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Mordred: A Villain Within Arthurian Legends

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Mordred, a villain within Arthurian Legends, is an imperative component in destroying King Arthur according to Wilfred Campbell’s rendition of Sir Thomas Malory and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Although many view Mordred as a faceless knight and a traitor within the narrative, he is vigorous character that earns his role as a true villain and an essential antagonist for the legend itself. Within the legend, many medieval writers believe that Mordred an indispensable villain throughout the story by means of his morality and sinfulness towards his enemies. Despite the fact that the improvement of Mordred's disposition fails to advance in a progressively unfavorable form, Mordred begins to procure an awful notoriety at an early stage. …show more content…

Within Malory’s rendition, he elucidates the origins of Mordred, how Mordred is destined to kill his father, King Arthur, who created Mordred through the embodiment of his sins and is the one sent to punish King Arthur for his transgressions. Malory, includes an exceptional conclusion towards the Arthurian Legend and the battle of Mordred and King Arthur. During the feud between Mordred’s army against King Arthur’s army, King Arthur acquires a dream that cautions him to battle Mordred at the Camlann, where he is to meet his demise. Acknowledging this, King Arthur decides to declare a truce with Mordred on the battlefield. As the two armies agree to a treaty, a snake appears and a knight carelessly draws his sword to attack the serpent, ensuing the two armies battle after the misconception. After the battle concluded, the only survivors were Mordred and Arthur with two of his knights, Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere. Sir Lucan suggests to Arthur he should battle Mordred, but he also gets his own demise twisted during their final battle. King Arthur charges Mordred with his spear and kills him, but also is countered by Mordred striking his father’s

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Arthur is wounded badly, and only Bedivere and Lucan are to his aid. After leaving the battlefield, looters quickly arrive taking the fallen knights accessories and valuables, as well as Sir Lucan dying from a stab wound. Arthur hears the moans of the dying knights outside and wants Bedivere to throw the sword away, at first Bedivere hides the sword away, saying: “If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss” (Malory 182). Showing that showed that he wasn’t following his code of chivalry, breaking the code of loyalty, then lying to his king two times by saying that he did the deed his king requested. After his threat to him Bedivere he finally listened to his King, throwing it away to be taken by the Lady of the

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We have to take note of the parentage of Arthur’s son Mordred, and to remember … that the king had slept with his own sister. He did not know he was doing so … but it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.” The reader discovers that the women Arthur slept with was Morgause who’s in fact his half-sister, subtly representing Mordred family tree. In this unwitting sin Arthur committed, it foreshadows Mordred evil within,

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During the first two books of T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King”, the lives of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guenever are drawn out for the audience, everything in order and the friendship between them strong and faithful. By the fourth book, the relationship between these three characters has become severely broken, the Author vividly illustrating their lives of sin, adultery, and hypocrisy that none of them can recover from, the Kingdom’s downfall set into motion. As Lancelot and Guenever continue to do wrong, Arthur must make the difficult decision of going against the two people he loves most. Honoring his new set of laws and expelling justice is the only route he can take. Arthur continuously struggles to deal with harming his friends when they have been proven guilty, being bound by

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Chivalry Back in the medieval period, Chivalry was a set of rules that were to be followed by the Knights. The Chivalric Code was made up of many different ideas such as: honesty, forbearance, courtliness, humility, loyalty, sovereignty, and respect for women. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Le Morte d’Arthur, and King Arthur they follow these rules, which has some advantages and disadvantages. In which version do the characters best display chivalry? Which version’s characters are the most admirable and why?

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The third and final evil Beowulf must face is the dragon. At this point in the poem, Beowulf has been the “ring-giver” or king for half a century (Beowulf 2207). The role of a king in Germanic times included rewarding warriors with treasure captured in battle; however, the dragon keeps his treasure to himself. This greediness is in direct opposition to the qualities of a good king, and the dragon becomes the representation of selfishness and destruction. Beowulf takes on the role of a warrior once again, and defeats the dragon.

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This version of the legend is much different from the other legends because it examines the battle between Mordred and King Arthur instead of discussing the friendly relationship between the two. A knight of Mordred’s party draws his sword to kill a snake and King Arthur interprets it as a gesture to fight, he immediately claims it is treason. King Arthur’s comment, that is said without hesitation, suggest that he thinks of Mordred as an evil traitor and assumes he has intentions to kill him. Mordred uttered to Arthur, “I have more right to take thy life then thou could’st ever claim to give me mine!” (Newbolt).

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