Books V and VI may be taken together because they jointly illustrate Parzival's first testing and failure on a new narrative level. Both he and the audience expect events to continue on the feudal, secular level of Books III and IV in which Parzival, by acquiring and practising knighthood, entered on his father's inheritance. Unexpectedly, however, he is taken into the realm of the Grail, where the knightly and courtly criteria of his recent success at Pelrapeire prove unavailing or irrelevant. His failure is made clear to us early on by the narrator, Parzival is given a number of early indications, but the full catastrophe strikes him only with Cundrie's arrival at the Round Table in Book VI. A clear break is represented by Parzival's departure from the Round Table and by the switch to events centred on Gawan in the subsequent Books.

The episodes which we now have to consider present a double contrast. First, within themselves: at Munsalvæsche Parzival fails to recognise the significance of what he sees, whilst in the remaining episodes the theme is one of recognition between people who have met before. Two types of recognition are present here: failure in intellectual recognition or moral perception at Munsalvæsche and a return to people earlier encountered in the other cases.