Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24691863-20140413080351/@comment-24691863-20140418071144

Hello again!

I envy you your energy! Just a short (well, shorter anyway, maybe) reply from me: Your collection of quotes is indeed impressive. The tragedy is that in spite of all of them Arthur is still plagued with self doubt. I think evidence of this comes very early in the series. In the second episode (if I remember right) Arthur is about to enter a championship and Uther says quietly to him, “I trust you will make me proud”. Innocent enough on paper perhaps but he does not say “I know”. The word “trust” conveys both a demand and a doubt and Uther’s just slightly sarcastic tone conveys to Arthur, “You must, but will you really?” In episode 4 when Arthur has very bravely and skillfully risked his life to get the flower that will save Merlin’s life, Uther throws him in prison and says in utter contempt for Arthur’s friendship for Merlin, “You can find yourself another servant,” and crushes the flower.

I cannot match you quote for quote. You’re absolutely right. Uther says all of the things you’ve collected. He repeatedly tells Arthur that he loves him and is proud of him but what Arthur hears is, ”You’ll never live up to my standards, you will never be as strong a king as I am. You’ll keep doing to wrong things, making the wrong choices.”

As for what you wrote about Morgana and Merlin, we seem in fact to be in agreement about a lot of it. It’s just that we disagree on our acceptance. You don’t accept the way the story and the characters were developed. I do, and for the very reasons, it seems, that you don’t. I love the characters for the very reasons you don’t. For their flaws. But I also see their strengths (even Uther’s!). And much of the complexity of the characters is thanks to the brilliant acting of Anthony Head, Katie McGrath, Bradley James and Colin Morgan. Not to mention Angel Coulby and all the rest.

So it seems we can go on writing about this forever but will always see the series in different ways. Maybe it’s because you saw the series as it was aired and built up expectations as it went on that the writers didn’t fulfil since they went off in different directions. I watched it much more concentratedly and after the first half hour or so when everything went against my expectations, I just sat back and let myself be swept up in the epic. Which, as I have tried to show in "The Tragic Heroes of Merlin”, is indeed a classic epic that in its way proved to be true to the spirit of the legend.