TM #141: Name one thing about human nature that puzzles you.
Listen, anyone can be kind; even I can, when I take it into my head. Any fool can be brave. Any smug son of a bitch who knows the rules can be virtuous -- witness Galahad, pure of thought and word and deed, but not of heart, because he hadn't any. It atrophied in the cradle, so far as I could tell, and was laid away quietly, smelling of mothballs.
No, I never liked him. But he was comprehensible. Angling for God's favor as more agreeable men do for their lord's or their lover's. He was after a fair exchange; and by all accounts he got what he wanted.
Man's a self-interested creature, on the whole. He'll be kind or cruel, dutiful or faithless, whichever works best. The same goes for bullies and swindlers, wives and whores, reprobates and hypocrites. It goes for children and old folk; it goes for kings, and most assuredly it goes for traitors. Some want wealth and some want power; some, more modestly, want love, or comfort, or safety.
None of which explains Gawain at five years old, digging himself deeper into trouble by defending an equally culpable and considerably less beloved half-brother. Or at twenty, bargaining his life away for the sake of love and decency.
It doesn't account for Percival, who'd do any fool thing if he thought it would make someone smile, never mind if it troubled him or made him look the fool.
It doesn't explain Arthur. Who didn't want to be fair, and didn't have to be kind, and frequently should not have been merciful, and was all three. Even, God help us, to me.
I am, even in my better moments, a selfish sort, no better if not much worse than most of humanity. I can't fathom it. I can only wish I did.
Mordred
Arthurian legend
305 words