There is a moment, in every Arthurian freak’s life, in which he/she will have to confront with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s ‘Mists of Avalon’.
Let’s say it plain clear: it’s one of the most famous retellings of arthurian tales around. I think it’s even more famous than ‘the once and future king’ in non-english speaking countries (this statement comes from my personal experience so it’s not objective at all… but at least here in italy, ‘the once and future king’ is not famous at all, while ‘mists of avalon’ is quite popular). Which means that, like it or not, it will pop around in discussions about Arthurian matter. And, another pretty important thing, it’s not a book only for fans. I mean, many people I know who have read the book (with different opinions anyway) are not interested in Arthurian legends and basically have, as their only source of knowledge on the subject, this book and what it’s known basically by everybody.
Now, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I decided that it’s MY time to talk about this book. Not that I haven’t done it before but… you know, I am not sure I extensively talked about it in a post.Well, anyway..I’m gonna do it the same, so :P Enjoy.
First thing to know: I liked the book. I’ve read it twice, I think (I could have even read it THRICE but…not sure), and I know it’s an unpopular vision here in the fandom. But, and here we come to the second thing to know, that doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with many critics moved to this book by my ‘collegues’ OR that I can’t have a my problens with this book. Truth is, I do have problems with MoA. Third thing to know: Last time I read the book entirely I probably was in 8th grade. which means, that I may have forgotten many details and subplots. Just keep those three things in mind when you read through this post :)
I wanna begin stating that while I think it’s a good book, I don’t really think it’s a good retelling. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
Well…maybe it’s not so.
What I mean is that as a book -per se- it works. Good plot, no dead points, I loved the idea of focusing on politics and plots. It has some flaw in the characters characterization, but also that is overall okay. But if you consider that it’s an Arthurian retelling… here come the problems
Mists of Avalon is a very loose retelling.
it means that if you change the characters’ names you couldn’t even notice we are talking about king Arthur at all (okay maybe that’s exaggerated but… well, almost!).
Now, the secret for a good retelling -at least according to me- is twisting and adding things to the plot of a well known myth enough to catch the interest of a reader that could know everything about the story you are retelling (and who sure don’t want to read all over again what he has already read) but not so much that the reader won’t recognize what he/she’s reading. Now, according to what I’ve just said, Mists of Avalon is not really a good retelling. Why?
- the classical themes of Arthurian legends are nowhere to be found here in this book. The idea of a better world, of a new order, of a world in which justice, honesty and goodness will prevail… the ‘Right against the Might’… all this may be something ‘Modern’ (but you could argue with it!), but it’s something at least I pair with no exception to Arthurian legends. Arthur is a man with an idea, with a dream, and that dream is to make the world better. There is nothing of it in MoA
- to compensate the lack of classical arthurian themes, new ones are shown that really have nothing to do with arthurian legends. Yes, I’m talking about religion wars. I’ve already explained somewhere why I think religion wars should not be featured in any arthurian book (unless you wanna have Bors talking about going to the crusades). It’s simply historically uncorrect. PLUS,you can’t find this stuff in any other book -unless you don’t count the ones who take inspiration from MoA.
- the characters lack of any recognizable character. Let’s not misunderstand me please, I’m all for twisting and shaping the characters… but they have to be recognizeable. Otherwise, just create an original one. Let’s be more clear… Hellen Hollick’s Arthur is a really unconventional one. He’s overall a jerk. But he’s inspired, he’s ambitious, he has dreams… under all his jerkiness and drunkness and fondness for prostitutes, you can recognize he’s Arthur. MoA’s Arthur? Definitely not. He’s weak, he’s indecisive, he’s manipulated back and forth and he seems to have no clue, no drive, no dreams. I’ve deepened the characterization subject here and here
Basically, again, if you changed the names of the characters, you wouldn’t have recognized it as Arthurian.
You could argue: She was trying to do something different. Well, Hellen Hollick too wanted to write a more ‘historically accurate’, and she did so without ending up doing what MZB did. So, MZB really has no excuses for what she has done.
I hope that the ‘I like it but not as an arthurian retelling’ thing is more clear now.
Another thing that bugs me: MoA has basically started a trend.
There are many many books that take MoA as a source of informations. Now, while I’m glad that MoA started the trend of the retellings from a female POV (this is something we owe it), I’m not really glad of the fact that since MoA came out, many books now feature:
- religious wars
-farfetched celtic religions
-Morgana being some sort of priestess (?)
