Britain in the 5th Century AD. Rome and its Legions are long gone, and when they departed Britain collapsed into a patchwork of warring kingdoms and fiefdoms, easy prey for the Saxon raiders who now control the eastern half of the island. However Gwyna, a slave girl from a small farm in the contested borderlands between some of the stronger petty kingdoms, doesn't know or understand any of this; all she knows is that the farm has been raided by a warband and she needs to flee into the forest to survive.
After escaping a soldier by diving into the river, swimming as far as she can and lying exhausted on the bank, she is discovered by a strange man who introduces himself as Myrddin, personal herald to Arthur; Dux Bellorum, King of the Britons and the man who just torched her home.
Here Lies Arthur is a Young Adult novel by Philip Reeve, which purports to tell the true story of King Arthur through the eyes of Myrddin's (Merlin's) apprentice Gwyna, or as you may know her, The Lady of the Lake. Based primarily on the original Welsh legends rather than the later medieval English/Norman interpretations, it deconstructs Arthurian Legend by setting it in a historically accurate world with no magic, knights or heroes.
Here Lies Arthur provides examples of:
- A God Am I: When Gwyna asks Myrddin if Arthur believes in the old gods or the Christian God, he replies that Arthur believes they all exist, but he doesn't worship any of them because he thinks he's their equal. Later, when they enter Aquae Sulis and see the church, a converted Roman temple, Gwyna notices him eyeing the empty plinth where the semi-divine emperor's statue once stood and fantasising about putting his own statue there.
- Action Girl: Downplayed. Gwyna does have some minor combat training from growing up as a boy, and is more capable than the typical woman of her time, but she's definitely not a fighter. In her one battle she gets knocked off her horse and slips away to hide rather than fight. Years later she does manage to kill a man, but only by surprise attacking him and pushing him into a river where his weapons and armour pull him down and he drowns.
- Action Survivor: Gwyna, Myrddin and Peredur are all this to some extent. None of them are fighters, but manage to fend for themselves and to a certain extent thrive in an exceptionally violent and dangerous world.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Medrawt (Mordred) is actually one of the kinder soldiers in the warband, and only rebels against Arthur to avenge his brother.
- Malegant is a minor villain who kidnaps Guinevere in some versions of Arthurian legends. Here he appears as Maelwas of Dummonia, a petty king who Myrddin tries to win as Arthur's first major ally. Maelwas is depicted as a wise and level-headed ruler who knows Arthur is not the hero Myrddin portrays him as and uses tactful diplomacy to keep him at arm's length. He does give Medrawt the men and support he needs to rebel against Arthur, but by this point Arthur has lost the reader's sympathy.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Cei (Kay) is usually depicted as a Jerkass or Big Brother Bully in Arthurian legend, but in the book he's shown to be a loving husband and father, brave warrior, loyal brother and Number Two to Arthur and arguably a much better leader. This is akin to his more positive portrayal in the earlier medieval Welsh material, before his characterisation shifted in later literature. It's explained In-Universe that Myrddin makes Cei a jerk in his stories because he's worried, with justification, that people would like Cei better if they knew what kind of men he and Arthur really were.
- Adaptational Ugliness: Not necessarily ugly, but Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) definitely isn't the auburn-haired beauty readers are familiar with. That said, it's mentioned that she was moderately attractive when she was younger, and can still look fairly handsome in the right light or When She Smiles.
- Adaptational Villainy: Arthur is a power-hungry, greedy tyrant and raider who will betray or murder his allies if it suits his purposes and ends up sending his loyal brother to his death.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- As it's set in the real world, magic doesn't exist so Myrddin (Merlin) is just a storyteller and conman who knows a few conjuring tricks and has a knack for predicting the weather.
- Gwyna is the basis for Nimue, but she's just a normal human who's good at swimming and coming up with stories on the fly.
- Sir Percival is one of Arthur's greatest knights in most versions of the story, but Peredur is an incompetent fighter whose real talent is music.
- Adapted Out: Staples of modern Arthurian stories such as Camelot, the Round Table, Gawain, Morgan Le Fay, Tristan and Iseult, Lancelot and Galahad don't appear; in some cases like Camelot, the Round Table, Lancelot and Galahad they aren't part of the original legends and were inventions of much later writers, and otherwise they're just absent despite demonstrably having roots in the earliest Celtic Arthurian material.
- Aerith and Bob: The book uses characters' older, usually Welsh names rather than the Latinized, Anglicized or Gallicized names that modern audiences would be more familiar with.
