Scrutinizing the books

[Arwen17]

Since the forums have come back to life a little bit again....
I finally wanted to post pictures of the books I took while rereading them a few months ago, including the script book! Anything from the books that slightly interested me, I took a picture of.
You can view all of these photos here: s772.photobucket.com/user/queenmabmagic/library/merlin%20books?sort=2&page=1
They're pretty much in chronological order even if not all of them have the page number in view.

I pulled out the quotes from those pictures that most interested me:

Merlin Part 1 - The Old Magic
pg.76
hilt and fittings were gold, almost in the Roman style, but decorated with the triple spiral of the Great Goddess.

Magic thrilled through him at the touch of the hilt and he swung the sword into the air. It sang a high sweet note, as if he'd struck it against a blacksmith's anvil, and the scent of magic filled the air as the humming grew louder. Excalibur was to the Old Ways what the Grail was to the Christians. So long as the sword remained unbroken, the land it served would endure.

Merlin looked down at the sword he held. In his hands he held the soul of hte land, the secret history of Britain.

At the dawn of Time, when the tribes first came to Britain from the uttermost East, they had brought with them the gods who knew the secret of working cold iron. In that unimaginably ancient era, the Queen of the Old Ways had summoned a start down from heaven and from its fiery body had forged... Excalibur!
From god to king to hero the blade had been handed down, always returning to the Ancient Ones who had forged it when its time on Earth was done.


AKA why the fuck does the LofL have it instead of Mab? Mab clearly forged the sword!
Other books I've read also had the "Queen of Air" associated with the "sword" while the diety of water was associated with the Grail, or Cauldron of Rebirth, etc.

Also, Arthur and Merlin are totally unconcerned with consulting with a pagan diety (LotL) and using a pagan magical sword.
It really goes back to Merlin's war is against Mab, rather than general paganism. Though, general destruction of paganism will follow (and/or lead to) Mab's destruction as well. But everyone besides Mab is just collateral damage in Merlin's ideas and the LotL is just insane with zero sense of self-preservation.


pg.105
Merlin took Excalibur and walked over to the foot of a cliff. The magic all around him made the sword sing to him softly--- a seductive song that made him long, momentarily, for what might have been. If only Mab had been a good queen who cared for her people, he would have ruled happily as her champion, guiding the people in the Old Ways in her Triple Name. But it was too late for that. That world had ended with the coming of the New Religion, and now it was too late for them all.
I shall leave this quote here for the rest of you to demolish lol.


pg.116
He saw the look in Nimue's eyes as she realized his spell was not working, and in that moment he would have done anything, made any alliance, to have the power to hide her scars. He would have served the Queen of the Old Ways herself.
That thought stopped him. Ally himself with Mab's evil to make Nimue whole again?


pg.120-121
She said it as if it were such a simple thing... cast forth his magic to trifle with the mysteries of Birth and Death, to summon the rightful wielder of Exalibur into being. Was it as simple as Nimue made it sound? Had someone, once, said those very words to Mab, and set them all on the tangled course that had begun with his conception? And where Mab had failed to create a champion in her own image, could Merlin truly say he would do any better? Dared he even try?
Merlin forced it from his mind. It's foolish and dangerous. Besides, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I haven't a tenth of Mab's power and learning, and she failed terribly.

Well, let's see Merlin.... you could always make a child with Nimue. All Mab did was insert her x-faery-chromosome into a woman with an x-chromosone. Clearly, faery-x + human-x = male-faery-hybrid-xy. (don't ask where the y came from, unless Merlin is secretly a girl(xx)! maybe he's xxy, or faery-genes can turn into x or y if the Queen wishes it.)




The Queen of the Old Ways had been a force in Nimue's life since she was 16 years old. She was nearly 40, and this was the first time Nimue had ever seen Mab in the flesh. She was a tiny woman, dressed in fantastical dark robes that seemed to be woven from cobwebs and shadows. Her skin glittered as if she were not made of flesh, but of moonlight and crystal.


As he rode up to the gates of Tintagel Keep on that late October day, Merlin saw the castle's towers were enshourded in an enchanted mist that shielded Tintagel from the world. Only someone versed in the Old Ways could penetrate this wall of witchery and gain the keep.
Merlin discerned something he had not sensed for many years. The very air was filled with magic, just as that of Mab's domain had been.

The unease he had felt riding up to Tintagel's walls ripened into horror. Mab did not bestow her gifts lightly, but she had lavished magic upon Morgan and Tintagel. What measureless repayment of her favors did she anticipate...and what did Morgan have?


End of Magic part 3, pg.51
Even though it meant that she had to be without Mordred, sometimes she could not resist retreating to her subterranean palace to be among her own kind, for Mab was not as fond of the human world as Frik was.


End of magic, pg.55
Thoughts of Mab always made Frik's stomach hurt these days. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness, but there had used to be something more to her than petty spite---a dark majesty, the tragic queenliness of a monarch in exile.
No more. The majesty had dwindled away during the years of her battle and her many defeats.


He made his way through the town. Though many turned away from him making the sign against ill-fortune and magic, there were as many more who greeted him cheerfully, glad of a link with the Old Ways. There were fewer of them this year than last, and soon there would be none at all. Mab's power was waning as the people forgot her.
Did she know it?
Merlin was certain that she did. Merlin was sure she knew exactly how the tides of belief ran across the land.

When he has steeled himself to spy upon Mab with his magic, he'd had little luck. Tintagel was hidden from him behind a shroud of magical mist, and even Merlin could not see into the Land of Magic.


end of magic, pg.81-82
Llewellyn, a young page sent to Camelot. Llewellyn's people, the Prydain, still followed the Old Ways, and Llewellyn had been fascinated by Merlin, attached himself to the wizard as his unofficial servant.


I'm kinda surprised that the Old Ways people are so friendly towards Merlin. They're clearly unaware of the "falling out" Merlin has had with Mab.

So Merlin was writing to Nimue for years via pigeon...
Unblinking black eyes watched the small grey form as it flew towards its desination. Soon it had left the towns and villages behind, and then the raven struck, arrowing down through the air to bury its cruel taleons deep into the pigeon's feathery back. The two forms fell through the sky like a thunderbolt cast to the earth, to strike with a dull thud.
Queen Mab got to her feet, brushing feathers from her hands. The wind whipped her black hair away from her face, causing the crystals braided into it to chime softly.
Sometimes there was a certain satisfaction to doing things yourself.


end of magic, pg.93
He'd learned that the mortalfolk feared and loved, hurt and ached just as the Fair Folk did, and Frik had come to share their joys and pain. They had no magic. It wasn't fair to torment them when there was no way for them to defend themselves.
Frik...where have you been? Unlike most humans, you can teleport just about anywhere to see what's going on.


pg.94
She'd appeared out of nowhere just the way she always had. She was dressed all in violet and rosy grey-- bright colors, for Mab, and another indication of her exalted mood.
I didn't know grey could be "rosy", but shows what I know. XD

The Queen of the Old Ways looked almost radiant in steel-grey and violet. A dark bride for a black honeymoon, and woe to Britain when it was over!
I just find some of these Mab descriptions hysterical.


pg.102
The folk of the Fairy do not cry as mortalkind understands the word. Their tears are shed for malice, or magic. But Frik wept now.


pg.172
"I'm here, Nimue," Mab said.
There was still the ghost of royalty in her graveyard voice. Mab had once been Queen within these walls, had reigned from this holy place over all of Britain and the Western Isles. Here, if nowhere else, Mab still wore the aura of her queenliness, as if to say that though Time could diminish her, the years could never truly destroy what she had once been.


Part of what inspired me to write my Daughter of Avalon fanfic, was because the books kept talking about how the Healing Sisters' healing arts were originally based in the Old Ways aka their knowledge of herbs/potions/etc.


"Then do it, Mab."
There was a flash of lightning that turned Nimue's bones to silver and crystal, a moment when the warm spring sunlight was replaced with the unflinching light from the heart of a star. Nimue felt as if she had been turned inside out--- as if she had been remade. And then she was whole.

"Now come with me," Mab said, and she held out her hand.
Trembling inwardly, Nimue laid her own hand against Mab's. Mab's skin was cold, her flesh as hard as if it were carved of wood. And when Nimue's warm mortal flesh touched Mab's immortal form, both of them vanished, leaving Avalon as if neither of them had ever been there.


So it sounds like Mab used real magic and really healed Nimue. Unlike Merlin who was just trying to cast an illusion over her to hide the scars. Wonder if Nimue has "faery bones/skin" where her old junk was replaced lol. It just feels like something like that should leave traces of some kind. Like others would be able to smell the magic on her or something, even though its not illusion magic.

