For The Ask Game, 💚💛😤🗡️ !!!

Shana Tova everyone, and a happy holiday to all who celebrate! May this year be peaceful and fulfilling :)

Those are fabulous. I’ll add an old and terrible meta-theory and expand on it to apply it to Grimwald:

The whole series was a dream Billy Raven had or took place in his imagination as a way of coping with his terrible circumstances. Lord Grimwald symbolized Harold Bloor. He was never a real person, or, if he was, he only visited Bloor’s once.

I am a truther for a lot of things, but my biggest truth is that Dagbert is agender. Why? If Lord Grimwald had no first son, then Lysander could kill him all day every day no problem. He/They Dagbert who doesn't identify as a man or son or boy but actually just doesn't care

Wait a minute...

Edward the Third was an Arthuriana nerd who named his son after Sir Lionel, and...

...made up a title for him, which....

...had previously existed in Arthuriana and didn't refer to a place. Coincidence?

Probably.

Well, darn. That would've been very interesting. Then again, maybe the knowledge that Edward III was such a nerd he named his son after Sir Lionel is enough to ask.

Being overly invested in the lives of mildly obscure Arthurian characters is like “If you ship Caradoc with anyone other than Guinier or Dinadan with anyone at all then so help me I will go rampaging through the countryside like Lancelot, Tristan, Merlin, Roland (no, not Roland, Roland is a Paladin, to heck with Roland), Dagonet, Yvain…”

“Dagonet the Fool” by Susan Spilecki

They call me "little man," "King Arthur's fool,"

And "simpleton," those lackeys at the court,

But this fool's mother had the Second Sight,

And sometimes when I caper for the king

I see more than Taliesin the bard

And Merlin the enchanter can, combined.

I stand before the dais, juggling:

The red balls first, then yellow, green and blue,

And when I add the gold and silver spheres,

The oval blur between my hands takes form.

A glowing, rainbow mirrow it becomes

Through which I see the king an older man.

His beard is shot with grey. Astride his horse

He sits up straighter than he would on land

When all the kingdom's cares, some awful guilt,

And the death of all his dreams lie on his back.

I see two rows of soldiers and a snake,

A sword unsheathed to kill it, turned on him--

I drop the balls and stammer out some jest,

A wish for pardon, while the courtiers roar.

He does not laugh. He sees my face go grey

With terror. Arthur thinks I fear his wrath.

He hands me the gold ball, rolled to his feet,

Says, "Dagonet, all people make mistakes."

He glances at his wife; she looks away.

Fool I may be, but even I can tell

There's something wrong when Guinevere looks down

Among the milling courtiers at one knight,

The tallest, bravest, handsomest in spurs:

At Lancelot, who never makes mistakes.

I scramble for the balls. He looks at me,

Then looks away, and shrugs his lion's mane.

Dismiss me as a fool, Sir Lancelot.

Better a fool in small things all my life

Than a great lord who, with one folly alone,

Casts all he loves to ruin at life's end.

At this point, my categorized Arthurian theme song list has spiraled entirely beyond reasonable proportions. If it’s taught me anything, it’s that at least two thirds of Imagine Dragons’ songs seem like they could be about Mordred.

If we go down,

then

we go down

together

Song lyric from "Paris" by the Chainsmokers; paintings by Herbert Draper, John Duncan, John William Waterhouse, N.C. Wyeth, Sidney Meteyard, Edmund Leighton, Rogelio de Egusquiza, N.C. Wyeth, August Spieß, Harry R. Mileham, August Spieß

ANTISEMITIC BIAS 

Many antisemites don’t consciously dislike Jews. They might even think highly of Jews. For example, they might believe “positive” stereotypes of Jews, such as that Jews are good at business or good with money. They might have Jewish friends. They might like “some” Jews. But they still cause tremendous damage to the Jewish community. 

“Biases” can be defined as “an inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group.”

Unconscious biases are known as implicit biases. We all have implicit biases (whether negative or positive) in the way that we interpret the world around us. Conscious biases (such as, for example, the Nazis outwardly believing that Jews were “the inferior race”) are known as explicit biases.

