two-paths-reasoning-a-knights-tale A Knight's Tale (2001)

Director: Brian Helgeland. Anachronistic medieval-jousting comedy with a classic-rock soundtrack. Heath Ledger as William Thatcher, a peasant squire who poses as Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein and rises to win the World Tournament in London. This trace works the 11 steps of the framework before producing a structure file.

Step 1 — Significant lines and themes

The film deposits a small set of recurring lines that the back half pivots around. Working from the SRT:

"A man can change his stars." William's opening manifesto to Roland and Wat after winning Sir Ector's purse. He repeats it; his father later sends him off as a child with the same words ("Now go change your stars and live a better life than I have"); on his deathbed in the climax he hears it again ("Change your stars"). It is the film's mantra and its theme stated.
"You must be of noble birth to compete." The institutional rule. Stated in the opening tournament scene, re-stated by Chaucer ("Noble birth must be established for four generations on either side. Patents of nobility must be provided"), enforced by Adhemar at the end. The whole plot is the friction between this rule and William's mantra.
"How did the nobles become noble in the first place? They took it at the tip of a sword. I'll do it with a lance." William's argument that nobility is action, not birth.
"You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting." Adhemar's signature. Said TO William after Adhemar humiliates him at Rouen, said to William again in the stocks scene, then INVERTED by William to Adhemar at the climax. The line tracks the reversal.
"It's not in me to withdraw." William to the Black Prince after the Colville/Edward joust. The speech the Prince later cites when he releases William from the stocks.
"You also tilt when you should withdraw. That is knightly too." The Black Prince's verdict in the stocks. The line that recasts William's stubbornness as a knightly virtue and earns him the knighting.
"He may appear to be of humble origins, but my personal historians have discovered that he descends from an ancient royal line. This is my word, and as such, is beyond contestation." The Prince fictionalizing William's lineage. The film's key gesture: noble rank is granted by sovereign declaration, and the sovereign is choosing to declare it on the basis of demonstrated character.
"In what world could you have ever beaten me?" Adhemar to a wounded William in the climax, then echoed back to him as "Such a place does not exist" — the line William must overturn by the final pass.
"Pride's the one thing they can't take." / "But love they cannot take." The Cheapside argument with Jocelyn before William refuses to run. Sets the moral terms of the climax run.
"Your men love you. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough." The Prince in the stocks. Locates William's worth in his social bond, not his blood.

Themes that fall out of these lines.

Nobility as performance vs. nobility as blood. The film stages a contest between two definitions of "knight": the institutional one (lineage, patents, four generations on either side) and the experiential one (action, courage, the love of one's men, the hazard taken). The contest is won when a sovereign agrees to redefine the institutional category to fit the experiential demonstration.
Hiding vs. being seen. The whole film is about William hiding behind the Ulrich identity. The Prince in the stocks ("Both trying to hide who we are. Both unable to do so") makes explicit that the disguise is a temporary necessity that the world eventually strips away. The question is whether what's underneath is good enough to survive being seen.
Stubbornness as a virtue when it's pointed at the right thing. "It's not in me to withdraw" is initially a plot beat (William refuses to withdraw against royalty), but it becomes the ethical hinge — the same trait that gets him in trouble is what the Prince eventually rewards.
Public acclaim as the medium of the test. The film never separates William's interior arc from the crowd. The London crowd chanting "William, William" at the end is structurally equivalent to Sheppard's audience or Apollo's arena — the world has to score the change for the change to count.

These themes set up the theory candidates.

Step 2 — Three theories of the gap between William's initial approach and the approach he needs

Theory A: Approach as deception strategy. William's initial approach is win by hiding — adopt a noble alias, get Chaucer to forge patents, win on the field as Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein, and never let the institutional gatekeepers see the peasant underneath. The needed approach is win by being seen — drop the alias (or have it dropped for him) and stand as William Thatcher. The gap is between concealment and exposure. The arc would resolve at the moment William's real name is on the field and he wins anyway.