- Bedivere -> Bedwyr
- Guinevere -> Gwenhwyfar
- Kay -> Cei
- Malegant -> Maelwas
- Merlin -> Myrddin
- Mordred -> Medrawt
- Percival -> Peredur
- Excalibur -> Caliburn (the exception, as it's still an intermediate version of Welsh Caledfwlch via Latin Caliburnus)
- Also, Arthur is sometimes referred to by the Latin name Artorius (usually with Magnus i.e. The Great appended to it) since he claims descent from a Roman officer named Artorius Castus who lived centuries ago.
- Affably Evil: The Irishman is a treacherous warlord and murderer, but quite charming in person. Gwyna spends a summer living in his house and he's fairly pleasant to her, although that's mostly because he's trying to curry favour with Myrddin.
- All for Nothing: Myrddin's schemes cost him everything, and ultimately achieve nothing; Arthur ends up alienating all of his allies, whether by attacking his neighbours or killing/plotting to kill his relatives, and is finally defeated by his nephew and dies on the battlefield. Merlin himself essentially ends up being chained to Arthur's cause since he's invested too much in him by this point, and the stress of trying to salvage his master's reputation while also keeping Gwyna out of danger eventually leads to him having a stroke that soon kills him.
- The Alliance: A generation ago, the mighty leader Ambrosius
united the squabbling warbands of Britain into a single great army to push the Saxons back into the sea. He failed, and his army splintered and fell into infighting almost immediately after his death, but he did manage to halt the Saxons' advance for decades after defeating them in a great battle at Badon Hill near Aquae Sulis (modern Bath). Myrddin hopes to make Arthur the figurehead of another pan-British alliance, but Arthur is no Ambrosius... - Ambiguous Gender Identity:
- Gwyna spends most of her childhood living as a boy and adapts to it pretty well. When she hits puberty and has to start living as a girl again she finds it very difficult, although she does appreciate the ability to be open and honest about her feelings. At the end of the story she starts living as Gwyn full-time. It's not clear if she is intended to be a trans male, a cis female who just got used to living as a male for nearly half her life and finds it difficult to stop, or she simply prefers the greater freedom and opportunities that men have.
- Peredur/Peri is raised to believe he is a girl with few adult males around and none of the same age to contradict this, until Gwyna (as Gwyn) sees him naked and points out he's unusual. Even after puberty hits, his mother treats him as female (one who just needs to shave), until she dies and he's expelled from his own home due to identifying and dressing as a woman. Then he accepts that he is a man and lives as one. But after they run away together and Gwyna starts living as Gwyn again full-time, it's ambiguous if he also starts living as a woman again. The book is largely narrated in the first person by Gwyna, so we don't see much inside his head, which is why the gender identity issue in this case is ambiguous. When Gwyna believes him to be a girl at first, she uses "she/her", but after the reveal she uses "he/him". After he gets wounded, Gwyna as Gwyn leaves him in other people's care while she takes care of her own business. When she comes back for him after it's all over, he's been hidden among the household women for his safety and Disguised in Drag. To Gwyna it feels like he's the pretty girl Standard Hero Reward after all her troubles, and she confesses her love for him. After they run away together at the end, she refers to him as her "pretty companion" and Peri, which until then was his childhood nickname as a girl.
- Ambition Is Evil:
- Gwenhwyfar says at one point that men who want power shouldn't have it, and the only people who can be trusted with power are the ones who don't want it. Cei is a far better ruler than Arthur because he doesn't want to be lord of anything, while power is all Arthur thinks about.
- Interestingly enough, Arthur doesn't actually want to be king, he's content being overlord of Aquae Sulis and some prosperous countryside that will allow him to live fat and happy for the rest of his life. However, he apparently had greater ambitions in the past and his smaller aims may just be a result of age.
- Myrddin is the most ambitious person in the book, although his ambition isn't personal, it's more about ensuring his vision for Britain. While he's not evil he is utterly ruthless and certainly morally dubious.
- Animal Motifs:
- Arthur is nicknamed "The Bear" and he lives up to it.
- Gwenhwyfar is often described as looking like a heron.
- Gwyna's affinity for water and ability to swim underwater for long periods means she and Myrddin occasionally compare her to a fish.
- Authority in Name Only: Arthur styles himself Dux Bellorum ("Leader of Battles" in Latin), inheritor of Rome and King of the Britons. In reality he's just a slightly better equipped and more successful than average warlord. He's not even the only one who calls himself the Dux Bellorum. Maelwas of Dumnonia even expects him to pay tribute for holding Aquae Sulis which is in Dumnonian territory, and he actually pays some of it, if not all.
- The Bard: Myrddin never calls himself a bard, but he effectively is one as a wandering musician and storyteller. Ironically it's noted that he's not a very good harpist, and the music is really just background for the stories.
- Bastard Bastard: Arthur is the son of the warlord Uther and a Sex Slave, and a nasty piece of work. In keeping with the conventions of this trope his half-brother Cei, Uther's legitimate son, is significantly nicer, although unusually the brothers aren't enemies. At least until Arthur grows paranoid about Cei siding with Medrawt, and sends him off to die in an ambush.
