More mangled mythologising in Merlin

[daibhidc]

What bothers me about this one, actually, isn't that Mordred is now a young druid, unrelated to Arthur or Morgana[1]. It's the Broken Aesop[2]. Merlin saves the kid because it's The Right Thing To Do. Uther's belief the druids are a threat is dismissed by all the other characters, and the dragon's insistence that the boy will grow up to kill Arthur clearly doesn't justify leaving him to die.

Except ... the kid is going to kill Arthur, so where does that leave us? And the ominous final scene where we learn his name (as if we hadn't guessed) seems designed to hammer that point home, and make us think Merlin made the wrong choice. In fact, while Uther's paranoid rants about magic are consistently presented as paranoid rants, pretty much every magic user we've seen except Merlin does indeed seem to be gunning for him. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate attempt to add some subtlety to Uther's beliefs (in which case, maybe not making him completely barking mad might be a way to go), or just something they haven't thought through.

Oh. and Merlin's "druid name" is Emrys, which is the Welsh version of Ambrosius (Myrddin Emrys = Merlinus Ambrosius, which is what Geoff Monmouth called him).

[1]We didn't actually see enough of the druids for my Celtic Civilisation course to kick in and tell me they'd got it wrong. Although I'm sure that if we do see any more of them, they will have...

[2] Or possibly Warped Aesop, if we are indeed meant to think Merlin should have let Uther execute a kid.

Comments

[cat63.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if this is a deliberate attempt to add some subtlety to Uther's beliefs (in which case, maybe not making him completely barking mad might be a way to go), or just something they haven't thought through.

I strongly suspect it's the latter, myself :-)

Also, glass mirrors in Camelot? I don't think so....

while Uther's paranoid rants about magic are consistently presented as paranoid rants, pretty much every magic user we've seen except Merlin does indeed seem to be gunning for him.

And Gaius of course. And Morgana by the look of it, although the way he treated her this episode I thought he was lucky she didn't put ground glass from her mirror in his wine...

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Gaius and Morgana count as magic users; they both have magical ability, but don't actually use it (Gaius by choice, Morgana because she doesn't know).

[cat63.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Gaius and Morgana count as magic users;

I bet they would to Uther, if he ever found out....

Mordred didn't actually use any magic (that Uther knew about, anyway) but the mere ability to do so was enough to get him a death sentence.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

pretty much every magic user we've seen except Merlin does indeed seem to be gunning for him.

It occurred to me later that while Valiant and the Sidhe are just randomly villainous, and we don't know the score with Nimueh yet (I'm betting on her being Arthur's Mommie Dearest meself), the old woman and Edwin are gunning for Uther because he executed members of their respective families for using magic - something in the way of a self-fulfilling prophecy there...

It also ocurred to me to wonder how trustworthy the dragon is, actually - I mean, given that Uther has him chaimed up in the basement and has killed every other dragon in the kingdom, why should he be concerned for the wellbeing of Uther's son?

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

But according to Gaius, Edwin's parents were also a genuine threat to the kingdom; that's why he didn't intervene. In fact Gaius's attitude to Uther's paranoia highlights the problem: he doesn't agree that magic users are intristically evil, but he knows for a fact that everyone apart from Merlin is an exception!

And yeah, I think Uther's attitude to magic may be related to a past relationship with Nimueh. Since Arthur's standard origin story clearly can't be made to fit Merlin's setup.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

But according to Gaius, Edwin's parents were also a genuine threat to the kingdom; that's why he didn't intervene.

I'd forgotten that part, sorry.

I reckon we're giving this more thought than the writers ever did though :-)