History Literature / TheMistsOfAvalon

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Gwenhwyfar, Lancelet, Morgaine, Morgause, Igraine.

* DistressedDamsel: Gwenhwyfar.

* It's fairly obvious to a modern reader that Priscilla dies of some form of cancer.

* AerithAndBob: Running the gamut from familiar - Arthur - to medieval and acceptable - Lancelet, Morgaine - to alternate spellings - Gwenhwyfar - and then ''Kevin.''

[[caption-width-right:300:Holy shit, that was my ''brother''?]]

%%* TheChessmaster: Viviane.

%%* DressHitsFloor: (Miniseries version) Gwenhwyfar.
* {{Doorstopper}}: Even the paperback would make a decent doorstop or bludgeon in a pinch.

* FemaleMisogynist: Gwen insists that women should StayInTheKitchen, that is, while [[{{Hypocrite}} bending Arthur to her will]]. It's however implied that it's mostly her self-loathing caused by her inability of having a child, she once accuses God of hating women and shows frequently a repressed envy of Morgaine and Morgause's freedom.

* StrongFamilyResemblance: Viviane, Morgaine, Lancelot and Mordred; Igraine, Morgause and Niniane; Uther and Arthur; Gwen, Elaine, Galahad and Nimue...

%%* TheLostWoods: Prince Bright Night's domain.

* MoralityKitchenSink: ''Nobody'' is pure good or evil in this book. Morgaine is an AntiHero, Viviane is just straight-up BlueAndOrangeMorality, Gwenhwyfar is a WellIntentionedExtremist, Arthur spends most of the book being manipulated, Patricius genuinely believes he's doing the right thing. Even Kevin, probably the least sympathetic of all the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, talks Morgaine out of what basically amounts to suicide; she notes that he's the only person who's never tried to manipulate her.

* BrotherSisterIncest: [[spoiler:Morgaine]] conceives a child by Arthur, a boy named Gwydion ("bright one"). [[spoiler: Morgaine and Arthur did not know they were having sex with each other at the time. Morgaine hadn't seen her half-brother since he was 3, both were masked, and both were playing parts in a Sacred Marriage rite.]]
* CallingTheOldManOut: Mordred does this to [[spoiler: Morgause after Gareth is killed.]]
* TheChessmaster: Viviane.

* DressHitsFloor: (Miniseries version) Gwenhwyfar.

* DoubleStandard: All over the place and lampshaded with X-rays.
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: Mordred.
* TheDutifulSon: Arthur.

* EvilMatriarch: Morgause.

* IncestIsRelative: Brace yourself.
** [[spoiler:Morgaine and Arthur]], who not only are half-siblings, but she was his mother figure in the childhood, conceive a child. [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Viviane]] sees no problem with that.
** Morgaine's love for Lancelot, who is her first cousin; and she also was his CoolBigSis a few years prior.
** [[spoiler:Arthur and Lancelot]], who are also first cousins, apparently got interested in each other during this ThreeWaySex with [[spoiler:Gwenhwyfar]]. [[spoiler:Lancelot]] in particular is confused about the nature of his feelings for [[spoiler:Arthur]].
** Lot tried to bed Morgaine, his wife's niece. Morgause tried to bed Lancelot, ''her own'' nephew. Lot and Morgause were truly BirdsOfAFeather.
** Meleager's attitude toward his "dear sister" Gwen seems disturbingly predatory. It culminates with [[spoiler:him raping her]]. And we never learn whether he was her half-brother or not.
** Niniane, the last of Taliesin's daughters, sleeps with Mordred, who is ''her father's great-grandson'', and then with Arthur, Morderd's father and her father's grandson.
** The examples of IncestSubtext and "both relatives sleeping with the same person" are simply too many to count.

* IronLady: Viviane.

* KissingCousins: Morgaine's crush on Lancelot. [[spoiler:Though they never fully seal the deal.]]
* KnightInShiningArmor: Lancelot. Could practically be a TropeNamer.
* LawfulStupid: Arthur, sometimes.

* LivingMacguffin: Gwenhwyfar.
* TheLostWoods: Prince Bright Night's domain.

* MacGuffin: The Holy Grail.

* NotSoDifferent: One of the main themes of the book: “All gods are one God, and all goddesses are one Goddess.” Morgaine views the tradition of Christian cloistered nuns and monks with disgust, seeing it as a perversion of the natural order and a denial of fertility and life. However, she has no such qualms when it comes to her fellow priestess Raven, who, similarly to a nun, observes a vow of silence, lives in total seclusion and has vowed to remain a perpetual virgin. The text even says that Raven does this in order to better hear the Goddess and heighten her spiritual powers, which is precisely why nuns and monks remove themselves from the world and dedicate their lives to prayer: they are seen as closer to God, and even today many Christians write to nuns to ask for prayers of intercession.
** Viviane remarks that priestesses, who live secluded in communities of women and wear black robes and veils, are easily mistaken for nuns, and Morgaine sometimes doesn't bother to correct people when they think she is one.
** On a more positive note, Taliesin and Kevin are both great lords of the druids and respect the Christian God and see value in Christian traditions and rituals, even if they are not the ones they themselves know, and several characters state that it is neither wrong nor blasphemous to worship the Goddess in the form of the Virgin Mary.
** More generally, Morgaine despises the Christian faith as being narrow-minded, violent and having unnatural ideas about sex and gender roles, while at the same time being more or less a religious extremist who refuses to accept that Britain's religious traditions are changing, causing the deaths of several people in her attempts to preserve paganism, and belonging to a culture whose ideas about "normal" sex include things that we would consider incest or rape.
** Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar in general are actually portrayed really similarly despite Morgaine's disdain for her. As mentioned above, Morgaine denigrated Gwenhwyfar's religious extremism while ignoring her own. Both women spent most of their childhood in religious convents. Both were placed in some kind of union with Arthur for the purpose of conceiving an heir. Both were in love with Lancelet. Gwenhwyfar is barren. Morgaine is barren after her traumatic delivery with Mordred, and once estranged from him, is effectively childless (in a sense, Morgause is responsiblefor both of them being "childless"). Gwenhwyfar envies Morgaine's freedom and independence. Morgaine envies Gwenhwyfar's happy marriage and domestic life. Both women would likely have been much more content spending their lives in their respective convents, and both return to those convents at the end of their lives.

