Merlin - His Father's Son.
Nov. 13th, 2011 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcYes, I'm getting through them. Hopefully two I've still to catch up on are as good as this.
We start in media res, with Merlin dressed as a knight to act as live bait for some enemy warriors. They turn out to include a rival king, Caerleon. Agrivaine's advice to Arthur about what a strong king like Uther would do leads to him killing his helpless opponent to send a message to Caerleon's people.
Unfortunately, King Caerleon is married to Adelaide Brooke from "Waters of Mars", and she isn't the sort of person to bow down to someone who killed her husband, especially not once Morgana gets involved. And Agrivaine's advice also leads to Arthur splitting up with Gwen for the good of the kingdom.
Eventually Arthur has to decide what kind of king he wants to be, and decides he wants to be one who avoids war when possible, and also one who is prepared to be seen with his friends, whoever they are.
An excellent episode, with some nicely realised character moments, especially Queen Annis, who is portrayed as an honourable ruler, while at the same time her allowing Morgana to cheat in the trial-by-combat is an understandable lapse, not an out-of-character possession of the Villain Ball. Hopefully we'll see more of her, as one of Arthur's allies. Her parting shot at Morgana was beautiful.
Interestingly, it's not clear that all Agrivaine's advice was intentionally bad; he presumably has no more desire to see Caerleon's forces take the kingdom than Arthur does, at least not before Morgana made her alliance with Annis. He may well have believed that killing Caerleon was the "right" thing to do ... he's almost certainly right when he says it's what Uther would have done.
Mythwatch: As I've mentioned before, "Caerleon" is a Welsh town in real life, and the site of King Arthur's court in Geoffrey of Monmouth. It's not the name of a person in Arthurian legend. as far as I know. Queen Annis, meanwhile, seems to be named after Black Annis, although it's not clear why.
The idea of Agrivaine stealing Arthur's sword so that Morgana can cast a spell on it, thereby giving him a disadvantage in trial-by-combat, may be inspired by the story of Morgana's lover Accolon stealing Excalibur and replacing it with a duplicate, leading to Accolon bearing Excalibur and Arthur bearing a fake when they engage in trial-by-combat as the anonymous champions of two other lords.
We start in media res, with Merlin dressed as a knight to act as live bait for some enemy warriors. They turn out to include a rival king, Caerleon. Agrivaine's advice to Arthur about what a strong king like Uther would do leads to him killing his helpless opponent to send a message to Caerleon's people.
Unfortunately, King Caerleon is married to Adelaide Brooke from "Waters of Mars", and she isn't the sort of person to bow down to someone who killed her husband, especially not once Morgana gets involved. And Agrivaine's advice also leads to Arthur splitting up with Gwen for the good of the kingdom.
Eventually Arthur has to decide what kind of king he wants to be, and decides he wants to be one who avoids war when possible, and also one who is prepared to be seen with his friends, whoever they are.
An excellent episode, with some nicely realised character moments, especially Queen Annis, who is portrayed as an honourable ruler, while at the same time her allowing Morgana to cheat in the trial-by-combat is an understandable lapse, not an out-of-character possession of the Villain Ball. Hopefully we'll see more of her, as one of Arthur's allies. Her parting shot at Morgana was beautiful.
Interestingly, it's not clear that all Agrivaine's advice was intentionally bad; he presumably has no more desire to see Caerleon's forces take the kingdom than Arthur does, at least not before Morgana made her alliance with Annis. He may well have believed that killing Caerleon was the "right" thing to do ... he's almost certainly right when he says it's what Uther would have done.
Mythwatch: As I've mentioned before, "Caerleon" is a Welsh town in real life, and the site of King Arthur's court in Geoffrey of Monmouth. It's not the name of a person in Arthurian legend. as far as I know. Queen Annis, meanwhile, seems to be named after Black Annis, although it's not clear why.
The idea of Agrivaine stealing Arthur's sword so that Morgana can cast a spell on it, thereby giving him a disadvantage in trial-by-combat, may be inspired by the story of Morgana's lover Accolon stealing Excalibur and replacing it with a duplicate, leading to Accolon bearing Excalibur and Arthur bearing a fake when they engage in trial-by-combat as the anonymous champions of two other lords.
