Synopsis: Arise Sir Rory! Every new knight must embark upon a quest, and soon Sir Rory (and his noble squire Lancelot) head out to solve the mystery of the Glowing Knight and save a damsel in distress. But are they walking into a trap?
Plot: Narrated by a man telling his children, he begins the story by telling how Camelot's Christmas celebrations ended with the arrival of a man glowing green who soon dies after whispering the phrase Green Fire. Rory quickly identifies that the man was covered in phosphorus and his investigations lead him to find a map on the man, and with Merlin's suggestion Guinevere gives him the task of finding out more. Joined by Lancelot they follow the map to a tower where they discover a woman named Lady Lynn who was captured by a group called the Order of the Green Fire. She is insistent of returning to her castle as her brother was captured by the Order, and on the journey they encounter a minstrel named Beau who knows of a secret underground pathway to the castle. However while the cave leads them to a newly built door with a puzzle required to open it, Lancelot accidentally burns the door making the pathway inaccessible. Rory is able to find a river that leads out of the cave however though he and the others are knocked unconscious while in the forest. He awakens in the dungeons of Lynn's castle and it is revealed that Beau is the lord of the castle and Lynn's sister though by this point Rory had figured out that he couldn't have been an ordinary minstrel. Beau reveals that he caused all these events to find a worthy knight to marry his sister, and takes Rory to see a mechanical dragon he had his guards build and challenges him to either save Lancelot or Lynn from certain death. Rory saves Lancelot knowing Lynn would be able to escape, and Rory is able to stop her from killing her brother by pointing out he shows symptoms of lead poisoning cased by his use of phosphorus leading to Beau being imprisoned. With Lynn now in charge Rory takes the opportunity to interrogate Beau who explains how he was given all of the equipment and the idea by someone in Camelot, with Rory suspecting that Merlin was behind all of this to give him a chance to search for the Pandorica. Rory leaves to confront Merlin with Lancelot, and the story ends with the narrator revealed to be Lynn's husband reading from the parchment Lancelot had wrote on describing the adventure with Lynn mentioning how the story of Rory's confrontation with Merlin is a tale for another time.
Tropes
- Adaptational Badass: Gawain had some magical abilities in some versions of the Arthurian legends, but he was never practically immortal like Rory. Also in The Green Knight Gawain was terrified about dying and the story ends with Gawain's failure to overcome this fear being his only flaw, while here Rory is simply worried about not being close to the Pandorica and his unique abilities means that dying isn't as big of a fear as it is for others.
- Adaptational Dumbass: Lancelot makes a lot of mistakes and tends to make stupid decisions that Rory has to fix.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Lancelot never had a romantic interest in Gawain in the legends, and in fact they became enemies after Lancelot killed one of Gawain's brothers.
- Adaptational Wimp: Gareth is simply a servant who is the lover and future husband to Lynn instead of a knight. Lancelot also suffers from this as he makes a number of mistakes during the adventure.
- Age Lift: Since Rory is the basis for Gawain he is an example of this, as in the legends Gawain was the nephew of King Arthur who was roughly the same age as Lancelot while here Rory might look to be in his twenties but has been alive for a few centuries by this point.
- Always Save the Girl: Subverted as when given the choice between saving Lancelot or Lynn, Rory chooses the former under the correct belief that Lynn could save herself.
- Beneath the Mask: While interrogating Beau, Rory stops pretending and makes it clear that he is furious that he has been dragged away from guarding the Pandorica because of the events of the story and threatens Beau until he reveals who was really responsible.
- Canon Character All Along: In regards to the Arthurian stories at least, Rory is revealed to be Gawain which explains why there wasn't a Sir Rory in the myths.
- Christmas Episode: Camelot is celebrating Christmas at the start of the episode, though that doesn't make much sense as Christmas wouldn't be celebrated in this era of Britain's history. Of course this is an Alternate Timeline so perhaps Rory had a role in making it a popular holiday by this point in time.
- Continuity Nod: A minor one but in "The Pandorica Opens" River said she hates good wizards in fairy tales as they always turn out to be the Doctor. As it turns out, her father was one of the most famous knights from the Arthurian Legend.
- Damsel in Distress: Lynn is this by design as Beau is looking for the best knight who passes his tests, the first being a test of chivalry. However she gets fed up when he threatens to kill her or Lancelot, becoming a Damsel out of Distress who takes control of the mechanical dragon using nothing but a pointy stick.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Rory is shocked that everything Beau did was simply to find the best knight who would then marry his sister.
- Genre Savvy: Lancelot is aware that they are in a typical quest for a knight, and shows some annoyance when something happens that goes against the usual narrative.
- Irony: Gawain in the myths is usually associated with Lothian or the Orkney Islands, both of which are part of Scotland. Also in the myths Gawain had a one night stand with a fey that resulted in a son named Gingalain, which brings to mind River who is a child of the TARDIS and part-Time Lord who from Rory's perspective he has only met once during "The Pandorica Opens" meaning he's unaware that he's her father.
- Jumped at the Call: Lancelot leaps at the chance to join Rory on his quest as his squire, wanting to record Rory's adventure and help him.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Rory believes that exposure to the phosphorous has caused Beau to get lead poisoning which is causing his current madness, and before he leaves recommends ways Lynn could help him recover.
- Refusal of the Call: Rory tries to do this, but when that fails he simply becomes determined to resolve the quest as quickly as possible.
- Sadistic Choice: Beau arranges for either Lancelot or Lynn to be killed by a mechanical dragon with Rory only having enough time to save one. He chooses Lancelot and Lynn saves herself.
- Shout-Out: While doing an autopsy of the Glowing Warrior the Rory jokes that it's time for CSI: Camelot. Lancelot calls this the name of their adventure in the parchment, which Lynn and Gareth decide to change.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Lancelot mentions his last squire had been a girl pretending to be a man in the hopes that one day they would get married, and by his tone it's clear he had been more attracted to her when he thought she was a man.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: This story reveals that Rory is Gawain, who in the original stories was the nephew to Arthur and brother to Gareth who is Lynn's eventual husband.
- Whole-Plot Reference: This entire story is based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with Beau mistakenly believing that Rory's name is Gawain after his misheard Lancelot telling him to go away. It's heavily implied that Lynn would rewrite the story due to her annoyance over how Lancelot wrote about her, and it would eventually turn into the story people are more familiar with.
