hells_half_acre (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hells_half_acre) wrote2012-12-24 03:05 pm
hells_half_acre) wrote2012-12-24 03:05 pm
Entry tags:
Quick Reaction: Merlin Finale
I can't.... I can't decide if I liked it.
Things I liked:
1. The fact that the magic reveal was early on in the episode and just between Merlin and Arthur.
2. The acting, it goes without saying, was phenomenal. My opinion of Merlin is that the talent of the actors has always far outstripped the talent of the writers - and that remains unchanged.
3. I liked the fact that Merlin and Arthur got at least one adventure together where Merlin got to openly use his magic.
4. I like the fact that we could see Arthur slowly coming to terms with Merlin as a sorcerer - I love that he went through the entire arc, from being frightened of Merlin to feeling just betrayed and then finally coming to see that Merlin was still the same person he always knew - and more than that, realizing that he had the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth as his manservant, and that the sorcerer LIKED it that way.
5. I liked the fact that this episode really was about the love story of Arthur and Merlin, which, of course, the entire show has been about - so it was nice to have the final episode completely dedicated to it.
6. I like that we got an ending for all the knights - some were sad (Gwaine, I'd argue, had the most tragic ending) and some were bittersweet (Percival being the last of Arthur's original low-born knights left alive - Leon, who I've seen some people jokingly call immortal, remaining Gwen's right hand knight as he was Arthur's). I think that scene between Percival and Gwaine broke my heart completely.
7. The final moments between Merlin and Arthur were horrendously heartbreaking and very well done. I half expected Arthur to tell Merlin "I love you" as his final words, but "Thank you" WAS actually more fitting, since the whole thing with Merlin is that he has constantly suffered without any thanks from those he suffered for.
8. Gwen being a badass queen was awesome. And I LOVE the fact that she was basically the only one who really did put it together that Merlin was a sorcerer without having to be told. She needed to have it confirmed, but that's hardly the same thing. And when it was, she wasn't betrayed, she was happy. I think Gwen will restore magic to it's rightful place in the kingdom.
Things I didn't like:
1. Magic wasn't restored to the kingdom in Arthur's lifetime.
2. Morgana's death. Katie McGrath kept saying that she liked Morgana's ending, but I didn't. It was the death of a two-dimensional villain, not someone who was Arthur's sister and USED to have a good heart. I wanted either a sliver of redemption, or at the very least, an acknowledgement that she had gone about everything completely wrong and misguided.
3. The ending. I guess I just wanted a complete reincarnation/resurrection ending. If you're going to have a show that completely changes and plays with the Arthurian myths - like, just COMPLETELY rewrites the legends - WHY DO YOU STILL GIVE US A HORRIBLY TRAGIC ENDING?! Maybe it's just me, but the idea of Arthur's second coming isn't a a balm for pain of his death - nor is the thought of Merlin, immortal and unchanging, stalking the shores of lake Avalon waiting for his friend to return...never able to move on from the grief of having lost him in the first place. Why not give us an ending where Arthur miraculously survives and we see him restore magic? Why not give us an ending where it's the future but Merlin is young and he's walking up the road and he sees a group of boys laughing, and one of them turns and smiles at him and it's Arthur...and they have this sort of unspoken moment of joy at seeing one another again. I guess, I just wanted them to subvert the legends completely.
Sigh...
Anyway, yeah...I guess I'm conflicted. There were some really good bits, but the ending wasn't satisfying to me. I wanted it left open, I suppose, for canon-compliant future-fics to be written that could satisfy me in the days ahead - but alas.
I'm going to really miss this extremely gay show. I guess I just wanted it to go on in my brain forever.
Now, even though I didn't like the tragic ending. I have to say that the final scene between Merlin and Arthur really was magnificent. I love the fact that Arthur told Merlin just to hold him...I love the fact that he used the last of his strength to reach up and put his hand on Merlin's head. I love that in the end it really was a love story between Merlin and Arthur.
Now I'll go have a sulk.
Things I liked:
1. The fact that the magic reveal was early on in the episode and just between Merlin and Arthur.
2. The acting, it goes without saying, was phenomenal. My opinion of Merlin is that the talent of the actors has always far outstripped the talent of the writers - and that remains unchanged.
3. I liked the fact that Merlin and Arthur got at least one adventure together where Merlin got to openly use his magic.
4. I like the fact that we could see Arthur slowly coming to terms with Merlin as a sorcerer - I love that he went through the entire arc, from being frightened of Merlin to feeling just betrayed and then finally coming to see that Merlin was still the same person he always knew - and more than that, realizing that he had the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth as his manservant, and that the sorcerer LIKED it that way.
5. I liked the fact that this episode really was about the love story of Arthur and Merlin, which, of course, the entire show has been about - so it was nice to have the final episode completely dedicated to it.
6. I like that we got an ending for all the knights - some were sad (Gwaine, I'd argue, had the most tragic ending) and some were bittersweet (Percival being the last of Arthur's original low-born knights left alive - Leon, who I've seen some people jokingly call immortal, remaining Gwen's right hand knight as he was Arthur's). I think that scene between Percival and Gwaine broke my heart completely.
7. The final moments between Merlin and Arthur were horrendously heartbreaking and very well done. I half expected Arthur to tell Merlin "I love you" as his final words, but "Thank you" WAS actually more fitting, since the whole thing with Merlin is that he has constantly suffered without any thanks from those he suffered for.
