Line #24 Fridge/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail


1	FridgeLogic in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''.
2
3	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
4	* The film ends with the entire cast being arrested. It's, quite literally, a "cop out" ending.
5	** It's also a creative licence interpretation to how the Legend of King Arthur ended; he goes to a climatic final battle, and is ultimately killed in it. Here, he and every knight on the field were all arrested, ending the 'modern' parody of the legend.
6	** ''Falsely'' arrested, it should be noted, since the person who killed the Historian was ''riding a horse.'' Arthur and his army don't ride horses.
7	* [[PunctuatedForEmphasis "I'M - IN -]] ''[[{{Determinator}} VINCIBLE]]''!" Well, seeing as how he's still ''alive'' after all that, yes, yes he is.
8	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_9kDO3q0w&feature=related The Coconut Scene.]] [[UrExample The Pythons accurately predicted the basic premise of every single Internet Fight over plot holes in media.]] You have Guard #1 who argues one side of the argument which makes the issue seem bigger than it really is. Guard #2 who argues the other side using one or two plausible in-universe explanations for the plot hole. And Arthur, who doesn't give a darn either way and wants to discuss something else with more significance.
9	* The real punchline in the swamp castle joke: "The other kings told me I was daft to build a castle in a swamp. But I built it all the same, just to show 'em! It sank into the swamp, so I built a second one! ''That'' sank into the swamp, so I built a ''third'' one! That burned down, fell over, ''then'' sank into the swamp! But the ''fourth'' one stayed up!" Of course it would - it's got the last three for a foundation.
10	* Momentarily laying aside the RuleOfFunny, it was curious that the Swamp Castle guards put up absolutely no fight against Lancelot's onslaught. It makes sense, however, if you figure that the King of Swamp Castle didn't hire guards that had combat training because Swamp Castle doesn't have any problems with invaders because no one in his right mind would want to take over a castle that's in the middle of a bloody swamp.
11	** It might also explain why the two guards he orders to keep the prince in his room are comically unclear on the concept, and even when they do get it right, let him write a rescue note and shoot it out the window with an arrow without a second thought; They're usually there purely for show, and have never actually had to guard anyone or anything before.
12	* After the [[TheReveal big reveal]] of Camelot, note the one person who notes that 'It's only a model' - Patsy played by Creator/TerryGilliam. Of course he knows it's a model, he directed the film.
13	* When the two guards are arguing about the swallows and the coconuts, they mention the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. That makes the later bridge scene even better, because Arthur did remember the conversation, but he took the pointless part, not the actual answer.
14	* With the French taunting, one of the insults is "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" Initially, it makes no sense, but, GeniusBonus sets in: hamsters are notable for being able to breed quickly, so essentially, he's saying [[ReallyGetsAround King Arthur's mother was a whore.]] Also, wine in medieval times was often made with elderberries, implying that [[TheAlcoholic his father was a drunkard.]]
15	** Furthermore, elderberries were used when you weren't rich enough to use grapes to make wine, so he was calling his father a ''poor'' drunkard.
16	** And as any kid whose ever been traumatized by their childhood pets' parenting skills would know, hamsters are notorious for [[OffingTheOffspring cannibalizing their own young at the slightest provocation]]. Calling someone's mother a "hamster" is not just calling her a whore, but comparing her to one of the worst parents in the animal kingdom!
17	** The ''other'' possibility is that King Arthur's father was so drunk on elderberries that he couldn't tell a hamster from a woman!
18	* "What is the capital of Assyria?" isn't just obscure, it's a trick question. Assyria had multiple capitals over its history, and was no longer a country by the time this is presumably set. The region formerly known as Assyria was part of the Abbasid Caliphate, whose capital was Cairo. You'd presumably have to treat it like the swallow question, unless Assyria still exists in the 10th century in this film (which given it's such an AnachronismStew anyway, there's no reason it shouldn't).
19	** "[[https://www.facebook.com/Fuller.ANE/posts/4708732999163889 What do you mean]]? The capital in 2025 BC, 1754 BC, 1681 BC, 879 BC, 706 BC, 705 BC or 612 BC?"
20	* The bridge keeper does ask five questions, but only selects three of those five to ask to each traveller at a time. So when Arthur and Galahad were getting confused over whether it was three or five questions, in a sense they were both right. If Robin had understood this he wouldn't have approached the bridge keeper with such foolish overconfidence, as he would have realised there was no guarantee that his questions would be the exact same as Lancelot's. The five questions are "What is your name?", "What is your quest?", "What is your favourite colour?", "What is the capital of Assyria?" and "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?".
21	* Aside from Arthur, Patsy, Lancelot, Galahad, Robin and Bedevere, all other members of Arthur's entourage appear only when they are needed - minstrels, monks, other knights, and at the end, his entire army - as though they had been there all along. Then they disappear again when their part in the story is done. It's a funny gag, to be sure, but not just a gag. In fact, ''this is how the original Arthurian legend treats all of its supporting characters''. Much like the film, it does not bother describing any characters who are not part of the scene currently taking place, and in most scenes it intentionally gives the impression that Arthur and his knights are not accompanied by anybody. Whole armies suddenly appear at Arthur's command whenever he needs them, despite no army having been described to follow him previously, as though they had been there all along. This is actually a common feature in many legends.