(All these things in books that claim to be historically accurate… o.o)
-Elaine as the less perfect/less interesting little cousin of Guinevere
I really CAN’T stand this. Mists of avalon is not a source of informations on the Arthurian matter. It’s simplu not. Sorry.
okay… now having said all this.. I don’t really now how to conclude this post. Let’s just say..that for now it’s all folks. xD
![thisislostinlace:
fromtoday:
butnotquite:
“Oh, look! haha! A photo of Morgana and Gwen together! Powerful image, don’t you think? And damn, both ladies look gooood. Gwen is tied up…hmmm…my fanfic bunnies are calling me, Let me see…Gwen is being taken somewhere, with her hands tied. Morgana is caped and hooded and riding that beautiful black horse. Gwen is bring dragged behind the horse. With her hands tied. Hmm…dragging, horse, hands tied. This will make a lovely prompt! yesyes!
And look at the sadness in Morgana’s eyes. She needs someone on her side right now. Someone who knew that she was once capable of good things. GWEN! YES, GWEN WAS HER SERVANT! GWEN ONLY EVER THINKS OF MORGANA AS HER MISTRESS AND THE SISTER SHE NEVER HAD! ALL THEY NEED IS A MOMENT TOGETHER AND GWEN WILL FORGET ALL THE TIMES MORGANA VICTIMIZED HER AND HURT THE PEOPLE SHE LOVES!”
If that’s the way you think and if that’s the way you see and rationalize this relationship, and you still wonder why you are not welcome in the Angel Coulby/Guinevere tags, you need to stop asking us why we’re up and arms and start reassessing your logic because whatever you say, this is what their “relationship” boiled down to—Morgana was an abuser in every sense of the word and Guinevere was her primary target. Notice that the visions that triggered her downward spiral were not of Arthur, Uther, or even Emrys—they were all of Gwen. “Gwen gets the throne, must kill her posthaste.” When the logical thing would be to get rid of the person who would have secured her place on the throne.
Write all the Morgwen fanfic you want, no one’s stopping you from doing that. The only thing we’ve always wanted was that you keep it out of the Angel Coulby/Guinevere tags because for as long as the show ran, the people in this tag have been inundated with hate and scorn for trying to defend and stand up for both the character and the actress from those who share this twisted interpretation of the Guinevere/Morgana interactions.
What I also find really amusing is that all this sudden, supposed love for Angel/Gwen is happening at a time when she is receiving all this positive, legitimate press. I remember barely hearing a peep from other members of the fandom in the five years she was on the show—unless it’s to say that she was useless, weak, simpering, ugly, and blocking their ship of choice.
You’re getting called out and you are in position to argue. All of this isn’t coming from left field.
You wanna add some trigger warnings to this post before you jump up on your fucking high horse? kthx.
This whole argument is such fucking bullshit, so lemme clarify some things for you.
1) most morgana/gwen stans FUCKING DESPISE the awful shit that went down in series 4 and 5. have said this before, will say it again. we were disgusted with the racist images and non-consensual nature of these plots. repeat after me: WE FUCKING HATED IT, AND SPOKE OUT AGAINST IT. do you honestly think this is how we wanted this relationship to end up? really? because we didn’t. we wanted dialogue, and screen time, and them getting to actually interact when one of them wasn’t possessed or getting conveniently smacked on the head by a tonne of bricks.
2) if you’re complaining about seeing abusive ships in the angel/gwen tags you need to address your post to more than the morgana/gwen shippers, ya know. you don’t get to claim that morgana is the only character who has acted abusively towards gwen. in fact, the reason most morgana/gwen shippers are “jumping down your throat” is because a majority of gwen/morgana shippers are queer women themselves, and spend most of their time getting shit like this, homophobic slurs and death threats from people who don’t bat a fucking eyelash (or at least don’t consistently target shippers) re: the abuse gwen suffered at the hands of the men on this show.
3) THERE ISN’T EVEN THAT MUCH MORGANA/GWEN IN THE FUCKING ANGEL COULBY TAG. there isn’t that much femslash full stop, because of the reasons listed above. and see point one: most of us hate the shit that went down in series 4 and 5, and most of us refuse to create fanworks from it. so how you can complain about seeing it in the tags is, quite frankly, fucking beyond me. I’m gonna borrow from kheldara here, because she explains this so well:
“[morgana/gwen fanwork] was all Gwen-centric, by and large. As was a lot of the fic produced back when people of quality of wrote in for this inane fandom. And the attachment to the ship goes back many years, when all that faced its shippers was a wealth of potential. And your inability to appreciate how much it meant to be able to retell such a legendary story with a black future queen who wasn’t your popularly claimed “strong woman” and complete with a gay focus is, frankly, disgusting.”
most of us work from the potential this relationship had, which is why we ship it. we go pre-series, stick to series one or two, or just stick to AU’s based off the positive relationship the ladies had in the first (and partial second) series. we do not condone or glorify morgana’s actions towards gwen in the last two series, and (like I’ve said before, funny that.) if you can show me someone who does, I will show you someone on my block list. a function I suggest you start using. there are assholes and abuse-defenders in every ship (remember all those posts people made defending arthur in series 4? I do), this is a fact, so stop pretending it’s only ever gwen/morgana shippers who behave like this.
