The Bright Sword and More Arthurian Retellings

CN: discussion of rape, incest, murder, and ableist tropes in fantasy; spoilers for The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman and Morgan is My Name by Sophie Keetch

I enjoyed The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman’s new fantasy novel, despite some issues. I loved its depiction of fairies, the Otherworld, and Morgan Le Fay’s justified hatred of Merlin. In many Arthurian legends, Merlin facilitates rape. This is why I hate depictions of Merlin as a benign mentor figure. I was relieved that, like several other recent retellings, The Bright Sword depicts Merlin as abusive and refuses to gloss over this. I enjoyed its reimagining of Arthurian legends, but I disliked the use of the magical cure trope to remove Sir Bedivere’s disability.

King Arthur is a vague and paradoxical figure, which is part of what makes him fascinating to me. He represents tensions between pagan, ancient Roman, and Christian Britain. His royal lineage is so important that Merlin engineered his conception via rape, and Arthur was the one person fated to pull a sword from a stone and become king. Yet somehow, Arthur remains humble, because he was raised by Sir Ector, not as the heir to the throne. The character Merlin (and many medieval authors) tried to have everything both ways with Arthur. In different versions of the story, Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere either embody the ideal of courtly love, which is never consummated — or they bring down a kingdom with their extramarital affair.

The Bright Sword embodies all these contradictions and more. “Britain was a wounded land, cloven in two, British and Roman, pagan and Christian, Stone and Grail, north and south, old and new. It was born in blood and grief and greed, divided eternally against itself, its different natures so mixed it could never extricate itself from itself. No miracle would erase that wound either.” Arthur’s Britain is still inherently magical, but magic is fading and being suppressed. Camelot is idealized and mythical but simultaneously corrupt — maybe even cursed. It always seems on the cusp of change, but it’s already antiquated and stagnant, so it can’t change.

These days, many fantasy novels describe fairies as inhabiting a liminal space. Time passes more slowly in the immortal, deceptive fairies’ realm than in our world. For me, The Bright Sword was one of the few modern novels that evoked this creepy, in-between feeling vividly, rather than just mentioning it. I usually dislike long dream sequences in novels because they have no stakes. Here, even when I assumed a character was under a spell, dreaming, or trapped in a fairy land, I still wasn’t 100% sure until it was over. This is subjective but impressive, considering how many fantasies about fairies I read.

I liked this novel overall. It’s both serious and funny. For example, an epigraph to one part of the novel is from Le Morte D’Arthur by Thomas Malory. Another is from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As Grossman mentioned in his author’s note, the legend of King Arthur has endured in so many contradictory forms over the centuries.

It’s fascinating to notice what modern retellings change or retain from much older versions. In The Bright Sword, Mordred is both the son and nephew of Arthur and his half-sister Morgause. This is perhaps the most traditional explanation of Mordred’s parentage. In other versions, he’s Arthur’s nephew (but not his son). In others, Mordred’s birth results from incest, but between Arthur and another half-sister, Morgan Le Fay. Some versions conflate Morgan and Morgause into one character.

Grossman’s take on Lancelot and Guinevere diverges from most other versions. Here, they neither pine chastely for each other from afar nor have a passionate affair. Guinevere stays faithful to Arthur, but Lancelot frames her for adultery, which could lead to her execution. Lancelot, loyal only to himself, wants to create a rift in Camelot and seize the throne in the resulting power vacuum. As Guinevere describes Lancelot’s boundless ego: “He isn’t full of anything, he’s empty. He’s a bottomless sinkhole, endlessly falling into himself.” Lancelot as a power-hungry, amoral villain is an interesting take on the character.

One of my favorite aspects of recent Arthurian retellings is that they expose Merlin as an abuser. The abuse and misogyny are apparent in the original texts. When I was reading Arthurian romances in college in 2011, our professor, Helga Duncan, pointed this out to our class. In medieval Arthurian tales, Merlin glamours Uther Pendragon to look like Gorlois, Igraine’s husband. Thinking Uther is Gorlois, Igraine has sex with Uther and conceives Arthur. Then, Uther has Gorlois killed in battle and marries Igraine. I also mentioned this when I recommended Kiersten White’s Camelot Rising trilogy on my blog in 2021.

Morgan is My Name by Sophie Keetch is a 2023 fantasy novel that depicts Morgan Le Fay’s hatred for Uther because he raped her mother. (I haven’t read the second book in Keetch’s series yet.) Morgan knows that Merlin enabled the rape. Later in the novel, Morgan rejects Merlin’s offer to teach her magic. She’s already an accomplished witch without him.

In Arthurian legends, Merlin’s apprentice, the sorceress Nimue, traps him in her underwater cave for years. In some versions, Nimue preys sexually on Merlin. In others, he preys on her. In The Bright Sword, Merlin tries to rape his student, Nimue. After she rejects his advances, he continues trying to rape or murder her. The two magicians transform themselves into various real and mythical animals as Nimue still tries to escape Merlin. This terrifying scene reminded me of the folk song “Two Magicians.” In Grossman’s novel, Nimue leaves Merlin trapped because she knows he will hurt her if he ever gets out.

I also enjoyed the novel’s representations of Dinadan and Palomides, two of Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. Palomides is a Muslim who uses his advanced knowledge of medicine to save a comatose King Arthur. He also dispels the other knights’ absurd prejudices about Muslims. However, like in the early legends, he eventually converts to Christianity.

In this novel, Dinadan is a trans man. I like that the narrative uses his correct name and pronouns throughout the novel. Although his friends are initially surprised to learn he is trans, they accept him, and only his enemies misgender or malign him.

Another knight, Sir Bedivere, is a clear example of the magical (or miracle) cure trope regarding his disability. Bedivere is one of Arthur’s best friends and in unrequited love with him. The novel also explains that Bedivere was born with a limb difference: with one hand. His disability is described accurately and respectfully early in the novel, and he’s become a skilled knight with one hand.

As King Arthur dies, Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table magically enter Arthur’s dream and say goodbye to him. I found this scene touching at first. Then, Arthur addresses Bedivere cryptically: “We were always whole!” When Bedivere awakens, he suddenly, magically has two hands: a blatant example of magic curing or suddenly erasing a character’s disability. Equating having two hands with being “whole” (if this is what Arthur means in context) is also ableist.

I know many authors might be unfamiliar with ableist tropes. As a disabled writer and reader, I’m asking writers, publishers, and editors who might not be disabled (or familiar with disability studies) to research some prevalent ableist tropes. In this blog post, Derek Newman-Stille wrote that the magical cure trope is based on the assumption that we disabled people cannot be happy as we are. Instead, it necessarily equates a “happy ending” with no longer being disabled. It doesn’t allow disabled characters just to exist or for disability to be an important part of their identities.

I also understand that these characters originate from ancient texts, but it’s still possible to avoid repeating ableist tropes in the future. Like with all Arthurian characters, there are many contradictory versions of Bedivere. In some versions, for example, he has a prosthetic hand. The magical cure as a happy ending or reward is not inevitable.

I love King Arthur. It’s one of the main fantasies that’s sparked my imagination since I was a little kid. I’ll try almost any version of this story, and I’ve written about it several times.

Works cited:

Grossman, Lev. The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur. New York: Viking, 2024.

Keetch, Sophie. Morgan Is My Name. United States, Random House of Canada, 2023.