- Beard of Sorrow: Peredur neglects to shave after his mother dies, which becomes an issue as he's been raised as, dressing as and identifying as a girl up to this point. His mother had merely taught him to shave when he grew old enough, but continued treating him as one.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: The city garrison of Aquae Sulis are equipped with old Roman gear that the Legions left behind.
- Butterfly of Doom: When he kills Bedwyr, Arthur also dispatches some men to kill Medrawt before he can come back for revenge. As they are heading to the target's house, their leader, the only guy who knew what they were supposed to be doing, is injured or killed in a random accident. This gives Gwyna enough time to warn Medrawt (through Peredur) and let him get away, then return with an army to kill Arthur.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When Myrddin is on his deathbed Gwyna, who narrowly avoided almost getting killed due to one of his schemes lets him know just how badly he screwed up by choosing to support Arthur.
- Canon Foreigner: "Saint" Porroc is the author's invention, but stands in for various early Celtic saints Arthur had friction with in early medieval accounts, though in different ways.
- Child Soldiers: The younger "men" fighting in Arthur's warband are teenagers by modern standards. Although actual children are usually kept out of the fighting, Arthur does use the boys who attend his warriors as part of a pincer movement in one battle.
- Church Militant: Subverted, officially Arthur and his band are Christian soldiers arrayed against the pagan Saxons. In reality, some of them are genuine believers, some are committed pagans themselves, but most just kind of hedge their bets by praying to Jesus and keeping up some old pagan rituals, which was common at the time in Britain and most of Europe. They get an influx of born-and-raised Christians when they take over Aquae Sulis, which tips the balance of power in the warband from pagans to Christians.
- Composite Character:
- Lancelot doesn't feature in the story at least in name, and so his role as Gwenhwyfar's lover is given to Bedwyr. This itself follows a trend in historical-style Arthurian works that don't include Lancelot by name.
- Gawain doesn't feature in the story as Arthur's favored nephew, but otherwise his nephew Medrawt is similarly high in the pecking order among Arthur's men due to both blood ties and personal qualities, a status the more villainous Mordred does not usually enjoy. Much the same for Bedwyr. note
- Medrawt also has shades of Gawain and Mordred's brother Agravain, called the "proud" or "arrogant" one among Arthur's nephews but still relatively heroic, based on how Gwyna perceives him.
- Gwyna is clearly the basis for the Lady of the Lake who gives Arthur Excalibur and the hand that actually holds it, and Merlin's apprentice Nimue as well (who is also called a Lady of the Lake herself), but she also fulfils Bedivere's role as the one who throws Excalibur into the lake after the final battle. When she retells the story, she tells people that Bedwyr did it as she feels like it's the least she can do for him.
- Consummate Liar: Myrddin is not only a very convincing liar, he's also quick on his feet and can come up with a plausible explanation for anything off the top of his head if he ever gets backed into a corner. Gwyna turns out to be much the same. When Myrddin tells Gwyna on his deathbed that he loves her like a daughter, she's not even sure if it's actually the truth because she's seen him lie without blinking so many times that she can't trust him.
- Corrupt Church: "Saint" Porroc is a self-declared saint and monk who exploits Peredur's mother's Christian faith to have her give up all her valuables to him and his followers after they set up their monastery of sorts by her house, and he hoards her treasures and wine.
- Dead Guy on Display: After Arthur defeats a rival warlord who also claims to be Dux Bellorum, he hangs the guy's severed head on his horse's saddle and rides around with it until it gets too smelly.
- Dead Person Impersonation: When Gwyna walks onto the battlefield in the aftermath of the showdown between Arthur and Medrawt, she wears the recently deceased Myrddin's robe with the hood up, so when she finds Arthur dying he believes she's Myrddin back from the grave.
- Death of the Old Gods: Downplayed. Britain is in the midst of Christianisation, where the urban population and most important people are at least nominally Christian, but most of the common people either hold onto the old superstitions as well as praying to the Christian God, or are just outright pagans. However, it's made clear that the old beliefs are on their way out, and one of the things that dooms Arthur is the fact that killing Bedwyr and throwing his severed head into a hot spring previously dedicated to a pagan goddess could be seen as making a sacrifice, angering many local Christians and even some of his own men.
- Deconstruction: Of Arthurian Legend, in the sense of "here's how it could have happened, and it's not pretty."
- Decoy Antagonist: Medrawt almost kills Gwyna when she first meets him while fleeing in the forest, and he's shown to be a bully to her and the boys of the warband, suggesting he may at least be a secondary antagonist. However, he's largely absent for most of the story, and is shown to be one of the more moral members of the warband when he grows up.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- Slavery is considered normal, women are carried off as loot in raids, teenage boys fight as soldiers and raiding and warfare are everyday parts of life.
