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Sep. 17th, 2018 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI lent varadia my copy of Idylls of the Queen a few months ago.
In response, she gave me Cherith Baldry's Exiled from Camelot. "It's also about Kay!" she said, helpfully, "but Idylls of the Queen was good! And this was not!"
Exiled from Camelot is ... well, look. Cherith Baldry had a lot of feelings about Kay, and about how the administrative work of being a seneschal and keeping a castle organized is very important and doesn't get enough appreciation, and - look, that's a reasonable opinion! I have a lot of respect for it!
And then Cherith Baldry expressed that opinion by writing a novel-length hurt-comfort fic starring the most hilariously woobified version of Sir Kay I ever expect to encounter, which, I mean, that's fine too! Live your bliss!
The book begins when Arthur's illegitimate son Loholt (not Mordred, who also exists, but offscreen) turns up at court. Loholt immediately tries to kill Kay, for no reason.
ARTHUR: I want to officially make Loholt my heir. Kay, draw up the legal papers. I know you don't like him --
KAY: Yes, well, he did try to kill me that one time, for no reason.
ARTHUR: -- but otherwise he's a good kid and I love him more than I love you and you need to get over it.
KAY: :(
(Arthur in this fic, by the way, will be playing the role of The Asshole Who Doesn't Love Kay The Way He Deserves And Must Be Proven Wrong Through Kay's Absence And Extensive Suffering.)
Everyone then goes off to war; it goes poorly; Arthur dispatches Kay to make sure Loholt can get through the lines and get home safe.
Loholt promptly proves to be a evil traitor in league with a wicked witch, betrays Kay, kidnaps Kay, extensively tortures Kay, and is then accidentally killed by Kay during Kay's escape attempt.
Kay, extremely wounded, staggers back to Arthur and confesses that Loholt is dead.
ARTHUR: You had ONE JOB. And now: you will never do another! OUT OF MY SIGHT, KAY.
GAWAIN: Your Majesty, you may be interested to see that Kay is near death's door as a result of suffering terrible torture --
ARTHUR: If he wanted me to "CARE" about his "PAIN" he shouldn't have LOST my KID, now SHOULD HE?
Have I yet mentioned Gawain? I should mention Gawain. Gawain/Kay is definitely an Arthurian rarepair -- indeed, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've encountered it -- but, you know, someone has to do the comforting in this hurt/comfort fic, and, well ....
"Dear Kay, is it so hard to stay with us?"
Kay looked up at him, shaken, open to him as he had hardly ever been before. "If I lost you, Gawain," he said, unevenly, "I should not wish to live."
Lying still, his bed-furs clutched around him, Kay was shaken with a sudden agony of wanting Gawain. He suddenly remembered -- the memories scalding him now -- Gawain's gentle care of him when he was ill in Carlisle, half out of his mind with fear and guilt. Clearer, though just as painful, were his memories of Gawain in Camelot, the unconscious grace and generosity, the compassion, the warmth.
He wished that he were Gawain, the gentle healer, but he was only Kay, and Kay's skills were all he had to use.
"Gentle healer" is not my standard characterization of Gawain, but I'm sure there's a source for it in a saga somewhere!
Gareth is also there and also loves Kay very much, by the way, but not quite as much as Gawain does.
Anyway eventually it comes out that Kay killed Loholt and he is [dun dun] EXILED FROM CAMELOT, but not before tearfully taking off the Significant Ring that Arthur gave him and giving it to Gawain: "It would dishonour you to wear it, but perhaps you would keep it, and remember ..."
(Gawain draws him close and promises to wear it always.)
...and immediately after leaving Camelot Kay is kidnapped and forced to work for Arthur's enemy while being psychologically haunted by the wicked witch. Gareth and Lancelot immediately turn up, see him there, and assume he betrayed them, because this is how Kay's life rolls when he's a tragically misunderstood woobie.
Kay eventually ends up taking charge of a castle and surrounding village that's been devastated by the book's various villains. Within two days he has convinced all the grumpy villagers to trust him by virtue of his extreme logistical skills and not-so-secret heart of gold, and within a week they all think he's the best thing since sliced bread. But when Arthur stops back in the village, Kay runs off in despair and for several months is presumed dead while the court falls into misery and chaos without him!
