Mists of Avalon: It'd be really awesome if it weren't for the parts that aren't.
I’ve put off reading or watching Mists of Avalon for years due to the one prequel Avalon book that I read (I think it was Lady of Avalon)that had several previous incarnations of Morgaine, Guinevere and Arthur and was basically “Morgaine and Guinevere are always meant to be connected, but then Arthur shows up and Guinevere gets thrown under a bus in the name of Morgaine and Arthur’s epic and eternal love, but that’s ok because Guinevere is just a weak and dull Christian and not a super awesome pagan like Morgaine.”
(I’m going to harp on the Christian bit, but that’s because I feel that pitting the religions against each other specifically the way this does is also why Morgaine and Guinevere are pitted against each other, and why Guinevere is characterized the way she is.)
So, yeah.
What I didn’t like:
1. The fact that the treatment of Guinevere was as bad as I feared. Actually, possibly worse. (And I understand the book even moreso.) I basically…pitied Guinevere herself, and hated the way she and Morgaine were immediately pitted against each other (and over a man at that) even before we got to the religious baggage and the “Morgaine is awesome because she is wild and of the old ways, and Guinevere sucks because she’s civilized and gentle and of the new ways and lets not forget an icky Christian too” approach. (Uhm…a part of me feels that I suffered 3 hours just for the payoff of Morgaine and Guinevere hugging at the end? But only in this aspect of it.)
2. The pro-Uther and pro-Igraine/Uther aspect. I suspect the miniseries actually wanted us to ship them? I object on principle. Like, even when Igraine’s rape is removed (like it largely was here) part of me always has no problem with the downfall of Arthur’s kingdom because so much of it even pre-Mallory revolves around Igraine being raped so Merlin can get what he wants.
3. How a lot of the plot involved women being pressured into having sex with men they didn’t particularly want to in the name of getting an heir. While none were technically raped, 2 had sex with men they had previously said “No, I do not want to have sex with this man. Sure, I have the hots for him, but I choose not to have sex with him,” and made no personal choice to change that stance without being pressured into it, and a third…had no issues with the sexual relationship itself at the time or before, but most likely would not have had sex had she known who she was having it with. (This last I…don’t think would actually bother me because of the perspective of the times if it weren’t for the other two, because it helps create a theme of women having to have sex for the greater good, regardless of their personal choices.)
4. This is a time-constraints thing, but you…can really tell that at least half the book ended up on the cutting room floor, and there were some bits where I was piecing together the parts that weren’t clear based on pre-existing knowledge.
Also, Michael Vartan as Lancelot was a rather silly choice. Like, I’m not sure about some of the other casting choices, but I think they all worked in the end? But that one just made me laugh.
What I liked:
Basically everything else.
In particular, aside from the “Arthurian mythos from the perspective of the women and the men are side characters” part:
1. Within the first 20 minutes, it did more with Igraine than everything else I’ve seen/read has combined. (I’m told a large part of the book is about her, and that’s my biggest incentive in possibly reading it.)
2. While I don’t mind a lot of the medieval stuff (Though I…am not fond of Mallory.) my actual interest usually lies more in the older myths, the more obscure the better, and, while the Lancelot and Guinevere aspect was very Mallory, everything else uses the older stuff. (Uhm…I think the Guinevere movie I watched recently did a bit of a better job with the obscure stuff and comparatively did better with less time and resources, and did the same for Guinevere that this did for Morgaine, but without tossing Morgaine under a bus, so to speak, but that’s another topic, and I half think it was something of a response to the book, but that’s another topic.)
3. While this…isn’t in any of the myths I’m familiar with, I liked that Igraine, Viviane and Morguase were sisters, and that the real battle was between Morguase and Viviane.
4. Morguase and Mordred’s twin smiles of gleeful evil. They were just…so happily sinister!
5. Though it…was somewhat “too little, too late” for me I was glad that the Morgaine/Guinevere relationship was positive at the end.
Anyway, while I have my problems, and these are pretty major problems for me, I liked it over all, though I think it needed to be longer and more fleshed out to really be good. But, while I have issued with Bradley and am kind of scared to read her (uhm…I have Ghostlight, her Kassandra book and some Darkover books in my backlog, but am a bit nervous about them) I am appreciative of how aside from Guinevere) she affected modern depictions of the women in Arthuriana, even if they aren’t…always the best.
