Once & Future #24 - "Monarchies in the U.K." Part 6

[laughing_tree]

If you're not doing Lancelot as LITERALLY GREW UP IN A LAKE you are a COWARD. -- Kieron Gillen

Comments

[numeronone]

Time for a Ringwraith Fight!!!

[scorntx]

"Ringwraith fight! Ringwraith fight!"
"So help me, I'll hurt your feelings!"
"Well, I'll hurt 'em right back!"
"Nope, Hobbit fight."
"Hobbit fight, hobbit fight..."

[scorntx]

Don't think she's thought this one through.
Never mind the "of the people" stuff, given some versions of Robin start as toffs...
If nothing else, once the Arthurs are sorted out, this means they're stuck with Robin Hoods everywhere.
Or is her next plan to summon something else to fight the Robins? Or just wait for them to freeze to death come winter?

(Lancelot's puppy dog eyes in that panel. Heh.)

[arilou_skiff]

It's easy, you start summoning James Bonds to take out the Robin Hoods.

And then Sherlock Holmes to deal with the James Bonds.

That's as far as I planned.

[christianconnor]

Are we going to end up with Mary Poppins scolding Harry Potter again?

[cygnia]

If we're lucky, we get Luther to sort everything one of these wankers out.

[numeronone]

Sooner or later someone invokes the Teletubbies or, worse, Mister Blobby. This is the point at which ending the universe and restarting time becomes the most preferable option.

[arilou_skiff]

Peppa Pig.

[cainofdreaming]

Yeah, oblivion sounds like a nice holiday destination after the abomination with the snout on the side of the face becomes real.

[akodo_rokku]

Well her worst case scenario has already happened, so at this point Marguerite is just kinda winging it.

[jgraygaming]

Classic overpopulation control spiral.

This is cane toads, all over again.

[john_drake1964]

"For decimating our King Arthur population, and making the United Kingdom a less oppressive place, to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle."

"Well, I was wrong, the Robin Hoods are a godsend."

"But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by Robin Hoods?"

"No problem, we simply unleash wave after wave of Blackadders. They'll wipe out the Robin Hoods."

"But aren't the Blackadders even worse?"

"But we've prepared for that. A fabulous type of Gorgo that thrives on Blackadder meat."

"But then we've got Gorgo's!"

"No, that's the beautiful part, when winter comes, the Gorgo's return to Ireland."

[super_fly]

You don't need a lot to sort out the Blackadder issue, you just need one Baldrick.

[lizard_of_aus]

Unless it's a Season One Baldrick. Then again, a Season One Blackadder takes care of itself.

[cainofdreaming]

Season three almost did too. Sheer luck is what saved him.

[scorntx]

And season two Blackadder.

[cainofdreaming]

I think second was more of a victim of circumstance, like fourth. It wasn't really any fault of his that the spotty stable boy was immune to knives in the back.

[scorntx]

I was thinking more about the time he decided to take a loan from the Black Monks and not remember to repay them, then insult the fellow they sent in their attempt to collect.

Or just hanging around Queen Liz.

[cainofdreaming]

He didn't really get off the hands of the Bishop of Bath and Wells due to just luck, tho. The drugs, by God (Baldrick actually), had something to do with it. And a cunning plan.

Hanging out around Queen Liz probably wasn't really optional. Well, I guess if you were open to losing your head there was always a option.

[blues32]

How did Merlin THINK this was going to go? There are as many versions of Arthur as there are blades of grass. There's a DISNEY version of King Arthur! Dear god, there's a Monty Python version that can't count to five. I mean three!

[numeronone]

Thanks to...shudder...musical theatre, there's so many versions of THAT Arthur that he wouldn't be able to count them.

[donnblake]

My mental version of Lancelot, assembled from pieces here and there, but heavily influenced by White, is a sad queer swordboy, whose main advantage in life- a terrifying proficiency at personal violence- does not actually prove of much use against him main problem- that Lancelot/Arthur/Guinivere OT3 is not considered a valid ship by his culture.

