PERCEVAL THE UNHAPPY, THE MISERABLE, THE UNFORTUNATE, THE FISHER KING!
Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)
ALRIGHT alright. so previously I did an illustration that explained the premise of all this, that it's inspired by the narrative choices that Bresson made in his film Lancelot du Lac etc
to dive in more into it (because this is something like derivative fiction. I'm putting concepts into a blender and seeing what comes out of it): the setting is haunted by the previously existing narratives that started cannibalizing each other until it regurgitates itself into the more well known narrative beats, and something else about the invasive rot of christianity and empire mythmaking into settings. it's an intertextual haunting, if you will! and this scene takes place during the grail quest narrative, but the temptation of Perceval plays out differently.
in both Chretien (and Wolfram's) Perceval narratives, what 'wakes' Perceval up (in more ways than one. desire and self actualization in one go!) is seeing knights, something his mother tried hard to keep him from. so instead of the temptation of lust & etc in the Morte narrative taking the form of a lady, it takes the form of a knight. the temptation to renounce one's faith to serve something else remains.
so Perceval still stabs himself, but instead of continuing on the grail quest in the shadow of Galahad, he becomes the narrative's Fisher King because his earlier state of being as a the grail quest hero is creeping back into his marrow. it was waiting for an opening, and stabbing yourself in the thigh is one hell of a parallel!!!
that wound isn't going to heal buddy, and the state of the setting will now be reflected on your body. sure hope that Arthur hasn't like. corrupted the justice of the land or anything. that sure would suck for your overall health.
all the red in this sequence is because in de Troyes' Perceval, Perceval takes the armor of the Red Knight and becomes known as the Knight in Red.
and now for the citations, which I will try to order in a way that makes sense!
Seeing Knights For The First Time
Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)
The Temptation of Perceval
Le Morte Darthur, Mallory (modernized by Baines)
The Fisher King, and Perceval The Unfortunate
Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)
On Perceval and Gender, etc.
Clothes Make The Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, Michael D. Amey
On Wounds
Wounded Masculinity: Injury and Gender in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Kenneth Hodges
The Red Knight
Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)
On Arthur and the Corruption of Justice
The Failure of Justice, the Failure of Arthur, L.K. Bedwell
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the Big Two need to hire more women to write comics not just for gender parity's sake or so we can get better-written female characters or any of the other dozen completely valid reasons why we need more women in comics, but also because the perspective a lot of women bring to the superhero genre is fundamentally different from the mostly middle-class white men who dominate the genre
like Ivory Madison portraying the cycle of violence and abuse through the parallel institutions of marriage and the mob in Huntress: Year One to showcase how Helena is both a victim and freedom fighter in the context of her family and cultural history....what man would have thought of that? even Greg Rucka didn't do that, and he basically wrote the book on how to write traumatized religious female vigilantes who have complex relationships with their families
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More Jazz Forms (click for clarity)
TW: disturbing content, body horror
1) Head only Jazz
+ She is a head that walks on a bunch of mysterious tentacles. She’s inspired by a CN novel called “Let the Villain Go” in a chapter where a demon pops up and is described as a head that walks on tentacles (I may be delulu and remembered it wrong).
+ Around 900 feet tall. Most of the height is her tentacles, but her head is still around 100 feet tall.
+ Jason is a little obsessed with how huge she is. When he is away, she stays standing over his apartment like a creepy water storage tank. Nobody can see her except liminals and ghosts, so she remains undetected by Jason’s side.
+ She is generally peaceful and doesn’t move much. She is a relatively quiet being with no explicit ability to defend herself or attack. I imagine her to be very dreamy, despite her piercing stare.
2) Celestial Object Jazz
+ She is a quasi-stellar radio source, AKA a quasar :)
+ Impossibly large and infinite. She is so big that her gravitational pull is pulling apart a piece of the universe. Jason thinks that she’s beautiful, and he looks for her every night. He uses special technology to see her on Earth and when he can, he sneaks onto the Watchtower to look at her.
+ The mass of the black hole that she is made of is around 150 billion solar masses. She is located extremely far from the Milky Way within the largest galaxy of the universe. Since she is technically both the black hole and the gas that surrounds it, she won’t be fading for awhile.
+ Her origin is unknown in this idea (but is related to her siblings, who have all become celestial objects themselves). Her existence is extremely old and that is partially Clockwork’s fault.
3) Corrupted Jazz
+ She has become corrupted from years of ectoplasm, death, and generally instability. The tentacles that come from her stomach is actually just pieces of her soul that are trying to reach for others. She calls for help, but no one but Jason has been reaching out.
+ She cannot be around people for too long, or she causes insanity, violent mood swings, headaches, auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoia, nosebleeds, and general weakness, even if they cannot see her. Jason is somewhat resistant to her, but she heavily restrains herself so the effects of her existence won’t hurt him.
+ She tries to stay away from Jason, but bc she’s so clingy, she watches him from a distance. Her presence brings shadows and darkness, so he’s also been getting a reputation of scaring criminals to pissing themselves whenever he comes by.
+ Her body is covered in shadows, but she glows a little from the ectoplasm, so her silhouette can be vaguely seen.
4) Monochrome Jazz
+ Inspired by Lady Dimitrescu and Hachishakusama
+ She dresses in all black and her skin is pale as well. A hat and face mask cover all available skin on her face. Any skin below the neck is also covered.
+ She is around 9 feet tall. She stalks Jason whenever she can and always follows him around. She is extremely hostile and dangerous and does not hesitate to attack when she feels even the slightest but threatened. She is also completely mute.
+ She is both a ghost and an urban legend, hence why she looks like that. Underneath her mask is a mouth of razor sharp teeth like a moray eel.
5) Wolf Jazz
+ Inspired by Jason’s Red Hood motif that is similar to Little Red Riding Hood. That’s also why I associate Jazz with so many canine themes :)
+ Black fur, several pairs of eyes, and two sets of deformed ears. I am debating whether or not she also has 3 pairs of legs.
+ She follows Jason around like a dog, but does not behave like a pet. As such, he can’t order her around unless she wants to listen to him. Thankfully, she likes cooperating with him and the two of them terrorize the criminals of Crime Alley.
+ She is around 4 feet tall when standing on all fours, but when she stands up on her hind legs, she is around 9 feet tall. She is very fluffy.
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