(no subject)
I finished watching Merlin.
I'm a little disturbed by the way they maintain the family-friendly morality/sympathetic character death avoidance by having cute little Merlin break every witch he comes across into tiny little pieces. He 'does the right thing' by not killing Uther, but Uther certainly deserves to die by the logic that makes it okay for Merlin to blast Nimue and the Sidhe; however, he's the king and not magic. Uther proves that he deserves to live by saying he made a mistake in killing Gwen's dad not because it wasn't right to kill him but because he didn't realise it would upset Morgana, so apparently emo plus royal trumps moral. But the underlying morality seems to be that people have to prove themselves to be worthy of living, especially if they fall into an undesirable category. After all, if we let all the witches and wizards and magical beings live, they will take over the world! Magic out of the service of the king is too dangerous to be let loose.
I know, why am I acting all surprised that a BBC kids' series reflects hegemonic politics?
I wish for someone to write Mists of Avalon-influenced epic fic where Merlin accepts Nimue's offer and they restore magic to the land, free the dragon and set up the Old Religion as the power behind the throne. Think of the power struggles there would be in the sedoretu, what with Morgana spending too much time with Nimue (sorry, got distracted for a moment there) and Gwen perhaps secretly funding the revolt of the unmagical.
Does anyone else remember Merlin of the Crystal Cave? It was on ITV, I think, in the late 80s or early 90s--based on Mary Stewart's books, where Merlin is a young Celtic boy in what I think was Roman-occupied Britain. I was pretty obsessed with it, but I only recall images now, and I don't remember whether they're from the books (which I never liked as much as the TV show) or the show itself. Alas, there is no DVD release.
I'm a little disturbed by the way they maintain the family-friendly morality/sympathetic character death avoidance by having cute little Merlin break every witch he comes across into tiny little pieces. He 'does the right thing' by not killing Uther, but Uther certainly deserves to die by the logic that makes it okay for Merlin to blast Nimue and the Sidhe; however, he's the king and not magic. Uther proves that he deserves to live by saying he made a mistake in killing Gwen's dad not because it wasn't right to kill him but because he didn't realise it would upset Morgana, so apparently emo plus royal trumps moral. But the underlying morality seems to be that people have to prove themselves to be worthy of living, especially if they fall into an undesirable category. After all, if we let all the witches and wizards and magical beings live, they will take over the world! Magic out of the service of the king is too dangerous to be let loose.
I know, why am I acting all surprised that a BBC kids' series reflects hegemonic politics?
I wish for someone to write Mists of Avalon-influenced epic fic where Merlin accepts Nimue's offer and they restore magic to the land, free the dragon and set up the Old Religion as the power behind the throne. Think of the power struggles there would be in the sedoretu, what with Morgana spending too much time with Nimue (sorry, got distracted for a moment there) and Gwen perhaps secretly funding the revolt of the unmagical.
Does anyone else remember Merlin of the Crystal Cave? It was on ITV, I think, in the late 80s or early 90s--based on Mary Stewart's books, where Merlin is a young Celtic boy in what I think was Roman-occupied Britain. I was pretty obsessed with it, but I only recall images now, and I don't remember whether they're from the books (which I never liked as much as the TV show) or the show itself. Alas, there is no DVD release.