Avengers of the Round Table

Confession time, people: I have not watched the TV show Merlin all the way through.

I stopped at the end of the fourth season. I never watched the fifth.

This realization and subsequent confession is drawn from a couple of things that happened over the weekend.

The first is that I reread the last book in Gerald Morris's The Squire's Tale series. This is an excellent middle grade series telling the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I gleefully snap up every book in the series and devour them, laughing at the sly and clever humor and enjoying the well-rounded characters and their adventures. Until I get to the last two books. Those I take off the shelf gravely, considering if I truly want to read this book, this excellent, well-written book, one more time, and then I take it home and read slower, more gravely.

These last two books are the ones about Mordred and his campaign against Arthur. We all know how it ends. If you don't, treasure your innocence. And, probably, stop reading now because centuries-old spoilers ahead.

The show Merlin ends the same way. The legends of King Arthur have a set ending, and no matter how you reimagine the characters, no matter what adventures they have, they come to the end, and it hurts.

If I don't finish the story, it didn't happen. Camelot lives and thrives, and the golden age continues. I get to relive the Green Knight and the Holy Grail without fear that all this is heading for pain and death, and a bittersweet glory in legend.

I don't react to other stories like this. Comedies, tragedies...for some reason, I can end them just fine. There's something about Arthurian legend that hurts to end. Maybe it's the way it seems too short, too pointless in the connivings that bring down a kingdom. Maybe it's the noble heroes and how they all fail, all fall, one by one. How the kingdom breaks up, and how nothing strong and glorious can last forever except as legend, where it can inspire forever. There's something tragic and grand about Arthur that I feel I need to take seriously. It's more than just a story.

Confession #2: I have only watched Infinity War Part 1 once, even though I really enjoyed it and thought it was a well-made movie.

See the similarity here? Because I sure did.

If I don't watch it, I don't have to see it. I don't have to acknowledge an ending that hurts, that costs, that's the end of a golden age. I don't have to think about what could have been.

Just like with Camelot.

From there the comparisons grow. I hesitate to compare the MCU to Camelot, because seriously, Camelot is timeless (that's the point). But I think there's an analysis to be made about our modern superheroes, and especially the MCU with their particular plot arc, being our modern-day Knights of the Round Table.

- A collection of superhumans, who can fight anyone and not fail
- People who protect the weak and fight those who hurt the weak
- A fellowship of heroes, sometimes fighting each other but also relying on their friends
- Madcap, serious, or tragic stories, the heroes rising and falling in turn, but always coming home to tell their tale
- Stand-alone tales, and team-ups welcome
- Magic and supernatural forces helping or hurting our heroes

I could keep going. But what I think matters here is the way we read these heroes. Superhuman, but human still. Flawed but capable. They're everything we want to be, and we connect with them. Boy, do we connect with them. Want fan fiction? Let me introduce you to 90% (if not, really, all) of our current King Arthur legends (Chretien de Troyes, I'm looking at you). We've written and rewritten those stories way more than comic books have retconned anything new, or than fans have rewritten plots and characters in online fan fiction.

That's what we do with a certain kind of hero. We make them, remake them, make them ours. We have our favorites, our chosen few that we admire and defend over others. They become us: our society, who we admire as heroes. They reflect our values and our greatest pride in people.

Maybe that's why it hurts so much to watch them hurt, because they are our heroes. Us. Maybe that's why it hurts to watch what once shone so brightly tarnish and diminish, as all things do.

We don't want to see that last battle, not when all these heroes we came to love and admire might not make it, not this time. We don't want that glory to end: we want it to live forever, in legend and reality, when it can only live on in legend. This is why I'm thrilled, but very nervous, about seeing Infinity War: Endgame.

I'd like to think Marvel knew what it was doing, tapping into the Arthurian narrative for its Infinity War movie arc. It certainly fits well.

Or maybe all of this is just justification for me not wanting to see my boy Peter Parker cry and die again. Who knows. But if you have any comments, arguments, or book recommendations for me, I'd love to hear them!

And if you're interested in more summary and analysis of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the following videos are very good.