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Merlin

I finished the last episode of Merlin! The slow-motion, uber-dramatic long shot of Uther carrying Arthur across the courtyard? Hilarious. I mean, it is probably bad of me that I found it so utterly funny, but- the slow-motion! The swelling music! The close-ups of Uther's face! Arthur's really obvious Christ-symbolism pose! The strange lack of other people to, you know, help the King out as he wanders across the main part of the castle! I almost fell off the couch laughing.

Also, I found the choice of which character was going to die to be a really cheap shot. I mean, clearly it wasn't going to be Arthur, but I was sure it would be either Uther or Gaius. But instead, Nimue (that's probably spelled wrong)? Seriously, show? You cannot pose a complicated moral question of sacrifice and what a king's life is worth and then have your protagonist solve the problem by defeating the bad guys, yay! Merlin's mother would also have been unacceptable, since one episode does not an audience connection make, but at least it would have been emotional for the characters themselves. And would have actually have been playing within the rules of games.

Also, also, the magic system in this universe is really inconsistent. Why does life have to be balanced by life, but floating swords/lightning bolts/making the pages in a book turn really fast don't have to be balanced by equal exchanges of energy?

I find that I don't really have the emotional connection to the show that would make it be a real fandom of mine. But it's so close; I feel like I kept seeing the shapes of something that would have been really interesting around the edges of what the show actually is. There's the connection to the vast body of Arthurian legend, of course. Or the story of what makes a good ruler, if peace can be justified by the many bad decisions and tyrannistic tendencies of Uther. Or the story where the choice to use or not use magic was a difficult decision with arguments on both sides (not just the random prejudice of one dude) and real consequences (do neighboring countries still have magic? do they have advantages therefore? Also, why are unicorns okay but not sorcerers?). Or the story of a group of young people learning to govern, balancing idealism against realpolitik. Or the story that's a comment on class and status, where the power behind each noble is their servant.

But none of those are actually Merlin.

Still! I am now looking for fandom things. Rec me vids, stories, authors, whatever you find neat. Rec yourself, please! There are, obviously, a few authors I already know I want to go read, but tell me them anyway, in case I forgot someone. What do you guys like?

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I just saw the Lancelot/gryffin episode on Sunday(Blessedly follwed by a rerun of the Ood-factory episode of Dr.Who on CBC.) so it's nice to know what sort of Major Cheese I have to look forward to!

So Bad. And yet it's on.

I never managed to connect with the show too, but some fics are just too matvelous to be missed.

* Fics (http://b-hallward.livejournal.com/tag/fanfic:+merlin) by

b_hallward are a thing of beauty.

* http://heyiya.livejournal.com/189376.html - vid "Exit Music (For A Witch)" by heyiya which is a sort of Mist of Avalon-esque retelling of the series.

* http://paperclipbitch.livejournal.com/102740.html - a light-hearted retelling of The Prince & the Pauper

* http://green-postit.livejournal.com/53705.html + http://community.livejournal.com/merlinxarthur/243922.html - beautiful lyrical pieces.

* http://kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com/151843.html - easily my most favourite Merlin vid, and definitely one of the all-time favourites.

Thanks for the recs! I haven't read all the stories yet (I started off by working by way through

b_hallward's stuff), but I absolutely adore Exit Music (For A Witch). It really addresses a lot of the problems I have with the show. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

Compared to what Hollywood(generic term)episodic fantasy series? Charmed?
Major problem:writers/creators convinced that it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to look good.
You know, just like Sci-fi!(Grrr.)

Well, it reminded me most closely of Full Metal Alchemist, an anime series which also uses a system based on "balance must be maintained". In fact, the concept is so central to the plot of the series (it's basically the central theme of the entire thing) that the opening theme song of every episode starts with one of the main characters musing, "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one and only truth." The entire series explores the idea of what you could offer to get a human life back; what could possibly be the equivalant.

And since I just reread Terry Pratchett's Masquerade, I was also thinking of that, since the Discworld (at least the witches), also maintain the balance. The climax of the book features a scene where Granny Weatherwax grabs a sword blade by the hand- and isn't hurt. The other characters protest, since you "can't magic iron", and Granny agrees that that's true. She just deals the injury, until she has time to deal with it.

Pratchett's clearly not a Hollywood writer, and anime clearly seems to be much more thoughtful in character.
I see "Hollywood" SF/F as the part of an island off the coast of Speculative Fiction* furthest removed from the mainland. Or maybe it's just a sand bar.

*Or as I like to call it, The Good Stuff. :)

The fact that most big-budget productions aren't thoughtful or interesting isn't an excuse for them not to be.

