longwhitecoats

This was a twitter thread that got away from me and turned into an essay, so I'm posting it here, with some reformatting and additions in italics.

I absolutely loved The Green Knight. Feel free to message me if you want content warnings. My review below contains spoilers for the entire movie, so I recommend watching it first.

The most brilliant thing this movie brings out of the original text isn't about wildness, death, kingship, gender, class, war, or any of the other stuff people usually write about.

It's time.

Although the whole movie is arguably about Gawain contemplating his fate, we see him actually turn back the clock twice: once, when he resolves not to die in the forest; and again, when he resolves to let the green knight behead him.

By doing the first, he asserts that he will not die for no reason.

By doing the second, he asserts that he will not *live* for no reason.

Gawain's year-long problem in this movie is a microcosm of life. Arthur very nearly says this outright; death comes for every person, and every person worth their salt must face the very real prospect of death many times before actually dying.

What does Gawain do with his year? With his miniature life?

He wastes it in waiting for death. He's so paralyzed by the idea that his time is finite that he can't do anything but drink his way through it. He doesn't know what to do with his time. And so his life is empty. He can't make decisions. He doesn't know who he is. He can't make promises to the person he most loves.

But perversely, he is determined to carry out his quest. And when he gets there, he sees who he will be if he fears death forever, if the only thing he cares about is protecting himself from being harmed.

He sees his whole lifetime spread out before him: cowardice and destruction. No one he loves is spared. And at the end, when death comes, when at last he removes his belt, it's revealed that he's been dead the whole time.

So why am I saying this story is about time?

Echoes of Gawain's life appear throughout the film: false and true images of himself. Visions of possible futures. The people he loves & fears transposed into other bodies. Legends he longs to be part of, walking past him toward a more glorious end.

Gawain is lost in his own life because he can't decide what to do with the time he has. That's why he wanders around in a magical haze of possible futures, punctuated by abrupt reminders that this is *real*, that he is running out of time to choose.

And frankly, I love that the movie explicitly brings queerness into the center of the problem - and the solution. If Gawain keeps plodding forward toward his future in a straight line, he will ruin himself.

But he can queer that choice instead. He can queer himself; he can queer time. It doesn't have to run forward in one single line.

I know that there will be critics who scream that the kiss is gratuitous, that it's not ~authentic~, and they will be deeply wrong. Firstly, all Arthurian legends are gay as fuck. Secondly, the absolute core of medieval storytelling is queer time.

Gawain needs to know that he can choose what to do with his life. The clock won't just endlessly tick forward to a previously appointed hour. He can do something different. Unexpected. He can love a man. He gets to decide who he is.

What is fate, after all, except never getting to make a choice?

*

And at the end, though we see Gawain turn from the worst path, we don't see what does happen. That's correct too; he doesn't know what the future will hold. That's kind of the point.

This movie felt like a gift from the universe to me. I'm probably going to watch it again a zillion times.

Also, I immediately need a fic where Gawain bones down with the Green Knight.