The Bright Sword

by Lev Grossman

if he kept training and fighting he would one day refine the taint out of himself, burn it away, the one that made it impossible for anyone anywhere to love him. He would fight his way off this island, over the sea and all the way to Camelot.

If Bedivere were honest with himself he didn’t really care whether Arthur got the deer or not, except that it would make Arthur happy, and Bedivere wanted Arthur to be happy because he loved him. Not just as a king but as a man: Sir Bedivere was in love with King Arthur.

suppose we’re here to accentuate Galahad’s p-perfection by comparison. Throw it into high relief, as it were.” “Plus if he let us roam around unsupervised he’d just have to rescue us again in a couple of days.” “We are anti-Galahads,” Constantine declared poetically, “the sh-shadows cast by his brightness!”