I didn’t know Uther’s size.

It’s been forever since I watched Meeeerlin, so let’s finish season 2.

Sweet Dreams

In this episode a fire-breathing jester servant sorcerer does a love spell on Arthur so that he will fall in love with a rude princess and this will start a war. Hijinks ensue. Merlin/Arthur snark abounds, as does Arthur x Gwen stuff (it’s an Arthur x Gwen episode).

The misunderstandings and miscommunications are all well done, funny, cringey, and so on, as they’re supposed to be. There’s even a point where today’s villain, King Something-or-another, complains because the rude princess isn’t interested in Arthur and this somehow ruins his war plans. He says, “every woman everywhere is attracted to him, I’m almost attracted to him.” And then that fire-breathing jester laughs but the evil king shoots him a glare so you know what, the evil king is attracted to Arthur, full stop.

I do think it’s refreshing that the love spell is being used to start a war. Usually it’s to take over Camelot or some such.

Anyway Merlin/Arthur anything is always good and the Arthur/Gwen romance is strong, so this is a quality episode.

The Witch’s Quickening

A lot happens in this one, so here’s a list:

• Morgana is mean to Gwen for, I think, the first time
• Then she’s nice to her again but gives her evil looks while she’s not looking – this came out of nowhere, I think
• Arthur is pretty mean to Merlin too, throughout
• Morgana disowns Uther for the millionth time but seems to mean it
• Merlin trips Mordred and he’s like “I’ll never forget or forgive!” Kid you just tripped on a stick, get over it
• Merlin sees a vision of himself freeing the dragon and the dragon burning Camelot, and he’s sad about it
• Also Merlin helps Arthur and co destroy a sorcerer’s camp and kill a bunch of people on Uther’s orders. Are we ever really going to deal with how bizarre it is that Merlin is on this side of the conflict?
• Morgana gets seduced by an insufferable liar named Alvarr, but I think he’s also Tristan of Tristan and Isolde. Either that or he looks a lot like him and his girlfriend looks sort of like her. Or my memory is flawed. However, they’re annoying, and whether these two are the same people or not, I know Tristan and Isolde were also annoying, so I’m kind of right even if I turn out to be wrong.  
• Morgana helps Alvarr escape even though it would have been nice if he died (but also he’s technically in the right in this stupid conflict; he’s just annoying)
• How does Uther not realize it’s Morgana betraying him? What a thick skull he has.
• The dragon is VERY insistent.

The Fires of Idirsholas

Morgause is back!

This episode is similarly dark as the last one, and is about the same things. I like this one better because it places Morgana close to Arthur and Merlin, and she has to face what her betrayal is doing to them (as in, she’s watching them slowly die of a sleep plague caused by her). She’s still conflicted, despite declaring to Morgause that she isn’t. Merlin is also close to Morgana when he decides, after a lot of angsting, to kill (or almost kill) Morgana. Morgause saves her because unlike Alvarr, Morgause actually cares about Morgana.

Gaius tells Merlin that he made the right choice in killing/almost killing Morgana because Morgana didn’t choose to use her gift for good, which is apparently what Merlin is doing.

So. Merlin choosing not to kill Uther or to not let Uther die, letting the more just and less bigoted Arthur take over is good, and so killing/almost killing magical women in service to that is also good. Cool.

This episode features a “I think I’m about to die” Arthur joking with Merlin about needing a servant in the next life.

Also. The dragon is freed. So the stupidity of the ethics in this show can slide this time around. I had a good time.

The Last Dragonlord

The dragon is PISSED.

Merlin’s father is in this episode. He doesn’t know he is Merlin’s father. Merlin tells him, they bond, then that guy dies.

Then Merlin inherits his dragon-entrapment abilities and Merlin is merciful. The dragon flies away and Arthur is told he killed it. Before that, they do a “I think I’m about to die” Arthur and Merlin banter again which I like.

2 down, 3 to go.

Do Not Let this Knowledge Change You

The Sins of the Father

Morgause shows up and taunts Arthur into leaving Camelot to do some challenge or another. Haven’t we done this already? I recall a similar set of circumstance with Nimueh in season 1. I assume Morgause will end up dead at some point and I really hope her death is less stupid than Nimueh’s.

This is one of those episodes that shows just how much this show has to work with – a good setup with the Camelot mythos, good characters, enough mystery and “sins of the father” for a really cool redemption (or something) arc like Zuko’s or the one in The Dragon Prince. The problem is, they’d have to deviate a lot from the source material to do something like that. 

But I mean, really! Imagine a Merlin in which Prince/King Arthur starts out as enemies with all of these dangerous ladies but ends up as their ally. It’s not that out there anyway, considering the very bizarre relationship Morgan/Morgana/Morgan Le Fay/whatever has with Arthur in a couple of olde takes on this story and she ends up accompanying him to heaven or whatever that was. I’m still extremely fuzzy on this legend. All I know is, in Merlin at least, I think Arthur AND Merlin are aligned much more naturally with these dangerous ladies than with Uther so, what gives?

Ygraine says, once Arthur has learned that his father sacrificed her life to bring Arthur into the world, “Do not let this knowledge change you.” But like, why not? 

Merlin gets mad too, because of the hypocrisy.

And yet… don’t let this knowledge change you.

The episode presents “let[ting] this knowledge change [Arthur]” as Arthur killing his own father, as though there are no other options. There are a whole bunch of nonviolent ways to do things differently than Uther, to cut him out, etc. Instead, Merlin lies and says that Morgause was the one lying to get Arthur to stop. Which, frankly, makes Merlin kind of a bad guy.

This show, man. Why didn’t they just… ugh.

Anyway. Apart from the stupidity of that, this is a really good episode for all of the male characters and also Morgause. 

The Lady of the Lake

Why is this called this? Well Merlin falls in love with a druid girl who is also a were-winged jaguar. And she dies at the end. So he puts her in a boat a la Elaine and sets her sailing.

I don’t know.

