Arthuriana
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name(s): | Medieval Literature Fandom, Arthuriana Fandom, Arthurian Literature Fandom |
| Abbreviation(s): | Arthuriana |
| Scope/Focus: | Medieval Arthurian literature |
| Date(s): | unknown - present |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Arthuriana Fandom is a fandom present on tumblr dedicated to medieval literature about King Arthur and his knights. The fandom doesn't have a set source material so members group themselves together under the name of the academic journal Arthuriana, although popular texts read by most of the fandom include Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory and Sir Gawain and The Green Knight by an unknown author.
Texts
Arthuriana is a fandom dedicated to works of medieval Arthurian literature, do not add non-medieval literature to this section, go to the Arthurian Legend page instead.
- Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
- Sir Gawain and The Green Knight by an anonymous poet
- The Lancelot-Graal Cycle by anonymous authors
- The Dutch Texts by various authors
- The romances of Chrétien De Troyes
- The History of The Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
- Diu Krone by Heinrich von dem Türlin
Characters
- Sir Gawaine
- Sir Lancelot du Lac
- Sir Kay
- Sir Bedivere
- Morgan le fay
- Sir Galahad
- Sir Mordred
- Lord Galehaut of the Distant Isles
- Queen Guinneviere
- King Arthur Pendragon
- Sir Tristan de Liones
- Isolde of Ireland
- Sir Aggravaine
- Sir Gaheris
- Sir Gareth
- The Lady of The Lake
- The Lady of The Lake
- Sir Palomides
- Sir Dinadan
- Sebile
- Sir Perceval
Fandom
Due to the nature of the fandom they have been repeatedly [1] denied their own fandom tag on archiveofourown. [2] [3], causing a low number of the actual fandom to read fic. [4] This same problem arises for similar reasons across other platforms so content is spread mainly by the members of the fandom already following each other. Members tend to have strong negative feelings towards The Once and Future King by TH White, mainly caused by the racism in the book and the misconceptions about actual Arthurian lit it produced, along with the Fate Franchise and BBC Merlin for polluting Arthurian tags. Arthurian literature contains a large body of works so members of the fandom tend to find a knight or two to fixate on and read texts based on whether or not they show up, which makes the process of finding works easier, although fan-favorites are the Orkney Brothers (Gawain, Aggravaine, Gaheris, Gareth and Mordred) and Lancelot. A variety of different variations of characters' names are used so each individual has their own set of names they use for characters. The fandom has expressed a desire to make Arthurian Literature more accessible and thus one of the cornerstones are members publicly sharing pdfs of the texts, some of which were either scanned by the poster themself. Large numbers of these texts remain untranslated so several members have gone so far as taught themselves Medieval French or Welsh to understand and translate them. Common jokes in the fandom involve referring to Medieval authors by first name, either affectionately or derogatorily, pitting the same versions of the same character, just from different traditions, such as Gwalchmai (Welsh Gawaine) and Walewein (Dutch Gawaine), against each other in a theoretical fight, and making fun of common romance tropes such as Gawaine showing up out of nowhere and stealing the show, plots motivated by the need to spite Kay, and Lancelot falling asleep and getting kidnapped constantly. Popular fanon includes Sir Galahad having a crush on St Sebastian and that the majority of characters are trans. Reincarnation AUs are the most popular genre of fic, with most either following a plot of "let's reassemble the round table and reclaim the throne!" or "let's just comply to this fanfic trope and maybe a couple of us still have our memories."
Shipping
There isn't much room for shipping wars in the fandom, and the most popular ship is Remarkable, or Lancelot/Gawaine, the name coming from a passage in the vulgate, similar to Always. [5]. Kay/Bedivere is also pretty much universally agreed upon. Galadred, or Galahad/Mordred is also popular, but some find it plain, mainly because they never meet in canon. For femslash there's Guinneviere/Morgan, Guinneviere/Isolde and Morgan/Vivviane, although the former is notably the most popular. Canon/semi-canon ships such as Lancehaut (Lancelot/Galehaut), Ragnelle/Gawaine, Gawain/Bertilak and Tristan/Isolde are less popular but still widely accepted by the fandom due to their canon or semi-canon basis. The fandom has, however, reacted negatively to other canon ships such as Lancelot/Guinneviere and Arthur/Guinneviere, purposely splitting them up as they were a product of the times and are incredibly unhealthy from a modern perspective.