#camelotcore

Love love love it. I am a firm believer than the dynamic (and both love interests) must be at least somewhat Fucked Up for the Guinevere/Lancelot relationship to really work for me.

They love each other genuinely, deeply, purely, but not healthily or innocently. Loving Guinevere doesn’t make Lancelot a better person or a good guy, if anything it leads him to sinful actions in pursuit and defense of his love.

Lancelot loves Guinevere but is the Best Knight, the Ultimate Knight for a reason. He is really really Good At Violence and Killing. And more importantly, he enjoys these things. He doesn’t want to. He so wants to be a good and godly man, but he is happiest when he’s sinning. And even his pure, chaste, love becomes another outlet for him to sin and commit violence, eventually even upon other people he loves (Gareth & Gawain). He’ll cry in shame and guilt but still won’t stop because this society and the people around his reward his behavior.

And Guinevere who has such little control over her life. She marries Arthur because Arthur wants to marry her. She is almost executed several times because Arthur just believes people’s slander or does an awful job of defending her. And Lancelot comes along. Lancelot who is devoted, obsessed, and rather painfully naive. She loves him. He is lower and so has no claim over her and is someone who can actually guarantee her safety and more notably, control. A knight truly and wholly devoted to her above Arthur. Who represents this extreme violence of the system that repeatedly harms her, but is a violence she can control, can use to protect herself. And so she tests this love, or devotion, and will pull back or get angry if there is ever a reason to question it. If she can’t feel truly in control then she won’t put her life on the line.

Oof that’s a hard one. I’ll be real, I don’t watch or read as many modern adaptions so it’s harder for me to choose one there. As much as I don’t like Once & Future King, Camelot the musical is amazing and I do love its Lancelot/Guinevere stuff. I think a lot of other modern adaptations make Lancelot too cool or like swashbuckling for me.

In terms of like medieval Arthuriana, what I mostly know, I mean it’s hard to beat Knight of the Cart. It may be the first Guinevere/Lancelot story but it really did set them up perfectly and I love the dynamic especially with its deep obsessiveness and codependency. (Even if Chretien himself was not a fan of the couple lol) I think Lance/Guin needs to be a bit fundamentally fucked up to work.

Mordred/Guinevere and Morgan/Guinevere for Rhaenicent. And Lancelot/Guinevere for Alicole naturally.