("He hid everything," Gareth said. "No one understood him. And now they never will."
He bent his head into his hands and let the tears come at last.)
But indeed Kay is not dead; Gawain fights a duel in his honor, and then Gawain and Gareth go find him hermiting on a hilltop and there's another round of hurt/comfort, and then Kay valiantly goes and saves the kingdom just in time for Arthur to come in and witness it, and then Kay collapses AGAIN and wakes up in Arthur's room where Arthur apologizes and admits he was wrong about everything and that he needs and appreciates him! And then holds a public ceremony formally reinstating him, while Gawain and Gareth look on approvingly!
CURTAIN, presumably to be followed by curtainfic, although not without a brief discourse on how the wicked witch Kay just defeated was definitely evil but, like, maybe not that evil, Kay Can Totally Sympathize With The Frustrations Of Women Trapped In Limited Social Roles In The Middle Ages!
I should note that Exiled from Camelot includes an acknowledgment at the beginning thanking Phyllis Ann Karr (author of Idylls of the Queen) for her 'unfailing encouragement.' Saidsovay, when she opened the book and saw this, "Oh! So she asked someone to write her Kay fic for Yuletide, and then she had to be nice about it no matter what she got."
varadia my copy of Idylls of the Queen a few months ago. In response, she gave me Cherith Baldry's Exiled from Camelot. "It's also about Kay!" she said, helpfully, "but Idylls of the Queen was good! And this was not!"
Exiled from Camelot is ... well, look. Cherith Baldry had a lot of feelings about Kay, and about how the administrative work of being a seneschal and keeping a castle organized is very important and doesn't get enough appreciation, and - look, that's a reasonable opinion! I have a lot of respect for it!
And then Cherith Baldry expressed that opinion by writing a novel-length hurt-comfort fic starring the most hilariously woobified version of Sir Kay I ever expect to encounter, which, I mean, that's fine too! Live your bliss!
The book begins when Arthur's illegitimate son Loholt (not Mordred, who also exists, but offscreen) turns up at court. Loholt immediately tries to kill Kay, for no reason.
ARTHUR: I want to officially make Loholt my heir. Kay, draw up the legal papers. I know you don't like him --
KAY: Yes, well, he did try to kill me that one time, for no reason.
ARTHUR: -- but otherwise he's a good kid and I love him more than I love you and you need to get over it.
KAY: :(
(Arthur in this fic, by the way, will be playing the role of The Asshole Who Doesn't Love Kay The Way He Deserves And Must Be Proven Wrong Through Kay's Absence And Extensive Suffering.)
Everyone then goes off to war; it goes poorly; Arthur dispatches Kay to make sure Loholt can get through the lines and get home safe.
Loholt promptly proves to be a evil traitor in league with a wicked witch, betrays Kay, kidnaps Kay, extensively tortures Kay, and is then accidentally killed by Kay during Kay's escape attempt.
Kay, extremely wounded, staggers back to Arthur and confesses that Loholt is dead.
ARTHUR: You had ONE JOB. And now: you will never do another! OUT OF MY SIGHT, KAY.
GAWAIN: Your Majesty, you may be interested to see that Kay is near death's door as a result of suffering terrible torture --
ARTHUR: If he wanted me to "CARE" about his "PAIN" he shouldn't have LOST my KID, now SHOULD HE?
Have I yet mentioned Gawain? I should mention Gawain. Gawain/Kay is definitely an Arthurian rarepair -- indeed, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've encountered it -- but, you know, someone has to do the comforting in this hurt/comfort fic, and, well ....
"Dear Kay, is it so hard to stay with us?"
Kay looked up at him, shaken, open to him as he had hardly ever been before. "If I lost you, Gawain," he said, unevenly, "I should not wish to live."
Lying still, his bed-furs clutched around him, Kay was shaken with a sudden agony of wanting Gawain. He suddenly remembered -- the memories scalding him now -- Gawain's gentle care of him when he was ill in Carlisle, half out of his mind with fear and guilt. Clearer, though just as painful, were his memories of Gawain in Camelot, the unconscious grace and generosity, the compassion, the warmth.
He wished that he were Gawain, the gentle healer, but he was only Kay, and Kay's skills were all he had to use.
