How the other half lives...

[selenak]

If you're written fanfiction for some time, you're bound to encounter, sooner or later, feedback along the lines of "usually I don't care about character X, but you've made me think about him/her" or "your story really made X work for me". Actually, that's the best version. Sometimes the feedback sounds more like "X is scum/ I've always hated that

Comments

Re: I love your thoughts on Merlin

[selenak]

No apologies necessary! As I said in the post, Gaius I have mixed feelings about myself, and partly wrote about him to figure out his motivations for his questionable decisions, so it was thrilling to find out it had such an effect on you. (Hence my conclusion that a kneejerk protective reaction on my part probably depends on whether or not I originally loved the character in question before ever writing anything.)

Re: Morgana: I'm personally bemused by people who complain about the show writing Morgana inconsistently, because while I have many, many beefs with the way she's written, she's probably the most consistent character on the show, writing-wise.

Yes, as the kids today say, this. I, too, wish Morgana had been written differently (my golden standard for "sympathetic character goes darkside - and back!" arc remains Londo Mollari on Babylon 5, and I tend to compare all other attempts with this, especially on the "does this character get to make active choices which in addition to circumstances contribute to his/her downfall, does the story shy away from showing us the consequences, does the character then get a chance to face those consequences and make more choices" front), but the fact of the matter is that we did get characterisation to work with.

And she's always been a morally problematic character--which for me is a lot of what makes her interesting.

True, and hence my fanfic frustration, because I would love to read exploration for this. (Especially with the lack of screentime.) For example, did really all of Toran's people die in To kill a King? What if one of them survived, made it into the druid's camp later and confronts Morgana during her time there about her killing Toran? It's all very well for her to be overcome by her affection for Uther, but not so well for the people she promised she'd help, and how reliable an ally is she now, how do they know she won't change her mind again, etc. And see Morgana react to this.

And don't get me started on her relationship to Gwen--yes, I think there's a bond, and I'm very interested in that, but it is not by any means an unproblematic relationship, and the power differential between them has always skewed it. (Look at their interactions in 1x05 "Lancelot," for instance, including the high-handed way Morgana tells Gwen to get back to work.)

*nods* I think someone said that in 2.11 - when Morgana dismisses Gwen - that this is the first time Morgana pulled rank on her, on screen at least. And it really isn't. In the scene in Lancelot she does it in a nicer manner, but she does it nonetheless. Conversely, it never seems to occur to Gwen to either make Morgana a participant in the "let's get Lancelot his knighthood" scheme, or to tell her at the end she's developed feelings for him, and this is before Tom's death, with Gwen at her most open. Another memorable description of Morgana's and Gwen's relationship that I've read was that it was the non-dysfunctional version of Arthur's and Merlin's, and well, yes and no. They certainly have no problem showing each other affection, but they also hide their disagreements from each other, and the status difference is an issue in either case.