Because antisemitism is everywhere in our world — in our cultures, our languages, our folklore, our literature, our entertainment, our media, and more — it’s impossible for us not to internalize at least some antisemitic biases. These biases, however, exist on a spectrum: from unconsciously assuming that most Jews are wealthy (implicit bias) to believing the white supremacist conspiracy theory that Jews are enacting a “white genocide” (explicit bias) to everything in between.

Because antisemitism is so old and so deeply embedded into our society and institutions (e.g. religion, language, literature, education, and more), that means that there is a lot of antisemitic bias in our world, most of which you might not even be able to see. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. 

ANTISEMITISM IS A CONSPIRACY ABOUT THE JEWS

Antisemitism can be tricky to spot because it works very differently than every other form of bigotry. While other bigotries see their victims as “inferior,” antisemitism sees Jews as both “inferior” but also “superior” or all-powerful, capable of causing every calamity from wars to natural disasters to diseases to controlling the weather. 

Societies project whatever they dislike most onto the Jews. In the Middle Ages, Jews were Christ-killers. In Nazi Germany and McCarthyist America, Jews were communists. In the Soviet Union, Jews were capitalists. In Nazi Germany and during the rise of the scientific racism period, Jews were the inferior race. To white supremacists, Jews are not white. To left-wing anti-Zionists, Jews are white. For centuries in Europe, Jews were untrustworthy foreigners from Palestine. But today among anti-Zionists, Jews are Europeans colonizing Palestine. We are whatever makes us the perfect scapegoat at any given time. 

It’s no coincidence, then, that antisemitism tends to surge most when societies are in upheaval. After all, the leaders need someone to blame. Examples of this include the Germans’ blaming Jews for Germany’s suffering post-World War I, as well as the rise of the “Deadly Exchange” conspiracy which blames Israel for police brutality in the United States, following George Floyd’s murder. 

Antisemitism moves through conspiracy theories. Most notably, since to the antisemite, Jews are all-powerful, the most prevalent and deeply ingrained antisemitic conspiracies have to do with Jews and wealth and power. In the Middle Ages, for example, Europeans believed that Jews aimed to subvert Christendom. Since the 1920s, antisemitic leaders in the Arab world have rallied their followers behind the conspiracy that Jews intend to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and usurp Islamic lands. White supremacists — and far left anti-Zionists — today believe the “Zionist Occupied Government” conspiracy, which accuses Jews of controlling and manipulating the American government for their benefit. 

Given the pervasiveness of conspiracies regarding Jews and power, antisemitism is nearly impossible to address without triggering more antisemitism. If an antisemite faces consequences for their actions, antisemites will use this as “proof” that it’s the all-powerful Jews that have imposed these consequences. This makes antisemitism a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

BIGOTRY WON'T ALWAYS BE OBVIOUS TO YOU

Most of us want to do the right thing. The problem is that bigotry — whether antisemitism or something else — doesn’t come with a flashing neon sign that says “this is bigoted! Call it out!” Instead, bigotry persists because entire societies convince themselves that their bigoted worldview is somehow justified. This is especially true of antisemitism. Antisemites throughout history have long persecuted Jews under the guise of seeking justice. 

For instance, since the Middle Ages, Jews have been periodically persecuted on the accusation that they killed a Christian or Muslim child for ritual purposes. In other words, antisemites were seeking “justice” for these children that the Jews allegedly killed. This antisemitic trope is called “blood libel” and has led to the deaths of millions of Jews. It’s safe to say that these murderous antisemites fully believed that they were doing the “right thing.” Some examples of historic blood libels that have resulted in violence against Jews include the William of Norwich blood libel (1144), the Damascus Affair (1840), and the Kielce Pogrom (1946). 

During the Bubonic Plague, Jews were persecuted under the false accusation that they were “poisoning the wells” and sickening the gentile population of Europe. Once again, the persecution of Jews was seen as just.

During the Nuremberg Trials, high-ranking Nazi officers testified that they believed that Jews were a danger to the safety of the German people and the German nation. In other words, they justified their mass extermination of Jew under the guise of “protecting” the people of Germany. 

The list goes on and on. Is it possible that today you too have been made to believe that violence against Jews — Zionists, Israelis — is a just cause? 

