The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

Though Arthur is not present for most of the novel, he is one of its most important characters. Arthur is tall and elegant, with black hair and deep-set eyes of the palest gray. The son of King Uther Pendragon and Igraine of Cornwall, Arthur has a name with both Roman and Pagan roots. When he is a child, his older half-sister Morgan tells him that “Arthur” arises not from the Roman “Artorius,” as he will be told, but from the Celtic term for “bear” (654). Morgan’s observation reflects the text’s trajectory for Arthur’s character: He will forever struggle between his Romanized Christian and Pagan selves until he reconciles them toward the end of his life.

In legend, Arthur is the perfect, fair ruler, and his Round Table is a democratic ideal. The novel stays close to this depiction while adding psychological depth to Arthur’s character. For instance, the Arthur of legend is so perfect that he comes across as a cipher or a blank slate. Grossman provides a reason for Arthur’s cool front: He appears distant because his mind is always racing ahead of others. In the novel, Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, does not commit adultery with Lancelot. Guinevere loves Arthur and understands his great mind and lofty ideals. This depiction further undoes the traditional image of Arthur as a distant, victimized husband.

Guinevere notes that Arthur dotes on Mordred, ignoring Mordred’s many flaws. In Arthurian lore, Mordred is born after his mother, Morgause of the Orkneys, and her half-brother Arthur have sex (either accidentally or as the result of a bewitchment). Thus, not only is Arthur himself born after Uther rapes Igraine, but his only child is the product of incest. This shows the paradox of Arthur: His personal perfection coexists with problematic elements in his backstory. Arthur’s murder at the hands of Mordred in the novel mirrors Arthur’s own killing of King Bran, with time coming a full circle.

At the novel’s end, Arthur realizes that Paganism and Christianity are part of the same whole. Arthur’s evolution from a Christian king who never revisited the shrines of Little Dunoak to one who seeks unity between Christianity and Paganism shows that he is a dynamic, three-dimensional character.

One of the novel’s main characters, Bedivere is a knight of the Round Table and Arthur’s marshal. After Collum declares Guinevere queen, Bedivere is the first knight to kneel before her.

Bedivere describes himself as tall, with tousled hair the color of dishwater and a blunt face. Though he was born without a left hand, he develops a fighting style with a war hammer that makes his right arm disproportionately strong. At the end of the novel, Bedivere gets a left hand in a miracle, the hand signifying Arthur’s blessing. Bedivere is attracted to men and is deeply in love with Arthur.

Unlike Arthur, who is a devout Christian, Bedivere is more skeptical about life and religion. He remains suspicious of Lancelot throughout the novel, a hunch that is proven correct. Thus, the wary Bedivere acts as a corrective to Arthur’s gullibility for quests and adventures. Bedivere is also skeptical about Guinevere, partly because he sees her as a rival for Arthur’s love. He minimizes Arthur’s love for Guinevere, claiming that the only reason the king married her was to make her wealthy family his allies. However, at the end of the novel, Bedivere is the first to accept Guinevere as queen and goes on to become her fiercest protector. This change shows that Bedivere is a round character ready to shed his prejudices.

The wife of King Arthur, and later queen of Britain in her own right, Guinevere is one of the novel’s important characters. Though Guinevere’s marriage to Arthur was arranged, she fell deeply in love with the king. She is described by Palomides as tall, skinny, and round-faced, “with the kind of beauty one admire[s] more than desire[s]” (159). Palomides also notes that Guinevere is very intelligent. It is suggested that Guinevere faces social pressure and political conspiracy due to the fact that she and Arthur do not have a child. Nimue reveals that Merlin told her that he plans to assume Arthur’s form magically so that he can make Guinevere pregnant. Thus, Guinevere lives in a time when being a clever queen and a child-free woman exposes her to many challenges.

