Late Night Post about The Green Knight film (spoilers obviously)

[Ryallen]

So I'm sitting here at nearly 1 am being anxious about life and my place in it, the usual stuff, and I wanted to talk to no one in particular about the Green Knight and some thoughts I had about it a few weeks ago, despite my having seen it months prior. Specifically, after some thought, I've come to the conclusion that (one of the film's) message(s) is that honor is bullshit and unreasonable.

His interaction with the looter in what I can only call the first chapter was basically him coming across a dude robbing corpses in a battlefield and asking for directions. The dude hassles him and bugs him but gives him directions and, when Gawain turns to leave, demands payment as thanks. Gawain seems confused about this and I won't lie, I was too. I get that it would've been kind to toss him a coin but A: the guy is already stealing from dead people so I think he's good on money for the time being and B: the directions caused him little inconvenience and cost even less to give. If I was asking someone on the side of the road for directions I wouldn't think to give him a dollar just for the help. The dude was also really rude about it too, getting up in his face (as much as a graverobber can to a dude on a horse) citing honor and shit despite his incredibly dishonorable act of stealing from the dead. Not to mention the dude gets his bandit buddies and robs Gawain blind, stealing his horse and leaving him to die in the woods even after successfully convincing Gawain to toss him a coin for his "trouble". So he's the last guy to lecture anyone on honor.

In the second chapter, Gawain is sleeping in an abandoned cabin and is approached by the ghost of a young woman who was killed by a lord after she refused his advances. She asks him to dive into a pitch black river in the middle of the night and retrieve her skull so she can rest in peace. He goes to do this but stops and asks what he'll get in return and she gets really angry at him for asking for something in return. I immediately called bullshit on this, because Gawain was just robbed and left tied to a tree and just barely escaped with nothing but the clothes on his back, and was just asked by someone he's never met to do something incredibly dangerous and unnerving purely for her benefit. His request of some sort of reward, like supplies or something, is 100% reasonable given the circumstances and is even what the dude in the last chapter outright demanded and punished Gawain for. But it's somehow wrong of Gawain to ask for something in return for doing something so strenuous for someone he's never met.

I won't say a whole lot about the chapter with Joel Edgerton because I don't remember a lot of it, but I remember Edgerton talking to Gawain about honor and how it's a behavior not a status, something so incredibly obvious to people outside the movie so it's pointless to go on about it, Edgerton kissing Gawain because his wife jacked him off, and said handjob from the wife after she offered Gawain the sash his mother made him that was stolen from him by the bandits while also telling him that she made it, then calling him a dickhead for accepting said sash and handjob. So it's apparently more honorable to lie to someone and sexually coerce them with promises of protection and safety than it is to accept said help because you're alone, scared, and more than a little frustrated with his BS quest the dude from Mission Impossible said you had to do. Aight cool, gaslight gatekeep girlboss I suppose.

The last chapter I remember as Gawain meeting the Green Knight and talking to him about being beheaded, and it struck me that the knight walked up to the court and demanded a fight with whoever wanted to fight for their king, knowing full well that he could take whatever hit they had to give him. And that was a shitty thing to do, we're all in agreement that stacking a deck like that is not cool. Not mentioning that you're immortal and calling the beloved leader of a bunch of honor bound warriors a ***** is probably not very honorable to do. So Gawain shows up with the sash, hoping that it will protect him from dying. At first I agreed that yeah, it's not great to avoid consequences like that. But then I thought about it and I realized that what Gawain was doing was no different than what the Green Knight did, but this was somehow treated as different and worse for some reason that escapes me. I know it's a thing about following through and stuff but he's still there with as much of a stacked deck as the Green Knight had, maybe even less given that the sash hasn't actually done shit yet, and the movie paints this as the wrong choice to make.

I dunno, after chewing on the movie for as long as I did, I came to the conclusion that the film, intentionally or otherwise, held Gawain to a standard that every other person refused to be held to simply because he was a knight. And I know that's the point, but then the conclusion comes to Gawain being beaten, attacked, and harassed because he was supposed to be better than the people that were beating, attacking, and harassing him but kept failing anyways. So that makes the message of the movie (from this train of logic) that being honorable is stupid because no one else is going to be honorable, you won't be better for being honorable, but people will always expect it from you because life is unfair

 

[gorfias]

I'm looking forward to seeing it sometime. Briefly, I hear that its message is that people don't change. The message of the OG story is that Gawain has a journey that allows him to grow as a person. In this telling, he is the same person at the end that he was at the start.

 

[Ryallen]

I'm looking forward to seeing it sometime. Briefly, I hear that its message is that people don't change. The message of the OG story is that Gawain has a journey that allows him to grow as a person. In this telling, he is the same person at the end that he was at the start.

