The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1)

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

If you seek to avoid your fate or to delay suffering, it only condemns you to suffer it redoubled in another life.

This is why I'm an atheist. I was a former neo-Pagan. The 'Rule of 3 / Golden Rule / Karma is just saying you deserve everything that happens to you - because you were a saint or a sinner in another life. And the Golden Rule? Do unto others? It just keeps their knee on your neck.

And then, not knowing why, she remembered that rebirth itself—human life—was supposed to be the penalty, life in a human body rather than endless peace.

I'm an atheist, and the concept of reincarnation is nonsense. But I really relate to the part about being alive is the punishment.

Oh, yes, you can take me to bed and force me to do your will, your Christian piety permits you to ravish your own wife!

Marital rape is still a thing.

Gorlois followed the girl with his eyes. She thought, appalled, Morgause is only fourteen, then remembered in dismay that she herself had been but a year older when she was given to Gorlois as his bride.

Just an FYI: MZB, and her former husband, Walter Breen, were child abusers and child rapists.

great fair-haired, boorish man.

Reminds me of this guy I used to know. He died in a drunk driving accident. Don't drink & drive, folks.

screamed for my mother, but she was on her way to the King, and she called back angrily, “Morgaine, I told you, look after the baby,” and hurried on.

Parentification at its finest.

I was too big a girl to cry or whimper for my mother, because I had a little one to look after now. I think I was all of seven years old.

“Lady Viviane, do you think there are people plotting against my brother’s life?”

Credo aliquos homines in totum de purpura rufa togatos contra me conspirare.

“Igraine is right thus far: that you should not speak idly of these things to the once-born,”

We're all once-born. Once we die, we die.

happiness was something she dimly remembered before her mother had burdened her with the weight of her little brother.

Briefly, almost perfunctorily, she parted the girl’s legs and probed a little: Morgaine, beyond embarrassment,

Rude!

she felt the full weight of virginity pouring and flooding through her like the spring tide.

Virginity worship is weird. At least Morgaine was an adult.

the antlers gone from his brow,

Nah, nah, man, leave 'em on!

when he went down into the country of the dead, the stern judges there relented and let his beloved dead go forth.

Orpheus

Kevin,

Fucking Kevin. It's *always* Kevin.

Igraine apologized and sent her women for bread and barley beer which Morgaine forced herself to eat,

No beer for preggos, we know better now.

telling the waiting-woman to bring her kinswoman a cup of wine.

Tsk, tsk, no wine for preggos, either.

“You could not say my name in your language,”

As, she's Welsh.

that would be a wedding to remember indeed, with a bride sick and pale, and the mother of the bridegroom raving.

But isn't that a traditional wedding?

I am willing to do you such honor, lady, and let you rule at my side.” Panic clutched again at Gwenhwyfar’s stomach. How could he expect that of her?

I imagine Melania Trump could sympathize with this.

“Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman’s tears?”

Tears contain hormones, and pheromones. Some of those show the capability to lower blood serum testosterone levels.

The creature tossed his head, and the snort was like a dream of dragons breathing fire.

“Young Achilles has found his Patroclus, so it would seem.”

Ew.

one of the midwives had told her it was like a sickness in cattle when they cast their calves unborn, time after time, and sometimes women took that sickness too, so they could not carry a child more than a month or two, three at the most.

Ergot poisoning.

but it is true what they say, blood is thicker than water,

This is a misused quote. "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" The first reference to anything similar to this was 1180 in ‘Reynard the Fox’ by Heinrich der Glîchezære and was written as “Kin-blood is not spoilt by water.” The form “blood is thicker than water” appeared in 1670 in John Ray’s work ‘Proverbs’ although the ‘invention’ of the phrase is credited to Sir Walter Scott (from his 1815 novel ‘Guy Mannering’). https://www.helpforwriters.me/etymology-series-history-proverbs/

“You must not be so quick to assign blame to others,” he said severely. “If there is fault, it must be your own.

Wow. Harsh. Victim-blaming in the most horrible of ways.

She, Gwenhwyfar, was not good at all with the sick, she had no skills,

She nursed Igraine and Arthur both. This is her insecurity speaking.

She looked at the berries, dew-fresh in a wooden bowl.

Hope the berries were picked from upper branches, and washed. Otherwise, this is how you get fuchsbandwurms. (Echinococcus multilocularis)

“And no doubt sin and good and evil are all lies told by priests and men, and the truth is only that we grow and die and wither even as this grass here.”

The truth will set you free, you beautiful, tormented, man.

these men are not drunk as you imagine, since it is only the third hour;

What, no wake-n-shakers? No keeping a flask under the bed?

would not be surprised if Gwenhwyfar would never again wish any man to touch her, and for her sake I am glad, if Lancelet can heal that hurt for her.

Magic penis sighting.

But she had not wanted it like this.

The truth is a harsh mistress.

and she had on a gown, dyed green, that looked very old.

The 'gown of green' also means doing the dirty deed in the fields.

I’ve heard that he’s been beaten by Gareth more than once, and once by Lamorak—”

Lamorak is such a himbo, goddess bless his heart.

Accolon was free, what did it matter what mummery the priests made with the tenantless clay?

Funerals are for the living.

“The God has prepared a place for the traitor. Bury him, then, within the cleft in the oak. . . .”

In some other 'verse, Kevin was walled into the oak, but not flayed. This gave Nimue hope. She secretly fed him & gave him water, cleared away the mess as best she could... Then when all had calmed down, she released him & they ran away.

“He said he had had a vision,” Lancelet said slowly, “which bade him return to court and do his duty by his king and his lands, and not to delay, loitering about and seeking visions of holy things.

A "vision". Gawaine's smarter than he looks.

I must believe that I had no power to do other than I have done.” . . . must believe that I never had a choice . . .

Religion is mental illness.

13

So far, MZB is a terrible author because she has some of the longest chapters ever. Michener is guilty of the opposite. He was a halfway decent human, but wrote short chapters published in tiny fonts.

Why seek further for visions and glories, when your king has need of you in Camelot?

Ah, another 'vision' proclaiming "fuck this shit, let's go home'.