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do you have any arthur/guinevere/lancelot recommendations? if not, just stories where their characters were done justice and their friendship is explored and the love triangle comes to some satisfying solution.
i sure do! as always, with caveats. this list has two parts: films first and then books as i have suggestions for both! all of these movies can be watched here and the books read here.
TL;DR movies: Excalibur (1981), Camelot (1967), Knights of The Round Table (1953), Merlin and The Sword (1985), Sword of Lancelot (1963)
TL;DR books: The Birth of Galahad by Richard Hovey, Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger, Guinevere Trilogy by Persia Woolley, Guinevere by Lavinia Collins, Spear by Nicola Griffith, honorable mention to Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart
MOVIES:
Excalibur (1981): for me it has everything. we get to see young stupid arthur and clever curious guinevere fall in love, their wedding is gorgeous, then nicholas clay my beloved lancelot throws a wrench in it as he loves and respects them both so much, and they love him. he gets to be crazy about it too like running off to the woods to beg god to take these feelings away, dreams he's fighting himself and ends up impaled<3 meanwhile arthur/guinevere leave a cup out for him even when he isn't there. the crux of it comes when guinevere is accused of cheating (which she hadn't even at this point) and arthur won't champion her because his kingship comes before husbandly duties, so lancelot fights for her honor instead. at the end, after guinevere has gone away to a convent (lancelot is a wildman with a full beard lost to them all) arthur comes to retrieve excalibur from her and his speech is so romantic about finding her in the next life. i die every time. here is my review of that movie.
Camelot (1967): i adoooore this guinevere. jenny<3 she does whatever she wants and i love that for her. the whole may day queen aspect of her is muah chef's kiss. small wonder arthur loved her immediately. this arthur gets to wear eyeliner which is a plus. lancelot almost kills arthur on meeting him and then falls at his feet on realizing it, only for guinevere to be really cold to him at first, trying to get other knights to defeat him, but ends up falling in love with him. which arthur totally knows and turns a blind eye to btw. even when pellinore brings it up in as gently as possible, arthur bites his head off, knowing he cant even entertain the rumor or else the kingdom is in danger, and he just wants his two favorite people to be happy....cries forever.
Knights of The Round Table (1953): the biggest downside to this one is that lancelot has a horrible insufferable american accent. however his celebrity worship/instant friendship with arthur is soooo good. he breaks his own sword for threatening the king and then arthur gives him his own....is that even allowed to be so adorable? anyway so lancelot had met guinevere before they were arthur's friend and wife, essentially had a charming meet cute, and went their separate ways, only to formally meet at the wedding in front of everyone....god, the eye contact could turn someone to stone. arthur is extremely sympathetic and compassionate, to the point that when he catches guinevere sulking alone on the roof with a gift from lancelot, he says "i miss him too..." bruh???? my heart?? all around delicious food.
Sword of Lancelot (1963): this one is fun because cornel wilde wrote it, directed it, and starred as lancelot himself!! the other fun factoid is the woman who plays guinevere is his real life wife. how stinking cute is that? so obviously their chemistry is ridiculous. but arthur is a cutie too. he's older and tends to talk down to guinevere a bit, which makes sense why she befriends lancelot in her loneliness. lancelot gets a lot of development, taking young tor under his wing, besties with gawain and lamorak and gareth. being irl married to guinevere also makes their disagreements feel very real. arthur is counseled by a ton of characters, bedievere, merlin, even mordred is here giving his two cents. so you really feel that tug of war pulling the throuple apart. it hurts.
BOOKS:
The Birth of Galahad by Richard Hovey: this play is wiiiiiild but the take away here is that guinevere is the mother of galahad. like what a twist. meanwhile all the men are away fighting rome so you get this tragic back and forth switching of perspective between lancelot and arthur missing guinevere (plus galehaut is here as counsel which really kicks this up a notch) then it cuts to guinevere with a new baby and tormented by the prospect of whether to write to rome with the news but afraid it will cause an upset where she cant be.....hovey you mad lad you've done it again.
Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger: i hate i keep having to recommend this bigoted book but damn it this arthur/guinevere/lancelot are so good. why are they sooo goood???? this arthur is compelling since he loses his virginity to morgause and is forever messed up after that, so he struggles to connect with guinevere in the way she needs, not really understanding her even though he bends over backwards to please her. meanwhile there isnt a word for what she and lancelot have here they need to be studied under a microscope so history doesn't repeat itself they're so twisted it's wild i can't look away. and the friendship between arthur and lancelot is so powerful and enduring that even at the end while joyous garde is under siege, arthur sends in kay with food the moment he hears their stores are low, and has him serve them like old times. he doesnt want it to be the way it is....sick and twisted narrative choices.