It's kind of hard to tell if he undergoes meaningful change in the film because it ends right after he has his epiphany by removing the sash. It's like if in Spiderverse the film ended just as Miles learned to web swing

 

[Agema]

snip

I think, perhaps, the point of the film is that Gawain is rubbish.

He takes on the Green Knight to make a name for himself. Having been warned that the cut he inflicts will be returned to him a year hence, he cuts the Green Knight's head off. Somewhat unwise, and unnecessarily brutal to chop the head off some dude who issued a challenge, but hasn't really issued a threat. Stupid bravado. A year then passes, during which time he's accomplished nothing except screw his peasant girlfriend (who he is using for sex and won't commit to, because she's lower class, because that's the sort of guy he is).

His interaction with the looter in what I can only call the first chapter was basically him coming across a dude robbing corpses in a battlefield and asking for directions.

Okay. But what would it have cost Gawain to have rewarded a man who offered to help him, irrespective of that guy being dodgy? Wouldn't an honourable man be generous? What does it matter that the man is doing something bad, is ill-mannered: why does that negate the help he offers Gawain? (Maybe Gawain would even have been honourable to challenge the man for looting the dead, but he's got no standards there either.)

In the second chapter, Gawain is sleeping in an abandoned cabin and is approached by the ghost of a young woman who was killed by a lord after she refused his advances.

Here again, Gawain could just do the honourable thing and help for nothing, but instead he bargains for something in return.

I won't say a whole lot about the chapter with Joel Edgerton

Gawain pitches up at a noble's castle, is looked after, and repays his host's kindness by screwing his wife. Yeah. Well. Say no more.

The last chapter I remember as Gawain meeting the Green Knight and talking to him about being beheaded

The Green Knight offered a test, and Gawain is really just paying back the bargain he chose to make. He never had to behead the Green Knight in the first place, he did so because he thought it would create a legacy for himself. He is tested at every step, and he is cowardly, naive, ungenerous, weak-willed, dishonest, and he's not even any use in a fight. Sure, he is under pressure, scared, struggling... but surely the mark of a true knight is that they have the strength of character do the right thing anyway. Throughout the film, Gawain thoroughly fails to live up to any significant knightly virtues, and yet feels entitled to the fame and power of a man who would rule over knights.

Then there's the vision of his future, and this is what it takes for Gawain to see his failures: that he can take the throne, marry his posh totty and rule, but it's not enough to just rule, it is the character and wisdom with which one rules. To be a great king he would need to be a great man, and he is emphatically not. And with that, all his dreams turned to dust, Gawain finally learns something, pulls on his man pants and accepts his fate (whatever that may be).

 

[Piscian]

I think, perhaps, the point of the film is that Gawain is rubbish.

He takes on the Green Knight to make a name for himself. Having been warned that the cut he inflicts will be returned to him a year hence, he cuts the Green Knight's head off. Somewhat unwise, and unnecessarily brutal to chop the head off some dude who issued a challenge, but hasn't really issued a threat. Stupid bravado. A year then passes, during which time he's accomplished nothing except screw his peasant girlfriend (who he is using for sex and won't commit to, because she's lower class, because that's the sort of guy he is).



Okay. But what would it have cost Gawain to have rewarded a man who offered to help him, irrespective of that guy being dodgy? Wouldn't an honourable man be generous? What does it matter that the man is doing something bad, is ill-mannered: why does that negate the help he offers Gawain? (Maybe Gawain would even have been honourable to challenge the man for looting the dead, but he's got no standards there either.)



Here again, Gawain could just do the honourable thing and help for nothing, but instead he bargains for something in return.



Gawain pitches up at a noble's castle, is looked after, and repays his host's kindness by screwing his wife. Yeah. Well. Say no more.



The Green Knight offered a test, and Gawain is really just paying back the bargain he chose to make. He never had to behead the Green Knight in the first place, he did so because he thought it would create a legacy for himself. He is tested at every step, and he is cowardly, naive, ungenerous, weak-willed, dishonest, and he's not even any use in a fight. Sure, he is under pressure, scared, struggling... but surely the mark of a true knight is that they have the strength of character do the right thing anyway. Throughout the film, Gawain thoroughly fails to live up to any significant knightly virtues, and yet feels entitled to the fame and power of a man who would rule over knights.

Then there's the vision of his future, and this is what it takes for Gawain to see his failures: that he can take the throne, marry his posh totty and rule, but it's not enough to just rule, it is the character and wisdom with which one rules. To be a great king he would need to be a great man, and he is emphatically not. And with that, all his dreams turned to dust, Gawain finally learns something, pulls on his man pants and accepts his fate (whatever that may be).

