Musing: tv - On the changing of legends
Jan. 4th, 2008 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wilderthanThe BBC's series of Robin Hood just finished its second season. Some people really, really hate it, due to historical inaccuracy, a high level of modern political correctness, the fact that Marian is a bit plump -- and any number of other things. I have nothing to say to them apart from this: you're missing out.
On the other hand, people are newly railing against it because Marian died.
"Robin Hood isn't Robin Hood without Marian," someone said, and then added, "They should have killed Robin instead."
Er.
Regardless, people are acting like killing Marian is the first thing that's really unfaithful to the old legends. Despite the fact that Will Scarlett is not a disaffected nobleman, but an angry peasant, and Allan a Dale is not a bard, but a thief, a trickster, a pathological liar, and a traitor.
Marian, in fact, did not originally exist, and when she did, for a long time she spent most of her time being useless and in a convent. She wasn't the strong woman of the BBC series, certainly. The fact that she probably never died by being stuck with Guy of Gisborne's sword (not a euphemism) is true, but if you're going to complain about the inaccuracy of that, why not about her existence, her behaviour, or the way Allan and Will have been changed?
Change is not always a bad thing. Robin Hood legends can exist without her, and after her death, and it seems that this one will. Give it a chance.
And I know, to those who've only watched the Disney version, that Robin having some other love interest seems absurd. But in the legends, originally, he did have at least one other, first -- Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses. Robin/Marian wasn't always a done deal. Give it a chance.
...I just had to say that.
On the other hand, people are newly railing against it because Marian died.
"Robin Hood isn't Robin Hood without Marian," someone said, and then added, "They should have killed Robin instead."
Er.
Regardless, people are acting like killing Marian is the first thing that's really unfaithful to the old legends. Despite the fact that Will Scarlett is not a disaffected nobleman, but an angry peasant, and Allan a Dale is not a bard, but a thief, a trickster, a pathological liar, and a traitor.
Marian, in fact, did not originally exist, and when she did, for a long time she spent most of her time being useless and in a convent. She wasn't the strong woman of the BBC series, certainly. The fact that she probably never died by being stuck with Guy of Gisborne's sword (not a euphemism) is true, but if you're going to complain about the inaccuracy of that, why not about her existence, her behaviour, or the way Allan and Will have been changed?
Change is not always a bad thing. Robin Hood legends can exist without her, and after her death, and it seems that this one will. Give it a chance.
And I know, to those who've only watched the Disney version, that Robin having some other love interest seems absurd. But in the legends, originally, he did have at least one other, first -- Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses. Robin/Marian wasn't always a done deal. Give it a chance.
...I just had to say that.
