Arthurian Mythology - Blog Posts

MO GHRÀIDH

Ohoh we're going full blown Lady of the Lake here. Woohoo

Dearest Ninianne / Ninienne / Nimue / Vivianne, make way for Mommicent.

All the tears on you can't make up for your woe's sum.

Does anyone know any songs which relate well to Gaheris? He is one of a few gaping holes on my Alarmingly Vast Arthurian Themesong List.

Arthurian hot takes from before I joined the fandom

Funny story: the way I got into this fandom was a seventh-grade assignment to write an alliterative paragraph using the letter G. Something clicked (or snapped, however you want to look at it) and though I’d never given much thought to the Round Table before, I wrote a paragraph about Gawain, which spiraled into a chapter, which spiraled into an attempt at a novel, which spiraled into a neverending research wormhole and long term fixation. Older and at least a little wiser, I give you ten of my original takes on the characters and how they seem in retrospect.

Guinevere doesn’t really do anything. In my defense, my knowledge of her mostly came from watching the first half of an amateur production of Camelot, which is bound to give anyone the wrong idea.

Mordred is a socially awkward evil wizard. In my book, he made a number of cartoonish villain speeches, mostly to his long-suffering familiar, since no one else would listen. No, I have no idea why I thought he had magic… Is it awful that I kind of like him that way?

Arthur is perfect. Uh…

Gawain is perfect. Uh….

Lancelot is an absolute monster. My version of him was a mix of a guy who bullied me and the god Ares as depicted in D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. Needless to say, he did not have an affair with Guinevere, because she would never cheat on Arthur, because only morally pure characters are good, and she is secretly awesome, even though most people think she doesn’t do anything… Uh… Yeah. I was wrong.

Agravaine is mildly aggravating. Gareth and Gaheris are just sort of there and uninteresting. This opinion was derived entirely from their names.

Morgause is an evil witch but has great style. That sounds more like Morgan.

Morgan is a terrible name. I debated renaming her Marianne or Meredith. Yes, I have seen the error of my ways.

Galahad is a rustic himbo. That was the vibe I got from the name “Gallahad”.

The Lady of the Lake is awesome. I stand by this one and always will.

Sir Bedivere (left) and Sir Kay (right) I've been a fan of these two since their Culhwch and Olwen days back in about the 11th–12th century.

Quick sketch of my design for Sir Mordred.

I've loved the original medieval Arthurian stories for a long time now, they're just so strange and so emotional.

This is so interesting! I can‘t wait to check out the books listed above.

My legitimate surname is Merlin and I‘ve been wondering where it comes from for ages (I‘m not from the UK or france) and the whole thing just got more mysterious to me once I realized the mythological wizard isn‘t even named that, but Myrddin instead.

Maybe I‘ll do a DNA test at some point? At least my surname got me really invested in the arthurian legend and celtic mythology in general, which is a nice niche interest to have.

anyway just a reminder for the myth lovers out there

king arthur was welsh. merlin was welsh. camelot was in wales. the lady and the lake she pops out of; welsh. excalibur; magic inanimate welsh object. etc.

on the way to see family, i drive past a lake that in which is welsh legend, is the last resting place of excalibur.

i’m just saying in my experience a lot of these legends had been so anglo-fied in the past and it’s like, all this cool shit is celtic welsh legend.

If there’s one thing I love in SatBK, it’s that DESPITE being crowned as King Arthur, he actually fills 2 roles (Arthur and Mordred).

Him filling Arthur’s role is PRETTY self explanatory. He’s crowned king at the end of the game, pulled the sword from the stone, leads the knights and kingdom, etc. But Mordred’s role is something ENTIRELY different.

First, Mordred and Sonic both doomed Camelot in different ways: Mordred with usurping Arthur and taking his throne, Sonic with giving the scabbard to Merlina resulted in the kingdom almost being destroyed. Mordred disregarded the code of Chivalry (Sonic does this out of overall disinterest and his morals, Mordred has more lustful habits and unchivalrous behaviors, which Sonic DOES NOT have).

Then, we have the more obvious parallels between them. Mordred killed Arthur, and Sonic did the same with the illusionary Arthur. Mordred used Clarent to kill him, a sword that Arthur used in ceremonies, and BEFORE getting Caliburn, the sword Sonic uses for Misty Lake’s tutorial levels is, in fact, Clarent as well.

This is all REALLY circumstantial, and of course it’s not 100% accurate, I just thought it was a really cool thing to mention.

But I also really want to know what this would mean for Merlina’s dialogue now. After all: “Arthur is struck down by his son Mordred, and departs for Avalon”, but if Sonic fills the roles of BOTH Arthur and Mordred, then Camelot’s ending plays out much differently.