A Song of Water, Earth, Fire, Air

Recently one half of Bryke, creators of Avatar: the Last Airbender, published a letter explaining their feelings about leaving the Netflix live-action Avatar project. Someone shady published a piece stating that the reasons they left were:

a) Netflix wanted to consider a few white actors and Bryke were very opposed, and

b) Netflix wanted to age up the characters so that they could include violence, blood, swearing, and sex, and Bryke wanted it to be, you know, FOR KIDS.

So this might not be true, and that article and guy who wrote it are for sure shady, but honestly all of that rings just a little bit true to me. Why else would Bryke leave, saying “You might like it, but whatever it turns out to be, it’s not what we wanted,” because, yikes.

First hearing the news I felt rage akin to how I used to feel annually for 10 weeks around May about Game of Thrones (there is now just a hollow blackened cavern where any feeling about GoT used to be). But at this point, I just have to laugh. Let’s go with it! If Netflix is trying to make Game of Thravatar, or Ravatardale, or Sabravatar, OK. Let’s imagine that, just for fun, and to soften the blow when the final product arrives.

The only problem is I’ve watched just one episode of Sabrina and none of Riverdale, so this will be depressingly Game of Thrones heavy – as in, the whole thing will be Game of Thrones. I’ll throw some A Song of Ice and Fire in there too. What would George RR Martin do with the Gaang? NOT AGE THEM UP AT ALL! Jon and Robb start at 14! Dany 13! 13! Why??????? Sansa starts at 12! Arya 9! Arya, now 10, is portraying a sexually-suggestive character on the stage and basically using seduction to get close to an assassination target in one of her preview chapters for Winds of Winter. I mean, her target is a pedophile, but still. He could have just NOT written it like that. In GRRM’s novelization of Avatar, you can bet the Gaang and co would be sexually active, maybe having sex scenes in excruciating detail happening on the page. Maybe one of the kids would have large, dark areolas and another of the kids would obsess about the large, dark areolas. But don’t fret, GRRM would also throw some rape or almost-rape in there too for all of the girls – for historical accuracy, of course.

K. Maybe it’s not entirely a hollow blackened cavern where my ASoIaF/GoT feelings used to be. Yet.

Anyway.

First thing’s first, and this has nothing to do with Game of Thrones:

Who do they want to cast as white?

• I’m trying to pick out some plausible characters and am really struggling. They just aren’t white. Why is this hard?
• The Cabbage Man?
• Maybe Aang
• Maybe everyone in the Water Tribes again
• … Zuko? They wouldn’t, would they?
• I can’t, it doesn’t make sense.

Game of Thravatar

Sigh.

The Ending

Let’s begin at the end. It won’t have a satisfying conclusion. It will either have a conclusion so badly-crafted that we can’t help but wonder “Hey guys, maybe you’ve mentally checked out of this one and should move on to other projects that make you happy, like that ‘slavery is still legal in the 21st century’ one – ah, OK, maybe not that one, but still?” But they’re like “no, no, we’ve got this,” but it makes no sense, except that it is designed entirely on the format of “penultimate episode, something terrible and unexpected happens and involves a main character” set up in Season One, or they will just stop releasing episodes. And they’ll be like “we promise, we’re working on it,” but we’ll have seen the last few episodes they released and how they meandered and wasted time with characters who could easily have been cut entirely, like a three-parter on the swamp guy’s nephew and even a 40-minute arc of the mugger Iroh meets becoming a masseur,  and we’ll think, “Nah, guys, I think maybe you want to quit and work on other projects that make you happy?” but they’ll be like “no really, it’s coming. Next year, I bet.”

While option two is frustrating, at least it’s not option one, where, I guess, in a shocker of all shockers, Aang decides, “Fuck it -” (and he says “fuck it” because he’s aged up) “why don’t I just harness the power of Sozin’s comet and destroy the Fire Nation?”

Zuko and Katara are there, and they either miraculously survive or they die and Aang is like “Oops but now I’m the Dark Avatar King Guy” and Toph “mercy” kills him while Momo wrecks all the Avatar temples, which are the symbols of Avatar power that corrupts, or something, and Iroh will be like, “Hey, wasn’t there supposed to be a climate change metaphor in here somewhere?” But everyone ignores him, because most of them are dead.

The Incest

There would be incest and it is too gross to think about.

The CGI Budget

Appa gets killed instead of gets lost to save the CGI budget. Momo might also die due to this, but we need him to do the symbolic destroying of the Avatar temples so maybe not.

Hawky

Hawky would be a raven, and he would say, “CORN!”

This would be OK.

Dangerous Ladies/Sand Snakes

When Zuko is at the Boiling Rock and Mai shows up, she should accuse him of cheating on her with Katara or something (hey, maybe he really does do that, why not), and say this incredible line, “You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy.”

I can see Mai saying that. I can see anyone saying that. I mean, people say that on a daily basis. While I’m grocery shopping, I hear people saying this to each other. The cashier greets me with “You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy.” On the radio, they introduce each new song with “You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy.” And every song’s chorus is “You want a good girl/but you need the bad pussy.” PM Justin Trudea begins each Covid announcement with the time-honoured phrase, “You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy.” It is inscribed on the inside cover of every book, and is engraved on each tombstone. It will be on mine, when I die, and my last words will have been, “You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy.”

Side note: I hope they paid that actress all the money for that shit, and also I know that they didn’t and that all the Sand Snake actresses were likely hideously underpaid.

Anyway. The dangerous ladies will be naked at least half the time for little to no reason. They will have clear motivations that the show will forget and entirely flub. We’ll barely see knife-throwing, chi-blocking, and blue flames. They’ll lose pretty much every fight within minutes. There may be WLW action that is not taken seriously, and there will literally be men onscreen watching every time it happens to reinforce that it’s only happening because of the straight male gaze.

Misogyny, in 100 different flavours

I did recently watch a few episodes and assorted clips from the earlier, “good” seasons of GoT, and I had forgotten how much the show hates women. Arya with her “most girls are stupid” and whatever crap that was with the Waif. Then there’s Brienne with “you sound like a bloody woman,” etc. How heartbreaking it is, that they made those two characters misogynists. Both of them have reasons to resent certain women in their lives, but Arya’s is sister-drama which is very different from hating ALL women, and in the books when Brienne thinks of people who have been cruel to her, shockingly, it’s always been men. But hey, they’re fighter-women so they must hate women just like all the men do, right?!

