![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
merlin s4 finale reaction and morgana appreciation post
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT, MORGANA PULLS ME BACK IN.
I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop with her. I think I just got it? Or a glimpse into it. Basically I have been waiting to see her hurt and her pain and her fear, which I KNOW ARE THERE BECAUSE HOW COULD THEY NOT BE AFTER EVERYTHING SHE'S BEEN THROUGH, except that the show is never that interested in going into why Morgana is the way she is. I'm not excusing or forgiving Morgana for the terrible things she's done, but I wanted the show to be a little more explicit in showing how her pain and her vulnerability backgrounds this emotionally stunted evil she throws around. Her character development in season four made sense to me, but the show only showed us one side of it so of course Morgana would seem like a mustache-twirling vaudeville goon, smirking smirkily on Smirkton Avenue. This episode gave me a little more of WHAT I ALWAYS KNEW WAS THERE, underneath the mass-murdering impulses and single-minded quest for revenge. The scene with Arthur, holy fuck. And her fear of Emrys.
WHAT MORGANA NEEDS IS A 6x20, AMIRITE?? THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE KING.
This post about ingenues and evil queens popped up on my dash a few days ago, and I couldn't help but think of Morgana and Gwen. They both pretty much started out as the ingenues, Gwen with her gentleness and Morgana with her naivete, and as the post says, "[e]very ingenue has the potential to become an evil queen, and every evil queen potentially started out as an ingenue before her worldview changed." The OT4 (lol) started out pretty immature in the beginning of S1, of course, but I think Morgana is the only one whose storyline hasn't really given her a chance to outgrow that. Or maybe it has, and she chose all the wrong choices? Did she bear the narrative burden of being everyone's foil? Gwen, Merlin, and Arthur have ample reasons to turn bitter, but Morgana is the only one who did. It both hurts my heart and makes me love her more.
Ultimately, this show is not about Morgana and therein lies her tragedy. Her weaknesses are portrayed as evil, not as a forge for her better nature. If you are going to trap someone in their own bitterness, then I would appreciate a complexity of motivation and backstory. I KNOW THINGS HAPPENED DURING THAT MISSING YEAR, SHOW. I understand you just want to give Merlin and Arthur more reasons to aaaaaangst, but WHAT ABOUT MORGANA'S ANGST, SHOW? SHOW. why is this show not called MORGANA
IN A LAND OF MYTH AND A TIME OF MAGIC, THE DESTINY OF A GREAT KINGDOM RESTS ON THE SHOULDERS OF A YOUNG WOMAN. HER NAME--
I guess I should actually talk about the episode, huh?
ACTUAL EPISODE REACTION
- "You must make him believe he can be king once more." Honestly I was o__O at this. It is Merlin's responsibility to "fix" Arthur? UMMMMMM. idk, man, destiny sucks. MANIPULATIVE!MERLIN IS KIND OF AWESOME THOUGH. Oh man, remember those futurefic AUs I used to ramble about where Merlin is the real power behind the throne and he is kind of corrupted with power, and Arthur is just a figurehead? Then dubcon happens. OR MAYBE NOT EVEN DUBCON, because Merlin's manipulation is so good that Arthur still believes he is in charge and he is soooo idealistic and loves his kingdom so much u guise, and MEANWHILE, Merlin is killing everyone who looks at Arthur wrong.
- Percival going unlocking the dungeon and being all "hi Gwaine bye Gwaine OMG ELYAAAAAN <3____<3 ARE YOU OKAY". Fandomly, I think this means they're soulmates. Someone smash a champagne bottle on the side of this ship!
- AUGH HOW MUCH DO I LOVE Arthur and the knights barging into the throne room, and MORGANA AND HELIOS ARE POSED EVER SO BADASSEDLY OMG. No, I love this so much. Morgana as the ambitious queen and Helios the loyal sentinel. MAYBE I SHIP THEM A LITTLE and I really didn't want Helios to die. I hereby declare Helios/Morgana backstory a GOOD THING.
- EVERYTHING ABOUT THE ARTHUR&MORGANA SCENE!!! IS MY FAVORITE!!!!! THEIR FEELINGS!!!!!! THEIR FACES!!!!!!!!! THEY THOUGHT THEY HAD A FRIEND IN EACH OTHER BUT THEY DISAPPOINTED EACH OTHER, AND NEITHER OF THEM ARE AS UNLIKE UTHER AS THEY THEMSELVES WOULD LIKE TO THINK. GOD. God. When Morgana threatened to kill him, were those ACTUAL TEARS IN ARTHUR'S EYES?!?!?? SHRINK-WRAPPED IN TEARS. AUGH. YOU GUYS. I'M GONNA REWATCH THIS SCENE FOREVER. Arthur loves her, but they are both too dedicated to their mission. HOW MUCH DO I LOVE ARTHUR'S FACE GOING O____O WHEN HE SEES MORGANA? All those deep-seated issues are finally bubbling over and spitting in his face. He has self-worth issues because he has lost everyone, and I actually was not expecting for Morgana to pop up in his list of names, BUT SHE DID, and I was like :-O and :'D and come to think of it, OF COURSE SHE IS ON THAT LIST. Arthur. ARTHUR. HOW CAN YOU KEEP A KINGDOM TOGETHER IF EVEN YOUR OWN FAMILY FALLS APART~, AMIRITE??