- No one objects when Arthur, who's married to Gwenhwyfar by this point, brings his first wife Cunaid (whom he'd previously set aside) to join him in Aquae Sulis and treats her as his real wife in everything but name, yet Gwenhwyfar is expected to stay completely loyal to him. Consequently, when Arthur kills Bedwyr for sleeping with Gwenhwyfar, nobody has a problem with him murdering his wife's lover; they just object to the manner in which he did it.
- Demythification: Of Arthurian legend, stripping it down to its origins and historical background in the post-Roman era of Britain and recasting characters and events in a "realistic" fashion.
- Gwyna's first job for Myrddin is to swim underwater into the middle of a lake and hold Caliburn above the water for Arthur to grab, becoming the basis for the legend of The Lady of the Lake and the hand that holds out Excalibur; people believe in the Lake Lady already, and Myrddin and Gwyna just exploit their belief. A couple of times she considers telling people the truth, but realises that nobody would believe her. Later in the story she also does some of the deeds attributed to Merlin's apprentice Nimue, albeit not quite in the way the stories tell; instead of Merlin being magically bound inside a tree by Nimue, Gwyna buries Myrddin inside a hollow tree once he dies, since the ground has frozen too hard for her to dig a conventional grave.
- Caliburn is a well-made and impressive-looking sword but Myrddin readily admits he just bought it from a merchant and apparently he just came up with the name himself.
- While the story of Arthur drawing a sword from a stone to show he's The Chosen One is just a story Myrddin made up, he claims that the sword-in-stone insignia was brought to Britain long ago by Arthur's ancestor Artorius.
- Myrddin also admits the story about Arthur getting conceived through a Bed Trick is just another story he made up. In reality Arthur's father simply carried off his mother by force.
- The Britons vs. Saxons angle that early Arthurian pseudohistory takes is very downplayed here, as they did fight a war several decades ago but now the Saxons are generally content to stay put in their territories, and Arthur fights mainly other British petty lords. The Saxons are generally just invoked as a looming threat and motivator for Myrddin's plans for Arthur. There was a big, significant Battle of Badon Hill, but it happened a generation before the story begins, and Arthur later fights a smaller and less significant battle in the same area that later gets merged with the earlier battle in folk memory; Myrddin even suggested the battle site so this exact thing could happen and so Arthur is glorified further.
- Gwyna obeys Arthur's request to throw Caliburn into a lake to 'return' it to the Lake Lady, but instead of being carried off to Avalon he dies in agony from the wounds he received in battle, and she loots his corpse.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Kind of. In the early Welsh poems, Bedwyr had one hand, while in the book he has a bad leg. However, the original Bedwyr was a Handicapped Badass who could fight even without his hand, while in the book Bedwyr's career as a warrior is over after he breaks his leg.
- Driven to Suicide: Gwenhwyfar drowns herself after her affair is discovered and her lover Bedwyr is executed.
- Excalibur in the Stone: Myrddin came up with the story of Arthur drawing the sword from the stone years before the events of the book to portray Arthur as the rightful King of the Britons, tying into Arthur using an ancestral sword-in-stone sigil alongside the red dragon. At the start of the story, he has Gwyna pose as the Lady of the Lake and give Arthur Caliburn (Excalibur) to show a band of Irish pagans he wants Arthur to ally with that Arthur has the favour of the old gods. Myrddin starts telling the story of Caliburn at the villages he visits, only for someone who had heard the first story to point out the discrepancy. Myrddin smoothly replies that the sword from the stone was broken and Arthur needed a new one, then segues into another story that quickly gets everyone to forget the question. Although he doesn't show it, Gwyna can tell he's kicking himself inside for making a mistake like that, and it's an early sign that he's starting to lose control of his plans.
- Failure Hero: Arthur doesn't even come close to uniting the Britons or driving off the Saxons; he ends up alienating and killing all his family members and eventually dies painfully on the battlefield after losing everything.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: The basic premise of the story is that King Arthur was in fact just a moderately successful warlord with a good PR guy, as well as being a fairly horrible person.
- Fake Wizardry: Myrddin's not a wizard and will honestly tell the few people he trusts that there's no such thing as magic; however, he's happy to let people think he's a wizard as it serves his purposes.
