These three tales are developed together, without closing summaries or new beginnings, and thus must certainly have been intended to form a unit — a single episodic tale. At all events, their interrelationship is obvious. Nineve the Damsel of the Lake figures prominently in all three: it is she who seals Merlin in the earth alive, she who saves Arthur in the fight with Accolon, and she who saves and rewards Pellas after Gawain's betrayal. She seems to represent, in effect, combined prudence and loyalty.
Sir Gawain figures in the first and third tales. He offers cowardly, though not disloyal, advice in the first tale when he advises Arthur to flee the five kings, since the fight will be five against four. In the third tale, his cowardly and disloyal behavior contrasts with the behavior of Pellas, Marhault, and Ywain, all of whom fight for the right against heavy odds. (Gawain refuses a fight against multiple opponents, though his guide advises it; he enters no tournaments; and he betrays his trust both to a fellow knight and to a lady.)
All three tales centrally concern love-betrayal — Nineve's justifiable betrayal of Merlin; Accolon's unwitting yet consenting betrayal of Arthur and Morgan's thoroughly treacherous betrayal of both Arthur and Uriens; and, in the third tale, Gawain's betrayal of Pellas and his lady. These central betrayals occur within a pattern of lesser love-betrayals and refusals of love. Together, then, the three tales establish in dramatic terms the qualities of right and wrong love, or, more precisely, of true love, prudent or imprudent, versus jealous love, good or bad. Merlin's infatuation balances that of Pellas; Morgan's vicious love of Accolon balances Gawain's vicious lust; Pellas' nobly restrained jealousy parallels Bagdemagus' nobly restrained jealousy in another sphere and plays ironically against Gawain's jealous blood — loyalty to Ywain.
