The various stories regarding Sir Tristram take up a great deal of
             space in Malory's Morte d'Arthur. He is listed as one of the more
             worshipful of the knights, equaled in skill and valor only by Sir Lancelot.
             While to many readers the most interesting aspect of of Tristram's story is
             the history of his tragic love affair with the beautiful lady Isolde,
             Malory seems to view this almost as an aside to the main story of his great
             victories on the field of honor. Indeed, the relationships and passions
             that occur throughout this work seem to always serve more as an occasion to
             battling than as the main focus of the work. One is reminded, somewhat
             unfortunately, of the popular strain of children's T.V. shows now
             cluttering network television in which barely pubescent boys go wandering
             about the countryside challenging each other to various sorts of battles
             (Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh come immediately to mind) to find out who will be
             considered the greatest duelist of all. Like these modern tales of knight
             errantry, Malory's work has a plot which is somewhat incidental to the
             focus of his work, which is actually the way in which the battles play out.
             So in telling the story of Tristram, Malory does not do as many romantics
             since have done and focused on the relationship between Isolde and
             Tristram, but rather their story appears piecemeal over the course of the
             work as he speaks of the many battles between various knights and the
             circumstances of court. These battles generally take the form of jousting.
             Jousting serves many uses in Malory's story of Tristram, both as a form of
             social communication and identity-building, as an entertainment and
             pursuit, and as a method of conflict resolution.
             . Jousting appears to be used at a very basic level in this Arthurian
             society as a way of facilitating conversation and dominance structure. One
             sees throughout that knights on first meeting will ...