srin
in
mad_poetics
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Since all the cool kids seem to be doing it, here, my thoughts on Arthur/Gwen and the direction of series 3: let me show you them.
To start with, let me just say that I'm not talking about Morgana here. As far as I am concerned, the real Morgana has yet to return to Camelot, this one is a doppelgänger conjured up by Morgause, fic on this subject Coming Soon To A Journal Near You, that's all I have to say on that. For purposes of this discussion, whatever, fine, 'Morgana' is an evil villain. Whatever.
But Gwen. Okay. I like Gwen. I love Gwen. I think Gwen will be a great queen. I don't expect everyone to love or like or even feel neutral about Gwen, but I do think a lot of the hate is completely over the top and inappropriate. A lot of people have already talked about that, that isn't really my point here. I dearly wish Gwen got more to do that didn't revolve around her romantic attachments, but this show has never been good at handling its female characters, and Gwen as an individual isn't really what this is about either.
What this is about is Gwen, Arthur, and Merlin, in the context of their relationships to one another.
Let's start with Arthur. In series 1, Arthur was a prat and a bit of a bully because he was spoiled and arrogant and didn't really know any better. But underneath that, he was a good man. He was noble and had a deep sense of duty to his people and his crown, and once Merlin came along to shake up the trajectory of his upbringing, it quickly became obvious that he had a big heart and the ability to care a hell of a lot even if he wasn't always good at showing it. At the end of series 1, he and Merlin had saved each other's lives a lot, they cared for each other a lot, they had this great relationship where they'd bicker and trade insults and then drop everything at a moment's notice because the other was in trouble.
Meanwhile, we had Gwen and Arthur. At the beginning, Arthur didn't really seem to have much awareness of Gwen, except as Morgana's maid. Gwen was plenty aware of Arthur, but not particularly impressed with him because, as previously mentioned, he came off as rather a bully. Over the course of the series, they worked together on several occasions - mostly to help Merlin - and because of this, Arthur became a bit more aware of Gwen as a person, and Gwen started to see the good in him, the potential he had to become a great king. Cool, right? A nice set-up for a slow-burning romance where they get to know each other as friends, recognize one another's skills and endearing traits, and gradually fall in love - to the tune of Merlin's affectionate teasing, because he is Arthur's best friend and Gwen's second-best friend after Morgana, and that is what friends do.
I would've loved that. I'll be upfront in terms of my shipping preferences here: Arthur and Merlin are in love, Gwen and Morgana are in love; if Morgana and Arthur are unavailable, Gwen and Merlin get it on; if Morgana and Merlin are unavailable, Gwen gets with Lancelot. Gwen and Arthur are adorkable together when there's an orgy. But we knew that Arthur and Gwen were going to get together in the show, and if they'd done it more or less as outlined above, I would've enjoyed the hell out of it in the show, written a lot of threesomes and orgies, and generally been a happy camper.
And then series 2 started. Suddenly, Arthur was treating Merlin worse than he did when they first met. All that trust and care that they'd built up was gone. All of Arthur's series 1 character development was gone. The vast majority of Merlin's spine was gone, and he was singing Arthur's praises despite Arthur acting worse than he did back when Merlin's tune was more like "There must be some other Arthur because this one sucks." Gwen got a wardrobe upgrade and Arthur fell madly in love with her in two days because she taught him some lessons of basic decency that he didn't seem to need last year.
Over the course of the series, Arthur slowly went back to treating Merlin like someone he actually cared about, though by that point Merlin had stopped trying to talk to Arthur and was too caught up in his own secrets and heartaches to take much notice. Meanwhile, Gwen and Arthur fell into a sort of holding pattern where they got declarations and longing looks but always went back to We Cannot Be by the end of the episode, because they couldn't be together openly and for whatever various reasons weren't willing to have a proper secret relationship. I found this rather tedious personally, but there were a few nice moments - most notably, that bit where they were rolling their eyes together about Vivian at the start of 2x10 - and I still held out hope that they could take the relationship in an enjoyable direction. Let them be friends while they can't be lovers, let them talk about armour (hello, blacksmith's daughter), or the monster of the week, or the faces Geoffrey was making at court. Let them have a relationship built on something more than Gwen teaching Arthur lessons he shouldn't need to be taught any more. Show me why they want to be together, because 'she tells me off' and 'he'll be a better ruler than his dad who killed my dad' isn't really enough for me.