Guinevere Trilogy by Persia Woolley: i admit this isn't my favorite guinevere, but credit where it's due, she's a complex and fully realized character. through her we come to understand both arthur and lancelot as deeply damaged men, who had their emotional states devastated by the fall out of sexual abuse, and how that impacts their relationship with her (and their sons, mordred and galahad, who likewise suffer as a result of their fathers' emotional states). as a celtic queen, guinevere has every right to take a lover if she so desires, and arthur is not ignorant of his own failings as a husband, but the tragedy plays out anyway as the orkney brothers are there to wreak havoc on the place as usual. (you might find that this has a movie adaptation Guinevere (1994) don't watch it, trust me, it's not even fun bad, just cursed.)
Guinevere by Lavinia Collins: this is technically part of a series so you'll also get a lot of arthur and lancelot in the other three (Igraine, Morgawse, Morgan) but for the sake of this list, the guinevere one will suffice. anyway what i like about this is the strong contrast in relationships with both men. lancelot is bisexual and guinevere is the first woman he ever sleeps with (but not the last...) so theyre very tender and sweet together meanwhile arthur sired mordred before marrying her he's overall more adventurous while keeping entirely faithful to her for the rest of his life......there is a threesome in this but ironically its lancelot/guinevere/kay and not arthur but you know what? he deserves a win. this still goes on the list.
Spear by Nicola Griffith: this is perceval pov so the focus on arthur/guinevere/lancelot is minimal, but its delicious. arthur is kinda cold and mean here (falling back on the celtic "bear" thing, same as woolley does) but its revealed that he, lancelot, and guinevere are in a throuple, the characterization of lancelot's shy explanation of this was so good, and he goes on the grail quest to try and heal guinevere's womb so she can have their children, as it's a point of tension that mordred and galahad both exist, but guinevere wants to have children with arthur and lancelot. there's literally a part she faints and they both carry her off to bed like....they dont even pretend its any other way. no homophobia or slut shaming or anything like that in this book which is a huge plus. palate cleanser after arthur rex lol
Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart: this is more of an honorable mention, as the first three books are merlin pov and the fourth is mordred. but book two (the hollow hills) has arthur raised alongside bedwyr (who is lancelot in all but name, son of ban, eventual lover of guinevere etc) they are the best of friends its adorable, bedwyr gave him his dog cabal, which is cute on its own, then fast forward to mordred pov (the wicked day) decades later and arthur is picking out a new puppy and names that one cabal too, its like this long homoromantic ritual that every dog descended from the first calls back to his original gift....im pulling my hair out. guinevere here is underdeveloped at best, as merlin doesnt really know her well and mordred's perspective on her is that shes (respectfully) hot lmao but worth mentioning as mary stewart is the goat, highly recommend her books.
and that's the list. hope that gives you some stuff to chew over!
Bbc Merlin was a beautifully narrated and foreshadowed story with characters who grew together and loved each other deeply and made terrible, difficult choices that led to one of the most painful and brilliantly tragic endings of all time so jot that down.
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this is not 100% of what exists, but what i have personally seen and can discuss at length. i will update these lists as i watch more and eventually where they can be watched.
So I was getting lost in a Merlin Wiki rabbit hole, as one does, and I stumbled across the page for spells. And turns out the writers actually put a lot more thought into it than I initially thought (they're not actually just shouting random words in Old English). But what shocked me the most was learning what Merlin was actually saying to Arthur while he was unconcious in the Poisoned Calice episode. I always thought he was trying to enchant some sort of protection spell to keep Arthur safe while he couldn't be there for him. But turns out he was actually declaring poetry, POETRY to Arthur the whole time!
That's right, Merlin was declaring actual POETRY to Arthur on his deathbed!! I kept seeing the wiki mention verses from a book called Beowulf and I got curious so after a quick Google search, I found out that it's actually one of the most famous epic poems in Old English and I just lost it!! I never thought this episode could get any gayer...
