I have a confession.
I eat that shit up for breakfast.
OH GOD, NO! IT SOUNDS LIKE I'M IMPLYING I EAT DICKS! NOOOOOOOO.
What I mean to say is that I do like over exaggerated acts of macho-ness, but only in fictional settings. If you ever step up to me and pull anything like this crap just to show off manliness, I will junk punch you. But, if you happen to be a part of the Straw Hat pirate crew then I will swoon. Like, I will seriously loose my shit.
So why doesn't this work for the Knight of the Cart? Why aren't I excited to read about Lancelot fighting for his lady love while still wounded? Honestly, I don't have a rock solid answer.
My suspicion is that the narrator of the story is already doing my job as an audience member for me. Lets take the moment where King Bademagu spends 8 MILLION YEARS explaining to Lancelot that his wounds are too severe for him to fight the King's own bad-ass kid. Lancelot has to keep saying that he will go on, this fight isn't over, he won't sit down and rest, BLAH BLAH BLAH. I am seriously underwhelmed by the entire scene. If the king had kept his awe in check, maybe explain the severity of the wounds but not the necessity for healing I might have swooned.
Now, past me would have tried to come up with some sort of excuse. Perhaps reader participation wasn't a big part of written works (bullshit), What if this is the way that they hype up situations (possibly). Again, I don't really have an answer to my question.
All this talk about manliness does bring me to King Bad. I don't know how to read him as a character. His idea of the honorable thing, the right thing, and I suspect the manly thing, is to surrender.
Well, maybe the surrender bit isn't meant to be manly but the only thing that will maintain someone's manliness. What would a man be without his honor? Not a man. Still, King Bad is just so malleable as a leader and an individual which isn't something I typically associate with idolized manhood. And he doesn't even have the convenient excuse of being in Love with someone. Lancelot is a puppet of Love and I mean that in a nice way. I think. I haven't decided yet.
