Besides the Vains (Yvain and Gauvain), the two other Kaamelott characters who embody the trope Those Two Guys best are Perceval le Gallois (Percival the Welsh) and Karadoc de Vannes (Caradoc of Vannes). They’re usually together, often at the tavern, even when they were sent to a village with a dragon problem (they figured, “what’s the harm in stopping for a drink and a bite?” and before they knew it, two days had passed). Karadoc is the biggest AND pickiest eater in the whole realm; Perceval is incapable to understand how a map works but can count anything in the blink of an eye. (he knows how many stones were used to build Kaamelott, for god’s sake.) Also he’s the only one who insists (against everybody else) that Earth is round. Neither can tell their left from their right.

It’s important to point out that when I say Perceval loves Arthur, he really does love him. He and Karadoc are probably smack dab on the asexuality spectrum (Karadoc, though married with children is probably aro-ace, regards sex as a chore one must go through to have children, and never once expresses attraction for anybody). But Perceval is completely devoted to Arthur, has absolutely no qualm in telling him he loves him, and the only moment we see him get angry in all six Books is when Karadoc wants to try to pull Excalibur out of the rock Arthur has replaced it in (long story), because the king of Britain is Arthur, and that’s it.

I’m starting a series of Kaamelott characters sketches inspired by the great Tealin and her Terrorspotting series. Since a LOT of Kaamelott characters are brown-haired dudes with stubble or full beards, je me suis dit que ce serait pas du luxe...

First up, King Arthur Pendragon! He tries. So hard. But it’s not easy when your Knights of the Round Table are a bunch of self-serving bastards or eager dumbasses. He and Father Blaise, the scribe (for Posterity) share the role of Only Sane Men, pretty much (for a loose definition of “sane”). If this was The Office they’d be staring non-stop into the camera.

For all that my previous “Kaamelott karacters” were dudes, Kaamelott isn’t that bad a sausage fest. (It’s just really full of brown-haired white dudes with beards.) There are female characters all over the cinnamon roll -> bastard scale, starting with the Queen, Guenièvre (Guinevere).

Guenièvre is a typical example of an apple falling VERY far from the tree: she has none of her mother Séli’s ruthlessness nor her father Leodagan’s violent tendencies. She’s a dreamer, she’s naive, and (“thanks” to the way she was raised) has no idea why she hasn’t given an heir to the crown in over 15 years of marriage with Arthur. (It’s because he won’t touch her - dude made a vow, it’s complicated - and they only got married for political reasons). She tries to be a good queen, even when she fails to grasp the intricacies of political life, even when she starts to think Lancelot might be interested in her and she in him (which ends badly for all concerned). Nobody takes her seriously; there’s a couple of cases where this backfires on them, because for all her faults, Guenièvre - like Bohort, another character few take seriously - is soft marshmallow all the way to the core, which is iron.

Second in my series of Kaamelott characters (karacters?), Yvain and Gauvain! Of the main cast, they’re the ones who get hit the most by the “those two guys” trope. It doesn’t help that they’re virtually inseparable. They’re the “kids”, the youngest of the lot, the next generation of Knights of the Round Table (cue long-suffering sighs, parce que mes aïeux, on a vraiment pas le cul sorti des ronces).

Yvain is the son of Leodagan and Séli, Gauvain (called Gawain in English) the son of Anna (Arthur’s step-sister) and King Loth. Yvain tends to sulk when told what to do, Gauvain is enthusiastic about nearly everything. They share one braincell :3

Don’t look for Venec in Arthurian lore. He - like the Innkeeper, like Arthur’s mistresses, like peasants Guethenoc and Roparzh - is not a noble, not part of any family, royal or otherwise. He often acts as go-between when someone needs something sold to them and his résumé is ridiculously well-stocked: he has sold weapons, torture implements, slaves, and lemons; he’s been a pimp, a smuggler, a bookie, a highway robber, a fence. Man has his fingers in many pies, some legit, some not. He’s also in possession of a certain amount of weaselly charm and a few guidelines - if not exactly rules, per se - about never robbing, maiming, or killing anyone he’s in business with.

Despite the fact that Arthur occasionally has him thrown into the dungeon when his “business” involves illegal and immoral stuff, and has to bodily wrestle him out of bedrooms or pantries Venec gatecrashes in Kaamelott, there is a fondness between the two men that becomes apparent (even transparent) when Arthur puts Excalibur back into the stone and relinquishes the throne. Venec sometimes often forlornly states a few times that he really does prefer when the king is Arthur.

He’s also the one who, when Lancelot goes full tyrant and sends men after the Knights and a barely recovering Arthur, risks everything - his freedom and his life - to put Arthur into a boat and sail him away from Kaamelott and, hopefully, to safety. Which has two consequences for yours truly: 1) shipping them like mad, and 2) worrying a lot for Venec in the upcoming film, because what is the life of one little conman worth in the grand scheme of things?

(last one in my “Kaamelott karacters” series for now, but I might do some more in the future!)