Theory B: Approach as definition of "knight." William starts the film thinking nobility is a status he must impersonate to access — the knight is a thing you ARE by birth, and he's faking it. The needed approach is the reverse — nobility is a thing you ARE by deed, and the institutional category has to bend to the demonstration. The gap is conceptual: William's project of imitating a knight has to give way to embodying one, and the institutions have to be brought to recognize the embodiment. This theory sits one level beneath A — A is the surface technique, B is the understanding the technique runs on.

Theory C: Approach as solo performance vs. collective bond. William's initial approach is individualist — one man can change his stars, and he carries the project alone (Roland, Wat, Kate, Geoff, Jocelyn are equipment for the project). The needed approach is collective — what makes him a knight is the bond with his men, his lover, his lineage (his blind father), and his recognition as a member of the London crowd that birthed him. The gap is between William as a solo striver and William as a node in a web of love. The Prince's stocks speech ("Your men love you") is the explicit articulation of this theory.

The three theories are not mutually exclusive — A is a tactic, B is the understanding the tactic implies, C is the social fabric the tactic ignores. But they will produce different climaxes and different midpoints, so we will test them.

Step 3 — Four candidate climaxes, tested against each theory

Candidate 1: The Cheapside refusal — "I will not run!" William, just exposed by Adhemar, stands in the lists at the World Tournament and refuses to flee, choosing the stocks over escape. High stakes (his freedom, his life) and the moment most directly tests his commitment to being seen.

Candidate 2: The stocks scene — the Prince knights William. Edward arrives at the stocks, names William's stubbornness as knightly, declares him an "ancient royal line" by sovereign fiat, and dubs him Sir William.

Candidate 3: The first pass against Adhemar in the championship — "Sir William Thatcher!" Chaucer announces William by his real name to the London crowd, who chant "William, William"; William, with his lance lashed to his arm because he can barely grip it, faces Adhemar in the final tilt of the World Championship.

Candidate 4: The final unhorsing of Adhemar. The last pass — Adhemar tips the lance with an illegal sharpened tip, William, wounded and unable to breathe, lashes the lance to his arm and unhorses Adhemar to win the World Championship.

Test against Theory A (deception → exposure):

Candidate 1 fits well — the refusal to run is the moment William stops hiding. But the stakes are about freedom, not about whether the post-hiding approach actually works on the field.
Candidate 2 fits well — knighthood-by-sovereign-declaration is the institutional ratification of the exposure. But it's given to him; he doesn't pass a test of arms here.
Candidate 3 fits — it's the first time he competes under his real name, with the crowd chanting "William." Tests whether being seen is compatible with winning.
Candidate 4 fits — the final pass unhorses Adhemar after exposure, vindicating the exposed self.

Test against Theory B (imitation → embodiment of knighthood):

Candidate 1 — refusing to run is a knightly act, but it's the resistance to being un-made; doesn't yet stage the embodiment.
Candidate 2 — fits very well. The Prince's declaration ("descends from an ancient royal line") is the institution explicitly redefining itself around William's demonstrated character. The line "you also tilt when you should withdraw — that is knightly too" reframes William's action as the definition of knighthood.
Candidate 3 — strong fit. The crowd accepting "Sir William Thatcher" is the social ratification of the embodiment.
Candidate 4 — the unhorsing is the proof of arms that justifies the embodiment.

Test against Theory C (solo → collective):

Candidate 1 — fits. The friends ALL beg him to run; he refuses; they stand with him anyway ("Let's end them together"). The refusal to run is the moment the collective decides to stand with him in defeat, not just in success.
Candidate 2 — fits. The Prince says "Your men love you" — collective bond is named as the criterion.
Candidate 3 — extremely strong fit. Chaucer's announcement names William's father, the London crowd recognizes him as one of their own ("Born a stone's throw from this very stadium"), Jocelyn is in the stands, his blind father is there to hear the chant. All the threads of love converge into the single moment of the announcement.
Candidate 4 — fits, but the social ratification has already happened by Candidate 3; Candidate 4 is the technical fulfillment.

Pairing analysis.