THE NAZI FALLACY

A few years ago, the notorious antisemite Shaun King argued with a Holocaust survivor on Twitter. When accused of antisemitism, he retorted, “I can’t be an antisemite. I fight Nazis every day!” But anyone even remotely familiar with antisemitism or Jewish history will know that Nazis were far from the Jews’ only historic oppressors. You don’t have to be a Nazi to be an antisemite. In fact, most antisemites are not Nazis.Not even close. 

Nazism is just one manifestation of antisemitism. It’s a deadly one, certainly, but it’s also far from the only deadly manifestation of antisemitism. Jews have been killed by the thousands — sometimes by the millions — by a multitude of other oppressors. Some, like the Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacists, are far-right. Others, like the Soviet Union, are far-left. Others are somewhere in the middle, and others oppressed us so long ago that their ideologies long predate the left-right political spectrum as we know it today.

The horrific images of Nazism and the death camps are seared in the world’s collective memory. It’s easy to think that if it doesn’t look like Nazism, if it doesn’t look like Auschwitz, then it’s not actually antisemitism, or perhaps it could be antisemitism, but it’s not serious antisemitism. In reality, though, antisemitism doesn’t go from zero to Auschwitz. Instead, antisemitic tropes, conspiracies, and stereotypes fester and proliferate, operating under new euphemisms and adapting to whatever society they’re in. Many of the same antisemitic conspiracies that drove the Nazis nearly 100 years ago are the exact same conspiracies that are driving “protestors” to violently harass Jews in the streets of New York City today. 

For many years before the gas chambers, antisemitism in Germany, which once was home to the most assimilated, well-integrated Jewish community in the Diaspora, proliferated in university lecture halls, justified and explained away in academic language. It wasn’t deadly yet, but it soon would be. When you dismiss any sort of antisemitic rhetoric because it doesn’t mirror the deadliest days of the Nazi regime, what you are actually doing is that you are contributing to the sort of hostile, conspiratorial environment that eventually made the Holocaust possible in the first place. 

THE GASLIGHTING

Antisemitism and the gaslighting of Jews go hand in hand. If an antisemite faces consequences for their antisemitism, it simply reinforces their antisemitic beliefs. Because antisemitism always places Jews in the role of oppressor, it’s nearly impossible for Jews to seek accountability or justice without being accused of exaggerating, crying wolf, playing the victim, or otherwise having nefarious intentions. 

After the Holocaust, for example, the second in command at the Red Cross, Carl Jacob Burckhardt, decried the Nuremberg Trials, calling them “Jewish revenge.” Others, like the Palestinian newspaper Falastin, did so as well. 

Antisemitic bias oftentimes makes it impossible for some people to see Jews as victims. If an antisemite loses their job for espousing antisemitism, they will then blame the “powerful” Jews — or Zionists, or another euphemism — for taking their job. In that way, they turn the victim into the victimizer. This is a classic gaslighting tactic, which creates a catch-22 and is one of the reasons antisemitism can be so hard to combat. 

For example, in the lead up to the Holocaust, American isolationists of various political persuasions accused Jews sounding the alarm on the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany of trying to instigate a war with the Germans. 

Sometimes we are even accused of provoking or exaggerating antisemitism for our own benefit. There are a number of conspiracies, for example, that the Zionists worked with the Nazis to instigate the Holocaust to justify the creation of a Jewish state. 

An example of the accusation that Jews play the victim is when we are told that we talk about the Holocaust “too much” — contrary to the statistics that demonstrate people are woefully misinformed about the Holocaust — or that we should move on because we “got reparations” (not exactly true, but that’s a different topic). 

Then there are the accusations that we brought antisemitism or antisemitic violence onto ourselves — something that we’ve seen on a grand scale following the Hamas massacre on October 7. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

(1) Listen to Jews. I don’t mean just listen to your Jewish friends, or to the Jews you personally agree with. I mean listen to the Jewish community as a whole. Jews don’t often agree on much, but at the end of the day, we are a community, and only the Jewish community can fully describe our own experience. 

