The Squire's Tales/YMMV

• Complete Monster: Mordred. He orchestrates wars for fun, and kills anyone who interferes.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Plenty. Both uses of “I'm my own damn princess,” in The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung Cart Knight are pretty memorable.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: Quite a few, but the duelling priests (and Dinadan's sportcaster-like commentary) in The Squire's Quest is priceless.
  • No mention of two knights actively trying to kill each other who are simultaneously trying to figure out what the past tense of 'cleave' is?
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Many. Especially in the last book, and especially Gaheris and Lynet.
  • From The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight:

"But I'm a nobody, of lowly birth!" Sarah said.
Terence knelt on the floor beside her chair and took her hand. "My lady, I for one am not at all sure about that. But even if it were true, you have saved England by your courage, and that sort of thing is, after all, how nobodies become somebodies."

• Genius Bonus: Tons for those familiar with the original legends, including a speech by an exceedingly tedious scholar named Geoffrey (of Monmouth) about the etymology behind the word “grail.”
  • The Ballad of Sir Dinadan contains one such bonus in the form of a flying spear cutting off a speech. For anyone who has suffered through the invocation of names in “Culwch and Olwen,” may also count as a Crowning Moment of Funny
• Moral Event Horizon: Mordred crosses it when he kills Bedivere. Killing Alexander out of spite just proves exactly how much of a Complete Monster he is.
• Ron the Death Eater: Some characters who were portrayed as good in other versions of the legends are made idiots or jerks because Morris' current lead character doesn't like them. Tristram and Isolde are the best examples.
  • Any character whose story relies overmuch on "Courtly Love" is likely to come off very badly indeed in this story. (Guinevere and Lancelot only become sympathetic several books after their involvement ends.)
• The Woobie: No one consistently, but Arthur is definitely one in the second book when he's suffering over Guinevere and Lancelot's blindingly obvious love affair.