The Summer Musts

When I came home from BYU for the summer, my little sister, Sarah, told me that there were two things that I was “going” to do this summer.  First, I am apparently going to read The Hunger Games.  I haven’t read them yet, mostly because I was planning on it, and then it became the seriously “in” thing to do.  I didn’t want to be the one among sixteen reading it in any given room.  But, that’s a pride thing.  I eventually always planned on reading The Hunger Games, but we’ll see what happens.  Second, Sarah has recently come to really like the BBC series, Merlin, and thought I’d like them too.  My roommate, Leslie, really likes Merlin as well, and had always wanted me to watch them with her, but I never did.  It was not because I thought I wouldn't like them, but because I didn’t really have time in the school year.  

But, I did watch some of the series this week.  There are four seasons out (fifth coming in the fall), so I haven’t watched everything, but here’s my take.  I do enjoy them.  I didn’t think I wouldn’t, but I do have a couple of issues that I’m torn about.  For those who are not familiar with the series, it’s basically an Arthurian legend-based TV series, but the main character is Merlin, not Arthur.  They took a lot of liberty with the legends.  And it’s not so much that that bothers me, because let’s be honest, Arthurian legend is a long and complicated evolution of legend based on some basic characters and backgrounds.  In fact, some Arthurian legend contradicts itself, because different stories evolved about the characters.  And even the characters evolved throughout history.  However, the characters are still fairly solid in who they are and where they came from.   And this seems to be forgotten in the series. 

Firstly, the major issue: Arthur and Merlin are the same age in this rendition.  They’re both teenagers during the series.  I’m sorry, but part of Merlin’s identity is as a sort of father figure to Arthur.  It’s who he is.  For crying out loud, Arthur would have never even been conceived if Merlin hadn’t tricked Ygraine into lying down with Uther.

Secondly, they have this thing about changing around the character’s social stations, willy-nilly.  It’s actually becoming quite an addiction for the writers, I think.  It’s as though they said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Arthur was raised as a prince under his somewhat tyrannical father, King Uther.”  Another writer probably said, “But, King Arthur was raised as a slave, you can’t just throw out the legend!  I mean imagine this:  Junius the farmer, around the fire at night with his little sons, Melchior and Tatius.  They have spent the days as the serfs on the land, and they sit listening to the stories of Arthur Pendragon, who was a slave, just like them, and then it turns out that he’s really the King!  It’s empowering the people, man!”  

(Of course, this scenario would never happen today, because Melchior and Tatius would say, “But Dad.  Arthur really was a prince. His father was Uther.   How does it empower the people if Arthur wasn’t REALLY an ordinary Joe?“  

Junius would then say, “You kids are getting too smart for your own good these days.  Empowering the people is all good and well, but we have the British Political Legitimacy to worry about.  You can’t just make any old Tom, Dick or Harry turn out to be the King.” 

“But I thought that the legend of him being ordinary was giving the Political Legitimacy.”

“I know.  That’ s the beauty of it! The common people think, ‘Oh look at Arthur.  He was just a good man, and that’s why he’s a King. ‘ Then later on, they think, ‘Oh look at our Divine Right and Genealogical power of our Kings.  That’s why they’re Kings!’  and they don’t even realize that the two reasons for Arthur being King kind of contradict one another.”

“But I thought the point was that you can be anyone, and do anything you like!”

“Well, the message is less, ‘It doesn’t matter your upbringing, just what you do,’ and more, ‘It doesn’t matter your upbringing, just your birth.’”

“But that seems even worse, Dad.”

“Stop whining and listen to the story.”)

Tangent done with.  Anyways, the writers of Merlin then realized that they had lost the people empowerment message.  So, they decided the First Merlin Rule of Thumb.  If you were a commoner in the legend, you’re now royal.  If you were a royal in the legend, you’re now a commoner.  So the writers found a solution to their empowerment problem.  Guenevere.  “Hey.  Wouldn’t it be cool if Guenevere had a little bit of a Cinderella aspect?  We’ll make her Morgana’s personal maid, and then the girls will look at her and say, ‘If Guenevere can marry a Prince, so can I!’  It will be so empowering.”  

Then our one voice-of-reason writer said, “But why didn’t we just keep Arthur as the people’s empowerment character?”

