Ned Stark, ASoIaF and Gawain...

[sigune]

...Obvious Ned Stark love is obvious -_-. My love for House Stark is partly related to my love for Gawain - more about that below the cut, for people who can't be, or don't mind being, spoiled for ASoIaF.

State of the AsoIaF: am 140 pages into A Storm of Swords: Part 2. So if you haven't got that far yet, and are afraid of spoilers, don't go behind the cut...



Argh. I'm still reeling from all the shocks House Stark has been receiving. Am I naïve to hope there will be an end to it at some point - and by 'an end', I mean: that House Stark will recover? This is just - AAARGHH! The Starks don't deserve what they are getting at the hands of all those heartless, unscrupulous, conniving, cheating, backstabbing, EVIL Lannisters, Greyjoys, Freys and Boltons ;_;.

Cat and Robb have just been killed. I'd seen it coming, actually, so the fact of what happened at the Twins didn't really surprise me, but it's still a shock D:. Seriously, if there are any more Stark deaths and unspeakable blows of fortune I'm going to stop reading. It's just too much to take for a sensitive reader! Especially because I'm such a Stark. *shakes head*

I was thinking the other day that many of the things that Eddard and Catelyn do and that are disastrous politically, are things related to their attempts to protect their children. They also reason (as I do, so this kind of hits home) that other people have feelings like their own and will be guided by them. Because they loathe cruelty, they don't expect other people to be cruel. Because they are honourable, they expect other people to be honourable. Because they think as parents, they suppose other people will think as parents too.

The Starks - and this is really horrible - are extra vulnerable because they have five children and care about them to boot. The ultimate reason that pushes Ned to accept the post of Hand of the King is to find out what happened, and why it happened, to his foster father and to his son. His hands are bound because he has his daughters with him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall any other father in this series acting fatherly with his children either. And if Ned and Cat are ultimately unable to make the compromises that could have saved their lives, it is because they cannot put aside the fact that the people they are dealing with are the people who have tried to kill their son Bran. The thing that keeps bothering Ned when dealing with his friend and foster brother Robert is Robert's willingness to kill children. And Catelyn's ultimate argument against the Late Lord Frey is to offer to exchange a son for a son - she doesn't (want to) understand that Lord Frey doesn't consider all his children precious, like she does. Catelyn, after all, was willing to exchange the precious war prisoner Jaime Lannister for her daughters, who are 'only' two little girls.

What, you will ask, does this have to do with Gawain?

Everybody who is more or less versed in Arthurian lore will know that the most famous version of the end of Arthur's reign (i.e. Malory's) is when, at Gawain's instigation, Arthur takes his army to France to fight Sir Lancelot. This all seems terribly unjust, because Lancelot has just rescued the Queen, who'd been condemned to be burnt at the stake for her infidelity/high treason. Since Gawain has always supported the Queen, and refused to have any part in Mordred and Agravain's plot to expose her, you wouldn't expect him to be unhappy about the fact that a) Lancelot rescued the Queen and b) they both got away. Then why is he so hellbent on pursuing Lancelot with an army?

Well - it's because Lancelot has killed all three of Gawain's children while making his escape. And as if that wasn't enough, he has killed the unarmed Gaheris and Gareth while rescuing the Queen. All through the rivalry between Camp Gawain and Camp Lancelot, funny enough Gawain isn't very involved. It's mostly other people taking offence at slights directed at him. But once Lancelot touches his family, Gawain completely loses it and pulls all the strings he can so as to destroy Lancelot. Then again, though he brings Arthur's army, he provokes Lancelot to single combat three times in a row - basically, he fights Lancelot until he can't stand on his legs anymore. In Malory, Gawain is really no match for Lancelot, but he wants to fight anyway. He's just hoping Lancelot will kill him too. Without his children and his brothers, he has nothing left to live for. This is in stark contrast with Lancelot, who is a loner and has never cared for his son, Galahad, because the boy's mother isn't the Queen; or with Malory's Arthur, who has a hundred babies killed so as to avert his own doom - Mordred was supposed to be one of the babies, but Morgause managed to save him.

In Malory, Gawain is a family man. I guess that the thing that perplexes me is that Malory has no sympathy for Gawain at all. Apparently, being a family man is weakness. I guess Ned Stark would have to agree, posthumously :(.

Comments

[sigune.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually studied the Middle Ages and I know next to nothing of medieval literature (- I know the stories, but not the theory), so I really couldn't say what Malory is supposedly doing form a cultural point of view. I only know that on the brink of the Renaissance he is harking back to the Middle Ages, and that he uses French sources while ignoring the English ones. As a consequence, Gawain is depicted as a false knight (though not consistently) and Arthur doesn't come off all that well either (see his Herod-like episode with the babies). Those Malory does favour (i.e. they are the strongest and best everyone else) are clearly those who pledge themselves to one lady - Tristan, Gareth, Yvain/Owain and of course Lancelot. Mind you, Galahad is better still, because he is entirely pure. Gawain, being a ladies' man, is little short from villainous.

Of course Lancelot is the great example. To quote Shakespeare's Othello, he loves 'not wisely, but too well', which makes him really tragic. Like Mary says, Lancelot's affair with his King's wife is duly considered sinful (it is the reason why he cannot achieve the Grail), but at the same time his absolute devotion to the Queen and his brave deeds in her service make him the pinnacle of the knightly ideal.

I am quite, quite aware of the difference in culture between Malory and myself, and I have no intention whatsoever to be somehow faithful to his vision or to attempt to adopt it. Like my other sources, I read his writings with modern eyes. I'm not complaining about Malory; he is what he is and he likes what he likes. It just strikes me that he makes the 'noble' Lancelot a man who blindly kills squires and unarmed knights, whereas the 'false' knight is a bereft father. Malory's Gawain does other things and makes other judgements that in my opinion show him as being more sensitive (he balks at cruelty against animals, of all things) and more human than Lancelot, who, again in my opinion, has the emotional range of a teaspoon, to quote a bushy-haired Gryffindor. I suppose that the fact that for Lancelot, there is Nothing In The World But Guinevere makes him a very special knight, but it certainly doesn't help me to sympathise with him, or to understand him. He comes out on top, to be sure, but whether that's a good thing is another question. Kaamelott plays with that theme, actually: Lancelot is the only competent knight of the lot, but his singleminded valour turns him into an intolerant extremist. He's not a lovable character at all.