whynot | ARGH SOLSTICE

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ARGH SOLSTICE

Some great photos of child labor in America circa 1908-1912. Well, not great per se. Uh, you know. They're compelling.

- Arthur's face when he realizes Morgana might be in danger makes me go fjdlksjfds. I love when he cares about family. Quite different from Morgana last week who just lushed it up when she heard Arthur was fighting someone to the death. Or maybe she just isn't bothered because she knows Arthur will win anyway.

- I love how Morgana is constantly touching Mordred and stroking his neck or whatnot. To comfort him, ostensibly, but probably it comforts her more a lot too. They're so happy to see each other again!! <3

- Mordred and Merlin at opposite sides of the doors. Nicely done.

- Mordred is sort of like Morgana's Freya. Merlin/Morgana made all sorts of bad decisions for Freya/Mordred because they're just so happy and relieved that they're not alone. Also, I can't tell if Mordred is being a manipulative bastard and wrapping Morgana around his finger, or if his smile is just creepy by default.

- At some point, the situation has gone from Uther imprisoning the Dragon to Merlin imprisoning the Dragon. There totally needs to be an episode where the Dragon is a key player in the plot and not just as deus ex machina.

- YAY THE ALLIANCE OF MORGANA AND MORDRED

- ...IN EEEEEEEEEEVIL LOLOL

- MORGANA SAID SHE CAN GO D: Man, Gwen's being dumped by everyone.

- D'AWW MORDRED'S RUNNING HUG TO MORGANA <33333333 <33333333 (running hug of eeeeevil)

- Maybe it's 'cos my Solstice fic has been eating my brain, but I'm totally being reminded of my Solstice fic during Alvar's spiel.

- I like Morgana's hesitation at the prospect of wiping out EVERYONE who served Uther. Obviously she's thinking of Arthur. She and Arthur are interesting contrasts: his first instinct is to be loyal to Uther, so that's what he has to learn to question, but Morgana's first instinct is to go against Uther, so that's what she has to question.

- LOLOL I WAS TOTALLY THINKING "HMM, ALVAR/MORGANA?" AND THEN THEY ACTUALLY ALMOST KISSED ahahaha oh show

- "Alvar's followers are blinded by his charisma." Haha you mean like THE WAY MERLIN IS BLINDED BY ARTHUR'S CHARISMA?? THE WAY GAIUS IS BLINDED BY UTHER'S CHARISMA?

- I feel totally vindicated by the existence of all these rebel groups and how they espouse honorable ends through dishonorable means. Of course they exist. But what measure dishonorable? Call these groups extremist, whatever, but Uther has made it so that they are extremist just because they exist. It's so easy to flip this show around and make people like Tauren, Edwin, Alvar etc the protagonists.

- "...combination of raw talent and hard cocks", that's right, you totally thought it, your mind went there, admit it.

- The cloaks of the knights leaving the castle, oh man. On this show, the cloaks are characters in of themselves!

- The battlefield is no place for Morgana lololol whatever, Alvar

- LOL CREEP IT UP MORDRED, THAT'S MY BOY

- "THEY USE MAGIC OR SOMETHING." Oh Arthur. (TOTALLY MY SOLSTICE FIC.)

- "GO TO YOUR ROOM, YOUNG LADY." "GO TO HELL!!" hahahahahaha

- Morgana disowning Uther! BEFORE UTHER CAN DISOWN HER.

- Oh Morgana. I guess there's only so much a camel's back can take. Her dreams got worse (with only temporary reprieve from the hot half-sister who wants to bang her), and now that it's confirmed that it's magic, it's twice the stress. Meanwhile, Uther ups the crazy. Just as she was about to find freedom with the druids, she had to give it up. And that's crueler, to dangle it in front of you only to take it away again. The enemy isn't as straightforward as Kanen and his bandits anymore, and the trial is not just an adventure out to the country to swing a sword around in the name of justice. Shit got real. She's outside of her comfort zone. Is the enemy Uther (their relationship is complicated enough already), is it herself, is it the thing inside herself? What is internal and external to her is no longer clear. She's isolated and scared and acting out. Like Merlin, she just wants to find some place to be.