“He’s a man.  Men have been empowered for the past 1000 years.  We need to empower women.”

“With rising male suicide and plummeting male college graduation and all the negative push that we’re giving men, you think it’s a good time to make men feel like garbage and empower women?  Why?”

“Because we’re the media.  We empower women.  It’s what we do.”

Then, they realized, “Maybe we should empower men too.”  So, they got a grand plan.  Lancelot DuLac, son of King Ban of Benoic, you are no longer a prince! We already have a prince, thank you very much.  You can just be a commoner too!

Second Merlin Rule of Thumb: Anything in Arthurian legend that’s a little bit sketchy with the morals, but not in a hip way, let’s write that out.  So, yeah, Arthur was conceived through a lot a deception and trickery and adultery. In Early versions of the legend, Arthur is illegitimate, and later legends make a lot of crazy wand-waving to some how make the illegitimate legitimate. But if we want to be completely honest, Uther kind of sort of date-raped the woman.  Merlin made Uther look like Ygraine's husband, he came in, you can fill in the rest.  That's kind of sketchy. Let’s just cut that.  Ygraine will be a nice, happy wifey-woman, and all will be well.  Then, the writers were reading their Arthurian Legend for Dummies one day and found out that Arthur and Morgana (half-siblings), had a baby who turned out to be Mordred.  “No, No, No.  We cannot advocate that kind of behavior.  It doesn’t matter that they didn’t know they were half-siblings.  NO!  We’ll just write that out.  Voilá, Mordred.  Congrats.  You will be playing the creepy druid child today.”   I’m still wondering what will happen with the whole Guenevere/Lancelot/Arthur problem.  This isn’t really related to the Merlin series, but it’s always miffed me that Guenevere has a cow about Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic and how they made Galahad and everything.  Guenevere, you may not have cows about the man with whom you’re cheating cheating. It doesn’t make sense. 

Third Merlin Rule of Thumb: If you want to add something to Arthurian legend, just take a name that most people haven’t heard of from the Legend and do with it as you please.  

(“Wouldn’t it be cool to have an ancient, evil sorceress?”  

“What will we call her?”

  

“Nimue.”  

“Uhh…guys…that’s the Lady of the Lake.” 

 “I know.  I got it out of my Arthurian Legend for Dummies glossary.  But don’t worry, I asked around the studio, and I only found one person who actually knew who she was.  They’ll never know.”)

Last but not least, and this isn’t an Arthurian issue, but a modern-theme issue.  The series has a strong dose of destiny-fate-language.  This was what really bothered me about the Lost series as well—the entire concept of you don’t have a choice.  I find this to be saddening, and really disturbing. You always have a choice.  But the characters in Merlin are constantly told that they do not.   For example, Nimue wants to kill Arthur.  The guy is hanging off the side of a crevice by one hand.  She is an ancient sorceress and could probably write an OED-sized book on different ways to kill him, but she just leaves him there to die (or make it out alive).  Why didn’t she just kill him?  She tries, but says that it’s not her destiny to kill Arthur.  Umm, hello?  Why does that matter?  Furthermore, Merlin apparently cannot escape his destiny to help Arthur, even if he wanted to, according to the random dragon in the cave.   

This is not good for our children, I’m telling you.  What is good for our children is teaching them that they have choices and can be who they want to be, and that what they choose matters. I admit, this is a common theme in most all literatures.  There’s a reason that Greek tragedies always come about because the people try to avoid what the Oracle says will happen and by trying to not do it, they do it.  It just happens that way. Most every mythology, and much of modern literature, tells us that we have a fate.  A destiny.  An inescapable future.  It’s not only the in-thing, but has been the in-thing for thousands of years. And I still don't like it.

So, in conclusion, I do like the series. But I think I’d like it better if it were more choice-based.  And I think it wouldn’t bother me as much if they called it The Adventures of Bob; his Prince, Frank; Frank’s Sister-Like-Person, Sally; and Sally’s Maid, Jill. If you really want, you can give them nice fantastical-medieval names, such as Alfred and Coraline.  But they didn’t.  Instead, they had to make it a knock-off of Arthurian Legend--that when it comes down to it, doesn't really have a ton to do with Arthurian Legend. As Fillmore the Hippie-Van in Cars says, “Respect the classics, man!”