Of shiny things
Apr. 17th, 2012 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakRemix Madness: one week, no limitations, basically; you can offer your stories for a potential remix no matter how much or little you've written in a respective fandom and can pick whichever story of someone else you fancy, though nothing is guaranteed. I offered mine and think I have a short vignette idea for someone else, but either way, I'm so looking forward seeing the big Remix be opened next week!
Meanwhile, I've arrived at season 4 in my Merlin rewatching and am in love with this particular season all over again. It feels like the season where all my complaints save one (which is still there: needs more Gwen) were heard while what I already loved (again, except for the lack of Gwen screentime) was enhanced, and I want to draw sparkly hearts around it. Some thoughts about the cut scenes on the dvds (the last episode I watched as A Servant of Two Masters, so no cut scenes later than that one, either): you can see why they had to go with some of them - for example, Morgause telling Morgana about the old days on the Island of the Blessed and Arthur telling Merlin about an Uther-told story re: Dragonfire is nice world building, but not as important as the other scenes from the season opener, and if you have a limited time space available, these are the scenes expendable - but others I'd really have kept. The Merlin and Arthur conversation in Aithusa about their fathers and what it feels like trying to live up to dead ones ("You always loose," Arthur says but is acknowledging he continues to do that even while advising Merlin not to) not only goes back to their dead parents conversation in Sins of the Fathers (and lampshades they're in the same location) - but is an emotional connection to the previous episode where Uther died. The only good reason I can see for cutting this scene (and the follow up near the end when everyone returns to Camelot) is that the implication of the Merlin and Arthur conversation is that Arthur knows Balinor was Merlin's father. And since the show made a big deal of him not knowing this in the s2 finale, implying he found out at some point off screen feels like cheating, not to mention that of course it would be a bit hard for Arthur to know that Balinor was Merlin's father and not to wonder about the whole dragonlord inheritance thing. So yes, okay, even though it was a lovely scene cutting it probably was better for overall continuity even if it was a loss for emotional continuity.
However: Merlin's conversation with Lancelot from 4.02. - "magic is not a part of who I am, magic is who I am" - and, when asked by Lancelot how he thinks Arthur would react if told after commenting it won't happen now (since Merlin isn't expecting to survive the episode), stating "just once I want him to look at me at see" is a really important part of both Merlin's overall characterisation and the seasonal arc, and thus should have stayed. As I said elsewhere, retrospectively it works so very well to place the Gilli episode, The Sorceror's Shadow near the end of s3 because Gilli made Merlin question a lot of the compromises and assumptions Merlin has made. Now, in s4 Merlin actually gets a lot of (non-joking, non-qualified) acknowledgment from Arthur, but not for anything magical, and being unironically called a great friend who has been loyal above and beyond is just more painful if it comes with being called evil in the same breath (as in "magic is.."), especially if, as Merlin verbalizes to Lancelot, you believe that magic is who you are and what defines you, i.e. not what Arthur sees and praises. And that goes for Merlin's non-Arthur relationships as well - with Gwen, with the knights, even with Gaius who knows about Merlin's magic but because he gave up his own use of magic long ago (emergency life saving situations excepted) and evidently does not define himself by it. With everyone but Kilgarrah, actually, and not so coincidantally, Merlin's goodbye to Kilgarrah in 4.02 is more openly emotional than his 4.01 goodbye to Gaius, while in 4.04, when telling Julius Borden that dragons are pure magic who should not be used he's clearly identifying with them, not to mention that in this episode he explicitly listens to Kilgarrah over Gaius. This need to be seen feeds into Merlin's increasing use of his old persona (leaving aside that on a Doylist level this allows the show to have their cake and eat it and use the traditional cranky old sorceror along with the young one), which allows him not just verbal honestly but the open use of magic in front of Arthur, the knights and Morgana.
