The Deaths of Arthur, Revisited

Returning to my Geek Orthodox roots

Before I started brainstorming and writing about Geek Orthodox subjects here on Substack, I began my long-envisioned Geek Orthodox site and podcast with an initial arc on “The Deaths of Arthur”, inspired by my talk on the subject that I delivered at Doxacon Seattle (Feb 2024):

Arthurian legend has had a huge impact on me, primarily through the whole chivalric code—of which Arthurian legend eventually became the primary carrier in the English literary tradition (and, arguably, more widely in Western Civilization’s mixed heritage)—both directly, through whatever adaptation of Arthurian legend it was that read when I was a kid, and indirectly, through Lewis and Tolkien, who, as I say in the conclusion of my talk, were both

really interested in Arthurian Legend, … but neither of them wrote about him [that is, King Arthur—well, Lewis did sort of in That Hideous Strength, of course], but that whole chivalric code infuses their work—The Return of the King: Aragorn with his lordly speeches, Lewis with Repicheep, who was totally willing to go up against a dragon all by himself—this kind of heroic last stand had a huge impact on me as a kid and growing up, because as I started to see my father engaged in fights that he couldn’t win, but he needed to do this for honour, for goodness, for the sake of what is true and right and holy, … and as I grew up and this notion was embedded in me … the thing that kept me going was it doesn’t matter whether you can win or not, what matters is that we defend what is true and right and good and holy—that we offer our lives. We’re all going to die, so it’s not a question of avoiding death, it’s a question of how do we die?

This meditation on the inevitable end of life (however fumblingly articulated, above) and the need to imbue it with meaning seemed to me to be a good place to begin a podcast, a site, a meditative endeavour whose chosen subject matter is to reflect on “life, the universe, and everything,” from a geek and from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

So it was interesting to run across, today, a somewhat similar reflection, by

Matt Whiteley

, on “How Arthur Made the West”. It’s a bit more political than I usually get (although, following in my father’s footsteps, as I try to do, I’m not afraid to get political), but that seems somehow appropriate, given the genesis of the Arthurian subject matter. I was particularly moved by one of his concluding remarks:

Ultimately, the stories are honest about the fact that all empires and kingdoms end, and that all ideals set sail in history only for moments, and at their best are only glimpses of the ultimate vision proposed by the religion which the writers of the Arthurian stories have believed, glimpses of what is far away, on desert islands, in silence, with eternity.

I haven’t yet found a way to say it better myself.

But it was also of interest to me to see Matt Whiteley end up retelling sizeable chunks of key portions of the Arthurian legend in his article—one almost can’t help doing so, I think, both because they are not as well known as they used to be, but also because the power of the legend is embodied in its stories—and, while he is more favourable to T.H. White’s retelling of the legend than I am, that aspect of the article reminded me of what I found myself doing repeatedly in that initial arc of my Geek Orthodox podcast. These stories are worth the retelling: they deserve to be re-experienced and rediscovered.

And since, due to the timing of my rediscovery of Substack, those podcast episodes on “The Deaths of Arthur” are not available here and (due to some vaguaries of using Wordpress as a platform for podcasting) are also no longer available on Apple Podcasts, I think I will republish those episodes here… and perhaps even migrate my whole Geek Orthodox podcast feed here to Substack as I did with Translating the Tradition. I won’t do it all at once, so as not to overwhelm my subscribers’ inboxes, and possibly also to give myself a chance to compose some reflections on them as I re-post, but be prepared for some more Arthurian content to come your way via this Substack!

In the meantime, the whole of that first arc of the podcast is still (and will remain) available on my GeekOrthodox.net website:

• The Historical Deaths of Arthur

• The First Literary Death of Arthur: Geoffrey of Monmouth

• Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur

• Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King

• Conclusion of The Deaths of Arthur

And, for any still waiting for my next Geek Orthodox: World of Code episode, I do have it recorded… I just have a fair bit of complex editing to do on it, which, combined with report card season (again!), is why it has taken so long.