Gabriel Knight 3 - 001 Two Men, a Trunk, and a Baby

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dyingculture

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Published on April 7, 2024 7:06:31 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvlyVnszydc

Game:

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999)

Duration: 1:03:25

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1

Working through the Gabriel Knight series in reverse. So many mixed feelings about this one.

I love it in spite of its flaws, but I also immensely enjoyed the first two games. There are things to love about it, for sure, and the sum of its parts do possess a certain charm that shines through. There are also things to hate or loathe, like the absurd, silly reasoning the game expects of you to solve certain puzzles.

The game is also highly unstable. It was crash prone back in the day, running on systems it was intended for. Running it on modern systems only exacerbates the instability.

In this slice of Day 1 Gabriel attempts to foil the abduction of Prince James' son, pursuing the abductors onto a train. He fails and is beaten by two men like the family mule. He ends up in Couiza at a train station, where the attendant assumes he is a drunkard and redirects him to a taxi to get rid of him. Gabe ends up in Rennes-le-Chateau, where the true adventure begins.

The stage is set. Prince James is called and informed about the kidnapping of his progeny. Oddly he seems nonplussed by the whole ordeal and tells Gabriel everything's cool. With that mostly out of the way for now the history and legendry of Rennes-le-Chateau takes center stage. A tour group of treasure hunters, among whom we find old frenemy Mosely, has taken residence in the same hotel as Gabriel. Through speaking with them and exploring the town we find it all comes back to the myth of the Holy Grail.

Holy Grail and other magical tales aside, the history comprehensively referenced in this game is actually pretty damn interesting. The Albigensian Crusade, for instance. One if its earliest battles occurred in a town called Beziers in the summer of 1209. The crusading army had only come for the minority of Cathars that sheltered within the town, but the other residents refused to give them up. A siege ensued. The crusading army was diverse in terms of social ranks. Some men were knights, others were little more than camp followers that fed on the scraps of the higher ranks.

It was these low men, armed with clubs and stones, that stormed the town first. They had been taunting residents of the town to come out and fight them and this strategy eventually worked. A few men sallied forth from Beziers, swiftly realized the mistake they'd just made by opening the gates, and tried to retreat back into the town. They weren't fast enough.

A small army of thugs, criminals, wannabe psychos, and other violent brutes flooded into the town and began killing everyone in sight. Men, women, children, infants, Cathars and Catholics alike, it didn't matter. The knights and men-at-arms were still preparing themselves to enter the town. By the time they arrived blood ran through the streets and the camp followers focused on pillaging and pleasures of the flesh.

Then a conflict broke out amongst the crusaders. The higher ranks were livid with the camp followers. They'd already murdered and pillaged most of Beziers, leaving precious little for the noble men legally entitled to it. In their rage the knights chased the camp followers out of town like rats, beating them on the head from horseback. Eventually all of Beziers was burned to the ground to prevent any further unauthorized looting. The knights cut their losses, the crusading army moved on to Carcassonne.

This was one early battle and the savagery was shocking even at the time. It was intended to send a message to other towns that harbored Cathars. The message certainly influenced some to cooperate but it didn't bring an end to the resistance and more atrocities would follow.

The historical record of that campaign against heresy, to me, is more fascinating than magical chalices and hidden treasures.

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