- I want Mordred/Morgana fic now more than ever.

- I totally thought Alvar's girlfriend was gonna have a bigger part. What, is she just fulfilling the the girl-with-sword quota now that Morgana and Gwen are, uh, too busy with other things?

In other news, here's what I wrote for homework this week:

Durkheim wrote, “Myth is where our non-identity is staged,” and identity is one of the things at stake in children’s stories, specifically the stories in which there is a magical fantasy world that reflects/defies/is an escape from the more mundane ‘real world’. Take, for example, the Chronicles of Narnia. One of the catch-phrases of the Chronicles is "Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia," which seems to imply that identity is constant across the worlds. But does constant mean essentialized? Ahistorical? Then this just focuses on just one part of the Pevensies’ identity – their destiny to be kings and queens – which is not their identity per se; it is more a designation. What is constant across the sacred world of Narnia and the profane world of England is not their identities at all. The tragedy is how this destiny engulfs their identities anyway.

Durkheim wrote of individuals passing back and forth between the worlds and how they often have to perform rituals to prepare for their interaction with the sacred. Sacredness is not the default state of the individual – or of the Pevensies – and yet Lewis’s Christian agenda puts this not-default state as the superior state. The ‘real world’ is called the Shadowlands, as if they are only projections of Narnia. They are the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave. This is not to say that the ‘real world’ is unimportant; it is important in that its very role appears to be outgrown and dismissed, like the husk that protects and shapes itself around the fruit within, but which we will not eat. What is the earth but the left hand of heaven? It is, in a sense, Marx turned on his head: instead of theory and practice reconciling itself in sensuous activity in the ‘real world’, they seek to subsume themselves in the symbolic world. In other words, not to push the ideal world into reality, but to push reality into the ideal world.

Some have posited that the Pevensies needn’t have gone into Narnia at all – any two boys and any two girls could have saved the land because the role of Narnia’s destined savior is the empty place to which Leforte and Levi-Strauss were referring. Being destined is therefore a coincidence of positionality. Levi-Strauss wrote that an object (e.g. the Pevensies) occupying the place of a sacred thing (destined savior/ruler of Narnia) is what makes them sacred to begin with, and this is how they maintain the order of the universe: “by occupying the places allocated to them” (Levi-Strauss 10). As previously mentioned, it is this destiny – i.e. empty space – that is constant across the worlds, and though this is a part of the Pevensies’ identities, it is not all of it despite Lewis’s emphasis. This fetishization of what is only a part of their identity is eerily similar to Marx’s preconditions for alienation. That is to say, in the capitalist system man does not live holistically but is the quantification of his skills and credentials, and it is precisely because he has been reduced to only one part of himself that he becomes alienated to the rest. The movie adaptation of Prince Caspian, the second book in the Narnia series, deals with this alienation in a way that the book does not, showing the despondency and resignation to which the older Pevensie siblings have fallen into, now that they are stuck again in the world they have already shrugged off.

Unrelatedly, I don't ship Draco/Hermione, I really don't, but apparently I ship EmmaWatson!Hermione and TomFelton!Draco b-because they're hot. Okay.

ETA: OMG

mordred_morgana!! YES. YESSSSS. And...

leonandmorgana?? SURE WHY NOT.

ETA #2: OMG I SENT IN MY SOLSTICE FIC FINALLY FINALLY *falls over*

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LASS I LOVE YOU. I do not know anything about your theoretical principles but HOMG I LOVE YOU.

ILU2! Haha I wish you guys are the ones grading my paper!

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What is the earth but the left hand of heaven?
:DDD

this is really awesome and really interesting - England really doesn't have any value at all it seems! but I suppose that's his longing for the absolute good of heaven? ALIENATION alienatioooon slksfdl;sfd this is so so awesome lass :D

Haha England has no value in this theory. Maybe in Weber, but not here.

GIRL, I know you're superbusy, but do you possibly POSSIBLY have time to beta the rest of my Solstice fic? It's 4300 words from where I last left off. You can say no, I understand. D:

ohhhhh by when?

