1 - Hey folks! It's a surprise #threadtalk on the medieval theme of the moment: #TheGreenKnight! I just had to come out of hibernation to talk about what I saw in the theater.

Velvet! Crêpe! CROWNS! Pentagrams! I've got you covered. Well, at least *partially*. 📗🪓 Dev Patel as Sir Gawain in The Green Knight fro A24 Films. A
2 - Yes, we're starting with that cloak & color choice. Keeping things spoiler-free here, Gawain is seen wearing a golden velvet cloak very early on.

It's quilted, so nice & warm. It's golden, but also a bit ochre--yellow can mean golden, but also... well, cowardice, y'know? Dev Patel as Sir Gawain in The Green Knight by A24 Films in
3 - Velvet is a perfect choice for the nephew of Arthur. It's HELLA expensive (as we've covered; links later). This is SILK velvet. Not polyester crap from the 70s. And it takes skilled labor beyond reasoning to make.

But it also *absorbs light*. I feel like this is essential. Dev Patel as Sir Gawain in the Green Knight from A24 films.
4 - Everything about this film is about light. And almost all of Gawain's outfits *absorb light* rather than reflect it.

Everyone else, including the Queen (Guinevere we presume) are blinged out. Even Gawain's initial court costume is super matte.

No sparkles for you, sir. Dev Patel as Sir Gawain; in a grey doublet, holding a sword,
5 - Velvet gets super dirty super fast & my first thought seeing that bright saffron was that it was going to get grimy & IT DID.

Which made me happy because I'm odd. But, thankfully, there's enough color for shots like this (from the trailer) to stand out. ::chef's kiss:: A figure walking across a bog, yellow cloak across shoulders
6 - Yellow makes sense historically & you can tell that the filmmakers & designers spent a lot of time with illuminated manuscripts. It's an easy dye to attain.

Here's a great example of similar hues from the Roman de Brut, a 14thC copy of King Arthur's tales. Look familiar? Knights gathered around King Arthur dressed in robes of gold
7 - Of course, colors feature significantly in the poem -- & Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the few manuscripts we have that's got an ILLUSTRATED version, not just illuminated (Cotton Nero MS A x, 1400)

Check out this gorgeousness! More later, but just LOOK 👀👀 I'm not sure how to describe this because there are kings an
8 - Onto more fabric, though. Crêpe silk was everywhere. Especially on the Mother character played by Sarita Choudhury (💚💚💚) & her handmaidens.

Lots of pleating, folding & accordion work, which you can see in this promo poster (alas, very little I could find elsewhere). A woman in profile in a blue and yellow crêpe silk head vei
9 - Crêpe/folding also shows up in the trailer in some other Gawain stills, like this one. The texture really enhances the sun ray elements we see throughout the film, I think, & it's a counterpoint to the crowns.

Again with the more muted tones, though. About those crowns... Dev Patel as Sir Gawain, looking down with a high-necked cha
10 - I am OBSESSED with the CROWNS. Even if the king and queen look like zombies, I'm okay, because OMG. The HALO crowns. Are. Glorious.

And maybe that's the point. As I've said time & again, as an Arthurian scholar meself, the Arthur tales aren't happy fun rainbow squee. Sean Harris as the King in The Green Knight. He wears a crow
11 - Yes, the halos are definitely angelic and gorgeous, but they MUST also refer to the Wheel of Fortune. No, not Vanna White.

I mean the Rota Fortuna, like in this 12thC manuscript. The TL;DR: Fate is a bitch. Which, y'know, *scans*. A man on top of the wheel being happy, man on bottom being c
12 - Back to the bling. Arthur & Guinevere are both covered in metallic medals of all sorts, like a 90s charm bracelet explosion.
This made me immediately think of Anglo-Saxon hoards we've found that include sword decor & shield bosses. British Museum below R for comparison. Reconstructed shield from the British Museum with shield bosQueen Guinevere has lots of flair. Her black dress is covere
13 - I mentioned this in my review earlier, but Arthur's pentagram pendant isn't a nod to New Age or whatever. The original poem has the pentacle on Gawain's shield, and Much Has Been Written, so I won't go into it too much.
But here's a good shot of Sean Harris's pendant. Sean Harris as King (Arthur) and his shiny pendant. All the
14 - Now, there are some SHINY silks. But I can't get into that too much without spoilers. I will also say, be on the lookout for BLUE. Blue is very interesting.

If you're familiar with the Gawain MSS, you'll find this outfit & hairdo... amusing. She's also in velvet. Alicia Vikander in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, wearing
15 - We can't NOT talk about green. Green is so important in the film & poem. But it's not a vibrant, living green. It's a green we've spoken about before: verdigris!

Yes, there's trees and forests. But our Green Knight, and even Gawain? I mean, look below to see what I mean. The Green Knight is like an ornery old Ent in Armor, a bluisAngry looking Dev Patel, cast in green.
16 - Green is like that Wheel of Fate: it's fickle. It's life, & it's death. Verdigris begins as brilliant copper, then fades to a grey green hue.

And I don't need to tell y'all about poison green dresses, right? Or poison ivy? Or radium girls? From the Nero Cotton MSS, a knight in a green blanket, sleep
17 - Personally I love that there were a wide-range of influences on the costumes, from Anglo-Saxon to Indian to what might have been Norse? There were even some plaids!
Malgosia Turanska did an incredible job for what I feel is a truly iconic costume drama. Gawain in a green doorway, lit in yellow, axe in hand (still
19 - More reading, you say?

