#phh vortigern

[renrenkaaa]

The White Dragon of Britain

[strangefellows]

I'd ask about all your servant hcs but I'm still working my way through UBW before I even get back to FGO, so I'm restraining for the sake of avoiding spoilers. If you wanna gush about Vortigern and who he is in the myths, and how that might compare to FGO, that'd be neat though! I know nothing about him so I'm curious.

UGH FUCK TUMBLR ATE THE FIRST VERSION OF THIS SO THIS IS GOING TO BE SHORTER AND WORSE BUT

Vortigern, okay, so. 

IRL mythology wise he's not really...he's a lot older, and really there's only one myth tying him to Arthuriana -- my favorite lol -- and that's the story of him, Merlin/Emrys, and the dragons.

According to legend, when Vortigern fled into Wales to escape the Anglo-Saxon invaders, he chose this lofty hillfort as the site for his royal retreat. Every day his men would work hard erecting the first of several proposed towers; but the next morning they would return to find the masonry collapsed in a heap. This continued for many weeks until Vortigern was advised to seek the help of a young boy not conceived by a mortal man. The King sent his soldiers out across the land to find such a lad. The boy they found was called Myrddin Emrys (Merlin Ambrosius). Vortigern, following the advice of his councillors, was planning to kill the boy in order to appease supernatural powers that prevented him from building a fortress here. Merlin scorned this advice, and instead explained that the hillfort could not stand due to a hidden pool containing two vermes (dragons). He explained how the White Dragon of the Saxons, though winning the battle at present, would soon be defeated by the Welsh Red Dragon. After Vortigern's downfall, the fort was given to High-King Ambrosius Aurelianus, known in Welsh as Emrys Wledig, hence its name. (Wikipedia, Dinas Emrys)

As for Fate Vortigern -- specifically PHH (Proper Human History) Vortigern -- we have info on him from an older novel and from FGO itself; the FGO info does contradict some of the older info, but not all, so for the most part I’ll be relying on the FGO stuff.

Near the end of the fifth century, after the Roman Empire's collapse, Britain was inhabited by many tribes led by kings. The kings worked together except for Vortigern. The brother of the strongest king Uther Pendragon, Vortigern was said to be the personification of the white dragon, born from within Britain to destroy it. He was born by Britain itself interfering with his conception, making him something more than human. He was the incarnation of the will that tried to reject the Age of Man. [...] Artoria Pendragon, the incarnation of the red dragon, was created by Uther to oppose the incarnation of the white dragon, Vortigern. (TypeMoon Wiki, Vortigern)

Now, okay. Given that whole ‘Vortigern is the white dragon and Artoria is the red dragon’ and they’re meant to oppose each other, especially given it says ‘incarnation of the will that tried to reject the Age of Man’ -- it’s pretty easy to assume that Vortigern, the white dragon, is an embodiment of Gaia. I mean, FGO basically straight up confirms this:

Goredolf Musik states Proper Human History Vortigern is a Fae embodiment of Britain's will, specifically to preserve its Mysteries and destroy its humans. (TypeMoon Wiki, Vortigern)

Which, like Britain’s will = the Planet’s will = Gaia for sure. After all, Gaia is explicitly the Planet’s will to survive, and the wiki even states that Gaia can and will see humans as a Threat to be Dealt With. And it tracks with Artoria being his opposition and a King of Mankind, given she would be an embodiment of Alaya to be his equal and opposite. In fact, yeah, this is where the novel also supports this too:

Vortigern is fundamentally opposed to humans ruling Britain and wants it to remain a land dominated by Mystery. (TypeMoon Wiki, Vortigern)

Really, Vortigern’s origins are the only thing the novel contradicts; but FGO is more recent, so I stick with just what it says, which is the above. And that to me opens a very interesting can of worms that parallels really delightfully with LB Vortigern, which is where the actual main part of the theory is. 

I’m specifically talking about the line “He was born by Britain itself interfering with his conception, making him something more than human.” Looking at that, looking at the fact that ‘Vortigern the White Dragon’ is more or less explicitly a Fae creature and implicitly a child of Gaia, and then looking at the fact that shoving THAT into a human vessel is probably a shitty idea, given that Humanity is the exact opposite of what Gaia represents…PHH Vortigern probably had a real bad time. After all, a Fae soul/Spirit Origin/essence in a human body seems like it would be fundamentally incompatible. An existential contradiction (looks at LB Vortigern pointedly). ESPECIALLY with the fact of his Faerie Eyes (which he probably also had in PHH if it states outright he’s a Fae), and that it specifies that a human would probably go insane with them. It’s really not hard to imagine that he started out fairly okay, but the pain and misery of his contradictory existence drove him insane.

I’m not sure if I want to buy that ‘destroy humanity in Britain’ was part of the initial ‘preserve Britain’s Mysteries’ goal, or if maybe he at first simply didn’t want to follow through with that part, being partially human, but by the end it’s clear he went completely mad and, well, destroy everything time! (Looks at LB Vortigern again.) Basically the parallels track really, really well, as someone who never meant to be truly evil, just a being created for a purpose, but the contradictory existence forced on him drove him insane with pain and misery until he just went full scorched earth on the world that was making him suffer. It’s just the specific contradiction (reality vs lies/fiction and human vs fae/nature) that differs. 

So following that, it’s my personal headcanon that PHH Vortigern was a good dude his early life, just Different and Faerielike, but over time his existence simply drove him mad and gave us the Vile King Vortigern he was at the end of it, so full of pain and rage and hate that he wanted to take it all with him. I would be happy to infodump about my further headcanons, namely his personality, relationship with Merlin, and all that, but that’s for a different post. (As is my headcanons about Merlin himself, which are probably extremely controversial lmao.)