Here’s how that would look in Game of Thravatar:

• Toph’s “sugar queen”ing of Katara would increase tenfold
• Toph would say, unprompted, a whole bunch of stuff about how much she hates “girly” things and other women in general
• The part where she and Katara go to the spa and Katara tells her she’s pretty after bullies make fun of her would be cut
• “The Runaway” would be cut
• Nobody would ever say anything nice about Katara, ever.
• Whoever gets raped will have a scene where they say, “I’m glad it happened because it taught me not to be stupid and realize that the world is a dangerous place.” Not like she already knew that, or anything…
• They will write a consensual sex scene so poorly that the editing turns it into a rape scene. Genius!
• Azula would be openly dismissive of her friends. She wouldn’t care about them at all. When they turn on her, she would just lock them in a dungeon to slowly die and never think about them ever again.
• Similarly, any and all secret pain she feels regarding her mother would be cut
• Her mother is dead, in fact. Why have her be still alive, living in exile, for further comic books to explore? She’s a mom, we don’t care about her story unless she died tragically. Raped first, of course.
• None of the girls would ever talk to each other, basically
• Some of them might have sex, but again, only while some man watches. Extra points if it’s a man who has been castrated.

Misandry, but for real

Game of Thrones… might actually hate men as much as if not moreso than women, though the man-hate is sneakier and subtler. Poor Aang is not going to fare well.

• Gonna be a lot of physical and psycho-sexual torture of Jet when the Dai Li capture him
• Jet gets castrated by the Dai Li and then everyone makes fun of him for it, including when Smellerbee makes out with Katara in front of him or something
• Castration will be a widespread thing, and they’ll take as many opportunities as they can to draw attention to it. Like maybe someone actually tries to touch Jet’s genitals at one point and makes a comedy face, like, “Wait, whaaa?”
• Long Feng will kick Jet in the castration and it will not be painful at all, turning the tides in the important action scene.
• Except then Long Feng will kill Jet with a rock. But it’s OK because he was castrated, so what did he want to be alive for anyway, right? He can’t do anything anymore. You need a genitals for literally everything you do in a day, right guys?
• People will make castration jokes at Aang for some reason (probably because he’s a vegetarian)
• People will also make fun of Aang for being an Air Monk, and will make a lot of virginity jokes at him
• Aang has deep convictions about not killing anyone – as unseriously as Sokka already takes this in the original? Imagine that turned up to 1000.
• “You eunuch-vegetarian-virgin. You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy, and as we all know, that sacred saying means you gotta MAN UP and commit murder.” All of the previous Avatars will say this to Aang, as he asks for their wisdom while traveling on the Lion Turtle.
• Sokka will also not have a good time. He starts out making kind of misogynistic jokes, and that entirely ends in S1E4 after he meets Suki and learns a lesson. But in Game of Thravatar, that will never end. And until he fucks for the first time on screen (BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT WE ALL WANTED OUT OF A LIVE ACTION ATLA, RIGHT?), he is made fun of for not being enough of a man, or, something.
• Sokka’s jokes will be about sex and swear words, and nothing else (think Bronn’s “brilliant” material)
• Zuko will die. Instead of being redeemed, he’ll just switch to the good side at the last second and then sacrifice himself and die. (TBF this one is more a Star Wars thing, but, still)
• Or possibly, Zuko will do the hard work of redemption, but at the very end he will abandon it all and go hang out with Azula and be killed in Aang’s vengeance. He’ll be like, “Whatever man, I don’t care about anyone or anything.” And we’ll all be like, “Uh… like one episode ago you did, WTF?” And he’ll just shrug, and die, for no reason at all.

A Song of Water, Earth, Fire, Air

It would be too long.

Honestly? This book series took a lot out of me. It has taken me some time to realize this, but the reality is, even something that’s supposed to be as “harmless” as fantasy novels can still do harm.

I haven’t read one of these books in years. It’s been almost a decade since the most recent one came out, and for me, they didn’t have any reread value. Still, moments in them stick out to me like rusty nails I step on out of nowhere in my day-to-day life. Sometimes when a book or movie or a show does that, it’s special, but in this case it’s not. It’s all the horrific moments, which are only there to provide characterization for whoever is narrating at the time. Out of context, it’s just wanton cruelty, and it’s stuck on repeat in my head.

I found the politics interesting, the characters were very easy to love and to be terrified for, the villains easy to hate (yeah, Ramsay and Euron are not complex), complexities of characters who aren’t just villains were interesting… There’s just so much trash to wade through.

Near constant depictions and references to animal cruelty, rape, torture, and baby-killing. Beloved characters die, and their bodies and memories are desecrated. Very little justice. There is a lot set up, and so far, no payoff. This is in service to “subverting fantasy genre tropes and expectations.” Yeah. But first, are they being subverted, though? Did you see what happened to Jon in the show? Very typical. And very empty. Will the point, in the end, be that nothing matters? Then why wade through all the death and suffering of innocents and the vulnerable, just to reach that bullshit Nietzschesque conclusion? Second, you can’t subvert expectations at all, if no one knows how it ends.

Whatever. GRRM doesn’t owe anyone anything. But if I’m going to pay my money for a book, I want answers and payoff and closure. Open-endings are fine, as long at they are endings.

Also at this point I’m not unscrewing my skull and placing my fragile brain back into the planetos. I will read the plot points on wikipedia.

But for ATLA but live-action and on Netflix, I have but one planetos-related quip.

There is always one boob out in Ba Sing Se

Dany goes to Quarth in book 2 and we find out that the fashion there is to have a cheeky one out, as Hannah Gadsby would put it. So Dany lives her life in Quarth wearing gowns that are designed to always have one boob out. She’s like, just turned 14 at this point.

There are a couple of asides about men staring at her one exposed tit. One of the such pedophiles is of course show-fan favourite Jorah. Later, Dany is queen of Mereen, where it is NOT the fashion to have one tit out, Dany wears a dress “in the Quarthian fashion, with one breast exposed” or whatever.