4) your point about morgana/gwen shippers jumping on now angel is doing dote is so laughable I can’t even begin to form words. try going through a gwen/morgana shipper’s angel coulby tag and seeing how far back our appreciation of her goes, seriously. I’m not doing all the work for you. I think I speak for the majority of us when I say how thrilled we are that angel is doing dote. she’s a fantastic actress with an incredible voice, and we’re all fucking ecstatic that she’s getting so much promo material and being able to take centre stage. it’s not our fault that the promo dept of merlin treated her like shit, but you can bet we complained about it and spoke about how unfair it was. also? jumping on people for being inspired by angel’s success is really quite shitty - you don’t know people’s confidence levels, or what inspires them to make fanworks, some of the people who you claim are “riding on angel’s coattails” might have only recently been inspired to make stuff. but that doesn’t mean that they might not have been appreciating from afar, or celebrating her work on their own blogs.
I’m just gonna leave it here now, because lots of other people are handling this so well, and because I’m currently swapping from one lot of anti-depressants to another and haven’t really got the mental faculties to argue about this further right now. bottom line: we are going to ship morgana/gwen, we are going to discuss and be angry at the treatment these two ladies recieved, but we are not going to put up with being targeted and used as this fandom’s punching bag. so yeah, DONE. thank you for your time.
So do you kheldra on or list? witchpieceoftoast? gmimaerd? fayrose? thedeathlymarshmellows doylefan22 all on your block list? All morgwen fans in the notes of this post who thought it was A HILARIOUS FUNTIME ADVENTURE to have Gwen being dragged against her will to be forced to do Morgana’s dirty work, which, btw, lead to her having sex with her husband without consent…so you know making Morgana a serial sexual abuser?
Lemme refresh some memories:
http://kheldara.tumblr.com/post/32884724131/thedeathlymarshmallows-team-angel-coulby, http://gnimaerd.tumblr.com/post/32881433860/kheldara-team-angel-coulby, (this one is so fucking disturbing and blows the whole WE HATED IT ARGUMENT out of the water) http://thedeathlymarshmallows.tumblr.com/post/32884138936/team-angel-coulby, here’s someone calling out this bullshit that ever so obviously loves loves loves to laugh at the perpetual abuse that Morgana puts Gwen through and its why gnimaerd edited the previous post to put a trigger warning on it because it was disgusting http://irresistible-revolution.tumblr.com/post/32884538751/gnimaerd-thedeathlymarshmallows,
This asshole again, kheldra, writes a full fucking story about Guinevere finding humour in being kidnapped and dragged behind a horse, yet tells me that I should appreciate the attention, ANY ATTENTION a WoC receives apparently no matter how embarrassing or violent, http://kheldara.tumblr.com/post/32884724131/thedeathlymarshmallows-team-angel-coulby yet this fool can’t seem to reconcile this is one of the two scenes Angel walked away from injured during filming because of the CONSTANT physical abuse her character went through, yet people, to this day, are still making excuses.
I see not one Morgwen/Morgana stan has yet to acknowledge the absolute devastation that Morgana deliberately caused Gwen in series one when Tom was used as a tool for Morgana for her revenge against Uther killing Tom in the process. Never once did Morgana have to take responsibility for that, yet Gwen is the one who should have chosen Morgana? Merlin cared enough to take responsibility for Morgana at the end, when whiners complain about nobody caring about her, yet Morgana NEVER ONCE took true responsibility for cutting Gwen off from her entir family, murdering her brother, then not even allowing her to grieve for him since Morgana stole Gwen’s body in the Dark Tower long before Elyan died. I don’t people understand that.
Morgana was so fucking violently selfish to Gwen and has been since series 1, she has removed Gwen’s consent twice thus allowing her to get sexually assaulted twice, and never once allowed her to say goodbye to her father, brother, and husband. This has to be one of the most disturbing and violent and serially abusive relationships ever portrayed and yet people just can’t stop themselves from defending the aggressor by using the excuse that the victim didn’t do enough for her. Boy, does that sound familiar!
I suppose in the case above Gwen isn’t taking big enough strides behind the horse to not anger Morgana. So, you know, it’s Gwen’s fault again.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/5605e8b2c3c2ed57f8dc9fbe931f3d60/tumblr_mhf1f7IGpA1qaiwb8o1_500.jpg)