SomehoI Nimue knew that this was not a forest in the real world, no matter how much it resembled one, but was instead a part of the Land of Magic where Mab ruled as Queen. There was a crystalline chiming borne upon the air, as though the harps of a thousand bards were playing at once, and the air was scented with a delicious perfume more wonderful than anything Nimue had ever smelled before.
Mab stood beside her. The Queen of the Old Ways looked at home here, as if she belonged in this enchanted forest.

The strange golden light that came from neither sun nor moon illuminated everytnhing she saw, making ordinary objects seem to glow with a sourceless light.


pg.200
Curiously, Merlin did not doubt that Mab was telling the truth. It had been true from the very beginning that Mab could not use the power of the Old Ways to kill, but it was equally true that she had never been as interested in killing her enemies as turning them to her cause.


Perhaps this really was Barnstable Forest, somehow magically perfected by mab.
lol Merlin thinks Mab improved something...


pg.256
The Queen of the Old Ways was truly dangerous now. Her magic was unraveling, and with it, the ancient bindings that had kept her from killing. The power she expended now she could not replace through her ancient earth magic, but even with her proud enchantements failing, Mab was still a thousand times more powerful than a mere half-human wizard who had not mastered the third stage of magic.






Here's also some notes that I made while I was reading the books:

​
Merlin talked to forest animals in his youth all the time and never thought it odd because he had very little outside contact with humans. Ambrosia, Blaise, and Herne (a faery of Idaths realm) were the only people he regularly interacted with. So there was no one around to tell him that talking to animals wasn't normal.


Judging from pg.218, Arthur, Morgan, Merlin, and Nimue are all virgins. Arthur could have fucked village girls, but he's still very young when he becomes king. The book says he's only 16 and his shy behavior towards Morgan screams virgin. Morgan is a virgin because she's ugly and the book stated no one wanted her. But she's surprisingly unafraid and confident. Now she might have lost her virginity to Frik prior to this, but she still wouldn't be very experienced. Sex Ed seduction classes via Frick? Disgusting.
Nimue and Merlin are definitely virgins. The book says Merlin snuck into Avalon to see Nimue during this particular trip and that's why he's in her bedroom sleeping on a chair. The rest of the time they were always chaperoned at Avalon. But Avalon trusted Merlin pretty well since they knew both he and Nimue were honorable. I guess Merlin and Nimue finally slept together in Mabs cave.


Book2- Pg.238, 247, 262 Guinevere may not have been barren at all since Arthur never slept with her!!!
Book 3- pg.49


Pg.286 idaths lesser kingdom is sleep!!!! See everyone knows death is a sleep.


You know in some ways, Mab is like a fucking fertility goddess with the way she causes people to fall in love/lust with each other all the time and constantly producing children from such unions: Arthur and Mordred. Guinevere and Lancelot weren't around long enough for us to know if "Jenny" was barren or not. Gawain, her brother calls her Jenny. Lord Lot who disputed Arthur's claim was actually still following the Old Ways. But once he accepted Arthur as king, he changed to the new religion and demanded his entire family (Gawain, Guinevere) do the same. There are several sons. Guinevere might be the only female child and she is the youngest of the family. As young as Arthur whereas Lancelot was older than both of them.


Book3- pg.53 so Elaine had magic???


Book3- pg.72-73 ok Arthur is clearly the first Protestant! LOL clearly the author wants to appeal to Anglicans since modern Britain is a Protestant country, not a catholic country like France etc.
Pg.74-75 well for like five seconds they admit the Old Ways aren't evil all the time. The most of the book is spent condemning them as pure evil and Mab as pure evil but never offers up any proof as to why. Merlin is just constantly going "times have changed and we need to move forward. No reason to go back to the Old Ways. They're called "old" for a reason! Time to retire them!" He's as bad as kids with a shiny new cellphone every year.

Pg. 77 that's a lovely sentiment Arthur, but you've clearly forgotten that the Bible warns against going to sorcerers and fortune tellers for advice. How do you know they aren't lying? How do you know they don't wish you ill will?
Pg. 78 no idea who she is, but Mab was often wearing snake bracelets too. I think she wore some when Merlin first came to her land and they met on the steps.
I notice she also mentions the Pagan religion will grow strong again in the future. She knows about Neo-Pagans I guess lol.
Also, Mab's rock is what produced Arthur's stubbornness. Perhaps this priestess's cup of water is what finally broke the spell and allowed Arthur to see reason and go home? Her rock didn't cause the grail search. It just meant he couldn't turn from any task he'd set his mind to.
Pg.79-80 Merlin literally ended up becoming king anyway.
Pg.87-89 lol mab and Nimue. And proof that Mab still loves Merlin. She still wants to keep him safe and convert him one day. She'd drop Mordred in a heartbeat if Merlin came back to her.

Pg. 93 uh frik how could you seriously not know about humans? Morgan softened your opinion of them?

Pg.115-116 I'm very confused if Frik has to eat now or not. This scene suggests he doesn't need to eat, he did eat bread and cheese after Morgan died. Pg.204 ok Frik does have to eat. I guess he just lived in Merlins hut and ate what he could find in the forest while he searched each day....?
Pg.205 WTF?!? Frik is good with a whip!!! WTF has he been doing? Taming mortals for Mab?


Pg.155 so I think what's going on here is that because Guinevere is still half-pagan, she's falling back on that to justify her actions with Lancelot.

Pg.185 Guinevere is truly fucking stupid. All I can think is she truly has convinced herself she did nothing wrong. Extremely selfish and short-sighted. It's like someone saying that those junk foods were so tasty that it was worth getting cancer later in life. No junk food or "pleasure" is worth a painful death. Especially when there was plenty of healthy food to eat instead. Arthur does bear part of the blame for abandoning her for years, but Guinevere is not innocent like she wants to believe about herself. It's not that hard to keep ur pants on. Millions of people around the world are still virgins and haven't passed out from it.

According to the ordering of scenes in the script book, we are getting the true story because Merlin is telling Arthur the story.
It was Frik who spread the traditional story that lacks Mab while Merlin and Mab fought inside the time chamber.

[sleepyqueenie]

DEAR GODS I LOVE THIS!


"AKA why the fuck does the LofL have it instead of Mab? Mab clearly forged the sword!"
How the Lady stole the sword from Mab. That would make a great story!
True, so true, everything you say here.
Same for Puddles' insanity. What the heck made her so?

"I shall leave this quote here for the rest of you to demolish lol."
You know I disagreed with this excerpt! ^^ Merlin's "It is too late, let's make things/Mab worse." mentallity is despicable! Magic is evil except when it is me. Magic makes everything worse except when I deus ex machina everything. Magic is Mab. Magic must die. Look how evil it is when I use it for good or to restore my and my girlfriend's good looks. Look how evil it is when I poke Mab with a stick and she bites back because the poor thing is dying. Let's tell everyone Mab is evil, so they will stop believing in her good side. She definitely won't become more evil if I put a complete idiot on the throne. Sorry were you counting on me to stop the wars and bring faith back to the people? We can't have that. I have more important snails staring to do. I will tell the snails of how wicked you are.
okay, I got carried away.


"to have the power to hide her scars. He would have served the Queen of the Old Ways herself."
What is this film's obsession with external beauty? Even Merlin suffers so deeply from this that he would give up his life's goal for it? Consider joingin Mab? Forgiving Mab? I mean, please do, but for the right reasons. I don't think your auntie Ambrosia would be very pleased if you joined Mab because... aesthetics?
I certainly believe in making Nimue feel good about herself again, helping her heal from her scars and fear of people's opinions, but pleeeeaaase...
"Queen Mab, I have grown somewhat older and I have been thinking... there is hair growing in annoying places... by this stage in my life... I could accept this or shave it or never go out again... I will join you if you can take it away for always and ever." "Truly?" "Yes." "Huh and here I thought you cared about the people. I made them suffer, thinking hey maybe he will let me pick a capable king then. This is a good oldfashioned power game." "Heck no, mom, I just want to be pretty." "Awe this is so easy. Come here, you know you can talk with me about these things. I can teach you the secret to smooth glittery skin if you like." "I would sell my soul for that, for Nimue. She would love it. Anything for my Nimue. You were so silly for sending a dragon on her, that was way too big a feat. You only had to put her beauty in danger, not her life. Silly you." "Merlin?" "Yes?" "Shut up."


I am in a silly mood please forgive me.


"Well, let's see Merlin.... you could always make a child with Nimue. All Mab did was insert her x-faery-chromosome into a woman with an x-chromosone. Clearly, faery-x + human-x = male-faery-hybrid-xy. (don't ask where the y came from, unless Merlin is secretly a girl(xx)! maybe he's xxy, or faery-genes can turn into x or y if the Queen wishes it.)"