Why, babe?

I’m talking to GRRM, not Dany. Dany, you do you.

When I first read this I was like, “Oh, OK, cool.” It wasn’t until maybe a month ago, which is almost a decade later, that I’m realizing why in the show, when Dany arrives at Quarth, none of the ladies were walking around with one of their boobs just lolling about. HBO has a nudity quota, I thought, why not take this obvious chance to fulfill it?

Yeah. It’s because that would look ridiculous.

I looked it up on google, and, fine, women are beautiful, but the asymmetrical look is difficult to pull off, especially with an eye-grabbing breast in the mix. Google it yourself. You’re welcome. It still doesn’t look elegant.

It would also be really impractical. What if you have to lean over something, you could snag a nipple.

IT’S STUPID, I SAY.

I don’t want to accuse GRRM of anything untoward but like, it’s a fourteen-year-old girl and it would look bad and inelegant, so why is a boob out? And if that’s what he’s into (especially if there are large dark areolas involved, which, by the way, if you hadn’t already caught that from those unnecessary Oakheart chapters, that’s, uh, definitely fetishistic and racist, as Arianne is the only non-white girl here and the only one whose areolas are given such creepy, rhapsodizing attention), why not just keep that to himself and not publish it?

Anyway. GRRM would have Ba Sing Se fashion be one-boob-out and it would be stupid.

Also I maintain that for no reason at all, his characters are way too young.

Netflix, but why

I don’t want to sound puritanical about not wanting the ATLA characters to fuck. But that’s what fanfiction is for, and importantly, this is a property for kids. It’s one of the best shows ever put on television and it was made specifically for a child audience. Does it have to be taken away from them?

The original show implied sex. What was that Sokka/Suki thing in the tent?

The original show had a whole whack of violence. Zuko walks around with a third degree burn scar on his face. Do you need more? Do we need to watch people get their limbs crushed by earth-bending? Why? Just so kids can’t watch it?

Also, I watched A Series of Unfortunate Events. That show got away with a lot, but it’s still child-friendly, and it’s also fantastic. Not being able to just throw sex, swearing, and gore onscreen means a creative team has to get creative. That’s why entertainment made for kids, if it’s good, tends to be really good. Why not just go with that?

Why take Avatar from kids?

And Finally, Animation

I was looking forward to more ATLA content. Especially since they had Bryke, and they were “going to do it right,” and they were going to try to be as culturally sensitive as possible and give a whole bunch of jobs to a whole bunch of people of colour.

But the live-action remake does make animation seem less desirable and less prestigious and less important than live-action, and that remains very stupid.

Happily, no one can take ATLA and LoK away from anyone. They’re animated, beautiful, with great characters, great messages, friendly for all ages, and they have SATISFYING CONCLUSIONS.

THANK YOU TO THEM.

She just ripped a door off its hinges, doesn’t that tell you something?

Let’s hop back into Merlin, shall we?

Lancelot and Guinevere

Uhhhhhhh… relationship… goals?

Morgana and Gwen go off on a pilgrimage and immediately get attacked and kidnapped by bandits. There is some gross leering. Morgana escapes, but Gwen gets injured and can’t escape with her. The bandits decide to pass Gwen off as Morgana, and Uther is not interested at all in using Camelot soldiers to save Gwen, because she’s just a servant.

It’s OK though, because Arthur and Merlin go after her. Perhaps my favourite part is when Morgana is yelling at Arthur about what a horrible person he is and that he should go save Gwen, and Arthur is sighing and packing for his rescue mission and he’s eventually like, “Morgana, can you not see that I’m packing?” Just like that part with Sokka while Katara yells at him about saving Aang, also a favourite of mine.

Merlin teases Arthur the whole way there for being in love with Gwen. Arthur actually admits it too, which is unexpected and kind of nice.

BUT! Lancelot is there with Gwen, literally in the next cell. He is depressed and doesn’t think his life matters because his ideals have led to nothing, but Gwen telling him she has feelings for him makes him be like “Oh never mind then,” which is stupid. Later, he gets her out of her cell, tells her to run and he’ll buy her time, she’s like “I’m not leaving you here to die” and he says “I would die for you 100 times over” so I guess he still doesn’t think his life has enough value to try to preserve it. He just wanted a valiant purpose to die. This is potentially fine – it’s the chivalrous ideal that the King Arthur mythos is all about, but maybe it needed to be a two-parter or something, to flesh out the chivalrous ideal and all their tangled romantic feelings and Merlin’s messy gossip-houndness and such.

Anyway Arthur and Merlin save them both. Then Arthur is JELLY. He doesn’t handle it well. But Lancelot is like “I gotta give up on this dream for the good of the realm” and he fades into the night, leaving poor Gwen brokenhearted. K.

Annoyingly, there is another giant animal antagonist in this episode, but at least they look cool. Also none of them die, which is good.

Beauty and the Beast – Part 1

I vividly remember this two parter – I believe this may be a highlight of the series. It is so funny. It has it all: Uther being humiliated, Uther being humiliated, and Uther being humiliated.

There’s probably something to unpack about… conventional… attractiveness… but I’m not even sure. Mostly, I’m just happy that a lovely, regal actress gets to do double duty as a lovely, regal charade, and also the troll. It is SO FUN to watch. The only time women get to act even halfway like this on screen is if they’re fat, and even especially then, it’s not nearly this much fun.

The premise is that a highborn acquaintance of Uther’s is actually dead, but a random troll uses magic to take on her image and seduce and marry Uther so that she can have all his money. Sarah Parish is a lot of fun in these episodes, but to be fully immersed in the delight. you do need to know how terrible Uther is, so you have to watch everything else first. Them’s just the rules.

Beauty and the Beast – Part 2

The best part of this very, very good two parter is that Uther and the troll have sex.

So.

That happens here.

That’s the episode.

Also later Uther and Arthur have an awkward conversation about it, LMFAO.