Pretty much all of this, but I feel like OP lost a lot of the subtlety in the story. However, in defense of that they may have thought they were watching a more surface level action king Arthur movie like whatever that guy ritchie shit was. This was entirely about symbolism. I harken it to more of a fairy tale or painting on film rather than a movie.

His mom (morgan le fey) planned all this for two reasons
1. He begs for an opportunity to prove both to the world and to himself that he is as worthy a Knight as all those he looks up to in the court.
2. Teach him humility.

• The first task is "NOT" a fight. Thats the whole trick. I wanna say even the King gets it and tries to warn him. The Knight says as a "friendly Christmas game"(I just rewatched that scene to confirm) , if someone can hit him, and be hit in return, that's it and they get to have that sweet Axe. All Gaiwan had to do was tap him on the shoulder or slap his butt. They all laugh and he gets a reward. Instead he's so absorbed in showing what a badass knight he is that he doomed himself by beheading the Knight who just wanted to play a game.
• The kid tells him a sob story about how his brothers died on the battlefield. Hes clearly poor in comparison to this rich knight. I think this was an opportunity for the Knight to show kindness, but he really made it clear to the kid hes just another rich self-absorbed asshole.
• Honestly the ladys request was another opportunity for him to show chivalry. You have to remember he's supposed to be trying to become a Knight here. Doing things like this is their creed.
• The noble literally just asked him for like one thing and he still couldnt control himself.

The movie is rich with verbal and nonverbal queues and metaphors. Its one of those things you really gotta just sit and really pay attention. He actually wasnt ever in danger or being held up to any standards. It was all a game. The director David Lowery I wanna say he said he leaves it up to audience to decide. I like to believe he didn't die. Since he finally learned his lesson the curtain rises and he finds out it was all a game.

I intend to rewatch it again, but Im waiting to get shrooms, cause I wanna experience it like Gaiwan did. I adore this movie.

 

[Ryallen]

Pretty much all of this, but I feel like OP lost a lot of the subtlety in the story. However, in defense of that they may have thought they were watching a more surface level action king Arthur movie like whatever that guy ritchie shit was. This was entirely about symbolism. I harken it to more of a fairy tale or painting on film rather than a movie.

I'm not gonna deny that I may have lost a lot of the subtlety but I most certainly did not go in expecting an action movie. I wasn't sure what to expect but I didn't think I'd see Gawain swinging the axe and killing monsters left and right.

I think, perhaps, the point of the film is that Gawain is rubbish.

He takes on the Green Knight to make a name for himself. Having been warned that the cut he inflicts will be returned to him a year hence, he cuts the Green Knight's head off. Somewhat unwise, and unnecessarily brutal to chop the head off some dude who issued a challenge, but hasn't really issued a threat. Stupid bravado. A year then passes, during which time he's accomplished nothing except screw his peasant girlfriend (who he is using for sex and won't commit to, because she's lower class, because that's the sort of guy he is).

I won't deny that he sucks, that much is pretty obvious from the way he behaves to a lot of people he knows. The girlfriend thing was a massive red flag. My point is that the rest of the "trials" he undergoes are unreasonable.

Okay. But what would it have cost Gawain to have rewarded a man who offered to help him, irrespective of that guy being dodgy? Wouldn't an honourable man be generous? What does it matter that the man is doing something bad, is ill-mannered: why does that negate the help he offers Gawain? (Maybe Gawain would even have been honourable to challenge the man for looting the dead, but he's got no standards there either.)

I think the disconnect here is that, personally, I wouldn't give someone a dollar for giving me directions. Not because I'm against it, but more because it wouldn't have occurred to me to do so. The guy was also really standoffish about it too, being offended Gawain didn't give him any money. I still don't buy that Gawain wouldn't have tossed him a coin if the dude asked nicely.

Here again, Gawain could just do the honourable thing and help for nothing, but instead he bargains for something in return.

And again, this is right off the heels of him getting robbed and left for dead. I understand that chivalry would demand he do it for free, but since he has literally nothing to help him and he still needs to go to the Green Knight, asking at least for some food for the journey isn't dishonorable.

Gawain pitches up at a noble's castle, is looked after, and repays his host's kindness by screwing his wife. Yeah. Well. Say no more.

I really don't think it helps the lady's case that she was offering him the sash that was supposed to protect him in exchange for her jacking him off. At that point I think he was just desperate. I get that he still agreed to give to the lord what was offered to him, so Gawain should've given his host a happy ending, but I can't fault him for taking the deal just so he could have the sash back.