Just as important: the Arthur and Gwen conversation cut from 4.03. Mind you, I admit I don't know exactly which other scenes I'd cut for this, because pretty much every single scene in this episode is important, including the comic relief ones early on. Or, wait, I know: cut the Merlin and Arthur comedy routine before Arthur enters the hut to meet old!Merlin in the middle of the episode. The only thematic relevance of that one is that Arthur is projecting his own unease on Merlin and to explain where Arthur thinks Merlin was off to during his conversation with the old sorcer, and that's expendable if you compare it to the scene with Gwen, which is crucial for a) Gwen's characterisation, b) Arthur's characterisation, and c) the Arthur/Gwen relationship. Let's start with the first. On screen, we've never heard anything directly from Gwen as to what her attitude regarding magic is. You could make guesses, for example based on her unease around Mordred in the first season. But there was never anything definite, and her suspicion and then reaction towards Morgana in s3 was focused on Morgana trying to kill Arthur, being ready to frame Gwen for sorcery to Uther and turning against the people of Camelot, not so much on the fact Morgana has magic per se. So a scene like this, which has Gwen spelling out her own (Tom-related) issues with magic while being cautiously agreeing to the idea it should be judged on a case by case basis really needed to happen. It also needed to happen for Arthur's overall characterisation, because what he's talking about here isn't just the immediate matter at hand (as it was in Sins of the Father, the other time where he was ready to knowingly work with a magic user), but a general wrestling with the entire belief system he was raised with. Also, at the end he admits he isn't certain and could be wrong but has to risk it, and this, too is important (i.e. that we're not dealing with a 180% turnabout here which then gets reversed by the fallout of Uther's death but with an ongoing process). As for the Arthur and Gwen relationship: for heaven's sake. That he feels the need to be completely honest with her and trusts her with something so enormous, and how she responds, is really quintessential. Even if Gwen had ample screentime in this season in general, which she doesn't, I would say this scene should have been preserved above all for its character and relationship defining relevance.
Moving on to scenes which while endearing were not as important so are just an additional treat: Medical Team Gwen and Gaius from 4.1. and 4.2, Gaius looking for Gwen in Agrivaine's chambers in 4.02 (confirming the impression the broadcast episode already created, that he later shows up in Uther's chambers already searching for Gwen, and Gwen and Gaius noticing Agrivaine's lone trips to and from Camelot in the middle of a crisis as suspicious. As A Servant of Two Masters shows, Gwen and Gaius make a good detecting duo as well, and as s3 when Gwen started to get suspicious of Morgana showed, the two of them have grown close enough for her to come to him first in these situations. While the first two seasons have Gaius interacting almost exclusively with Merlin and Uther, making these the only two of his relationships one had enough canon material to get a good impression of, s3 and s4 shows him with Gwen and Arthur as well. He's not the obvious replacement father he is for Merlin (not least because both Gwen and Arthur grew up with their fathers and lost them in adulthood), but that also means they don't feel the need to rebel against him. I'm looking forward to the next episode and the Gaius and Arthur scene at the end of it, but I will say re: Gaius and Gwen that her seeing him out in a crisis and not, say, Leon or Elyan to me ties very much with the later as knights. Not just in terms of class differences (though Elyan having crossed the line into knighthood effectively puts him above his sister in status as long as Gwen hasn't married Arthur yet) but because Gwen identifies with Gaius' "civiilian" status as well as his job as a healer.
Then there's the scene between Arthur and Merlin where Arthur gives Merlin his mother's sigil as a keepsake in the long version of their nightly chat from 4.02. It makes for a nice counterpart to the later, broadcast scene of giving the ring (also an Ygraine relic) for Gwen but as the scenes as broadcast already show the mutual caring between Arthur and Merlin in depth, I can see why it went when pressed for time. Still, allow me to ramble a bit: Agrivaine during the season makes repeated reference to Ygraine when needing to convince Arthur of his loyalty - "you're all that's left of my sister" etc., and my fanon still is that one reason why he's not loyal to Arthur at all is that in actuality, he sees Arthur as what killed Ygraine. And one of the seasonal themes is how much both Arthur and Morgana inherited from Uther, and how they respectively deal with that heritage. So to me, Arthur associating the two people he loves best and trusts most, Gwen and Merlin, with his mother's heritage makes for a good counterpart (and btw also helps with how after suspecting Agrivaine he allows himself to be talked out of it again). (Leaving aside that neither Merlin or Gwen, having spent time in cells courtesy of Uther repeatedly, have reason to care for Uther mementos, and Arthur is aware of that.) Allow me to sigh once again for how relatively lacking in OT3 fic the fandom seems to be when we're getting such good set-ups for it. There's no need for competition! He loves both, they love him, they love each other.
