To this point, White's retelling of the affair keeps in fairly strict accordance with the legend. White's innovation, however, lies in his shifting the narrative at this point to how God enters Lancelot and Guenever's affair as a rival for the great knight's love. As The Ill-Made Knight proceeds, the presence of God becomes greater with each passing chapter, beginning with Lancelot's childhood desires to perform miracles, moving through Arthur's decision to (figuratively) "send you all to the Pope" on a crusade for the Grail, to the testing of Sir Bors and Sir Percivale, and finally to the discovery of the Grail by Galahad, whom Lancelot describes as an "angel."
God hovers in the background of the novel, just as His ideas, found in Arthur's chivalry, hover only in the background of Lancelot's soul as he commits the sin of adultery. After Lancelot returns from his two-year quest for the Grail, however, he describes the epiphany that refocused and clarified his relationship with God: a "stroke of a correction" for which he is thankful. Through a series of events, orchestrated by God, Lancelot realized that his worst sin was his very desire to be the greatest proponent of Arthur's chivalry. Even after confessing his affair with Guenever to a priest, Lancelot was still "beaten and disgraced" at a tournament, because, as he explains to the King and Queen: "It was pride that made me try to be the best knight in the world. Pride made me show off and help the weaker party of the tournament. You could call it vainglory. Just because I had confessed about — about the woman, that did not make me into a good man."
After confessing this sin, Lancelot was again knocked down, this time by a black knight. Guenever cannot understand why God would have allowed this to happen, if Lancelot "really was absolved this time." Lancelot's explanation — that God was not punishing him, but simply "withholding the special gift of victory which it had always been within His power to bestow" — is the core of his new relationship with God. It is a relationship that Guenever, a worldly woman, cannot understand, because it hinges on Lancelot having "given up" his glory to get nothing back. She lives in a world of quid pro quo (or "something for something") and lacks the insight that Lancelot, now touched by God, possesses. Because of his past sins, Lancelot is ultimately forbidden from entering the chapel where Galahad, Bors, and Percivale celebrate Mass with the Grail — but he does not resent God for this decision because he now recognizes his own sinful pride.
