Quick Reaction: Merlin Finale
Dec. 24th, 2012 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreI 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.
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Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-09 11:15 am (UTC)To be perfectly honest, I hate tragedies too. I get so sucked in, so utterly wrapped up in the story, that when everything falls apart, my spirit breaks a bit, and I get depressed in real life and end up spending days of just burying myself in romantic comedies or just plain comedies to pick myself up again. That is, in all honesty, why I was very hesitant to watch Merlin at all. The Arthurian legend and variants of it are the worst kind of tragedy to me, because the better the writing, the more it hurts. Do you know the Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley? I read that when I was 14, got sucked into it, and was depressed for a month after I finished. (Possibly my trepidations about this Guinevere originate in Bradley's version of Gwenhwyfar, because I seriously hated her closed-minded ways.)
Maybe I'd feel differently about that book if I read it again now, but I don't much feel like risking it. It's like the Fountainhead, or Crime and Punishment: they make me think, and take me on a profoundly emotional and intellectual journey, but it's so very sad and painful that I never quite want to relive it.
Actually, no, that's not quite entirely true: I am tempted to reread C&P. And I'm debating the idea of reading Atlas Shrugged.
And here I am, getting side-tracked. I'd also rather have watched Arthur uniting Albion and rescinding the ban on magic after learning about Merlin, though I have my doubts as to whether they'd ever have given us a straight up happy ending. (After all, isn't the crux of the legend the idea that Arthur will rise again, to rejoin his trusted warlock who awaits that day?) All I mean to say is that I see why they did it how they did: they made the characters and their relationships more important than the formation of this mythical kingdom, which is a decision that I can be fairly happy with, since ultimately I derived a ridiculous amount of enjoyment out of the Merlin/Arthur relationship dynamic. :P
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-09 08:08 pm (UTC)I think that that's why I'm pretty pissed off about the finale. Because, in my mind, Merlin was sold to me as a comedy from S1-S4. Every series ended with a victory, even the tragedies that were in each series were mitigated to have good sides "it wasn't really Lancelot, and it freed Gwen up to see and warn of Morgana's plans", "Uther is dead, but that means that Arthur is now free to create Albion..." etc.
So, to suddenly have my comedy turn tragedy so completely just for the final series was very much like I'd been stabbed in the back by the show and then told that I should have seen it coming. Maybe THAT's the moral of Merlin... I'm like Arthur, and sooner or later Morgana, Agravaine, Gwen, and "Lancelot" are going to betray me. :P
I don't read Ayn Rand, because of the horrible politics in her books (plus I'm just not interested in them.) But I know what you mean about tragedies... I get far too attached to characters and when they die, I tend to go through all the stages of mourning. Which is why I try to stay away from them. One exception, of course, is that one of my favourite books is For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down... and it's a tragedy, but for some reason I just really like it.
But yes... side/tracked. I think I take a more pessimistic view, and in my opinion the writers didn't make the relationships more important, instead they just forgot what story they were supposed to be telling. But, I'm glad you think differently and can therefore enjoy S5. I can't, so probably your way is a better way to think about things...sadly, my heart refuses to be anything but angry and betrayed. :P
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-10 11:05 am (UTC)I'll keep an eye out for For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down...I'm curious, now. :)
I just try to come to terms with the end of stories if I liked the whole thing leading up to it, because a bad ending can ruin the entire thing for me. (Do you know of Avatar: The Last Airbender? I loved the show so much...up until the finale. At which point the storytelling was suddenly so horrible that I haven't been able to watch a single episode since.) And this was sad, but not irredeemable, to me. They went out with a bang, in a way that a lot of TV series don't have the opportunity to do: either they're forced to end earlier than they were supposed to, or they drag on longer than they should. The ending was...not the most uplifting or what we hoped for, but I can't deny that they made it incredibly powerful.
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-10 03:57 pm (UTC)You and I are like opposites!! Haha, I absolutely adored Avatar: The Last Airbender - INCLUDING the finale, which I thought was epic and awesome. (note the icon I'm using in this discussion ;)
Which just goes to show that there must be people out there who love the Merlin finale and think it was a great end to the series. Meanwhile, Merlin to me is like A:TLA to you... I love the series, but now find that I can't bring myself to watch a single episode because I hated the finale so much.) Well... that's not QUITE true. I find that if I convince myself that the series was unfortunately cancelled at the end of S4, I can watch episodes before then... which is what I've been doing.
I've also debated re-editing S5 to change it, but that would be a lot of work, and I'm not sure I want to put in the time and effort (plus I'd have to watch those episodes again, and they make me so angry now.)
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-11 06:23 am (UTC)Ha, yeah, the live-in-denial-of-the-ending is the strategy I adopted for living with A:tLA. Too many plot devices popped out of nowhere all too conveniently for my taste in that finale. Which I think maybe is exactly why I can be at peace with Merlin's ending: they let the story carry them to the end it naturally led to, rather than suddenly trying to force it backwards down a road that maybe would have made sense at the planning stage, but kind of comes out of nowhere.
Though I do admit, it was really frigging surprising when Arthur died. Because you know, you go, "Meh, they've got a whole episode! They won't just let him find out about Merlin and die." But he does.
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-11 06:37 am (UTC)We really are exact opposites on this, because this is what I believe Merlin DID do, and A:TLA did not. To me, Merlin totally forced the story sideways down a road that maybe made sense at the planning stage but comes out of nowhere and completely defeats the point of the series. Whereas A:TLA may have used some archetypal plot devices, but at least they told the story they had set out to tell in an effective and entertaining way.
So, I think we're both just going to have to agree to live in denial of our respect hated finales. :P
GERMANY! I lived there once. It was nice. Seeing as how we have such different tastes when it comes to finales, I make no claims about whether you'll actually enjoy the book or not if you do find it! I think it's kind of written with the express purpose of being unsatisfying. They made a movie out of it here in Canada once and completely changed the ending. :P
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-16 05:32 pm (UTC)Ah, well. It's not that I'm jumping for joy that S5 is what it is, but ultimately, I'm still pretty darn happy with the finale. Maybe I'd feel differently about A:tLA, too, if I watched it again. The only real elements left that I can't forgive are the loose ends of Azula and Ursa, which broke my heart. With Korra dealing with bending-bending, I feel like I can forgive that massive deus ex machina, though it still is jarring and comes out of absolutely nowhere.
I'm quite loving it so far, though my German is slow to improve. :)
I'm starved for good reading, so I'll take anything right now. I just read a David Gibbins novel for the first time in half a decade and I think my brain fell out. His characters are more fleshed out than Dan Brown's (heaven forbid that his male or female lead should be one step short of improbable perfection), and the chains of events feel more realistic than John Grisham (seriously, sometimes I want to smack those characters upside the head and call them out on their idiocy)...but while now and again I'd find myself intrigued, 1-2 pages later some contrived statement/description/dialogue would jar me out of it and I'd have to struggle to engage myself again.
I should just give up on trying to read thrillers, really. And yet they're the easiest type of book to get one's hands on, and every now and then you do come across a good one.
I'm now reading Daughter of the Sun by Barbara Wood, because it was on sale for 1 euro. So far, I'm 3 pages in and all I know is that it's set in a pre-colonization Chaco Canyon, 2 characters are in love and getting married, and the groom's dad really wants his son to just have sex with the girl and get it out of his system because his lust is addling his brain.
Re: Part 2 II B
Date: 2013-03-16 08:02 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2013-03-16 09:57 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2013-03-16 10:06 pm (UTC)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.