The Beginning Concepts
I include these next few appendixes in order to achieve two main goals. The first is to allow the reader to gain a better understanding of the mythos and sources of the legends of King Arthur with which this book is based upon. The second is to allow one to gain better insight into the creative process that led to the creation of this novel that you have now read, and to help illuminate points and themes that might have been hidden in the text.
The book itself began several years ago, as a method for me to temporarily escape what I have seen as a mundane and almost soul crushing occupation of corporate retail. The decision to base the story in the world of King Arthur was based upon watching and hearing the joy in my father’s voice when he would talk about his love for the legend and story of Arthur Pendragon. Ironically, this first novel was entirely different in its original concept than what it is now. Furthermore, looking at the finished product, I am glad that the original story was scrapped entirely.
The original project was tentatively titled, “The Black Knight” and followed the adventures of Mordred and his love interest Hannah, as they fought the evil machinations of a little known brother from the Arthur mythos, Arn, and the duo would eventually pave the way for Mordred’s redemption and inheriting his rightful place to the throne. There were few other aspects of the book that I was hoping to include, (knights imbedded with supernatural powers, fantastic chase scenes, and combining the legendary Paladins of Charlemagne with the Knights of the Table Round). As you can see, and as I eventually found, the book was too farfetched for its own good, and the story began to turn from one that I would love to read, into one that I would lambast with my friends and family.
As such, I abandoned the idea and only again took the task of writing the book when hearing my father speak of Arthur and the famous novel by T.H. White, “The Once and Future King”. Hearing my father’s voice seemed to reignite my own passion for the tales, as if they had been sparked for the first time, a rebirth from an unknown death. Thus, the drive to write “The Flower of King and Knights” had begun. This was originally a blog, and was somewhat a success, though I never received a single comment pertaining to what the readers thought of the work, which eventually led me to the site Wattpad.com, where the book began to find an audience.
Certain ideas and themes were carried from the original project to this one; the knights buried under Camelot and turned into stone, Hannah’s death and imbedding into a magical object (while the character was revised into Cecilia), and the existence of two worlds, but for the most part, the story had changed drastically.
The greatest change, and one that I hoped sets it apart from other stories that deal with the story of a post-Arthur world, was that I wanted it to be as true to the original legend of the king and his noble knights. Unlike many movies, novels and television programs that ignore or re-write the legends to fit the story, I wanted to the story to be as true of a sequel to the legends as they could.
To this extent I used what many consider the definitive source for all Arthur based literature, Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. This helped to removed common mistakes of the modern perception of the Arthur story, but also introduced layers and storylines that would give the book, or at least I hope it would, a depth in the storyline that was greatly absent from recent attempts to take on the King Arthur legend.
Of course, I admit many details and aspects of the traditional stories were reworked, the two worst offenses being the character of Ector Pendragon himself and with the return of the Grail and Spear after their ascent to heaven. With respect to the return of the holy objects, this was not to diminish or disrespect the religious aspects of the Christian faith, nor the tragedy of Camelot and Arthur’s final years. Instead, they were to better justify the resurrection of Mordred, and to help better explain how the existence and separation of Britain and Britannia and how these two lands affected the story of Arthur in what is our world.
Ector
Ector was important in that he represents our view into Medieval Europe, both from a comical and serious standpoint. He is our voice when we can only read what he must go through in addition to rebuilding a destroyed kingdom. His story comes from a span of years that even Thomas Malory quickly glosses over, Arthur’s early years as king, and what is lightly discusses in Edmund Spencer’s Faeire Queen, where we see a young Arthur looking for the titular queen throughout the narratives. This gave me the idea of a romance between the two before the marriage of Guinevere and, as such, a loop hole of sorts with which Ector could still exist and kept the story of Arthur unchanged from the original sources.
Knights of the Round Table
Of course, there were elements of the original story that were rewritten in order to give the narrative an authentic feel. One change that was made was the relationship of Mordred and Morgan le Fay which began as the media accepted mother-son relationship. Though I was glad to keep the incestuous relationship in order to give the villains an element of vilification apart from the “virtuous” heroes.
There was also the inclusion of Sir Culwech, who was the central character of his own adventure as a knight of Arthur’s court, and Derfel, who was the basis of series by Bernard Cornwell. They also helped to show that the Order of the Round Table represented a unity within the kingdom, where men were judged by their actions, not by their social status alone.
This idea is taken more to heart by Ector during the latter half of the novel when he and Mordred begin their battle for control of what was to be the rebirth of Camelot. I also admit that this was used to justify having Ector come from our time and back to Camelot.
Mordred
Finally, what I thought was important to the story, was the primary villain, Mordred. It almost goes without saying that Mordred’s portrayal in the modern media almost makes this man into a glorified Snidley Whiplash. From the movie “Excalibur” which portrayed him as a boy in a man’s armor, to “King Arthur vs. Dracula” (which is actually a fine take on the legends apart from this particular complaint), to a recent version of “Camelot” with Gabriel Bryne and Thomas Gunn, Mordred is rarely shown as a serious opponent.
He is almost a villainous joke, lacking humanity, depth and real substance to give him a lasting impression as a character. As such, I felt that Mordred needed to be given a treatment that had been denied to him for so long. In order to achieve this I thought it best to move away from his typical depiction.
The first step I made was to make Mordred funny, not in the same manner as the rest of the characters. Instead Mordred’s humor would be akin to the similar manner as The Joker in “The Dark Knight”, where the reader wants to laugh but the nature of the jest is so dark that one has to think twice before they laugh.
The second aspect, which I felt gave the character a greater level of depth was adding level of Machiavellian strategy. Someone who doesn’t just act out unless it achieves a calculated result. Too many films show Mordred as a over reactive, arrogant brat who needed several spankings than he does anything else.
Which was one of the few true benefits of delving into the work by Malory to better acquaint myself with the Arthur stories. In it, Mordred doesn’t appear to be a villain until after the death of his mother Morguase, something that few of the stories really look into. For me when reading this, there posed a major question that gave Mordred an unexplored area, “What if he was avenging his mother?”
The Arthur legends never mention why Mordred turns on the king, nor does it really explore his mindset after Morgause’s murder. So what came from the results seemed to be a logical conclusion, Mordred would be on an avenging quest that during the process, turned him from what would be a heroic journey to that of a vile human. In fact, what I hoped came from this was that Mordred would become a sympathetic villain. If he was not Mordred, if he was not fighting Arthur, then he would be someone that we would want to support and even cheer for to succeed.
All in all, the main thing I wanted to do was to take the legends to a new level, and more importantly, I wanted to avoid beaten paths of previous writers and authors and give the legends of Arthur and his noble knights a new life. Hopefully, by reading this and enjoying this work, you have shown that this effort was not in vain. And from the depths of my heart I thank you.