From the Ivory Tower

King Arthur and Lancelot

I have always enjoyed the legends of King Arthur but a source of constant annoyance and frustration has been the depravity of Lancelot and the ruin it brings upon Arthur's kingdom. I can understand the fact that a knight may fall into sin and thus bring ruin upon a kingdom, but what has always annoyed me is the way in which Lancelot has been regarded as a tragic hero and his failing as a terrible, if unavoidable, mistake. This is due in a large part to the misunderstanding of 'true love'. Wonderful words, but they have come to represent a sick concept. It is because of how the Arthurian legends have been used to peddle this idea of love that I have come to dislike most recountings of it.

When Lancelot falls in love with Guenevere, it is often portrayed as some kind of inevitable bond that is beyond their control. Their adultery is often explained away or excused on account of them "being in love". Because they were in love, the argument goes, they couldn't help themselves.

True love does what is best for the object of that love, it does not follow the basis of the lover's selfish actions. Yes, I am looking at you Anakin Skywalker. The theme of True Love excusing any number of harmful actions has only been magnified over the years, and it is seen with special poignancy in Episode II of Starwars. This goes back to what I mentioned in an earlier article on interesting things in the Fantasy Genre. Most of the things I listed were funny, but this one just makes me sick. In the name of true love, a male character can get away with almost anything.

There is actually a word for what Lancelot's version of True Love has become. It is lust. I know, it doesn't sound as good, that's why they say True Love.

J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien has to be one of the most amazing authors in the history of literature. Besides his collosal mountain of work in Middle Earth he wrote a great deal in the field of Northern Mythology. Most recently, Christopher Tolkien has published The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. I've only just started it, but already Tolkien's mastery of the epic is clear.

Also, I came across this documentary on the web a few days ago and really enjoyed the first 3 parts, but I could have done without all the stuff about the similarities between Frodo's journey and an acid trip. But I really enjoyed all the footage of Tolkien and his thoughts on his work.

The Ethics of Elfland

I just thought this was a particularly interesting post on Martin Cothran's blog, it is "The Ethics of Elflan" from the book "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton.
http://vereloqui.blogspot.com/2009/06/greatest-chapter-of-greatest-book-by.html

Funny Things About the Fantasy Genre

1. The #1 most time consuming meal in most Fantasy world is stew because it takes so long to cook. This makes it a bad choice for a meal when you are trying to get quickly from one place to another for obvious reasons. What is the #2 most common meal that fantasy characters eat when they are trying to get from place to place? Stew.
2. It is a fact that beer is made from barley, which takes time to grow in temperate regions. So would someone please tell me why the infinite number of blond barbarians, who populate the modern excuses for fantasy literature like chiggers on a Texas riverbank, and who continually roam the frigid North that is covered in ice and snow much of the time, why why why do they drink more beer in one evening than I drink water in one day?
3. Why do all-powerful dictators who rule their people with an iron hand, and who feel perfectly fine killing innumerable peasants for little reason, all of a sudden feel the need to engage in careful secrecy about the murder of the orphaned farm boy who happens to be the hero?
4. Why do the bad guys always outnumber the good guys by about a billion to one?
5. I have to admit this is NOT funny, but weired, the parents of heroes have a 98.9% casualty rate in Fantasy stories. The parents of Heroines have a slightly better casualty rate, only 87.6%. What makes this worse is the fact that most of these stories are written by parents, not teenagers.
6. After considering #5 for a moment, I have discovered why most Fantasy worlds are stuck with middle ages type technology for thousands of years. Parents pass on their knowledge to their children, right? Well, in these fantasy worlds, about once every hundred years or so, a massive war erupts through the most advanced kingdoms. This of course requires heroes since the bad guys out number the good guys by some outrageous number. The heroes are all either orphans who are separated from their mentors/foster parents/ guardians around the age of sixteen or they are teenagers who's parents just got killed. In other words, everytime a civilization gets near deveopling something like gunpowder for instance, all the smart people get killed off and their libraries get burned and power gets handed to the people who have Zero life experiance, so after the war is over, scientific knowledge is back a square one, and the writer has another hundred years or so to drum up another war so he can keep writing fantasy novels instead of sci-fi novels.
7. Why are 90% of heroes teenagers? I mean, I know teenagers can be good soldiers, but when you put together a whole bunch of them and kill off Brom, Ormis, Dumbldore, or whoever else you have directing them, they shouldn't become suddenly smarter than their former guardians. Check out history, how many teenagers saved their city, let alone their nation vs. how many non teenagers did the same thing.
8. Why is it that the female character in most fantasy stories with a romantic plot thread have to be the one with selfcontrol, the one who says "no we can't get married right now"? Probably has something to do with the teenaged hero and the fact that his love is a hundred billion years old or something.
9. Why do some Christian have to hate Fantasy so much?
10. Why does the heroe vs. Villian duel alway happen in a vaccum? I mean there's got to be some observant bowman or swords man who would notice "Hey! there's the person who got us all into this mess" Then twang or eee* and Bingo! End of fight. (for those of you who did not grow up with little brothers, "eee" is the sound made when you stab someone).