In all seriousness, Merlin, Arthur, and Gaius all have to work together to save Camelot, and Arthur’s stomping around going “the people are poor, they can’t afford higher taxes, give them their money back” while Gwen smiles, and Uther is a dope the whole time and gets punched in the face by the troll, and Merlin tries to hug Arthur, so this is excellent content.

The Witchfinder

Merlin does a nifty trick, alerting the kingdom to there being sorcery within. Uther sends for the title of this episode and Gaius yells at Merlin for being stupid.

It’s Charles Dance! Instantly, I am scared. He does tend to play (mostly) competent evil dudes.

Here is no exception. He figures out Merlin is a sorcerer 10 minutes into the episode. But Gaius takes the heat, and it turns out Aredian (that’s the Witchfinder’s name) is just a grifter. Merlin has to prove this and as usual does so by sneaking around other peoples’ bedchambers.

Merlin sneaks around people’s bedchambers A LOT on this show. It’s kind of bizarre, but I suppose it’s a good way to both build tension and fill time.

Refreshingly, in this episode, Gwen helps Merlin solve the crime. Also, was Arthur really going to stand there and watch Gaius get burnt at the stake if Gwen didn’t yell at him?

Uther barely apologizes to Gaius for almost burning him at the stake and Gaius throws him a lot of shade before and after he finally gets to it. Gaius is the man.

This is a great episode.

Don’t even think about the leech tank

And now is season 2.

The Curse of Cornelius Sigan

Half of this episode is Ragetti’s overly elaborate plan to ruin Merlin’s career for a day so that he can steal a key to grave rob. Arthur pretends not to enjoy the two men fighting over him.

Then Merlin makes a deal with the dragon reluctantly and saves Camelot. Arthur and Gwen share a few awkward moments.

Morgana has sweet moments with Gwen and Gaius, except I’m pretty sure that for all his good intentions, Gaius is legit gaslighting Morgana, which is not great.

It’s action-packed and character driven. Both at once. Difficult to explain. I liked it.

The Once and Future Queen

This is the episode I am most familiar with. Arthur is sad because his knights are letting him win. Gwen has to sleep on sacks of what I imagine are potatoes. Arthur is a terrible house guest. Those two previous statements are related. There is some comedy with a dead chicken which I do not appreciate.

Also, there’s an assassin after Arthur. But Gwen is the real Arthur-murderer in this episode, when she finally snaps and tells him how rude he is, and he listens to her.

Perhaps this is a major turning point in his character. I can’t remember if at least some of his arrogance really does dissipate from this point on, but if so, I’ll catch it, and will be highly impressed.

I also like when Merlin snaps.

The Nightmare Begins

This is an apt title for the nonsense of Morgana’s turning to evil subplot, which supposedly begins in this episode.

There are giant scorpions in the woods for some reason. Mordred saves Morgana. Well gee, aren’t we glad we saved him from a child-executioner and general tyrant a little while ago?

Merlin and Gaius acknowledge that being a sorcerer with zero guidance in an intolerant house and community is extremely difficult, and then seem to commit to continuing to allow Morgana to be a sorcerer without any support. At least, it isn’t brought up again. Cool, guys.

She gets support with the Druids. She tries to abscond with them but is captured while Mordred escapes again.

Meh.

Xena Rediscovered II

The Path Not Taken

In this sad episode, Xena pretends to be her previous warlady self. Gabrielle gets herself and some Romeo-type guy locked in jail. There are a bunch of rape threats that are “softened” by this show never using the word “rape.” I know it was a different time, but maybe it would be better to have at least one person refer to is as “rape” and not just have everyone use innuendo all the time. Also it might be better to refer to consensual sex as just “sex” instead of using a bunch of similar innuendos for that.

Having said that, Game of Thrones exists, and proves that using the blunt words for things doesn’t automatically make an anti-sexual violence fantasy TV show. And so far, Xena: Warrior Princess is actually, textually, even without using the real word, anti-rape. Groundbreaking. Brave, even.

Xena’s friend dies doing one good thing, and she sings a sad song.

The Reckoning

Whoever cinematographied this episode liked Lawless’s and O’Connor’s legs. Also, bondage. No judgement here, just observation.

Aries shows up and is a huge jerk. Why is every guy like “Xeeeena, don’t you want my dick and also to join me in killing indiscriminately?” And Xena says no, and they don’t listen, so she outsmarts them, they smirk and go on with their lives… it’s a pattern, is all.

Themes of violence still being discussed.

The Titans

Gabrielle recites a poem and causes the entire plot. She gets called a virgin a whole bunch of times and is awkward. There’s a love triangle between titans that ends in tragedy. Xena saves some kids.

Prometheus

Hercules and Iolaus show up. The show tries to imply that the four of them are soul mates and it’s like, sure, Xena and Gabrielle, and Hercules and Iolaus, those are pairs I’d believe. Anyway. They save the day and no one has to die.

Death in Chains

There has been a lot of bondage lately, actually. Last episode was Prometheus, and him being in shackles meant humans could no longer heal themselves. This time Death is in chains and people can’t die.

I like that a show about a reformed warrior woman takes an episode to talk poetically about death and how death is OK and sometimes a release, and necessary.

I didn’t like that they had a bunch of rats in this episode. I’ve noticed a lot of the credits have little jokes about this or that being harmed or not being harmed in each episode – for this one it says “No Giant Cocktail Rats harmed in the making of this episode” and it’s like… can we please define “harm?”

There is footage of rats falling. Maaaaaaaaybe they used convincing fake rats for that, and if so, I take it all back… but it looked like it was real rats. “Oooooh, it’s the 90s, we can drop five or six rats onto the actors or into a tunnel, it’s fine.” And yes, the rats, if they were real rats and I think they were, would likely survive that fall, but just because they’d survive it doesn’t justify dropping the little guys. At best they were scared and bruised, and in my opinion that’s harm.

Also, according to the credit statement, which is really just there to be a joke, no one was actually monitoring animal action. This doesn’t mean much, because when someone is monitoring animal action, it’s still not great. Like that time in Life of Pi where the tiger playing RP for no reason since the CGI was good almost drowned.