I have to send this fic off by tonight?

I can read it through quick right now kinda quickly, send it by :)

YOU ROCK
YOU ARE THE ROCK
like peter

I wish I had more time I could help with but I love this story and I love you so of course I will love to read it over for you :) :) :)

Your homework is so much more interesting than mine, and I am insanely jealous.

Although today I did find out that originally, hubris was a crime characterized by violence intended to embarass or defame. The classical example being some guy walking up to Demosthenes and punching him in the face.

Violence huh? Interesting. I guess I can see the relationship.

Who was this guy who punched Demosthenes in the face?!

Meidias. It was apparently several stages into the feud they had going on, but it gave rise to Demosthenes's speech that prosecuting under the law meant forgoing personal vengeance.

But then they settled out of court anyway.

- I want Mordred/Morgana fic now more than ever.

I KNOW. GOD. I HOPE I GET IT FOR SOLSTICE (though I'm going to be happy for whatever, but still).

I don't think I've written it yet. I SHOULD GET ON THAT. Maybe after season 2 is over with.

EITHER WAY. I OTP THEM, SINCE MORGANA IS GOING TO EFF THINGS UP WITH GWEN.

SEE ICON.

YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GET ON THAT.

OMG LOOK WHAT I FOUND:

mordred_morgana EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THE RELEVANCE

HOLY SHIT I LOVE THIS FANDOM!

I agree with you about movie!Dramione, because it's hot.

BUT OMG LASS YOUR HOMEWORK. <333 While I'm not familiar with a lot of the principles you reference, I love, love, love how freaking true it is! OH PEVENSIES.

And Mordred is so adorable it's ridiculous.

PEVENSIEEEES

Everything is hot in the HBP movie. Like, I don't even know.

Mordred is wonderfully creepy and maybe I should be worried about how I always seem to love the creepy ones. And I love how attached he is to Morgana too, like when he asked Alvarr after she had left, "Where's Morgana?!"

This episode really bugged me. Like, basically, some guy shows up in Morgana's rooms and is all "Found this kid wandering around, wanna steal a crystal for me? It's totes powerful." And then she does, because Mordred asks her, and then she warns the camp/liberates Alvar because, Idk, she thinks he's cute? So it was like she was doing all this stuff because of the personal connection she had to the two of them, not because she really agreed with their plans. Which. She agrees with the no magic thing (and helpfully put her foot down, although I'm not sure what that's supposed to help exactly) but does she bother to ask Alvar, like, what exactly his plans are? Or to attempt to see how killing everyone in Camelot is going to help? For all she knows Alvar's plans are 1) Mordred 2) Morgana 3) Crystal 4) Kill Uther 5) rule the world! And the way she's so easily manipulated by him, argh, it bugs me. Morgana, any time you want to have an interesting arc where you have, like, rational thought processes? I would totally be interested in that.

Also, poor Gwen! :( :( :( She's got no one left, not even Merlin talks to her anymore.

MORDRED WHY ARE YOU SO CREEPY.

So...is the next episode going to have everyone pull a Sleeping Beauty while the evil knights show up with Morgause and Morgana cowers in the corner and Arthur and Merlin save the day? Or is Merlin going to finally free the dragon, and he'll burn the evil knights up with his flames? And that will explain the visions Merlin had without making the dragon kill everyone (because that makes no sense, it will put a damper on his plans for Arthur's Golden Age if he BURNS CAMELOT DOWN). I WANT THE NEXT EPISODE.

Also, I disapprove of Morgana/Morgause. I feel that the logical progression, now that Gwen has been dumped by everyone, is for her and Morgause to hook up. They can bond over 1) how Uther sucks 2) how Arthur is noble but also oblivious and silly 3) how Morgana is clearly in trouble and 4) the benefits of a well-made sword.

