Greg responds...

six points

Thank you. Come again.

(This is getting a bit repetitive.)

Greg responds...

six points

Thank you. Come again.

Greg responds...

six points

Thank you. Come again.

Greg responds...

Her attitude when?

Greg responds...

Absolutely. Believe me, I wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to point it out if it wasn't for a reason. I'm not really that subtle a guy, am I?

Greg responds...

I had planned on using the flute in THE GATHERING, PART TWO -- and it's probably a mistake that I didn't. I wanted Puck to use it to temporarily subdue Oberon, but it got away from me somehow.

But yes, the flute definitely interested me, and I would have done something with it eventually.

The harp, I hadn't given any real thought to. But it could probably come into play down the road in Pendragon.

Greg responds...

Huh?

I was happy with him up to that point...

As many of you know, I had hoped to spin him off into his own show, PENDRAGON. And I'm sorry I didn't get to tell those stories, but I'm happy enough with the two stories we did tell with him.

Greg responds...

Believe it or not, I've never read Malory from cover to cover. I've read huge chunks of it. And I've skimmed the whole thing. But he doesn't really engage me as a writer. I'm not sure why.

Thus, it is Roger Lanelyn Green who almost acts as my so-called primary source. God, I loved that little book.

Geoffrey was endlessly fascinating.

Steinbeck didn't finish, which was frustrating. It wasn't the best read.

Berger was a lot of fun. Though I don't personally "believe" many of his interpretations of the legends, it was a great read.

I loved Stewart's THE CRYSTAL CAVE. But with each successive book, I found less and less to connect with Stewart's interpretations. And her Mordred book really bummed me out. It seemed like she felt a need to turn Mordred into a real hero at the expense of just about anyone else. Bugged me.

T.H. White's ONCE AND FUTURE KING. I love this book. And I love his "Book of Merlyn." Beautiful writing. Human and fanciful. Irresistable to me.

As for Goodrich, well, I don't have the background to argue her facts. I found much of the material unconvincing and flat-out dull. But I thought she had one real insight. Lancelot has always been viewed as a late addition to the mythology. As a character who was probably NOT historical. (Whereas Arthur likely was.) Her linguistic explanation, connecting Malory's Lancelot with Monmouth's Angus was very convincing. I'll try and duplicate it here...

ANGUS latinized becomes something like ANGUSELUS.

But Anguselus was a title that could properly be rendered as THE ANGUSELUS.

Frenchifying this would make it L'ANGUSELOS. With the last letter silent.

Over time, it would not be unlikely for the name to be simplified. If a syllable got dropped it could very easily become L'ANSELOS.

And if the last S is silent (as it likely would be in French) then it could easilty become an equally silent "T". Thus L'ANSELOT.

Or LANCELOT once it was anglicized again.

This may sound like a stretch. And I may not be doing it justice above. But early Celtic accounts include the character of Angus. Lancelot was assumed to be a later and fictional French addition to the legend. (And thus a character from France.) If Lancelot is in fact Angus, then that lends a certain credence to the entire legend. And I just love that idea.

Greg responds...

Seven points.

Greg responds...

First off, Todd, thanks for the kind words.

There are certain themes that interest me, and so you'll see them revisited in my work (probably ad nauseum) over and over. The theme of, well, let's call it "What Profit Vengeance?" is one of my favorites. So I wasn't deliberately trying to echo "Hunter's Moon" so much as I was servicing a set of ideas that seemed apropos to both series.

As for the Theseus-as-Batman stuff. Well, that's a no-brainer. The Superman/Batman dynamic -- that is the teaming of a hero possessing superhuman abilities with a hero who merely makes the best possible use of his human abilities -- originated with Herakles and Theseus. (Or at any rate, it goes back that far.) So the notion of flipping that, and playing Herc/Theseus as Superman/Batman seemed wonderfully ironic and a fertile place to find comedy.

In high school, I acted in a play called THE WARRIOR'S HUSBAND. I played Theseus, and I've had a real affinity for the character ever since. In that play, Hercules was kind of a mope. (Very strong, but a mope.) The Greeks were waging war against the Amazons. Hercules was in charge, but Theseus was the real brains of the operation. Yet he's also the guy who really falls hard in love for Antiope, sister to Queen Hyppolyta. So instead of conquering -- as he had originally intended -- Theseus winds up manipulating everyone into a compromise. I like that in a hero.

Theseus is part of a sub-genre of archetypes, (an off-shoot of Trickster figures like Puck, Coyote or Odysseus/Ulysses). He's the primary example of the Archetype of "THE BASTARD", which includes such diverse characters as Shakespeare's Edmund from KING LEAR, Joan of Arc's ally Dunois and multiple characters from Arthurian legend (including Merlin, Arthur, Percival, Galahad and Mordred). There are so many parallels between Arthur and Theseus that reading Mary Stewart and Mary Renault seemed almost redundant. (Not really.)

In fact, Luach (or Lulach) is also a prime candidate for that archetype. When he was born, Gruoch was still married to Gillecomgain. But gossip around the castle hinted that the babe's true father was Macbeth. After Macbeth and Gruoch married, Macbeth adopted the boy as his own. At which point the gossip shifted to insist that Gillecomgain was the boy's father. (You can't win.) Pre-DNA testing, there would be no way for Luach to ever be certain of the truth. Maybe Macbeth didn't even know. Hell, Gruoch might not know.

Life's a bitch when you're a bastard.