Beautiful theory. Again, fanfiction please. I would love for Merlin to be a girl. Why would Mab favour a male child when she is clearly part of a matriarchal pagan religion society? It would be much stronger of her to bring that back. In time maybe. First put a man on the throne as that is the tradition with humans, to ease them back to the old ways slowly, then create a better female champion to follow him up.
I love your thoughts here. What if... I would completely believe Merlin being a girl because of xx chromosome but Mab made him male by magic and that is his real underlying struggle with her. Trans Merlin stories?
But where would a film be without a "broodie" bland white male protagonist?


"The Queen of the Old Ways had been a force in Nimue's life since she was 16 years old. She was nearly 40, and this was the first time Nimue had ever seen Mab in the flesh. She was a tiny woman, dressed in fantastical dark robes that seemed to be woven from cobwebs and shadows. Her skin glittered as if she were not made of flesh, but of moonlight and crystal."

What did Nimue make of Mab? This is so intriguing. So sadly quickly glossed over. Can she be so little interested in her lover's mother, the source of all their struggles?


"Mab did not bestow her gifts lightly, but she had lavished magic upon Morgan and Tintagel. What measureless repayment of her favors did she anticipate...and what did Morgan have?"
Yeah sorry, I read this as a trashy novel synopsis.
Morgan was a nobody, why then did completely gorgeous mysterious magical stranger take an interest in her? Could she be the one to save the kingdom... and win her heart?

"he has steeled himself to spy upon Mab"
By Loo, he is as bad as her! Oh is this a hoby of yours? Do you come here often Merlin in magical spying land? Do you watch Nimue this way, actually, why don't you keep in touch with Nimue this way? Why only contact Mab by magic? Oh right you only use magic to "defeat Mab", not to mentain a healthy relationship with your human girlfriend. My bad.
Do you think he did this before? Watch Mab through magic, with success? I bet so, or he would not attempt it now "for strategical reasons". She could nicely take advantage of such a thing. Sorry, I am making everything so fanficie sexual, but honestly what these characters do and think...

"I'm kinda surprised that the Old Ways people are so friendly towards Merlin. They're clearly unaware of the "falling out" Merlin has had with Mab."
True. Old Ways People are so sweet, so trusting. He takes advantage of them. hmm who could be the villain here?
Also why does Merlin live so long and prosperously when he rejects magic, okay he is half magic, but magic seems an entity of its own and seems to have an own flow and why would it favour/be kind to Merlin who denounches magic and its mistress, why wouldn't his very magical nature turn against him, in punishment? Too adult a road to take, too grim a concept/conversation to have for a family film maybe?

"Via pigeon..." ? How romantic. It would be easy to manipulate that correspondance. Oh who has griffins and what would those like to eat? *reads on* oh or like that. Mab's petty obsession with ruining her son's love life. <3 There are more useful times for such a nice raventrick.
Whatever makes you happy, my queen.


Rosy grey... poetic... nightgownish? That does sound like a nice type of colour for her. I imagine a broken crystally pattern as in her other dresses of light pink and light grey that makes for the rosy grey effect.
Honeymoon? My gods, this is, hysterical indeed. "Merlin, I will marry your country to gain more power." "You are not bridal material, mom." "Watch me. Like really, just tap into your magic and watch, it is fine, no pigeon post rubbish."

"Part of what inspired me to write my Daughter of Avalon fanfic,"
Supermega cheers for your story!
The Healing Sisters based on the Old Ways, again this shows how hypocritical Merlin is in relation to the Old Ways.

"Wonder if Nimue has "faery bones/skin" where her old junk was replaced lol. It just feels like something like that should leave traces of some kind."
It does. Fairy bones/skin. Yeps, Nimue now belongs to the Old Ways, that would have been so cool! What a bargaining chip.
Also Mab and Nimue holding hands... :3 *coughs hm sorry* "Merlin, your mother's skin feels so nice and soft. She filled my mind with light, her magic feels like the heart of a star." Nimue twirls around in her cave. "She makes everything in this world glow with a sourceless light. I waited for years for you to come here, or to Avalon, you couldn't even use your magic to visit your love huh? At least she visits!" "Mab! Did you sleep with my girlfriend?! Nimue, I find the way you talk about my mother disturbing." "Yes, I find the way you talk about her and sacrifice everything for her, or in defiance of her, it is the same thing, disturbing as well."
Look at this dying diety, how much effort and power she puts into making this cave for her enemy.

"lol Merlin thinks Mab improved something..." how sweet. Mab improved his beloved house-hut-forest in this cave, improved his girlfriend by restoring her beauty and selfesteem, it is a pity she can't improve him.

I love that you reread these books and put so many thoughts online!

I can talk with animals but don't know humans well, as I grew up only knowing my dear old aunt. Let's go interfere in the personal lives of British rulers, let's make this my life's work. Could not go wrong, I am an expert. I am half human myself.

Sex Ed classes via Frik, still better than none at all. Did they though? Often/ever sleep together? There is the romantic, chivalric ideal that they are keeping up. Merlin clealy is a fan of this ideal. On the other hand they were all lovey dovey in Vortigern's castle and Merlin can be so cynical about love/sex to Guinyvery, accusingly, as if he's seen it all. Poor thing.
"I guess Merlin and Nimue finally slept together in Mabs cave."
Sex cave, Mab's objective? I finally got him to commit to his girlfriend as she needs him to, finally they slept together! I am so proud.
Everything concerning Nimue is not very thought out in the film or book. This makes her relationships with the other characters feel strange/off to me somehow. She has always been the hardest character for me to understand. This taken for granted girlfriend who has not much personality, is there, but not to interact, just for Merlin and so we soon set her apart from the other events and places in the story for the majority of the tale, she is there only to be sort of kidnapped near the end and sort of rescued (again, 3 times? mud, dragon, cave) and sort of happily ever after, the END.

"Guinevere may not have been barren at all since Arthur never slept with her!!!" Arthur has not slept with Guiny?
Okay, fine if you don't like each other that way, they could have had an understanding about these things. But what was the Lancelot situation really like then? And did they have a plan to solve the Arthur needs an heir situation? People are more complex than this story gives them credit for in my opinion. I can see Arthur idolising Merlin and his teaching. So would he prefer to follow his wizard's ostensibly grave celibate ways? Platonic love is best, is true love. Does Athur/anyone? know of Nimue, Merlin's secret wife?
I love this film to bits but it seems at times judgmental/negative of women and sexuality. This approach, is it partly due to the time period it is set in? Or is it partly plain annoying?


" idaths lesser kingdom is sleep!!!! See everyone knows death is a sleep." Everyone has seen/read Hamlet! HURRAY!


"You know in some ways, Mab is like a fucking fertility goddess with the way she causes people to fall in love/lust with each other all the time and constantly producing children from such unions"
YES.

"The most of the book is spent condemning them as pure evil and Mab as pure evil but never offers up any proof as to why."
Very true. We just have Mab to add fun connotations to being evil. She is pure evil and we are given no solid reasons as to why. I couldn't agree more. She wears black and has magic and wants I dunno things and has ambition to er survive and she tempts people into sex because fairies...evil... I hate my fairy mom, she is embarrassing. I hope my girlfriend never meets her.

"Merlin is just constantly going "times have changed and we need to move forward. No reason to go back to the Old Ways. They're called "old" for a reason! Time to retire them!" He's as bad as kids with a shiny new cellphone every year."
Yes he is!

"Mab was often wearing snake bracelets too." I love snake bracelets.

King Moody Teenager, what joy.

"And proof that Mab still loves Merlin. She still wants to keep him safe and convert him one day. She'd drop Mordred in a heartbeat if Merlin came back to her."
The sweetheart! Oh dear Mab.

"Pg.205 WTF?!? Frik is good with a whip!!! WTF has he been doing? Taming mortals for Mab?"
Good point! Could be. We don't know what he was like in the Old Days, glory days. We know those times contained wicker men and the like and Mab was pretty dark/cruel then. It is really odd, if Frik was by her side all this time, then why was this aftermath struggle with the halfhuman boy what made him snap and change his ways? And not the torturing of christian humans? The Old Ways are too cruel, I see that now, they tripped my girlfriend, off the stairs, they probably did, I mean, Mab had an evil glint in her eyes, as she used to, you know, back when we were burning people. (I am sorry this is awful.)
Or was he not employed yet in the time of the Wicker Men? He feels like he's been at the job for ages. I am only freshy employed, no you can't be, yes I am, I swear did not know about the Wicker Men.