It's funny because fanonically I'm used to a calmer Morgana and usually someone who is on top of shit. She's totally being dumb in many of her decisions in the episode, but I get it. She's trying to figure a lot of things out and be proactive at the same time, and it's getting all tangled up. I think Morgana would've gone over even if Alvarr weren't there, I think that's been building up for a while. I think what really compelled her was Mordred. I mean, Mordred was probably using Alvar and his gang instead of the other way around, the wonderful little creep. But Mordred seems genuinely smitten by Morgana too, and I'm intrigued by this juxtaposition of easy maliciousness onto child-like adoration.

DO YOU REALLY 'COS I JUST LOOKED AT THE PROMOTIONAL PHOTOS FOR THAT EPISODE AND AM ALL JFlkdjsflkjdkf omg

I think fanon Morgana is way smarter than canon Morgana. Was she cooler last season and this is a new thing? Or has she always been like this? I can't remember.

I think...hm. I would be happier with Morgana if she was doing this stuff with a bit more...thought? Like, it just seems like she doesn't want to let Mordred down, and it seems like that adds to the fact that she tends to do this stuff for intensely personal reasons--Mordred wants her to, Uther wants kill her/him/them...I don't know, I think we see her as more like empowered/enlightened than she is. Or maybe not? Maybe I'm too hard on her. LEARN TO USE YOUR MAGIC, MORGANA, HARNESS IT. And Mordred is so cute! ...And yet such a psychopath.

I ship Gwen with everyone, it's a really bad habit.

She was cooler last season only because she didn't have problems to deal with. The dreams were still relatively tame. Even in the last handful of S1 episodes, she only BEGAN to lash out. We could make fanon Morgana smarter and stronger because, 1x12 aside, she was a side character and we could extrapolate more. Now that her problems are taking center stage, it turns out she doesn't know how to deal. I'm fine with her flailing around, honestly, 'cos it feels real to me that she's scared and looking for connections. She's been pampered and privileged all her life, and she doesn't know yet how to segue from that arena of power (which she is cutting ties with or something?) into another. It would be kind of hokey to have her be in control and fabulous all the time, because after all who is? No one! Sometimes people are petty and lonely and act defensively. And hey, as far as doing magic for stupid and personal reasons go, Merlin is absolutely guilty of this too. So! I say give her time.

Hrm, I guess. I just wish she was more--powerful? USE YOUR MAGIC, MORGANA, or at least your political connections (and why doesn't she have any?! She ought to be able to do something). I have hope, though. (Lol, I was watching the latest episode with a non-Merlin friend and she was like "Who did Morgana break up with Gwen for?!" and I was like "...her sister." It made my day.)

LOL BEST. This show keeps getting stranger like that. I wonder now though whether I actually like the show or if I like the sparkly shared delusion that fandom treats the show as. Or if I just like fandom itself. This was how I felt with Harry Potter too.

I'm totally in this for the fandom, lol. Which is weird because I don't read much fic.

Neither do I! Partly it's 'cos I'm busy, but part of it is also because Merlin is such a large fandom, I am not as motivated to go out there and hunt around. The cup runneth over! Because Narnia was tiny, I was willing to make a greater effort. I would read sub-par Peter/Susan fics and think, "Well, I GUESS it's not completely terrible..." But I don't have to do that in Merlin.

HEEEEEE. Your review was awesome. Mordred is totally creepy, in the most adorable way possible. And Alvar was a complete douche, but since he, and his girlfriend as well, I believed, survived the episode, we might get more about them.
Morgause totally wants to get into Morgana's pants. And I say: high time!! Poor Morgana had been totally abandoned this season, she deserved more screen time, dammit! The little conversation before Arthur goes to find the crystal was made of pure win. The tiny smirks of "I can't stand you" are just lovely in both if them.

<3! I want to have a villain come back, make a cameo or something, that would be interesting. Sigan is still alive, no? And yes, more Arthur&Morgana definitely!

I adore Mordred and his burgeoning tragedy, and his crush on Morgana, and his easy maliciousness, and his WIDDLE FACE.

