recommended resolution 1024 x 768

Thanks for reading.

11/10/04

Sir Tristram's chronology confounds Le Morte d'Arthur scholars. On the one hand, the events in Le Morte d'Arthur are apparently told in simple chronological order. On the other hand, despite a few earlier cameo appearances, Tristram's birth isn't recorded until halfway through the book. Then in his adventures he encounters Sir Caradoc, who was killed picking a fight with Lancelot about a quarter-book before Tristram's birth. Let's just say that Tristram's timeline's relation to Arthur's is open to interpretation. (Not to be unexpected: like Merlin's, Tristram's story cycle was conflated with Arthur's after many years' seperate existence.)

One thing I do recall is that, despite already being one of Arthur's knights by the time of Arthur's war against the Roman emperor Lucius, Tristram declines to go on that campaign because of his love for Isolde, which ticks Lancelot off until he starts an affair with his own lord's wife and begins to understand. Therefore Tristram is already estabished at Arthur's court relatively early on. So here we have Tristram in AKOTAS.

Logically, and if I remember correctly according to Le Morte d'Arthur, Tristram will not have joined Arthur's court until he's been exiled from Mark's court as a result of Mark finding out about him and Isolde. (Not that any actual, technical state of exile exists: Tristram leaves Mark's court because Mark chases him out with a sword in his hand.) Which would mean the events of some half of Tristram's story cycle have already occurred and AKOTAS has skipped over them. This could suit me; Tristram's story isn't a favorite of mine, being just Lancelot's story if Arthur were a bounder instead of a great man (or, as some would have it, instead of a fool).

But Mark is a bounder, and paranoid about Tristram's superior prowess besides. I could decide later that Tristram is exiled now due to Mark's jealousy - which did happen at least once - and that Mark's discovery of the lovers is still in AKOTAS's future.

First, probably, I should decide - since the sources vary - whether Mark is a duke or a king. Say, it'd be just like him to be a duke who calls himself a king ...

Webcomics I read mornings: Peanuts, General Protection Fault, User Friendly, Sinfest, Kevin & Kell, Real Life
Webcomics I read middays: Calvin & Hobbes, Least I Could Do, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Wapsi Square, Dandy and Company
Webcomics I read evenings: Something Positive, Irregular Comic, Count Your Sheep, Sluggy Freelance, PvP
Webcomics I read Monday-Wednesday-Fridays: Megatokyo, Reasoned Cognition, Onezumi, El Goonish Shive, Striptease, Queen of Wands, Loserz, Penny Arcade
Webcomics I read Tuesday-Thursdays: Digger, AppleGeeks, Her: Girl vs Pig, As If!
Webcomics I read Mondays: The Whovian Observer, Skirting Danger, Framed!!!, Boxjam's Doodle
See also The Belfry Comics Index, The Webcomic List, Nth Degree, Comixpedia and Websnark.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthurian Legend
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.