I’m rewatching Galavant with some friends and I’ve forgotten how great it is and now I’m curious. What’s everyone’s favorite gag in Galavant? For me it’s the dwarves v giants plot where they’re both just the same height
That’s a real hard choice, there are so many good ones.
But this one lives rent free in my head
The wedding planner being Obviously Evil but also deeply invested in his job as a wedding planner.
The forest of coincidence will always be my favorite.
thinking about galavant again. like madalena and gareth really should’ve realized that the feeling they were feeling was friendship in the end because i really don’t think either of them had had a friendship before let alone a m/f friendship
like madalena’s relationships are all about what she can get out of people. she hasn’t had anything given to her solely out of the kindness of friendship before. one of her early attempts at friendship lands with her being the butt of a joke so i doubt she approached anything honestly after that. and then her relationship with galavant is fueled mostly by lust so she doesn’t and wouldn’t interpret anything from him as being given out of kindness because that doesn’t fit with her worldview. so it’s understandable that she would mistake the feeling of friendship with the feeling of romantic love
i think her negative reaction to all of the stuff surrounding the wedding and then ultimately choosing power in the end highlights the fact that it isn’t romantic love for her. all of madalena’s choices are fueled by a want of power and status and hedonism. marrying gareth would’ve further secured her power with the throne and his loyalty to her which would’ve increased her power as well. it would’ve also made her status better as being a married queen. but she doesn’t chose that and she has to be convinced that it’s the thing to do. she likes gareth but in the end there is a big piece of the puzzle missing and its that she’s not attracted to him
now on gareth’s side of things, from a young age he’s put at a higher status above his peers by being assigned as richard’s bodyguard. this means that since he was ten to those outside the castle he’s richard’s enforcer. to any of his peers inside the castle he has a higher status than them, which given how young the social classes get enforced, means he’s going to be given some distance or mocked mercilessly behind his back. which would be stopped soon after it got back to gareth given gareth’s penchant for violence. so he only has richard for any sort of normal socialization. and even then that’s going to be all tied up in his duty and loyalty to richard. he doesn’t have any friendships that aren’t wrapped up in something else. he doesnt have any frame of reference so sid has to point out that their friends now and even then he doesn’t know how to act in a friendship despite being decades old
gareth lives his life by rules. he’s richard’s bodyguard so he’s loyal to him. he’s a man so he’s supposed to fuck women. he’s a fighter so he’s supposed to fight. his cut song manlyology highlights this by how aware of all the rules of masculinity gareth is. when gareth kills kingsley he has sid check the rules. gareth is king now. the king is supposed to married to the queen. so in his mind he should be married to madalena. gareth has been trained since he was ten (younger honestly since knight training is supposed to start at age 5) that he’s supposed to protect and be loyal to the throne, and more specifically richard. well richard’s not here, but his ex wife is. that’s the closest thing he’s got. so when he sees madalena hurt he does what he’d do for richard. he maims the people who hurt her and gives her their ears and earrings as a gift. this is gareth’s attempt at making things back to normal in his book. how things are supposed to go
i just think that everything on gareth’s end is him trying to make things make sense again after he had to go against everything he was taught and everything he stood for in the season one finale. and by projecting his loyalty for richard onto madalena he’s transferred some other feelings he has towards richard onto madalena. because gareth does love richard in some capacity. i would argue that it is romantic but even if you don’t feel that way you cannot deny that him choosing to save richard in the end was an act of love. also gareth’s whole “i like em really skinny. like unhealthy skinny” or liking women really really fat seems like either a fetish he’s talked himself or something that gives him plausible deniability when it comes to why he didnt take home a woman who was into him. he can always say she’s not skinny enough or not fat enough. and let’s be really madalena did not lose or gain a lot of weight
tldr; all of madalena’s relationships are wrapped up in her lust or lust for power so she doesn’t recognize the feelings of friendship. she also doesn’t see gareth as an outlet for lust or a desirable opportunity of power. gareth hasn’t had a friendship that isn’t warped by his loyalty to richard including what is between him and madalena and he projects his feelings of care and loyalty towards richard onto her. sid had to point out that they were friends. madalena doesn’t fit gareth’s description of an attractive woman. so both parties mistook friendship for love
