Merlin - The Secret Sharer
Nov. 21st, 2011 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcWow, lots of arc plot development! And I'm catching up!
The title is a reference to Gaius's role as Merlin's Secret Keeper, and has little to do with the Conrad short story, or the Encyclopedia of Fantasy article about split personalities.
Cute opening scene with Merlin reminding Arthur of all the responsibilities he has as king: "It's almost like working."
Agrivaine realises Gaius must know Emrys, and increases his attempts to frame Gaius as the traitor in order to kidnap him without arousing suspicion. He is aided in this by Gaius's complete inability to lie convincingly, which apparently doesn't make Arthur think "Hang on, if this guy was the traitor, it would have been blindingly obvious long before now."
Morgana meanwhile, gains the assistance of Alator of the Catha, a warrior and powerful magic user with a bizarre accent. Seriously, I'm used to the accents in Merlin being rather arbitary, but as near as I can work it out, Alator is of mixed Scots-German descent, but was raised in the Middle East.
I spent far too long trying to work out what sinister purpose the dagger Agrivaine gave to Merlin to give to Arthur would serve, when of course it was just to ensure he wasn't in Gaius's hut when the Alator came. Agrivaine cunningly thinks of not only planting a copy of Sorcery for Dummies in the hut but, because it would look suspicious if Gaius hadn't made some attempt to hide it, placing it under a sheet of paper. Amazingly, Arthur is completely convinced by this.
So Merlin gets the help of Gwaine (Big Dumb Moment: "Iron ore is rare in Camelot", says a man wearing 45 pounds of steel as a shirt) to track Gaius down. Meanwhile, Morgana and Agrivaine follow after them.
I'm disapointed that Agrivaine managed to weasel out of this when Gwaine had him bang to rights, but Alator realising Merlin is the good guy and turning on Morgana was beautiful. And a nice touch that he left her payment for his services behind, since he'd no intention of fulfilling them; the sign of a truly honourable morally-undecided character.
And Gaius finally tells Arthur that Uther's death wasn't Emrys's fault. So that's that plot-thread sorted out, and Arthur can stop having the same irrational hatred of magic users as his father did. (Although I assume he won't actually legalise sorcery just yet; Gaius made an interesting point when he dodged whether he thought sorcery was evil by saying he understood the reasons behind it being banned.)
Mythwatch: Alator is an obscure Celtic god of the hunt, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if the writers didn't know this and had just slammed some syllables together. "Catha" is a Gaelic word for "battle" that appears in various epithets[1], so could conceivably be a title for a warrior-priest. The Triple Goddess is from modern Neopaganism, based on Robert Graves's interpretation of Greek and proto-Greek mythology.
[1]Most notably, Badb Catha, "Crow of Battle" was the name of a Celtic goddess who was part of a trio of goddesses[2] with Macha and the Morrigan ... the latter being sometimes claimed as partial inspiration for Morgana (without, it has to be said, much justification).
[2]Yep... Although I don't think they fit the strict definition of the Triple Goddess.
The title is a reference to Gaius's role as Merlin's Secret Keeper, and has little to do with the Conrad short story, or the Encyclopedia of Fantasy article about split personalities.
Cute opening scene with Merlin reminding Arthur of all the responsibilities he has as king: "It's almost like working."
Agrivaine realises Gaius must know Emrys, and increases his attempts to frame Gaius as the traitor in order to kidnap him without arousing suspicion. He is aided in this by Gaius's complete inability to lie convincingly, which apparently doesn't make Arthur think "Hang on, if this guy was the traitor, it would have been blindingly obvious long before now."
Morgana meanwhile, gains the assistance of Alator of the Catha, a warrior and powerful magic user with a bizarre accent. Seriously, I'm used to the accents in Merlin being rather arbitary, but as near as I can work it out, Alator is of mixed Scots-German descent, but was raised in the Middle East.
I spent far too long trying to work out what sinister purpose the dagger Agrivaine gave to Merlin to give to Arthur would serve, when of course it was just to ensure he wasn't in Gaius's hut when the Alator came. Agrivaine cunningly thinks of not only planting a copy of Sorcery for Dummies in the hut but, because it would look suspicious if Gaius hadn't made some attempt to hide it, placing it under a sheet of paper. Amazingly, Arthur is completely convinced by this.
So Merlin gets the help of Gwaine (Big Dumb Moment: "Iron ore is rare in Camelot", says a man wearing 45 pounds of steel as a shirt) to track Gaius down. Meanwhile, Morgana and Agrivaine follow after them.
I'm disapointed that Agrivaine managed to weasel out of this when Gwaine had him bang to rights, but Alator realising Merlin is the good guy and turning on Morgana was beautiful. And a nice touch that he left her payment for his services behind, since he'd no intention of fulfilling them; the sign of a truly honourable morally-undecided character.
And Gaius finally tells Arthur that Uther's death wasn't Emrys's fault. So that's that plot-thread sorted out, and Arthur can stop having the same irrational hatred of magic users as his father did. (Although I assume he won't actually legalise sorcery just yet; Gaius made an interesting point when he dodged whether he thought sorcery was evil by saying he understood the reasons behind it being banned.)
Mythwatch: Alator is an obscure Celtic god of the hunt, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if the writers didn't know this and had just slammed some syllables together. "Catha" is a Gaelic word for "battle" that appears in various epithets[1], so could conceivably be a title for a warrior-priest. The Triple Goddess is from modern Neopaganism, based on Robert Graves's interpretation of Greek and proto-Greek mythology.
[1]Most notably, Badb Catha, "Crow of Battle" was the name of a Celtic goddess who was part of a trio of goddesses[2] with Macha and the Morrigan ... the latter being sometimes claimed as partial inspiration for Morgana (without, it has to be said, much justification).
[2]Yep... Although I don't think they fit the strict definition of the Triple Goddess.