More on pentacles: jstor.org/stable/41801929

More on the Cotton Nero Manuscript: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…

Full HD Trailer of the film:
21 - For more about Gawain himself, some of my thoughts as an author who writes Arthuriana, and a mostly spoiler-free review: nataniabarron.com/2021/08/01/a-k…
22 - And finally, here are some versions of the poems:
For a close LITERAL translation: sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/ready…
Modern English: alliteration.net/Pearl.htm
Tolkien's (Middle English): quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/tex…
Modern (non poem): yorku.ca/inpar/sggk_nei…

(cc @monicabyrne13)
23 - Thanks for coming to tonight's unplanned squee-fest #threadtalk. I may add more later when the spoiler ban is lifted and we get MORE IMAGES online.

For now, go forth and adventure. Watch out for that Wheel of Fate, though!
24 - also I’m very bad at self promotion, but like I wrote a whole award-winning book about Gawain’s mom.

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More from @NataniaBarron

2 Aug
Do I hate Lancelot? No. I'm mostly French. I enjoy quite a bit of the French stuff. I also like that he sticks it (hahahahaha) to Arthur.

Do I hate Malory? Hate is a strong word, but I think a lot of Malory is crap and ruinous.
That said, I'm generally of a mind that nearly everyone in the Arthurian canon is terrible in one way or another.

As I said in my #GreenKnight review: it's about entropy and destruction, a golden age deteriorating toward a dystopia.

There are glimmers of joy, but it's rough.
Love means treason; loyalty means war.

Unification means subjugation and cultural erasure.

Mordred isn't the problem. Uther begins the whole dynasty with unspeakable violence and deception. Magic is the scapegoat, but it's a weapon of war just the same.
Read 5 tweets
2 Jun
1 - Tonight's #threadtalk is a horse of a different color: green to be exact.

We'll talk emerald🟩, verdigris & olive🫒, too. Plus the connection between wallpaper, poison☠️ & privilege.

First: some color history back to our (literal) roots. (below, Redincote, 1786 - 1789) The origin of the redingote lies in long men’s coats with
2 - If you peruse art history books, you'll notice: finding vibrant green dresses before the 18th century is quite a challenge.

And there is a reason for that: green it a notoriously difficult color to capture affordably & reliably.

Unless you're, you know... Queen Elizabeth I with a gold gown, high lace collar, and a
3 - And even so, truly vibrant greens are even harder to find. This is for a number of reasons.

First & foremost, green dyes were often a combination of woad with other common dyes. Or natural dyes oxidized very easily. That meant fading, staining, and changing colors.
Read 37 tweets
1 Jun
This pride month, I'm particularly proud that I didn't give up and "straighten out" my writing on my search for an agent.

Even my very VERY first novel, an epic fantasy, had a queer main character. Even before I was out myself!
To be fair, I did not know that bisexuals existed because Evangelical religious trauma etc.

If I did, I'd have had a far less confusing life.

Also thought if you got married to a boy you, like, didn't "count" anymore?
And in terms of demisexuality... I think of myself as having two brains. Gemini! Hah.

There is my objective aesthetic brain. "Yes, this is an attractive human whose features I find appealing."

Then my emotional brain: "Yes, I like this brain and shall act on said attraction."
Read 4 tweets
17 May
1 - Welcome to #ThreadTalk!

Ah, mawwiage. We're going nuptial.

💕If you're hoping for whimsy & romance, well... you probably haven't been here before.💕

For most of history, marriage has been about money & power, just like the fashion it's inspired. (Below, 1841, satin) This wedding dress was worn in 1841 by an unknown but fashio
2 - Though anthropologists don't know exactly when marriage began, it seems to be universal.

For most of history, marriage was not about love, butensuring legitimacy of offspring, cementing family alliances, & consolidating wealth. See our ladies preparing: Greece, 5th C BCE. Women preparing for a wedding in a Greek relief on pottery.
3 - As with so much, we begin in Mesopotamia. Mostly because they wrote things down. Yay, cuneiform!

On this Sumerian relief, the marriage of the goddess Inanna and the Sumerian King Dumuzi is depicted. They look thrilled. Two intertwined figures in Sumerian relief.
Read 37 tweets
10 May
1 - It's Monday! That means it's #threadtalk time. But today we're doing a bit of a retrospective.

Somehow, I've done 16 of these already!

So get your bookmarks ready, we're about to do a #ThreadofThreadtalk.
2 - First up is #chintz. You might think of it as your grandmother's cushions, but it's really a remarkable history that takes us to India and the history of print cotton.

We also get our first glimpse into sumptuary laws and MURDER.

3 - The Lure of Timeless #taffeta teaches us about "scroop" (the sound it makes) & brings a bit more insight past 80s prom gowns. I was surprised at how old taffeta is!

I adore the look & feel of taffeta, personally. And moiré is a personal obsession.

Read 19 tweets
10 May
My almost 9 year old daughter has finally finished the Avengers films.

Her resounding fury: "WHY DO THEY THROW ALL THE WOMEN OFF CLIFFS!?"
I'm proud of her, but doubly disappointed. When Black Widow died, she was already reeling from Gamora.

She sobbed in my arms for like 15 minutes because she was PISSED OFF.

We have got to do better. We have got to demand better.
It was bad storytelling. Along with the "fat Thor" and many other missteps.

Endgame has some great moments, but it's a boy's story. All the big emotional moments are for men, & the women are used as emotional punctuation.

Scarlet Witch & Captain Marvel, even, get sidelined.
Read 6 tweets

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