What infuriates Merlyn even more than the savagery of war, however, is the complete and nonchalant acceptance of it as an institution wherein nobles, fully protected in armor, exploit the lower classes out of greed and even boredom. He cites various battles where the nobles applied the rules of sport and etiquette to the death of their own people, such as that of King Henry II, who borrowed money from his opponent in order to continue fighting him. This thinking of war as something to be "indulged" in "seasonally" is presented by Merlyn as morally repugnant. Using his knowledge of the future, he compares war to a Victorian foxhunt — an activity that's fun and exhilarating for the hunters (the nobles) but terrifying and violent for the foxes (the soldiers who actually die in battle). A foxhunt's only purpose is to entertain leisured aristocrats (a fox is not eaten nor killed for any real reason), so warfare's only purpose is to inflate the egos of a masculine and violent band of nobles. He tells Arthur: "You have become the king of a domain in which . . . the nobility fight each other for fun, and neither the racial maniac nor the overlord stops to consider the lot of the common soldier, who is the one person that gets hurt. Unless you can make the world wag better than it does at present, King, your reign will be an endless series of petty battles . . . ."
As other parts of the novel demonstrate (such as Igrane's sons torturing the donkey and later butchering the unicorn), human beings have a seemingly innate capacity for violence. Merlyn wants Arthur to understand that there is nothing "splendid" in war or those who boast of their prowess in entering it.
