What other qualities might have shown up to Arthur's surprise party?
I don't know who made this, but if you do, tell me, because it is brilliant and deserves credit.
Happy Halloween! This evening, as I take a break from Latin to eat my dinner, I thought I'd share a bit of the weekly conversation Bethany and I had about the latest Merlin episode. We spent some time trying to figure out what defining characteristics Grettir would assign to Lancelot, Gwen, and Morgana. Hopefully, Bethany won't mind me posting this here, because I thought it was priceless.
This is from memory, but really recent memory, so I think it's fairly accurate. I've marked a few instances of extreme laughter, but to get an accurate idea of this conversation, you have to imagine us giggling throughout.
Me: “If Arthur is Courage, Merlin is Magic, and Gwaine is Strength, what would Lancelot be?”
Bethany: “Passion?”
Me: “Yeah, that might be good. I was thinking something like Handsomeness.”
Bethany: “Handsomeness! [laughter] But they’re all handsome!”
Me: “But when I think of Lancelot, that’s what stands out!”
Bethany: “Maybe Honor.”
Me: “Yeah, Honor. Or Humility, maybe.”
Bethany: “Loyalty?”
Me: “Yes, any number of ironic things like Honor and Loyalty.”
Bethany: “Well, they’re still true now.”
Me: “Yes, that’s true. And if Morgana and Gwen had joined the party, Gwen would be Love, I’m pretty sure. What would Morgana be? If it was Evil Morgana, she’d be Evil, obviously.”
Bethany: “Evil, Deceit, Trickery…”
Me: “Ooh, Deceit, that’s a good one. But if it was Good Morgana…”
Bethany: “Beauty. If Lancelot can be Handsomeness, Morgana is Beauty.”
Me: “But that would just make Gwen feel bad!”
Bethany: “But that was her one thing-”
Me: “That was not Good Morgana’s one distinguishing feature! You take that back! Good Morgana was more than just a pretty face and you know it.”
Bethany: “Oh, sure, she could be one of her other distinguishing features, like…”
Me: “She meant well.”
Bethany: “So Well-Intentioned Narcissism?”
Me: “[laughter] Well-Intentioned Narcissism! Yes! That is too good! Yes, here we have Magic, Strength, Love, and Well-Intentioned Narcissism! Oh my God! Perfect. No, but she did have positive qualities. She used to think about other people sometimes. She used to be nice to the common people!”
Bethany: “Yeah, if she was friends with them…”
Me: “And she made sure food was distributed to the children and old people during the Unicorn Plague!”
Bethany: “Oh, man! [laughter] I forgot about the Unicorn Plague! That was so long ago! Man, why can’t we have problems like that anymore? We could use a good Unicorn Plague! Such a simple problem!”
Me: “I know, right? So easily solved!”
Bethany: “Come back, Unicorn Plague! Oh, ‘Labyrinth of Gedref’…”
Me: “But no, look, she was smart, she was brave-well, brave to a certain extent.”
Bethany: “Yeah. She could be Bravery, but Bravery is really like Courage…”
Me: “The Pendragon children, Bravery and Courage. She could be Incest?”
Bethany: “Ew!”
Me: “[cackling] Just kidding, I’m just kidding. Oh, man. Defiance-she could be Defiance, I think…”
Bethany: “Passion. Morgana is all about passion, whatever she does.”
Me: “That’s true, that’s really true. I can definitely see her being Passion.”
And thus, the Dream Team of Courage, Magic, Strength, Honor, Love, and Well-Intentioned Narcissism Passion. What do you think? What qualities would you, dear readers, assign to the Merlin characters?