A focus on pagan Guinevere and Elaine's magic could have been so much more interesting!
These film authors thinking: women are a mystery. What could a human woman's motivation be? To survive -bad and ew ambition-, to raise a baby, LOVE obviously the romantic kind for a man, and Beauty. Brilliant. We give one a lazy eye at birth and scar the other, then Mab can come along and "illusion" their beauty back. Which is all that matters? Does this mean while men reject them for not being beautiful, it is Mab who shows them in coded-magic ways that they are no less beautiful than before/any other and she is therefor our body positivity/our help-out-your-fellow-women rolemodel? (oh that was by accident. the important thing is they can be happy with their man once they are pretty) It is sort of sad that Mab does it for the men. Make Morgan beautiful FOR Arthur, Nimue mainly wants her beauty for herself but surely Mab wouldn't have given it unless well... FOR Merlin.

[sleepyqueenie]

That last part may have come across as me being bitter about our favourite film, that was not my intention. In truth our Merlin has more roles for women than most films and has them say and do more relavant things and actively encourages us to be ourselves. I think much of my love for Merlin stems from there.

[Arwen17]

I'm laughing through your entire post and you have given me some great ideas for future fanfics.

No, Merlin never succeeded in spying on Mab. It was rather arrogant of him to think he could do that. Like Mab totally isn't going to notice someone using magic against her, especially magic she created herself when she created Merlin.
Though it would be hilarious if he tried to spy on Mab to learn her plans and the only thing he saw was her masturbating or something lol. Mab might do that just to teach him a lesson about trying to spy on her lol.

LOL I know! Magic would make contacting Nimue so easy. But probably Merlin doesn't use magic very often around Nimue since she is Christian. She's surprisingly willing to ignore the fact that he isn't Christian, but I doubt she appreciates that fact being rubbed in her face by the things he says or does.

I love those broken crystally patterns of her dresses so much...

I demand to see Nimue and Mab holding hands in the movie. hahahaha!! Then they can sing a super-closeted-gay song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NalipNz4e3g


"On the other hand they were all lovey dovey in Vortigern's castle and Merlin can be so cynical about love/sex to Guinyvery, accusingly, as if he's seen it all. Poor thing."
Unless Merlin used magic to make Nimue barren, the fact that Nimue never got pregnant means she was chaste (and the fact that she was actively trying to become a nun). In general, women had to be chaste in that era if they weren't married unless they wanted a child they couldn't afford to feed and the scarlet letter of "whore" on their breast. Frik/Morgan having sex is no problem because Frik is either naturally infertile or can use magic to avoid producing children. Mab would kill him if little baby friklets got in the way of her world domination plans. And Morgan probably wouldn't want it either because her focus is totally on Mordred gaining the throne, not on having "love children" with Frik.
By the time Merlin and Nimue sleep in the cave together, there's a very good chance Nimue is going through menopause or is close to being in that state, so conceiving would be much, much harder. Plus, Nimue may not CARE at that point. She's waited for sooo long at this point. Although it's super, super dangerous to go through childbirth as an older woman if you do conceive. Much more likely to die in childbirth.


Arthur had this idiotic idea that he wasn't "worthy" of Guinevere until he brought home the Holy Grail. He planned to sleep with her after he got the Grail. Guinevere did not agree, but she couldn't change Arthur's mind. Remember he's as stubborn as the rock Mab gave him.
Definitely don't take this stuff as representative of the time period! They're exaggerating stuff because it's a fairytale!


I think being around Morgan and having Mab fall so far really softened Frik. When Mab and the faeries are at the height of their power, they're so "comfortable" with their current position, there's no desire to make any changes or notice anyone else's suffering. When you look at social experiments, the poor are known for donating more than the rich (if you look at the percentage ratio of what they keep vs what they give), just because they know what suffering feels like and have more pity. At this point, Frik has suffered a lot at the hands of Mab, and in general as a faery slowly losing his power due to human disbelief. So he is no longer "comfortable" and probably more open to things that will challenge his previously long-held beliefs.

Yeah, I'm kinda shocked they focused so much on beauty. I would more expect them to focus on childbirth or something lol. Just because that was the main value of a noblewoman in those days. Beauty would be important, but not as important as producing male heirs. That's why Arthur refusing to try for children before getting the Grail is absolutely ludicrous.


" idaths lesser kingdom is sleep!!!! See everyone knows death is a sleep." Everyone has seen/read Hamlet! HURRAY!
hahahaha, that was just a personal note to myself that EVERYONE throughout history and cultures refers to death as a "deep sleep". AKA no one is burning in hell right now. They're asleep until judgement day and most people had an "ancient memory" of this information, even when their particular culture had been far removed from Noah's days for centuries.
The same way most cultures have an "ancient memory" of Noah's global flood in their stories, as well as a memory of an all-powerful creator god. Even in the polytheistic religions, they all start their creation myths with a SINGLE creator god who creates the other lesser gods etc. They also usually have a male god and a female goddess coming together to create the human race, which has deep echoes of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

(Basically the Tower of Babel is when we see the greatest dispersal into different cultures spread throughout the world and that's when a lot of information would have been lost. Though there's definitely plenty of strong hints that it was happening even before the flood, particularly among the descendants of Cain. If you think about it, in essence, the flood happened BECAUSE everyone had forgotten about god and his laws and was just doing evil continually. And Noah spent over 100 years warning them of the flood-to-come and they just laughed in his face because they didn't believe him. I wouldn't be surprised if at that point, they barely believed God existed at all (rather like people today), even though Adam was still alive for much of the time! Adam lived for 900 years and was an eye-witness of God's existence. )

Genesis 6:5 "The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil."
Luke 17:26 "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man."
AKA we're reaching the same point of evil that the people before the Flood reached. There's always been great evil throughout human history, but this is the first time (since the days of Noah, Babel, etc) we've reached a point where we think we don't need God and can just rely completely on our own intellect/wealth/power to save ourselves. I suppose instead of measuring the "level of evil" in society or a certain time period, we should measure the "level of apathy" they have towards God's existence and his moral laws. I guess apathy is ultimately more dangerous because it means a society has reached a point where it no longer recognizes the difference between good and evil actions. Even when there's great evil in the world, as long as people can recognize it, they can attempt to fight against it. But with apathy, there is no fighting, only surrender to evil and complete loss of knowledge about God's character and his ideals.

[himiko]

Apr 15, 2018 11:31:51 GMT Arwen17 said:

"On the other hand they were all lovey dovey in Vortigern's castle and Merlin can be so cynical about love/sex to Guinyvery, accusingly, as if he's seen it all. Poor thing."
Unless Merlin used magic to make Nimue barren, the fact that Nimue never got pregnant means she was chaste (and the fact that she was actively trying to become a nun). In general, women had to be chaste in that era if they weren't married unless they wanted a child they couldn't afford to feed and the scarlet letter of "whore" on their breast. Frik/Morgan having sex is no problem because Frik is either naturally infertile or can use magic to avoid producing children. Mab would kill him if little baby friklets got in the way of her world domination plans. And Morgan probably wouldn't want it either because her focus is totally on Mordred gaining the throne, not on having "love children" with Frik.
By the time Merlin and Nimue sleep in the cave together, there's a very good chance Nimue is going through menopause or is close to being in that state, so conceiving would be much, much harder. Plus, Nimue may not CARE at that point. She's waited for sooo long at this point. Although it's super, super dangerous to go through childbirth as an older woman if you do conceive. Much more likely to die in childbirth.

All that said, people have been having sex outside of marriage since long before there were societal and religious rules against doing so. You see that even in the most puritanical periods of history and in the most strict theocracies today - there are still plenty of people willing to flout the rules and have sex. And in the setting of "Merlin", we're looking at very early Christianity, there are still those around who worship the Old Ways, and most of the older generation will still probably remember a time in their lifetimes when it was even more widespread. In other words, since many of them will still remember a time when having sex outside of marriage was not such of an issue, I wouldn't be surprised if even some of the Christian characters were maybe a bit more lax regarding the idea of sex before marriage. I mean, we know that Merlin and Nimue have sex in the cave (or at least it is implied that they do), and they weren't married then either.

I always sort of assumed that Merlin and Nimue slept together at least once when they were imprisoned by Vortigern - we see them hanging out in a bedroom when Merlin's doing his "moon trick", so they don't seem to be particularly closely chaperoned. Or probably Vortigern and co aren't that bothered if they're having sex, provided they continue to fulfill their roles as hostage and seer of the future. Unless they were having regular sex over a long time, it's not that unrealistic that Nimue didn't get pregnant. Though I do assume that Nimue being in Avalon put a dampner on their sex life - Nimue is too sick, then she is ashamed of her injuries, then she considers becoming a nun. But it's only after Avalon that she decides to become a nun, not something she has wanted her whole life, so again, I don't think that would necessarily have stopped her from having sex with Merlin before that. And yeah, agreed, once they reunite in Mab's cave-forest, I don't think Nimue cares any more. She's no longer becoming a nun, and Merlin has no other responsibilities to the country, they just want to be together after spending so much of their lives apart. They may even be hoping for children at this point - Merlin still has magic here, so if Nimue did end up pregnant I'm sure he could have assisted in making the birth easier for her/ healing her afterwards.