Candidate 4 is structurally the highest-stakes test of arms but it depends on the announcement and crowd recognition that Candidate 3 stages. Candidate 3 is the moment all three theories converge: it's the first ride under the real name (A), it's the embodiment ratified by the crowd (B), it's the convergence of father/lover/men/city (C). Candidate 4 is the technical resolution — the test result of the test that began in Candidate 3.

This is the Rocky problem in reverse: in Rocky, the climax is the bell, not the fight. In A Knight's Tale, the climax is more diffuse but the most concentrated single moment is the FIRST PASS of the final match — the moment after Chaucer announces "Sir William Thatcher," the crowd erupts, the blind father hears his son's name, and William rides under his true name against Adhemar with his lance lashed to his arm. The unhorsing in the final pass is the wind-down's first beat — the result of a test whose meaning was settled at the announcement.

But there is a strong alternative case: the climax IS the final unhorsing, because the test of the post-midpoint approach (compete as William, with everyone supporting him) is unresolved until Adhemar is on the ground. We need to see which midpoint each pairing produces before locking this in.

Step 4 — Locate the midpoint under each theory and select the best pairing

Under Theory A (deception → exposure): The midpoint would be the scene where the deception starts to fail or is revealed as untenable. Candidates: (a) Jocelyn's discovery via her maid that his squires call him William ("Your name makes no matter to me"); (b) the night William visits his blind father in Cheapside under cover of darkness, gets seen by the children of the neighborhood, and re-encounters who he actually is; (c) the morning Adhemar announces he tracked William to Cheapside and saw his father. (a) is too small a beat; (c) is the Escalation that triggers the climax, not the midpoint. (b) is the strongest candidate — William's encounter with his blind father is the moment he is forced to reckon with the identity he's been hiding from the world AND from himself, and from this point his "Ulrich" persona is no longer fully his project. He goes to his father AS Ulrich and leaves having recommitted to William.

Under Theory B (imitation → embodiment): The midpoint would be the moment William stops trying to win the EXTERNAL contest (defeat Adhemar at Rouen) and shifts to a project oriented around the bond and the demonstration of character. The Rouen humiliation ("you have been weighed") is the breakdown of the initial approach — winning by impersonation is shown to have ceiling — but the response is not yet a new approach; it is dejection. The shift comes in two stages: Kate's offering of the new armor ("I could make armor you wouldn't even know you wore it") and the dance scene with Jocelyn ("stop the moon") where William stops performing the courtly script and speaks plainly. Then the Colville/Edward joust ("It's not in me to withdraw") is the first articulation of the new approach as a STANCE. The strongest single midpoint candidate under Theory B is the Colville scene — the moment William's stubbornness is named as something the Prince recognizes as kin to his own. But the Colville scene is too late to be a midpoint (it's roughly an hour into a two-hour film and is followed immediately by the Adhemar-recall and the visit to the blind father).

Under Theory C (solo → collective): The midpoint would be the moment William stops being a solo project and becomes a collective one. The "I love her" admission to Wat after the lose-on-purpose is one candidate. The Cheapside visit to the blind father is another — the discovery that his father is alive and waiting reframes his project as something he is doing FOR a person he is bonded to, not just FOR himself. The Prince in the stocks ("Your men love you") is the explicit articulation, but it's too late to be the midpoint.

The Cheapside visit to the blind father is the strongest single midpoint candidate across all three theories. It is one bounded sequence, it sits roughly two-thirds of the way through (around 1h 40m of a 2h 12m film — slightly past the conventional midpoint but the film's pacing supports it; the Rouen humiliation at ~50m is a different beat type, more an Escalation 1), it is the moment William is forced to stop hiding from himself even before the world unmasks him, and it is what Adhemar follows him to in order to expose him. The midpoint is more typically located earlier; let me re-examine.

