Merlin; My Thoughts and some Rambling Part 2.2

[sugaredwhimsey]

Part one is Here.

Arthur is the opposite from Merlin in many ways. His position in the world is certain; he is the son of Uther Pendragon, will be the heir to the throne. Arthur understands his place in the world, as does everyone around him and they behave accordingly. His life of privilege has made him a bit of an entitled bully with no ability

Comments

[sugaredwhimsey]

Nah, I don't hate Gwen, but I feel she is such a wasted character as well as being an emotional void with many of the males she's supposed to have a repertoire with- more on that in the part three. You are right; I think that Merlin and Gwen performed the same humanizing function on Arthur, even if Merlin does it better and is completely devoted to Arthur, and she didn't give a rat's ass about the guy until Merlin sauntered in and began polishing. In a way, Arthur chose what we imagine to be the socially acceptable one.I wonder if Arthur realizes in many ways he substituted her in there.

I'm a shameful Luddite that I have a general notion of what an RSS feed is,but not much. If it means public airing, go for it.

S5...I don't know. At some point I read some total nonsense from one of the creators/producers who said that they had some five year plan, which, as reflected in the program so far? Is total bull. If I could have anything it would be they clean up their interior show mythology and start exploiting some of their assets and make the show emotionally mature. I suspect, however, they feel they have a winning formula so they won't tamper with it. We'll get a really funny episode, a few new Arthurian figures, some fan taunting and a big finale. Will someone find out about the magic? It seems like that's our remaining hurdle, since Arthur has been crowned and has married Gwen. We're also fast forwarding three years, right? I think we're have our first season long villain in Mordred, but other than that, more of the same. As long as they don't do a Reset Button episode.

[tanoshi_ame]

Funny that you mentioned the creators/producers' nonsense. Just now I was listening to an hour long interview with one of them; didn't exactly imbue me with confidence either. S5 sounds to me like they're trying to do too many things, and I'm kind of in doubt how well they would go about that in just 13 eps. For now there's only one thing I'm certain to be excited about, and that's BAMF Merlin, though I'm excited to see some returning characters again as well.

Yeah, they're doing a 3 years jump. 3 years that could have shown Gwen struggling, making mistakes and learning to be Queen/rule a kingdom. Without it, I'm just angry. Extrapolating from all the articles/interviews we have so far, we might very well only get to see Gwen being a fair and just Queen after 3 years while Arthur, training for as long as he was living, still made disastrous mistakes as of S4. To me, that doesn't seem to do respect for the people/characters who spend twice, thrice the time learning, perfecting their craft and still have to live with their bad decisions. From what I read, her character seems to only get more positive traits and none of the conflicting emotions. I'm more or less dreaded to see it on screen.

Arthur chose what we imagine to be the socially acceptable one.I wonder if Arthur realizes in many ways he substituted her in there.
Yes, I like your observation here. In fact, what I've been looking for in fics mostly has to do with Arthur making that connection/revelation and the emotional impact of that, while already being in love/married to Gwen. Sadly though, not many stories would go that route without (in my opinion) downplaying Merlin's feelings to something I feel less than that. I guess what I want to see is how terrified Arthur would be if he knows the depth of that devotion, which, while noble and beautiful and all that, is just equally dark and scary as hell.