YMMV / The Squire's Tales

• Funny Moments: Quite a few, but the duelling priests (and Dinadan's sportcaster-like commentary) in The Squire's Quest is priceless.
  • No mention of two knights actively trying to kill each other who are simultaneously trying to figure out what the past tense of 'cleave' is?
  • Sir Bors calling the hermit a poop.
• Genius Bonus: Tons for those familiar with the original legends, including a speech by an exceedingly tedious scholar named Geoffrey (of Monmouth) about the etymology behind the word “grail.”
  • The Ballad of Sir Dinadan contains one such bonus in the form of a flying spear cutting off a speech. For anyone who has suffered through the invocation of names in “Culwch and Olwen,” may also count as a Funny Moment.
• Moment of Awesome: Plenty. Both uses of “I'm my own damn princess,” in The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung Cart Knight are pretty memorable.
• Moral Event Horizon: Mordred crosses it when he kills Bedivere. Killing Alexander out of spite just proves exactly how much of a monster he is.
• Ron the Death Eater: Some characters who were portrayed as good in other versions of the legends are made idiots or jerks because Morris' current lead character doesn't like them. Tristram and Isolde are the best examples even though the Love Potion caused the mess to begin with.
  • Any character whose story relies overmuch on "Courtly Love" is likely to come off very badly indeed in this story. (Guinevere and Lancelot only become sympathetic several books after their involvement ends.)
• The Woobie: No one consistently, but Arthur is definitely one in the second book when he's suffering over Guinevere and Lancelot's blindingly obvious love affair.
  • Readers may feel this of Dinadan after the events of The Squire's Quest and Legend of the King, given he is one of the few surviving members of Arthur's court. At least he still has Palomides, since they were both out of the country when everything went down.

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