Merlin - Cracked Reflections - An Uther/Morgana Ship Manifesto

[firthgal]

Title: Cracked Reflections
Author: firthgal
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Uther/Morgana
Spoilers: All of series 1
Disclaimer: Merlin and it's characters do not belong to me.
Author's Note: The intro and character bios were heavily beta'd by the wonderful llivla. If not for her, this would have been a lost cause.

Comments

[mossylawn]

Honestly I fall into the second cathegory, and if there's het in this show it's definitely Morgana/Uther since there's almost as much dynamics as in Merlin/Arthur, not to mention there are times when they do appear practically 'married', like in Poisoned Chalice when Arthur rides off and whilst Uther has no problem treating Morgana as a grown up woman while he refuses to acknowledge his son adulthood. Also Morgana sometimes takes on more a maternal role than that of an adopted sister but I guess that comes from her being the only woman in the household.

This was a fantastic manifesto :D

[firthgal]

YES to all of this! Ooooh, I love them so very much. I know the show can't literally acknowledge Uther/Morgana to be a canon romance seeing as how it's a family show, but they certainly give us enough evidence for it. Thanks for reading, I appreciate it!

[mossylawn]

I know, I was so happy that someone wrote a manifesto about this ship, because I feel there's not nearly enough love for this ship, a ship that is actually just as canon as Merlin/Arthur if not even more valid (for M/A are still being just pure teenage boys despite all the eye-sex), there's all this delicious angst, unresolved tension, power struggle since both of them have very dominant personalities and are stuborn as hell which obviously leads to violent arguments, but underneath all that they obviously do care about one another. There's also an underlying (however subtle) of romance...I mean...all those dinners? You don't exactly see Arthur dining with his father or with Morgana, despite her being supposedly his 'intended'. Right? right?

Anyhoo, I love you loads for posting this and I found your parallel with Merlin/Arthur as being the 'mirror opposite' very very intrigueing (and true too).

[mossylawn]

Ah, I knew there was something I've forgotten. There's the issue of 'wrongness' that I wanted to mention. Well, to tell the truth we don't know precisely what age Morgana is and how old she was when she had been taken under Uther's care. In the myths she's always a bit older than Arthur and in this BBC retelling she both acts and looks older than him too, so had Uther adopted her let's say in her early teens it was already too late for them to forge a father/daughter dynamic which could obviously fuel the angst and so on...ok, just my thought.

[firthgal]

Well, actually, in To Kill a King Morgana mentions that she was 10 when Gorloris died, so I assume that's how old she was when she went to live with Uther. But was Uther really that involved in her childhood? I would think she would have been raised by a nanny (or a nurse, whatever they called it back then). He most likely didn't take an active interest in her until she was older, but then again, it sounds like Uther was charmed/frustrated by her from the moment she came to live with him, so who knows. This is exactly why I dig backstory fics so much. There should be more of them.

[mossylawn]

Oh yeah, I haven't got to rewatching 1x12 yet so I guess I needed some refreshing.
But I don't think Uther was very involved in bringing up Morgana, or even Arthur for that matter, since he really does not seem to know how to act around his son, he's used to soldiers or soldier recruits and sees Arthur through his son being a warrior.
It has to be even more perplexing to him with Morgana, since she's neither a man (though she is a warrior which leads to all the delicious conflict) nor a soldier(though she is a warrior which leads to all the delicious conflict) , so yeah backstory fics are gold.

[firthgal]

Oh god, I know, the dinners! Morgana in her fancy dress wearing her fancy jewelry, the room is completely devoid of everyone but them, Uther's husky voice, THE CANDLE LIGHT (which... is a necessity seeing as how they don't have electricity, but... let's just ignore that fact). And then of course them looking all coupley on their thrones and ordering Arthur around. They clearly love playing house together

[mossylawn]

They clearly love playing house together.They really really do. As dysfunctional house as it is, I love how Morgana uses Arthur sometimes to both do what she thinks is right but also get back at Uther. Their dynamics are so very marital that it's just ridiculous

[firthgal]

Oh, I definitely see Morgana/Gwen, but it's more like Gwen is to Morgana as Gaius is to Uther, only... Morgana/Gwen is hot while Uther/Gaius is not (sorry, Gaius). But Morgana's relationship with Gwen is really her only loving, supportive relationship and they are both fiercely protective of each other. But, sometimes it seems like Morgana doesn't quite know how to connect with Gwen and is quite awkward when she tries to simply because she's not used to such normal interaction. It's hard for her to lower her shield and just open herself up like that. She's too used to getting hurt. And of course this will cause angst for them in future happenings. Honestly, I don't think there's a ship on this show that I can't ship at least a little (except perhaps for Arthur/Morgana, but even with them I think they're a little bit in love, no matter how much it bothers me). But for OTPness? It's Uther/Morgana all the way. And of course Arthur/Merlin.

[mossylawn]

Oh, I'm defo with you there!!