Also...

Just for the record, Arthurian Legend is not history.  It is fiction.  It is a story.  It is legend.  No matter how much I want it to be true.  It is still fiction.  It can't be historically accurate if it wasn't real.  End of story.

Just an Observation

I should be working on Ecology homework (I swear this class will be the death of me), but I found this on one of the Merlin Tumblrs I read when I was taking a break. 

This is based on one of my favorite television shows, Merlin.  Where Gwen is a servant instead of a princess and she is an anachronistic, boring character that I can't say I hate only because I don't give a piece of soggy bread what happens to her as long as she stays away from Arthur.  She is not my favorite character.  She is FAR from it.  Honestly, she is probably my LEAST favorite character in the whole series.  If it wasn't for Morgana, I probably would have stopped watching AGES ago.  Oh, and Sir L'Oreal (Gwaine) and Percival.  That, however is beyond the point.

The point is, no matter what she is in any story, Guinevere always betrays Arthur.  I can't think of a single one where she doesn't.  And it's usually with Lancelot (or Bedivere if it's before the story crossed to France).  It doesn't matter if she's not a princess (I'm sure as heck glad she isn't).  She loves Lancelot.  That's amazingly obvious.  (I admit, I do have a thing for Arthur/Morgana, but that is also irrelevant.) It doesn't matter if she loves Arthur before they marry - she consistently betrays him.  (And she and Arthur have NO chemistry for another thing.)

That said, you cannot say that it is something she will never do.  You cannot.  (The writers will probably do so just because they do play the important parts to legend.)  You cannot predict a show that you aren't one of the writers for.  End of story. 

This just annoys me.  I personally don't like her because I don't see anything really interesting about her character (I find her incredibly bland.  She has no real personality other than being sweet and a bit stubborn and as loyal as a puppy.  She has no flaws.  She gets all of the guys.  (She and Merlin have a thing in early Series One, obviously then there's the whole Gwen/Lancelot thing in his episodes, there's Gwen/Arthur (ick) that we all knew was coming from the start, there's a tiny bit of Gwen/Gwaine (ewww)...you get the idea.)  She's pretty much a Mary Sue. 

And this is why I love Morgana.  Anyway, I need to get back to my work.  More soon.  Ish.  I'll get back to this eventually...

I Don't Get It

I just don't understand people sometimes.  I really don't. 

I'm a bit of an Arthurian scholar.  And I might be a little bit obsessive about Arthurian Legend right now.  It really doesn't help that the fourth series of Merlin was teased at San Diego Comic-Con recently. 

Anyway.  The thing that is really getting on my nerves is the fact that everyone in the world seems to consider Morgan le Fay to be evil, vengeful, or something of the sort.  She is expected to be this evil queen or evil sorceress that is always out to get Arthur (and Merlin in the television show). 

What people don't understand is that Morgan - Morgana as I prefer to call her - is not evil.  She has become portrayed as evil, but she never was like that.  Not originally.  She was a powerful sorceress from the isle of Avalon.  She was a shapeshifter and a healer.  She was the eldest of nine beautiful sisters.  She was not evil.  Not until she was made to be. 

She was not even Arthur's sister until the time of Chretien de Troyes, who wrote for the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine.  She was not even vengeful until the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and that was only when Arthur killed her lover.  

Some people have tried to shift her portrayal back to how it should have been, but it never lasts.  She is the victim of so much misportrayal.  It actually makes me a bit sad to see what people are doing to her.  


The way she is being portrayed in Merlin is one of those ways.  In series one, she was amazing.  She was my favorite character.  In series two, her romance with Arthur was dropped inexplicably, even though it was beautifully done before and absolutely wonderful (anyone notice that they decided to make her Arthur's sister after that?  Stupid writers) before that.  She was overlooked and manipulated.  It only gets worse from there, and now even the actress who plays here considers her darker side to be the true Morgana.  Lovely.  


I don't think that's how Morgana is supposed to be.  Maybe that's just me and my love of the legends, but I don't think it's fair for them to do this to her character.  All she ever gets is the blame.  That's just not fair to her.  Would it kill people to treat her character properly?

Icons - Merlin 20in20

So, there's this challenge I found on LJ for people who make graphics like I do.  I like it, but I don't have an LJ, so I can't sign up.  I decided that I would participate in it unofficially.  I picked my favorite character to make icons for - Morgana.  For this challenge, you have to make ten icons with specific themes, five with a theme throughout, and five that are whatever you want them to be, provided that you use your character or romantic pairing.  These are mine.  The theme for the set was 'Same Episode.'

Annoyed	Cheerful	Fade
Gradient	Horizontal	Legs
Lips	Polaroid	Sun
Triangle	Theme #1	Theme #2
Theme #3	Theme #4	Theme #5
AC 1	AC 2	AC 3
AC 4	AC 5

Of the Lack of Decent Romance in Merlin...

So, I have lots to do in the next couple of weeks.  And I'm not really looking forward to most of it.

And I'm sort of on a Merlin kick again.  I've gotten all the way up to Season 3 Episode 4.  The season is really good so far, but I seriously don't like what they've done to Morgana.  It's just not right, even if it does sort of keep with the legend.  It would also be nice for the sake of us Arthur/Morgana supporters if some action would take place in that relationship.  I don't like the Arther/Gwen thing.  I don't like her that much, and if she's with anyone, it should be with Lancelot.  I don't get a say, though.

