Black Knight (Monty Python)

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The Black Knight, played by John Cleese

The Black Knight is a fictional character in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He is, as his name suggests, a black knight who guards a tiny bridge for unknown reasons. Although supremely skilled in swordplay, he suffers from unchecked overconfidence and a staunch refusal to ever give up. Though he only appeared in one scene, he has gone on to become one of the most popular characters of the entire film.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the film, King Arthur (Graham Chapman), accompanied by his trusty serf/steed Patsy (Terry Gilliam), is traveling through a forest when he enters a clearing and observes a fight taking place between a Black Knight (John Cleese) and a Green Knight (Gilliam again) by a bridge over a small stream. After an exhausting fight, the Green Knight decides to run straight at the Black Knight with an axe, arms above his head. The Black Knight throws his sword through the Green Knight's helm's eye slot. The Green Knight thus slain, Arthur and Patsy ride up to the Black Knight to congratulate him and invite him to join the Knights of the Round Table at Camelot. The Knight is silent and does not acknowledge their presence. Arthur regrets this ("You make me sad. So be it.") and makes to continue his journey over the bridge, which the Knight then prevents ("None shall pass."). Arthur attempts to negotiate, but the Knight does not move.

Another sword fight takes place between the Knight and Arthur, which is interrupted when Arthur chops off one of the Knight's arms. The Knight denies the injury, protesting "'tis but a scratch!" Arthur points out that the Knight has just lost an arm, which the knight categorically denies again. When Arthur points out the Knight's severed arm lying on the ground, the Knight contemplates it for a moment, then smoothly replies "I've had worse.", then Arthur replies "You Liar!" and resumes the attack. The Knight eventually loses his other arm and his sword as well. Arthur kneels to pray, thanking God for his apparent victory, but the Knight begins kicking Arthur, yelling "Have at you!" Arthur angrily says "Look you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left", and the Knight replies "Yes I have" Arthur says "look", "It's just a flesh wound" says the Knight and continues to kick and taunt Arthur. He loses one leg to Arthur's sword, but insists on continuing the fight, hopping about on his remaining leg and crying "Right! I'll do you for that! Come here!" Arthur, completely fed up by this point, sarcastically remarks, "What are you going to do, bleed on me?" to which the Knight screams "I'm invincible!" Arthur replies "You're a loony!" The Knight is still intent on fighting Arthur, hopping up against him and proudly proclaiming "The Black Knights always triumph! Have at you!" Arthur finally hacks off the Knight's remaining leg.

After Arthur has hacked off all of his limbs, the knight looks down at what remains of his body, then looks up at Arthur who congenially declares "All right, we'll call it a draw." Arthur and Patsy resume their journey, while the Knight fumes impotently at them. "Running away, eh?! You yellow bastards, come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!"^[1]

Cleese said that the scene would seem heartless and sadistic except for the fact that the Black Knight shows no pain and just keeps on fighting, or trying to, however badly he is wounded. Also, as the scene progresses and Arthur becomes increasingly annoyed, his dialogue lapses from medieval ("You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.") to modern ("Look you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left.") then to just plain sarcastic ("What are you gonna do, bleed on me?!").

The bridge scene is, perhaps, the best-known scene of the entire film. Arguably the most famous line of the scene, "It's just a flesh wound!", has since become an expression used by someone who ignores a fatal flaw/wound/problem either out of optimism or stubbornness.

[edit] Trivia

The Knight was, in fact, played by two actors: John Cleese is in the Knight's armour until his first leg is cut off. The Knight is then played by a real one-legged man, a local by the name of Richard Burton,^[2] a blacksmith local to the film shoot. After the Knight's second leg is cut off, the stump that remains is again Cleese. Cleese still boasts that he had Richard Burton as his stunt double^{[citation needed]}.
In the DOS game Battle Chess, when a knight takes a knight, he hacks off appendages in a sequence often compared to the Black Knight.
In Fable (game), when one attacks a guard, during the battle they might say "It's just a flesh wound!"
In the PC game, Strife, entering a cheat code for 'god mode' invokes the message, "You're invincible!" Typing the code again deactivates the cheat with the message, "You're a loony!"
In the Flash animation video Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, the Black Knight appears with no arms or legs as an opponent of Chuck Norris.
In the computer game Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, there is a subgame where the player plays either as King Arthur or as the Black Knight. As Arthur, the goal is to chop off the Black Knight's arms and legs, and as the Black Knight, to lose them.
The gory duels in Moonstone, bears some resemblances to the duel of the movie.
In the CORPG Guild Wars, no fewer than four shouts are references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They are "None Shall Pass!", "It's just a flesh wound", "Coward!" and "Victory is Mine!"
During the 5th trail in the video game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS, the character Ema Skye remarks "I-it's only a flesh wound, Mr. Wright!", an obvious reference to the Black Knight.
In the Megadrive video game Castlevania Bloodlines the first boss is a robotic black knight, whom the player continually hacks limbs off until the boss is only left with his legs to kick with, much like the Holy Grail's knight.
In the Playstation game Final Fantasy 9 a battle takes place with the Captain Steiner of the Knights of Pluto, and when the player wins Steiner exclaims "Bah! Only a flesh wound!"
According to the DVD Audio Commentary (Cleese, Palin, Idle audio track), the sequence originated in a story told to a young Cleese when he was attending an English class during his school days. Two Roman wrestlers were engaged in a particularly intense match and had been fighting for such a substantial length of time that the match had degraded to the two combatants doing little more than leaning into one another with their body weight. When one wrestler finally tapped-out and pulled away from his opponent, it was only then that he and the crowd realised the other man was, in fact, dead and had effectively won the match posthumously. The moral of the tale, according to Cleese's teacher was that, "If you never give up, you can't possibly lose" - a philosophy that, Cleese reflected, always struck him as being "philosophically unsound."
A recent parody recuts the scene to feature lightsabers and dialogue from Star Wars villain Darth Vader [1])
The green knight in the first battle is somehow able to obtain new weapons from thin air. We see him fighting with a sword to begin with which he soon loses, and in a following shot is armed with a ball & chain weapon, and later a small ax. No explanation is given and the weapons are almost certainly included for extra comic effect.
In the movie Fierce Creatures, while attempting to get Rollo (played by John Cleese) to remove the 'Fierce Creatures' policy, a zookeeper (played by Cynthia Cleese, John Cleese's daughter) is walked away on a stretcher. When asked what happened, another keeper says, "She had a little trouble with the bandicoots." When Rollo increduly asks "Bandicoots!?" she lifts her leg and says "It's only a flesh wound, sir." The leg is, in fact, covered in fake blood and gore, along with paint to make it appear to be a real injury akin to mauling.
Warcraft III Footmen units utter "It's only a flesh wound!" if clicked on enough times.
In the current-gen versions of the video game Splinter Cell: Double Agent, when you find Hisham Hamza in the locker room in the pool area of the Kinshasa level, Sam will tell Hamza he's wounded, to which he replies "It's only a flesh wound."
when commanding a swordman to attack a enemy in the pc game Stronghol legends, he might shout "None shall pass!" obviously qouting the black knight.