But yeah, since we never see either of them have any other romantic or sexual encounters (or even potentially romantic/ sexual encounters really), if they didn't sleep together in Vortigern's castle then they probably were still virgins at the time they met again in the cave. It's been a while since I read Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave books, but I seem to recall that her Merlin is also a virgin for most of his life (until he meets Nimue in his older years), so it's possible that the same is the case here too.

Re. Frik/ Morgan, I'm like 99.99% sure that the two of them definitely had sex after the scene where the wine is spilt. But yeah, even assuming that gnomes and humans are biologically compatible enough to produce offspring, I imagine that Frik or Mab would probably have used some sort of magic to prevent Morgan from getting pregnant - it doesn't align with any of their goals for Morgan to be pregnant at that time. Given that they're presumably sleeping together for most of Mordred's life, and they still don't have any other offspring, I'm guessing that either they physically couldn't have children together, or that the experience of one pregnancy/ childbirth was enough for Morgan to be all on board with magical contraceptives I mean, she has her child to take the throne from Arthur, and it's not like Mab is going to let him be carried off by sickness in infancy, so in one sense she probably doesn't have any need to have more children if she doesn't want them.

There is too much other stuff in this thread for me to quote it all, so apologies if any of the below is unclear!

Re. Arthur and Guinevere, yeah, in most versions of the legend the two of them never have any children together, as I understand it, and Guinevere is generally assumed to be barren as a result (since we know that Arthur has fathered at least one child). But in the miniseries, he leaves for the Grail quest pretty soon after their marriage (I assume not more than a year later, probably less?) and in the books he explicitly hasn't slept with her at all, because he believes that their marriage won't be blessed unless he purifies his soul by finding the Grail, or some other stupid idea like that, both of which offer up alternative explanations as to why there are no children from their marriage. I mean, it's silly of Arthur, because if he hasn't actually slept with Guinevere at all, there is no evidence to suggest their union wouldn't be fruitful, and he certainly needs an alternative heir if he doesn't want Mordred claiming the throne (I mean, even if he does, it's not like many people even know that he has a son at all until Mordred rocks up and starts causing trouble at court, so as far as most people are aware the king has no heir at all).

I'm not sure that Merlin would necessarily have drummed celibacy as a virtue into Arthur - he's not Christian himself, and even if he hadn't had sex himself, his issues with other people having sex (Arthur/ Morgan, Guinevere/ Lancelot) tend to be because of the consequences, rather than the extra-marital exercise . I severely doubt he would have had many issues with Arthur sleeping with some random woman if she hadn't been his half sister and in league with Mab. And it seems that Arthur knows about Nimue (when Merlin announces that he is retiring, one of Arthur's first questions is about Nimue - so he is at least aware of her existence). Arthur may have his own religious hang ups about sex, being a Christian himself, but given that he doesn't seem to feel much guilt over sleeping with Morgan before he knows who she is ("Yes, I did. But I don't see why I need to tell you about it."), I wonder if perhaps it is the incident with Morgan itself that causes his hang ups with intimacy. Like, he was weak and gave into the temptations of the flesh, and so he believes his god punished him with Mordred, he's wary of making the same mistake again in case this is also the "wrong thing to do". And because of Mab's stubborness curse, that idea just digs in deeper and sows the seeds for the Grail Quest.

Re. Frik and mortals. I think that up until then, Frik just hasn't really cared about mortalkind because it never really affected him directly. He is a part of the Old Ways, and the magical races, and so he probably sees humans as something distant and apart from himself. Maybe something to be manipulated - he does mention that he and Mab used to plot together sometimes. Whilst he seems to like Merlin, and feels bad about his struggles with his mortal side, he doesn't show any signs of protesting at taking part in a plot to offer Nimue to the dragon. I think that by the time of his relationship with Morgan, his relationship with Mab has degraded hugely, she clearly feels little other than contempt for him. Whereas Morgan loves him, makes him feel gallant and desirable and good company etc. So he naturally draws closer to Morgan (a human), and away from Mab and the Old Ways, and it is this that makes him see humans as something more, as beings that can feel love and pain etc. on the same level as him, not simply as these kind of strange, alien creatures. In other words, he knows "theoretically" that humans feel pain before this, but it's a distant concept that he doesn't really care about until he starts actually getting close to them personally. It's perhaps a bit selfish, but it's ... well... human, for lack of a better word

I'm definitely on board with giving more of a focus to magical- Elaine and a more pagan Guinevere, it would have given them a bit more bulk to their character rather than simply having them both fall in love with the same man.

I definitely agree that Mab still has feelings for Merlin - the fact that she uses Nimue to trap him in a magical paradise world, the fact that she admits that she loves him to Nimue, and seems genuinely frustrated about her conflicted feelings, the fact that she avoids allowing Mordred to kill him despite the fact that he clearly wants to. I don't know if she truly believed that Merlin would come back to her - she says to Frik that she has "totally given up on Merlin" after Arthur draws Excalibur from the stone, and she stops her attempts to bring Merlin around to working for her in part 2, concentrating her efforts on Mordred instead. But I think she definitely HOPED that he would, and the fact that she would rather keep him safe and alive than dead and out of the way for good indicates that she still loves him either way.

And yeah, I'm not sure that Merlin spying on Mab is a realistic idea - I find it very hard to believe that he would be able to succeed, and even if he did, surely Mab would be able to sense that. Which, if Mab knows that Merlin can see her makes it less like spying, and more like magic-Skype. Or, something less savoury than Skype depending on what either of them were doing at the time XD

In total fairness to Merlin, I don't think that HE is so bothered by Nimue's scars (he says multiple times that she is still beautiful to him, and shows no sign of lying about it), it's more that he sees the effect that they are having on Nimue, and her self esteem and her confidence compared to when she met him, or when they were at Vortigern's castle. She becomes much more quiet and withdrawn for the rest of the film, the only time we see the "old" Nimue is when she confronts Mab (and even then she is healed of her scars for the duration of the scene), and later when she actually IS healed. It may be shallow, or simply a reflection of how she knows the rest of the world will see her, but it clearly does have a massive impact on her character - I mean, it's a sign of how she nearly died, and also of how she went from a fairly sheltered existence where being a noble hostage protected her from Vortigern's wrath, giving her a certain level of personal power, and then just being used as a pawn to be sacrificed in a larger game by someone who cares literally nothing about her. And I think that THAT is why Merlin considers, briefly, going back to Mab - to have the power to heal Nimue's scars, in order to give her back her old self, rather than because Merlin wants a hot girlfriend, or because Nimue is super vain.

And finally, yeah, Merlin's attitude towards the Old Ways is puzzling. He seems fine with literally all aspects except Mab herself, and his own magic, in the series. In the books there's more that troubles him (the Wicker Man etc.), but he still has help from the Lady of the Lake and the Mountain King, he still knows a lot of pagans, he still talks to animals himself, hell, he even still gets on OK with Frik! I get that he wants to bring down Mab, and that he knows that destroying the Old Ways is the best (only?) way to do that, but you'd have thought given that all he would be sacrificing along with it that he might think of alternate ideas. Like, his book-only meeting with Mab, where he tries to make peace, but then doesn't actually offer anything except "Yeah, let Mordred come to Camelot in peace and then let yourself die as Christianity spreads" (Merlin - a master negotiator you are not). Surely he could have at least tried to make some sort of offer whereby the Christians and the Old Ways could co-exist peacefully, where Mab doesn't die but nor is she given a stranglehold over the whole country again? Like, Mab is fighting to keep the Old Ways alive, not to personally spite Merlin. If there was a ruler on the throne (of whatever religion) who was happy for the Old Ways to still exist, and to prevent them being persecuted by the Christians, that's a very compelling reason for her to stop fighting her war, which is what got Elissa, Ambrosia, Nimue etc. hurt in the first place, and why Arthur was cursed, Mordred conceived etc. I mean, Mab still might not agree to that sort of deal - she might not be prepared to run the risk of another large scale religion operating in Britain, and potentially drawing followers away from her in the long term - but it would have been something.

I've probably missed some stuff out of this post, but yeah...

[Arwen17]

Apr 16, 2018 21:43:08 GMT himiko said:

All that said, people have been having sex outside of marriage since long before there were societal and religious rules against doing so. You see that even in the most puritanical periods of history and in the most strict theocracies today - there are still plenty of people willing to flout the rules and have sex. And in the setting of "Merlin", we're looking at very early Christianity, there are still those around who worship the Old Ways, and most of the older generation will still probably remember a time in their lifetimes when it was even more widespread. In other words, since many of them will still remember a time when having sex outside of marriage was not such of an issue, I wouldn't be surprised if even some of the Christian characters were maybe a bit more lax regarding the idea of sex before marriage. I mean, we know that Merlin and Nimue have sex in the cave (or at least it is implied that they do), and they weren't married then either.