- Famous Ancestor: Arthur is supposedly descended from a legendary Roman general called Artorius. Although Myrddin admits to Gwyna that it's almost certainly not true, he plays it up anyway to portray Arthur as a link to the glory of Rome. Also invoked when he wants Arthur to marry Gwenhwyfar, as she's an (actual) distant relative of Ambrosius, who smashed the Saxons a generation ago, the idea being to link two great bloodlines to create a powerful dynasty.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: The wealthy or people living in the old Roman towns like to present themselves as if they were still Roman citizens, despite the empire being long gone. When the magistrates of Aquae Sulis meet with Arthur and his warband, they're dressed in old togas that are totally impractical for the British weather and make them look ridiculous.
- Freudian Excuse: Myrddin fanatically hates Saxons. He eventually reveals to Gwyna that when he was a boy the Saxons destroyed his home, killed his family and enslaved him for years, though by this point Gwyna's trust in him has been shaken so she isn't sure if he's telling the truth.
- The Fundamentalist: "Saint" Porroc starts out as essentially a pre-industrial version of a Greedy Televangelist who takes Peredur's mother for everything she has. He tries to keep Arthur and his men away after they pay her a visit due to judging them as worldly men of the sword trespassing on holy ground (his). Arthur just laughs and knocks him down. After Gwyna has Peredur pose as an angel and appear to him in order to spook and chastise him, he has a revival of faith and becomes an ascetic fire and brimstone preacher. Later, when he discovers that the now-teenage Peredur is a male who wears women's clothing, he drives him out of his own home for that.
- Gender-Blender Name: Subverted, Peredur is named after "her" father and goes by the feminine nickname Peri, but "she" is actually a boy and so the name is gender appropriate.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Saxons exist as a looming threat to the East, but haven't left their captured lands in years by the time of the story. Arthur becomes overlord of Aquae Sulis after he defeats what is supposedly a Saxon raiding party that attacked it, but Gwyna later reflects that they were probably just a warband of foreign mercenaries-turned-bandits who were assumed to be Saxons, because they were too few and disorganized.
- Hidden Depths: Once when Gwyna and Myrddin are alone on a beach, Myrddin finds what looks like a stone shell, which we would recognise as an ammonite fossil. He muses how it to came to be and confesses to Gwyna that if the Saxons weren't in Britain he would be a philosopher (more like a scientist as we would understand it) and devote himself to uncovering the mysteries of the natural world.
- Historical Fiction: Set in post-Roman Britain in the late fifth to early sixth century, around 500 AD at the start. Could be considered Historical Fantasy by default due to the Arthurian theme, but there's no Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane wiggle room.
- Hollywood Atheist: Myrddin is an atheist and thinks that anyone who believes in gods or the supernatural is a fool, since no one answered his prayers when his mother and sisters were killed by the Saxons and he was dragged off as a slave.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Gwyna muses that Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr are so obsessed with each other because they're really obsessed with the joy of being needed by someone.
- In the Hood: Myrddin wears a black hooded cowl like a monk's, although he usually has the hood down, only putting it up when he wants to look mysterious and intimidating. Gwyna later takes it after he dies.
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Obviously based on the time period Welsh or Latin place names are used rather than modern Saxon or Norman-derived ones, i.e. Aquae Sulis for Bath and Dumoniia for Devon.
- Karma Houdini:
- The Irishman is the only villainous character to not only never face any consequences for his actions, but actually ends up better off than he started - having his own land to begin with, switching an overlord for a new one with cheaper tribute, and paying little of that tribute.
- "Saint" Porroc also gets off pretty lightly, just being humiliated and having his nose broken, but in the end he's claimed Peredur's mother's house and land for his own before dropping out of the story.
- Knight in Shining Armor: Arthur and his band of heavy cavalry certainly look the part, but morally they're far more complicated. They also don't call themselves knights as the institution of knighthood didn't even exist at this point.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Gwyna is able to pass as a boy until puberty, and even as a young woman can pass herself off as a youth pretty well because she has fairly masculine features and very little in the way of curves.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: After a few years of marriage Arthur resents Gwenhwyfar for not giving him children and assumes she is barren. He ignores that he has not had any children with his first wife either, while Gwenhwyfar had a baby from an earlier marriage who died in infancy, so it may be that he is the infertile one.
- Lazily Genderflipped Name: When Myrddin takes Gwyna in, he disguises her as a boy and renames her Gwyn.
- Like a Son to Me: Myrddin eventually tells Gwyna that he loved her like a daughter. She's actually angry about this because he never told her or acted like a father to her when she was growing up.
- Manipulative Bastard: Myrddin. Unfortunately for him, people often don't act exactly the way he wants them to unless he's there to micromanage, and he can't be everywhere at once.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Gwyna (woman raised as a boy) and Peredur (man raised as a girl).
- The Medic:
- Myrddin is the warband's field medic in addition to their storyteller, using almost lost knowledge of medicinal herbs and basic surgery from the Roman times that he picked up over the years. His survival rate isn't great by modern standards, and he can't do much for serious wounds besides sew them up, give them something for the pain and hope they make it through the night; but he's still a pretty good medic for the time, which only enhances his reputation as a wizard among the band.
