Women? Relevant to Merlin's Plot? Surely You Jest!
Took Julian Murphy three series to realize this...but he's still missing some key points...
One of the biggest revelations of the series was how great an actress Angel Coulby is as Gwen. You suddenly realised how underused she’s been before now.
“I think she has done fantastic stuff. It’s always difficult with those kind of characters. In the first two series with Gwen and Morgana it was hard to give them big and meaty roles. Now Morgana is evil it’s much easier to give her proactive, proper stories. And in Gwen’s case, now that she has a real status of being Arthur’s future queen - well, potentially - and her role a growing and increasingly important one, I think you can see what Angel really can do as an actress.”
Angel and Katie McGrath (Morgana) still complain in every interview that they want to do more swordfighting.
“Yeah, they’re always saying that.”
So, are you going to let them?
“I do let them do a bit. Well, Morgana. They did do a lot more riding in this series. But, yes, I’m conscious of it, and I’d love for Gwen to do more action, but I think for the audience we’ve always got to stay within the bounds of fantasy credibility. If we can engineer it, we’ll do it. If we can’t, we have to be realistic.”
ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME? I honestly don’t know where to begin because this whole thing is so full of ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I can’t even-
That first paragraph needed to be bolded completely because the entire thing made me scratch my head at the level of fail. It actually was not hard to give them meaty roles; in fact, for Guinevere alone, you had two ready-made episodes where you could’ve delved into her backstory and her motivations (“The Mark of Nimueh” and “To Kill the King”) but the writers chose not to, and at an inexplicable level with regard to “To Kill the King”. She was the only one who’d lost the only family member she had left in Camelot, but it suddenly became about Morgana and Merlin? Really? And ew to the whole “Morgana now gets a story because she’s ‘evil’” and “now Guinevere is relevant because she’s ‘a love interest’”; never mind before this sudden “elevation”, Guinevere was the BFF to Merlin in a much more salient way than Arthur was. Merlin chose to be Guinevere’s friend, not forced into the role by destiny (never mind that I’m hoping that Arthur/Merlin relationship gets onto a more even keel at some point). Her role was always important to the title character on the show. Why else would he out himself in episode THREE of the FIRST SERIES if he thought it could save Guinevere’s life? But bookmarking Guinevere’s relationship to yet another male character, she was the maid to a very relevant character of her own right (Morgana) and, oh yeah, a maid who will be the future queen of Camelot. Can an audience member get a bead on what’s going on in her mind? Not only that, your writers have obviously declared Guinevere the smartest person in the kingdom. But yeah, that’s not a relevant thing to be at all. Then again, maybe I should lay off, and realize that when you say “increasingly important” wrt Guinevere, you are actually meaning “increasingly obvious she’s the HBiC”. And wrt Morgana, as various other people have said, I really cannot see the evil in wanting to remove a tyrannical, despotic, hypocritical lunatic, except for the fact she could be a little more discerning about whom she calls an enemy. Really, God forbid Morgana’s feelings about the revelations she’s been receiving since series 2 are nuanced, complex, an actual spectrum instead of so starkly black and white, and reflective of how individual folks have actually been treating her.
(But all that to say obviously Angel Coulby is an ace actress; when you feature AWESOMENESS, you get AWESOME RESULTS. Numbers don’t lie; people. Clearly this show needs more “increasingly obvious she’s the HBiC”-ness that is Angel’s Guinevere…and scenes where Katie McGrath does more than smirk. Because I’m sure Morgana Le Fay in the legends “smirked” Camelot to its doom *rolls eyes*.)
As far as the second part I bolded-it’s incredibly offensive to say a woman knowing how to defend herself would be beyond the confines of “fantasy credibility”. Dragons and Sidhes and people coming back from the dead are perfectly credible, but not a blacksmith’s daughter knowing how to wield a sword? She wields everything else ( shovels, candelabras, fire pokers, torches), and even a sword. Twice (“Moment of Truth” and “Lancelot and Guinevere”). So, what is there to “engineer”? And if you need help, I totes know a whole heap of fic writers who can help you out with that. In fact, if you need to outsource the writing of Guinevere and Morgana, I got a list of usernames raring to go…
*Deadbolts doors of her Merlin safehouse…*
(x-posted from my tumblr)
One of the biggest revelations of the series was how great an actress Angel Coulby is as Gwen. You suddenly realised how underused she’s been before now.