I’m down to one “Kaamelott karacter” a day rather than two, otherwise I won’t be able to hold the distance! Bohort le Jeune (Bors the Younger) is devoted to Arthur in a way that’s second only to Perceval and Guenièvre; despite the fact that he never went through the requisite training to be a knight (which he is very ashamed about, and which Arthur swiftly remedies when he hears about it) and is, admittedly, a coward in a lot of ways (but a loveable one), he still makes a stand against his cousin Lancelot to defend Arthur at the end of Book V - trembling and terrified, but determined to protect his king. He’s a kind and gentle soul, prone to seeing the best in people even when they prove him wrong. 

There are rumours in Kaamelott that Bohort’s preference goes to men rather than women, but he is in fact married and very much in love with his wife Berlewen, who is as kind and gentle as he is but hates travelling (and is thus rarely seen in court). Most of the fandom share the headcanon that he, Arthur, and Venec (more on him later) are bisexual.

Bohort is also terrified of adult rabbits. Which isn’t that surprising, considering his counterpart’s fate in the Monty Python’s Holy Grail...

Did someone order a smug snarky bastard? :3 Elias de Kelliwic’h is easily at the very end of the “cinnamon roll -> bastard” scale in Kaamelott. Originally hired as backup for Merlin, he proceeds to butt heads with him and put him down at every turn until Merlin, fed up, ends up quitting in Livre V to join Perceval’s and Karadoc’s new independent clan.

Elias is a bit on the sociopathic side and almost completely amoral (his loyalty goes to his current employer); he is good, knows it, and does not suffer fools gladly. He also heavily relies on theatrics and drama and the Aesthetic - nobody else has a staff that lights up ominously whenever he raises it, whether he means to be ominous or not.

(check out my other “Kaamelott karacters”!)

Kaamelott’s Léodagan (Leodegrance) is, first and foremost, a grumpy bastard, pretty high on the Tired scale (but not as high as Arthur). He is Guenièvre’s and Yvain’s father, Arthur’s father-in-law, and is known by the fond nickname of “le Sanguinaire” (the Bloody). Won’t be having with this wishy-washy nonsense of not torturing people for punishment, information, or fun. He’s still one of the best Knights of the Round Table and an excellent war leader and field commander. Funnily enough, was trying to unite Britton chiefs and kings against the Romans a little before Arthur managed that feat, which shows a level of ambition and cunning other kings fall short of.

He and his wife Séli (more on her later) can’t stand each other but can’t live without each other. They’re basically a living embodiment of the adage that says couples who scheme together stay together.

Unlike most “important” characters, we only meet Mani in the first minutes of the last Book (the 6th, a flashback to 15 years before Kaamelott), where he and a 20-something “Arturus” sneak into a rich Roman villa with a couple of girls to eat, drink, and generally have a good time. They’re both in the Rome urban militia and they’re not supposed to be there; when something happens to his girlfriend, Mani throws himself into the fray, and Arturus then rescues him, having taken first the precaution of tying a veil around his face to avoid recognition. These first few minutes tell you a lot about the two young men.

Mani is generous, impetuous, eager to discover new (good) things. Unfortunately he often doesn’t think before he acts, which leads to problems. When Arturus becomes Arthur, king of Britain, Mani proves a very effective right-hand man and advisor. Things would certainly have been very different for Arthur if he’d had his best friend by his side all these years, an equal to confide in, who’d challenge him and support him both. Unfortunately, they both left unfinished business in Rome, and when they briefly returned, that unfinished business came to bite both in the arse, leaving Arthur with a lifetime of regrets and what-might-have-beens - Mani being one of them...

The Queen of Tintagel, Ygerne (Igraine), is cold, hard, and stringent. She lives in the memory of her old lover the late Uther Pendragon, with whom she constantly compares Arthur (unfavourably) and who was - according to all and sundry - a bloody tyrant; Ygerne rules Tintagel with a slightly softer iron fist than he did but not much more of a velvet glove.

Arthur is, understandably, exhausted in advance and low-key scared of her and her acid remarks every time his mother comes to visit. However, Ygerne does love her children (although her relationship with her daughter Anna is... complicated, to say the least); after Arthur’s suicide attempt she puts him up in her castle and tries her best to take care of him. Since this is something that can’t be fixed with one of Merlin’s potions or a cold medicine she can bully Arthur into drinking, though, her attempts fall a little short.

(check out the other Kaamelott “karacters”!)

Still on Kaamelott characters! Kaamelott’s Merlin is that guy who was catapulted head of IT despite protesting that his department is fixing and building appliances, not programming computers. He’s actually a fairly good druid and can manage a fireball from time to time (if given the proper tools and time, which are sometimes hard to find). He also adapted the cherry ointment for patching up a wound into a sweet chestnut one (go try to find cherries in Britain in the middle of winter!). 

Short on patience, forced to work with a rival and a sorcerer to boot (because he wasn’t bringing much result), Merlin is fundamentally a good soul, if a rather inept mage. His blunders and sometimes skewed sense of priorities are a source of frustration and exasperation for Arthur (yet another one), who still keeps him out of loyalty and grumpy fondness - Merlin being the one who lifted him up to draw Excalibur from the stone the first time (when he was four), although he barely remembers it.

