Fridge Brilliance
- The last line of the film, "Off with your head," is genius.
- If you interpret Gawain as having died at the end of the film, then it just literally means that the Green Knight is literally going to behead Gawain.
- If you interpret Gawain as being spared, then the Green Knight is telling Gawain to leave, He should go "off," taking his head with him.
- Of course, the ending's real message, and the reason for the ambiguity, is that it doesn't matter whether Gawain lived or died, just that he puts aside his doubts and keeps the deal with the Green Knight. The line works here, too; by ceasing to be a Dirty Coward and fighting through his doubts, Gawain dispensed with his head. By this interpretation, the Green Knight congratulates Gawain on his courage before either killing or sparing him.
- In Gawain's vision of his future, he pictures the Scavenger still hunting for trinkets as he rides back, though this time they do not stop to exchange words. Despite the axe mysteriously returning to him, Gawain is still optimistic that the Scavenger escaped death — just as he hopes to.
- The early exchange between Gawain and Arthur is a metafictional note: Gawain tells Arthur "I have [no tales of myself] to tell", much in the same way there are very few popular portrayals of Arthurian Knights who look anything like Dev Patel. In this way, the film makes the precedent just as the Tale makes the Knight.
- Instances of women as the true shapers of destiny:
- Gawain's mother, of course, heavily implied but not outright stated to be Morgana Le Fay (she is credited merely as "Mother")
- Guinevere's insistence that Gawain has no tales to tell of himself yet — she is the one, in Arthurian myth, who supplied the knights with their round table (bringing it with her when she wed Arthur). She set the table, and she decides who sits there.
- Guinevere similarly steps in front of Arthur to read the Green Knight's letter — to protect him as both her husband and her King, and because the enchantment was created by the Mother/Morgana. One shaper answering another.
- The Lady tells Gawain that she reads stories, and if it takes her fancy, rewrites them. Taken in the context of Arthur and Guinevere's words with Gawain at the start of the story — "a tale of thyself" being the worth of a knight — implies that she means to remake Gawain by changing his story.
- Severed heads, blindfolded eyes, and caressed faces become a motif throughout Gawain's story. Heads are handled a lot through the course of the film — creating a sense of both tenderness and danger.
- Gawain's day and night spent kneeling in the Green Chapel is a nod to the medieval tradition in which a man could only become a knight by spending a night in the chapel doing penance.
- Arthur mentions early on that the knight who should sit by his side is absent. This may be a metafictional nod to Lancelot, who is often framed as Arthur's best beloved knight and confidant until his later betrayal. And of course, Lancelot's betrayal was staining his honour by sleeping with Guinevere. Gawain dishonors himself with the Lady, putting him in a similar position to Lancelot.
- Historically, the heir to the throne would have sat in that chair, but here he is "absent" since Arthur and Guinevere never had children. Gawain's protests that he is not worthy to sit there reveal that he knows he is not fit to be Arthur's heir.
- It has been well established that foxes do not howl in the wild — they make a quick barking sound. But we've seen that this fox is capable of speech. So it's probably capable of pretending to howl as well...
Fridge Horror
- The theme of Gawain's quest is not only a pursuit of honor but looming horror. Any time he lies down, to rest or sleep, some horror befalls him:
- Envisioning his own death and decay when abandoned by the Scavenger and his buddies;
- Realising that he had been lying with and/or on the skeleton of the dead Winifred while he rested in her home;
- Being sexually assaulted by the Lady while sleeping in the Lord's castle;
- In his vision of the future, being unable to sleep or enjoy sex without constant awareness of the fragility of his existence, since removing the green sash will kill him.