And then series 3 happened. Gwen's doing all right, she's getting more screen time, she gets to contribute to the plot in ways that aren't 100% about Arthur, they've actually remembered that Gwen and Merlin are friends too to some extent. That's great! That's wonderful. Unfortunately, Arthur has developed a serious split-personality problem. When it comes to court matters, he's clever, noble, a good warrior and a good leader. That's excellent, no objections there. When he's with Gwen, they both start channelling romance novel stereotypes a bit too much for my taste, but he's still a good guy. And then, when he's with Merlin, he suddenly turns into a dangerous bully who has a serious temper problem and can't see the woods or the trees because he's so oblivious he'd be lucky to find his own nose where it's attached to his face. This is a problem. This is a serious problem.
It's true that Arthur and Merlin have a lot of problems other than Arthur's regression to a violent brain-dead frat boy. Arthur has no idea of most of what Merlin does for him so he can't really be blamed for not being properly appreciative, and Merlin's had some less-than-mature moments of his own this year. But the fact remains that Arthur's treatment of Merlin this year is absolutely abysmal.
And no, this is not Gwen's fault. Of course it isn't Gwen's fault. Gwen isn't making Arthur act like a twat; I want to think that if Gwen were aware of exactly how badly Arthur's treating Merlin, she would give him hell for it.
However. I do not think it is a coincidence that Arthur started treating Merlin like shit in 2x01, and in 2x02 Arthur fell in love with Gwen and she started teaching him how to be the man he already was at the end of series 1. This is not a character issue - Arthur did not start treating Merlin badly because he fell in love with Gwen. This is a meta issue. The writers couldn't be bothered to develop Arthur and Gwen's romance in a gradual, organic way. They wanted us to believe in them and root for them, but they weren't willing to do the work, to show us why these two need to be together. If they'd given Gwen - and by extension, Arthur/Gwen - the minimal amount of attention that they were willing to put in (have to leave room for trolls, farts, and swordfights, after all) while continuing to develop Arthur and Merlin's friendship as they had been in series 1, Arthur/Gwen wouldn't have been an epic love story. It would've been this little crush Arthur had on the side while his really important relationship continued to be his friendship with Merlin. It would've been the buddy cop show where one of them has a wife or girlfriend who turns up in a few episodes but is never going to be anywhere near as important to him (in the context of the show, at least) as his partner. If they had done that, I think Arthur/Merlin fans would've been pretty happy, while Gwen fans would've been enormously frustrated because of the disservice done to Gwen in that scenario.
But they didn't do that. They kept the Arthur/Gwen development to a minimum, yes, but still brought the idea of them to the forefront by doing a hatchet job on Arthur and Merlin's relationship. (And Arthur's relationship with Morgana. I'm not touching anything to do with Morgana in series 3, but I really hate how they just completely removed any indication that Arthur cared about her at all in series 2.) They removed pretty much all of Arthur's positive development and made him relearn everything, this time with Gwen as the teacher. They made him throw things at Merlin, dismiss Merlin, generally treat Merlin terribly, while having sweet and tender scenes with Gwen. Now any emotional development that Merlin gets occurs with Gaius, and all of Arthur's emotional development occurs with Gwen. Arthur and Gwen as a couple still aren't getting much time or development, but because Gwen hardly gets any screen time that doesn't involve Arthur, and because Arthur is an absolute dick to the one person who might be a rival for his care and attention, it starts feeling like the romance between Arthur and Gwen is a big central part of the show.
