Presenters
Abstract
In the Summer of 2014, medieval fantasy met reality television in The Quest, a part-scripted, part-contest show in which a group of contemporary contestants were “transported” into the past to save the fictional world of Everrealm, a medievalist fantasy land (filmed in Austria) ruled by Queen Ralia, whose subjects were being terrorized by Verlox, the Darkness. Each week the contestants, called Paladins, were tasked with helping to drive back the forces of darkness in a scripted narrative which included a real challenge at its center. In the end, the final Paladin standing had to lead the army to triumph over Verlox and was named the “One True Hero.”
The Quest offered a great deal of fodder for medievalist critique, in particular in its play with gender, medieval and modern, in Everrealm. The scripted characters inhabited fairly traditionally-conceived gender roles, with Sir Ansgar, leading the armies and Queen Ralia appearing somewhat passive and immobile, threatened as much by the men around her as she was by Verlox. All of the Paladins dressed in masculine medieval costume, and they all competed in the same challenges, often martial in nature, with female paladins often explaining their success by saying they grew up playing with their brothers. These cross-dressing paladins echoed the multiple medieval romances in which female characters dress and pass as men, and by winning the Quest, Paladin Lena very much seemed in line with her medieval predecessors like Silence and Yde. However, the modern anxiety about this behavior was often seen when female paladins would comment on their own “girliness” after proving themselves highly competent at “masculine” activities. This paper seeks to explore these intersections to consider the ways that medieval and modern understandings of gender affected the narrative of the Quest and its ultimate result.