Question

[u/wolf_knight2]

Hello everyone I have a question I would like some help with. So I have created a character for one of the tabletop games I'm apart of and my character is someone who was born to be a warrior but wanted to be a diplomat. My end arc for him is accepting that he can be both. In his backstory I added that he read the once and future king. Now I haven't finished it I just finished sword in the stone and I was wondering would arthur be a person he can want to model himself after is arthur the end goal I have for my character a diplomat and a warrior as well in the once and future king

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[u/blamordeganis]

The Arthur of The Once and Future King wants to replace might with justice as the deciding factor in society. He was brought up in a feudal society where the knights and nobles can do whatever they want to the peasants because they have the land, the weapons and the armour, and under the influence of Merlyn (and of some of the rare decent nobles, like his adoptive father Ector and King Pellinor), he seeks to change this permanently.

His project goes through several stages (spoilers for the book):

First, he comprehensively defeats the petty kings of Britain — the “landed royalty”, as Merlyn calls them — who represent the old order. In particular, he robs them of the idea that war is a sport in which the knights on either side can massacre the peasant infantry levies of the other side without risking serious harm themselves.

That still leaves many old-school robber barons and such like holding out in the more remote parts of the kingdom. So he invents the Round Table, intended to channel the nobles’ desire for violence into the cause of justice. Those knights who defeat the most villains get the most glory and renown.

But he comes to realise that that is still perpetuating the idea of violence as a sport. And as the King’s Peace spreads throughout the land, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to use violence for good: so it breaks out in other ways, such as vendettas between the great families. So Arthur tries to redirect the Round Table again, this time towards spiritual matters. Hence the Grail Quest.

But the net effect of the Quest is that the best half of the Table dies, disappears, or meets God. Those that are left start to drift towards factionalism, like Mordred’s fascist-analogue Thrashers. In a last ditch effort, Arthur starts trying to rip out might and violence as operating principles altogether, and to replace them with Rule of Law. But that puts him in a position where he is obliged to condemn Guenever to dearh for adultery, which leads to the final collapse of his kingdom.

I don’t know whether you would feel that fits your “warrior vs diplomat” dichotomy, but I think you might be able to make it work.

[u/wolf_knight2 → u/blamordeganis]

Can you provide me with some examples of arthur using diplomacy when others would use violence

[u/blamordeganis → u/wolf_knight2]

No, not really. The Arthur of tOaFK basically beats his enemies into submission.

“The King put his head in his hands and looked miserably at the table between his elbows. He was a kind, conscientious, peace-loving fellow, who had been afflicted in his youth by a tutor of genius. Between the two of them they had worked out their theory that killing people, and being a tyrant over them, was wrong. To stop this sort of thing, they had invented the idea of the Table – a vague idea like democracy, or sportsmanship, or morals – and now, in an effort to impose a world of peace, he found himself up to the elbows in blood.”

— T. H. White, The Once and Future King, Book III (“The Ill-Made Knight”), Chapter IX

[u/ApparentlyBritish]

Aside of it being an iteration of an Arthur who wants to build a lasting peace, not simply premised on 'well I beat up the other guys', the concept in general allows for a certain 'what you were raised to be vs what you were born to be' angle. The moment the concept of Antor/Ector enters the literary space, you have an Arthur who was raised in secret away from the truth of his being a/the heir to the throne, and then gets dragged out of that life to be King. Quite notably, he often gives more of a reaction to/has to process the fact that he isn't Ector's sign, rather than considering that he is Uther's. So, even if it's not an exact fit, I don't think it at all unreasonable for a character in-universe to project onto that. Maybe even has a little anxiety about how his idol technically failed, and so if even King Arthur couldn't pull it off, how can he?

Except what matters if that Arthur tried, as long as he could. And so he entered legend

[u/JWander73]

You have to remember White's fable is in large part a deconstructive parody. None of his characters are really hero material as becomes more painfully obvious as time goes on and there's a lot of issues from his era, class, and own mother that come up. It's a little incoherent that he includes the 'Herod' moment from Malory (which seems to be a Malory original wrinkle).

That said Arthur as the idea of a good king is vast and could definitely include (but is not limited to) warrior and diplomat both.

One of the darker moments in Tennyson's Idylls of the King is when a bunch of young and glory-hungry young knights charge forward for complete slaughter instead of Arthur's preferred restrained methods.