There are so, so many other examples of animal “actors” being harmed (almost drowning counts as harm) (he saved himself, so, like, they had no contingency plan for the tiger they dropped into the water; he had to rescue himself) (=HARM). But I’m always just going to reference that one, mostly because they used a CGI tiger for so much of the film.

Of course the episode where they dropped rats got me to rant. Otherwise, it was another very good episode. The rats didn’t even need to be there. They were not relevant to the plot.

Xena Rediscovered I

When I was little, I loved Xena: Warrior Princess. I wanted to be her. I used a frisbee as a chakram. I may have caused some damage throwing it at imaginary enemies. I also wanted to be Gabrielle, but it was harder to find something to use as a pretend staff.

Do I need a reason to watch some Xena before returning to Merlin? No. But if so, that was it.

Sins of the Past

I know Xena started as an antagonist-turned-love-interest on Hercules, kind of like Catwoman, but I don’t care. I don’t need to know the details of that to follow that she used to be a warmonger who killed and pillaged, and now she feels bad and is struggling to head down a different path in life while everyone she knows mistrusts her. I also dig Gabrielle in her humble beginnings as a surprisingly street-wise nuisance and fangirl. Warlord Draco works as a villain. He’s charming and sort of nuanced.

Xena sulks and repents. Gabrielle is spunky. Draco has a smart plan. The theme music still slaps. Some of the action is goofy, of course, but some of it is pretty great. At one point, Xena has to get up into some scaffolding. Instead of using a ladder, she hits a guy in the stomach so he doubles over then hops onto his back so that she can launch herself up the rest of the way. It made my evening.

As a pilot, it works and I like it.

Chariots of War

Xena gets injured and ruins some guy’s dead wife’s dress so that she can fight in it. Gabrielle hangs out in a bar. Some soft warlord’s son is preciously bad at being a warlord. When Xena kills the jerk warlord dad, he says his dying words to his son: “If you had done this, I would have died proud.” Which. Jesus.

Dreamworker

In this episode, a group of weirdos tries to make Gabrielle a sacrifice. She is a “blood innocent” – she hasn’t ever killed anyone before.

So obviously the whole “violence is bad, killing is bad, etc” thing permeates the whole episode and it’s great, but also, it’s pretty refreshing that Gabriel’s special sacrifice status is that she’s never killed anyone, not that she’s a virgin. Fiiiiiiinally.

Cradle of Hope

Myth mixing in this episode: Moses stuff, and Pandora’s box stuff. Xena dances in a veil. They fix everything using the obvious solution, infuriating the baby-murder enthusiast.

Welp, so far it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of and more.

Feels really good. Swordy.

It’s time for an intense game of Egyptian Ratscrew, so let’s end Season 1. Hi-yo Silver, away!

The Moment of Truth

The… mob shows up to the outskirts of Edoras, so Merlin’s mom comes to petition Saruman-infested King Theoden.

You know what? I’ll stop.

Uther respects his neighbouring city’s sovereignty, which is bad for some reason. Morgana and Gwen defect with Merlin to protect the outlying village. And yet again, I’m trying to forget that Morgana later becomes a villain for no reason. Also, Arthur joins the defecting team. Squad’s all here!

Honestly, I would probably prefer a show in which the four of them went on a 4-season-long quest solving mysteries and fixing problems all over the four nations before coming back for season 5 so that Arthur can be king. But alas.

The main mob guy has a huge scar, reiterating my point from earlier that there are no good guys on this show (or even neutral guys) with disfigurements.

This episode has some intriguing conflicts:

Merlin: Can He or Can’t He Use Magic to Save Everyone?

Arthur: What Does Divine Right Even Mean in a Different Kingdom and also is He Even a Good Leader?

Women: Should They Be Allowed to Fight?

I think this episode really needed to be a two to three-episode arc, to fully wring all of the intrigue out of all of those questions. One episode with Arthur training farmers, with a subplot focusing on Morgana and Gwen slowly convincing Arthur to let women fight, and the other focusing on Arthur’s insecurities and Merlin’s indecision about whether to risk outing himself as a sorcerer.

Despite how rushed it was, I liked it.

The Labyrinth of Gedref

Arthur is a dummy trophy hunter and kills a unicorn, leaving everyone cursed. Then he solves it by drinking poison. In the meantime, people eat rats and cockroaches, but no one ever tries to eat grass or flowers or, like, leather boots during starvation sequences. Leave the rats and cockroaches alone, guys, you have options.

And it ends with the unicorn coming back to life, which, great, but also the rat and the cockroaches and the leather boots could have come back to life too. Seriously, what is animal rights in this show?

Only unicorns are worthy of humane treatment, I guess. I see you, Merlin.

To Kill the King

Uther est un tyran, et le père du Gwen est emprisonné et assassiné. Morgana watches and sinister music plays, then she yells at Uther about being a tyrant (she literally uses the word “tyrant”) as he chains her up for “speaking treason.”

Arthur awkwardly tries to appease Gwen. It’s kind of nice. Gwen and Morgana have a nice moment too. Also, Uther sucks? This of course isn’t new information, but, seriously.

Merlin overhears Morgana doing her very first villain scheming and he sulks about it. There is an interesting dilemna about “should I let a horrible tyrant die even though that technically makes me a murderer or should I save him so that I’m not a murderer but he gets to keep being a tyrant,” but Merlin picks the boring option. Sigh. They always find a work-around so they don’t have to get their hands dirty, these heroes.

In this case, the work-around is that Gwen thinks that killing Uther would be just as bad as everything Uther has done, which is not really true by the standards of any of the actually decent moral philosophers Chidi is always citing on The Good Place, but, OK.

Morgana and Uther mend the fence over her father’s grave, and for no reason, no reason at all, I’m reminded of this:

It doesn’t relate at all; I think Uther says something like “truth and justice” and now this dance is stuck in my head.

Morgana stabs her villainous plot-partner to save Uther, and she is conflicted about it.

Le Morte D’Arthur

The questing beast. Why. I am not a fan. Random animals wreaking havoc is so dull.