- Gwenhwyfar is also a medic and turns out to be more skilled than Myrddin, as she's able to save Bedwyr's life when Myrddin had given him up for dead. Which makes sense since, as a high born woman in a town that still holds to some Roman ways, she likely has some form of formal education, unlike Myrddin. For example, she understands that unsanitary conditions can lead to infection.
- The Mistress: Arthur had a young Hot Consort who Myrddin convinced him to set aside to marry Gwenhwyfar. However, when Myrddin leaves Arthur alone for too long he brings the girl back and openly treats her as his wife in all but name. Ironically, she and Arthur were actually married before he even met Gwenhwyfar, just not in a Christian wedding.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: Only a few characters could be considered purely good, and nobody is shown to be completely evil either.
- My Beloved Smother: Peredur's mother raised him as a girl so he wouldn't leave her and die in battle like his father and older brothers before him.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Myrddin finds out that Gwyna tagged along with Cei's warband who he knowingly sent into an ambush, he has a stroke at the thought he may be responsible for her death.
- Merlin and Nimue: Except there's no actual magic being taught.
- Mythology Gag:
- One of Myrddin's stories is an early version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. As knights don't exist yet the Green Knight is a giant, and Arthur is the one who makes the head-chopping deal as the whole point of Myrddin's stories is to make Arthur look good.
- Myrddin also tells stories of Arthur hunting the giant magical boar Twrch Trwyth, later weaving it into the tale of Culhwch and Olwen but Culhwch is unnamed (in Gwyna's narration).
- Myrddin plans to have Arthur build a round hall with a round central room where he and his men can meet and feast as equals, but doesn't mention a table, although one can infer the table would also have to be round. The hall is built, but shoddily, and collapses after barely a season.
- A soldier who Gywna kills to save Peredur and Celemon, and which Peredur gets credit for, is dressed all in red; a reference to the Red Knight who often appears as a Starter Villain in stories of Sir Percival.
- No Periods, Period: Subverted hard. When Myrddin realises that "Gwyn" is approaching puberty, he takes her out of Aquae Sulis and drops her off with one of Arthur's distant vassals to relearn how to be a girl. She gets her first period during this time and is terrified, believing that she is dying, because she had no idea it was going to happen. She realises that is why Myrddin took her away from home, because if that happened to her while she was sleeping in a dorm with all the other boys, her cover would be blown.
- Non-Action Guy:
- Myrddin doesn't fight, or do any other physically dangerous activity like hunting.
- Peredur wants to become a warrior once he realises he's a man, but because he was never taught how to fight he's fairly useless. He gets knocked out in his first fight and Gwyna has to save him. He does get accepted into the warband, but only as a kind of mascot. After his first real battle, where he's seriously injured and almost dies of his wounds, he gives it up and becomes a minstrel.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- A non-humorous version. Arthur executes Bedwyr for sleeping with Gwenhwyfar where he finds him, which is in the old Roman baths under a statue of Minerva; he beheads him and then throws his head in the bath. To the largely Christian onlookers, it looks like he sacrificed a man to pagan gods and they see him as a wicked tyrant.
- Prefigured in a darkly humourous way when a similar thing happens years earlier, as Arthur throws his rival's severed head away and it lands in water. It was probably just because the rotting head stank too much by then, but it's taken as a pagan sacrifice.
- Odd Friendship: Myrddin and Cei start out as this, a devout Christian warrior and an atheist storyteller posing as a pagan wizard, but who nonetheless respect and genuinely like each other, even if they throw affectionate insults back and forth. Cei is also the only person besides Myrddin and Gwyna who knows that Myrddin is a fraud and Arthur receiving Caliburn was a trick. They grow apart as Myrddin depicts Cei as an asshole in his stories to prevent him outshining Arthur. Myrddin eventually sends Cei to his death without much regret.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The story ends with Gwyna and Peredur, the last survivors of Arthur's band, setting sail for Armorica (Brittany) in France.
- Placebo Effect: Gwyna makes Peredur drink what he believes must be healing water from the magic cup of the Lady of the Lake who presents it to him herself, so he can regain the will to live. It's just plain water from a regular cup, and Gwyna gets away with pretending to be the Lady (naked, in poor light, hiding her face and whispering) due to him being delirious and not knowing "Gwyn" is a girl yet.
- Pet the Dog: Almost everyone gets at least one moment of kindness or humanity, even people who are otherwise despicable, to hammer home the idea that these are real people and not one-dimensional heroes or villains.