Which sucks if you don't really enjoy how that romance is portrayed, and it really sucks if you care at all about Arthur's character. Having him respond to Gwen's encouragement to be a better guy only to turn around and use Merlin as a practice dummy doesn't make it look like Gwen's being a good influence on him, it looks like Arthur's putting on an act for her so he can get into her pants. I hate that. And it looks like 3x10 is going to take this problem to the extreme. Spoilers say Uther is going to banish Gwen from Camelot to keep them apart, and Arthur is going to decide that if she leaves, he's leaving with her. Arthur's the crown prince, Arthur has spent his whole life training to one day be king, Arthur has always been all about his duty to his people, but now all of a sudden he's going to forsake all of that rather than give up the occasional stolen kiss in an alcove until Uther dies and he can call Gwen back? I just. No. Just no. That is not the Arthur Pendragon I fell in love with back in series 1, the guy who was determined to ride out to save Merlin's life and only hesitated because he thought he'd be letting his people down if he got killed in the attempt. I'm sure Gwen will protest and tell him not to do it if she has a chance, but that isn't the point, the point is that he'd need to talked out of it in the first place. The problem isn't Gwen, the problem is how Arthur reacts to Gwen.
So, uh, that's a lot of rambling and ranting. What it boils down to, basically, is this: I love Gwen. And I think it's absurd to hold Gwen-the-character responsible for the things that are going wrong in terms of Arthur and Arthur-and-Merlin in series 3. However, I do think that a substantial portion of those problems (by no means all of them, but the need for the reveal, like, two years ago, is a different rant) can be traced to the writers'/producers' efforts to promote the Arthur-and-Gwen romance without putting in any of the work necessary to do it in a way that's believable and true to the characters they established back in series 1.
The problem isn't that Arthur/Gwen is getting too much time and attention, not by a long shot. The writers'/producers' big concern here isn't the romance or anyone's character development, it's low-brow humour and swanky guest stars, it's sword fights and CGI monsters and making the kids want Merlin merchandise for Christmas. The problem is that they aren't willing to give Arthur/Gwen the quality of development it needs, but they also aren't willing to leave it in the minor sub-plot corner so they're trying to compensate by lowering the quality of development elsewhere. Instead of showing us why Arthur loves Gwen, they're telling us that of course he loves her, look, he doesn't throw stuff at her, he's willing to abandon his kingdom for her!
That's the problem. That is absolutely not Gwen's fault, and it makes me sad to see people hating on her because they're unhappy with how the show's going. But at the same time, I can't really blame people for having some resentment towards Arthur/Gwen as a thing. (Keyword some; I am absolutely not defending frothing capslocky hate here.) It's like ... Imagine Suzie. Suzie is five years old and for her whole life she's been the centre of her parents' world. She gets all the sweets and presents and toys and love and attention. And then all of a sudden there's Molly, her new baby sister. Now her parents are cooing over Molly, paying attention to Molly, buying Molly all the presents, and Suzie's left feeling alone and unloved. Is any of this Molly's fault? No, of course it isn't. If anyone is responsible, it's Mom and Dad - obviously they're going to love and pay attention to Molly, Molly's new, Molly needs more stuff, but they also need to keep Suzie's feelings and needs in mind, not just send her off to the babysitter all the time while they play with Molly and knit her booties with violin concertos on the stereo. The way I see it here, Suzie's Arthur/Merlin and their fandom, Molly's Arthur/Gwen and their fandom, and the parents are the show producers. Ultimately, the parents are responsible for Suzie's unhappiness, but I can't really blame Suzie for resenting Molly a bit here. (And no, I don't mean to imply that the producers have any sort of responsibility to Arthur/Merlin fandom here, that's not the point of the metaphor.)
So, uh, yeah. That's my soapbox. Stepping off it now. There are enough things wrong with the show at this point that, fic-wise, I'm really not interested in dealing with series 3 at all except in terms of my Morgana AU and some Merlin/Gwaine stuff. (Gwaine! &hearts Also Elena &hearts !) Otherwise, I'm all about the nice series-1-based canon and other time/place AUs, where my OT4 are still my OT4, where Arthur's still the character I adore, where Morgana is still Morgana. In my personal canon, we are still giving the finger to this tragic destiny malarkey because goddammit, we have unicorns and anachronistic foodstuffs and there's nothing that can't be solved with a bit of mangled Old English and a nice bi-sexual orgy in Arthur's big ridiculous bed.