Lancelot is - like most of the characters, really, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a sitcom about a comedic take on Arthurian legends - a complex character. A genuinely brave and talented knight, with ambition and a head for strategy, Lancelot quickly grows impatient with what he sees as his fellow knights’ ineptitude and slacker tendencies, and decides to leave Kaamelott (part time) to be a knight errand again. The fact that his entire sexuality seems to target one person - the queen, Guenièvre, who is not indifferent to the interest he shows in her - also weighed in on his decision.

He and Arthur are friends through Books I to III, and that they grow apart so much they come to blows even before Guenièvre runs away with Lancelot is a tragedy. Poor Guenièvre is disillusioned quickly enough, since not only Lancelot is as inexperienced as her in the matters of physical love and will not touch her, but is so possessive he takes to tying her up when he leaves camp and saying things like “I would rather kill you with my own hands rather than lose you” - which the narrative treats as the incredibly creepy line it is.

Even at his lowest, when the envoy of the gods, chaos figure Meleagant, tries to tempt him into killing his cousin Lionnel or torturing Arthur from afar, Lancelot still refuses. However, when a barely-alive Arthur hands him the throne of Kaamelott, Lancelot chooses to let the past burn and establish a tyrannical rule, burning the Round Table and hunting down every one of Arthur’s knights and former associates.

So, yeah. Complexe, le garçon.

(check out the other Kaamelott “karacters”!)

The Lady of the Lake is something between an angel and a fairy and was sent by the (presumably Celtic?) gods to aid King Arthur in his quest for the Holy Grail. For the first three Books, it mostly means sending him and his knights on side quests, usually trips to goblin-infested dungeons where they sometimes find objects of interest (but not often). Only Arthur can see her when she pops up - literally, giving him a mini-heart attack every time - which causes confusion among everyone, from Leodagan who thinks Arthur is making her up to Perceval who thinks she’s Arthur’s very shy cousin.

When Arthur makes the wife swap with Karadoc, the gods punish the Lady of the Lake for her failure and make her a mortal - who has no idea how the physicality of it works, how to eat, clean up, and generally take care of herself. And her life doesn’t get much better from there, poor little fairy...

(Check out my other “Kaamelott karacters”!)

Yesterday the daughter, today the mother! Lady Séli is the queen of Carmeliard, and would Very Much like to be grandmother to the heir of Kaamelott (which is why she schemed to have her daughter marry Arthur Pendragon). Dry, cantankerous, and probably the greatest deadpan snarker in a series which already has a high level of snark, Séli isn’t easily taken in and has no time for bullshit.

She’s sharp where her husband is blunt, her daughter is soft, and her son is mulish. Tries (sometimes) to be a good potential grandma by baking pies that are 100% uneatable. Once came after a mouse in a kitchen armed with a mallet. Utterly fearless.

(check out my other “Kaamelott karacters”!)

Anna is the daughter of Ygerne, Arthur’s mother, and her late husband the duke of Gorlais, murdered by Uther Pendragon (Arthur’s father). She feels implacable hatred towards Arthur whom, as Pendragon’s son, she views as equally culpable (the sins of the father, etc.), and she has sworn to avenge her father. She married Loth, the king of Orkney, with whom she has a child: Gauvain. When Arthur put Excalibur back into the stone he had drawn it from, she pushed her husband to commit treason and renege on his vow of fealty to Arthur. NOT that Loth needed the motivation, given his natural penchant for betraying everybody he works with.

She doesn’t appear a lot in the show, but even in early episodes she has a Presence. The last episode we see her has her making an ominous, possibly prophetic reference to the fact that she and Arthur will sleep together at some point, which seriously weirds and squicks him out. What will come of that threat, well, time will tell...

(edit: I meant HALF-brother. *facepalm*)

Check out my other “Kaamelott karacters”!

Lady Mevanwi comes from Vannes upper-middle class, like Karadoc, whom she only married for social advancement (and who knows it). She’s a sharp, tenacious, and intelligent woman, and widely recognised as one of the truest beauties among the wives of the Knights of the Round Table. (Except by Perceval, who never notices when anyone is beautiful but - quite uncharacteristically - maintains that she’s butt ugly.)

She probably did fell in love with Arthur, in her way. The trouble is that a knight cannot covet another knight’s wife, otherwise it angers the gods; since Guenièvre has left him for Lancelot, Arthur finds a loophole that allows him and Karadoc to “swap wives”, which actually signals the start of everything going to shit (knights forming independent clans, the fall from grace of the Lady of the Lake, the apparition of Meleagant...). In Livre V, when Arthur leaves, Mevanwi gets a taste of power and finds she likes it - and now she will do anything to have more, including learning dark magic from Elias de Kelliwic’h. Who knows what she will set her sights on next.

(Check out my other “Kaamelott karacters”!)