Amen. From your fingers to the monitor screen of Whomever is listening.

Dorian pointed me toward a vid called "Unsteady Ground" that is really astonishing -- it's the show Merlin should have been, the one that would have riveted all of us and been so good that writers were afraid to mess with it. Unfortunately I've lost the link -- I downloaded the vid itself and rewatch it from time to time, which I don't do with many things -- but I'll look for it. Or if you check Dorian's own vid or recs tags, you'll probably find it easily.

Utterly, utterly worth the trouble.

As for fic -- well, I pretty much stick with Dorian's work, because she's worth reading no matter what. And with Veleda, because she's done some neat Gwen/Morgana stuff. Sadly for me, venturing beyond that tends to be chancy: there's lots out there, and lots that's very well handled, but the fandom seems to tend toward (i) your basic set of romance formulas, and (ii) an overlapping set of Arthur-finds-out things. Neither of which is my flavor of choice.

-- But, wait! This past round of

remixthedrabble generated a bunch of really terrific Merlin pieces, including a charming thing from the dragon's point of view. Definitely worth checking out!

I am currently going back through Dorian's journal to read her Merlin stories (and occasional gift-fics for me, apparently!), so I'm sure I'll stumble across it. The discussions between you and her in the comments have also been really fascinating. So far, I particularly like the one where you tried to decide what historical period the show was set in, and your comment-story with Uther as competent. I know you didn't do it for my benefit, but I am absolutely enthralled by all the things you two point out.

Thank you for the recs. I have to agree that, for this fandom in particular, I'm not really interested in the standard romance/fanfiction tropes. I may have enough emotional investment in Hisoka to read awful Harlequin things, but I need more of a payoff to spend more time with Merlin.

But of course we did it for your benefit. In a way, I think that sort of conversation is a kind of performance art at the same time that it's a genuine conversation: you want it to be the kind of thing that friends can read with pleasure if they stumble into it months later.

And I'm delighted that you liked that Uther snippet. The show did go and wreck the premise of it a bit later (or some of the premise, anyway), but I still prefer to adopt Dorian's working theory of the show, which I think she laid out in comments somewhere in my LJ: namely, that the show as we see it represents not an accurate narrative of events in this imaginary kingdom, but rather the incomplete and inevitably distorted narrative cobbled together from the perceptions of the viewpoint character, who at this stage of his life is brainy and powerful but has no clue at all about the court, or how a kingdom works, or large or small political issues, or military issues, or anything. So he does what any human being does, which is to construct a narrative out of the bits and pieces that he's able to observe, and out of what people tell him, and he gets stuff wrong all the time. And 'wrong' includes emotional issues and questions of character, not just objective inaccuracies in events, or the inevitable things he isn't able to include because he never finds out that they've even happened.

If I go with that, I can tell myself that the Uther who had that conversation with the dragon could be the show's Uther after all.

I could see that. The particular scene that really strikes me as indicating an unreliable narrator is at the beginning of the episode with Merlin's mother. Uther decides not to send the knights to help and the other characters and the episode itself takes the same adolescent 'Uther's so meeeeeeeean' tone that they do when Uther's attempting to execute small children.

But really, one cannot invade a foreign country, and no, not even if this one villager asked you to. Uther's decision was clearly reasonable.

I'll have to go and track down that conversation; it sounds interesting.

Ahhh, Merlin. I told someone else months ago that for me the series is like a perpetually dopey puppy--not very smart, walks into walls a lot, but awfully cute and fun to play with. Some parts of the fandom seem to be removing the worst parts of the dopiness, though; I know I'm going to be a little jarred to go back to the real series after reading intelligent fic for months and months.

I'm terrible at keeping track of links to fics I like, but I second the rec for

paperclipbitch's fics--she's got a couple of modern AUs that are interesting and well done. And if you like Morgana, Unsteady Ground (http://cherryice.livejournal.com/223867.html) and Life in a Glass House (http://community.livejournal.com/sync_slaying/13631.html) are wonderful vids.

Yesss! I didn't have the link for "Unsteady Ground," and could only flail when trying to rec it. It's so nice when you can count on your friends to make up for your own birdbrained qualities.

"Puppies" really is a fantastic way to describe it.

Ooooo, Unsteady Ground is a beautiful vid. It does everything the show doesn't. And I adore the song; I downloaded a mp3 of it and have been listening on repeat. "The children don't know yet that we're bombing Baghdad"- WEEP.

Thanks for the other recs! I haven't gotten to them yet, but I look forward to it.

