Deconstructing Heroes
Apr. 2nd, 2011 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodel"Take away the “greatness” of what Arthur stands for:Noble, humble, brave, honorable and worthy of the crown and to be ruler of Camelot and all you’ve left us with is this man-child. WTF???"
I don't get Starz, so I haven't seen and likely will never see the new Camelot adaptation, but I read a review or three because the idea of the latest New and Different spin on the Arthurian legend might have been interesting. What Starz actually is broadcasting sounds pretty dire, and given that I enjoyed that 1990s Merlin miniseries with Martin Short in it, that's saying something.
But the whole issue of HOW to adapt King Arthur and his posse is eternally interesting... to me, anyway. Because, of course, his golden age falls to ruin-- and in many versions, the seeds of this disaster are quite literally sown by Arthur himself when he fathers a child upon his half sister. Sometimes he's been tricked or enchanted, sometimes he just doesn't know who this attractive older woman is... and I'm sure some adaptation of the myth somewhere has an Arthur who knows it's wrong but doesn't care. And in versions that ignore the Mordred angle to concentrate on the Lancelot/Guinevere end of things (a far less interesting plot thread, IMO), the same issue of Arthur's culpability comes into play. Does he know of the dalliance but passively condone it? Is he blissfully unaware of his wife's affairs? Is he just too damned busy being King Arthur to even realize what's going on?
It's all very tricky, and it's part of the reason I've never seen or read a version of the Arthurian myth that is 100% satisfying. If Arthur is utterly flawless-- perfectly noble, perfectly brave, perfectly honorable-- the decline of his kingdom feels hollow. Or perhaps his alleged success prior to the decline feels hollow: if he's so wonderful, why doesn't it work? Yeah, yeah, other people aren't as wonderful as Arthur. OK, so then you have a painted plaster hero surrounded by corruptible humans (who are usually more interesting by far!) like Gawain and Tristan. I just find that rather dull. Also, Mr. Perfect still slept with his sister and had wife issues, and if Arthur's the blameless victim in all of it... bleh.
On a mythical and a literary sense, it works better to have Arthur not be perfect, to have the ruin of Camelot brought on in some measure by the hero-king's own failings at home. But then, how far do you take it? Where does a conception of Arthur cross the line from "tragic hero" to "dumbass who had it coming"? It rather sounds like the new!Arthur in the Starz miniseries is deep into the "dumbass" territory, which frankly sounds rather repellent. I'm all for subversion and deconstruction, but this "whiny manchild" Arthur doesn't catch my fancy.
I guess the best version of the myth is still Monty Python's heh. It succeeds completely in what it was trying to be, which I can't say for any other Arthurian variation out there. And at this point, I've watched and read rather a lot of them.
Thoughts and recommendations welcome.
I don't get Starz, so I haven't seen and likely will never see the new Camelot adaptation, but I read a review or three because the idea of the latest New and Different spin on the Arthurian legend might have been interesting. What Starz actually is broadcasting sounds pretty dire, and given that I enjoyed that 1990s Merlin miniseries with Martin Short in it, that's saying something.
But the whole issue of HOW to adapt King Arthur and his posse is eternally interesting... to me, anyway. Because, of course, his golden age falls to ruin-- and in many versions, the seeds of this disaster are quite literally sown by Arthur himself when he fathers a child upon his half sister. Sometimes he's been tricked or enchanted, sometimes he just doesn't know who this attractive older woman is... and I'm sure some adaptation of the myth somewhere has an Arthur who knows it's wrong but doesn't care. And in versions that ignore the Mordred angle to concentrate on the Lancelot/Guinevere end of things (a far less interesting plot thread, IMO), the same issue of Arthur's culpability comes into play. Does he know of the dalliance but passively condone it? Is he blissfully unaware of his wife's affairs? Is he just too damned busy being King Arthur to even realize what's going on?
It's all very tricky, and it's part of the reason I've never seen or read a version of the Arthurian myth that is 100% satisfying. If Arthur is utterly flawless-- perfectly noble, perfectly brave, perfectly honorable-- the decline of his kingdom feels hollow. Or perhaps his alleged success prior to the decline feels hollow: if he's so wonderful, why doesn't it work? Yeah, yeah, other people aren't as wonderful as Arthur. OK, so then you have a painted plaster hero surrounded by corruptible humans (who are usually more interesting by far!) like Gawain and Tristan. I just find that rather dull. Also, Mr. Perfect still slept with his sister and had wife issues, and if Arthur's the blameless victim in all of it... bleh.
On a mythical and a literary sense, it works better to have Arthur not be perfect, to have the ruin of Camelot brought on in some measure by the hero-king's own failings at home. But then, how far do you take it? Where does a conception of Arthur cross the line from "tragic hero" to "dumbass who had it coming"? It rather sounds like the new!Arthur in the Starz miniseries is deep into the "dumbass" territory, which frankly sounds rather repellent. I'm all for subversion and deconstruction, but this "whiny manchild" Arthur doesn't catch my fancy.
