Cliges and the voice of the narrator

Having finished Cligés this evening, I am not sure how I feel about this tale of Chretien’s. The writer spends an inordinate amount of time in the personal reflections first of the parents, Alexander and Soredamors, then of the son and his love. I do not believe that either Cligés or Fenice are honorable. I am wondering about the purpose that Chretien really had in writing these Arthurian Romances as clearly the protagonists, Arthur’s foreign as well as homebred knights were not really as gentle or courtly as we had been led to believe. I have not read any of the e-reserves for this week as yet, and am trying to reach my own conclusions before turning to others. Were these tales a social commentary as we read in one of the readings a week or so ago that the people at court were trying to model themselves on Arthur’s court. Perhaps Chretien was moralizing, especially as he ends this tale with a judgment on the future empresses of Constantinople.
In this tale we see a more blood thirsty and exacting Arthur who is betrayed not by his half brother but by a trusted knight. However, here too he takes council with his knights as we have seen before but it comes across not so much as democracy but as not wanting to bear the responsibility should something go wrong (as it did.) It is also interesting that Arthur did not approve of endless days spent in tournaments and used his royal powers to call a halt to the skirmishes after Cligés and Gawain have battled it out.
For those of us interested in gruesome details, in this story, they are frequently decapitated and though they let out their spirit with their blood, they do not vomit out their lives. I do not remember Arthur being so “hard” against his enemies as he is in this tale, nor for that matter, the queen so good. Another factor is that neither king nor queen seem to be a day older even though fifteen or sixteen years have passed.
By the way, I don’t know if anyone else feels this way but to me the voice of the story teller is different from the narrative voice I heard last week.