Ugh, you guys, especially those of you also in SPN fandom: I so, so have a type.
- ARTHUR/TRISTAN/ISOLDE? I THINK SO. :DDDDDaaaaaand then five seconds later it was like D: WHAT. I was digging Tristan/Isolde, okay. I was digging Isolde a lot. Isolde, you are up there with Will as far as 'Merlin characters I fell in love with in a very short amount of time and then SUDDENLY DEATH whyyyyyyy'. WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALL. ALL. ALL OF IT. NO. WHY. WHY.
- Happy as I was that we got that Morgana/Gwen confrontation scene, I wish it had gone on for longer. Gwen's heartbroken "What did I do to make you hate me so much" broke MY heart and then Morgana's "It's not what I did, it's what you're destined to do" because that's what the bitter do. They turn everyone into an archetype and deny them the opportunity to make their own decision.
- AAAAHHHH MORGANA & AITHUSA. YOU GUYS! WHAT IF next season, Morgana's back in her cave, trying to move on, and Aithusa keeps showing up in the middle of her scheme-hatching to chirp at her curiously and rub its head against her leg or something, and Morgana is kind of o___O but then she tentatively scratches it behind the ears and it purrs, and she is like "d'aawww". SO SHE KEEPS IT. It lights her cooking fire, brings her freshly killed deer to eat, and teaches Morgana to speak dragon. "WHO'S MAMA'S LITTLE DRAGGY-WAGGY?" Morgana'd coo in this new parseltongue as she rubs Aithusa's belly, and Aithusa nickers and accidentally sets Morgana's dress on fire but she doesn't mind because gosh what a cute dragon.
- Katie McGrath's face is like the ninth wonder of the world, oh my holy fuck.
- Let's go back to Gwen and Morgana, because I wanna quote again from that ingenue and evil queen article because this is a fic I want for Morgana: "And maybe that’s why, on a personal level, it breaks my heart when these two character types are placed in opposition to each other. ... [T]here’s so much common ground between them. ... If anyone can help the ingenue find her way to strength and power, it’s the evil queen. If anyone has the capacity to reach past the evil queen’s toughened surface and see the messy, complicated person inside, it’s the ingenue with her boundless idealism and compassion."
SO LIKE. IN THE AU OF THIS EPISODE, Merlin's too late, and Morgana lunges at Gwen with the sword, but then she stops herself. Gwen is making terrified puppy eyes at her, and Morgana is like FJDKLSFJDLKSF FEELINGS and can't find it in herself to kill her childhood friend. SO SHE WHISKS GWEN AWAY TO HER LAIR. The twisted emotional logic that if Gwen is locked up in her magical cave, then she can never become queen MWAHAHA, but also Morgana is lonely and hurt and she misses Morgause, she misses having a sister and a friend. Then it becomes kind of like this fusion with Beauty & the Beast and Hades & Persephone, where Morgana is just angry and terrible and emo all the time, trying to make Gwen see her side, trying to make Gwen UNDERSTAND, trying to WIN HER OVER, to HAVE GWEN AGAIN, and Gwen is like, "I understand but I don't forgive you," and Gwen is also hurt and scared and angry, and there's a lot of feelings and personal space invasions, and it gets a little claustrophobic and codependent. And then, because I am a fan of cheesy callbacks, one day Morgana brings her flowers like in 1x01. (GWEN IGNORES THEM, LETS THEM WILT, LOOKS MORGANA IN THE EYE AND SAYS, "Morgana, I know you're better than this.")
I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop with her. I think I just got it? Or a glimpse into it. Basically I have been waiting to see her hurt and her pain and her fear, which I KNOW ARE THERE BECAUSE HOW COULD THEY NOT BE AFTER EVERYTHING SHE'S BEEN THROUGH, except that the show is never that interested in going into why Morgana is the way she is. I'm not excusing or forgiving Morgana for the terrible things she's done, but I wanted the show to be a little more explicit in showing how her pain and her vulnerability backgrounds this emotionally stunted evil she throws around. Her character development in season four made sense to me, but the show only showed us one side of it so of course Morgana would seem like a mustache-twirling vaudeville goon, smirking smirkily on Smirkton Avenue. This episode gave me a little more of WHAT I ALWAYS KNEW WAS THERE, underneath the mass-murdering impulses and single-minded quest for revenge. The scene with Arthur, holy fuck. And her fear of Emrys.
