Merlin

[prosodic]

Did anyone else watch Merlin last night? Overall, I liked it, and will continue watching it, but I'm really confused on a lot of stuff. I studied a great deal of Arthurian Legend in my literature classes, so some things about the show make no sense to me.

For starters, isn't Morgana (AKA Morgaine/Morgan la Fay) supposed to be Arthur's sister...or half-sister? In this show, she's Uther Pendragon's ward and supposedly being groomed to be Arthur's wife. Where in the hell is Guinevere? Oh wait...Morgana has a lady-in-waiting named Guinevere. Hmmmm. How odd.

Also, Lancelot appears to be missing. Perhaps he arrives later on in the series.

Merlin and Arthur are the same age. Not that bothersome to me, really. But also not really how it's been depicted before.

Dragons? I suppose there are dragons in the canon somewhere, but not in anything I've read thus far. But the dragon on this show is pretty badass, so I can dig it.

What is going on on this show? I'm doing a bit of reading on it and it's produced by BBC, and according to Wikipedia, deviates quite a bit from traditional renderings of the tale. For starers, Nimue (the Lady of the Lake, sometimes portrayed as Merlin's lady love) is actually going to become Merlin's adversary. That's next week's show, apparently.

Anyway, this could get me off my Tudors fixation for now and put me back on a Camelot fixation, which I had for about half of my grad school years. I actually chose Arthurian Legend as the theme for the Composition & Literature class I taught in spring 2003, and all the literature we read that semester had something to do with King Arthur.

Now I suddenly want to watch The Mists of Avalon.

Comments

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I watched it! Thought it was cute, and I might keep watching, if only to have more BBC imports brought to the US on stations other than BBC America and SciFi.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's cute too. Doesn't give people an accurate representation of Arthurian legend if this is their first exposure to it, but it's certainly a pretty production.

Did you see their Robin Hood series on BBC America? I couldn't get into it.

[wendywoowho.livejournal.com]

It is not at all true to the original stories. It's crackfic.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Much like The Tudors.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched it yet, but from everything I've heard, you're simply confused about the show's Arthurian lore because it goes a long way towards completely rewriting Arthurian lore.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I guess. I just don't know why they feel that they have to rewrite a story that has already withstood the test of time. Adding a twist here and there is one thing, but I don't see the point of taking Lancelot or Guinevere out of the story and changing the relationship between Arthur and Morgana.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Some of the Arthurian lore in my Camelot book may appear changed or unrecognizable, but I went back to the earliest sources, most notably the Welsh stories. Doesn't sound like that's what Merlin is doing, though. (Especially the age similarity between Arthur and Merlin--in the original stories Merlin was found by a king, Vortigern, who existed decades before Arthur is supposed to have.

[jerseyfille.livejournal.com]

I'd love to know what you taught in that class. I read some stuff in a medieval French lit class and I have "The Once and Future King" on my to be read shelf. Anything else you would suggest

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

We did Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Queen of Camelot by Nancy McKenzie, as well as excerpts from several medieval tales about the legend.

I very highly recommend McKenzie's novel. It's absolutely fantastic. I think the students liked that one much better than they liked the Twain.

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

There are so many permutations of Arthurian literature--some far more interesting and contradictory than others--that I'd say this series is probably perfectly within the tradition. Call it another, more modern cycle. (I always thought Owain Glyndwr was cooler, despite Shakespeare's best efforts to trivialize him.)