But series 3 does still exist, so I just wanted to say my piece about it, I guess. Thoughts/comments/caps of Bradley pulling ridiculous faces all welcome.
To start with, let me just say that I'm not talking about Morgana here. As far as I am concerned, the real Morgana has yet to return to Camelot, this one is a doppelgänger conjured up by Morgause, fic on this subject Coming Soon To A Journal Near You, that's all I have to say on that. For purposes of this discussion, whatever, fine, 'Morgana' is an evil villain. Whatever.
But Gwen. Okay. I like Gwen. I love Gwen. I think Gwen will be a great queen. I don't expect everyone to love or like or even feel neutral about Gwen, but I do think a lot of the hate is completely over the top and inappropriate. A lot of people have already talked about that, that isn't really my point here. I dearly wish Gwen got more to do that didn't revolve around her romantic attachments, but this show has never been good at handling its female characters, and Gwen as an individual isn't really what this is about either.
What this is about is Gwen, Arthur, and Merlin, in the context of their relationships to one another.
Let's start with Arthur. In series 1, Arthur was a prat and a bit of a bully because he was spoiled and arrogant and didn't really know any better. But underneath that, he was a good man. He was noble and had a deep sense of duty to his people and his crown, and once Merlin came along to shake up the trajectory of his upbringing, it quickly became obvious that he had a big heart and the ability to care a hell of a lot even if he wasn't always good at showing it. At the end of series 1, he and Merlin had saved each other's lives a lot, they cared for each other a lot, they had this great relationship where they'd bicker and trade insults and then drop everything at a moment's notice because the other was in trouble.
Meanwhile, we had Gwen and Arthur. At the beginning, Arthur didn't really seem to have much awareness of Gwen, except as Morgana's maid. Gwen was plenty aware of Arthur, but not particularly impressed with him because, as previously mentioned, he came off as rather a bully. Over the course of the series, they worked together on several occasions - mostly to help Merlin - and because of this, Arthur became a bit more aware of Gwen as a person, and Gwen started to see the good in him, the potential he had to become a great king. Cool, right? A nice set-up for a slow-burning romance where they get to know each other as friends, recognize one another's skills and endearing traits, and gradually fall in love - to the tune of Merlin's affectionate teasing, because he is Arthur's best friend and Gwen's second-best friend after Morgana, and that is what friends do.
I would've loved that. I'll be upfront in terms of my shipping preferences here: Arthur and Merlin are in love, Gwen and Morgana are in love; if Morgana and Arthur are unavailable, Gwen and Merlin get it on; if Morgana and Merlin are unavailable, Gwen gets with Lancelot. Gwen and Arthur are adorkable together when there's an orgy. But we knew that Arthur and Gwen were going to get together in the show, and if they'd done it more or less as outlined above, I would've enjoyed the hell out of it in the show, written a lot of threesomes and orgies, and generally been a happy camper.
And then series 2 started. Suddenly, Arthur was treating Merlin worse than he did when they first met. All that trust and care that they'd built up was gone. All of Arthur's series 1 character development was gone. The vast majority of Merlin's spine was gone, and he was singing Arthur's praises despite Arthur acting worse than he did back when Merlin's tune was more like "There must be some other Arthur because this one sucks." Gwen got a wardrobe upgrade and Arthur fell madly in love with her in two days because she taught him some lessons of basic decency that he didn't seem to need last year.
Over the course of the series, Arthur slowly went back to treating Merlin like someone he actually cared about, though by that point Merlin had stopped trying to talk to Arthur and was too caught up in his own secrets and heartaches to take much notice. Meanwhile, Gwen and Arthur fell into a sort of holding pattern where they got declarations and longing looks but always went back to We Cannot Be by the end of the episode, because they couldn't be together openly and for whatever various reasons weren't willing to have a proper secret relationship. I found this rather tedious personally, but there were a few nice moments - most notably, that bit where they were rolling their eyes together about Vivian at the start of 2x10 - and I still held out hope that they could take the relationship in an enjoyable direction. Let them be friends while they can't be lovers, let them talk about armour (hello, blacksmith's daughter), or the monster of the week, or the faces Geoffrey was making at court. Let them have a relationship built on something more than Gwen teaching Arthur lessons he shouldn't need to be taught any more. Show me why they want to be together, because 'she tells me off' and 'he'll be a better ruler than his dad who killed my dad' isn't really enough for me.