* PlayingAgainstType: You'd think Creator/AnjelicaHuston would play the evil sister and Joan Allen would play the good one, instead of vice versa!

* NeverMyFault: Mordred resents his biological parents because they abandoned him (despite the fact that Morgaine got him HappilyAdopted, and many other characters grew up in similar environments), and later Morgause who apparently "corrupted" him (we see them during his childhood and it appears like he is a cunning little brat whom she is trying to straighten out, ''and'' all of Morgause's biological sons turned out fine), and finally it's all bad because of this damn Avalon and it's {{Matriarchy}}!

* DawsonCasting: An extreme example, where 13-year-old Morgause at the beginning was played by Joan Allen, who was 44 and looked it.

* NotSoDifferent: One of the main themes of the book: “All gods are one God, and all goddesses are one Goddess.” Morgaine views the tradition of Christian cloistered nuns and monks with disgust, seeing it as a perversion of the natural order and a denial of fertility and life. However, she has no such qualms when it comes to her fellow priestess Raven, who, similarly to a nun, observes a vow of silence, lives in total seclusion and has vowed to remain a perpetual virgin. The text even says that Raven does this in order to better hear the Goddess and heighten her spiritual powers, which is precisely why nuns and monks remove themselves from the world and dedicate their lives to prayer: they are seen as closer to God, and even today many Christians write to nuns to ask for prayers of intercession. Viviane even remarks that priestesses, who live secluded in communities of women and wear black robes and veils, are easily mistaken for nuns, and Morgaine sometimes doesn't bother to correct people when they mistake her for a nun. On a more positive note, Taliesin and Kevin are both great lords of the druids and respect the Christian God and see value in Christian traditions and rituals, even if they are not the ones they themselves know, and several characters state that it is neither wrong nor blasphemous to worship the Goddess in the form of the Virgin Mary. More generally, Morgaine despises the Christian faith as being narrow-minded, violent and having unnatural ideas about sex and gender roles, while at the same time being more or less a religious extremist who refuses to accept that Britain's religious traditions are changing, causing the deaths of several people in her attempts to preserve paganism, and belonging to a culture whose ideas about "normal" sex include things that we would consider incest or rape.

* NotSoDifferent: Morgaine views the tradition of Christian cloistered nuns and monks with disgust, seeing it as a perversion of the natural order and a denial of fertility and life. However, she has no such qualms when it comes to her fellow priestess Raven, who, similarly to a nun, observes a vow of silence, lives in total seclusion and has vowed to remain a perpetual virgin. The text even says that Raven does this in order to better hear the Goddess and heighten her spiritual powers, which is precisely why nuns and monks remove themselves from the world and dedicate their lives to prayer: they are seen as closer to God, and even today many Christians write to nuns to ask for prayers of intercession.

* MrFanservice: In the miniseries, for sure: Accolon, Arthur, Lancelot.

This was made into a miniseries in 2001, starring Julianna Margulies (''Series/{{ER}}'', ''Series/TheGoodWife'') as Morgaine, Creator/AnjelicaHuston (''Series/TheAddamsFamily'') as Viviane, and Joan Allen (''Film/{{Pleasantville}}'') as Morgause.

Published in 1983, ''The Mists of Avalon'' is a novel by Creator/MarionZimmerBradley. It is notable among the [[MemeticMutation many, many variants]] in [[Myth/KingArthur Arthurian legend]] due to its approach -- the story is told not only through the eyes of a woman, but through the eyes of one of the biggest villains in the legends. The narrator is Morgaine (Morgan le Fay or Morgan of the Fairies), who tells Arthur's tale (and her own) against the backdrop of approaching war with Rome and the Saxons, as well as religious war as Christianity threatens to destroy Avalon and Goddess worship in Britain.

* Morgaine: Protagonist, priestess of Avalon, and half sister to Arthur. Daughter of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and Igraine.

!!This book contains examples of:

* PerspectiveFlip: The story of Myth/KingArthur from the viewpoint of the women, and particularly of the women who are more usually depicted as villains.

** This is much, much HarsherInHindsight with the revelation that Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband sexually abused their daughter.

* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Morgause stays hot into her ''sixties'', and she lives in the reality, when a 20 years old woman is "not that young" and a woman in her thirties is treated like an old lady. [[spoiler:She appears to hit the wall at the end of the book. Though it might be that this particular guard just weren't into older women]].

* LineageComesFromTheFather: Both averted and played straight; Arthur is considered the heir to the throne by most people through his father, but those who follow Avalon count him as king through his mother's royal blood of Avalon, a lineage which is traited through the mother.