The Blame Game

“Let’s review yesterday’s debacle!”

“I would prefer not to do that right now, Malory Tennyson!”

“Understandable, Lancelot, and I appreciate that you may not feel ready to discuss it yet. But I think we all need to review the past couple of days, while they are still fresh in our minds, to see where the blame lies, to avoid a recurrence in future.”

“I do not see any need to discuss it any further. Surely nobody else is to blame if I do anything foolish or lacking in dignity. If it is a matter of paying compensation for the expenses incurred in staging my rescue, I have already arranged recompense for Dagonet the Jester. And why should anyone else be blamed if I do something unwise?”

“Because you are The Hero and if you fail there needs to be somebody else to blame or a good explanation for the situation. That is very important for the Artisans in Residence here in my Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies. We do not want Little Plump Jo, our current Artisan, to write about you in anything less than glowing terms!”

“Alors, I became lost in the forest and could not find the meadow to go to sleep under the hedgerow. Ergo, I was not there to be captured by Morgan Le Fey. But it does not matter; because I am here now and the daughter of King Bagdemagus is here now and I will be able to undertake the Trial by Combat Land Dispute on behalf of her father. I never really knew why we had to do that whole capture by Morgan Le Fey and freeing by the daughter anyway!”

“We have discussed this before, Lancelot. This particular episode of yours is just a sub plot in the overarching plotline of Morgan Le Fey scheming to get her son, Mordred, on the throne. In order to do that she needs to break the strong friendship and political alliance between you and King Arthur. She either must gain you as a love interest and control you in that way, or else use gossip to spread scandal about you and undermine your credibility and your friendship with Arthur.”

“But it is still not anyone else’s fault that I became lost.”

“Well it must be somebody’s fault! You are The Hero and if you fail there needs to be somebody else to blame!”

“No Malory! That is just you trying to live vicariously through me. You want me to be perfect because I represent you. But I am not perfect, Malory. Lord knows, I have tried. You have no idea how difficult it is to be unwincable! I just cannot always do it. And I need to be allowed to fail and not have you making excuses for me.”

“Well someone needs to take responsibility for this! Let me ask you, Sir Bors. You were supposed to accompany Sir Lancelot to the sign post on the road leading to the meadow in good time. Did you do that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“He did. But further down the road to the meadow there were massive boulders which came down when The Glitch happened in the Fog Lake. It was not possible to continue on that road, so I took a path around the boulders which led into the woods. I assumed that I would eventually get back to the other road.”

“Why did you not turn back when it became obvious that the paths would not join up?”

“Part of the Fog Lake Re-enactment script for this episode calls for me to not take the herbals I usually take each morning, so that I will need to sleep by the hedgerow and will not put up any resistance to Morgan Le Fey and her cronies loading me into a litter and carrying me off to her dungeon. The light was strobing through the trees as I rode in the forest, which often makes me feel light headed anyway at the best of times. By the time I wondered whether the forest path would eventually connect to the path to the meadow, my thinking was becoming quite hazy. I was just concentrating on the fact that I had promises to keep, which hinged on getting to the meadow, and I was pressing onwards as well as I could.”

“I consider that you are to blame, Malory Tennyson!”

“Why would you say that, Charles the Armorer?”

“To me this is clearly a matter of Health and Safety Regulations. You were negligent in your Duty of Care. You knowingly endangered Sir Lancelot, by placing him in a situation where he would be taken prisoner by an enemy. And you denied him his necessary daily herbals. The Armorers’ Guild would consider these actions to be completely reprehensible!”

“Thank you for your opinion, Charles. I must point out that the Fog Lake re-enactments are faithful depictions by canon characters of Arthurian legends, particularly as written in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. To remain faithful to the original stories, authors are actually obliged to put their characters into dangerous or uncomfortable situations. The Fog Lake Re-enactments are completely safe for the characters as long as they adhere to the scripts and to the choreography. If they act outside those guidelines I cannot be held responsible. In fact I blame characters going off-script for The Glitch in the Fog Lake.”

“So are you blaming me for The Glitch?”

“Good heavens no, Lancelot! You were a victim of The Glitch. The weather had already not been Camelot Perfect all the year and the landscape had been devastated. Scenes had been happening out of order for a long time before the Trial by Combat with Sir Mador de la Porte, in which you went off-script and nearly got yourself killed. If you remember it was like that for a long time before the Names and Backstories Protest March.

In fact, I believe it all started when Elaine declared that she was no longer filling the role of Elaine the Fair, Elaine the Lovely, The Lily Maid of Astolat. Everything started to change when she announced that she would now be known as Lady Charlotte-Elaine Lady of Shalott and Entrepreneur owner of Charlotte’s Web Weaving. She set a precedent for characters grasping self-determination.”

“So now we are blaming Elaine for me getting lost in the forest?”

“Well, not directly. Little Plump Jo, our current Artisan in Residence in Cloudbank Cabin did not have enough control over characters and plot lines when she first arrived and Elaine found a plot hole to escape her role.”

“I believe that Morgan Le Fey brought this on herself and Sir Lancelot was just caught up in it!”

“And why would you believe that, Intellectual Dabrowski, Canine Writing Companion of Little Plump Jo?”

“Morgan Le Fey, under the guise of Morganette Lafaye commissioned her Ai Lemur Writing Companion to write, with the use of AI, a romance story for herself and Sir Lancelot. And just have a listen to the version of this episode which Ai Lemur produced!”

‘Noble Prince Sir Lancelot du Lac the goodliest, handsomest, mostest goodlookingest knight to ever eat, dine, consume food in a hall, castle, mansion, grange, lodge with ladies, damsels, maidens went riding in the forest, woodlands and became lost, misplaced, disoriented, astray.

He got very tired, weary, exhausted from getting lost, misplaced, disoriented, astray (--) so he went to sleep, slumber under an apple tree or by a hedgerow.’

“See, Ai Lemur had Sir Lancelot getting lost in the forest first. No wonder Ai lemur could not write a successful romance for Morgan Le Fey!”