Re-examining for an earlier midpoint. The Rouen humiliation (~50m) is the breakdown of the first version of the initial approach (win-by-impersonation, with crude armor, in the joust), and the response is the new armor from Kate plus the courtship of Jocelyn — which together represent the upgraded version of the initial approach (better tools, same project). So Rouen is not the midpoint; it is Escalation 1 within the initial-approach phase. The Colville/Edward draw and the subsequent Adhemar withdrawal (~1h 03m) is when William first articulates "It's not in me to withdraw" — but the approach hasn't visibly shifted yet; he's still competing as Ulrich, still chasing the World Tournament, still in love with Jocelyn-as-Ulrich. The visit to the blind father (~1h 38m) is the moment the project changes shape: William reveals himself as Ulrich to a man who hears the name being chanted from the stadium and doesn't know it's his son — he tells his father his son "changed his stars after all," then his father identifies him and they reconcile. From this point onward, William is competing for his father, for Jocelyn-as-William, for his men. The project has gone from "win as Ulrich and ascend" to "win as William and bring everyone with me."

Selected pairing: Theory B/C composite, with the climax as the first pass of the final match against Adhemar (the announcement of William's real name to the London crowd) and the midpoint as the visit to the blind father in Cheapside.

The wind-down then includes the unhorsing of Adhemar — which is structurally the validation of the test, not the test itself. (We will reconsider this in Step 10.)

Actually, looking again: the unhorsing has stakes (William can barely breathe, the lance is lashed to his arm because he can't grip it, Adhemar has cheated with a sharpened tip) that exceed the announcement. The announcement is the social climax; the unhorsing is the physical climax. This is a film where the two are split — the film stages two climaxes back-to-back. For framework purposes we have to pick one. The unhorsing is the test of arms, the moment the post-midpoint approach (compete as William, supported by the collective) faces its highest-stakes opposition (a wounded body, a cheating Adhemar, the entire London crowd watching). I will lock the climax as the final pass that unhorses Adhemar. The announcement is the immediately-preceding rivet that elevates the stakes — it becomes the Falling Action's culmination or, more precisely, the moment that turns the joust from a contest of two knights into a referendum on the post-midpoint approach.

Locked: Midpoint = visit to the blind father in Cheapside. Climax = the final pass that unhorses Adhemar.

Step 5 — Identify the quadrant

Better tools, sufficient — classical comedy / redemption arc.

William's post-midpoint approach (compete as William, accept the collective, refuse to hide) is the morally and developmentally sounder approach — the film is unambiguous about this. The climax tests it at maximum stakes (wounded body, cheating opponent, exposure as a peasant) and it works — Adhemar is unhorsed, William is acclaimed by the crowd, Jocelyn embraces him, his father witnesses. The quadrant is unambiguously better/sufficient.

The film resists placement only at the level of social commentary — it could be read as a fantasy of meritocracy in a feudal world that did not actually permit such things, and the sovereign-declaration mechanism by which William becomes a knight ("This is my word, and as such, is beyond contestation") is a bit of a fudge — but at the level of the protagonist's arc, the quadrant is clean.

Step 6 — Escalation points and early-establishing scenes

Escalation 1 (pre-midpoint). The Rouen humiliation. William, mid-tournament, is dominated by Adhemar in the joust and Adhemar delivers the first "you have been weighed, you have been measured, you have been found wanting" speech in front of the crowd. The initial approach (win-by-impersonation with the cobbled armor) is shown to have a ceiling — Adhemar is the ceiling. This intensifies the project: William refuses to compete in the sword (his best event) because "it's tournament champion or nothing at all," accepts Kate's offer of the better armor, and begins courting Jocelyn in earnest. The Rouen scene puts pressure on the initial approach by showing it isn't enough, accelerating the project toward the visit-to-the-father midpoint where the project itself transforms.

Escalation 2 (post-midpoint). Adhemar's announcement that he followed William to Cheapside the night before, saw his father, and has the royal guards waiting in the lists to arrest him for fraud. This intensifies the new approach by raising the stakes from "compete as William" to "be exposed as a peasant impostor and lose everything" — the field of play changes from sport to law, and the question becomes whether the new approach can hold against institutional destruction.