I guess the best version of the myth is still Monty Python's heh. It succeeds completely in what it was trying to be, which I can't say for any other Arthurian variation out there. And at this point, I've watched and read rather a lot of them.
Thoughts and recommendations welcome.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 04:04 am (UTC)"How do you know that?"
"He's not got shit all over him."
The thing about that movie is that it pokes so many holes in so many Arthurian things that it ends up being more accurate than all of them.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 07:05 am (UTC)The "perfect hero" is probably my least favorite type of character (overlapping with the "always morally correct hero") I'm not asking my heroes to actively do evil deeds or think only of themselves, but to me, a character with no moral ambiguity at all (good or evil) just isn't interesting, not only on his/her own merits, but because I think if the primary character falls into that sort of one-dimensionalism, it can rub off on the supporting cast.
I'm far from an authority on Arthurian myth, but with something that legendary and that expansive, I think there is some wriggle room in terms of characterization--and it is a fine line, as you said. What's appealing to me, as a fanfictioneer, in the Arthur story and similarly retold and reshaped myths and legends, is that they're basically all fanfiction, of a sort. Malory, the Gawain poet, Tennyson, White--they all essentially dabbled in fanfiction in their retelling and expanding on the myth, which I find...actually pretty cool XD
Incidentally, your comments about "perfect" Arthur reminds me of your musings on the pure, incorruptible portrayals of Marth :P
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 12:29 pm (UTC)Yes! Complete with Lancelot as someone's OC. (Which is why the Lance/Gwen angle often seems at odds with the earlier myths).
I like TOaFK, but it does have some weak points, and losing focus on who and what Arthur is, IMO, is one of them. He just kind of... disappears, then pops up at the end to go "Oh, yeah, this was MY legend, wasn't it?" And maybe that was intentional, but it's still weird.
Incidentally, your comments about "perfect" Arthur reminds me of your musings on the pure, incorruptible portrayals of Marth :P
Guilty as charged. :)
Though, of course, no one's accusing Marth of banging his sister or of ruining everything in actual canon. Now, Celice, OTOH... given that we know Judgral is in The Distant Past of Archanea, and given that Celice and Yuria were supposed to have an automatic love event in Chapter Eight according to the beta version of the game, my headcanon says that Celice pulled an Arthur and did make with Yuria at some point and this eventually led to the downfall of the Grandbell Empire. But I'm still too lost with Jugdral canon to do more than make a couple of allusions to it in some Archanea stories.
[Celice-the-Twerp would translate believably into a flawed!Arthur, IMO. With Levin as Merlin.]
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 11:13 am (UTC)If you do find any worth getting into, recs are always loved.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 12:23 pm (UTC)Honestly? One of the most readable adaptations I've found was a romance-novel series focusing on Guinevere by an author named Persia Woolley. It had the whole thing in a somewhat "magical" Romano-Celtic setting with enough realism to pass, and it just really worked for me. Also it had the only likable rendition of Galahad I have ever, ever encountered.
It wasn't Great Lit but it was surprisingly entertaining, and some of the things the author did just clicked with me.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 12:34 pm (UTC)Huh. Surprising.
And a likable Galahad, always a plus. Never have been very fond of him.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 05:35 pm (UTC)[Is he just too damned busy being King Arthur to even realize what's going on?] <--this is also pretty funny. SOOO BUSY. I would assume that this is part of the problem, though. Whether focusing on Mordred or Lancelot as the main problem, it's clear that Arthur has a ton on his plate...and if he's going to be a good, respectable, violent medieval king, he needs to be more worried about what's going on abroad than what's going on at home, which ends up being the problem.
I think the fall of Camelot is indeed partly Arthur's fault, which is really how it should be (people can be awesome and BAMFs, but no one can be infallible). Although I certainly wouldn't portray him as a downright "man-child" as the review said, he definitely does have his childish moments (insisting on the White Stag Hunt in "Erec and Enide," for example). I think that Arthur is just a very spiritually young person (in the adaptations I most agree with)--wonderful in that it means he is open-minded and kind and forgiving, but dangerous in that he could be a little naive. A little TOO forgiving. Because forgiveness is an admirable trait, it doesn't paint him as a fool--because he isn't--but it does spell his downfall. He, a king, supposed to judge, was too lenient in judging those he loved the most...because, well, he loved them so much. At least, that's how I've always seen it.
IF GALAHAD WASN'T SO ANNOYING EVERYTHING PROBABLY WOULD HAVE TURNED OUT FINE (completely false but what I'd like to believe :P).
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 02:18 am (UTC)I really like the way you summed it up, and your take on it in general, but to me Arthur has so many layers of meaning piled on him that, as a character, he's kind of at cross-purposes to himself. He's the Romano-Celtic warrior dude (the interpretation I like best historically) and the somewhat sketchy guy who slept with his sister and couldn't totally handle the consequences AND the idealized medieval Christian ruler with the wife issues goin' on, and making him work in one of these roles tends to make him not work in another role.
Because, when you cut the Lancelot angle out of it as being a later addition, the crux of Arthur's downfall is the bastard-kid plotline, and Arthur's flaws come across differently there.