And then series 3 happened. Gwen's doing all right, she's getting more screen time, she gets to contribute to the plot in ways that aren't 100% about Arthur, they've actually remembered that Gwen and Merlin are friends too to some extent. That's great! That's wonderful. Unfortunately, Arthur has developed a serious split-personality problem. When it comes to court matters, he's clever, noble, a good warrior and a good leader. That's excellent, no objections there. When he's with Gwen, they both start channelling romance novel stereotypes a bit too much for my taste, but he's still a good guy. And then, when he's with Merlin, he suddenly turns into a dangerous bully who has a serious temper problem and can't see the woods or the trees because he's so oblivious he'd be lucky to find his own nose where it's attached to his face. This is a problem. This is a serious problem.
It's true that Arthur and Merlin have a lot of problems other than Arthur's regression to a violent brain-dead frat boy. Arthur has no idea of most of what Merlin does for him so he can't really be blamed for not being properly appreciative, and Merlin's had some less-than-mature moments of his own this year. But the fact remains that Arthur's treatment of Merlin this year is absolutely abysmal.
And no, this is not Gwen's fault. Of course it isn't Gwen's fault. Gwen isn't making Arthur act like a twat; I want to think that if Gwen were aware of exactly how badly Arthur's treating Merlin, she would give him hell for it.
However. I do not think it is a coincidence that Arthur started treating Merlin like shit in 2x01, and in 2x02 Arthur fell in love with Gwen and she started teaching him how to be the man he already was at the end of series 1. This is not a character issue - Arthur did not start treating Merlin badly because he fell in love with Gwen. This is a meta issue. The writers couldn't be bothered to develop Arthur and Gwen's romance in a gradual, organic way. They wanted us to believe in them and root for them, but they weren't willing to do the work, to show us why these two need to be together. If they'd given Gwen - and by extension, Arthur/Gwen - the minimal amount of attention that they were willing to put in (have to leave room for trolls, farts, and swordfights, after all) while continuing to develop Arthur and Merlin's friendship as they had been in series 1, Arthur/Gwen wouldn't have been an epic love story. It would've been this little crush Arthur had on the side while his really important relationship continued to be his friendship with Merlin. It would've been the buddy cop show where one of them has a wife or girlfriend who turns up in a few episodes but is never going to be anywhere near as important to him (in the context of the show, at least) as his partner. If they had done that, I think Arthur/Merlin fans would've been pretty happy, while Gwen fans would've been enormously frustrated because of the disservice done to Gwen in that scenario.
But they didn't do that. They kept the Arthur/Gwen development to a minimum, yes, but still brought the idea of them to the forefront by doing a hatchet job on Arthur and Merlin's relationship. (And Arthur's relationship with Morgana. I'm not touching anything to do with Morgana in series 3, but I really hate how they just completely removed any indication that Arthur cared about her at all in series 2.) They removed pretty much all of Arthur's positive development and made him relearn everything, this time with Gwen as the teacher. They made him throw things at Merlin, dismiss Merlin, generally treat Merlin terribly, while having sweet and tender scenes with Gwen. Now any emotional development that Merlin gets occurs with Gaius, and all of Arthur's emotional development occurs with Gwen. Arthur and Gwen as a couple still aren't getting much time or development, but because Gwen hardly gets any screen time that doesn't involve Arthur, and because Arthur is an absolute dick to the one person who might be a rival for his care and attention, it starts feeling like the romance between Arthur and Gwen is a big central part of the show.
