King Arthur

## Arthur Pendragon

**Arthur**, King of Britain, son of Uther Pendragon, definition of The Good King and namesake of the Arthurian Legend. The specifics of what he is has varied greatly through the ages, but one constant that remains is his being a leader of renown. The seat of his kingdom is most often given as the famed Camelot.

## English Mythology

c.475 AD, Tintagel Peninsula, Cornwall. On this small island, Arthur is conceived. His father, Uther, has been lusting after Igraine, the Duchess of Cornwall, and so convinces Merlin to disguise him as her husband Gorlois. He sneaks into bed and sleeps with her, producing Arthur, with no regard for weird lines of succession. Castle Island, Penn Du, and the Tintagel mainland contain ruins of a castle that was built nearly 1000 years later; evidence does show that it had been inhabited and not Romanised since the early millennium, though. The land is owned by the current Duke of Cornwall, who is appropriately enough the monarch's son.

Initially, in the early Arthurian chronicles, Arthur seemed to have been raised in Uther’s court or at least be fully aware who his birth parents were. However, a tradition invented by Robert de Boron had Arthur be raised by Sir Ector instead. In Robert de Boron’s account, it was because Merlin wanted Arthur to live a normal life but some later medieval and modern authors had it because he was illegitimate. Malory insists that Arthur was born legitimate since his parents were married at the time.

As it goes in these step-sibling stories, one of them must naturally be more greatly preferred to the other; it's Ector's actual son Kay (who was originally a major figure in the earlier Arthurian legend in his own right) that is less favoured, though he later does become one of his Knights of the Round Table. Arthur lives a happy life with them, as Ector has lots of land, possibly in the Forest Sauvage near Bodmin Moor, and trains them both well. When he is called to the throne, Arthur is shocked and shortly upset that Ector is not his real father.

When Arthur is around 15 years old, he becomes king by pulling a sword out of a stone, which only the rightful king could do. This sword was later replaced by the even cooler Excalibur, given to him by The Lady of the Lake, though sometimes they are the same.

However, many of the nobles and kings of Britain are initially against swearing fealty to a young boy thus a rebellion arose. Eventually Arthur defeats the rebels and marries Guinevere. As a marriage gift, Arthur gets a Round Table around which he decides to form the famed chivalrous brotherhood of knights. Incidentally, the battle of Mt. Badon and the Saxon conflict is completely obscured by this stage. Malory has the fighting between Arthur and the rebels be derailed by Saracens right out of the Crusades instead. Then after defeating the rebels, Arthur is challenged by the Roman Empire, and conquers that too.

When he returns home, Arthur doesn't get up to much then, with most of the medieval tales featuring him as a minor character in relation to the knights. He is offered many battles, but either chooses to or is told to stay at Camelot and protect the kingdom, with the other knights taking his place — namely Lancelot, Gawain, Perceval and Galahad. The quest for the Holy Grail happens around this time, but as the king, Arthur doesn't take part in it.

At some point he is sometimes said to have unwittingly committed incest with one of his sisters, Morgause. This spawns his eventual final foe Mordred who was now both his nephew and son. But this is not hinted at in any earlier material. His sisters Morgause and the more famous Morgan le Fay were also made into his enemies while they weren't originally. Morgause often gets combined with Morgan in modern works.

While Guinevere most famously has an affair with Lancelot which leads to the breaking-apart of the Round Table's fellowship, in earlier tellings starting with Geoffrey, Guinevere hooks up with Mordred while Arthur is away fighting his wars.

The earliest mention of Arthur's final battle only says that Mordred (Medraut) also died there, and the wording is ambiguous on whether they were fighting against or alongside each other. But the tradition is otherwise unanimous in making them enemies. In the earlier tradition, Mordred usurps Arthur when he leaves to fight the Romans while in the later tradition, Mordred tries to claim the kingdom for his own while Arthur is off chasing Lancelot in either France or Brittany, causing him to return.

After the battle, Arthur is sometimes said to grant his kingdom to a Cornish relative (or pseudo-relative) of his who is of Roman descent. Arthur is then taken by probably Morgan le Fay or someone else, to Avalon where the waters can heal his wounds.

## Hades

Though King Arthur himself doesn't physically appear in the game, his legendary weapon the Stygian Blade is seen and can be used by Zagreus. Arthur is implied to not be alive yet, as the weapon is deemed by the fates to have a future purpose.

## Additional notes

*For additional information on King Arthur that does not pertain to Hades, see Wikipedia's article: King Arthur*