The Green Knight offered a test, and Gawain is really just paying back the bargain he chose to make. He never had to behead the Green Knight in the first place, he did so because he thought it would create a legacy for himself. He is tested at every step, and he is cowardly, naive, ungenerous, weak-willed, dishonest, and he's not even any use in a fight. Sure, he is under pressure, scared, struggling... but surely the mark of a true knight is that they have the strength of character do the right thing anyway. Throughout the film, Gawain thoroughly fails to live up to any significant knightly virtues, and yet feels entitled to the fame and power of a man who would rule over knights.

Then there's the vision of his future, and this is what it takes for Gawain to see his failures: that he can take the throne, marry his posh totty and rule, but it's not enough to just rule, it is the character and wisdom with which one rules. To be a great king he would need to be a great man, and he is emphatically not. And with that, all his dreams turned to dust, Gawain finally learns something, pulls on his man pants and accepts his fate (whatever that may be).

It's still BS that the movie gets all huffy when Gawain wears the sash, as if the Green Knight, being on the magic shit that he is, is able to take the hit and walk away but it's somehow wrong for Gawain to take measures to protect himself like the Green Knight was given.

I'm not saying he *was* acting honorable throughout the movie. More that I'm saying he's being punished for acting and reacting understandably given the circumstances presented.

The movie is rich with verbal and nonverbal queues and metaphors. Its one of those things you really gotta just sit and really pay attention. He actually wasnt ever in danger or being held up to any standards. It was all a game. The director David Lowery I wanna say he said he leaves it up to audience to decide. I like to believe he didn't die. Since he finally learned his lesson the curtain rises and he finds out it was all a game.

I don't buy that the bandit or the lady in the forest were a game. The noble was the Green Knight in the original tale so he was probably in on it (it doesn't help the dude who plays the noble is also the dude who plays the Green Knight). But Gawain is absolutely 100% dead. There's no reason for him not to be, since the movie ended just before he got beheaded and there's not gonna be a sequel.

 

[Agema]

I think the disconnect here is that, personally, I wouldn't give someone a dollar for giving me directions.

True in a sense, in that in our modern Western culture we do not reward people for giving directions any more, but we still tip in many other circumstances (waiters, taxi drivers, etc.). Historically, and still in many other countries today, it would be considered polite and appropriate for the wealthy (such as Western tourists abroad), to give obviously poorer people a small reward for providing this sort of assistance.

And again, this is right off the heels of him getting robbed and left for dead. I understand that chivalry would demand he do it for free, but since he has literally nothing to help him and he still needs to go to the Green Knight, asking at least for some food for the journey isn't dishonorable.

I really don't think it helps the lady's case that she was offering him the sash that was supposed to protect him in exchange for her jacking him off. At that point I think he was just desperate. I get that he still agreed to give to the lord what was offered to him, so Gawain should've given his host a happy ending, but I can't fault him for taking the deal just so he could have the sash back.

There is context here in old-style literature of heroes facing trials and tests, and overcoming them or enduring them through their virtues: for instance Biblical Job. In the original poem, the Green Knight is more explicitly a test of honour. These trials are supposed to be moral lessons, that the individual passes by showing the required virtues, if necessary learning the virtue from the trial. A knight is not supposed to cave because he is desperate, he is not supposed to hustle, grift, and he should be expected to go all the way to the ultimate sacrifice of his own life for his honour.

It's still BS that the movie gets all huffy when Gawain wears the sash, as if the Green Knight, being on the magic shit that he is, is able to take the hit and walk away but it's somehow wrong for Gawain to take measures to protect himself like the Green Knight was given.

I'm not saying he *was* acting honorable throughout the movie. More that I'm saying he's being punished for acting and reacting understandably given the circumstances presented.

Again, as above, Gawain is not supposed to act "understandably" like a regular citizen. He's supposed to act like a knight, with a strict code of honour.

I don't buy that the bandit or the lady in the forest were a game. The noble was the Green Knight in the original tale so he was probably in on it (it doesn't help the dude who plays the noble is also the dude who plays the Green Knight). But Gawain is absolutely 100% dead. There's no reason for him not to be, since the movie ended just before he got beheaded and there's not gonna be a sequel.

It is a form of "game", but one with less of the sorts of connotations of play and amusement that the word normally imparts. "Game" can be used to suggest much more serious stuff: think of it more as a challenge and/or wager.

Did the Green Knight behead him? If we're not shown it, we shouldn't just assume it. There's quite a lot of ambiguity in the film, and the ending is left deliberately open. We might reasonably argue that in removing the sash, Gawain finally passes his trial by acting with integrity and courage. Potentially as justification here, in his vision his head falls off when he removes the sash. Perhaps that symbolic beheading, and the lesson he realises that makes him remove the sash afterwards, is enough to satisfy the conditions of the trial.