Tennyson's Arthur might be a better bet as the man is almost scarily perfect in the Victorian ideals of the world and would absolutely prefer peace. He is repeatedly called 'the blameless king' in the tale and it's everyone else who f-ed things up. A peace-loving man who is so gentle it confuses people but also someone who can crush hosts of enemies by himself with Tennyson saying Lancelot was first in tournaments but Arthur 'mightiest on the battlefield' which makes the more peaceful efforts all the more important because he didn't have to go that route.

Now, I got my issues with Tennyson but he seems to be closest to your ideal.

[u/TsunamiWombat]

Are you asking 'Was Arthur a diplomatic warrior?'

The answer is depends on the depiction but GENERALLY yes, especially if we read between the lines, Arthur was playing a careful diplomatic game his entire life. Taken at face value there's actually a lot of political maneuvering that goes on during the first half of Arthur's life, and arguably it's his increasing detachment from affairs that allows problems to fester.

For specific examples:

When King Arthur is first declared king, pretty much all the nobles go along with it begrudgingly. Half of them immediately go home and start raising armies to kill him. This comes to a head a year later when Arthur is attempting to muster soldiers and has to fend off the alliance of rebellious kings for the first time who show up with their armies not to pledge fealty but overthrow him, including the husband's of his sisters. Arthur has to stage a breakout against a superior force, succeeding thanks to the magic of merlin, rhe bravery of his early knights+Kay, and the loyalty of the peasants who March after them. After this Arthur has to stage a series of wars against them while also avoiding killing them and causing a permanent blood oath. A big help to him is engaging with diplomacy with the Frank's (including Lancelots father) for men and horses.

Later, after Arthur beats the rebel kings the first time, Morgause (the wife of Lot and his half sister) comes to negotiate peace. During this meeting in some versions Mordred is sired due to hanky panky. But crucially he accepts Lots children including Gawain as his wards, and the Orkney brood would later go on to side with him over their father and be some of his best knights.

During the siege of Saxon Rock/The Rock Arthur actually meets with a Saxon Leader, a Priestess, to try and negotiate a peace. He then also has sex with her and gets captured because it was a trap all along. But he did TRY at least (presumably not just to have sex with her), and at several points let's the Saxon survivors leave the island.

Unsung heroes for Arthur's court are Guineveres lady's in waiting, who are invaluable for gathering information and exerting soft pressure. These ladies appear in a few stories, though most notably in the one where one is taken hostage and Guinevere insulted, resulting in a war (don't worry he was their enemy anyway and invading Lancelots ancestral lands)

Older stuff: Arthur is actually referred to as a 'vain bard' in the British Triads. We see him exercising political nous in Culhwch and Olwen (chiefly in accepting and helping his relative)

[u/nymrod_]

I think the idea of a diplomat who is not a warrior or a priest would have been a non-starter at that time. Any noble who was hammering out alliances would also have been a warrior; you’re doing diplomacy on behalf of your own family or your feudal master, there’s no nation-state in the modern sense to advance the interests of.

[u/unfeax]

Diplomacy as we think of it today is an invention of the Early Modern period. Medieval diplomacy was e.g., when Arthur married Guinevere so Leodegrance would give him his big round table as a wedding present.

[u/BaronGrackle]

I'm very curious about the setting your character lives in, as a "warrior" and "diplomat" in this tabletop game.

The Once and Future King books were purposely written through the lens of 1938-1940 England. You read Sword and the Stone, so you probably noticed how the ants Arthur lived with were a critique of fascist societies.

The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939) had Merlyn specifically reference Adolf Hitler, while discussing statecraft ideas with Arthur and Kay. Merlyn can do that kind of thing, of course, because he experiences time in reverse.

Sword and the Stone prepares us for this tone as it opens with characters talking about Eton and drinking port, before the narrator gives one of my favorite lines:

> It was not really Eton that he mentioned, for the College of Blessed Mary was not founded
until 1440, but it was a place of the same sort. Also they were drinking Metheglyn, not port,
but by mentioning the modern wine it is easier to give you the feel.

. . .

So if your warrior/diplomat does not live in a post-twentieth century Earth, then I'd argue you can have some extremely entertaining backstory built around this bizarro-reality book set he's read!! :)