Merlin THE Merlin

[idiosyncreant]

Folklore and Fairy Tales, my pet group on Ravelry, is doing "Camelot" as the Read-and-Knit-Along for the summer.

I must confess to something terrible: Arthuriana has never interested me much.

Not quite sure why that is!
My first exposure was The Sword and the Stone book of The Once and Future King (my mom discouraged me from reading the rest, and I

Comments

[jade_sabre_301]

considering if you were to read my body of work (or, you know, one or two selections), you would learn that I have a predilection for Costis-like men (the devoted, honorable, smart soldier type) (oh God I am so predictable), I uh, COMPLETELY GET WHAT YOU'RE SAYING.

See, I love Once and Future King, because he doesn't shy away from the love triangle, and because Lancelot and Guenever's relationship is far from perfect as well, and Lancelot is...the devotedhonorableIllquitewhileImaheadhere type. (I mean obviously you can argue the honorableness, since he's sleeping with his best friend's wife.) (The book doesn't shy away from that either.) (And everyone grows OLD.) (By the end of the book they've all got grey hair and gnarly hands and--IT'S SO BRILLIANT.) (I will confess that I am a teensy more lax with love triangles in time periods where people are married for political gain and girls especially get little say in who they're with for the rest of their lives.) (Not that Jenny quite fits that, but--that's the joy! HE LETS IT BE

[jade_sabre_301]

and after Arthur grows up there's a whole NEW crop of knights. And Lance has to grow up. And people have to learn how to grow older. And. SO MUCH STUFF KEEPS HAPPENING AUGH.

I never did read CT Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I should do that.

[idiosyncreant]

I don't know where you get this idea that I don't love endearing dorks, but I guess I must not talk about it enough, because I DO.

And no worries, I knew this post was kind of Jade-bait (heh), and anything about the subject is open for discussion. 6_6

And where I find Costis cute, I did have to warm up to him, the stolid types are really not my usual fan-lieges. This also is revealing about why I'm not all over knights and therefore not all over the Round Table.

Robin Hood? Robin Hood and a band of outlaws, now THAT is my style. See, Merlin could have totally rocked that party, too. Though he probably would have been the endearing dork variant. ^.^

[jade_sabre_301]

oh no! as soon as I wrote that I went "wait, Red totally does love endearing dorks," and I thought about being like "the paradigm in your post" but then I was too lazy to fix it. :-b

ENDEARING DORKS ARE, BY DEFINITION, ENDEARING. :-b

...Jade-bait. ...Jade-bait. Hm. why do I like that phrase.

see, I had to warm up to Costis because when I first KoA I spent almost the entire novel going WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU THE MAIN POV CHARACTER OF THIS STORY AND WTF IS WRONG WITH EUGENIDES. (Jade: Missing The Point since 2006) It wasn't really until after the whole Costis Conspiracy at sounis that I went back and reread it with an eye of actually paying attention to his character. And then I liked him, and over time I came to realize that I was head over heels for him. He is my type. (Oops.) But if he is not yours, I totally get that! And also why you would be less into knights. (Although a lot of the knights are wild children! ...that end up accidentally cutting off ladies' heads oops

[loquaciousquark]

TRUTH: I've never really loved Arthurian stuff either. A couple years ago, I forced my way through all but the last thirty pages of Once and Future King, and I have never felt the slightest desire to go back and finish it. I think the closest I ever got to being an actual fan was the Disney movie, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't quite count. I've never read the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, though, so idk if that would appeal more. But. Yeah. /shrugs

[idiosyncreant]

If I remember correctly (and the last time I read it was many, many moons ago) the King Arthur's Court part was fairly minor--it felt more like a story set in that time with a little weird time-travel and a lot of modern-man-is-magic wit. There were some good laughs in the beginning, but it has a sad ending.

It's Mark Twain writing satirem that is kind of science-fictional/fantasy before the genre existed, so...interesting, anyhow.

[idiosyncreant]

Satire, not spelled with an "m". That almost looks like some alchemical-science term, Satirem...

[farrandy]

Boy, there is so much to respond to here

[idiosyncreant]

The more I think about Doc Brown as Merlin, the more I know I'm in trouble as soon as I figure out somewhere for him to be and something for him to be trying to do