Early-establishing scenes. The opening tournament with dead Sir Ector, the food-driven masquerade as Ector, the post-fight argument about the 13 silver florins ("a man can change his stars"), the meeting with naked Chaucer on the road to Rouen, and the boyhood flashback to William watching young Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein and asking his father if a thatcher's son can be a knight. These establish: William's hunger for status, his willingness to lie his way into it, his charisma that recruits others to the project, and the father's "if he believes enough, a man can do anything" — the founding ideology of the initial approach.

The boyhood flashback is doing particular work: it shows the father telling young William the same line William will later carry as his mantra, AND it shows the father sending young William away to Sir Ector ("Now go change your stars and live a better life than I have. Don't be foolish, William. You just follow your feet.") This is the equipment the film hands the audience for the midpoint Cheapside reunion.

Step 7 — Equilibrium and inciting incident

Equilibrium. The opening tournament. William and Wat and Roland are the squires of dead Sir Ector, three days unfed, scraping for the purse. The stable state of William's life is squiredom-at-the-margins — they serve a noble who can barely stay on a horse, they fight to keep him upright for the prize money, they live tournament-to-tournament one purse from starvation. The protagonist's "element" is squiring; the world is the mud-and-armor circuit; the opening shows him in that element.

Inciting incident. Sir Ector dies mid-tournament with the match still scoreable. William, faced with forfeit and starvation, decides to put on Ector's armor and ride in his place. "I'll ride in his place." The disruption is tailored to the approach — the death of the man whose existence justified William's squiredom, in a moment when the prize is in reach if only someone can finish the match, is exactly the disruption William's hunger and his charisma can't refuse. He rides, he wins, the masquerade is born.

Step 8 — Three Commitment candidates

Candidate 1: "I'll ride in his place." The moment William straps Ector's armor on. It's decisive but it's also the inciting incident itself — it's a one-time emergency action, not yet a commitment to a project.

Candidate 2: The post-tournament argument over the 13 silver florins, ending with Wat and Roland turning back to follow William ("With 13 silver pieces, three men can change their stars"). William has divided the purse, pocketed 13 silver florins for "training and outfitting," and walked off in the direction of Rouen instead of England. Roland and Wat initially walk the other way, then turn back. "If you can take your coins, go eat cake in England. But if you can't, you come with me." This is the moment William commits to the project of competing as a fake noble at Rouen, and the moment Roland and Wat commit to him.

Candidate 3: Chaucer's writing of the false patents of nobility. Chaucer offers to forge patents in exchange for clothing and food. William accepts. This is when the deception strategy is locked in.

Candidate 2 is the strongest. It's a single bounded scene that ends with the commitment articulated and accepted by the team. Candidate 1 is the inciting incident; Candidate 3 is the implementation of the commitment Candidate 2 establishes. Candidate 2 leads directly to the midpoint — without the team coming with him, the entire project is impossible, and without the "change his stars" mantra being articulated in this scene, the midpoint reckoning with his father has no thematic charge.

Locked: Commitment = the 13 silver florins / "change his stars" scene on the road.

Step 9 — Map the full structure

(Chronological order. One short paragraph per rivet; rivet beats are scene-narrow.)

Equilibrium. The opening tournament with Sir Ector. William, Wat, and Roland — three squires three days unfed — scrambling around their master to keep him upright between lances for the prize money. The stable state: tournament-to-tournament, a purse from starvation, organized around a noble who can't stay on his horse.

Inciting Incident. Ector dies mid-tournament with the match scoreable. Faced with forfeit and the loss of the prize, William straps on Ector's armor. "I'll ride in his place." He completes the tournament and the prize comes in.

Resistance / Debate. The post-tournament division of the silver. Wat wants tansy cakes in England; Roland wants the pub. William wants Rouen. They walk in different directions; Wat and Roland turn for England, William for the next tournament. The hesitation is brief and articulated in money — go home and eat, or come with me and gamble.

Commitment. The road. William has set down the 13 silver florins for training and outfitting and walked. Wat and Roland argue, then turn back. "With 13 silver pieces, three men can change their stars." The project becomes real and collective in one scene.

