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

[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!