I don't think anything's going to change, though, so why complain?  They didn't change for the fans in season three of Robin Hood.  They only made things worse as they went along.  Like the character who was made of stupid....

Anyway, I'm not going to go into it, I'm going back to work before something else distracts me...

Off Topic

Okay, so I'm going to go totally off topic tonight and talk about Merlin, the BBC tv show. 

It is amazing. I love the acting in this, even if some of the things they do are a little annoying (such as the fact that I've been told Morgana turns evil, even though she's not really even inclined toward that where I am right now, in the middle of the second season. 

Mind you, my best friend has watched most of the second season already.  She doesn't provide me with spoilers, but she's irritated that Morgana is one of my two favorite characters - the other is Arthur.  And go figure, I like Arthur and Morgana together.  In this particular version, though I've heard some that say that she's Arthur's sister, she is King Uther's ward.  Her father was killed in Uther's service, and he was Uther's closest friend before his death. 

I happen to like Arthur/Morgana still, though they've toned a lot of hints of that down in the second season so far, unfortunately.  I also like Gwen/Lancelot...and Merlin with no one, really...maybe Freya, but I'm not really sure at the moment to be honest.  And she seems like a character of the day.  And the last time I liked a character of the day as the romance of a main character, she died.  Great, right?

So, I have to say, the first season of Merlin was amazing.  The second season is almost as good, but not quite.  They really did find some great actors and actresses to play characters of the day recurring characters.  Like Morgaus, who apparently shows up in season three...I wouldn't know, since I'm only in season two, and there are only like three episodes of that released and online so far.

I like having people put it up, though, when it's only aired in Britain.  It's nice to be able to actually watch it...

And now I'm going to go back to rooting for Arthur/Morgana in the episode I'm watching...

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I don't really have a whole lot to say about today.  I'm rather tired at this point, too, so that does not help. 

Really.  It doesn't. 

But it's been a pretty good day.  I'm all done with my homework for tomorrow, and I just have a lab report to write for Tuesday, and a book to reread for English that day so I can take the quiz.  I'm currently hoping that there aren't many, if any, questions from the documentary we watched on Thursday on it.  I'm still trying to get that completely out of my head.  It was graphic and horrific, and I SO would have appreciated a disclaimer on that so I didn't almost get sick watching it. 

But, yeah.  That and homework, and spending a bit of time with Tank was all I did today, really.  And I finished Sherlock and watched Merlin.  That was fun. 

I'm going to bed...

King/Queen of the Hill....or Bench

I have to say, today has been awesome. 

Mom and Grandma came up today with my little sister to have lunch with me.  I miss them so much and it was so great to see them.  We went to Chili's, which is my most recent favorite restaurant.  Their Cajun Pasta is amazing.

Lunch was awesome, and not because of the food.  I also gave Grandma a tour around the campus, which I apparently did well on.  That's good, I suppose.  I also found out that I got a package when I was showing them one of the buildings.  They put these blue slip/notecard-like things in our mailboxes when we get packages, only the one that I got was SO not there yesterday.  That might have had something to do with the fact that I checked at like ten o'clock in the morning...but it does say that the package arrived on the twenty-third, which was Thursday.  Whatever, though.  I just have to wait until Monday.  Fun, fun, fun.

Did I mention that I cut my finger on a string a few days ago?  Brilliant, right?  Only I would do that.

After Mama, Grandma, and my sister left (which was really sad and not fun seeing them leave), I ended up finishing the last episode of this BBC series I've been watching, which is called Sherlock.  It's an amazing show, that's for sure. The guy who plays Sherlock Holmes is amazing - he is to Sherlock what Christopher Eccleston is to Doctor Who.  Meaning he's perfect for the part, and his acting is simply amazing.  Mind you, the only reason I'm comparing them is that Christopher Eccleston is my favorite Doctor.  Probably always will be (I love Nine (Eccleston), though I haven't seen a whole lot of Ten - David Tennant - or Eleven - Will Smith, I think the guy's name was). 

I digress.  Sherlock is amazing.  I'm not thrilled by some of the references in it, but it's great otherwise.  Sherlock is brilliant - he has the most amazing sense of deduction, and he noticed almost every minuscule detail.  He calls himself a 'high-functioning sociopath' (in the first episode) but I'm not really sure that fit, to be honest.  Not that it really matters.

Now I'm back to finishing up Season 2 of Merlin so that I can watch Season 3, which has just started coming out in England, and my last Netflix DVD, which has been sitting in my desk (yes, in my desk) for almost the whole month I've been here.  Great, right?

I ended up doing History homework with Tank, and then we went to have dinner at the BBC (which is our cafe, not to be confused with the television station) with Armadillo.  That was fun.

And then we watched another movie (Howl's Moving Castle, which is one of my all-time favorites.  Armadillo had never seen it, and he liked it, so we're happy about that).  Then Tank and I ended up watching Armadillo play various video games that he kept changing because he got tired of one or another.  That's him for you, though. 

We ended up going outside after that - I had to go put the DVD back in my room first, and when I walked outside, Armadillo and Tank were having a mini-war over the bench and trying to keep each other off of it for the heck of it.  I joined in and it became an all-out war. Tank and I won.  It was so much fun!  And it was great exercise, and none of us could stop laughing.  It was seriously great.

And I got to talk to my best friend amidst this - that was a great talk.  I miss her a lot, too...

And I'm off to bed now that I've updated this, as I need to get up and get ready for church at a reasonable time tomorrow morning.  I've already got my outfit picked out.  Yay.