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

iz a devll wummin

[idiosyncreant]

This must mean that if I write it, you will read it?

:fails at helping others withstand temptation:

Though, understand, these things usually morph so I'm the only one who KNOWS where the Underlying Structure of Back To The Future 2 crossed with Bewitched even are.

How do you feel about Doc Brown? Because, to me, he is the Merlin that is several hundred years younger, doing that backward growing, and this idea is spiraling out of control WHO IS THE DEVIL WOMAN HERE?

Re: iz a devll wummin

[jade_sabre_301]

um

um

um

yesplz

that is how I feel about this

:D

[rhinemouse]

COSTIIIIIIIIS HE IS THE HOTTEST HOW CAN YOU DENY

[idiosyncreant]

Costis: I didn't deny, he is quite hot, and I have more than once stole him with my baked goods, just as "fabricalchemist", who called me a cookie-baking jerk upon the occasion.
However. I am staunch in the Eugenides camp. I can't help it.

I know you love the loyal-to-death strong types. I understand, they just aren't my mortal weakness. XD

RE: your Arthur
This is interesting! Chretien being?
This makes me think of Juliette Marillier's Sevenwaters Trilogy which is only very marginally fantasy, in a way that feels organic to the Druidic world she's set up. I wrote on the board where we're discussing this that she's the one who'd write an Arthur I'd want to read, even if she completely got rid of Merlin.

As I said, the idea of Arthur, and the use of that theme in literature is interesting to me. Have you read C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy? That's one book where I wished I knew more of the scholarly Arthuriana that he referenced, and really liked the shades of Arthur in his hero, and the actual Merlin he brought into That Hideous Strength

[rhinemouse]

Chretien being a 12th century French poet who was one of the first Continental authors to write bout King Arthur and also pretty much invented the Holy Grail. (Go, Chretien!) His poems are full of encounters with magic and the otherworld except that there's no clear delineation between what's magic and what's just a really weird castle. Which makes it really compelling to me.

I have read the Space Trilogy, and That Hideous Strength was actually my favorite! Ransom honestly never interested me that much, but I did love Lewis's Merlin for his being uncompromisingly Not Modern.

[idiosyncreant]

The idea of Ransom is interesting to me, and in the last book, from an outsider's POV he was very fetching, I thought. But he is a bit of a blank, after the first scene of the first book, and then again through the rest...

Merlin, being wild and unapologetically so, much more impressive. I agree, the alien-ness of his medieval mindset was such you could feel C.S. Lewis' unusual, deep grasp on the time.

[rhinemouse]

The idea of Ransom is awesome, yes. And his first interview with Merlin gives me the chills--"In the sphere of Venus I learned war. In this age Lurga shall descend. I am the Pendragon." One of those lines that went KAPOW in my brain and that I will probably be subconsciously imitating for years to come.

Have you read Lewis's The Discarded Image? It's his attempt at a one-book introduction to the Medieval worldview. Been a looong time since I read it, but I recall enjoying it hugely.