WHAT MORGANA NEEDS IS A 6x20, AMIRITE?? THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE KING.
This post about ingenues and evil queens popped up on my dash a few days ago, and I couldn't help but think of Morgana and Gwen. They both pretty much started out as the ingenues, Gwen with her gentleness and Morgana with her naivete, and as the post says, "[e]very ingenue has the potential to become an evil queen, and every evil queen potentially started out as an ingenue before her worldview changed." The OT4 (lol) started out pretty immature in the beginning of S1, of course, but I think Morgana is the only one whose storyline hasn't really given her a chance to outgrow that. Or maybe it has, and she chose all the wrong choices? Did she bear the narrative burden of being everyone's foil? Gwen, Merlin, and Arthur have ample reasons to turn bitter, but Morgana is the only one who did. It both hurts my heart and makes me love her more.
Ultimately, this show is not about Morgana and therein lies her tragedy. Her weaknesses are portrayed as evil, not as a forge for her better nature. If you are going to trap someone in their own bitterness, then I would appreciate a complexity of motivation and backstory. I KNOW THINGS HAPPENED DURING THAT MISSING YEAR, SHOW. I understand you just want to give Merlin and Arthur more reasons to aaaaaangst, but WHAT ABOUT MORGANA'S ANGST, SHOW? SHOW. why is this show not called MORGANA
IN A LAND OF MYTH AND A TIME OF MAGIC, THE DESTINY OF A GREAT KINGDOM RESTS ON THE SHOULDERS OF A YOUNG WOMAN. HER NAME--
I guess I should actually talk about the episode, huh?
ACTUAL EPISODE REACTION
- "You must make him believe he can be king once more." Honestly I was o__O at this. It is Merlin's responsibility to "fix" Arthur? UMMMMMM. idk, man, destiny sucks. MANIPULATIVE!MERLIN IS KIND OF AWESOME THOUGH. Oh man, remember those futurefic AUs I used to ramble about where Merlin is the real power behind the throne and he is kind of corrupted with power, and Arthur is just a figurehead? Then dubcon happens. OR MAYBE NOT EVEN DUBCON, because Merlin's manipulation is so good that Arthur still believes he is in charge and he is soooo idealistic and loves his kingdom so much u guise, and MEANWHILE, Merlin is killing everyone who looks at Arthur wrong.
- Percival going unlocking the dungeon and being all "hi Gwaine bye Gwaine OMG ELYAAAAAN <3____<3 ARE YOU OKAY". Fandomly, I think this means they're soulmates. Someone smash a champagne bottle on the side of this ship!
- AUGH HOW MUCH DO I LOVE Arthur and the knights barging into the throne room, and MORGANA AND HELIOS ARE POSED EVER SO BADASSEDLY OMG. No, I love this so much. Morgana as the ambitious queen and Helios the loyal sentinel. MAYBE I SHIP THEM A LITTLE and I really didn't want Helios to die. I hereby declare Helios/Morgana backstory a GOOD THING.
- EVERYTHING ABOUT THE ARTHUR&MORGANA SCENE!!! IS MY FAVORITE!!!!! THEIR FEELINGS!!!!!! THEIR FACES!!!!!!!!! THEY THOUGHT THEY HAD A FRIEND IN EACH OTHER BUT THEY DISAPPOINTED EACH OTHER, AND NEITHER OF THEM ARE AS UNLIKE UTHER AS THEY THEMSELVES WOULD LIKE TO THINK. GOD. God. When Morgana threatened to kill him, were those ACTUAL TEARS IN ARTHUR'S EYES?!?!?? SHRINK-WRAPPED IN TEARS. AUGH. YOU GUYS. I'M GONNA REWATCH THIS SCENE FOREVER. Arthur loves her, but they are both too dedicated to their mission. HOW MUCH DO I LOVE ARTHUR'S FACE GOING O____O WHEN HE SEES MORGANA? All those deep-seated issues are finally bubbling over and spitting in his face. He has self-worth issues because he has lost everyone, and I actually was not expecting for Morgana to pop up in his list of names, BUT SHE DID, and I was like :-O and :'D and come to think of it, OF COURSE SHE IS ON THAT LIST. Arthur. ARTHUR. HOW CAN YOU KEEP A KINGDOM TOGETHER IF EVEN YOUR OWN FAMILY FALLS APART~, AMIRITE??
Ugh, you guys, especially those of you also in SPN fandom: I so, so have a type.
