The Irony of Pride in the Queen's Castle

The Faerie Queene has a lot of irony and coincidences in it, but perhaps the easiest to see is the irony in what happens in Book One to the Prideful in the Queen's castle. Whether a pretty girl baited them into it, or they just felt like it, there were jousts and duels held in the castle grounds where one person would almost always die. It's pretty much a 50-50 with your life hanging in the balance, and if you win you get the Queen's approval and glory. However, this would make you want to fight another duel, and then another, until eventually you would run out of luck.

The knights waste their lives for glory and get the exact opposite. They get dumped into a giant pile of corpses outside the wall when they lose the duel and die, and all they get in the end is dishonor and death. The knights fight for glory but march straight into dishonor and shame. They would be far better off going off to battles of actual importance, but almost none of them turn away from the castle, instead marching to their doom. This is one of the most tragic and ironic parts of the story. When a person's reputation grows from doing meaningful things, it is a meaningful reputation. When reputation is itself the aim, it is shallow and unsustainable. Further, the wrong aim is ultimately destructive.