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once-and-future-princess · 2 years

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Liveblogging Arthuriana: Percival or the Story of the Grail

So I think I'm deep enough into the 101 Arthuriana I'm ready to tackle the Grail quest. I know this one is unfinished so you've got to read the continuations. Which is fine. I like a choose your own ending. My experience with the Grail mythos is basically Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so--very little. I'm excited to meet Percival, which I usually tend to pronounce Par-si-val, which I know is wrong. If there's any reason for this odd pronunciation I don't know it. So just, in my head, know I'm calling him ParCival.

As an Alexander the Great obsesee , I just love how often he comes up in literature. Like I'm just ....I live.

THE GRAIL IS A PLATE? GRAIL MEANS PLATE? THE HOLY FISH PLATE????? the note says it means plate in this context. I have no idea how to deal with this. The holy PLATE??

I'm very here for this farmer dude getting a huge crush on a knight as first sight. That's gay and I like it.

OH NO WELSH BASHING. the knights are making fun of this boy for asking questions he just a peasant he doesn't know better! Don't say it's cause he's weeeelllsh!

I'm a sucker for the trope of parents giving last advice to kids before they go off on a journey. From "polonius" to "d'artagnan's dad" how useful is your parents advice?

If this one braincell kid who doesn't know what a church is is Percival I'm gonna lose it

This boy is so dumb. I love him.

SIR KAY SIR KAY SIR KAY. I LOVE SIR KAY HE IS ASSHOLE FRIEND AND WE LOVE HIM FOR IT

Okay, sir Kay, telling the rude boy off is one thing, kicking the jester into the fire is another.

Okay so again, I fell into this from BBC Merlin and Percival is like....comes from nowhere, has very little to do plotwise, and you either hate him cause his only personality trait is Big or love him cause his only personality trait is Big. And like, he's never shown to be dumb in the shows, but fandom likes to make him a big soff himbo, which is fine cause as I said he has VERY little charecterisation. But if this idiot Welsh boy is Percival, as I'm now starting to believe he is, I am LIVING.

There is a lot of Welsh bashing in this

So in my "I will never write this but if I ever do something with Arthuriana modern AU" project, Percival (I'm 90 percent sure this is him) wears red and speaks with a Welsh accent. Cause of the red armor. (Also Gawain has a pentacle necklace but that's neither here nor there.)

Finally! Someone is teaching this boy to knight! Cause if he didn't have Plot Armor this kid would be dead like ten times already

Awwwwww he's now been told not to say "my mom says" every two seconds. And also not to talk so much and ask so many questions.

And heeeeeere we go. We're off. We've entered the meat and potatoes of every Arthurian legend: we've come to: The Weird Place.

This is the subcategory of : Weird Place That Has Been Destroyed By The Bad Guy And Must Be Saved

We're really into avenging that slap, huh? Everyone picks on Sir Kay.

Okay we've got some genuine battle tactics here! For the first time instead of fucking around with man to man combat, the bad guys are going to SURROUND AND STARVE THE CASTLE OUT. this is how most seiges went. One tried not to fight if one didn't have to. But this is Arthuriana, and we aren't gonna do things the accurate and easy way, it's simply not the point.

Wait, no I misunderstood. They're just gonna storm the castle.

Okay NOW they decide to starve them out. Because that failed miserably. And by failed miserably I mean they got a gate dropped on them.

....SURPRISE MERCHANT SHIP! MERCHANT SHIP EX MACHINA!

So the bad guys get defeated and are just ordered to go make themselves prisoners of the girl who got slapped and they just...do it. No questions asked. And I was watching this documentary about the battle of Agincourt (because....henriad reasons) and it talked about how Agincourt was the unofficial end of the age of chivalry because previous tk that all this "go be a prisoner on your honor" stuff was real. If you defeated a nobleman in battle chivalry dictated in most cases you captured and ransomed him, and most knights who went to war expected to come back, and if you were defeated you stayed with your captor, honor bound. And basically the English were starting to get a little brutal and were past that. They were killing their prisoners. And the french were not. Prepared. So , what I mean is it's cool seeing what texts influenced that kind of thought and how fantasy reflects and is reflected by reality.

It's always Pentecost at King Arthur's court

God I love Sir Kay so much. He's blonde and beautiful and dressed to the nines and everyone's scared of his tongue. He's the Regina George of Camelot

Seriously that description reads like the first verse of Apex Predator, tell me it doesn't

Omg Arthur won't eat till he hears a good story. That's a major thing in SGatGK. It's good to know it's like....a THING with him. (Arthur, getting a charecter trait? In de Troyes????no!??)

Yvain! Yvain gets mentioned! I like him! In my brain he's always got his lion with him. Sometimes it's a vageuly anthropomorphic lion. Like a Scooby Doo lion.

I like what they say about him "his company improves anyone he's with". That's a nice compliment

Now we're in another Weird Place. None of the knights ever ask any questions when they enter The Weird Place, but Percival has been TOLD not to ask questions. I feel like this is a little bit of a lampshade of this trope, and a justification of why people are so....accepting

The Grail? The Grail is here???

Note says no.

But there's a bunch of weird objects. We're not asking, but this time there's a reason.

Oh another favorite trope. A random woman weeping in the woods. I feel like she's gonna derail this completly with HER problems and we're not gonna find out about the Grail???? And it's mysterious objects and the wounded king

Oh! He's the FISHER KING!!!! I've heard of him! I didn't know he was in this!

Also the girl is going to have some bearing on the main plot....which we're not in yet?

Yes!!!! It is Percival!!! He's gotten his name!! Somehow he magically knew his name!

So this seems to be as good a place as any to stop for the night. I'll pick up later!!

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