- ARTHUR/TRISTAN/ISOLDE? I THINK SO. :DDDDDaaaaaand then five seconds later it was like D: WHAT. I was digging Tristan/Isolde, okay. I was digging Isolde a lot. Isolde, you are up there with Will as far as 'Merlin characters I fell in love with in a very short amount of time and then SUDDENLY DEATH whyyyyyyy'. WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALL. ALL. ALL OF IT. NO. WHY. WHY.
- Happy as I was that we got that Morgana/Gwen confrontation scene, I wish it had gone on for longer. Gwen's heartbroken "What did I do to make you hate me so much" broke MY heart and then Morgana's "It's not what I did, it's what you're destined to do" because that's what the bitter do. They turn everyone into an archetype and deny them the opportunity to make their own decision.
- AAAAHHHH MORGANA & AITHUSA. YOU GUYS! WHAT IF next season, Morgana's back in her cave, trying to move on, and Aithusa keeps showing up in the middle of her scheme-hatching to chirp at her curiously and rub its head against her leg or something, and Morgana is kind of o___O but then she tentatively scratches it behind the ears and it purrs, and she is like "d'aawww". SO SHE KEEPS IT. It lights her cooking fire, brings her freshly killed deer to eat, and teaches Morgana to speak dragon. "WHO'S MAMA'S LITTLE DRAGGY-WAGGY?" Morgana'd coo in this new parseltongue as she rubs Aithusa's belly, and Aithusa nickers and accidentally sets Morgana's dress on fire but she doesn't mind because gosh what a cute dragon.
- Katie McGrath's face is like the ninth wonder of the world, oh my holy fuck.
- Let's go back to Gwen and Morgana, because I wanna quote again from that ingenue and evil queen article because this is a fic I want for Morgana: "And maybe that’s why, on a personal level, it breaks my heart when these two character types are placed in opposition to each other. ... [T]here’s so much common ground between them. ... If anyone can help the ingenue find her way to strength and power, it’s the evil queen. If anyone has the capacity to reach past the evil queen’s toughened surface and see the messy, complicated person inside, it’s the ingenue with her boundless idealism and compassion."
SO LIKE. IN THE AU OF THIS EPISODE, Merlin's too late, and Morgana lunges at Gwen with the sword, but then she stops herself. Gwen is making terrified puppy eyes at her, and Morgana is like FJDKLSFJDLKSF FEELINGS and can't find it in herself to kill her childhood friend. SO SHE WHISKS GWEN AWAY TO HER LAIR. The twisted emotional logic that if Gwen is locked up in her magical cave, then she can never become queen MWAHAHA, but also Morgana is lonely and hurt and she misses Morgause, she misses having a sister and a friend. Then it becomes kind of like this fusion with Beauty & the Beast and Hades & Persephone, where Morgana is just angry and terrible and emo all the time, trying to make Gwen see her side, trying to make Gwen UNDERSTAND, trying to WIN HER OVER, to HAVE GWEN AGAIN, and Gwen is like, "I understand but I don't forgive you," and Gwen is also hurt and scared and angry, and there's a lot of feelings and personal space invasions, and it gets a little claustrophobic and codependent. And then, because I am a fan of cheesy callbacks, one day Morgana brings her flowers like in 1x01. (GWEN IGNORES THEM, LETS THEM WILT, LOOKS MORGANA IN THE EYE AND SAYS, "Morgana, I know you're better than this.")
no subject
no subject
hey look, I'm using my dreamwidth account!
So I'm totally flaily with you over Morgana's storyline and how she did make the choices that took to to being the "evil queen" vs. Gwen's ingenue...and how she was always gonna make the wrong choices, because her character was already fragile underneath her awesome kickassery.
Switching gears entirely...all hail Percival/Elyan! LOL I've always been more of a Gwaine/Elyan girl, but I'm totally behind a massive knightly love-fest.
And back again. The Morgana and Arthur scene. MY FUCKING HEART WAS ALL OVER THE PLACE AT THEM. THEY WERE ~FAMILY~ AND NOW THEY'RE NOT THAT DIFFERENT BUT STILL STANDING ON OPPOSITE SIDES AND AND
TRAGIC. DX
(lol, they say this show is like Smallville...psh, I see lots of SPN in it, too. AND SPN FANFIC, BUT THAT'S A DIFFERENT STORY LOL)
*sobs* That AU owns my soul asfjksklsjkl
Re: hey look, I'm using my dreamwidth account!
PERCIVAL/ELYAN FIC, DOES IT EXIST YET? :D ALSO SUDDENLY I AM REMINDED OF HOW HARD I USED TO FEEL MORGANA&ARTHUR FEELINGS. Every time I see that picture of the holy fire scene I MEAN THE MORGANA/ARTHUR BREAKUP, I just... stop and stare... getting my heart broken. Speaking of which, I had expected the 6x20 holy fire scene between Dean and Cas to go the way it did between Arthur and Morgana, and I was surprised at how hard Dean was fighting to keep him.