Rising Action. Training in the field with the lance; the meeting with naked Chaucer on the road to Rouen ("Geoffrey Chaucer's the name. Writing's the game"); Chaucer forging the patents of nobility; the Rouen tournament where William is announced as Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein and wins his early matches; the first sight of Jocelyn in the cathedral; the introduction of Adhemar; the discovery that the cobbled armor breaks; the offer of help from Kate the female farrier. The initial approach in full execution: deception, technique, charm.

Escalation 1. The Rouen final. Adhemar dominates William in the joust and delivers the first "you have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting" in front of the crowd. The initial approach hits its ceiling: even with forged patents and a winning sword record, William cannot beat Adhemar in the central event. He refuses to compete in the sword going forward — "tournament champion or nothing." Kate offers to make new, lighter armor; the project upgrades but does not yet shift.

[Inter-rivet beats: the Paris and German tournament successes with Kate's new armor; the courtship of Jocelyn at the dance ("If I could ask God one thing, it would be to stop the moon"); the lose-on-purpose-to-prove-love sequence; the Colville/Edward draw where William refuses to withdraw against royalty and the Prince later acknowledges him as kin in stubbornness; Adhemar withdrawing because he's been called back to the Free Companies; William rising in the rankings; Jocelyn coming to William's tent; the team traveling to London for the World Tournament.]

Midpoint. Cheapside, by night, before the World Tournament. William slips away to find his blind father, John Thatcher, in the house where he was born. He enters as "Ulrich" and tells the man his son "changed his stars after all"; his father recognizes his voice and they reconcile. The thatcher's project transforms from solo ascension under a false name to something done for and witnessed by the people he loves — Jocelyn, his men, his father, the city of London where he was born.

Falling Action / Post-Midpoint Approach. William returns to the World Tournament and competes the early rounds with the new framing. The London crowd takes to him. Jocelyn arrives at his tent and they sleep together, as William, not Ulrich. The boys begin to handle the equipment of championship — Kate's armor proven, the Free Companies disbanded, Adhemar present in the field but not yet fought. The post-midpoint approach is settled: compete as William, with everyone, openly enough that the people who matter know.

Escalation 2. Adhemar tells Geoff and Jocelyn he followed William to Cheapside the night before, saw his father, has reported him as a fraud. Royal guards are waiting in the lists to arrest him; he is to be put in the stocks; he forfeits the World Tournament. The friends beg him to run. The field of play changes from sport to law — the new approach has to hold against institutional destruction, not just against Adhemar's lance.

[Inter-rivet beat: Cheapside refusal. William refuses to run. Jocelyn says "Run, do it for love." Roland, Geoff, Wat all want him to flee. He says "I am a knight." They walk with him to the lists. He is arrested without resistance, mocked by Adhemar with the second "you have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting" speech, and locked in the stocks. The post-midpoint approach is tested first by humiliation, and the test passes — the men stand with him, pelting and protecting him.]

[Inter-rivet beat: The Black Prince arrives at the stocks. He names William's stubbornness as knightly ("you also tilt when you should withdraw — that is knightly too"), declares by sovereign fiat that William descends from "an ancient royal line," and dubs him Sir William. He restores William to the lists for the final match against Adhemar. This is the institution choosing to bend its definition around the demonstration.]

Climax. The final pass against Adhemar. After two passes in which Adhemar's illegally tipped lance has wounded William so badly he can barely breathe and can't grip the lance, William has the lance lashed to his arm. Chaucer announces him as "Sir William Thatcher!" — first under his real name, with the London crowd chanting "William, William." William rides one-handed, lance bound to his ruined body, against an Adhemar who has cheated and who has just told him "in what world could you have ever beaten me — such a place does not exist." William unhorses Adhemar. The post-midpoint approach (compete as William, supported by the collective, refuse to withdraw) is tested at maximum stakes against a wounded body, a cheating opponent, and the entire English crowd as witness — and it holds.

Wind-Down. The crowd erupts; Jocelyn embraces him; his blind father has heard his son's name announced and acclaimed; Chaucer, in voiceover-coda mode, declares he will write this story ("all of it. All human activity lies within the artist's scope"). The final pub coda with the friends in equilibrium ("Your round") closes the film in the new state: William as Sir William Thatcher, recognized, partnered, surrounded.

