DAMIDAMI

In a plot conceived by Geoffrey of Monmouth but elaborated on in the Vulgate, Uther promises his first born son to Merlin in exchange for help in raping Igraine, murdering her husband, and becoming High King. Arthur is taken from his mother and raised by other people. Whilst still a squire, he rapes the Queen of Orkney with a bed trick very similar to what Uther used to rape his mother. In beguiling the queen, he accidentally fornicated with his sister and got her pregnant with Mordred. He had sowed the seeds, literally, of his own downfall, unknowingly following in his father's footsteps

Arthur took advantage of women well before he even pulled the sword from the stone and became king. It only worsened as he got older. A woman shows up at court and claims to be Arthur's true queen, and despite literally everyone else recognizing this to be untrue, Arthur kicks out Guinevere, installs the False Guinevere on the throne, and carries on with her for years on end until she gets sick and dies. If not for the generosity of Galehaut and Lancelot housing Guinevere, she would have had no support system to speak of.

Arthur has other bastards running around as well like Loholt the son of Lisanor and Arthur the Less, a product of rape against a child in her own home.

While Arthur's incest with his sister was unwitting, his manipulation of her to make her believe he was her husband she laid with was very much an intentional choice. In the Post Vulgate, he takes this a step further and attempts to cover his mistake by murdering the infant, something not even Merlin was willing to help him with, as the slaying of innocents damns them all, and Mordred was at that time an innocent baby.

Furthermore Arthur's inability to tell right from wrong is largely to blame for the disintegration of chivalry in his court. When his nephew Gaheriet slays his mother, Arthur does not put him to death, but allows him to remain at court. There wasn't even a trial!

But they did hold a trial when Guinevere was accused of poisoning the brother of Mador de la Porte, and she was under threat of death until Lancelot returned to defend her. Arthur would not do so himself. So he abides the law when it puts his own wife in harms way, but not when it negatively impacts his favorite nephews.

But even in the German romance The Crown by Heinrich von dem Turllin, which glazes Arthur constantly, when the delusional knight Gasozein told the court about his affair with Guinevere, Arthur does not abide her protests, but instead immediately believes the knight, and begins to fantasize how he'll brutally punish and shame her for it.

The king, on the other hand, was unhappy. The report about his wife filled his heart with bitterness, and he was eager to settle the matter. "I'll bring disgrace on her if I can," he thought. "She shall pay dearly for having shamed me so. I'll think of something that will be painful for her. I wonder how best to get revenge for the dishonor I have suffered: should I ban her to a desert island, or hang her, or have her burned? That's it! It shall be done as soon as I see her." But then his thoughts took another turn: "If I did that, I might be judged unstable. I could lose my reputation and have to be ashamed wherever it was known. I would do better to swear that the knight lied about her without cause to gain renown and let no one convince me that she is not faithful and honorable. The one thing that distresses me is that she would rebuke me because of him. This makes me believe him. She is caught in her own snare."

Meanwhile she was kidnapped, savagely beaten by her brother who also believes her guilty, and then Gasozein "saves her" from her brother and very nearly rapes her out in the open until Gawain comes to her rescue. The resolution? The knight Gasozein, as he's such a valiant knight and good fighter, gets a royal pardon and Guinevere is forced to forgive him.

In Alliterative Morte Arthure, he's so obsessed with expanding his territory via conquest that he leaves court for years and years, during which time Mordred takes over. Guinevere had several children with him! It was a long time! Arthur shirked his duties and lost it all. Fuck around and find out!

Arthur is quick to anger and quicker to violence against women. He's suspicious and indulgent of his unhinged whims, yet not unaware of their unpopularity, and tempers himself just enough to remain king while ruling as a tyrant. He's lax when it comes to his knights even the shit ones. I also like when he's less terrible, but often that comes at the expense of Guinevere or Morgause, stories that derive from Tennyson and T. H. White which put Arthur on a pedestal and write the women around him as catty and plotting and sexually deviant. Not always, of course, but often.

In fact, in one of the known wifeguy Arthur texts Perlesvaus, Guinevere and her son DIE for Arthur's and Lancelot's dead wife montage. Can't abuse a woman that's dead!

There's obviously exceptions to this version of Arthur, but even texts that star him and try to make him a cool knight errant like Knight of the Parrot has him beating a woman and then shrugging it off to maintain his reputation.

“Now I want to render my service as the most vile knight in all the world, as is fitting for you.” Then he dragged her by the hair all through the chamber, hitting her and kicking her, and she yelled to him then in tears, “God’s mercy!” entreating him to have pity on her. She lamented and did this so softly that she could not be heard either by those in the hall or by her damsels in the other chambers. After the knight had hit and kicked her well, he dropped her and left her chamber and entered the hall, joining the knights and nobles who were scattered all over the place, playing at gaming tables and at checkers, and they received him joyfully. He put on as good a face as possible, so that they would not suspect him of being angry about anything.

Arthur literally knows what he does is bad and takes measures to conceal it, and as he said in The Crown, he would be worse if he thought he could get away with it! He really fucking sucks it cannot be overstated how all of his problems are of his own making. If he had treated women better from the outset then shit would not have hit the fan and I fully believe that. I don't care what Malory says, it's ARTHUR'S FAULT!!!