It really, really depends on the time period and culture. A lot of people assume only Christians were "uptight" about sex outside of marriage, but really for almost any culture regardless of religion, bastards are always seen as bastards. Places like ancient Rome may have had more orgies, but they still had to give birth to legitimate heirs from someone they were married to.
That said, yes I agree plenty of people flout the rules during christian time periods, they probably just tried to "mask" it more by giving the child away and raising the child as their niece or cousin or whatever. Although "hiding the child" happened plenty of times in non-Christian societies too. You don't have to be in a Christian society to get in trouble for out of wedlock activities, ESPECIALLY for women, rarely for men. It's a "man's world" for almost any religion and time period you look at.

Frankly, in my eyes (as an early church protestant christian) most of the world NEVER actually became "christian" in the Biblical sense. Rome legalized Christianity, but while doing so they brought in a TON of pagan beliefs from Rome and Greece. AKA the catholic church. When the reformation happened, some of those errors in the church were recognized but not all. So most denominations to this day are more pagan than christian in many of their beliefs.
The only group that truly isn't pagan is probably the Jews (at least the more conservative ones). Modern day christian groups that actually follow what the early church and Jesus taught are very, very rare. Example: the majority of christians believe in the "immortality of the soul". That's a Greek pagan belief. It doesn't come from the Bible at all and Jesus never taught it. The early church never taught it.
That's just one of many extremely unbibical beliefs in most christian denominations.
AKA no one's behavior from pagan rome to christian rome has really changed. They just relabeled all of the roman god statues to "christian saints" and carried on with basically the same behavior. A surface change rather than a true change of heart and behavior. So-called "christians" in those days and in modern times still live exactly like the Pagans. They just pretend, or hide, or find excuses to try to hide that fact. No change of heart. Just a change of masks.

In conclusion, my head-canon is (A) nimue is infertile (or chaste) because otherwise they would have had (B) a bastard love child if they were having sex for so many years like that.



We do have to remember that Arthur clearly had other tutors outside of Merlin because I sincerely doubt Merlin was put in charge of Arthur's education in Christianity. He taught the boy ethics and how to rule a kingdom (though how Merlin-the-forest-dwelling-peasant is an expert on this I would like to know...). Other tutors would have taught Arthur other things: archery, horseback riding, religion, etc.

I too doubt Arthur was taught celibacy.
You're right on the money. It's exactly what the book tells us. It was the fact that Arthur had messed up so bad with Morgan that Arthur felt like he needed to "atone" by finding the Grail before he slept with Guinevere. But like I said before, it's completely stupid and irrational storytelling. Heirs for a throne are more important than Arthur's strange idealism, atonement issues. I would say Arthur thought of himself as the "chosen one" by the way Merlin raised him, but Arthur didn't know he was the son of Uther until Merlin told him. I guess the fame went to his head rather quickly and made him too idealistic?



I really think Mab planned to secure her power and then wake up Merlin and taunt him "hahaha! I won!"
She wouldn't do this until she was sure it would be impossible for him to reverse the situation lol AKA "force" him to accept it by making it impossible to recruit anyone else to his cause.


Thanks for the sex-skype-faery images.

Apr 16, 2018 21:43:08 GMT himiko said:

And I think that THAT is why Merlin considers, briefly, going back to Mab - to have the power to heal Nimue's scars, in order to give her back her old self, rather than because Merlin wants a hot girlfriend, or because Nimue is super vain.

Love love love this. Yes, that's what I think too. He wants old nimue's personality back.

[himiko]

^ I was actually thinking of modern theocracies and other countries where religion has a lot of control over the law, rather than specifically Christian Britain - Saudi Arabia was one of my first thoughts. But yeah, I agree, it's not just Christianity that has an issue with sex outside of marriage. But in terms of the context of Merlin, we don't have any evidence to suggest that the Old Ways have issues with it - obviously Mab saw both Mordred and Merlin as potential kings and both were born to unmarried women, and I'm sure there's a passage in the third novel where Merlin notes that many of Guinevere's people are still pagans themselves, and would rise up if Arthur executed her for something that they didn't consider a sin/ crime, specifically in reference to her sleeping with Lancelot. I realise that Guinevere's people apparently worshipped different gods to Mab, but it still points towards the Old Ways generally being a lot more lax with regards to extra marital sex compared to the New Religion as depicted in the mini series. And since the Old Ways still has some followers, and many Christians will either have converted in their lifetime, or within the past couple of generations of their family, there might be a more lax attitude towards sex than there would have been in later centuries (where we know that extra marital sex still happened even with stricter attitudes towards it).

I'm not sure that Merlin and Nimue would have been having sex for long enough that to remain childless would have been statistically impossible. I mean, it's fair to say that they probably didn't have sex the very first time they met, and I would imagine that they probably didn't have sex with each other after Nimue goes to Avalon (at first she's too injured, then she's considering taking vows, and since she's living there throughout she presumably has to obey a lot of their rules anyway - though the Abbot seems to turn a blind eye to a fair bit). That only leaves post-series (where they may well go on to have plentiful children that we just don't see), the Enchanted Cave (which they were only in for a short time. The novels suggest a few weeks/ months, but also suggests that they slept a lot of that time away without knowing it, and the series doesn't specify but from the cuts it could be interpreted as only a day or two). That just leaves when they were prisoners in Vortigern's castle - and I assumed that they were there for a matter of weeks or months, rather than years (though I could be forgetting something from the novels that proves me wrong there).

All that said, it's not a certainty one way or another. They may have had sex and just "gotten lucky" in avoiding an accidental pregnancy, they may have remained chaste/ "technically" chaste, or one of them may be infertile (more likely Nimue, since I imagine infertility being something Mab would want to avoid with her intended future king, but perhaps it was an unfortunate or unplanned side effect of his being part mortal, part fae). Just musing over the options.

Yeah, that's possible - I can see Mab waiting until Mordred's firmly on the throne - or even until his children/ grandchildren are on the throne and most of the knights that Merlin knew are dead - and then trying to bring Merlin back on side when she's no longer having to fight for survival and Merlin can no longer cause her as much trouble. Admittedly, I'm not sure "I trapped you and your girlfriend in an idyllic fantasy world until everyone else you knew was dead. Friends now?" would necessarily work, but Mab's got a history of bad plans where bringing Merlin on-side is concerned XD

[Arwen17]

Good points! Totally wasn't even thinking about the Middle East , just had about every other region in the world in my mind where "paganism" was converted to catholicism or is still "non-christian" to this day: western countries, south america, japan, china, russia, etc.

Yeah, I would be surprised if Merlin was infertile. That wouldn't go well with Mab's plans at all. It would be in her best interest for the throne and royal family to remain connected to her by blood, even if it's just in a very small way.

Very true about Merlin and Nimue just not having a lot of time or opportunities to have sex.


"I trapped you and your girlfriend in an idyllic fantasy world until everyone else you knew was dead. Friends now?"

OMG!! XD XD That is the best friendship request I've ever heard! This needs to be a fanfic! Titled "What would the world be like when Merlin finally wakes up?"
Although that one time he woke up, he found he had been raped by a fish-lady (Merlin's apprentice)


Yeah, I definitely think she would wait until Mordred is dead for two reasons: (1) it's going to take at least one human lifetime to convert or kill all christians back to the old ways and (2) Mordred really wants to kill Merlin and I'd like to believe Mab was totally aware of that and yet another reason why she hid Merlin in the cave.

[sleepyqueenie]

I don't have much time some supershort reactions and more later.
Nimue/Mab Arwen you get a big hug! :-D I love that song! I watched Descendants2 just for that!
+ I reread your Melody story again, what utter genius!
Merlin being infertile or using Magic to prevent a child are intriguing.
Yep Mab and Lady2 have the same plans.:-D Cave, baby,...
Does make me think, ficwise again, why does Lady2 go for such a complicated way of conceiving the Jack? Did a drunken make-out session not appeal? I'd get that. Is she not attracted to Merlin? Is it the aunt-mother-enemy thing? Is she "too pure"? Is she a lesbian? What did she do when she kept him around for so many years? Just let the sleeping dude sit there, lost interest, discarded slave to her carnal desires? She let him live. I dare say she did like him as a person. This could make things interesting.
I agree on-so many things- a.o. Merlin's magiccam being traceable for Mab, that makes sense. Arthur not being told to be celibate, but by the gods Merlin why that complete overreaction and accusation by you? Can we imagine Mab overreacting like this? Hell yes actually. :-) Mab crashes in after Merlin's great magical sleep while he is walking all relaxed in the grass. "Merlin you slept with someone!" "I... don't remember..." "That was the Lady of the Lake, my sister, your aunt!" "I swear I didn't know." "There will be a child." "I feel so guilty I will join the Old Ways to make it up to you." That would have been a fun film!