Step 10 — Stress test

Walk through and ask whether the structure explains the film's most compelling moments and gives them meaning.

Rouen humiliation. Explained as Escalation 1 — the ceiling of the initial approach. Adhemar's "found wanting" speech is set up here so that the climax can invert it. Works.
Lose-on-purpose for Jocelyn. Sits in Rising Action as an overreach of the initial approach (William trying to perform love within the Ulrich frame). Pays off thematically when Jocelyn reverses the demand and tells him to win for her — the first sign that she wants the William underneath, not the Ulrich on top. Works.
Colville/Edward draw. The first articulation of "It's not in me to withdraw." Sits in the Rising Action / late initial approach, but the Prince's recognition of William here is the seed of the stocks scene. The structure handles it as an inter-rivet beat that prefigures the post-midpoint approach without yet enacting it. Works.
Cheapside visit to blind father. The midpoint. The structure explains why this scene has the narrative weight it does — it's where the project changes shape from solo ascension to collective embodiment. Works.
The Black Prince stocks scene. Sits as a falling-action beat between Escalation 2 and the climax. The Prince's speech ("Your men love you... you also tilt when you should withdraw — that is knightly too") is the institutional ratification of the post-midpoint approach, but it's not the climax — the climax is the test of the approach against Adhemar's lance. The structure handles it correctly as the institutional precondition for the climax to be staged.
The lance lashed to the arm. A signature image. Sits in the climax — it dramatizes the "compete as William, refuse to withdraw" approach in physical terms. The body is broken but the project holds. Works.
"In what world could you have ever beaten me?" — "Such a place does not exist." Adhemar's repeated taunt. The structure uses this as the verbal frame the climax inverts. Works.
The final pub coda — "Your round." Wind-down equilibrium beat. Works.

Possible reconsiderations.

(a) Is the climax really the final pass and not the announcement of "Sir William Thatcher"? The announcement is the social climax (the crowd accepts him under his real name) and the unhorsing is the physical climax. The framework asks for the highest-stakes test of the post-midpoint approach. The post-midpoint approach is "compete as William, supported by the collective, refuse to withdraw." The announcement is the SETTING UP of the test (William rides under his real name); the unhorsing is the RESULT of the test. The climax is the final pass — the moment between announcement and result — but the structurally significant beat is the unhorsing pass itself. I will keep the climax as the final pass.

(b) Is the stocks/knighting scene the climax? It's the institutional resolution but it's not the test of arms. Without the unhorsing, the knighting feels like a gift from above. The film structurally requires William to PROVE the knighting on the field, which it does in the climax. The knighting is properly pre-climactic.

(c) Is the midpoint really the visit to the father, or is it earlier — perhaps Rouen? Rouen is the breakdown of the initial approach but the response is "upgrade the tools" (Kate's armor), not "transform the project." The transformation comes at Cheapside. The midpoint reading holds.

The structure is reinforced. We have an option to remap if needed in Step 11, but at this stage the structure is doing the explanatory work the film requires.

The Step 9 structure stands. One refinement worth integrating into the final structure file: the Cheapside refusal scene ("I will not run!") should be treated explicitly as the falling-action beat that bridges Escalation 2 and the stocks/knighting sequence — it is the moment the post-midpoint approach is first tested (at the level of choice — flee or be exposed) before being tested at the level of arms in the climax. The structure file will acknowledge this. Otherwise no remap.

Final selection

Quadrant: Better tools, sufficient — classical comedy / redemption arc.
Initial approach: Win by impersonation. Adopt the Ulrich identity, forge patents, ride the tournament circuit as a fake noble, and ascend by hidden merit while staying invisible to the institutions that gatekeep status.
Post-midpoint approach: Win by being seen. Compete as William, with the bond of his men and his lover and his father acknowledged, and let the institution bend to the demonstration rather than impersonating its terms.
Midpoint: The Cheapside visit to the blind father.
Climax: The final pass against Adhemar, lance lashed to his arm, after Chaucer announces "Sir William Thatcher" to the London crowd.