Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140329115401/@comment-5102537-20140407091542

203.166.226.119 wrote:

Because there were so many loose ends, thats the impression we are left with, and thats why I hate  (I think its hate, its certainly more than dislike!) how they portrayed the old religion and the Triple Goddess in this series. Religion either old or new, pagan, or neo-pagan doesn't play games with people!

In this case, to me the Old Religion is not only a religion but the Triple Goddess itself since she is the one who knows all, sees all and presides all. Sounds like the one and only allmighty power. I'm not so sure that religion, or better religious entities don't play games with people. When we look at the bible, for example, when God demanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac only to see if Abraham was loyal enough and loved God more than anything, I can even see a parallell to what the Triple Goddess demanded. In both cases absolute obedience and loyalty was demanded, under the threat of losing loved ones. This is a very human behaviour and far above an allmighty entity, in my opinion.

And when taking a look at how the devil is described in religion, he is a master of tricking and deceiving people, playing them and bringing out the worst in them.

So actually, that's not what disturbed me so much, but I found it disappointing that the Triple Goddess had the status of God instead of being just one of the gods/goddesses representing the unpleasant part of the Old Religion. Had she been just one of them whose ways and dogmas were being seen as despicable ones by Merlin and maybe the druids and other peaceful sorcerers, it could have been a great opportunity to state out what new ways Merlin was supposed to bring. Which is why I missed an appropriate reaction from Merlin. He could have said something to whomever that he rejects the Old Ways but supports the peaceful magic/OldReligion and the gods/goddesses that represent it. This could have been the beginning of Merlin's attempt to establish a new form of "religion" that excludes the Triple Goddesse's cruelty.

The way it was shown here, the Triple Goddess obviously was the most powerful one and there was no possible way to seperate magic from the Old Ways. So why should magic be allowed and desired at all?

Ozymandias v wrote:

"They actually state that their intention was to create a fantasy world and not a historically accurate period piece! Unfortunately, it seems that most people think the opposite is true, and are more than willing to call them out on historical inaccuracies! "

I agree. The little "historical mistakes" never bothered me at all. However, I think that even a fantasy story that creates its own world better follows a certain logic and at least some historical facts, like how society worked back then, for example. We saw that there was a monarchy like it really was in the dark ages/medieval times. We saw people being afraid of witchcraft and not driving around in cars or flying airplanes but riding horses and using the tools that the time period offered. There were the economical standards and kingdoms conquering others, peasants and royals and the difference in status, lack of human rights and so on. So I think it was important that the show followed the social events. Dismissing it all and suddenly presenting a democracy wouldn't work.

ReganX and I have talked about it before - Gwen was accepted by everyone much too easily which is something that would have never happened in such a time period. Very often, the people's fear of magic was reduced to Uther's fear and hatred only, even though we saw that even other kingdoms forbid magic and that the inhabitants hated magic too, whereas in the first seasons the show pretended that actually everyone was relaxed on the magic issue. I think that the social problems and events weren't stated out well enough and jumped from one extreme to another in order to make the actions of a particular character plausible.

But tomatoes and strawberrys or Morgana wearing high heels, well, that's nothing that couldn't be in such a fantasy show. It's not important for the story and we don't even know in what time period "Merlin" was exactly set.