Back to the dvds now...
Meanwhile, I've arrived at season 4 in my Merlin rewatching and am in love with this particular season all over again. It feels like the season where all my complaints save one (which is still there: needs more Gwen) were heard while what I already loved (again, except for the lack of Gwen screentime) was enhanced, and I want to draw sparkly hearts around it. Some thoughts about the cut scenes on the dvds (the last episode I watched as A Servant of Two Masters, so no cut scenes later than that one, either): you can see why they had to go with some of them - for example, Morgause telling Morgana about the old days on the Island of the Blessed and Arthur telling Merlin about an Uther-told story re: Dragonfire is nice world building, but not as important as the other scenes from the season opener, and if you have a limited time space available, these are the scenes expendable - but others I'd really have kept. The Merlin and Arthur conversation in Aithusa about their fathers and what it feels like trying to live up to dead ones ("You always loose," Arthur says but is acknowledging he continues to do that even while advising Merlin not to) not only goes back to their dead parents conversation in Sins of the Fathers (and lampshades they're in the same location) - but is an emotional connection to the previous episode where Uther died. The only good reason I can see for cutting this scene (and the follow up near the end when everyone returns to Camelot) is that the implication of the Merlin and Arthur conversation is that Arthur knows Balinor was Merlin's father. And since the show made a big deal of him not knowing this in the s2 finale, implying he found out at some point off screen feels like cheating, not to mention that of course it would be a bit hard for Arthur to know that Balinor was Merlin's father and not to wonder about the whole dragonlord inheritance thing. So yes, okay, even though it was a lovely scene cutting it probably was better for overall continuity even if it was a loss for emotional continuity.
However: Merlin's conversation with Lancelot from 4.02. - "magic is not a part of who I am, magic is who I am" - and, when asked by Lancelot how he thinks Arthur would react if told after commenting it won't happen now (since Merlin isn't expecting to survive the episode), stating "just once I want him to look at me at see" is a really important part of both Merlin's overall characterisation and the seasonal arc, and thus should have stayed. As I said elsewhere, retrospectively it works so very well to place the Gilli episode, The Sorceror's Shadow near the end of s3 because Gilli made Merlin question a lot of the compromises and assumptions Merlin has made. Now, in s4 Merlin actually gets a lot of (non-joking, non-qualified) acknowledgment from Arthur, but not for anything magical, and being unironically called a great friend who has been loyal above and beyond is just more painful if it comes with being called evil in the same breath (as in "magic is.."), especially if, as Merlin verbalizes to Lancelot, you believe that magic is who you are and what defines you, i.e. not what Arthur sees and praises. And that goes for Merlin's non-Arthur relationships as well - with Gwen, with the knights, even with Gaius who knows about Merlin's magic but because he gave up his own use of magic long ago (emergency life saving situations excepted) and evidently does not define himself by it. With everyone but Kilgarrah, actually, and not so coincidantally, Merlin's goodbye to Kilgarrah in 4.02 is more openly emotional than his 4.01 goodbye to Gaius, while in 4.04, when telling Julius Borden that dragons are pure magic who should not be used he's clearly identifying with them, not to mention that in this episode he explicitly listens to Kilgarrah over Gaius. This need to be seen feeds into Merlin's increasing use of his old persona (leaving aside that on a Doylist level this allows the show to have their cake and eat it and use the traditional cranky old sorceror along with the young one), which allows him not just verbal honestly but the open use of magic in front of Arthur, the knights and Morgana.