Unicorns:are OK if you think of them as part of nature, not magic, I would guess.
Servants/class:the writers evidently only remember that class exists when they need it for a story.The rest of the time they are in Ren Fair mode.
Rec: Mary Stewart is still the best retelling of the Merlin story I've seen. She was the one who made Merlin a central character.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Stewart
(I have no idea what you've read.)

I own the first book of Stewart's Merlin series, but haven't gotten around to reading it. I've also read Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight, The Lady of Shalott, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, White's The Once and Future King, Lawhead's Taliesen, The Winter Price, and oh, I don't know, other things here and there.

Well! It's official. You are government certifiably Well Read.
I am very glad that I've met you.

Stewart is SO GOOD. I read all of the quartet in one week in fifth grade (hello, crazy child erin) because it is the good crack. Every so often, I reread.

Ha, everyone is so into this series. Clearly I will have to read it soon.

Have you read The Winter Prince? DELIRIOUSLY GOOD. Modred pov, retells the story in an authentic post-Roman Britain, amazingly lyrical writing.

This (http://kick-flaw.livejournal.com/23462.html) is a fairly good and extensive fic recs list. Not everything linked there is fantastic, but it is a way better place to start than, say, poking through the communities and weeding out the badfic!

Wow, that's a great resource! Thanks so much.

Man, Eliza and I still haven't gotten past the pilot, though we have the first ten eps and should really try them again. Possibly with a chaser of Holy Grail, just to round things out.

I can recommend no fic or vids, but

trolleys, who also does amazing things with my beloved DBSK and J2 (and Sam/Dean), gives good art. Also, I see you haven't ready the Mary Stewart books yet, so let me just second the recommendation. Be sure to pick up The Wicked Day, as well, which is a follow-up from Mordred's POV.

As I said in the post, it's more interesting for the things it almost is than what's actually there. But you sometimes seem to like things that are too almost-but-not-quite for me- I remember I bounced off Get Backers for that reason, but you liked it.

And thanks for the recs!

interesting show, Merlin. i thought it was a youthful thing, something i dont see merlin as ...

but i thought the show amusing.

i have read some of the books you mentioned (at least some of the titles rang true, but i am not really hip on titles)

fandom. what i was looking for is some xxxholic fics, but i guess they arent too many of those.

My emotional response to Merlin was very similar, actually, but there's a lot of room in fic to explore the more interesting premises and themes only implicit in the show itself.

For recs, I'd say anything by astolat (http://intimations.org/fanfic/) or the hoyden (http://thehoyden.livejournal.com/tag/fic:+merlin) to start, if you haven't read them already.

Yeah, I'm only barely poking my toe in the waters of fandom now, but it already looks like there's so much interesting stuff, which really questions and looks around the edges of the show.

Thanks for the recs!

obsessive24, Red (http://obsessive24.livejournal.com/247687.html) (Arthur, Arthur/Merlin) and Effigy (http://obsessive24.livejournal.com/247687.html) (Guinevere)

giandujakiss, Beverly Hills (http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/647360.html) (Merlin)

cherryice, Unsteady Ground (http://cherryice.livejournal.com/223867.html) (Morgana)

heyiya, Exit Music for a Witch (http://heyiya.livejournal.com/189376.html) (Morgana/Nimue)

charmax, It's Not Over Yet (http://charmax.livejournal.com/112258.html)(Morgana/Nimue)

holywoodgrrl, Life in a Glass House (http://community.livejournal.com/sync_slaying/13631.html) (Morgana)

kiki_miserychic, Devil Said (http://kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com/154692.html) (Morgana/Gwen)

such_heights, The Book of Love (http://such-heights.livejournal.com/141981.html) (Morgana/Gwen)and A Night at the Opera (http://such-heights.livejournal.com/149302.html) (ensemble)

sweetestdrain, Empty Hearts (http://sweetestdrain.livejournal.com/222588.html)(Arthur/Merlin/Guinevere/Morgana)

halcyon_shift, Non Lievi Alchun (http://halcyon-shift.livejournal.com/446167.html) (Morgana/Guinevere)

the_orange_nin, Every Fear You've Ever Faced (http://bendtothesun.livejournal.com/56727.html)

butterfly, Jacob Marley's Chain (http://butterfly.livejournal.com/1263108.html) (Uther)

Edited 2009-07-09 20:20 (UTC)

Oh, vids! Thank you so much. This is a lovely list of goodness.

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Merlin

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Also, also, the magic system in this universe is really inconsistent.

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Merlin vid recs

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