Her character is resilient in the face of these challenges, as well as the false charges of adultery. One of the defining features of the novel’s portrayal of Guinevere is that she does not love Lancelot and does not sleep with him. In fact, she is enraged that legend will believe her false love story with Lancelot, a man whose values are radically different from her own. This subversive portrayal of Guinevere establishes her as a character with agency.

It is also Guinevere who saves the day for Collum and the others by rescuing them via the Errant. The portrayal of Guinevere as a rescuer inverts the trope of the “damsel in distress.” Guinevere’s appearance in the Wild Hunt, riding a white tiger, suggests a goddess-like aspect to her portrayal. It also shows that she accepts both Pagan and Christian aspects of Britain. Later in the novel, it is revealed that Guinevere does go on to have a son, Bedivere, from her second marriage to the King of Glamorgan.

Lancelot is one of the two antagonists in the text, his portrayal in the novel marking a significant departure from Arthurian lore. The Lancelot of legend is a prodigious knight; his perfection is only marred by his lust for the married Guinevere and his affair with Elaine. In the book, Lancelot’s love for Guinevere is a lie, and he is an overtly zealous knight, drawn to treachery and violence by religious fervor.

The flip side to Lancelot’s discipline and piety is a coldness of purpose. When Lancelot’s faith in Arthur breaks, he runs away from the king and ends up at Guinevere’s door, immediately setting in action his plan to dethrone Arthur. Guinevere describes how Lancelot systematically binds her, strips himself, and then kills the 12 knights who accompanied Mordred to her room.

Apart from his violence, Lancelot’s other great crime is his propensity to lie. For instance, he tells the Round Table knights the irony of the fact that the knight who came to arrest him in Guinevere’s chambers was a man he had saved by bringing a bloody cloth from the Chapel Perilous. However, in Guinevere’s telling, the knight was not present at her chambers at all. Lancelot’s refusal to change his zealous views marks him as a static, one-dimensional character.

In Arthurian lore, Nimue refers both to the Lady of the Lake who gives Arthur his sword as well as to Merlin’s apprentice who is also his downfall. Nimue’s other names include Vivien and Ninianne. Associated with Celtic and Welsh water goddesses, Nimue is a benevolent sorceress who, in some versions of the Arthurian story, is the divine protector of Lancelot. Drawing on Nimue’s association with both Christianity and pre-Christian sources, The Bright Sword depicts Nimue as a believing Christian who practices sorcery.

Nimue is described as beautiful, with freckled, pale skin, a sharp nose, and bright eyes. The only woman in the all-male setting of Arthur’s Round Table, Nimue has a commanding presence, perhaps because she has had to fight to survive: She nearly perishes from starvation before Merlin makes her his apprentice. Merlin’s attempted assault of Nimue signifies that he wants to take away her growing powers. Thus, Nimue’s conquering of Merlin represents a win against patriarchal forces.

Nimue’s negotiation between her faith in Jesus and her practice of magic is never easy: When Morgan asks her why she defends a God in whose chapel she is not allowed, Nimue says that Jesus may be harder to love because of his demanding ways, but “that’s because He is not like a man. He is greater” (499). This shows that Nimue herself cannot reconcile her intellectual logic with her faith. The contradictory beliefs do not take away from Nimue but humanize her as a complex person struggling to use faith to make sense of a chaotic world.

Fiery and sharp, Morgan is an ambiguous character in the text, possessing a dual aspect. Morgan can be benevolent or hostile, depending on the context. For instance, she captures the raving Sir Kay, Arthur’s foster brother, and uses him as bait to lure the knights to the Otherworld, but she also watches over Collum since he is half fairy and uses her enchantments to keep Arthur alive. Morgan is beautiful, with red hair and green eyes, and often dresses in red and green clothes, wearing a crown of antlers or horns.