Just as important: the Arthur and Gwen conversation cut from 4.03. Mind you, I admit I don't know exactly which other scenes I'd cut for this, because pretty much every single scene in this episode is important, including the comic relief ones early on. Or, wait, I know: cut the Merlin and Arthur comedy routine before Arthur enters the hut to meet old!Merlin in the middle of the episode. The only thematic relevance of that one is that Arthur is projecting his own unease on Merlin and to explain where Arthur thinks Merlin was off to during his conversation with the old sorcer, and that's expendable if you compare it to the scene with Gwen, which is crucial for a) Gwen's characterisation, b) Arthur's characterisation, and c) the Arthur/Gwen relationship. Let's start with the first. On screen, we've never heard anything directly from Gwen as to what her attitude regarding magic is. You could make guesses, for example based on her unease around Mordred in the first season. But there was never anything definite, and her suspicion and then reaction towards Morgana in s3 was focused on Morgana trying to kill Arthur, being ready to frame Gwen for sorcery to Uther and turning against the people of Camelot, not so much on the fact Morgana has magic per se. So a scene like this, which has Gwen spelling out her own (Tom-related) issues with magic while being cautiously agreeing to the idea it should be judged on a case by case basis really needed to happen. It also needed to happen for Arthur's overall characterisation, because what he's talking about here isn't just the immediate matter at hand (as it was in Sins of the Father, the other time where he was ready to knowingly work with a magic user), but a general wrestling with the entire belief system he was raised with. Also, at the end he admits he isn't certain and could be wrong but has to risk it, and this, too is important (i.e. that we're not dealing with a 180% turnabout here which then gets reversed by the fallout of Uther's death but with an ongoing process). As for the Arthur and Gwen relationship: for heaven's sake. That he feels the need to be completely honest with her and trusts her with something so enormous, and how she responds, is really quintessential. Even if Gwen had ample screentime in this season in general, which she doesn't, I would say this scene should have been preserved above all for its character and relationship defining relevance.
Moving on to scenes which while endearing were not as important so are just an additional treat: Medical Team Gwen and Gaius from 4.1. and 4.2, Gaius looking for Gwen in Agrivaine's chambers in 4.02 (confirming the impression the broadcast episode already created, that he later shows up in Uther's chambers already searching for Gwen, and Gwen and Gaius noticing Agrivaine's lone trips to and from Camelot in the middle of a crisis as suspicious. As A Servant of Two Masters shows, Gwen and Gaius make a good detecting duo as well, and as s3 when Gwen started to get suspicious of Morgana showed, the two of them have grown close enough for her to come to him first in these situations. While the first two seasons have Gaius interacting almost exclusively with Merlin and Uther, making these the only two of his relationships one had enough canon material to get a good impression of, s3 and s4 shows him with Gwen and Arthur as well. He's not the obvious replacement father he is for Merlin (not least because both Gwen and Arthur grew up with their fathers and lost them in adulthood), but that also means they don't feel the need to rebel against him. I'm looking forward to the next episode and the Gaius and Arthur scene at the end of it, but I will say re: Gaius and Gwen that her seeing him out in a crisis and not, say, Leon or Elyan to me ties very much with the later as knights. Not just in terms of class differences (though Elyan having crossed the line into knighthood effectively puts him above his sister in status as long as Gwen hasn't married Arthur yet) but because Gwen identifies with Gaius' "civiilian" status as well as his job as a healer.
Then there's the scene between Arthur and Merlin where Arthur gives Merlin his mother's sigil as a keepsake in the long version of their nightly chat from 4.02. It makes for a nice counterpart to the later, broadcast scene of giving the ring (also an Ygraine relic) for Gwen but as the scenes as broadcast already show the mutual caring between Arthur and Merlin in depth, I can see why it went when pressed for time. Still, allow me to ramble a bit: Agrivaine during the season makes repeated reference to Ygraine when needing to convince Arthur of his loyalty - "you're all that's left of my sister" etc., and my fanon still is that one reason why he's not loyal to Arthur at all is that in actuality, he sees Arthur as what killed Ygraine. And one of the seasonal themes is how much both Arthur and Morgana inherited from Uther, and how they respectively deal with that heritage. So to me, Arthur associating the two people he loves best and trusts most, Gwen and Merlin, with his mother's heritage makes for a good counterpart (and btw also helps with how after suspecting Agrivaine he allows himself to be talked out of it again). (Leaving aside that neither Merlin or Gwen, having spent time in cells courtesy of Uther repeatedly, have reason to care for Uther mementos, and Arthur is aware of that.) Allow me to sigh once again for how relatively lacking in OT3 fic the fandom seems to be when we're getting such good set-ups for it. There's no need for competition! He loves both, they love him, they love each other.
Back to the dvds now...
