"Gaining Strength and Going Homeward..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Me: God, Rosemary Miles makes me feel unclean.
Her: What?
Me: She writes Arthuriana. It's--it's not very good.
Her: What's wrong with it?
Me: Well, like, what I was looking at to-day? She was talking about Gawain, and I couldn't believe what she'd done to him. It's just wrong; Gawain isn't like that. Gawain is--there's a reason they call him the maiden's knight.
Her: Ohhh. She made him gay?

...

Me: No! No, no, that's not it! Honestly, that would scare me less. I mean, he's just the model of chivalry and more than that of courtesy and she kind of made him into a stupid, vulgar, randy goatherd type. It was very disturbing.
Her: Oh.

Me: Ahahaha gay Gawain shhh don't tempt me.

Comments

[tomecatti.livejournal.com]

XD I would've assumed that a corruption of the Maiden's Knight would be sex-crazed! Although, in a sense, he could still be the "Maiden"'s knight...

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

He kind of was. I wanted to cry. XD That is not Gawain.

[tomecatti.livejournal.com]

Poor Gawain... Being desecrated so!

--Platonically, there is a True Gawain in some ethereal, unattainable realm. He is likely offended by this corruption.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

XD

Naturally...!

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

To be fair, though, I've seldom seen any Gawain who's the former type and not the latter. Sorry, miss. =(

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Really? Because that's not Gawain. Nrggh.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

*amused* That's not whose Gawain? What do you use as your Gawain basis--your Gawain v. 1.0? I'm not saying this to be sarcastic; I'm genuinely curious.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I use Nanni's, mostly, but I've read The Marriage of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, and he seems to fit hers there. I mean, he's flirty, but he's not leery. That's Agravain's job.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

XD So it's not so much that this Gawain isn't Gawain, as that he's not the Gawain with whom you're comfortable and familiar?

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I guess so. It would be hard to be comfortable with him, frankly. >_>

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

^_^;;; Thus is explained why I had a thing against Gawain until I actually read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Morte d'Arthur. While he's hardly a chivalrous and decent knight in those, he's not a boor--more often, he simply decides that it's not worth the hassle of his and the ladies' fighting their mutual urges. XD But I hardly have to tell you that.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, although in Gawain and the Green Knight doesn't he kind of go 'erk. you're married, ma'am--okay, okay, kisses, that's nice. butyou'remarried! (ee kisses)'?

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes he does. And then he gives those kisses to her lord, because that's what he agreed--they'd share what they got that day. XD She pushed him enough that he took the girdle; if she'd really pushed to sleep with him, I somehow doubt he'd have remained strong too much longer.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I know, I still love picturing that. Um. But I think he took the girdle because he was afraid, rather, not because he wanted her.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but the point is that he's susceptible to persuasion, not that he's a hunka hunka burnin' love. XD

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Yes, okay. XD Thank you.

...I need to stop giggling hopelessly now. XD

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

Nah, giggle away. It makes me feel better about myself to know that I can make you giggle. *hugs*

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

What! *loveson* What's this, now?

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Not sadness or anything like that, miss--just going from satisfaction to a higher satisfaction. I'm in a wonderful place, and making people laugh just makes it even better and brighter. ^______^

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad. ♥

[julietveiled.livejournal.com]

Gaywain.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

...you are truly horrible.

(and Ragnelle wants to finish talking to Niko.)

[elyse24601.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you see Gawain the same way. I blame the fact that my introduction to Arthuriana was via Morris who found Gawain to be the perfect hero. Ergo, I thought he was too.

It always distressed me that chivalrous!Gawain didn't appear in more books. He was there in Jane Yolen's (even though her Arthur was not really all that great- at least she had a really fantastic Agravain) , but, for the most part, he's... not the Gawain I first came to know and that always disappointed me. It always made me so sad that the Maiden's Knight was more interested in um... doing other things to maidens than being chivalrous to them.

Which is why, I think, that I don't read as much Arthuriana as I should like too. I'm always scared off by their approaches to Gawain.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I blame Nanni, but yes.