In Arthurian lore, Morgan’s depiction ranges from a benevolent deity (early sources) to an evil sorceress (in later versions). The evolution in Morgan’s portrayal represents the strengthening didactic strain in Arthurian stories. The novel shows Morgan to be a human, realistic character, despite her enormous magical power. She has a strong political consciousness, understanding that Uther’s so-called seduction of Igraine was actually a tool of cultural erasure.

Ironically, it is Morgan’s time at the nunnery that engenders her dislike of Christianity. Not only is she taught that the body is evil, but when her coven is discovered in the abbey, they are also hunted down. Though Morgan is spared since she is the stepdaughter of Uther, the rest of her coven is hanged to death. Thus, Morgan sees firsthand the violence that takes place in the name of Jesus. Morgan’s rejection of Christianity and her entry to the fairy realm represent her rejection of patriarchal institutions.

One of the text’s main characters, Dinadan is a knight of the Round Table distinguished by his wit, fairy-taught fighting style and a sword made with “blued steel so matte it d[oes]n’t even look metal” (53). Dinadan’s appearance itself is ordinary: Collum notes that he can be mistaken for a greengrocer. The nondescript appearance may be deliberate because Dinadan does not want to draw too much attention to himself. Dinadan was assigned female at birth as Orwen and now binds his breasts. Dinadan symbolizes integrity in the text since he is always true to himself. His integrity makes him a fitting assassin for Merlin, a sorcerer known for his shifting loyalties and manipulative nature.

At the end of the novel, Dinadan is shown to receive Christian grace. The grace is juxtaposed against the fact that Dinadan’s gender identity would be considered a sin in church dogma. Dinadan observes the contradiction that, despite the dogma, Christian tradition is filled with saints who lived as men, such as “Saint Marina the Monk […] accused of fathering a child” (264). Dinadan’s defeat of Merlin, a power-hungry sexual predator who mocks Dinadan, serves as poetic justice and also underscores the fact that gender identity does not depend on biological determinism.

Palomides, a Round Table member known in legend as the Saracen Knight, is a prince of Baghdad. Palomides is broad shouldered and handsome, with a “noble profile” (162). When he arrives at Arthur’s court, Palomides has to tolerate the blinkered worldview and preconceived notions of the Europeans. He observes, for example, that the ladies of the court speak about him in Latin in his presence, confident that he will not know the language. Similarly, Britons boast of the marvels of their kingdom, unaware of the fact that Palomides’s Baghdad is far more advanced.

Despite these obstacles, Palomides makes a place for himself at Arthur’s table and finds solidarity with the other knights. Palomides represents a blurring of traditions and worlds: As the inscription on his sword suggests, he is a Muslim; however, later, Tristan forcibly baptizes him Christian. Palomides now feels that he is a part of both cultures. This fluid attitude is reflected in Palomides’s acceptance of Morgan’s fairy world. By the novel’s end, he joins Morgan’s company, and the beast Glatisant is his faithful companion. Palomides’s repentance at Isolde’s death also shows that he is a person capable of learning from his mistakes. Thus, he is a dynamic character.

Dagonet the Fool often describes himself as “lowly” since, in legend, Arthur makes him a knight as a joke (338). However, in the novel, Dagonet is an intelligent, melancholy character who deals with mental health concerns. Dagonet notes that his mind is never at peace. The fact that Dagonet, along with Constantine, is chosen to witness the end of the Grail quest shows his innate heroism and wisdom.

Collum notes the irony that though Dagonet is known for his humor, he appears serious at all times. Dagonet’s act in Arthur’s court derives its power from the fact that he remains straight faced through it. Dagonet’s intelligence can be seen in his reluctance toward the Grail quest. He instinctively senses that the quest is a disaster and only joins it with great reluctance. Later, when Constantine asks him to join another quest—one that will make Lancelot king—Dagonet learns from the past and declines. Although, like Constantine, Dagonet loses his life in the subsequent events, Dagonet dies a hero’s death, saving Palomides. Thus, Dagonet symbolizes heroism and wisdom in the novel.