*Huge, Major Green Knight Spoilers Ahead*

My birthday is on the 13th, but my friends all go to school out of Houston and leave around that date, so we planned to hang out this past Friday instead. We’re all movie buffs and huge fans of A24 movies, so we got tickets to watch The Green Knight. I was excited to see it because it had a really great cast (stars Dev Patel AND Alicia Vikander *dreamy sigh*) and I have near blind faith in A24 movies so I was about 99% sure it was going to be good. Not only was it good, it exceeded every expectation I had in every way. Visually speaking, it was gorgeously shot and not a single frame was wasted, every scene was packed with intention and significance. The script was awesome, roles were cast amazingly (Joel Edgerton should never be freed from the shackles of the period piece), music was enchanting and haunting, I really just can’t say enough about this movie. As visually and audibly stimulating as this movie was, the thing about it that has stuck with me the most are its themes of witchcraft and subversive female power.

Based on a 14th century epic poem called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the movie shows us the journey of Sir Gawain, a knight from King Arthur’s roundtable. One Christmas, a mysterious Green Knight barges into the castle and challenges any one of King Arthur’s men to participate in a game. About the Green Knight: it’s not a dude wearing green armor, its a green dude. I’ll just say this, when the Green Knight appeared on screen I leaned over to my friend Aliza and whispered, “Groot looks really good here!” Also, the game isn’t like, chess or something. It’s a traditional medieval game that appears throughout Middle English literature called a beheading game, where, you guessed it, players attempt to strike blows at each other that may behead the opponent. The Green Knight proclaims that this Christmas, he will challenge any one of King Arthur’s men to strike a blow at him. Then, next Christmas the volunteer must seek out the Green Knight at his Green Chapel so that he may strike him with an equal blow (whether it’s a severed head or a dent in the armor, to loosely quote the movie). This, then, would complete the game and in turn prove the chivalry and honor of the lucky knight. Sir Gawain, an established rebel without a cause, decides to take this opportunity to prove himself to his king and finally earn his knighthood. With the Green Knight’s own axe, Gawain fully severed his opponent’s head. Apparently he didn’t take the hint from the fact that this dude is literally a tree man, but he was horrified to find that the Green Knight popped his head right back on like a lego man and menacingly reminded Gawain that he was expected to receive an equal blow in one year’s time. Of course, this comes at the cost of his honor, and his life. Medieval shenanigans once again ensue, but alas, we find that the real beheading was the honor we gained along the way. In a jarring final scene, the Green Knight lowers his axe, smiles at Gawain and jokingly says “off with your head”, implying that Gawain keeps his head after all.

Interestingly, despite my very quick and womanless explanation, the true driver of this story is not the Green Knight or Gawain, but rather Gawain’s mother, Morgan Le Fay. Morgan Le Fay in Arthurian stories is a well known and powerful sorceress who, despite the staunch Christianity of the roundtable, maintains a close relationship with the Arthurian court. This movie adaptation is no different, and with the knowledge that the king and queen are dying and their heir is heavily implied to be dead too, Morgan’s influence is even more vital to the story. Gawain appears to be at a point in his life where he really is going nowhere: he’s dating a commoner, he’s always drinking, he’s not even officially a knight, but he is still a favorite of the king. Morgan then takes it upon herself to try and make something of her son, so she uses her magic to summon, or possibly conjure, the Green Knight. She covertly sets him up for a journey where his knightly virtues are tested, one “trial” for each: generosity, courtesy, chastity, fellowship, and piety. But she doesn’t just let his mistakes slide here, in an effort to set him up for success. In many ways, she sets him up for failure just as much as she sets him up for glory. When he leaves home, she gifts Gawain with a protective sash that is supposed to prevent him from being harmed, which becomes an object of many of his shortcomings throughout his journey. Using the sash to prevent his supposed death at the hands of the Green Knight would be a violation of the virtue of piety, and in order to get the sash back after it is stolen from him he violates the virtue of chastity. It seems that Morgan’s intentions are simply to get Gawain to shape up, and her thought process on how to get through to him and turn him into a suitable heir for the throne is central to the events of the movie.

The movie contains a lot of pagan imagery and mysticism in contrast with the Christianity of the king and other power figures, and most of the pagan practitioners here are women (Morgan and her disciples). It got me thinking about the politics of witchcraft: cross culturally, the framing of certain ritualistic practices as “magic” is used as a political tool to punish and other their practitioners, mostly women. In the Salem Witch Trials in the U.S., many of these women were not even real witches: they were just women with land and power that was unacceptable for their sex. In the context of this movie specifically, paganism is closely associated with motherhood, protection, and nature, but also seduction, deceit, and “feminine wiles”. Christianity on the other hand, is associated with honor, purity, fatherhood, and conquest. This feminization of nature and magic has long been a part of my life personally. The idea of women specifically having the ability to harness these metaphysical, subversive forms of power in a world where popular religious systems are often paternalistic and push women to the side is very interesting to explore. This movie makes the bold suggestion that the rule of these paternalistic systems is coming to an end: the reign of the dying King Arthur in this narrative is ending, his possible successor is the son of a powerful sorceress, who’s magical intervention will undoubtedly shape his future and the future of the kingdom. The significance of magic as a revolutionary, political, and ultimately feminist force, then, is something that should be brought up for discussion.