Which sucks if you don't really enjoy how that romance is portrayed, and it really sucks if you care at all about Arthur's character. Having him respond to Gwen's encouragement to be a better guy only to turn around and use Merlin as a practice dummy doesn't make it look like Gwen's being a good influence on him, it looks like Arthur's putting on an act for her so he can get into her pants. I hate that. And it looks like 3x10 is going to take this problem to the extreme. Spoilers say Uther is going to banish Gwen from Camelot to keep them apart, and Arthur is going to decide that if she leaves, he's leaving with her. Arthur's the crown prince, Arthur has spent his whole life training to one day be king, Arthur has always been all about his duty to his people, but now all of a sudden he's going to forsake all of that rather than give up the occasional stolen kiss in an alcove until Uther dies and he can call Gwen back? I just. No. Just no. That is not the Arthur Pendragon I fell in love with back in series 1, the guy who was determined to ride out to save Merlin's life and only hesitated because he thought he'd be letting his people down if he got killed in the attempt. I'm sure Gwen will protest and tell him not to do it if she has a chance, but that isn't the point, the point is that he'd need to talked out of it in the first place. The problem isn't Gwen, the problem is how Arthur reacts to Gwen.
So, uh, that's a lot of rambling and ranting. What it boils down to, basically, is this: I love Gwen. And I think it's absurd to hold Gwen-the-character responsible for the things that are going wrong in terms of Arthur and Arthur-and-Merlin in series 3. However, I do think that a substantial portion of those problems (by no means all of them, but the need for the reveal, like, two years ago, is a different rant) can be traced to the writers'/producers' efforts to promote the Arthur-and-Gwen romance without putting in any of the work necessary to do it in a way that's believable and true to the characters they established back in series 1.
The problem isn't that Arthur/Gwen is getting too much time and attention, not by a long shot. The writers'/producers' big concern here isn't the romance or anyone's character development, it's low-brow humour and swanky guest stars, it's sword fights and CGI monsters and making the kids want Merlin merchandise for Christmas. The problem is that they aren't willing to give Arthur/Gwen the quality of development it needs, but they also aren't willing to leave it in the minor sub-plot corner so they're trying to compensate by lowering the quality of development elsewhere. Instead of showing us why Arthur loves Gwen, they're telling us that of course he loves her, look, he doesn't throw stuff at her, he's willing to abandon his kingdom for her!
That's the problem. That is absolutely not Gwen's fault, and it makes me sad to see people hating on her because they're unhappy with how the show's going. But at the same time, I can't really blame people for having some resentment towards Arthur/Gwen as a thing. (Keyword some; I am absolutely not defending frothing capslocky hate here.) It's like ... Imagine Suzie. Suzie is five years old and for her whole life she's been the centre of her parents' world. She gets all the sweets and presents and toys and love and attention. And then all of a sudden there's Molly, her new baby sister. Now her parents are cooing over Molly, paying attention to Molly, buying Molly all the presents, and Suzie's left feeling alone and unloved. Is any of this Molly's fault? No, of course it isn't. If anyone is responsible, it's Mom and Dad - obviously they're going to love and pay attention to Molly, Molly's new, Molly needs more stuff, but they also need to keep Suzie's feelings and needs in mind, not just send her off to the babysitter all the time while they play with Molly and knit her booties with violin concertos on the stereo. The way I see it here, Suzie's Arthur/Merlin and their fandom, Molly's Arthur/Gwen and their fandom, and the parents are the show producers. Ultimately, the parents are responsible for Suzie's unhappiness, but I can't really blame Suzie for resenting Molly a bit here. (And no, I don't mean to imply that the producers have any sort of responsibility to Arthur/Merlin fandom here, that's not the point of the metaphor.)
So, uh, yeah. That's my soapbox. Stepping off it now. There are enough things wrong with the show at this point that, fic-wise, I'm really not interested in dealing with series 3 at all except in terms of my Morgana AU and some Merlin/Gwaine stuff. (Gwaine! &hearts Also Elena &hearts !) Otherwise, I'm all about the nice series-1-based canon and other time/place AUs, where my OT4 are still my OT4, where Arthur's still the character I adore, where Morgana is still Morgana. In my personal canon, we are still giving the finger to this tragic destiny malarkey because goddammit, we have unicorns and anachronistic foodstuffs and there's nothing that can't be solved with a bit of mangled Old English and a nice bi-sexual orgy in Arthur's big ridiculous bed.
But series 3 does still exist, so I just wanted to say my piece about it, I guess. Thoughts/comments/caps of Bradley pulling ridiculous faces all welcome.