Ohh lovely question!! For some reason I always dreamcast Alexander Siddig as Arthur, but the rest of the characters usually change even if I love the idea of Naomi Harris as Gunevere. Also Idris Elba is definitly Bedivere.
When I had my old computer I used to make a lot of dreamcasts, you can find them here! (there are some random edits, but going over the pages there are dreamcasts as well!)
I am not a Lancelot fan and for this reason I am a bit picky about how his character is depicted! My favourite Lancelot(s) in books are in:
Not a main character, but Lancelot is depicted nicely in the Guinevere trilogy (I know, how many there are!) by Persia Woolley, Queen of Camelot by Nancy McKenzie and the Guinevere Trilogy by Lavinia Collins!
Unfortunately I’ve never heard of this novel, but opefully someone will know about this and recognize the plot!
I’ve seen it last week (more or less)! and I loved it!
And thank you for asking this question 🙂
I loved the fact that the movie was basically about Arthur’s private journey, from what he is and wants to be to what he /must/ be. And I love Arthur as a character, but I think this is the first movie that really focuses so much on Arthur as a human being, on what his character might feel and fear.
I also generally like Guy Ritchie’s movies, the humor, the action- so I wasn’t disappointed. I only wished they had introduced more knights and characters (who is… Bill? Why him?), especially the Mage as Nimue would have been nice (I suppose we might expect to see how the Mage/Nimue killed Merlin in the next movies…. if they’ll ever be made).
In general it was a fun ride and that scene where Arthur take the sword out of the stone? Of all the scenes where that happens, from Camelot Starz to Once Upon a Time and Excalibur Kid and Sword in the Stone, this movie had the best one.
Hello! Thank you!
I actually don’t have a problem with something not loyal to the legends. I enjoyed the new King Arthur movie a lot and I just watched a movie where Morgana and Mordred use alien technology to defeat Bangkok’s residents descendants of arthurian knights- and it was great!
My main problem is actually the opposite. I loved Merlin BBC first season because everything was new and different, but to me it felt like they had to force the ‘famous’ arthurian themes on the show, later on. There was no need to turn Morgana into a villain (not that I didn’t enjoy it, but it seemed a bit of an extrem turn when you rewatch the first season), and absolutely no need to put random knights with no back story, or to have Lancelot and Guinevere have their affair, or even to get to Camlann. It felt to me that they shaped the characters they introduced to get the famous bits of legends- ending up with a lot of contraddictions.
I would have enjoyed more a show less constricted by these arthurian milestones (’Morgana has to be evil’, ‘Morgana is Arthur’s sister’, ‘Mordred is a villain’, ‘Guinevere cheats on Arthur’, ‘the Fisher King’, ‘Arthur dies at Camlann’) and more about developing the characters and the stories in the shows (what about the dragon? what about Arthur actually rethinking the magic ban instead of rushing it in the last seconds? What about episodes about the other knights?).
Definitely ad separate characters! This is one of the things that annoy me the most, when suddenly Arthur has only one sister, or when Morgana and Morgause are merged (which rarely happens, I can think of Camelot Starz but mostly it’s Morgause disappearing and Morgana being the only sister).
That’s a hard question! I am definitely not an expert in gender studies so I won’t be able to answer this question as well as other people would, but hopefully someone else will add a more correct analysis.
Also, I am not sure if you meant the relationship between Guinevere and Morgana or simply a ‘Morgana and Guinevere’, so I am going with the relationship!
I think novels and books managed to keep them apart more than together, even if in the Lancelot-Grail Morgana was one of the ladies at the castle and she interacted with Guinevere. So we actually start with texts that don’t see them interacting, but then we only have few interactions where Guinevere is just a collateral of Morgana trying to kill/dethrone Arthur, which is also in many modern novels. There’s also the problem of Morgana being picked as the main villain in media, which makes it hard for the narrative to let her have a positive relationship with Guinevere or even a neutral representation if the PoV of the book is on Arthur’s side or if the story simply the characters into good/bad.
In my opinion, I think that a good novel or media with good characters should not risk falling into the dichotomy trap.
Sometimes it’s quite disturbing to see Morgana and Gunevere in movies, as one is always extremely sexualized (leather outfit, lipstick, seductive) and the other is the opposite, or simply having Guinevere as the only positive character and all the other female characters (or the majority) end up being negative examples- I have a few books like that. Putting female characters one against the other, bashing them to be able to support one and not the other is basically one of the reasons why I didn’t like The Mists of Avalon, which I still recognize as the first important arthurian novel with female protagonists.
I still think the main problem is how female characters are cut and while we have all the knights and Arthur and Merlin, we often end up with just Guinevere and Morgana in media, as representation of the good and the bad, which makes it annoying because the other female characters are often rare.
SORRY. This answer was terribly long and confused.
anybody got recommendations for books on the arthurian legend and possibly the history behind it? I found the Historia Brittonum by Nennius on amazon, but I’m not sure it’s what I’m looking for…
No need to buy it! That and many other ancient texts are free online in English!
Here’s a link:
http://fuckyeaharthuriana.tumblr.com/post/160940330191/download-arthurian-texts-6th-century16th
About a book rec, it depends on what you are looking for! Any favourite characters/themes? 🙂
Otherwise my very favourite, very quickly, are (with main characters):
Idylls of the Queen (Phyllis Ann Karr) – Mordred, Kay
Exiled from Camelot (Cherith Baldry) – Kay, Arthur, Gawain
The Winter Prince (Elisabeth Wein) – Mordred, Morgause, Agravaine
Guinevere Trilogy (Persia Woolley) – Guinevere, Arthur
I am Morgan le Fay (Nancy Springer) – Morgana
Here lies Arthur (Philip Reeve) – Nimue, Percival, Guinevere
Corbenic (Catherine Fisher) – Percival, Gawain
The Forgotten Sister (Higgins) – Elaine of Tintagel, Morgana, Morgause
The Pendragon (Catherine Christian) – Bedivere, Palamedes
The Road to Avalon (Joan Wolf) – Arthur, Morgana, Guinevere, Lancelot
The Once and Future King (White) – Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere
more here (I have not updated it in some months but I’ll do it soon)
I unfortunately don’t think there are a lot of books where Lancelot is a dark mysterious character, but if I don’t remember wrong there are at least some.
In Douglas Clegg’s “Mordred bastard son” Lancelot might not be (yet! I have the feeling he might be in the soon to come out second novel) a dark character but the mystery is all about him and his identity.
Lancelot is instead a dark manipulative character (even if not the main one) in “The queen’s Knight” by Borowsky. In many novels he is a serious character (like in Gwen Rowley’s Lancelot one or in Persia Woolley’s trilogy) but I am not sure he would fit the dark/mysterious description.
If King Arthur died of natural causes before Mordred could kill him but he left a will. In your opinion who did he name his heir and who did he give his most valuable possessions to?
Arthurian Legends 