The Once and Future Sorceror
Dec. 23rd, 2009 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSo, I might have been watching the two seasons of Merlin in a row. Hit me with fanfic recs, pretty please?
Also, what I gathered via fannish osmosis versus what I found out to be the case:
Pre-watching, what lj and other places told me:
- set-up sounds like Smallville for Arthurian lore
- there's a slash dragon who ships Arthur/Merlin
- Merlin is played by Jethro from the DW episode Midnight, who joins Jack Harkness, Midshipman Frame and Sgt. Not-Benton from the Sontaran Two-parter in proving that if you're darkhaired, good looking and flirt with the Doctor, you will then get your own show; whether or not it's going to be a hit, however, is up to debate
- Morgana/Gwen get shipped by fandom as well, at least in the first season
- so do Morgana and Uther
- Nimueh is Lady Christina de Souza who despite being dark-haired, good looking and flirting with the Doctor did not get her own show
- managed to enrage people with ahistorical clothing in the pilot, but what else is new in any screen version of any Arthurian legend?
Post-watching conclusions:
- way less like Smallville then I expected, which is a good thing, actually (except for how Morgana, not Merlin or Arthur, is Smallvillian Lex Luthor in that people keep harping in her evil potential way before she actually does anything)
- also way better than the most recent version of Robin Hood in that I like and enjoy watching mostly everyone (though my initial sympathy for Gaius became a desire to slap him silly in much of s2)
- I don't think I've ever liked a screen Guenevre more (book-wise, there's Parke Godwin's, who also wrote my favourite Arthur)
- speaking of Arthur, this whole prat-with-basic-decency-growing-up characterisation works surprisingly well (I think the reason why the most recent BBC Robin was boring and Arthur is not, when they're both drawn from traditional hero mold, is that a) Arthur is not the lead, b) he's meant to be flawed (and learning), and c) he's basically in the Guy of Gisborne position (Merlin's Arthur as Guy-written-as-hero? Discuss) here
- which brings us to the Sheriff and reminds me: the show does have a bit of a problem in that supposedly the benefits from keeping Uther around as king outweigh the drawbacks, but actually, this is less and less believable; I mean, Uther has more dimensions that your avarage Sheriff of Nottingham in that he cares about his son and his ward, but that's where it ends, and if he weren't played by the artist formerly known as Giles, it's hard to see why various characters should bother to protect his life from various people who for all too understandable reasons want to kill him
- Morgana has way less screentime in both seasons than I expected from fannish reaction
- I really like Morgause and hope they keep the character around for a while
- ZOMG Lancelot is Isaac Mendez from s1 of Heroes
- Colin Morgan is really very, very good as Merlin; this isn't the first young Merlin I've seen (there was a German tv show eons ago which starred Tommy Orner who back then played all the dark haired teenage roles, it seemed, and then there was the bore of a thing with Sam Neill more recently), as opposed to the wily manipulative old magician to end all wily old magicians which is his archetype, but this Merlin isn't just very endearing in his own right but has glimmers of the ruthlessness old Merlin is associated with (old Merlin is not a tame sorcerer, to misquote C.S. Lewis)
- okay, fine; the slash totally worked on me, for in addition to prettiness, there is actually character interest (ignore jab at shows where my problem wasn't that I couldn't see the slash but that I thought one or both parties involved were dull); so do the het relationships, for that matter (did I mention Gwen is adorable?)
- as importantly, my inner child fond of fantasy is very happy and alternatingly amused and moved by the on screen shenanigans.
Also, what I gathered via fannish osmosis versus what I found out to be the case:
Pre-watching, what lj and other places told me:
- set-up sounds like Smallville for Arthurian lore
- there's a slash dragon who ships Arthur/Merlin
- Merlin is played by Jethro from the DW episode Midnight, who joins Jack Harkness, Midshipman Frame and Sgt. Not-Benton from the Sontaran Two-parter in proving that if you're darkhaired, good looking and flirt with the Doctor, you will then get your own show; whether or not it's going to be a hit, however, is up to debate
- Morgana/Gwen get shipped by fandom as well, at least in the first season
- so do Morgana and Uther
- Nimueh is Lady Christina de Souza who despite being dark-haired, good looking and flirting with the Doctor did not get her own show
- managed to enrage people with ahistorical clothing in the pilot, but what else is new in any screen version of any Arthurian legend?