Don’t listen just to the Jews who validate your views. Listen to the Jews that challenge you. Don’t shut yourself off from learning because it might contradict whatever ideology you follow. Learning is a lifelong process. I promise you you don’t know everything there is to know about antisemitism (I don’t either! I’m always learning). But it’s your responsibility to open yourself up to new information so that you can do better. 

(2) if Jews are telling you something is antisemitic, then your first instinct should never be to distrust us.Can Jews weaponize accusations of antisemitism? Sure. Anyone can weaponize anything. Is it likely that that’s what’s happening? No. Antisemitism worldwide has skyrocketed to the highest levels since the end of the Holocaust. It’s a very real threat taking lives. You should take accusations of antisemitism just as seriously as you take accusations of other bigotries…even if initially you don’t see it. 

(3) I can’t stress this enough: do your best to educate yourself about antisemitic conspiracies, stereotypes, and tropes throughout history. The euphemisms may change — sometimes we’re “globalists,” other times we’re “Zionists” — but the formula remains the same. To be able to spot antisemitism, you have to learn to spot it. I recommend reading my post “The World’s Oldest Hatred” for more. 

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Obscure Arthurian text which everyone should read #1: The Story of the Crop-Eared Dog

This is what happens when you mash together a revenge quest, a slasher movie, a buddy road trip, a bildungsroman, a fantasy epic, and a shaggy dog story and set it in medieval times. Because there aren’t many Irish Arthurian texts, whether Bhalbhuaidh, the protagonist, is meant to be Gawain or Galahad is controversial. His name and titles could point to either and his life situation seems more like Gawain’s, but I will refer to him Galahad because I find the idea of a Galahad AU where he’s pagan and gallivants around with a prince who was turned into a giant dog and lost all qualms about murder along the way entertaining. It starts when Arthur, who inexplicably holds the title of King of the World, convenes a hunt in the Dangerous Forest on the Plain of Wonders and the mysterious Knight of the Lantern does what any antagonistic knight worth his salt would do: gatecrash and ask for violence. It gets less normal very rapidly from there. Abhlach the druidess is at least as awesome as she is wicked, Galahad may or may not have a magical music-making sword, and the fact that there’s an Island of Naked Monks is never given any explanation because it’s only mentioned in passing when the dog tells Galahad he killed them all. 

Yeah, it’s a fun read.

Here’s a link to the translation I read:

Internet Archive

The story of the crop-eared dog; the story of Eagle-boy : Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart, 1870-1950 : Free Download, Borrow, and Strea

207 p. 23 cm

#SOMEONE PLEASE DROP THE SOURCE FOR THE HECTOR ONE THAT SOUNDS AWESOME

@sanddef

It's from Cantare di Astore e Morgana (the Cantare of Hector and Morgan).

Here’s a link to a translation originally posted by lazerbem on Reddit, courtesy of Redpanda from the Arthurian Theater Discord server:

Google Docs

Cantare of Hector and Morgan

A few things which are “canon” somewhere for people who are worried they’re stretching it too far

Arthur was killed by a giant cat. 

Arthur killed the cat.

Arthur didn’t fight the cat. Kay did.

Kay and Bedivere use salmon as taxis. 

Lucan is half giant, half lion. (This Lucan, Lucano in the original Italian, is evil and not related to Bedivere). 

King Arthur raided the land of the dead.

The human knight Caradoc Briefbras has three half siblings: a dog, a horse, and a pig.

A large portion of Arthur’s troops was killed a while before Camlann by his nephew’s attack ravens in self-defense. Arthur and said nephew were playing chess at the time and neither did much to stop it.

Merlin retired peacefully and went to live in the countryside with Taliesin.

Wherever Arthur walks, plants die. They don’t grow back for years.

Arthur had a spunky (half?) brother who died in battle after making a mysterious oath.

Dagonet is more or less able to run the kingdom when Arthur is gone. His biggest error is overspending on mercenaries.

Guinevere has an evil almost identical twin half-sister.

Hector beat up all the best knights except for Galahad while possessed by a demon.

Gawain plays tennis.

Gawain has used a chessboard as a weapon.

Near the start of his reign, Arthur left Lot in charge of the kingdom and went on a quest with a sassy parrot.

Gawain or Galahad succeeded Arthur as king.