Duuude posts that chemically change your brain forever holy shit
ā¦because my first thought was that immortal!Merlin in the modern day would love the MDH translation (that is to say, the famous āBro!ā translation) of Beowulf, but when I pulled out my copy to make sure I didnāt misquote the bit I was thinking of, I was immediately struck by this passage from Headleyās introduction:
āBeowulf bears the distinction of appearing to be basic ā one man, three battles, lots of gold ā while actually being an intricate treatise on morality, masculinity, flexibility, and failure. Itās 3,182 lines of alliterative wildness, a sequence of monsters and would-be heroes. [ā¦]
The phrase āThat was a good kingā recurs throughout the poem, because the poem is fundamentally concerned with how to get and keep the title āGood.ā The suspicion that at any moment a person might shift from hero into howling wretch, teeth bared, causes characters ranging from scops to ring-lords to drop cautionary anecdotes.
Does fame keep you good? No. Does gold keep you good? No. Does your good wife keep you good? No. What keeps you good? Vigilance. Thatās it. And even with vigilance, even with courage, you might still go forth to slay a dragon (or, if youāre Grendel, slay a Dane), die in the slaying, and leave everyone and everything you love vulnerableā (viii-ix, boldface is mine).
Is this not the root of Arthurās character arc in BBCM? The struggle over what it means to be a good king in the eyes of his people, his father, himself? The conflict with those presumed to be āmonstrousā but are yet more complex and human than he was raised to believe? The fact that it ends almost as soon as itās begun, with his death coming just as the Golden Age is finally upon us?
Despite being unconscious, Merlin knew what the fuck he was doing <3
I find it deeply aesthetically pleasing, character-wise, that Arthur and Merlin are both very much like their mothers, which is especially meaningful in Arthur's case since he's never known his mother beyond a single painfully brief meeting in "Sins of the Father."
Not only does Arthur look like Ygraine (which adds several layers to the clusterfuck of his and Uther's relationship) but it's clear that he takes after her temperament, too. Yes, he sometimes shows his father's temper, and yes, he does stupid things when he's in a temper, but unlike Uther, who literally took his prejudices to his grave and beyond, Arthur never stays mad at people, and he's overall a far more caring and kind person than his father, which is an interesting case of nature vs nurture.
And then on the other hand, we have Hunith, who told a mounted, armed brigand to go fuck himself, later fought another (also armed) brigand with a twig broom, harboured fugitives on multiple occasions, and raised an illegal magic child out of wedlock, and Merlin "Fuck the Police" Ambrosius, who got in a fistfight, got thrown in jail for the fistfight, called the prince a bitch to his face in a public market square, got in a second, armed fight all within his first 48 hours in Camelot, and then committed treason on a daily basis for the next 10+ years, compared to Balinor, who became a weird antisocial hermit that lived in a cave for twenty years.
couldn't have said it better myself bestie
also, there's a reason hunith and ygraine never met in the show. their dynamic duo would outshine everyone, they'd be unstoppable, untouchable, I FEEL ROBBED
also not to hijack this post, but there's something that just fucks so incredibly hard about how arthur never knew his mother, and never really knew who he was meant to be. he grew up, being moulded into an artefact of his father's legacy, because that's what uther believed ygraine was. he took her memory and fashioned it into a perverse excuse for genocide, and he took arthur's innocence and tainted it with that same twisted logic, turning into a version of himself that melted away as his perceptions of his mother changed. yet merlin grew up with a mother who was kind, compassionate and extraordinarily brave, yet could not and never would understand him, and that's what merlin became. he was raised to always look to his humanity above all else, to do what is right and fuck the rules, but at his core, he was still deeply, incurably lonely. because no matter how deeply he knew his mother, he didn't fully know himself.
but then, merlin and arthur met. the man who was too much of his mother, and the man who was not enough, and they saw what they needed in each other: arthur took how to be human, and merlin how to be a legend, and they grew around each other like vines around a tree. maybe the reason arthur acted like such an arse at the start was because he was meant to be a version of his mother, only the version uther had constructed of her was untouchable and above criticism, which is what arthur thought he was. and similarly, merlin entered camelot as the version of his mother who stood up for justice, thwacked bandits across the face with a broom and harboured illegal children. but he never saw the quiet version of her that she had buried with the memory of balinor; the version that was quietly defiant, tortured, and completely and utterly secret to anyone but herself. arthur enters the story as a corrupted mirage of another man's dead dreams, and ends it as a king who learned the value of kindness and defying the law for the sake of goodness; and merlin began as a reckless child overflowing with unchecked love and confusion, and left it as an enigma, who had learned the meaning of sacrifice.
in essence, that's a very long winded way of saying that arthur and merlin become the parts of their mothers they never got to see for love of one another, but they also become parts of each other. two sides of the same coin indeed. and proof that op is right: hunith and ygraine together would simply be too powerful.
