In many tellings of the legend, Arthur
willingly turns a blind eye to the lovers'
involvement - as Obi-Wan appears to do with Anakin and Padmé - knowing that as King he would have to punish both his wife and best friend if the affair were made public. He ends up watching the world he's dedicated his life to
serving collapse as a result. Lancelot, as Arthur's most
gifted Knight, becomes the Queen's champion, the Knight sworn to defend her life and honor. His greatest temptation comes when
he falls in love with Guinevere, a love that she will return - which will result in not only their downfall, but that of Arthur and his kingdom.
The
talented, brash Knight and the beautiful Queen he champions - even at
its most surface level the parallels to Padmé and
Anakin are obvious. It is an obligation to duty, an oath both have sworn to
others - in Anakin and Padmé's case, it's the Republic and Jedi Order; in
Guinevere and Lancelot's it is Arthur and Camelot - that makes a union between them
impractical and forbidden. For a time, Lancelot tries to escape
his maddening passion for Guinevere, the torment the temptation of such
feelings brings him - but soon both give in, embarking on a secret
affair, stealing interludes with one another. While sometimes
tricked into bed by other women's sorceries, Lancelot's heart never belonged to any woman but Guinevere, and was always her defender whenever
her loyalty or fidelity to Arthur was challenged. Guinevere herself faithfully continued in her duties as Queen, refusing to leave
her husband, whom she did love (but was not in love with). In both cases, the pairs involved could have chosen
to cast their duties aside and run away together, but instead choose
to attempt to balance their forbidden feelings with their sworn
obligations, knowing there would be dire consequences if they were discovered.
In
some versions of the legend, the affair is discovered almost
immediately. In others, it goes on for years until they are
publicly confronted. In either situation, the public revelation of
the affair - often by Arthur's wicked bastard son Mordred - is their downfall. Arthur is forced to banish Lancelot from
Camelot, and sentence Guinevere to death for treason, though Lancelot rescues
her, and she lives out the rest of her days in exile. The conflict shatters Arthur's order of Knights when Arthur is pushed to declare war on Lancelot for his treachery with the Queen, a war in which Arthur and Mordred end up killing one another.
And since his affair was with a married woman, it costs Lancelot
the purity he would have needed to achieve the Holy Grail, which had been the ultimate quest for Arthur's Knights.
Though
the pair themselves are doomed to misery, Lancelot himself does gain a
small measure of redemption in the form of his son, Sir Galahad (the
result of one of those tricked seductions). Pure, chaste, and
noble, Galahad succeeds where his father fails, achieving the Holy
Grail.
[One
other pair from Arthurian legend, Tristan and Isolde, also bears
strong mythic parallels to Anakin and Padmé - another forbidden love
between a knight and queen, which results in doom for both. Also, a semi-related bit of trivia: in a semi-recent film adaptation of the Arthur legend (in which the triangle is basically absent), Guinevere was played by Keira Knightley, who played Padmé's decoy in Episode I.]