[Lane of Magic]

This is one of my favourite threads on this board, it’s so fun reading the posts here!

OK, here’s the thing about the books. I’m going to preface this by saying that there are a lot of things that I actually love very much about the books. I love the writing, the rich descriptions, the added lore, the way it ties in to a lot of the extended mythology. It’s clear that the writer actually spent some time on this and given that it’s a novelisation based on a TV miniseries, I have to say I find it impressive.

Where my frustration with the books comes in lies in the many inconsistencies within the narration or the characters themselves. I don’t think that James Mallory ever suspected that his work would be dissected right down to each word by some very rabid fangirls, but that’s exactly what happened and it’s frustrating when the vast majority of stuff that comes to complement the film makes little to no sense (or directly contradicts itself) – there are scenes where it’s apparent that Mab “kinda forgot” her own powers, or her magic “can’t kill” (??) or her kind cannot lie (I get that that’s a general fairy thing in many stories, but here? Are we reading the same story? Have we watched the same film??? Whaaat?).

Hence, I’m very selective about the reality I accept as far as the books go – I’m obviously fine with the film, I think it makes total sense (at least 95% of the time?), but the books not so much, although they are fun to read and do have a lot of gems in there.

Merlin Part 1 - The Old Magic
pg.76
(…)
At the dawn of Time, when the tribes first came to Britain from the uttermost East, they had brought with them the gods who knew the secret of working cold iron. In that unimaginably ancient era, the Queen of the Old Ways had summoned a start down from heaven and from its fiery body had forged... Excalibur!
From god to king to hero the blade had been handed down, always returning to the Ancient Ones who had forged it when its time on Earth was done.

Wait, like, the Queen of the Old Ways? As in, our Queen of the Old Ways? For some reason, it didn’t register when I read the books back in the day, but wow. I’ll take it. That’s totally my canon now.

End of Magic part 3, pg.51
Even though it meant that she had to be without Mordred, sometimes she could not resist retreating to her subterranean palace to be among her own kind, for Mab was not as fond of the human world as Frik was.

Awww, I have this image of Mab in my head as a little introvert, all curled up with some rocks and fairies fluttering around in the Land of Magic, needing some peace and quiet well away from the world. Which is funny, because she also strikes me as someone who very much enjoys humans and their attention/adoration, but I guess also needs her space.

This quote is from the 3rd book, which is interesting in showing that Mab and Frik have had the opposite evolution – at the beginning, she was the one most involved with the human world and Frik never quite got it.

pg.105
Merlin took Excalibur and walked over to the foot of a cliff. The magic all around him made the sword sing to him softly--- a seductive song that made him long, momentarily, for what might have been. If only Mab had been a good queen who cared for her people, he would have ruled happily as her champion, guiding the people in the Old Ways in her Triple Name. But it was too late for that. That world had ended with the coming of the New Religion, and now it was too late for them all.
I shall leave this quote here for the rest of you to demolish lol.

If only she’d been a good queen who cared, eh?


This is how much she didn’t care for the human world:

p.2
When [the Christians] began to lay waste to her people, (…) she had lashed out at them in a hundred furious battles.
p.17
(…)in the old days the shrine of the Old Ways had been open to anyone who sought refuge there.
p.31
In the Hollow Hills deep at the heart of the earth, Mab had listened and heard and felt the outcries of her followers as the slaughter grew ever greater. (…)
‘No!’ Her scream of fury had struck sparks from the walls of her crystalline kingdom, and hot fury had banished the pangs of weakness.
p. 32
*I have tried!* she wailed silently.
p.35
The Lady of the Lake was one of the strongest powers still left in the world, but she had not suffered as Mab had.

And for the fairy world:

p.3
When humans forgot them, they dwindled away into nothingness. Mab must save them somehow.
p.57
Fear not my subjects, Mab thought, watching the rainbow cloud of sprites flutter about the room. Soon you will be as you once were. Soon all will be as it once was.
This I swear.

I mean, there’s really nothing nice I could possibly say, so I’m just going to make it worse.


Here’s what happened when Mab first decided to create him and subsequently did.

p.35
“(…)It will drain you of what power you still have.”
*Don’t you think I know that?* Mab wanted to shout.

P. 36
All along she had been fighting for survival (…) Now she realised that she was willing to die for it as well. (…) In making him she might unmake herself, vanishing from the pleasant world of men forever. But, at last, Mab realised that it didn’t matter. Her death didn’t matter.

p. 43
With a sigh almost of relief, Mab freed the burgeoning power she had summoned. (…) She held nothing back – if it cost her everything she was, she would do this thing. (…) For Merlin – for Britain – for the Old Magic –

(…) At last, it rushed from her grasp, taking everything that she was – her fire, her heart, all the best of her – with it.

And here’s Merlin’s thoughts in book 3, after he tells Mab that it was Frik who taught him everything he knows. 

p. 200
Not you, never you – you could not even give that much of yourself, Queen of Air and Darkness!

Aaand I cried. XD
(For the record, in the books – since it’s the books we’re talking about – she did in fact go encourage him during his studies and he messed up every single spell, summoning flowers and an alligator and various lizards. It stands to reason that she may have thought it best to give him space.)



The argument could be made that Merlin just didn’t know how long and hard Mab had fought and what she was fighting for… except that he asked her and she told him. She told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth… and he didn’t believe her. I kid you not.

p. 163-6
The Great Hall was a daunting place. (…) Between the windows, the walls were hung with banners, each of which glowed with complex and unfamiliar heraldry. (…)

“All the devices which you see were borne by knights in my service,” Mab told him proudly. (…) “They died (…) And left me all alone.”

(…)

“Tell me more about the Old Ways,” he asked instead.

(…)

“In the old days we were worshipped,” Mab whispered dreamily, staring down into her cup of wine. “No king ruled save with our consent – and in return we saw to it that there was no lack. Everywhere there was plenty and contentment…”

But Mab’s stories of a golden age of plenty and contentment only confused Merlin further. If everything had been so wonderful in those days, why had anybody turned away from the Old Ways to follow the new religion?

So let’s see what happened, shall we? (all emphasis mine) – p.2-3:
“But the land had not changed the Christians. They had changed the land.”
“Those Christians were not content for their strange god to live in harmony with the other powers of Britain. They demanded that those powers be cast down and banished forever.”
“(…) the people no longer lived in harmony with the land.”
“Weeds grew among the scanty crops that had grown lushly at the behest of the priestesses of the Old Ways.”
“(…) the gentle spirits of field and wood were destroyed by cold iron and holy water.”
“So war came to a land that had never known it before.”

She told him as much and he didn’t. Fucking. Believe her. For no reason. Especially if taking into account the book idea (which I hate, but here we are) that fairies can’t lie outright.


And this is where I love and hate the books. I can almost sympathise with Merlin as he’s played by Sam Neill (although I do take huge issue with his characterisation, because his reluctance towards Mab makes no sense in the way it’s presented), but in the books you get much more insight into his thoughts and also a few precious nuggets of information here and there that show exactly who Mab is and what she stands for. And it’s reeeeally hard not to despise him as a character. Mab may have made mistakes but all things considered I’m firmly in the “You’re doing amazing, sweetie!” camp. XD

[sleepyqueenie]

I adore the work you did here! :-D


I dearly love the classic "fae can't lie", as is evident in my Merlin fanfic too (which I still haven't finished, I miss it). You are right, it does not fit well in our Merlin. And when it is in there, it only strengthens Mab's case.


I must mention I am reading a book "Sistersong" based on the folksong of the two/three sisters, and it is also about the christian religion taking over and how the people lose touch with the land and magic disappears because of this. There is a delightful Merlin character with a horse called Nimue. It is awesome so far.



"I have this image of Mab in my head as a little introvert, all curled up with some rocks and fairies fluttering around in the Land of Magic, needing some peace and quiet well away from the world. Which is funny, because she also strikes me as someone who very much enjoys humans and their attention/adoration, but I guess also needs her space."
That is the cutest! And most accurate.


"This quote is from the 3rd book, which is interesting in showing that Mab and Frik have had the opposite evolution – at the beginning, she was the one most involved with the human world and Frik never quite got it."
I love this.



"If only she’d been a good queen who cared, eh?"

You demolished it, all that evidence! :-D Beautiful.
It is beyond doubt that she tried, she does nothing but try, even if it would destroy all else, herself included.

