The Once And Future King Analysis

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In T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, the protagonist, King Arthur, morally develops into the a king when he understands how troublesome war could be, might does not always have to be used for right, and his mistakes. A great king is made by their political beliefs instead of their fighting ability and T.H. shows that King Arthur becomes a great king by building a government based on his beliefs in justice versus force. The first instance that shows that Arthur believes that war is wrong is when he says, “people ought not to be killed ought they? It is better to be alive” (White 246). Arthur realizes that war is not a good solution because it ends with many people lose their precious lives in the battlefield, and it causes grief for the people who lost their loved ones. When ruling as a king, the goal is to make the people happy;…show more content…
King Arthur realizes that the knights are easily jealous of the knights who are usually seated in a special seat and abuse their power to be on top. Without a clear top, there would be no jealousy and this kind of decision is an example of Arthur’s political beliefs. In addition after Arthur threatens to kill a hedgehog, he tells the hedgehog, “for heaven’s sake. Uncurl. I won’t do you any harm” (White 185). At this point, there was no good reason to kill an innocent hedgehog, but there were no consequences. An act of random violence is not something a king should do and Arthur was able to prevent himself from being violent. When Arthur talks about Mordred, he admits “They frightened me with horrible prophecies, and I did something which has haunted me since” (White 548). He makes the mistake of killing many young people to kill Mordred and it does not end well for Arthur. There are other ways to handle the prophecies like peacefully raising Mordred instead of trying to kill
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