The Order of Knighthood

An order created by vote, for "people who embody the spirit of heroism", and the longest-running institution in the saga.

The founding

The Council of Souls creates it six months after the war ends, and gives the first medallion to Nilah.

MRC: The Council voted to create a new order: the Order of Knighthood. It's for people who embody the spirit of heroism and are granted the title of Knight. SRA: You're the first recipient, of course. But there will be others. NLH: An order that celebrates all kinds of heroes. (ch. 99)

The medallion is "a flame rising from cupped hands, surrounded by symbols representing all the communities of their alliance". Nilah notes it is heavier than she expected "but not burdensome. More like an anchor."

There are two different things called a Knight title

This entry used to read the arc titles and the Council's medallions as one sequence, which made ch. 63 impossible: Kael is Knight of Defiance thirty-six chapters before ch. 99 says Nilah is "the first recipient, of course".

They are not the same act.

Illia names four of them, as narrator. She takes the narration in ch. 56 and says exactly what she intends to do with it: "I'll aid you all by drawing you each a portrait you slowly painted with your life, and whom that portrait is named as in the end."

Each of Acts 4 and 5's arcs then ends on her naming the portrait.

The Council founds the institution separately, six months after the war, and gives Nilah the first medallion (ch. 99). Ch. 100 is the ceremony.

So Nilah is the first Knight of the Order, and Kael was Knight of Defiance before the Order existed. The titles begin as an artist's names for people and become an institution afterwards.

That the names stick is the interesting part. Ch. 100 has the world using one: "Kael walked among the gathered families. The Knight of Defiance". Illia's portraits became public record. See ../characters/illia.md.

Why this matters four hundred years later

Arthur Lyerm's title in the author's far future notes is the First Knight of Determination.

Nilah is the first Knight of the order outright. So Arthur is not the first Knight. He is the first Knight of Determination, which means the order survives four centuries and is still granting titles by his era, and that Determination is a virtue nobody had held before him.

Where Determination is first described

Ch. 244, by Calder Lyerm, a farmer, about his seven year old son who has no ability and has just been laughed at by a classroom.

CLD: He doesn't quit. Not even when quitting would be easier.

Nobody in the chapter is thinking about knighthood, virtues, or titles. The quality gets named before the saga has any use for it.

That distinction is the entire weight of the far future connection. When Frisk arrives centuries after Arthur carrying the same quality, it means something precisely because exactly one person ever held it. See ../volumes/far-future.md and ../characters/arthur-lyerm.md.

Open questions

• Whether the order in Arthur's era is continuous with this one or a revival.

• Who the fifth Knight is. Ch. 99's bracket says "The five of you have come far", but Illia names only four portraits in Acts 4 and 5.

  Ch. 104 supplies a candidate. A generation later, Ivy sits on a fountain in Bloom Valley whose stone feet belong to "yet another long-dead Knight - Sera, this time". Sera has a statue and the title. Acts 4 and 5 never show her being given it, so either it happens off the page or the Order kept granting titles after ch. 100.

• Whether a Knight's title is a virtue in the same sense the Fourteen's were. The order names Defiance, Speed, Redemption, and Heroes, none of which were among the Fourteen.