To my surprise, this was my favorite book of the quartet, because I got deeply invested in Mordred the lonely watchful child who would rather die than hurt Arthur, and also has to ride herd on all his horrible Orkney half-brothers.
I think you have mistyped The Last Enchantment for The Wicked Day, which is fine because The Wicked Day is a more interesting novel. It's one of Renault's very few third-person narratives, too.
In the afterword she notes that the only historical information we have about Mordred is that he died at Camlann with Arthur, in a context where he might just as easily have been fighting on Arthur's side as against him, and she might have followed that route if she hadn't locked herself with all those prophecies.
This is the thing I really wish she had done with the novel, even if she had to retcon herself. Prophecies always come true on the slant, anyway.
(I am structurally fine with her choice to make the tragedy of Camelot a devastating misunderstanding, I just don't find this novel's particular take to carry the necessary inevitable horror: it doesn't convince me there was never any other way out.)
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Date: 2022-11-27 07:58 pm (UTC)I think you have mistyped The Last Enchantment for The Wicked Day, which is fine because The Wicked Day is a more interesting novel. It's one of Renault's very few third-person narratives, too.
In the afterword she notes that the only historical information we have about Mordred is that he died at Camlann with Arthur, in a context where he might just as easily have been fighting on Arthur's side as against him, and she might have followed that route if she hadn't locked herself with all those prophecies.
This is the thing I really wish she had done with the novel, even if she had to retcon herself. Prophecies always come true on the slant, anyway.
(I am structurally fine with her choice to make the tragedy of Camelot a devastating misunderstanding, I just don't find this novel's particular take to carry the necessary inevitable horror: it doesn't convince me there was never any other way out.)