The "Guy's noble sacrifice" scenario
I've had a few discussions recently, and read a couple of fanfics, that have made me think about what would have happened and how I would have felt if, instead of the Season 2 finale of Robin Hood (and the third season) that we got, the show had gone the route of having Guy redeem himself through a noble sacrifice (not necessarily of his life!)
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For me at least, I don't think the show would have been able to pull off the whole Guy nobly stepping aside scenario. He may have goodness in his heart, but he had to hit rock bottom before he was able to accept that he wasn't going to get Marian and become rich/very powerful. Also - where would he have gone from there?
They would have had to continue the triangle if he had remained in Nottingham oh god I was able to write Camelot /unrelated (I don't think he had the strength to just "let her go" and watch her with Robin), or they would have had to get rid of him on the show.
I also liked the fact that he was able to have a relationship with Robin which was able to move past Marian.
I'm not sure if what I said made any sense (I plead exams!) but that's my take. :D
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And now that I read that little bit at the bottom of your post... I do think Guy deserves love and redemption. There were certainly times that I didn't, but I think the one good thing Season 3 did for me was bring some of Guy's better qualities to the forefront. But as I said before - I don't think that he was capable of redeeming himself until he had done something so, so horrible that he couldn't lie to himself anymore about the darkness that was inside of him.
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I'm actually inclined to agree with that.
One way around it would have been if he thought he had killed Marian, and had to live with that until he had hit rock bottom ... and just then, Marian shows up alive. But since they had already done the "Marian gets stabbed by Guy, seems to die and then comes back to life" plot at the end of S1, they couldn't very well repeat it!
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(and great movie indeed. "That was MY steak, Liberty.")
*scoots back to read rest of vastly interesting post*
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And yeah, that was a great line! :D (IMO, the biggest problem with that movie is that Jimmy Stewart's character was supposed to be a callow youth straight out of high school, and he looks ... about sixty?)
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Of course she never "deserved" being killed. I'm not sure Guy is redeemable after that. (You can finesse the Seth plot in Season 1 by saying Guy sent guards to put the kid in a convent and the guards, encouraged by Vazey, took the money and left the kid in the forest. We don't see anyting happening on screen.)
I favour an AU in which Guy only injures Marian, and then gives her up because of his guilt (because that leaves a lot of openings to get them back together at last; I could see him turning against the Sherif then.)
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Oooh yes yes yes...
But what do you mean you're not sure Guy is redeemable after that! :p He does get redeemed in S3.
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Though I still don't believe that Guy had to die to be redeemed, even after the killing of Marian. IMO, he was redeemed ... well, I'm not sure at what precise moment -- but definitely when he refused Robin's offer to leave them and save himself, in the finale. I mean, surely he'd still be redeemed if he had survived his wounds. Though I don't think he ever would have or should have forgiven himself for Marian's death.
(Whether he would have ever been able to find a new love is another matter. I could see him feeling, with good reason, that he did not deserve it after what he had done to Marian. Plus, when you're wooing a woman, "I killed my last girlfriend" would probably put a damper on your chances of success. :-/
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I'm not sure the show could have gone with a true Guy/Marian happy ending though, given that R/M is "legend canon." Not that this is the way it should have been, but -- just sayin'.
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Also, as they would have had to write Jonas's Robin Hood out at the end of series three anyway, there was that chance that Guy would take up the mantle (Archer is middle ground toward that idea, because Richard had quit, too, but may well not have done if things had gone differently at the end of series two) - Marian would still marry 'Robin Hood', just a new and improved version.
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Hah!
I have thought of that. Great way to get around the problem of how to have Marian marry Guy of Gisborne and Robin Hood... make them the same person! Bwahahaha!
(And OMG is that Guy standing next to KATE in your avatar? O_O)
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I've put quite a bit of thought into this lately, from several angles, and I've come to a couple of conclusions (which are possibly contradictory):
Thought 1: I do not think that realistically any combination of these three people can be a healthy relationship (by "realistically" I mean based only on things we actually saw). Their own personal character flaws are almost perfectly engineered to make each other's lives hell if they actually had to try and live out a normal life together. I actually have trouble thinking that any of these people could have a completely healthy relationship with anyone, without going through a major life change first ( ... )
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I'm not sure I agree that Guy doesn't need to be redeemed if he doesn't kill Marian. For one thing, he clearly believes he does ("heinous crimes", remember?). There's a big difference between killing people in combat and the deliberate murder of unarmed and helpless people, which Guy did repeatedly do at Vaisey's behest (e.g. the miner in Turk Flu whom he killed in front of his family for defying his orders -- and yeah, he was goaded into it by Vaisey, but still). Or being an enforcer for a regime that systematically kills and tortures people for defiance or disobedience, or even to put fear into the population. I mean, as late as Lardner's Ring, Guy is willing to chop off an old woman's finger when he's trying to find "Lardner's ring" on the Sheriff's orders.
Obviously I'm not saying that everything Robin did was moral but still, there's a pretty big difference.
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That is where I would have to disagree, especially in context. If the suggestion had been made that Robin had been conscripted and dragged kicking and screaming to the Holy Land, then I would happily make that distinction, but he went off for glory in war, as he says himself.
He figured out later that that was a dick move, but in essence, he went off to a foreign country in order to kill people to raise his status. At least Guy's killing wasn't racially motivated (I jest).
GRK & co. were just as guilty of terrorising and opressing people, and Robin was just as much a tool in that as Guy was for Vaysey. The fact that they can both see that is what makes them not entirely morally repulsive people. After that it's a choice between pragmatism and idealism, which I suppose comes down to personal taste.
(Holy wall of text, Batman! Sorry)
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Robs served him for at least some of the reasons Guy obeys Vasey: power and respect. And both Robs and Guy believe in their causes, except Guy has more rational reasons for standing against GKR than Robs has for following him.
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