Meta Monday: Myth and narrative

[dhampyresa]

Hi! Welcome to Meta Monday, in which I go tl;dr about stuff.

Today, I coined the term "ficframed", which is to fic ideas what earwormed is to songs. They dig into your brain and won't leave.

Well, that was an easy meta post to write.

More seriously, I'm going to answer taiyou_to_tsuki: "Since you've read a fair bit of stories based on mythology-- how do you

Comments

[morbane]

I'm a little sheepish about asking this, but - well, I've never claimed any expertise, or even really familiarity, with Arthuriana.

So why is Merlin the villain?

I have a vague recollection of him being supposed to be a devil's child, but apart from that, nothing.

[dhampyresa]

Caveat: This is the version of the legends I grew up with.

Merlin is partly inhuman, which causes him to sometimes go into wildly destructive rages, to the point where he volunteers to be put into eternal slumber by Viviane to protect others from himself. IIRC, this is after he's cause Arthur's death.

[morbane]

Huh. Well, I guess the 'partly-inhuman' is related to what I recalled of his being sired by a demon.

The versions of canon I've absorbed did not mention destructive rages or causing Arthur's death, and had Viviane/Nimue/? tricking him into the slumber.

On the other hand, I have seen other canons have fun with a "Merlin awakes" storyline, and that could be extra fun if he were quite dangerous.

[dhampyresa]

Him being the Devil's son is one of the interpretations for why he's partly inhuman, another is that he's part fae.

You know, it would make for a very interesting story...

[_profiterole_]

On avait déjà discuté de cette pauvre Morgane. C'est pour ça que j'ai laissé tomber BBC!Merlin, il n'y avait même pas la moindre ambiguïté et j'en avais marre de leur moralité inversée.

[dhampyresa]

Oui, je m'en souviens. La pauvre, quand même. Qui est-ce qu'elle a bien pu énerver tant que ça pour être autant vilifiée?

J'ai vu quelques épisodes de BBC Merlin. Y avait que Gwen de bien.