She is incredibly tragic, -I am always drawn to such characters it seems.-

This should be very easy for Merlin to see from the very start but somehow it is not. I shall never understand it. Not in the film or books.


"(…) At last, it rushed from her grasp, taking everything that she was – her fire, her heart, all the best of her – with it."
So sweet.
The thing is she evidently cares, about her people, Merlin,...
She is so bad at expressing emotions but that only adds to her being relatable, plus she truthfully tells him everything.

"(For the record, in the books – since it’s the books we’re talking about – she did in fact go encourage him during his studies and he messed up every single spell,"
Classic Merlin.
It is weird he never went back on analysing teen-him's experiences.
"summoning flowers and an alligator and various lizards. It stands to reason that she may have thought it best to give him space.)"
Aaaaawe
I get this flash to comic book Merlin and how his magic mom who looks just like Mab tried to sway him into helping her and fighting for all fairy life.


"The argument could be made that Merlin just didn’t know how long and hard Mab had fought and what she was fighting for… except that he asked her and she told him. She told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth… and he didn’t believe her. I kid you not."
Nope, you are utterly right!


“All the devices which you see were borne by knights in my service,” Mab told him proudly. (…) “They died (…) And left me all alone.”

♡♡♡♡
I love knight stuff.



"She told him as much and he didn’t. Fucking. Believe her. For no reason."
Yep. He just didn't like her (granted she was putting pressure on him, but dear Merlin if you ARE magic you should at least try to study the basics) then decided to hate her.


"Mab may have made mistakes but all things considered I’m firmly in the “You’re doing amazing, sweetie!” camp. XD"
Yes. :-D The film, books and script all have scenes that makes her motivation so very sympathetic. It is always annoying when such a character gets flipped to "well she is evil and you are not to question it" halfway through. You have it here, in Dracula's Daughter, in Wir Sind die Nacht,... (yes I am in a vampire film mood again)

[himiko]

I quite like the "Fae can't lie directly, they can only imply/misdirect" idea, but that's mostly because it can be a fun frame to work with in terms of fanfiction, analysis of scenes etc. It doesn't seem to play any kind of major role in the film itself.

I agree that it does lend itself to a harsher interpretation of Merlin's character - in that, if Mab cannot lie, and he knows that she cannot lie, then that essentially means that he just brushes aside basically everything she tells him.

I suppose that the issue is that Merlin doesn't have the emotional connection to Mab that he does to the human world by the time he comes to study in the Land of Magic - he was raised by Ambrosia (and in the books we see him interact with some other human characters too), he developed feelings for Nimue etc. It's assumed that Ambrosia has told him about his mortal mother at least to some extent, so whilst he never knew her, he presumably feels some sort of connection to her. He doesn't even know that Mab created him until his magic manifests in his late teens, and he's never met her up until he's sent away from the only family and home he's ever known to go to her- which is the same day he found out there was any connection between them at all. And in fairness, THAT situation is much more on Mab (OK, she's letting Ambrosia raise Merlin for various reasons, but why would you not at least VISIT your son so that he starts to learn about you and about magic from a young age) and Ambrosia (she knows that Merlin's magic will manifest at some point, it's wishful thinking to the point of blindness that it will never happen, and it would probably have been much kinder to Merlin to explain at least some of it to him earlier, rather than giving him the abridged version the day he has to move out).

Basically, I think that whilst for us as viewers, it's very easy to sympathise with Mab ("I don't want to die, I don't want my people to die" is pretty understandable motivation), from Merlin's perspective Mab is a figure who he has never known and has now turned his life upside down (and who he probably resents, partly for the life-changing, but also maybe for her earlier absence), so when he is given the opportunity by the Lady of the Lake to see Mab as someone who is an enemy of his mother and of Ambrosia (who he has a genuine emotional connection to), it's a lot easier to write her off as a villain, and ignore the things he's told her.

[Arwen17]

Sept 1, 2021 22:01:30 GMT Lane of Magic said:

This is one of my favourite threads on this board, it’s so fun reading the posts here!

Awww, I have this image of Mab in my head as a little introvert, all curled up with some rocks and fairies fluttering around in the Land of Magic, needing some peace and quiet well away from the world. Which is funny, because she also strikes me as someone who very much enjoys humans and their attention/adoration, but I guess also needs her space.

This quote is from the 3rd book, which is interesting in showing that Mab and Frik have had the opposite evolution – at the beginning, she was the one most involved with the human world and Frik never quite got it.

For the record, in the books – since it’s the books we’re talking about – she did in fact go encourage him during his studies and he messed up every single spell, summoning flowers and an alligator and various lizards. It stands to reason that she may have thought it best to give him space.


And this is where I love and hate the books. I can almost sympathise with Merlin as he’s played by Sam Neill (although I do take huge issue with his characterisation, because his reluctance towards Mab makes no sense in the way it’s presented), but in the books you get much more insight into his thoughts and also a few precious nuggets of information here and there that show exactly who Mab is and what she stands for. And it’s reeeeally hard not to despise him as a character. Mab may have made mistakes but all things considered I’m firmly in the “You’re doing amazing, sweetie!” camp. XD

oh yeah, I still go back and read certain threads for fun and nostalgia, and this is definitely a top thread.

I love the "fae can't lie" rule. But I've also seen some stories where fae can start to lie as they fall further and further into a "fallen" state, or you could say a more human state. So it becomes possible for them to utter falsehoods because they're no longer "gods", but have become "demons", even if it's often the humans' fault for why the nature spirits degraded from "gods" to "demons".
Princess Mononoke movie is the first example that comes to mind.

We are curling up with rocks I assume because Mab has already read all of the books in the library?

I felt super-embarrassed that Merlin couldn't do a single spell correctly in front of Mab. Talk about egg on your face. She's the Queen of Magic and you're making an utter fool of yourself.
That's like a nightmare I had where I got to meet my favorite Olympic level coach (Eteri), but couldn't remember how to do a single jump, let alone a triple jump lol. "I swear I know how to skate! I swear!"

Oct 9, 2021 13:51:37 GMT himiko said:

I quite like the "Fae can't lie directly, they can only imply/misdirect" idea, but that's mostly because it can be a fun frame to work with in terms of fanfiction, analysis of scenes etc. It doesn't seem to play any kind of major role in the film itself.

I agree that it does lend itself to a harsher interpretation of Merlin's character - in that, if Mab cannot lie, and he knows that she cannot lie, then that essentially means that he just brushes aside basically everything she tells him.

I suppose that the issue is that Merlin doesn't have the emotional connection to Mab that he does to the human world by the time he comes to study in the Land of Magic - he was raised by Ambrosia (and in the books we see him interact with some other human characters too), he developed feelings for Nimue etc. It's assumed that Ambrosia has told him about his mortal mother at least to some extent, so whilst he never knew her, he presumably feels some sort of connection to her. He doesn't even know that Mab created him until his magic manifests in his late teens, and he's never met her up until he's sent away from the only family and home he's ever known to go to her- which is the same day he found out there was any connection between them at all. And in fairness, THAT situation is much more on Mab (OK, she's letting Ambrosia raise Merlin for various reasons, but why would you not at least VISIT your son so that he starts to learn about you and about magic from a young age) and Ambrosia (she knows that Merlin's magic will manifest at some point, it's wishful thinking to the point of blindness that it will never happen, and it would probably have been much kinder to Merlin to explain at least some of it to him earlier, rather than giving him the abridged version the day he has to move out).

Basically, I think that whilst for us as viewers, it's very easy to sympathise with Mab ("I don't want to die, I don't want my people to die" is pretty understandable motivation), from Merlin's perspective Mab is a figure who he has never known and has now turned his life upside down (and who he probably resents, partly for the life-changing, but also maybe for her earlier absence), so when he is given the opportunity by the Lady of the Lake to see Mab as someone who is an enemy of his mother and of Ambrosia (who he has a genuine emotional connection to), it's a lot easier to write her off as a villain, and ignore the things he's told her.

Totally! I've always thought Mab didn't go to visit him because she coldly considered him "useless" until his magic appeared, but his magic might have appeared A LOT sooner if he had been aware of her existence and his potential. I think most little boys would be rather excited to go to "Hogwarts" if they knew about it lol. And this is why I think Mab visited Mordred so much. Not just to spoil him, but also because she realized you can't put a puppy outside and ignore it until its grown up. You have to hand-raise it from the start so it recognizes you as the hand that feeds it. *wink* I have a new puppy right now, so it's on my brain.

And I'm sure traitor Ambrosia was just fine with Mab being oblivious of that fact. If she had actually cared, she would have told Merlin about Mab and she probably would have insulted Mab to the sky until she showed up to visit her only son lol. Ambrosia has never been shy about demanding her own way.