Fun tidbit: Tamsin Egerton, probably currently best known as Chelsea in the St. Trinian’s movies, will play Guinevere in the upcoming Camelot series from Starz. (This looks largely promising, though some bits in the trailers concern me. I also fear gratuitous sex scenes, though there’s no way they could be as gratuitous, pointless and boringly pretentious as the ones in the two episodes of Spartacus: Flying Ketchup and Pretentious Dirt that I saw were.) She also played the child version of Morgaine in this.
(I’m going to harp on the Christian bit, but that’s because I feel that pitting the religions against each other specifically the way this does is also why Morgaine and Guinevere are pitted against each other, and why Guinevere is characterized the way she is.)
So, yeah.
What I didn’t like:
1. The fact that the treatment of Guinevere was as bad as I feared. Actually, possibly worse. (And I understand the book even moreso.) I basically…pitied Guinevere herself, and hated the way she and Morgaine were immediately pitted against each other (and over a man at that) even before we got to the religious baggage and the “Morgaine is awesome because she is wild and of the old ways, and Guinevere sucks because she’s civilized and gentle and of the new ways and lets not forget an icky Christian too” approach. (Uhm…a part of me feels that I suffered 3 hours just for the payoff of Morgaine and Guinevere hugging at the end? But only in this aspect of it.)
2. The pro-Uther and pro-Igraine/Uther aspect. I suspect the miniseries actually wanted us to ship them? I object on principle. Like, even when Igraine’s rape is removed (like it largely was here) part of me always has no problem with the downfall of Arthur’s kingdom because so much of it even pre-Mallory revolves around Igraine being raped so Merlin can get what he wants.
3. How a lot of the plot involved women being pressured into having sex with men they didn’t particularly want to in the name of getting an heir. While none were technically raped, 2 had sex with men they had previously said “No, I do not want to have sex with this man. Sure, I have the hots for him, but I choose not to have sex with him,” and made no personal choice to change that stance without being pressured into it, and a third…had no issues with the sexual relationship itself at the time or before, but most likely would not have had sex had she known who she was having it with. (This last I…don’t think would actually bother me because of the perspective of the times if it weren’t for the other two, because it helps create a theme of women having to have sex for the greater good, regardless of their personal choices.)
4. This is a time-constraints thing, but you…can really tell that at least half the book ended up on the cutting room floor, and there were some bits where I was piecing together the parts that weren’t clear based on pre-existing knowledge.
Also, Michael Vartan as Lancelot was a rather silly choice. Like, I’m not sure about some of the other casting choices, but I think they all worked in the end? But that one just made me laugh.
What I liked:
Basically everything else.
In particular, aside from the “Arthurian mythos from the perspective of the women and the men are side characters” part:
1. Within the first 20 minutes, it did more with Igraine than everything else I’ve seen/read has combined. (I’m told a large part of the book is about her, and that’s my biggest incentive in possibly reading it.)
2. While I don’t mind a lot of the medieval stuff (Though I…am not fond of Mallory.) my actual interest usually lies more in the older myths, the more obscure the better, and, while the Lancelot and Guinevere aspect was very Mallory, everything else uses the older stuff. (Uhm…I think the Guinevere movie I watched recently did a bit of a better job with the obscure stuff and comparatively did better with less time and resources, and did the same for Guinevere that this did for Morgaine, but without tossing Morgaine under a bus, so to speak, but that’s another topic, and I half think it was something of a response to the book, but that’s another topic.)
3. While this…isn’t in any of the myths I’m familiar with, I liked that Igraine, Viviane and Morguase were sisters, and that the real battle was between Morguase and Viviane.
4. Morguase and Mordred’s twin smiles of gleeful evil. They were just…so happily sinister!
5. Though it…was somewhat “too little, too late” for me I was glad that the Morgaine/Guinevere relationship was positive at the end.
Anyway, while I have my problems, and these are pretty major problems for me, I liked it over all, though I think it needed to be longer and more fleshed out to really be good. But, while I have issued with Bradley and am kind of scared to read her (uhm…I have Ghostlight, her Kassandra book and some Darkover books in my backlog, but am a bit nervous about them) I am appreciative of how aside from Guinevere) she affected modern depictions of the women in Arthuriana, even if they aren’t…always the best.
Fun tidbit: Tamsin Egerton, probably currently best known as Chelsea in the St. Trinian’s movies, will play Guinevere in the upcoming Camelot series from Starz. (This looks largely promising, though some bits in the trailers concern me. I also fear gratuitous sex scenes, though there’s no way they could be as gratuitous, pointless and boringly pretentious as the ones in the two episodes of Spartacus: Flying Ketchup and Pretentious Dirt that I saw were.) She also played the child version of Morgaine in this.