a little too close to home. But come. on. First of all, Lancelot is against King Arthur? I was starting to think that this was supposed to be before all of the other stories we have read about Lancelot, as at the end the author says "It was thought that at the next Pentecost he would be made a knight of the Round Table" (pg. 472). But he is still romantically involved with Queen Guinevere, whom we thought he met while being part of Arthur's court? More importantly, why did Lancelot not even attempt to try to love Elaine? Especially if she was giving him the most love and care a man could have ever received (pg. 467). And he still wasn't about it? THEN forgave Guinevere for being rude? How could Lancelot be so stupid and yet so chivalrous at the same time? I just want to know why he was like this. I need answers.