Gawain Project: The Darkest Hour, 32-35

[sigune]

"Duke Gorloise set his lady in Tintagel castle, which was the strongest hold in all Cornwall, being set on a headland above the pounding sea, with but one causeway leading to it from the mainland, and that so narrow that it could be held by three men against an army."
- Rosemary Sutcliff, The Sword and the Circle (1981)



We're having a four-page interlude this week, because I am annoying like that. That is to say, I did feel the need to switch back to Ygraine and the children before showing you how the battle is going. I'm not sure if that's rational, or clever, or simply annoying, as I suggested above :-). Maybe I just needed something a little bit silly (but not pointless!) to lift the gloom in which this story is soaked.

What went before:
Gorlois has sent his wife and daughters to castle Tintagil. He himself waylays King Uther in Terrabil. The battle for Ygraine has begun.

The Darkest Hour 1-3
The Darkest Hour 4-6
The Darkest Hour 7-9
The Darkest Hour 10-12
The Darkest Hour 13-15
The Darkest Hour 16-18
The Darkest Hour 19-21
The Darkest Hour 22-24
The Darkest Hour 25-27
The Darkest Hour 28-31

Comments

[todayiamadaisy]

I like the interlude. It's a nice reminder of what (or who) the battle is about, and it lets us see more of the family. And I like the mix of dramatic one-page pictures and the two central conversational pages. Poor Ygraine, though, on page two: that's a bad case of double chin she gets whenever she lifts her head to shout. :-)

Two things about page 3. First, I'm not sure about 'mum': it sounds too modern to me, but perhaps that's the effect you're going for. Also, 'she makes a fool of herself' should probably be 'she's making a fool of herself' - the construction as it is sounds like a sentence translated from a language in which the same word is used for 'makes' and 'is making'. :-)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

HAH! Thank you, my dear beta :D! That's what I get for working on the train after hours... I'll make a note.

"Mum" is - ... I did think about it. "Mother" and "Mama" just sound so stiff. I'm having little Gawain use "Mother" when speaking of and to his mother, but "dad(dy)" when referring to his father, to show how close (or not) he feels to each parent. Morgause and Morgana say mum and dad because Gorlois and Ygraine have no protocol at all with their children.

I don't know... Do you think it sounds too odd? I just don't want to use any kind of "knightly", pseudo-medieval or old-fashioned idiom. I don't want to remove the characters any further than necessary from the world as we know it.

Poor Ygraine, though, on page two: that's a bad case of double chin she gets whenever she lifts her head to shout.
Don't laugh! It's difficult! XD

[todayiamadaisy]

I've always thought of 'mum' as a modern word, although my dictionary tells me it comes from the nineteenth century. It started as a lower-class word though - if I found 'mum' in historical fiction set in the nineteenth century, I'd expect the maid or the music hall act to say it, not the aristocratic hero. I know what you mean about 'mother' and 'mama' sounding stiff - I find them so too - and about not wanting to be pseudo-mediaeval. The other option is 'mummy' and that sounds posh or babyish, depending on who's saying it. (Prince Charles is so posh he still calls Queen Elizabeth II 'mummy', which sounds just plain odd coming from a man of sixty.)

So, um, yes, you're right: it does mark them out as having different standards of protocol, and it keeps them in a modern sensibility. How unexpectedly tricky. Perhaps you should ask the readers and see if anyone else even registered it? :-)