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any australians in the crowd tonight, the national libraryās fabulous online resource trove is losing funding next year and if nothing happens to change that it will likely cease to exist. trove is not only a valuable resource for historians like me, it is a national cultural archive that is of great importance to australian society today. it is also completely accessible and free of charge to anyone with the internet; how fucking rare is that! we canāt lose it. i canāt even imagine the consequences.
if youāre as emotional about this as i am, or even if youāre not but love pestering people in power for any reason whatsoever, please contact your local mp and ask them to save trove and commit to funding this invaluable resource beyond july 2023. you can find your local member here. please also contact susan templeman mp, the special envoy for the arts, and tony burke mp, the arts minister.
non-australians, i would really appreciate a reblog. funding needs to be secured for trove and it needs to happen now.
god the "sometimes i think i know you" scene in 1x13 is obviously so resonant with the finale in almost every line ("im happy to be your servant until the day i die", "are you ever going to change, merlin", etc) but what GETS me is that here, when arthur says "sometimes i think i know you", merlin replies "well i know YOU." and of course he goes on to do his pep talk while staring at arthur in a way that makes me insane. but that's it!!! that's their whole dynamic for the whole show!!! it never ever matters that arthur doesnt fully know merlin because the foundation of their relationship is that merlin, in his soul, KNOWS arthur. it is his unwavering faith in the man that arthur is and can become that leads arthur to be that man!!! when arthur has nothing and no one to trust, including himself, he can still always trust merlin's vision of him. and in the end, how can he mistrust the truth of the man who always held that vision?? how can he want that to change???
it's ab how morgana framed gwen for witchcraft to get her executed despite claiming that magic should not be a crime and how she opened fire on HER OWN innocent civilians despite claiming that a ruler should protect their people and about how she went to strike mordred - a druid whose father was killed and who was going to be killed himself - down for standing against her and he yelled 'you would strike one of your own?' despite claiming to fight for magic users. her quest was personal vengeance disguised as revolution and mordred saw it and wanted no part of it UNTIL he had something to avenge himself
Alright, Iām wanna talk about Morgauseās original plan. This is purely from a speculation perspective and not a complaint toward the actual show! Thereās nothing wrong with the canon events, but I had a thought and I wanted to share it.
We know Morgauseās original plan was to get Arthur to meet her at her temple or whatever youād call that place. Itās not the Isle of the Blessed, but it resembles it a bit. ļæ¼She proves him a man of his word and grants him his āwishā to see his mother.
Obviously, Ygraine tells him how he was born; that it was his father used magic, and it was his fault she died. Morgause knows this and is right in believing that learning this will make Arthur furious toward Uther. She wanted him to go and kill him. She feeds his anger perfectly, saying how it is an unimaginable betrayal that his father would do that and lie about it. Sheās right, and Arthur almost kills him before Merlin stops him.
Hereās my thought:
When Arthur is there and Morgause is preparing the spell, he says out loud āsurely not all those who practice magic are evilā and whatnot. She definitely could hear him. Heās also shown her that heās a man of honor and nobility. I think she does respect him a little bit at this point.
Now, we know why Morgause wants Uther dead, but Arthur is right there. Heās the next king of Camelot. Heās the Once and Future King, destined to unite Albion and bring back magic.
Heās saying right there that magic can be used for good, that not everyone is evil. He learns through his mother of the hypocrisy of Uther and his slaughter of magic users. He is definitely not okay with it.
Obviously heās angry and heās gonna kill Uther, but she knows that will destroy Camelot. Thatās part of her plan at that moment.
But what if she had talked him down rather than pissed him off more? Morgause has his attention and his respect. If she had talked to him about it, she couldāve established a true level of trust and educated him about magic.
Hell, if sheād taken that route, Merlin might been able to confess his magic right there, to help prove the idea that magic isnāt inherently evil.
Morgana hadnāt completely turned against Camelot yet. She only does that when Merlin poisons her, which only happened because Morgause uses her as the vessel for the spell with the knights. If Arthur was going to accept magic, and was her ally, she wouldnāt need to attack Camelot that way.
Arthur couldāve left with Merlin, clear headed and with a real plan of how to stop Utherās killing, in a way that wouldnāt have resulted in regicide or destroyed the kingdom.
Boom! Magic restored! Happy ending! Yay!
But no, instead Morgause chooses the revenge route, and we all end up depressed lmfao
The difference between Arthur and Morgana can be summed up so well with how they view the throne of Camelot. Arthur views it as a responsibility he must be worthy of undertaking. Morgana views it as a power to be wielded.
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