What the tradition does to its women

Matter of Britain Topic

Summary: Morgan begins in the Vita Merlini as a benign healer of the Isle of Apples and ends as a malevolent schemer. Guinevere goes from an abducted queen in Welsh triad-material to the cause of a civil war. Nimue is split across several incompatible roles. The pattern is consistent: as the cycle becomes more clerical and more dynastic, its women are converted from agents into causes.
Note: Bradley's Mists of Avalon is the best-known modern attempt to reverse this; Krueger's work is the scholarly route in.