Morgana is also not a fan, as she can see all the future events caused by the questing beast in her nightmares. She tries multiple times to warn people, and no one listens to her. This, more than the Uther-is-a-tyrant thing makes me understand why she goes full villain. “You people don’t appreciate me!” she should have yelled, storming out of the castle.

Cuties. I’m gonna keep you.

Gaius tries to sacrifice himself for Merlin, who in turn is trying to sacrifice himself for his mother, because he had already tried to sacrifice himself for Arthur but the old religion got it twisted (on purpose).

But Nimueh is spiteful and cruel for no reason at all (except, I suppose, because she’s a sexy lady), so Merlin murders her and Gaius gets to live. So, in the end, it was Nimueh who was sacrificed for Arthur (in a round-about way), against her will, and, OK. Keep in mind that Merlin refused to let Uther, Literal Tyrant, die, but apparently Nimueh letting Gaius sacrifice himself, which is what Gaius wanted to do, is bad enough for Merlin to actually, literally murder her with lightning.

It’s satisfying enough without context I guess, except that Nimueh being so spiteful is never truly examined or nuanced, the old religion’s law that “only death can pay for life” seems totally fair to me, and this conclusion makes no sense since Merlin is supposedly anti-murder as of the episode right before this one.

The other thing is, I do remember that, again, Mallory’s Le Morte D’Arthur has Merlin attempt to date-rape Nimueh, so she puts him in a tree for eternity, and that’s why she’s a villain. Because. She stopped a man from raping her. So.

Obviously they’ve changed the entire story and everyone’s characterizations for this iteration of the King Arthur legend, but “sexy spiteful Nimueh” is a weird and boring direction to go in, and I do have to point that out. Owlmachine hates femme fatales. They never make sense and honestly, they often seem like they’re kind of sort of supposed to function as revenge porn for male writers and male audiences, which is super gross.

Nimueh isn’t done as dirty as Elle Driver or the Sand Snakes are, largely, I think, because this is a family show so she got no leering ultra violence done to her, and she never had to say the phrase “bad pussy.” However, in that her motivation is not nuanced and never fully explained, she is, in fact, just as bad as them. And soon enough, Morgana too, will be just as bad. The end.

To be clear, I do love this show. It is just flawed, like everything else in the universe.

Season 2, here we go!

Yep, with a lump of wood

The road goes on…

A Remedy to Cure All Ills

For a show that’s all about how Uther needs to stop being a bigot because it’s causing a lot of strife, there are a heckuva lotta sorcerer villains.

In this episode, the sorcerer is gunning for Gaius’s job, and also has a disfigurement. I don’t know what to make of the disfigurement – it isn’t my lane – but will note that I can’t remember good and neutral characters with disfigurements on this show, so that sucks. The disfigurement is also part of why he’s even here to do villainy, so, that also sucks.

The Gates of Avalon

Arthur has a crush on a girl who is here to kill him. Morgana knows this is going to happen and is angsty about it. Merlin watches a guy do lake magic and sees fairies. It’s really cool; the best magic has been so far on this show.

Morgana tries to be self-sacrificing but Gaius intervenes. Merlin ends up in the pillory once again, then finds out that Morgana has the gift, possibly. And here begins Morgana’s nonsensical descent to being a villain, for reasons.

The Beginning of the End

It’s called that because this is the first appearance of Mordred.

Here’s the first real instance of this show depicting that what Uther is doing is actually bad. That said, my question is: why is it that Morgana’s tender heart – here leading her to continue to be skeptical of the way Uther treats magic and magic-doers, and to help hide an innocent child from execution – eventually leads her to the tedious character progression of “going too far” for “justice” that never even looks anything remotely like justice? Why does she have to become a villain?

Also, this doesn’t have to happen to Merlin? He just gets to be sad about Uther, and later Arthur, being bigots of varying degrees, and doesn’t ever have to become a villain?

I do think that this story, where two people are compassionate and see injustice, and then one becomes a terrorist and the other doesn’t (and does… something else? I also seem to recall Merlin doesn’t accomplish a whole lot) could be very compelling. But I don’t think this is that. I think Morgana meets a girl who sways her into villainy (and that’s also potentially compelling, but again, from what I remember, it wasn’t all that compelling) – and this just doesn’t adequately or sensitively or thoughtfully depict whatever “too far” is supposed to be, and doesn’t explain how we get there.

Currently I can’t think of a decent depiction of activism or seeking justice (actual, radical justice, not just “reluctantly stopping a killer/killer army”) that isn’t a biopic. I like biopics, but can we please have a fantasy girl whose justice isn’t written badly so that it actually turns into terrorism and genocide? Or at least, a fantasy girl who goes bad but it’s done well, is grounded in something real/historical even, and therefore makes sense and contributes to a broader cultural conversation? Bad girls need motivation, please.

Anyway, I’m trying not to watch these early episodes through the lens of “But where did they go with any of this?” So.

There are moments here that are great. This episode is more interesting and engaging than some of the others so far with just random sorcerer bad guys. There’s a part where Merlin snaps at Gaius, “Oh, so it’s wrong to harbour a young magician?” And it really works.

The problem is that, yes, Point A over here is good enough (minus the infernal destiny thing). I’m engaged. But it ends, somehow, at Point B, in which Morgana and Mordred (who is a little kid) are capital E Evil, which is capital S Stupid.

Arthur saves Mordred today. And later… Mordred kills him. So are we supposed to think they should have executed a child? That is literally what the dragon says. This whole “destiny” thing is, therefore, limiting for the entire story. Even Gwen argues in favour of letting a child be executed, and there you go. Gwen, at least as I know her, would never advocate letting a child die, but the “destiny” theme and the plot demands it. The characters are helpless, acting in ways that don’t make sense just because the plot gods demand it, like in that Joss Whedon movie with the killer unicorn and mermen.

They could have written a different ending, is all. One that doesn’t have otherwise kind people being all like “yeah, maybe we should kill baby Hitler.” And even if the law demanded that in stories we only ever do this stupid thought experiment that believes in the possibility of time travel but not in the possibility of anything else, such as going to an even earlier time to stop WWI or, like, socialization, apparently, Mordred’s not even remotely comparable to Hitler. This isn’t compelling, it’s just frustrating.