"Gentle healer" is not my standard characterization of Gawain, but I'm sure there's a source for it in a saga somewhere!
Gareth is also there and also loves Kay very much, by the way, but not quite as much as Gawain does.
Anyway eventually it comes out that Kay killed Loholt and he is [dun dun] EXILED FROM CAMELOT, but not before tearfully taking off the Significant Ring that Arthur gave him and giving it to Gawain: "It would dishonour you to wear it, but perhaps you would keep it, and remember ..."
(Gawain draws him close and promises to wear it always.)
...and immediately after leaving Camelot Kay is kidnapped and forced to work for Arthur's enemy while being psychologically haunted by the wicked witch. Gareth and Lancelot immediately turn up, see him there, and assume he betrayed them, because this is how Kay's life rolls when he's a tragically misunderstood woobie.
Kay eventually ends up taking charge of a castle and surrounding village that's been devastated by the book's various villains. Within two days he has convinced all the grumpy villagers to trust him by virtue of his extreme logistical skills and not-so-secret heart of gold, and within a week they all think he's the best thing since sliced bread. But when Arthur stops back in the village, Kay runs off in despair and for several months is presumed dead while the court falls into misery and chaos without him!
("He hid everything," Gareth said. "No one understood him. And now they never will."
He bent his head into his hands and let the tears come at last.)
But indeed Kay is not dead; Gawain fights a duel in his honor, and then Gawain and Gareth go find him hermiting on a hilltop and there's another round of hurt/comfort, and then Kay valiantly goes and saves the kingdom just in time for Arthur to come in and witness it, and then Kay collapses AGAIN and wakes up in Arthur's room where Arthur apologizes and admits he was wrong about everything and that he needs and appreciates him! And then holds a public ceremony formally reinstating him, while Gawain and Gareth look on approvingly!
CURTAIN, presumably to be followed by curtainfic, although not without a brief discourse on how the wicked witch Kay just defeated was definitely evil but, like, maybe not that evil, Kay Can Totally Sympathize With The Frustrations Of Women Trapped In Limited Social Roles In The Middle Ages!
I should note that Exiled from Camelot includes an acknowledgment at the beginning thanking Phyllis Ann Karr (author of Idylls of the Queen) for her 'unfailing encouragement.' Said
sovay, when she opened the book and saw this, "Oh! So she asked someone to write her Kay fic for Yuletide, and then she had to be nice about it no matter what she got."
no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 03:12 am (UTC)Oh, my God.
Said sovay, when she opened the book and saw this, "Oh! So she asked someone to write her Kay fic for Yuletide, and then she had to be nice about it no matter what she got."
It's a novel-length fic in a microfandom! What are you going to do?
no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2018-09-18 03:17 am (UTC)...on the other hand, I could totally believe this had been pulled note-for-note from an authentic lost Medieval romance.
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Date: 2018-09-18 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2018-09-18 03:20 am (UTC)OMG. "Thank you so much for writing for me, (author)! I really liked (thing) and (other thing)"
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Date: 2018-09-18 03:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2018-09-18 04:19 am (UTC)I am actually, profoundly invested in people writing Kay fic for Yuletide now.
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Date: 2018-09-18 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:Icon for Arthuriana in general
Date: 2018-09-18 04:15 am (UTC)I regret that this sounds terrible because I would actually like a novel-length h/c fic about Kay and how no one appreciates the work of running a castle and it all falls into chaos when he's gone and then everyone's sorry. I often had fantasies like that when I was a stage manager.
Re: Icon for Arthuriana in general
Date: 2018-09-19 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 05:45 am (UTC)This sounds like. Uh. A thing and a half.
...But in the line of Phyllis Ann Karr's "thank you so much for writing me a Yuletide fic" sentiments, behold this amazingly damning-with-faint-praise blurb that the Amazon page for this book proudly touts:
"One of the half-dozen best Arthurian novels I have yet read"
-Phyllis Ann Karr, author of Idylls of the Queen and The Arthurian Companion.
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Date: 2018-09-18 10:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2018-09-18 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-09-20 12:20 am (UTC)I can see the basic impulse--Sir Kay does important work and should probably be appreciated more--but the execution sounds hilarious.
And now I want Gawain/Kay. In a more, ah, standard characterization.
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Date: 2018-09-23 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
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