History Characters / Excalibur

The son of Uther Pendragon and Igrayne, Arthur was taken by Merlin to be raised by the knight Sir Ector. Years later when he's a young man, he ends up pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone which reveals him as the rightful king. With his true heritage revealed to him, Arthur goes on to form the knights of the Round Table and create the kingdom of Camelot, though things take a dark turn as he's betrayed by those closest to him.

* BigGood: Serves as this as the rightful King and unifer of Camelot, against his sister Morgana's BigBad.

* TheChosenOne: Destined by fate to be the one true King of Camelot, whether he likes it or not.

* TheConqueror: A much more benevolent take than Uther or Mordred, Arthur sends his forces out to unite Camelot, happy to be bettering the lives of the common folk as his forces depose belligerent rulers and bring the realm together.

* DyingWish: More like command, to Perceval to cast Excalibur back to the water, knowing it will be returned by the Lady of the Lake to a future worthy King to rule Camelot.

* TheHero: While the film is intended to follow decades in Camelot influenced by Merlin and Excalibur, Arthur still fits the characteristics as the most noble of central characters whose fate is tied to Camelot itself.

* MessianicArchetype: Serves as this for Camelot, in contrast to his BastardBastard Mordred, who serves as his EvilCounterpart as a DarkMessiah and AntiChrist figure for the dark forces of Camelot.

* TheNeedsOfTheMany: Arthur tells Guinevere he has to be a king to his people before her husband, even as doing so pains him and his wife but Camelot needs a ruler and his destiny has foretold him to be that ruler, his people and land coming before any individual.

* OnlyTheChosenMayWield: The rightful heir to Camelot as the only one who could draw Excalibur from the stone Uther thrust it into.

* SoapOperaDisease: Of magical origins. The bolt of lightning which strikes him renders Arthur bedridden for years while his knights quest to find the Holy Grail to bring back his health. In addition to leaving him sick, his status as a FisherKing compounds the effects by leaving Camelot a starving, ruined mess.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: The crux of his dilemma when Gunievere is accused of being unfaithful to him. As her husband he wishes to champion her honor, but as king of Camelot he cannot show favor to her, as he believes even a monarch should not be above the law.

* AnthropomorphicPersonification: Merlin is linked in some way to the land of Camelot itself, being single-mindedly driven to find it a righteous king (no matter the cost) and he's even incapacitated by Arthur ramming Excalibur into the ground, symbolizing his lost desire to rule the realm.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Downplayed but present. Merlin wishes to make Camelot into a realm with a worthy king but otherwise he interacts with humans quite oddly, not catching onto Morgana's manipulations or understanding concepts like Arthur's humility and honor despite these virtues aligning with the world he's trying to create.

* LastOfHisKind: Merlin is the last magic user (other than Morgana) and melancholically admits the time of sorcerers is coming to the end as the era of Christian humans take their place to run Camelot.

* NightmareWeaver: Depowers Morgana in her dream after his physical body is trapped in ice and Arthur calls his spirit back to Camelot, engaging her by tricking her into uttering the Charm of Making and undoing her power.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: His plot to 'better' Camelot is utterly unconcerned with the wellbeing of the Cornwalls and his overseeing the Duke's death and Igrayne's rape by BedTrick drives their daughter Morgana to wrath and her scheming nearly destroys the very nation he sought to perfect.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Some of Merlin's machinations are outright cruel, like letting Uther rape Igrayne. Still, he's tied to the land of Camelot and believes such measures are necessary to weave fate and bring about the proper king.

* HeelFaceTurn: Initially leading a rebellion against Leondegrance for supporting Arthur as King, Uryens' own chivalry comes out when Arthur puts his life at risk to give Uryens Excalibur and request he legitimately knight him. Uryens is so touched by Arthur's nobility that he finds himself unable to kill his unarmed former nemesis and declares him King of Camelot.

* NobleDemon: Uryens is an abrasive bigot displeased by the idea of a bastard ruling Camelot but he's still got a knight's code of honor and ignores his underlings' cries to kill the unarmed Arthur with Excalibur, instead following his vows and knighting and acknowledging the hero as King.

