Character musings: Gaius

[stealingpennies]

I’m writing a rather cold and pragmatic Gaius atm, perhaps in reaction to the kindly mentor Gaius fics I’ve read recently. I’m sure I’m being a bit unfair, but really there’s a decades and decades of murky undisclosed past going on with Gaius.

I do like the character and firmly believe that his role as dedicated healer to Camelot is a very real one

Comments

[stealingpennies]

Oh, I'd forgotten that Gaius knows the DRAGON. (Presumably everyone at Camelot above a certain age 'knows' the dragon in the sense they remember Uther capturing it and imprisoning it below the castle.) I'm sure there's a fic somewhere that has everyone going down for a chat with the dragon in turn

[linaerys]

"Revenge tourist" is my new favorite phrase. Awesome.

[stealingpennies]

*g* I'll admit to being quite fond of it myself.

My favourite bit of all these obviously dodgy strangers turning up Camelot is the way Uther totally embraces them and invites them to stay as long as they wish. Clearly experience has taught him NOTHING.

[rane_ab]

I think I've read an interview somewhere where Richard stated that Hunith was Gaius' sister. That struck me as pretty odd at the time, actually, because he hardly seems to be aware of Merlin's existence at all - outside of the fact that he, well, exists - before he arrives. I know travelling/writing letters was difficult in those days, but still. The rest of the show seems to imply otherwise.

I actually love morally dubious Gaius. I really hope we'll get to see more of his background. The fact that Merlin is the only one he would sacrifice himself for only makes the fact that he does all the more powerful (Nimueh seems to confirm this, though, to be fair, he did come back for Uther). He suddenly revokes all the things he believes in, all the things that allowed him to watch those people die

[stealingpennies]

think I've read an interview somewhere where Richard stated that Hunith was Gaius' sister. That struck me as pretty odd at the time, actually, because he hardly seems to be aware of Merlin's existence at all - outside of the fact that he, well, exists - before he arrives. I'm sure I've read that interview too. The age gap is pretty big but workable if you allow for deaths in childbirth, second marriages and so on

Re: Here from the Newsletter

[stealingpennies]

meri_sefketI love morally dubious Gaius. (And I love you compared him to Methos, Highlander squee!)

Heh! Heh! If only Gaius actually LOOKED like Methos, instead of just acting with similar self-interest, then he'd be getting a whole lot more love and attention from fandom. Morally dubious Gaius is GREAT. Uther's been allowed to be multi-dimensional so I still have hopes for Dark!Gaius to emerge.

And he actively tries to suppress Morgana's gift instead of offer her assistance - all the while convincing himself that this is better for her and everyone else. I think that if this version of Morgana turns evil, that's going to be a large part of it. SHIVERS. YES! TOTALLY. The treatment of Morgana is just awful on every level. There's horrible elements of sexism too in that you really can't imagine that if Morgana had been a boy her symptoms would not have been treated differently. Merlin's pretty culpable here, too. It's one of the things I hope Season Two looks at - even it's too late for Morgana and she's slipping into madness,