- Most notably, Myrddin can't just abandon Gwyna after she plays her part in the deception with Caliburn, yet he can't be seen with a girl following him around because then people might realize she's the one behind the Lake Lady's appearance. So when he takes her to Arthur's headquarters, he decides that she should live as a boy, setting the rest of her story in motion.
- Medrawt's genuine concern and attempts to care for Bedwyr after the latter seriously breaks his leg has Gwyna re-evaluate her impressions of him.
- Plain Jane: Even in her most feminine presentation Gwyna is not especially pretty, with stringy brown hair and boyish features. Shortly after playing the Lady in the Lake, she hears Arthur tell the story and he describes the Lady as beautiful with golden hair and flawless white skin. To her shock, she realises he sincerely remembers it that way even though he looked right at her under the water, because that's what the Lady should look like.
- Poor Communication Kills: This is Myrddin's Fatal Flaw. He never explains himself or tells anyone anything unless it's absolutely vital to his plans that they know. This ends up wrecking his relationships with both his Only Friend and his surrogate daughter.
- The Poorly Chosen One: Myrddin picked out Arthur to be "King of the Britons" because he had the strongest independent warband after Ambrosius's army broke up, and he thought he could channel Arthur's greed and desire for power into fighting the Saxons. Arthur turns out to not be everything he'd hoped, but by that point he's built him up so much that he can't just drop him and start over.
- Pretty Boy: Peredur. Before puberty his features look girlish enough as long as you don't look too closely and his long hair helps. He grows up tall and thin so that he can pass for a slim girl at a pinch, though he cuts his hair shorter. Gwyna eventually realizes she loves him.
- Properly Paranoid: Late in the story Gwyna tells Myrddin that the Saxons aren't the huge threat he thinks they are and are happy to just hold the land they've seized and let the Britons fight each other for what's left. That might be true at that moment in time, but we know that the Saxons will take the rest of modern England eventually.
- Public Domain Artifact: Gwyna makes up the story of the Holy Grail on the spot, although she calls it a magic cauldron rather than tying it to Christ.
- Pun-Based Title: In light of the author's approach to the legend, the title can mean "Arthur is here" (as normal) and "Arthur tells lies here", though in practice Myrddin does much of the lying for him.
- Race-Name Basis: "The Irishman" has no other name given.
- Related in the Adaptation:
- Medrawt is the older brother of Bedwyr here, and Cei is his uncle, whereas they are usually not related at all.
- The earlier warlord Ambrosius shows up in legend as Arthur's uncle and Uther's brother. Here he is related to Gwenhwyfar instead.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation:
- In most versions of the story, Cei is Arthur's foster brother. Here he is Uther's son and Arthur's paternal half-brother.
- Medrawt is merely Arthur's nephew, rather than his nephew and son. This is akin to earlier medieval versions without the incest angle which developed later. To be precise he's the son of Arthur's paternal half-sister, Cei's full sister.
- Religious Bruiser: Cei is noted as being one of the few genuine Christians in Arthur's warband.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Myrddin wears black robes and is festooned with various charms and trinkets to look appropriately wizardy. No hat, but he does have a face-obscuring hood which is a close second for looking mysterious and mystical.
- Robbing the Dead: Looting the dead after a battle is standard practice. Gwyna steals Arthur's jewelry and boots after he dies from his wounds.
- Rule of Symbolism: When Myrddin realises Gwyna is getting close to puberty and won't be able to pass for a boy for much longer, he takes her out on a long journey to give her time to readjust to living as a girl and let everyone back home forget what "Gwyn" looked like. When he returns he finds that a grand feast-hall he planned to show Arthur's greatness has been built, but it is shoddily constructed and doesn't match his vision at all, indicating that Arthur has strayed from the plan while he was gone and isn't becoming the king Myrddin wanted him to be. Just in case we didn't get it, the hall then collapses over the winter.
- Secret-Keeper:
- Only Myrddin and Cei know at first that Gwyna and Gwyn are the same person, since Cei saw Myrddin and the girl together before they did their trick with Caliburn, and Cei helps plan her disguise as a boy when Myrddin first brings Gwyna to Arthur's headquarters. Later, Gwenhwyfar finds out when they chance upon one another in the baths of Aquae Sulis, but keeps it to herself for years until Gwyna enters her personal service as a handmaiden and she blackmails Gwyna over it, making the latter passively complicit in her love affair. Maelwas of Dumnonia also sees through Gwyna's disguise but does nothing other than letting Myrddin know he knows. Peredur finds out only at the end after Gwyna confesses everything, and she continues living in that persona.
- Only Gwyna knows that Peri is really a boy outside his household (mainly his mother and some elderly women and men servants who aren't going anywhere) or that Peredur used to live as a girl.
- Cei is privy to all of Myrddin's secrets regarding Arthur, like the business with Caliburn and the Lady of the Lake. But though he remains loyal, Myrddin eventually decides that He Knows Too Much.