But none of that precludes him having grown up in a lake.

[arilou_skiff]

True.

[numeronone]

What's a ship without a body of water to sail it on?

And WHAT a body.

[giraffesforever]

Your description of Lancelot is really lovely prose.

[shakalooloo]

Hell yeah Robin Hood!!!

[john_drake1964]

So, one thought about this series, is what would the concept be like if it was re-interpreted in other cultures and nations, at least in the sense "what happens when our national mythos is made manifest, with all that it implies."

Is it impacted by the age of a countries personal mythology and culture? What would the mythos of a country like the U.S., one that may not have "royalty" as with the Arthurian mythos, but does have a sense of mythologizing historical figures such as the Founding Fathers or Lincoln, and the history of folk heroes like Paul Bunyan, John Henry or Johnny Appleseed (who kind of straddles the line of reality and fiction.)

Not to mention the patchwork nature of the mythos because of how the country was created.

Like, take Christopher Columbus. You have the historical figure, the idealized version that was present for a considerable amount of time, and then you have sometimes very innacurate depictions, like animated films where he was friends with a talking woodworm and went to the New World and discovered Manhattan and fought an evil bug swarm while talking to a sock puppet.

Clearly, that'd be a mix-up of conflicting narratives.

[panthyr]

I mean, George Washington. The giant strong enough to throw a silver dollar across the Potomac, who never lied, and could not be hit by bullets in battle? Definitely a story.

[donnblake]

The rotunda of the Capitol Building has a fresco called The Apotheosis of Washington on its ceiling.

The Lincoln Memorial was literally designed as a temple. You can tell, because they engraved "In This Temple," on the wall.

But speaking of Lincoln monuments, we can get twistier. When George Hull bought a ten foot block of gypsum in 1869, he told the men that it was meant for a monument to Lincoln, then only four years dead. Instead he had it carved into the shape of a biblical giant and buried it on a cousin's land so some men he hired to dig a well could later 'discover' it. This was the Cardiff Giant, and while Hull originally seems to have intended to make some point about Biblical literalism, he certainly wasn't displeased to learn that he could also charge people 50 cents a head to come look at it.

It proved so successful that PT Barnum, who knew a thing or two about the power of stories himself, tried to buy it, and when Hull wouldn't sell, went ahead and had his own carved, displaying it as the original and terming Newell's the fake.

I keep meaning to get over the Cooperstown and visit the Giant in the basement of the farmer's museum one of these days, although I'm not exactly sure if it's the original authentic fake, or the copy that wound up there.

[john_drake1964]

Puts me in mind of adapting the Monument Mythos to comics, then...

[donnblake]

It's not quite the same take as this- we don't get the multiplicity of versions of the characters- but if you haven't yet, I'd recommend checking out Neil Gaiman's American Gods. An English writer's take on the manifestation of myths and stories in stories in the US.

[john_drake1964]

Given how America as a country is still rather young comparative to many of its historical peers, the idea of an invented mythos without the quite as lengthy history does leave things open to interesting comparisons.

Though, this does bring up something back to Once and Future itself. We've seen figures from largely pre-Enlightenment national mythos here, such as Arthur or Robin Hood or Roman-era Britain. The question is, what about more recent stories and figures that have become part of the cultural landscape in various ways? Someone up above mentioned Sherlock Holmes, a figure who has in his 130+ years of existence become a cultural cornerstone of modern Britain. Or what about infamous historical figures such as Jack the Ripper, whose legend has also in the same amount of time grown and been utilized countless ways. Does the age of something mean it has more chance of actualization, or is it how deeply ingrained something has become in the national psyche and sense of cultural identity?

[cainofdreaming]

And also a vampire, at least according to Killadelphia.

[shadowpsykie]

oooh Robin hood....

that said... this series STILL confuses the HELL out of me... i don't understand it... is there a guide book? Three arturs now? and None of them the "Once and Future King" type?

Also, i call BULLSHIT on the "No good stories" sometimes all there are are stories! sometimes that's all we have! (and ilike Kieron.... i just don't get it...)