The more I think about it, the more subtle references to Arthurian legend are actually IN SatBK. One of the SMALLEST references is during Gawain's defeat, when he tries to behead himself. This is likely a reference to Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight offers to get hit with a VERY nice axe, but in return, whatever blow was dealt to him will be returned the next year (so, if Gawain and lightly tapped him on the arm, Gawain would get a light tap on the arm in response). Gawain beheads the Green Knight, hoping it'll kill him, but the Green Knight just says that he'll see Gawain next year, picks up his head, and walks out.

Next year comes, and the Green Knight disguises himself, with Gawain proving himself as strong-willed, noble, and honest to the disguised Green Knight. This ends up working in Gawain’s favor, since instead of getting beheaded, he only gets a small tap on the neck from the axe. Just like where Galatine was positioned in the cutscene before Sonic took it away.

Gotta love SatBK's references.

As someone who has watched a few Arthurian adaptations, I was immediately intrigued by „Gwen & Art are not in love“ by Lex Croucher.

I mean ur telling me we get the Arthurian myths in combination with a medieval queer love story ?!

Even though I nowadays tend to have problems starting printed literature this one flew by and I finished reading in the span of a day and a bit.

To start not only is the story great but I’m also a big fan of the cover art <3

We get not only the exploration of the queer love stories between Gwen & Bridget and Art & Gabriel but also growing Friendships and some battle action fitting for the Middle Ages.

Next to the fighting it does also have some minor alcohol abuse and partly deals with death. And since it’s the Middle Ages and people just love hating other people, the mentions of queerness etc are not always positive.

Im personally a big fan of how all the relationships evolve and the people change :)

Spoilers for the plot of the book!

Little rant from me :|

Although it was a great read and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, I must admit that the typical plot of:

character a either did something accidentally wrong or is said to have done something wrong (although that’s false) and character b immediately believing that and now judging/having a grudge against/hating character a. Which then only confuses character a who doesn’t get any information from anyone around them to what they’re said to have done wrong and is jsut lost and hurt. Especially after things are jsut starting to look right between the characters.

It’s not that it is that unbelievable that it happens (it’s here and there) but more that sometimes it just annuls like every character growth the two or more characters had together and after there is never really a apology or an acknowledgment of this being hurtful to character a, since it jsut confirms taht character b would be easily able to believe this about character a. And my biggest fight with this trope is that the friend of always tend to just side with character b although they’re often both they’re friends or even character a‘s friends.

Luckily it’s not that big of a part on the book but it tends to really ick me when reading something which is really great.

Personally I just loved how Arthur helped both siblings more or less take some responsibility and self control for their own desires and life wishes. It was interesting to see the differences in how they acted around being queer, since they were raised very similar but oh so different.

Also just some special mention of my boy Sidney: he’s not only the most loyal person in the story but also is just a really amazing best friend to Arthur all while he also has his own little love story :)

It may be extremely simple but I loves the conversation Art and Sidney had about the pendant („it’s cold and black jsut like my heart“ „no, your heart is soft and yellow, like marzipan“😭)

Some other favourites of mine: we have a map of Camelot :), Bridget’s witch friend, the court magician, Excalibur nine 🙂‍↕️, everyone in the castle thinking Gwen and art were getting intimate, Gabriel’s more or less obsession with birds, background gay King Arthur/Lancelot, Agnes <3

Sometimes it was really frustrating how oblivious and sheltered Gwen was but seeing that she had not had any friends (not sure if it was explained) and also did not leave the castle, it seems realistic enough that she turned out like this. Still hard to read at a few instances. But I could definitely see how she and Gabriel are siblings as they both are really afraid of dancing out of line.

Also Arthur definitely had enough self loathing and alcohol issues for the both of them. Like, my guy, when are u sober. And also they both were immature when they were younger since they’re were children (duh) but also like how should gwen have known taht ur dad is a fcking ass (just my opinion )

I definitely do love all of the main cast so that is not meant to bash any one of them. They’re just realistic and all have flaws (although I’m not sure about Bridget she is pretty perfect :3 only female knight, noble ladies tend to fall in love with her, strong and capable, knows her boundaries (especially with not wanting to be treated like a secondary thought by her lovers)and she wields Excalibur nine) and good features. :)

Not always the biggest fan of open endings but I think here it does work well although I would have loved to see the speech and followed reaction 🤷🏻 maybe we would have seen Merlin and Morgana get back from their sabbatical hm

Spoiler ending here!

So I know it sounds negative at a few instances but do read the book it’s great. I think it’s a very easily enjoyable story that really pulls u in and makes u feel as part of the group. :))

Thsi is not eloquent or the best review in any way just me somehow bringing my feelings and thoughts to screen :) 🪼🪻

"Cheer up!" Said she.

"Alas, no cheer there either."

sir gawain would do numbers on tumblr