wilderthan: ((Mitsuru) Angry)
Destiny shows up a lot in two of the shows I'm watching at the moment: Supernatural and Merlin. And in both, it's pissing me off. It seems it's inescapable. So, here's a scenario. Someone tells you that your friend Jim is destined to destroy everything you've ever worked for. So, you decide to kill Jim, to prevent that coming about.

And apparently, you (and the canon) ignores that the very act of doing so could be what causes that destiny to come about. You kill Jim, he dies, and thus everything you've ever worked for is destroyed. Or, you try to kill Jim, and then Jim escapes, and understandably is a bit pissed off.

Okay, maybe Jim is going to go evil whether you do anything or not, but by trying to kill him, you've abandoned the moral high ground and you might have caused his betrayal.

I could also bitch about the way that nothing is developing from episode to episode in Merlin. In "To Kill The King", Morgana learned that Uther will listen to her. Uther promised to. S2, we get to "The Witch's Quickening", and Morgana and Uther are clashing in just the same way all over again. Arthur never really becomes less of a prat. Merlin's magic is never revealed. The whole show seems to be upholding the status quo, unable to rock the boat enough to provide any kind of satisfying character development.

Two episodes left of S2, and I hope they make me happier than the ones so far...
wilderthan: ((Yuffie) Whoa)
I've been pondering this since I did my Robin Hood module, last semester. My lecturer talked about Robin Hood stories and King Arthur stories as opposed -- never popular at the same time, rarely appearing in the same text. King Arthur stories are generally popular when there is a perceived need for order. Robin Hood stories are generally popular when there is a perceived need for change. Yet the BBC's Merlin turns this on its head because Merlin, a symbol of disorder, is the main focus. This is especially clear in the BBC's Merlin because magic is explicitly figured as disorder by Uther: the kingdom was in a state until he got rid of magic.

Merlin is rarely at the centre of stories, but usually on the edge, where he can't disrupt the order of the established Camelot. In fact, the story generally has him imprisoned, relatively early in Arthur's reign. Not just in traditional stories -- in The Dark is Rising, Merriman, who is Merlin, leaves the world as soon as the Dark has been banished and order established. Merlin helps restore order and then he has to leave/be taken out of the story.

However, this Arthur story isn't about Arthur's Camelot. It's about an established order, yes: Uther's court. It is ordered, but it's cruel. It's ordered wrongly, and the very principles used to establish it are now tipping over into injustice.

Given how much I've been writing to my MPs and getting involved in grassroots campaigns at the moment, it's apparent to me that people want change, which would normally mean Robin Hood stories. However, by focusing on Uther's court, before Arthur's reign, the BBC can use Merlin as the instrument of change, rather than Robin Hood, whose thievery is illegal even now. It's still a desire for order, but a different order -- changed, not destroyed and then rebuilt.

That reflects what I've been seeing: by and large people don't want to destroy the current system in Britain, they just want reform. Arthur instead of Uther, so to speak.

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Eden

October 2013

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