I knowww, what. (Oooo, really? What are her books? I promised Sir A. I would be his fangirl, so I ought to read anything that does him well. XD) I know, exactly! Gawain's so courteous. That's always what I think of in relation to him, I think, the courteous part. He's flirty, yes, but flirty isn't scary and heavy-handed and SEX NOW PLZ >:D. Again, that's Agravain's business. XD

Rosemary Sutcliff, if you haven't read her, is really good to him, and Mr. Morris is too. But you've read him, hi. *facepalms*

[elyse24601.livejournal.com]

She only wrote one- "Sword of the Rightful King" (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780152025335&itm=1). It was really good, though I didn't like her Arthur. Agravain was very well- done, I thought. He was immature and irritating yet so desperate to be a man and prove himself. Also, he had something of a spazz out when he was locked up for a bit and it was really realistic, because my brother acted like that once when he had to go sit in his room for an hour as punishment.

Oooh, I shall have to go look up Rosemary Sutcliff and find that post where you linked me to Nanni's Gawain... just looing on Barnes and Nobles online, Ms. Sutcliff writes/ wrote prolifically. >.> I shall have a lot of reading to do after graduation.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Oooo, okay. I will look that up at the library, thank you! That sounds ridiculously shiny.

Nanni's Gawain is here: girdleforakiss. And yes, yes, she does, but her Arthuriana is The Sword and the Circle, the Light Beyond the Forest (about the Grailkids), and The Road to Camlann.

[elyse24601.livejournal.com]

Aw, her Gawain is cute. desperate_fans looks like fun too, though, alas, all my favorite characters are taken. Ah well- it's rather a good thing I don't get myself involved in more rps. ^^

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

DF is madness, utter madness. XD But her Gawain is wonderful. ♥ Your favourite characters?

[elyse24601.livejournal.com]

Er, namely, I looked at the wiki and all my main fandoms (Les Mis, Pride and Prejudice, Phantom of the Opera, Authorian legend) seem to already have all the characters I would consider playing.

Though I did note that Mr. Darcy was up for adoption so I may look into that, once APs are over, since I am a major Jane Austen nerd.

How... does one join? *is so tempted to joing that historical persons rp as Robespierre because she is sad and desperate like that*

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Aha. Well, sometimes people don't play their socks for a while and then you can ask if you can take them. Like Snowy was looking for Cosette a while back, but it turned out her typist was still playing her, she'd just lost track of time and hadn't been active for a while.

Oh, do!

It's not like deadmentalking, you don't have to have an app. You just make a journal that fits the criteria and then join up.

Typist, hi.

[morvydd.livejournal.com]

Hee, poor Souj.

I like that Nanni's is bi, just incredibly shy. XD

Re: Typist, hi.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Soujin will refrain from reading Ms. Miles. At least until next week.

Really? Eeeee.

[zero_pixel_count]

A travesty. An absolute travesty.

(If it helps even the balance? I spent the weekend RP'ing with (among others) a character named Tir, who was roughly based off the courteous-chivalrous Gawain archetype.)

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

(Ooooh! That does help. ^__^ Was good RP?)

[zero_pixel_count]

Well, 'tis. (also, my reading of the Green Knight? very little to do with sexuality, a lot to do with sensuality.)

(Was very good. 'live', therefore kinda tiring, but worth it... Weirdly enough, Tir's best friend is based off a Tristan archetype, and has, completely unplanned, managed to find himself pining after his lord's wife, the world's most oblivious 'Isolde' Said lord has just died, but 'Isolde' just hasn't noticed that he's trailing around after her for reasons other than duty...)

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

<3! (That makes sense. I've only had Nanni summarise it for me; I haven't actually read it myself, so I'm kind of feelering on what exactly it's about.

(Oh, Lord. XD That sounds exasperatingly awesome.)

[zero_pixel_count]

*raises eyebrow, grins* Sounds like Nanni's read the same things into it as I did, looking at her Gawain...

(It is. I keep threatening them with a screenplay of the whole mess.)

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this makes me glee. I'm glad. ^__^

(Ohoho. I hope they beware.)