“I think she has done fantastic stuff. It’s always difficult with those kind of characters. In the first two series with Gwen and Morgana it was hard to give them big and meaty roles. Now Morgana is evil it’s much easier to give her proactive, proper stories. And in Gwen’s case, now that she has a real status of being Arthur’s future queen - well, potentially - and her role a growing and increasingly important one, I think you can see what Angel really can do as an actress.”
Angel and Katie McGrath (Morgana) still complain in every interview that they want to do more swordfighting.
“Yeah, they’re always saying that.”
So, are you going to let them?
“I do let them do a bit. Well, Morgana. They did do a lot more riding in this series. But, yes, I’m conscious of it, and I’d love for Gwen to do more action, but I think for the audience we’ve always got to stay within the bounds of fantasy credibility. If we can engineer it, we’ll do it. If we can’t, we have to be realistic.”
ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME? I honestly don’t know where to begin because this whole thing is so full of ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I can’t even-
That first paragraph needed to be bolded completely because the entire thing made me scratch my head at the level of fail. It actually was not hard to give them meaty roles; in fact, for Guinevere alone, you had two ready-made episodes where you could’ve delved into her backstory and her motivations (“The Mark of Nimueh” and “To Kill the King”) but the writers chose not to, and at an inexplicable level with regard to “To Kill the King”. She was the only one who’d lost the only family member she had left in Camelot, but it suddenly became about Morgana and Merlin? Really? And ew to the whole “Morgana now gets a story because she’s ‘evil’” and “now Guinevere is relevant because she’s ‘a love interest’”; never mind before this sudden “elevation”, Guinevere was the BFF to Merlin in a much more salient way than Arthur was. Merlin chose to be Guinevere’s friend, not forced into the role by destiny (never mind that I’m hoping that Arthur/Merlin relationship gets onto a more even keel at some point). Her role was always important to the title character on the show. Why else would he out himself in episode THREE of the FIRST SERIES if he thought it could save Guinevere’s life? But bookmarking Guinevere’s relationship to yet another male character, she was the maid to a very relevant character of her own right (Morgana) and, oh yeah, a maid who will be the future queen of Camelot. Can an audience member get a bead on what’s going on in her mind? Not only that, your writers have obviously declared Guinevere the smartest person in the kingdom. But yeah, that’s not a relevant thing to be at all. Then again, maybe I should lay off, and realize that when you say “increasingly important” wrt Guinevere, you are actually meaning “increasingly obvious she’s the HBiC”. And wrt Morgana, as various other people have said, I really cannot see the evil in wanting to remove a tyrannical, despotic, hypocritical lunatic, except for the fact she could be a little more discerning about whom she calls an enemy. Really, God forbid Morgana’s feelings about the revelations she’s been receiving since series 2 are nuanced, complex, an actual spectrum instead of so starkly black and white, and reflective of how individual folks have actually been treating her.
(But all that to say obviously Angel Coulby is an ace actress; when you feature AWESOMENESS, you get AWESOME RESULTS. Numbers don’t lie; people. Clearly this show needs more “increasingly obvious she’s the HBiC”-ness that is Angel’s Guinevere…and scenes where Katie McGrath does more than smirk. Because I’m sure Morgana Le Fay in the legends “smirked” Camelot to its doom *rolls eyes*.)
As far as the second part I bolded-it’s incredibly offensive to say a woman knowing how to defend herself would be beyond the confines of “fantasy credibility”. Dragons and Sidhes and people coming back from the dead are perfectly credible, but not a blacksmith’s daughter knowing how to wield a sword? She wields everything else ( shovels, candelabras, fire pokers, torches), and even a sword. Twice (“Moment of Truth” and “Lancelot and Guinevere”). So, what is there to “engineer”? And if you need help, I totes know a whole heap of fic writers who can help you out with that. In fact, if you need to outsource the writing of Guinevere and Morgana, I got a list of usernames raring to go…
*Deadbolts doors of her Merlin safehouse…*
(x-posted from my tumblr)