8. Gwen being a badass queen was awesome. And I LOVE the fact that she was basically the only one who really did put it together that Merlin was a sorcerer without having to be told. She needed to have it confirmed, but that's hardly the same thing. And when it was, she wasn't betrayed, she was happy. I think Gwen will restore magic to it's rightful place in the kingdom.
Things I didn't like:
1. Magic wasn't restored to the kingdom in Arthur's lifetime.
2. Morgana's death. Katie McGrath kept saying that she liked Morgana's ending, but I didn't. It was the death of a two-dimensional villain, not someone who was Arthur's sister and USED to have a good heart. I wanted either a sliver of redemption, or at the very least, an acknowledgement that she had gone about everything completely wrong and misguided.
3. The ending. I guess I just wanted a complete reincarnation/resurrection ending. If you're going to have a show that completely changes and plays with the Arthurian myths - like, just COMPLETELY rewrites the legends - WHY DO YOU STILL GIVE US A HORRIBLY TRAGIC ENDING?! Maybe it's just me, but the idea of Arthur's second coming isn't a a balm for pain of his death - nor is the thought of Merlin, immortal and unchanging, stalking the shores of lake Avalon waiting for his friend to return...never able to move on from the grief of having lost him in the first place. Why not give us an ending where Arthur miraculously survives and we see him restore magic? Why not give us an ending where it's the future but Merlin is young and he's walking up the road and he sees a group of boys laughing, and one of them turns and smiles at him and it's Arthur...and they have this sort of unspoken moment of joy at seeing one another again. I guess, I just wanted them to subvert the legends completely.
Sigh...
Anyway, yeah...I guess I'm conflicted. There were some really good bits, but the ending wasn't satisfying to me. I wanted it left open, I suppose, for canon-compliant future-fics to be written that could satisfy me in the days ahead - but alas.
I'm going to really miss this extremely gay show. I guess I just wanted it to go on in my brain forever.
Now, even though I didn't like the tragic ending. I have to say that the final scene between Merlin and Arthur really was magnificent. I love the fact that Arthur told Merlin just to hold him...I love the fact that he used the last of his strength to reach up and put his hand on Merlin's head. I love that in the end it really was a love story between Merlin and Arthur.
Now I'll go have a sulk.
Re: Part 2 II B
Funnily enough, Korra kind of soured me a LITTLE on bending-bending (or as my bestfriend and I called it: Spirit-bending). Because when we originally watched A:TLA, we thought it made a lot of sense because each of the bending groups had their own ultimate bending... water=blood, earth=metal, fire=lightening...but what about air? Well, we thought that when Aang learned spirit-bending, THAT was the ultimate Air Bending... that you could bend the spirit/soul (given how much more religious/meditative air bending was always portrayed as.) With Korra, suddenly bending-bending can be done by waterbenders, and that irked me. A:TLA was about each bender learning their ultimate bending skill (or learning how to fight against it in the case of Zuko) except, apparently, for Air. :P
I'm quite loving it so far, though my German is slow to improve. :)
My German is slowly disappearing because I've barely used it in 10 years. :P
I don't read many thrillers, it's not a genre that I particularly enjoy... though yeah, they're VERY easy to find. Thrillers and romances are the two most available genres, I think.
I just finished reading Warm Bodies. It was really good! I'm debating whether I should go see if the movie is still playing somewhere.
Re: Part 2 II B
Yep, true about air never going much further... I also always found it quite sad that air bending has basically deteriorated to the avatar plus 1 master. I'd have thought that so much knowledge would have been lost, but that never really gets addressed after the first season.
I guess that the fact that it became more than just a one-off that Aang could pull was what comforted me about bending-bending. I mostly just didn't like that it took away from that final stretch of Aang's journey, by a method unknown by the generations and generations of avatars before him. He basically invents a magical way to strip people of their powers that make them dangerous instead of killing them. This bothered me on several levels: first, because it implies that Ozai was only scary and unmanageable because of his bending (which I thought was a prejudice we were supposed to have overcome in watching Sokka, the Kyoshi warriors, etc.). Second, because while it's beautiful and lovely to think that dedication to pacifism can win out and solve everything, I'm a little bit too far gone into cynicism to see that as anything but a huge, glaring lie. I saw Aang's dedication to pacifism as something similar to Mahatma Gandhi. But the thing is, even with millions upon millions of followers, Gandhi had to make sacrifices—huge sacrifices—to make his pacifist ways pull through, and even then couldn't do everything peacefully.
Aang was never disillusioned. He never sacrificed anything. It's a Disney "If you wish upon a star" scenario, and I wish I could believe that that story could really have gone that way, because after all it's a fictional world...but I can't. It feels like the way depressing classics are sometimes given contrived happy endings in children's books, and my own inability to see past that and just appreciate the sugar-coated happy ending makes me a little sad.
That's the way of languages, sadly... I took Russian for 3 years at and before uni and loved it, but now can't remember more than enough for a (probably ungrammatical) cursory conversation about my name, where I live and possibly what I study.
Which part of Germany were you at?
Re: Part 2 II B
Everyone tells me that if I went back to Germany, my German would come back pretty quickly - but um, I'm not sure what reason I'd have to go back to Germany. With my German at the level it is now (also being a Canadian), I wouldn't be able to get a job there. I mean, I'd love to go back, but at this point I have to accept the fact that I'll only ever be a tourist when I do.
I was down in Freiburg in the Black Forest. I loved it there. I still have friends in Germany, but they're in Berlin now... so if I ever visit, I'd probably be visiting Berlin rather than anywhere else. Which is fine, when I lived in Germany, I mostly just saw the south, because it was closest - I never did get to see much of the North.