- Shout-Out:
- When Gwyna invents the story of the magic cauldron (Holy Grail), she describes it as solid gold and intricately carved. She later needs to actually get something to stand in for it and plans to steal an antique gold bowl from a nearby manor, but can't get close enough and so grabs a simple wooden cup instead.
- When Gwyna is staying in the Irishman's house the other girls quickly realise she's not like them, and start to gossip about who she really is. One of them suggests that Myrddin created her from flowers, a reference to the character Blodeuwedd from The Mabinogion, which is also one of the earliest Arthurian sources.
- Merlin makes up a story about Arthur fighting a savage monster from a place called Bannog... a giant.
- Valerius, Gwenhyffar's first husband, appears to be a reference to Valerin, Guinevere's fiancé who she ditches to run away with Arthur in The Winter King, another revisionist Arthurian novel.
- Making Bedwyr a Composite Character with Lancelot is ultimately a nod to one of the earliest historical-style revisionist Arthurian novels, Sword at Sunset.
- The Squire: Each of the warriors in the warband has a boy; usually a younger brother, nephew or cousin, to help care for their horse and gear and who they teach to fight in return.
- Super Swimming Skills: Because she spent her earliest years setting and tending to fish traps, Gwyna is an excellent swimmer at a time when most people can't swim at all; and can also hold her breath for a very long time, which is why Myrddin first takes her in to play the Lady of the Lake.
- Supporting Protagonist: Gwyna is the protagonist of the book, but the story revolves around Arthur and Myrddin.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Gwyna spends most of her childhood after Myrddin finds her living as a boy. She spends her teen years as a girl, but decides to live as a man again once she strikes out on her own; while there are parts she likes and dislikes about living as each gender, presenting as male is easiest when you actually want to get stuff done. When she's recognized by people who know one or the other persona, she just claims to be their sibling.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Zig-Zagged. Gwenhwyfar's marriage to Arthur is a loveless and sexless political match, and follows her previous, similarly loveless Arranged Marriage to Valerius. They don't live together and Arthur doesn't even pretend to be faithful, bringing his previous pagan wife to be his Hot Consort while Gwenhwyfar is all but shunted off to the side. This would all normally add up to her affair with Bedwyr being depicted sympathetically but Gwyna believes she is selfish; partially because she herself has a crush on Gwenhwyfar's much younger lover, and mainly because it was almost inevitable that Arthur would find out and Gwenhwyfar made sure Gwyna knew about their relationship (meaning Arthur would kill her too if he did learn the truth) and is holding the fact that she knows Gwyna was Gwyn and the "Lake Lady" over her head to ensure her silence.
- The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Cei is described as ugly and his wife plain but they inexplicably have a beautiful daughter named Celemon. She briefly becomes a Damsel in Distress when a rival British lord raids Aquae Sulis and a raider scoops her up, and Gwyna and Peredur chase after her. Gwyna manages to rescue her while Peredur gets knocked out, but she's so disoriented that she accepts Gwyna's lie that Peredur saved her.
- Uncertain Doom: Medrawt is the only character who dies in the legends but whose death is unconfirmed after the last battle at Camlann, in contrast to all others who die onscreen, as witnessed by Gwyna. But she later spins the tale to include said character's death anyway. In the aftermath of Camlann, she only finds Arthur mortally wounded. Later she muses that Medrawt's men must either be dead or attacking Aquae Sulis to finish off Arthur's forces, but it's not clarified if Medrawt himself is alive or dead, and she's past caring and only wants to get away.
- Undying Loyalty: Cei is absolutely loyal to Arthur, even after some of the warband start to see him as an alternative to his brother. When one man suggests — purely hypothetically, you understand! — that if Cei were to challenge Arthur a lot of them would support him, Cei punches him out and loudly declares that they are Arthur's sworn warriors and he will not listen to any talk of treachery. Unfortunately, it's not enough to save him.
- Uriah Gambit:
- Arthur and his men fight at Badon Hill alongside Valerius, the lord of Aquae Sulis and Gwenhwyfar's husband. They win the battle but Valerius is killed by getting hit In the Back. Since this leaves Arthur able to marry Gwenhwyfar and bring Aquae Sulis under his control, she suspects Valerius was murdered, but can't do anything.
- Arthur and Myrddin send Cei and the men loyal to him into an ambush to get killed because they worry he might try to overthrow Arthur.
- War Is Hell: The battles depicted in the book are very small scale, with less than a hundred people, but are still terrifying, disorienting and brutal.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Myrddin wants the Saxons out of Britain, and he'll do whatever he needs to in order to make it happen.
- Wizard Beard: Inverted. Myrddin is the only adult male who is clean shaven.
