Merlin rant

[ladysophiekitty]

This rant is going to be about Merlin. Let me say this: I am an Arthur/Morgana shipper, and a Morgana fangirl. While that might make me biased in some ways, I was also very open to all the characters and ship possibilities. Just because I like a ship doesn't mean that I dislike all characters who automatically threaten that ship. I liked Arthur. I liked Merlin. Notice how I used the past tense here? And yeah, okay, I can't stand Gwen. But that's because her character is so blah and saintly that I don't feel anything there.

My main problem with the show is this: it spent a full season building up certain characters and certain ships only to promptly forget about that in season 2 of the show. Whether you ship them or just think of them as siblings, the fact was that in season one, Morgana had an amazing relationship with Arthur. They bickered quite a bit, but in the end, they really looked out for each other. Most of Morgana's visions were about saving Arthur, and although at times she put herself in a bit of a risk, she always tried to prevent the visions from coming true. Arthur freaked out during Remedy to Cure All Ills where he was so desperate to save her life, he let a stranger try to cure her. Morgana also got Arthur to do what was right, even when he was hesitant about it.

Then season two happened. You don't see that relationship anymore. It doesn't even feel like these are two people who've known each other for most of their lives. Rather, it's like she's some strange lady living in the castle who he is somewhat acquainted with, but doesn't care much about. . When she escaped from kidnapping, you didn't even see an onscreen, "Are you alright?" or worry about her from Arthur. Instead, it was all "where's Gwen? What happened to Gwen?" The writers want to build up Arthur/Gwen. That's fine. I wasn't opposed to the ship until I felt like they were building it in the expense of our characters. They BORED me and were so awkward, yeah, but it wasn't a ship I hated. More of one I just ignored and spaced out during. It makes me wonder WHY the authors spent so much time building up the relationship if they were going to ignore it later. Not just that relationship, too. Merlin/Morgana, Morgana/Gwen, and Gwen/Merlin scenes were so rare this season! 

Point two, Morgana. I get that in season 2 she was busy filming for other projects. Not the writer's fault. Every scene she was in, for the most part, felt off. I don't remember what episode or the specifics, but at one point Morgana was standing at a window drinking wine and talking to someone, and I remember thinking, "woah, that's way off." The writers seem so determine to make her go down the "EVIL" road that they don't pay attention to the character. Morgana of season 1 was always standing up for people. She defended Gwen when she was accused of witchcraft, then tried to help Gwen's father. Instead she got choked by Uther and sent to the dungeons. She also hid Morded and tried to escape with him. She's been shown to be a good person. A misguided person at times, yes. She gets so passionate about things to the point where she made an attempt on Uther's life in 1x11. But in the end, she couldn't go through with it, and ended up protecting him against his enemies. I think there should have been different ways of having that play out then having her stab and kill random men for discovering her. At least lied. "Oh, it's just mud. I'm quite alright." rather then just being all "OH SHIT" *kills* I get that she's mad at Uther. She's spent her life living in fear and watching him kill countless people. Not only that, but she spent a year living with people who were prosecuted, and she was finally able to truly accept her gift. But Morgana always used her powers for good. To make her an enemy of Camelot, well, she could have tried to protect the people by getting rid of Uther. She's even said in a past episode that she thinks that Arthur is a good man, better than his father. She could try to make it so that Arthur was king instead. By doing that, it would have made her an enemy of Merlin and Arthur, but done so in a way that didn't completely ruin her character. Just my opinion.

In fact, Morgana's character wasn't the only character off this season. Most of the characters contradicted previous character developments. I liked Arthur quite a bit. Sure he could be a prat sometimes, but this was a man who tried to do what was right, and (with a little bit of prodding from Morgana), risked his life for Merlin when he was poisoned. In the end of season 1 you got the impression that Arthur went from thinking of Merlin as an idiot servant to someone who he cared about and thought of as his friend. Nope! Season 2, we're back to him being a douchebag to Merlin, and to a lot of people, actually. That is not a man who I think will make a great king.

The problem is that the writers seem to treat this show as a stand alone show. That can work great. It does with the Simpsons. It doesn't work with Merlin. It's a show that has to build up on itself to get to the point where Merlin is the adviser and Arthur is the king. Maybe the characters just have bad memories. Like Merlin, who went from "I will protect you and your secret" to Morgana to "wait, even though it's not your fault and you're possessed and you're not even aware of it, I'm going to poison you because that's what the dragon wants me to do! Never mind the fact that the dragon hasn't been reliable in the past, or that next episode he'll go on to burn Camelot when I let him go, and yet I STILL ask him for help in season 3. KILL THE WITCH! And then have a conversation about it with Gaius later and talk about how it was the right thing."

No. Just no.

 

Comments

[nani1986.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of the legends and after seeing the first two eps of season 3, I decided I was done with the show (canon-wise) Apart from the character assasinations of all leads, the fact that we're supposed to root for Arthur and Merlin while they stand by a genocidal dictator makes me incredibly angry.