Oh Merlin! I just wanted to cuddle him this ep. It'd be so cool if he could actually confide in Morgana, but she hasn't exactly proven herself trustworthy in a capacity of making sure Arthur lives, lol! She's all about violent, point-making change, and Merlin is quietly tweaking cogs as best he can so things run their course and nooooobody suspects a thing, bless him. But oh Mordred getting all up in Merlin's head. I wish Merlin was better respected instead of Arthur yelling at him all the time! I like that he can shut Arthur out tho =D

Surely all these disparate magical factions that want to take Uther/Camelot down must realise there is a force working against them. They have to compare notes sometime to figure out why their evil plans keep failing, because it's definitely not through Uther's wit and cunning. If he were left to it, he'd have been dead dozens of times over by now.

I loved that "Go to your room!" Poor Uther, floundering at parenting the rebellious child! Why can't they all be as good and trusty as Arthur, eh?

Yes! Merlin/Morgana is one of my favorite ships, and I love seeing the moments they have together because there's SO MUCH AT STAKE. And they're pretty similar, in that they both have a capacity for tweaking things behind-the-scenes to varying degrees of success, but they are both also prone to impulsiveness and rash decisions. I don't think either of these characters think things through very well.

Merlin vs. the revolution would be a wonderful fic to read! Merlin can totally have loyalty angst about it.

It's one of my fav ships too. Probably my most fav. I agree, they have a lot of similarities! The only reason Merlin works smaller is because he doesn't want to be caught, where Morgana is a bit more stroppy.

Oh Merlin. Sometimes he's the only thing between Camelot and full-on magical destruction. Just as well he has the power and is greater than most of the other sorcerers he comes across. I can imagine all these sorcerers breaking into the great hall, raining destruction down, and Merlin just quietly stands between them and Uther and Arther, and stops them. And Arthur goes from, "What are you doing, you idiot," to hiding behind his throne going WTF.

I think Morgana is used to making grander gestures, and you're right, Merlin is just all about making things run smoothly.

I can imagine all these sorcerers breaking into the great hall, raining destruction down, and Merlin just quietly stands between them and Uther and Arther, and stops them. And Arthur goes from, "What are you doing, you idiot," to hiding behind his throne going WTF.
Haha, I think I have read that fic!

So long as he's not getting burned at the stake, he's happy. Not that he couldn't just blast his way out of the dungeons anyway.

You have?? Crazy! It must be a popular thought then =D

I SO want a red cloak of awesome. Sad to say, I totally think Mordred is playing Morgana. Our heroes have warped him indelibly - but, shit, that makes for an awesome character. I fear for Morgana...

Me tooooooo.

I think Mordred playing Morgana and and Mordred having a genuine attachment/affection for her aren't mutually exclusive, 'cos that's the kind of guy Mordred would be. He's pretty ruthless and messed up that way, and oh I cannot wait for his role to groooooow.

with only temporary reprieve from the hot half-sister who wants to bang her

I am so glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that.

There are several people who think this. ;)

I want to read your paper when it is done, because the snippet so far is awesome.

Also, your Hardison backstory broke my brain (in a good way!) and I have spent four days researching and weeping so that I can continue our comment fic.

I'm not sure if my paper is going to be on this exactly. I have to think it through and send my prof an email about it, if I don't just visit her during office hours. I'm also thinking of doing an ethnography of Merlin fandom, of sorts.

<3 oh yay! I cannot wait to see what you come up with. What are you researching?!

Also, I can't tell if Mordred is being a manipulative bastard and wrapping Morgana around his finger, or if his smile is just creepy by default.

I've realized that he creeps me out in a way that is very similar to how Elijah Woods creeps me out.

but apparently I ship EmmaWatson!Hermione and TomFelton!Draco b-because they're hot. Okay.

HAHAHAHAHAH, oh lolz.

THAT'S RIGHT LOL IT UP, I'LL JUST SIT OVER HERE mourning my shame

I mean, not going to lie, I would totally tap Tom Felton too. I just feel like Draco/Hermione = O.o?

Me tooooo, I swear, but Emma/Tom makes me want to find a way. Well, more Emma than Tom, who just kind of looks washed out. Emma Watson, I would ship you with everyone.

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ARGH SOLSTICE

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