#morgain

When overcoming temptation 🥀🗡️

There's an interesting exploration of choices and the consequences of those choices in The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of the Merlin. We have three characters:

Charis, who was offered power by Bel if she sacrificed her own blood (and likely more, as his demand to her was everything) to him. She cursed him and killed him. She believes that that choice led to the destruction of Atlantis.

Then there's Taliesin who was offered power by Cernunnos if he would sacrifice an innocent being. He refused to use blood magic and he believed that that was why his people were driven from their land.

It seemed, at a certain point in their lives, that standing against these gods their people worshipped had been the cause of their hardships, but in both cases there was a subconscious understanding of the evil they were being asked to do in exchange for power. They both stood against it and, by doing so, it set them both on the path that would lead them to the True God, to each other, and to better days. Not just for them, but those choices ripple out like a stone tossed into a pond to Merlin and, eventually, they will ripple out to King Arthur who will lead Britain to the peace Taliesin foresaw.

Then we have Morgain. As far as we know she wasn't sought out by a demon or one of the supposed gods, but she certainly took Annubi's words to heart

It reminds me of the verse from Genesis 4:

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

Morgain didn't just give into dark impulses, she sought them out, and while Bel had been put down, Cernunnos - who does strike me as a satan-styled figure - looms in the darkness, perfectly willing to use her desperation for power.