The Mists of Avalon: Difference between revisions
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** Brains: Viviane
** Brawn: Igraine
* [[Because Destiny Says So]]: Pretty much every line out of Viviane's mouth. The entire reason for Arthur's (and Mordred's) existence.
* [[Broken Pedestal]]: Morgaine's for Viviane {{spoiler|when she finds out she orchestrated the anonymous sexual tryst between Morgaine and her brother.}}
* [[Brother-Sister Incest]]: {{spoiler|Morgaine}} conceives a child by Arthur, a boy named Gwydion ("bright one"). {{spoiler|This is subverted somewhat in that Morgaine and Arthur did not know they were having sex with each other at the time. Morgaine hadn't seen her half-brother since he was 6 and she was nearly 11, both were masked, and both were playing parts in a Sacred Marriage rite.}}
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** {{spoiler|Even being tricked into marrying an old dude...the father of the man she was in love with, no less.}}
** And the list goes on...
* [[Damsel in Distress]]: Gwenhwyfar.
* [[Dress Hits Floor]]: (Miniseries version) Gwenhwyfar.
* [[Doorstopper]]: Even the paperback would make a decent doorstop or bludgeon in a pinch.
* [[Drunk on the Dark Side]]: Mordred.
* [[The Dutiful Son]]: Arthur.
* [[Elegant Classical Musician]]: Morgaine considers that there are men who lust after her when she plays the harp in Caerleon. She's ''good'' with that harp.
* [[Enigmatic Empowering Entity]]: The Lady of the Lake is a machiavellian politician who supports King Arthur because she believes that it will save her people.
* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: In the miniseries, for sure: Accolon, Arthur, Lancelot.
* [[Evil Matriarch]]: Morgause.
** Also Viviane, who textually does some horrible things, like arranging for her niece and nephew to have sex with each other, poisoning her terminally ill best friend (who does not agree unequivocally to euthanasia), and cursing Gwen to miscarriage after miscarriage because any child of hers would be raised Christian, meaning that Avalon's candidate for the throne, Mordred, would never gain power.
* [[The Fair Folk]]: Present, and more than happy to either help after extracting a huge promise, or generally fuck things up to get what they want. Presented as powerful, manipulative, and not to be trusted.
* [[The Hecate Sisters]]: Viviane makes [[Lampshade Hanging|explicit reference]] to the concept of "maiden, mother and crone" when referring to Morgaine, Igraine and herself. Morgaine, at the time, is THREE, which is a bit young to be considered a maiden.
* [[Holier Than Thou]]: Gwenhwyfar's general attitude against anything Avalon-related.
** (Though we're supposed to disagree with Gwen, she's RIGHT. Avalon, by the text's admission, embraces human sacrifice of daughters and sex rituals that involve drugging the woman. Christianity, for all its flaws, does neither.)
* [[Ho Yay]]: Arthur and Lancelot. Adds quite a different spin to the traditional love triangle...
* [[Lawful Stupid]]: Arthur,
* [[Iron Lady]]: Viviane.
* [[Jesus Was Way Cool]]: Many pagans in the book comment that they don't mind Christ; their problem is with the people interpreting His words.
* [[King Arthur]]: See [[The Chosen One]].
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* [[Law of Inverse Fertility]]: {{spoiler|Morgaine}} sleeps with Arthur once, and conceives. Gwenhwyfar does everything she can for years to conceive, down to betraying her Christianity and asking Morgaine for a magical charm, and cannot. {{spoiler|Subverted a little; Gwenhwyfar's infertility is not natural. Morgause has cursed her to have no children, and the curse is not broken until Gwenhwyfar hits menopause.}}
** {{spoiler|And by "cursed", they mean she planted goons in the castle to mix contraceptive/abortion herbs into her meals.}}
** {{spoiler|On top of Morgause's contraceptives, however, Viviane and Kevin also decide to use spells to ensure that Gwen never carries a child to term. The reason? If Gwen bears a living child, Arthur will have an heir who is not Mordred, and all of Avalon's plots and machinations will be for nothing.}}
* [[Les Yay]]: Viviane and Raven. Also, Morgaine and Raven.
* [[Living MacGuffin]]: Gwenhwyfar.
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* [[MacGuffin]]: The Holy Grail.
* [[Matriarchy]]: The way things are run in Avalon, where girls are forced to sleep with men they don't know or care about for ritual reasons, bear or abort children according to the dictates of the High Priestess and used their sexuality to lure and betray men they love.... This is Feminism?
** Igraine thinks in the first chapter of the first section: "A daughter of the Holy Isle must do as was best for her people, whether it meant [[Human Sacrifice|going to death in sacrifice]], or [[Questionable Consent|laying down her maidenhood in the Sacred Marriage]], or [[Arranged Marriage|marrying where it was thought meet to cement alliances]][.]" No wonder people are converting to Christianity, if those are the only alternatives for
* [[Merlin and Nimue]]: Done with unbelievable tragedy.
* [[Playing Against Type]]: You'd think [[Anjelica Huston]] would play the evil sister and Joan Allen would play the good one, instead of vice versa!
* [[Please, I Will Do Anything!]]: Gwenhwyfar {{spoiler|to Morgaine when she asks her to create a fertility charm to make her conceive, despite Gwen's extreme aversion to anything pagan or magical.}}
* [[Real Men Love Jesus]]: Gwenhwyfar basically pulls this on Arthur during a fight.
* [[Rescue Sex]]: Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet, after her rescue from her rapist-captor (and, he claims, half-brother) Meleagrant.
* [[Reincarnation Romance]]: Subverted. Viviane and Uther may have had one had they not been born a little too far apart and only met when they were both too old.
** Played straight earlier when Igraine has her epiphany that she and Uther were lovers in a previous lifetime. Uther-in-previous-incarnations got around.
* [[Right-Hand Hottie]]: Lancelot to Arthur.
* [[Sex As a Rite of Passage]]: The Sacred Marriage ritual
* [[Spell My Name with an "S"]]: Gwenhwyfar, Lancelet, Morgaine, Morgause, Igraine.
* [[They Just Didn't Care]]: The book shows definite signs of this, as characterization contradicts itself from chapter to chapter, the timeline is tangled and involves frequent retcons, and the continuity is nonexistent. This was almost certainly deliberate, as Marion Zimmer Bradley "[http://home.pon.net/rhinoceroslodge/mzb.htm became irate when they (fans) expected her to remember details and fashion consistency throughout" her Darkover series, which she insisted was not a series]; she felt that timelines and continuity confined authors' creativity and therefore should be ignored. (Mind you, she did care about using the book to preach about the goddess. Just not about the details of the story.)
* [[Three-Way Sex]]: {{spoiler|Arthur, Gwenhwyfar, and Lancelot.}}
* [[Twice-Told Tale]]: While it is not strictly necessary to be familiar with Arthurian legend to enjoy the book, it makes a lot more sense if you know the basics of the legends.
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