* BaldOfAuthority: Downplayed. The bald Sir Leondegrance gets his shot to [[ExcaliburInTheStone pull Excalibur from the stone]] and become king at the start of the film and fails. Arthur successfully tries afterwards. While everyone debates whether or not to make Arthur king, Leondegrance immediately pledges his allegiance to Arthur. However overwhelmed by the fighting, Arthur falls into a deep sleep. When he awakens, Leondegrance is king, but Arthur soon replaces him after he helps Leondegrance in battle and marries his daughter Guinevere.

** Morgana also disguises herself as Guinevere with magic to pull a BedTrick on Arthur, letting her birth an unholy child whose very presence blights Camelot.

* SiblingYinYang: A [[NonActionBigBad hands off]], evil, scheming destroyer who wants to plunge Camelot into darkness for revenge, the opposite of her good-hearted brother who gets into the fray himself and hopes to build and better the nation they live in.

* SorcerousOverlord: After pulling her BedTrick on Arthur and blighting Camelot with Mordred's brith, Morgana becomes TheManBehindTheMan to her warlord son, with cultists worshipping her as she pushes her monstrous offspring to claim the country as his own.

* VillainousMotherSonDuo: With her child Mordred. The two work together after his birth begins corrupting Camelot and she uses him as an instrument of vengeance, while he just wishes to conquer and rule all he can. Their goals don't quite perfectly align and once she loses her magic, Mordred just kills her.

* AWolfInSheepsClothing: She approaches Merlin as a young sorceress seeking guidance and knows how to play to his attraction to her. While he does end up suspecting her motives later on, it serves her to get close enough to him such that she can steal his power when he's incapacitated by Arthur thrusting Excalibur into the earth of Camelot.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Morgana was a little girl when her father was killed and her mother raped thanks to Uther and Merlin's machinations. Unsurprisingly, she's grown up bitter and hateful of the Camelot shaped by a wizard who deemed such acts a necessary sacrifice and now seeks to destroy it all.

* MysticalPlague: His unholy birth devastates Camelot, with people starving and pleading as his vile existence curses the realm.

* RoyalBrat: Though illegitimate, he gives off the vibes of a spoiled prince who thinks Camelot should be his immediately thanks to Morgana raising him to believe it, and reacts to his father so much as offering to raise him as a good prince or his mother losing her magic to aid his campaign with a murderous temper tantrum.

* TheSociopath: His mother at least wants revenge on Camelot for her parents, Mordred is a psychopath only interested in power who giggles about the dozens of knights he hanged for defying him and later outright rejects any love or legitimate relationship with his father to demand Camelot itself, willing to destroy anyone who gets in his way, even his mother.

* TheWarlord: Thanks to his mother's sorcery, Mordred's got an army of mind-controlled knights and magic blessings to fight with. He quickly puts his power to use razing every part of Camelot that doesn't bow to him and conquering all he can see.

* TheConqueror: Uther is a brute of a commander with zero interest in diplomacy and intends to take Camelot through war. Merlin has to do some serious arm twisting to even get him to consider a peaceful situation and even then Uther's "Take what's yours" mentality quickly leads to him smashing any chance of alliance with Cornwall.
* DecoyProtagonist: Introduced as a conqueror out to unite Camelot and is on his way to do it with Merlin's assistance. After his greed and lust get in the way though, Merlin realizes he's not up to the task and takes Arthur from him. Uther dies ambushed by Cornwall's men nine months into his rule and just 30 minutes into the movie.

* FatalFlaw: [[ItsAllAboutMe Selfishness.]] Uther was a strong warrior and powerful leader, but he was also a very selfish man who prioritized what he wanted over the good of Camelot. He wanted Excalibur not to serve the people of Camelot, but to show off his authority as the new king and rule over the land. When he lusted for Igrayne, he destroyed the truce between him and Cornwall so he could have her for himself, leading him to seek Merlin's help so he could bed her while disguised as the Duke. As Merlin puts it, Uther's selfishness, proven when he betrayed Cornwall and took everything that was his, made him unfit to rule Camelot as no one would trust a king who betrays his own vassals. Uther would eventually be assassinated by knights who served Cornwall for betraying their lord.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Uther's selfishness is a pronounced flaw and it's his demand to be able to sleep with Igrayne--even [[BedTrick using trickery to do so]]--that makes Merlin realize he isn't Camelot's ideal king. Even after claiming he's ready to reform and be a loving father to Arthur, his final act is one of spite: driving Excalibur into a stone to deny Camelot it's power if he can't have it when he's mortally wounded.

