nobody calls me peachfuzz

he finishes the prose lancelot. tristan never showed up. he's extremely disappointed by this. but lancelot and galehaut's story is compelling and tragic enough for him to be satisfied, although he keeps trying to get access to other parts of the vulgate in search of tristan (unbeknownst to him, this is a lost cause, because tristan doesn't show up in the vulgate). and since he can't find tristan, he keeps gravitating back to the prose lancelot, and to lancelot and galehaut's relationship. he keeps turning it over in his head. he doesn't know why he fixates on it, why he finds it so fascinating. but he also doesn't really think about the why, the same way he doesn't think about why he fixates on the doomed romance between tristan and isolde. there doesn't have to be a why, right? he just likes it! it's a good story! it's compelling! it's compelling, how much these two knights care for one another! it's compelling how galehaut knows his affection for lancelot will doom him! it's compelling how galehaut remains devoted to lancelot, up to and including helping lancelot with his trysts with guinevere! and galehaut's death! the epitaph on his grave! lancelot's desire to be buried in the same tomb! it Fascinates him!! why does it fascinate him? well, there doesn't have to be a why! it's just good!!! right???

obviously not. we are fascinated by stories because they speak to us. sometimes, they speak to something missing in us. though hans would never admit it, he's an incredibly lonely man. a great deal of his life is defined by his loneliness, by this absence for something he can't even name, because he never had it enough to know what it was. he's never had friends his own age, or even peers. he's only known his own worth in relation to his position of nobility. he has never had someone care about him unconditionally, or if he has, he was too young to remember it.

so hans fixates on the romance of tristan and isolde, longs for a romance like theirs, even though it ends badly, because it ends badly, because he wants to feel anything, even if it's pain. even if it's agony. he wants a love like their because that, to him, is love without conditions, love that is devoted to the point of madness and death. and he is similarly fixated on lancelot and galehaut because he longs for a friendship like theirs, wants to have someone who will stick with him unconditionally, who cares about him not because of his titles but because of who he is as a person.