22	* Take a look at the emblem on the Black Knight's armor. It's a [[FullBoarAction boar]]. The AnimalStereotype for boars is that they're [[SuicidalOverconfidence suicidally overconfident]] in combat. Indeed, boars in real life were known to impale themselves on the spears of their attackers just to get a chance to kill them. This aggressive and self-destructive behaviour is a perfect fit for the Black Knight's character.
23	* Also of note is the very idea behind the Black Knight. Arthur defeating the Black Knight, in any other story, would signify the threshold crossing where the hero overcomes a tremendous challenge and embarks with newfound strength and wisdom. And that threshold still exists here: it's Arthur getting kicked in the face by a knight who lost both his arms. Arthur from this point realizes that nothing but insanity awaits him as he continues on his quest.
24	* Lancelot preventing Sir Galahad from having sex with the maidens of Castle Anthrax takes a hilarious meaning once you realize that in the original tales, Lancelot is Galahad's father.
25	** "I bet you're gay!" "I'm not!" Also takes on a different meaning, seeing as how some Arthurian scholars have interpreted the relationship between Lancelot and Galahad as a homosexual one.
26	** Lancelot and Gale''haut''. Galahad and Galahaut are entirely separate characters, although they have confusingly similar names.
27	** The knights in this scene end up using the term "peril" as a euphemism for sex. Later, those who fail the Bridgekeeper's question are cast into "the Gorge of Eternal ''Peril''". So... are they actually being doomed to a place where they have ''sex ''for the rest of time? Doesn't seem like such a horrible punishment.
28	** Furthermore, one of the knights who gets cast into the Gorge is Galahad. He got his Peril after all.
29	* Wait, what was the name of that method they used to use to test if women were witches? Oh yeah, that's right. ''Ducking.''
30	** Also, what's one of the only ''real'' animals that get tossed from the castle ramparts by the French? The ''same duck''. As in, either the production was sufficiently cash-strapped that they made sure to use the one duck they'd rented in multiple scenes, or they wanted it to ''look'' that cash-strapped in the spirit of StylisticSuck.
31	* Why a killer rabbit? Well, [[RuleOfFunny because it's funny, mostly.]] But also because illustrations from medieval manuscripts showcase a lot of rabbits slaughtering humans, rabbits armed with axes, rabbits riding lions into battle. But again, ''why rabbits?'' It's more complicated than you'd think: in medieval texts, rabbits represented meekness and docility, and showing a human being defeated by a rabbit may have been a way of mocking the human's cowardice or weakness. It also represents a subversion of the natural order, which was a very big concept in the medieval mind. At that time, social classes were also seen as a "natural order," so the idea of a peasant defeating a noble would have been seen as horrific to the point of blasphemy, but a ''rabbit'' defeating a knight would just be a fun bit of comedy or a gentle chiding against having too much pride. In other words, medieval killer rabbits probably existed for the same reason Monty Python included them: [[RuleOfFunny because it was funny.]]
32	* Three of the four instances of people yelling "get on with it" (the Old Man from Scene 24, Tim the Enchanter, and Arthur's army) are characters introduced later in the film. They're annoyed at the current scene dragging out because it means they have to wait longer for their parts! The Old Man literally appears in the ''very next scene'' so he's probably really anxious to get started. This is also why the army gets to yell it a second time- they don't appear until the very end so they're getting fed up with the narrator seemingly causing ''another'' tangent that's making them wait longer than they already have to.
33	** And the fourth character who yells "Get on with it" is God, who sent these yahoos on their quest and is getting impatient to find out if they succeed.
34	** And the impetus for them all to yell "Get on with it" is Dingo [[BreakingTheFourthWall turning to the camera]] and asking if the scene should've been cut. In the VHS releases, that part of the scene ''did'' get cut.
35	* The Knights Who Say "Ni!" change their name. You could therefore refer to them as The Knights who say Ikki-ikki-ikki-p'TENG-zoop-BOING-nawumbbawobba (Née Ni).
36	* When Sir Robin avoids a fight with the Three Headed Knight, the minstrels incorporate his cowardice into his song. Why? It's not cowardly to avoid a fight. Until you realise how he did so. The Three Headed Knight was so busy arguing with himself, Sir Robin could have just rode past without him noticing. But Sir Robin didn't. He rode back the other way.
37	* The historian is killed by a knight who rode past on horseback— a real, live horse. One of the consistent things about Arthur and his knights is that they don't ''have'' real horses, therefore they couldn't have killed him. However, that raises the question, who set them up?
38	* The French knight threatening to "Fart in [Arthur's] general direction" could easily be a reference to how the French word for fart ("Pétar") became the basis the explosive known as the petard; in other words, its a crude way of saying "We will throw explosives at you".
39	* The French Knight tells Arthur that they already have a Grail. It's passed off as a joke, but the French reappear at the end in castle Aaarrrgh, so they actually did have the Grail the whole time. Perhaps they are laughing at Arthur's determined quest for something that was easy to find.

Context Fridge / MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail