Episode 2: Valiant
Australian Air Date: 10/5/09 Sunday 6:30pm
Not a bad episode. As the second episode all the characters have settled down a bit. The main ones, Merlin, Gaius, Arthur, Uther, Gwenivere and Morgana were introduced in the last episode, the film makers can now start to explore the relationships between the characters a bit more. We still see a bit of tension between Merlin and Arthur but we also see a begrudging admiration a little in Merlin such as when Gaius says to Merlin, “you’re enjoying this”, and Merlin says, “it’s not completely terrible”, but also as Merlin realises the pressure that Arthur is always under.
Arthur and Uther have a stand offish relationship that seems to be very much dependant on what is most useful for Uther publically. When Arthur won the tournament it was all smiles and fatherly pride, but before that it seemed that Uther was ready to replace Arthur with Valiant.
Arthur and Morgana are an odd pair. There is the hint of an attraction, certainly that is what the script writers are hinting at, but there are hints from the way Morgana behaves that this is simply because Arthur is the most eligible young man available, rather than from any attraction that she may have to Arthur himself. At other times they revert to a brother and sister-like relationship with petty bickering. We see the first hint that Morgana may have some magical ability. There mayhave been the hint that she has the sight in the first episode as we see her have flashes of a dream that disturb her, but the episode makes nothing more of it. In this episode we she her dream of two men fighting and and arm stabbing downwards with a sword. We don’t see who the combatants are and don’t see what the result of the stabbing motion was, ie we don’t see if anyone dies or who it was.
Lastly in this episode we see merlin learn a spell, the first time we have seen him consciously use a magical spell to produce an effect rather than his innate telekinesis. Since he had only recieved the book from Gaius I think three days before handit is not clear how he learnt the pronounciation of the words. It was good that they at least protrayed the process Merlin went through to learn the spell as being a difficult one, taking him all night to master it, but it is questionable whether he would have been able to learn it at al. The spell would likely be amongst the most difficult, transforming a statue of a dog similar into a real dog. But not only did he transform stone into flesh, difficult enough, he changed the form of the statue from some sort of slim long snouted hunting dog, similar to a spaniel into a short snouted heavily built rottweiler. It seems like then it would have to be a rather involved and once again compound spell (similar to what the writers had the Witch cast in the first episode).
Mark Pickavance in his very good review of episode 2 (http://www.denofgeek.com/television/121827/merlin_episode_2_review.html) describes the writing as being a bit simplistic and the discussions with the dragon pointless. In this review Mark describes the major issue he has with Merlin and Arthur being the same age.
This is one of the most grating and most often complained about aspects of this new series. The writers often depart wildly from the traditional story line or even from the era they are attempting to portray (ie briton around 900-1000AD). For those of you who are not as familiar with Arthurian legend I will attempt to explain.
Briefly Arthurian legend was first made popular by a Welshman, Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 in his writing “Historia Regum Britanniae” (The history of the Kings of Britton). He claims that he translated these writings from much older work, presumably contempory with the events they describe. In this work on the Kings of Briton he also describes the rein of Uther and Arthur. Amongst the tales of these two kings is a description of the birth of Arthur. At the time Britain was divided into a series of smaller kingdoms and so there was a lot of fighting as each sought to conquer the others or to defend themselves from being conquered. Uther was described as concquering these smaller kingdoms and bringing peace to Briton. Once he had done this he travelled to London and invited all the lords of the land to celebrate. At this celebration all the nobles were presenting their most eligible daughters to the now King of Briton. One of the guests was Gorlois the duke of Cornwall and his wife Igerna who was the most beautiful woman in all Briton. When Uther’s eyes met hers he fell in love.
He wooed her all night at the celebrations and Gorloris seeing this left court without leave. Uther demanded he return. He didn’t and so Uther set out to destroy Cornwall for refusing him. Gorlois dropped his wife off at Tintagel (there are pictures of Titagel here: http://www.shcsc.k12.in.us/arthur/tintagel.htm) while he went to the castle at Dimiloc to wait for help from the Irish. Hearing about this Uther put Dimiloc under siege. While waiting for Gorlois, Uther longed for his love, Igerna. He asked one of his advisers how he could get to her in Tintagel which was a very easily defensible peninsula. The adviser did not know but suggested that the Prophet Merlin may be able to advise Uther how to successfuly gain access to Igerna.
So Uther asked Merlin to help him. Merlin, struck with the passion of the King for Igerna agreed to help him and told Uther that he could change him into the exact likeness of Gorlois. With the appearance of Gorlois he could then spend the night with Igerna. He did this and spent the night with Igerna. During the same night the siege of Dimiloc broke and Gorlois was killed. The next morning messengers bring Igerna the news that her husband was killed in the siege.
The story then differs somewhat in the various versions of it. In the original, Uther spends the night with Igerna, is still with her in the morning as Gorlois, but then pretends to go out and get killed by Uther when his army comes to take Tintagel. He then marries Igerna and has two kids, Arthur and Anne (Chapter 19 and 20; pg 141-145; http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/geoffrey_thompson.pdf ).
In a later version of the story Merlin only agrees to help Uther if he is allowed to have the child that is produced from this encounter. Swept up in his love for Igerna, Uther agrees and so has his night with Igerna. Before the morning Uther leaves and later that morning Igerna finds that Gorlois was killed the previous night despite him also being with her. She never finds out about the deception. Later she marries Uther and Merlin calls upon Uther to give him the child Arthur who was born from the first night with Igerna as they had agreed. Uther does so and Merlin takes Arthur away and gives him to a knight, Sir Ector to raise as his adopted son. Supposedly in some versions of the story Igerna also has a 3 year old daughter Morgana.
So in this latest version of the Arthurian story it is difficult to tell which parts are the same and which parts have been altered. Merlin appears to be the same age as Arthur, in which case how was Arthur born since in all versions of the story it is Merlin that makes it possible for Uther to seduce Igerna by advising him and changing his appearance. If Merlin hadn’t been born yet then Arthur would also not be born.
Also Morgana then, in the stories that include her, is actually Arthur’s half sister. In this latest series Morgana is described as Uther’s ward, but the extend of that guardianship has not been established yet. There doesn’t appear to be any Igerna any more and so it may be that in this story Uther is looking after his step daughter and refers to her as his ward. Or it may be that the writers have completely changed everyone’s origins and Morgana is not Arthurs half sister at all, especially considering the changes in Merlin’s origins. We shall have to see.