** As part of the affair between Guinevere and Lancelot, he gets the motif of the cuckolded king/knight etc. who places his naked sword between the naked bodies of the sleeping lovers to show he's discovered them, but leaves them alone otherwise. This happens to King Mark of the Tristan and Isolde tales, and others. Thus Arthur abandons Excalibur for years.
* TheConqueror: A much more benevolent take than Uther or Mordred, Arthur sends his forces out to unite Camelot, happy to be bettering the lives of the common folk as his forces depose belligerant rulers and bring the realm together.

* CompositeCharacter: With the Fisher King, where the emotional toll of his wife having an affair with his best friend and his sister raping him causes the land itself to slowly perish. It's only when Perceval returns with the Holy Grail that he regains his strength, healing the land as he does.

* ExactWords: Courtesy of Morgana, his golden armor means he cannot be harmed by anything forged by man. However, unknown to them both, before the final battle Arthur regains Excalibur - which was not forged by man - after abandoning it for many years.

* NoManOfWomanBorn: No weapon forged by man can harm him while in his suit of enchanted golden armor. He is killed by Excalibur.

*

* KryptoniteFactor: Courtesy of Morgana, his golden armor means he cannot be harmed by anything forged by man. However, unknown to them both, before the final battle Arthur regains Excalibur - which was not forged by man - after abandoning it for many years.

* ThePowerOfLove: Averted. Arthur offers it to him, but Mordred tells him off and plans to conquer his kingdom.
* PublicDomainArtifact; In the script, when he first meets Arthur he shows off his spear as the same one that pierced Christ on the cross. Arthur merely asks if that's what his mother told him, making Mordred frown and doubt, though he shrugs it off.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Along with having her father killed, it's Uther's bedding of Igrayne under false pretenses that drives Morgana to villainy, devoting her whole life to revenge after Uther's vicious lust and Merlin's apathetic backing.

** Both Arthur and Uther wielded Excalibur. Arthur viewed the sword as a symbol of leadership to serve all those who followed him while Uther saw it as a means to simply show his status as king. Upon his death, Arthur allowed Excalibur to be returned to the Lady of the Lake so a new king could take his place one day. On the other hand, before Uther died, he selfishly refused to let anyone else wield Excalibur and drove it into the stone so no one else could wield it.
** Both of them had some form of relationship with Merlin. Arthur viewed him as a genuine friend and mentor and sought his wisdom to better himself as a leader. Uther saw Merlin only as a servant to obey him and sought his magic for his his own selfishness and ambitions.

This character sheet is for [[Film/{{Excalibur}} the film]]. For [[ComicBook/{{Excalibur}} the comics]], see '''[[Characters/ExcaliburMarvelComics here]]'''.

* EvilCounterpart: To Arthur. Both are bastards born out of rape who never knew their fathers while growing up. But while Arthur was raised by a man who cared for him as his own, Mordred was only raised by his mother, who used him as a weapon against his father and the kingdom.

* NoManOfWomanBorn: No weapon forged by man can harm him. He is killed by Excalibur.

* RoyalBrat: Though illegitimate, he gives off the vibes of a spoiled prince who thinks Camelot should be his immediately just because and reacts to his father so much as offering to raise him as a good prince or his mother losing her magic to aid his campaign with a murderous temper tantrum.

* TragicVillain: Less pronounced due to his sinister air, but still evident. Despite how monstrous [[TheAntichrist Mordred]] became, he had no choice in [[ChildByRape how he was created]] and what he was risen to be by his hate filled [[BigBad mother]] and her scheming ambitions for him.

* SelfMadeOrphan: Strangles his mother and impales his father on a spear.

* WoundThatWillNotHeal: In an imaginary duel with his own armor, he stabs himself. This wound doesn't heal and it kills him as the FinalBattle ends.

* DualWielding: Briefly with a mace and Excalibur against Lancelot, not that it helps him but it does emphasize his fanatical desire to win their dual, throwing aside his humility and grace to single-mindedly try to win their fight.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: She's rather unceremoniously killed off after Merlin strips her of her magic and Mordred strangles her to death in rage or confusion, completely forgetting about her afterwards. The original script has her expire from her dream dual with Merlin and Mordred just happens upon her corpse before also just forgetting her as he goes back to his war.