Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140426100805/@comment-24785400-20140427100915

Thanks Anglophile, I can't promise anything for the following episodes though!

''I don't know if this is something akin to Steven Moffat misogyny, but this series didn't do women a great deal of justice. ''

I've often had this thought myself,  a friend once said something about Moffat which I think is bang on. He can only write a particular female characteristic. Hence we have the mystery women etc. In this episode, Gwen served her purpose and was dropped like a hot potato. (I think the only reason she was left standing at the end, was that she'd had her turn with the story-line focusing on her). Its typical however, that she suffers no consequences, nor even seems to remember what she'd done when enchanted, they did the same thing with the bracelet in 4.09. Now she's been enchanted twice, and has no idea of what happened or even why! (I'm assuming they didn't tell her, she didn't seem to upset on the way home, nor in following episodes)

You are right, Gwen and Morgana are certainly not the only females in Arthurian legends. One of my new hobbies is actually studying (or attempting to!) females in Arthurian legends, and they are there! Not all of them are "evil"  enchantress's, some of them are quite ambiguous,  and very interesting. Guinevere, Morgan Le Fay, and Nimue are really fascinating, as over the years their characterisations have changed dramatically (especially under male writers in later centuries, but now we seem to be turning around, stories like the Mists of Avalon starting a trend and being sympathetic to the women again). I think its telling that Capps and Murphy were so insistent that their Morgana HAD to be the villain, she turns bad in every story doesn't she? (well, actually, no she doesn't, and she had good reasons to be against Gwen in particular), and she  is also ambiguous - she's quite often shown loving her brother dearly. At this stage I still thought she might be redeemed in some way, perhaps Merlin takes her to Avalon, (or banishes her there) and she's waiting for Arthur after Camlann, but *sigh" it was not to be.  (the quite interesting thing is, from what I've heard, is they're making exactly the same mistakes, and offering the same female characters with their new Atlantis!).  I still think its odd that Gwen only gets a servant in the series opener, and then nothing. (Merlin did her washing in one episode!)  By rights she should have had a swag of Ladies in Waiting, and her own Counsels etc.

You could argue however, that ALL their characters, including Merlin and Arthur were assassinated in the end.