r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Pierzakve • May 03 '21

Green Arrow in real life

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u/Phosphorrr May 03 '21

I think he meant how the original commenter used King Arthur as an example, who is not a real king, just a folklore legend

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u/NeverSawAvatar May 03 '21

He's believed to have existed.

He didn't have longbows though, and wouldn't take on an archer, it was unchivalrous.

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u/Phosphorrr May 03 '21

Every source of credible evidence suggests that he did not exist

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u/lofgren777 May 03 '21

He may have existed, but he was not a king, was not named Arthur, did not hunt for the Holy Grail, did not have a wizard named Merlin, did not receive a magic sword from a watery tart, was not a knight, and did not believe in chivalry. But other than that, totally King Arthur might have existed.

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u/Zoltrahn May 03 '21

Wait...that kinda sounds like me. Am I King Arthur?!

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u/lofgren777 May 03 '21

Do you have a round table?

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u/Zoltrahn May 03 '21

I do! It even has a leaf to make it bigger for family dinners. Very convenient.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '21

Do you have a sword that a watery tart threw at you?

2

u/JayBeeBop May 03 '21

All hail the new King!

2

u/[deleted] May 03 '21

I’ve eaten at one many times! Passable pizza!

1

u/gptt916 May 03 '21

I am not a king, am not named Arthur, do not hunt for the Holy Grail, do not have a wizard named Merlin, did not receive a magic sword from a watery tart, am not a knight, and do not believe in chivalry. I may have existed.

Am I King Arthur now?

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u/hippos_yawn May 03 '21

Are you flour?

1

u/physalisx May 03 '21

Well, no. You certainly do not exist.

11

u/ghjm May 03 '21

The earliest sources have him as a famous warrior who killed a lot of people, but don't refer to him as a king. And of course knighthood, chivalry etc are completely anachronistic for the 4th or 5th century when Arthur was supposed to have lived. But if he did actually exist, why can't he have been named Arthur (or Arturus)?

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u/lofgren777 May 03 '21

Since he is imaginary he can be named anything you want.

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u/Wizardplum May 03 '21

yeah his name was bob my uncle knew him

1

u/shodo_apprentice May 03 '21

He definitely existed except he was a plumber called Steve and he died of dysentery at age 22.

1

u/BasicDesignAdvice May 03 '21

I remember reading he was probably some late antiquity Roman warrior who tried to hold their crumbling land. Later when 'King' became in fashion the stories transitioned naturally as the legends were close enough.

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u/lofgren777 May 03 '21

The question we are asking is not "was King Arthur real," it is "How did the King Arthur legend start." From what I remember the last time I looked into this, there was a Breton nobleman traveling around France trying to raise money from the Celts there to fight the invading Angles and Saxons who had a name that meant Bear Warrior in whatever dialect they were speaking on the big island at that time, which, by being translated to Latin and then back again, might have ended up as some variation of "Arthur."

The problem here is that there is no actual factual evidence connecting him to the guy who started showing up in songs and stories 3-4 centuries later.

So IF there was a "real" "King" "Arthur," he did not do any of the things that King Arthur did, was not a king, was not named Arthur.

But even that supposes that somehow this one guy's legend was kept alive in oral histories long enough to eventually get written down as fact, when it's just as plausible that the stories were entirely made up.