Cursed: Who The Red Spear Really Is (& Why Season 1 Hides It)

Cursed season 1 includes several characters from Arthurian legend, and some of them are hidden in plain sight, such as Guinevere, who disguises herself as the Red Spear. Based on the novel of the same name by writer Thomas Wheeler and artist Frank Miller, Netflix’s Cursed twists the King Arthur story and instead focuses on the person who ultimately becomes the Lady of the Lake: Nimue, played by Katherine Langford.

Wielding the Sword of Power – not named in the show as Excalibur, though it may be a different sword altogether – Nimue and her friends attempt to save the Fey people from total annihilation at the hands of the Catholic Church. In doing so, they come into contact with a number of groups and factions along the way, such as King Uther, Cumber the Ice King, the Shadow Lords, and of course, Father Carden’s Red Paladins. At some point, Pym – and later, Arthur – meet a band of Vikings who are opposed to Cumber, led by a woman who calls herself the Red Spear.

In the Cursed season 1 finale, Red Spear and her allies save Arthur and the Fey on the beach, and the two seem to align together in a new cause. But that meeting was fateful for another reason as well: In Arthurian legend, Arthur and Guinevere marry each other – and she becomes a piece in the puzzle leading to Arthur’s ultimate downfall due to her affair with his friend, Lancelot. However, in Cursed, Guinevere only identifies herself as the Red Spear (Bella Dayne), a Viking who was exiled from Cumber’s court.

It’s interesting that while Cursed season 1 reveals several famous members of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table – Gawain is the Green Knight (not Arthur’s nephew), Percival is the young boy Squirrel, Sister Igraine is Morgana, and Lancelot is the Red Paladin’s Weeping Monk – the Netflix series keeps the Red Spear’s true identity a secret. One reason for that is perhaps the writers and producers didn’t want to detract from Arthur’s relationship with Nimue. By introducing Guinevere into the mix – directly, that is – Cursed would’ve thrown a wrench into the entire season’s story.

Given that the Red Spear’s identity is revealed to be Guinevere in the source material, it’s bound to come up eventually, most likely in season 2 (if the series is renewed). And since Cursed isn’t an exact adaptation of Arthurian legends, it may be a while before Guinevere and Arthur get together. Right now, he’s still very much head over heels for Nimue, whom he wants the Red Spear’s help to save. She is his queen, after all.

About The Author

Mansoor Mithaiwala
(1888 Articles Published)

Mansoor Mithaiwala is Screen Rant’s TV Lead Editor. He originally joined the site as a freelance writer on the Lists team before moving over to News and Features, eventually becoming an editor in 2018. Over time he’s done quite a few different things, including helping launch gaming on the site, often handling news, features, and guides simultaneously. Now he sticks primarily to movies and TV, and spends way too much time looking at analytics. It sure seems like he’s put his Political Science degree to good use, huh?

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