I’m still living for the animosity between Arthur and everyone else.

Excalibur

The Black Knight/Zombie Mountain shows up and bites his thumb at the Camelot court. It’s really unsettling to watch him them kill two boys in succession, trying to be brave and valiant knights but fighting a knight that is actually a zombie and is therefore cheating in this “combat to the death.” Because of this, this is the darkest episode so far in this show. Honestly, the very fact that they don’t put the deaths or the blood onscreen makes it worse.

Then Arthur’s upset and accepts the third challenge, so a few interesting things happen. Merlin seeks to create Lightbringer out of a Valyrian steel sword Gwen’s dad made, turning it into a weapon imbued with dragon fire, so that it can kill the dead. Then Mirri Maz Duur shows up in Uther’s chambers and tells him off for starting a whole persecution war on sorcerers just because he asked her to make his “barren” wife bear a child, which caused his wife’s death, because “Only death can pay for life.”

I know the Game of Thrones references are tedious but I’m fine with my choices.

But this version is less Mirri Maz Duur anyway, because Nimueh didn’t realize that Uther’s wife would die. And Uther blaming her, and all other sorcerers, for something he is more than complicit in? Super intriguing. Also, he says he wishes he had never done it, and she asks if that means he wishes he didn’t have a son. This is obviously not true, but Uther’s feelings about Arthur are conflicted at least.

There is a cute moment where Arthur teases his dad later, which humanizes Uther, like the rest of this episode does. Still, Uther being humanized doesn’t take away from what we know watching this unfold: dude is wrong, and lashing out for bad reasons, and causing a lot of damage. Nuance, I have well and truly missed thee.

This makes “Excalibur” my favourite episode so far, even though Merlin and Arthur don’t really snark at each other.

He may be an idiot, but he’s a brave idiot

(game of thrones spoilers)

(for some reason)

So there’s this fantasy show in which a young woman with incredible power eventually goes full villian, and though it is foreshadowed pretty much from the beginning, in small ways and then slowly in larger ways, it still doesn’t really make sense with respect to her characterization throughout and it seems like the biggest reason for it to have happened at all is because some authorial intent exists out there in the netherverse that hath ordained that it must needs be this way, though we are still unsure why, and maybe it’s a little bit misogynistic and maybe it’s fine, but would have been far more compelling, entertaining, and would have been material actually worthy of the actress if they’d… tried harder.

It’s called Merlin.

Thankfully, Merlin is saved from being extremely disappointing in the end because it’s mostly about the bizarre and often touching friendship between the title character and the young Prince Arthur, and that remains good throughout, even if the Morgana subplot never makes much sense.

At least, that’s how I remember it.

So now, as I have finally fallen hard out of love with A Song of Ice and Fire, and to be clear it’s not because Dany went rogue, but instead because Dany going rogue was not earned, it’s time to rewatch Merlin and recap the episodes, a few at a time, in brief, because Emrys knows, I need it.

DISCLAIMER OF ZERO IMPORTANCE: I studied the King Arthur canon or whatever in university. I took several classes on it. One was strictly Tennyson’s poems, one was Medieval Romance, most of which was different early versions of King Arthur, and one was King Arthur retellings for children. And I have no clue. Not one clue. I don’t know what the King Arthur legend is supposed to be about, or what the importance of its themes are, or why any of the characters do what they do. I don’t know. I just like Merlin.

The Dragon’s Call

We meet Uther murdering a sorcerer. Great guy. Gaius almost dies and yells at Merlin for saving him, because MAGIC IS OUTLAWED. A major theme in this show is persecution, using magical ability as a metaphor for whatever you like. It starts pretty much right here, with Merlin crying at one point and wondering why he was born this way, and if maybe he’s a monster.

The villain is a particularly scary sorcerer woman whose son is the one who was murdered. Her being scary and killing a couple of random women so that she can get her revenge is effective. We understand why Uther has the prejudices he has – which kind of makes the magical ability=real life persecuted identities thing not work, but that’s OK. We also understand that every bad thing that happens in this episode is because Uther acted out of prejudice and murdered this woman’s son at the beginning.

There’s a chained dragon. We love a chained dragon being set free – but  I think that takes a while.

The episode’s highlight is Merlin standing up to Arthur’s bullying of some random servant, and later they fight.

I especially like “How long have you been training to be a prat?” and Arthur’s chuckling “You can’t address me like that.” I think he finds it refreshing, secretly.

Gwen shows up and talks to Merlin while he’s in the pillory, which is also cute.

Merlin=Prince Arthur’s manservant in the end. Lol.

Valiant

I got distracted during the first quarter of this episode, but I think today’s villain is a Knight called “Valiant.” But maybe I made that up. His house sigil is some snakes.  I wish just once we could have nice snakes in fiction. Jeez.

Nerd alert! Gaius needs venom from the snake to make an antidote. He’ll also need a horse. You inject snake venom into horses, who then create natural immunity, which is isolated from blood samples and turned into anti-venom. It’s why anti-venom is rare and expensive, and also a good example of something I hope we soon create an alternative for because that job sucks and was not consented to by the horses, lol.

A mouse dies in this episode, fed to shield snakes. I’m not a fan. Magic shield snakes shouldn’t even need to eat.

Uther is surprisingly not trigger-happy when it comes to executing sorcerers, but in this episode his reasonableness gets in the way. But so does the toxic masculinity of the Uther/Arthur father/son relationship. Arthur’s big problem here is appearing not 100% like a perfect, idealized knight in front of his father, and the court. And appearing like a perfect, idealized knight is his duty, and he will die doing it if he has to.

That’s dumb, Art. But I get it.

Merlin conjures a rottweiler out of stone, which is very exciting for these Medieval times in which he does so and these modern ones in which I’m watching. (I looked it up and apparently Rottweilers have been around since before Medieval times, who knew – well, obviously whoever added one to this episode knew.)

This is the beginning of the lists Arthur gives Merlin all the time. These are my favourite parts of the show. It’s relaxing to know that Merlin has way more on his plate than I do at any given time.

WELP that’s it for one day! Thank you, Merlin.