Post-watching conclusions:
- way less like Smallville then I expected, which is a good thing, actually (except for how Morgana, not Merlin or Arthur, is Smallvillian Lex Luthor in that people keep harping in her evil potential way before she actually does anything)
- also way better than the most recent version of Robin Hood in that I like and enjoy watching mostly everyone (though my initial sympathy for Gaius became a desire to slap him silly in much of s2)
- I don't think I've ever liked a screen Guenevre more (book-wise, there's Parke Godwin's, who also wrote my favourite Arthur)
- speaking of Arthur, this whole prat-with-basic-decency-growing-up characterisation works surprisingly well (I think the reason why the most recent BBC Robin was boring and Arthur is not, when they're both drawn from traditional hero mold, is that a) Arthur is not the lead, b) he's meant to be flawed (and learning), and c) he's basically in the Guy of Gisborne position (Merlin's Arthur as Guy-written-as-hero? Discuss) here
- which brings us to the Sheriff and reminds me: the show does have a bit of a problem in that supposedly the benefits from keeping Uther around as king outweigh the drawbacks, but actually, this is less and less believable; I mean, Uther has more dimensions that your avarage Sheriff of Nottingham in that he cares about his son and his ward, but that's where it ends, and if he weren't played by the artist formerly known as Giles, it's hard to see why various characters should bother to protect his life from various people who for all too understandable reasons want to kill him
- Morgana has way less screentime in both seasons than I expected from fannish reaction
- I really like Morgause and hope they keep the character around for a while
- ZOMG Lancelot is Isaac Mendez from s1 of Heroes
- Colin Morgan is really very, very good as Merlin; this isn't the first young Merlin I've seen (there was a German tv show eons ago which starred Tommy Orner who back then played all the dark haired teenage roles, it seemed, and then there was the bore of a thing with Sam Neill more recently), as opposed to the wily manipulative old magician to end all wily old magicians which is his archetype, but this Merlin isn't just very endearing in his own right but has glimmers of the ruthlessness old Merlin is associated with (old Merlin is not a tame sorcerer, to misquote C.S. Lewis)
- okay, fine; the slash totally worked on me, for in addition to prettiness, there is actually character interest (ignore jab at shows where my problem wasn't that I couldn't see the slash but that I thought one or both parties involved were dull); so do the het relationships, for that matter (did I mention Gwen is adorable?)
- as importantly, my inner child fond of fantasy is very happy and alternatingly amused and moved by the on screen shenanigans.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 03:46 am (UTC)recs
Date: 2009-12-23 08:44 pm (UTC)Apples by suaine and it's remix <"http://community.livejournal.com/remixredux09/18648.html">Ye Shall Not Surely Die by lassiterfics. Jossed by the series 2 finale, but very good if you have any interest at all in Hunith and the Dragon.
Re: recs
Date: 2009-12-24 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 09:23 pm (UTC)I know people who have problems with all of this, but I think it just adds another layer of entertainment to the show *g*. I have developed a theory that the New World vegetables were brought over by dragons ...
I 'ship all the younger generation in a giant OT5. My main concern is where they would find a big enough bed ...
no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 03:54 am (UTC)I know people who have problems with all of this, but I think it just adds another layer of entertainment to the show *g*.
It also gives me fond memories of the minor stir caused by the Hobbits eating tomatoes in the film version of Fellowship. (What, and no one objected to Tolkien himself making a plot point of potatoes, precious, in Towers, thought I.) :) And of course of those historically accurate shows also produced in your beautiful country, Xena and Hercules. Honestly, once you've watched Xena hanging out with David & Goliath, Helen of Troy and Julius Caesar all within the span of three years showtime, you have no problem with Merlin and friends enjoying the benefits of many centuries to come. :)
The younger generation clearly needs out to work a schedule in the intrest of furniture, that's all.