Yeah, those awful druids. Damn them for fighting back against Uther's bigotry and opression. They're clearly just an evil minority Camelot will be bettet off without!

Do the showrunners even realize what they're implying by going down this road?

Season 1 was wonderful. I'll remember that, read fanfic and stick with certain Arthurian Legend books. Morgan Le Fay is my absolute favorite literary character and the role fit Katie McGrath wonderfully. Same goes for Bradley and Santiago Cabrera. What a waste.

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, I LOVE Arthurian Legend. Especially when it's done well., Which season 1 was. It had it's faults, but it was interesting and cute and I cared about the characters! Now it's just like, "whatever, why should I care when next week, you're going to change anyway?"

[nani1986.livejournal.com]

I can't help but think that Marion Zimmer Bradley and Thomas Mallory are rolling in their graves now. Season 3 is making them spin at lightspeed.

I know Mallory's take on Arthuriana is sorta sexist (I blame the time period) and that a lot of people have issues wit Bradley's The Mists of Avalon but COME ON. Both takes have three dimensional characters and a well written compelling plotline.

Every adaptation takes liberties and it's ok. My problem with Merlin is that the creators aren't even consistent about their own inconsistencies! Agh!

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

I know!

I enjoyed MoA. My problems with it mostly came from the fact that I felt that sometimes things were very repetitive (sort of like, "OK I GET THAT A CHARACTER FEELS THIS WAY BECAUSE YOU'VE SAID IT A BILLION TIMES" and sometimes the religious debates got a bit tiring) but the book as a whole was great. And the Arthur/Morgaine relationship was, at times messy and complicated, but in the end they were two people who loved each other dearly. And that showed extremely well.

[nani1986.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of MoA is over dramatic, however I always tear up at the "My brother, my baby... my love!" thing. Because let's face it Morgaine was in denial about her true feelings up untill then while Arthur was all for it but she was all angsty and "The mind blowing sex doesn't count okay? I need to make goo goo eyes at Accolon now!"

I hear The Road to Avalon by Joan Wolfe is pretty awesome and not even close to as preachy as Bradley's novels.

I still love the MoA miniseries with Julianna Margulies tho.

btw have you seen the photos of Arthur and Morgan from Showtime's Camelot? Oh god.. they look awesome. Even if Arthur is jailbait.

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

I LOVED the Road to Avalon. The Arthur/Morgan relationship was very sweet, they didn't make Mordred OR Gwenhwyfar to be the bad guys, and it wasn't preachy at all. In fact, the closest thing was when one of Arthur's pagan knights was complaining about this one monk, and Arthur said something like, "If we judged all religions by its followers, then all religions would be found lacking."


NO! I haven't. In fact, I still know very little about the show. But I am excited.

[sherrilina.livejournal.com]

IDK, I still love the book and the miniseries! And omg can you link these photos please?! :D I want to see!

[nani1986.livejournal.com]

I love Mists as well. It is the biggest AMor OTP book :D

Take a look at Eva Green and Jamie Campbell Bower as Morgana and Arthur:

[a-boleyn1230.livejournal.com]

I'm in total agreement with everything you said. It's really TRAGIC how S1 has been swept under the rug, characters have been hurriedly written into a corner, and the talented cast has been wasted. I'm not watching it anymore, unless there is an epic ArMor scene in which case I'll watch a clip. It's just so damn sad - I know of other cases where good shows go downhill, but not this fast and this sharply.

I wish I could laugh about it, because it's almost funny what a train wreck the show has become. *headdesk*

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

Yes! Exactly. I miss my show. At least we still have the ArMor fandom, right? Even if it has been rather slow lately.

[themirrorofsin.livejournal.com]

actually you have just written what I have in mind (with exceptions to liking Gwen LOL)
*sigh* it depresses me so because I don't want to stop watching because I still want to be in the fandom - that's kind of hard if you don't watch - but it's so aggravating what they are doing to a show that started out better than I imagined.

I think that I'm just going to use the characters and place them within the legend now for future fics/stuff because this way sucks!

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean! Usually I like to stick to my little happy corners of fandom (which was why I usually stuck around the Harry/Hermione and Cordy/Angel sites!) but Armor has been so SLOW lately! I go to the fics page and there's hardly anything.

It's a shame, too, because season 1 was great and had so much potential!

[themirrorofsin.livejournal.com]

*nods* and I myself haven't been that active - one fic and in a multi-ship vid that's all.

[sherrilina.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of this, Merlin has disappointed me more than any other show I think--I still enjoy it sometimes now, but never like I did before--I don't think it will ever recapture season 1's magic, in part because that was a lie...

But actually re: Katie filming other projects, as far as I know she only filmed for the first hour (that's ONE HOUR) of "The Queen" miniseries--one hour's worth has to be like a week's filming, tops--that is not enough to explain how underused she was the entire season...*sigh*

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know it was that short! I thought it must have been longer, considering how LITTLE SHE WAS ONSCREEN!