In his modern adaption of Sir Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte D'Arthur," T. White truly created a timeless masterpiece in The Once and Future King. In the second book of this anthology, The Queen of Air and Darkness, White dives deeper into the character maturation of novel's hero, King Arthur. Arthur begins this novel as a young, immature king, and through a series of trials he grows and develops into a strong leader with a straight forward set of morals. Through the process of crushing an idiotic uprising and regaining control of his country, as well as learning from the guidance of Merlyn, Arthur develops his own stancesF on war, how he should treat others and how he should rule as a king. .
In the beginning of the novel, newly-crowned King Arthur is still young and naive. He views war as a game and he is overly confident in himself and his abilities. He has no grasp for the severity and brutality of war yet. He is in the midst of a war that has its roots thousands of years earlier. Arthur's family and the family of King Lot and Queen Morgause are battling now because Arthur's ancestors have been conquering Morgause's ancestors for thousands of years. In addition, there was a recent incident that caused Morgause to feel especially bitter towards Arthur. Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father and previous king of England, fell in love with Igraine, the mother of Morgause. He started a war with Morgause's husband over faulty pretenses in order to kill him and marry Igraine. Her husband ended up dying in battle and Uther tricked her into sleeping with him that very same night. Upon the news of her husband's death, Uther forced Igraine to marry him, thus stealing both Morgause's mother and father from her. Now, Uther and Igraine's son, Arthur, is dealing with an uprising caused by no fault of his own. How Arthur handles his first uprising could go a long way to defining his kingship. While in the middle of his challenge to put down this uprising and quell his haters, Arthur develops into a strong capable king and finds his own opinions on how he should rule.
