Riley. 29.Female. Lesbian.

irregularjohnnywiggins:

Thirty Days of Arthurian Characters - Day 3: Morgan le Fay

• Why you like or don’t like the character

Oh, gods do I love Morgan. She’s by far my favourite character in the entire mythos. She’s so complex, and deep, and a fascinatingly flawed character. My one major gripe is that, if you only took your knowledge of her from modern interpretations, you wouldn’t know any of that. Most every adaptation I’ve seen has her as either a one dimensional evil sorceress, or some offshoot of Elphaba from Wicked*. Neither characterization is inherently bad, but neither feels like Morgan to me.

*And I must stress that’s the musical Elphaba - Morgan paralleling book Elphaba would be something I’d love to see.

• Your favourite characterization in novels

…I don’t really have one? This is the problem with Morgan being my favourite - I’m exceedingly, almost jealously protective of my personal Morgan, and so any characterization that deviates from that by the slightest regard annoys the shit out of me. It’s gotten so bad I’ve actively begun working on a book about Morgan just to counteract this.

• Your favourite characterization in TV/Film

See above, but unlike in book form, I do have a preferred characterization in the visual world. I did say Merlin would be top for the first three, didn’t I?

In particular my liking of Katie McGrath as Morgana is born of missed opportunity. One thing I always want to see is the duality between Morgan’s capacity for love - love for Arthur, love for her sisters, love for people in general - and her hatred and desire for revenge - on Uther, on people who persecute others, and most of all on Merlin. My Morgan sees herself as a bringer of cosmic justice, and for the first two seasons of Merlin, Morgana reflected that in spades. It fucking infuriates me we didn’t get Morgana as a Magneto style crusader, someone with principles and standards and a genuine belief that what they were doing was the right thing, even if it so clearly wasn’t. I love the Morgana of seasons one and two, and can’t help but mourn what could have been done with her character.

• Your favourite art/illustration about the character

W. H. Margetson’s illustration for Legends of King Arthur and His Knights is a favourite of mine. In general I love the idea that Morgan learnt magic at a nunnery, and her general demeanour in this picture is peak Morgan for me - absolutely casual in her flagrant disregard for the rules.

• The actor/actress you wish could play the character

Based almost entirely off of her performance as Susan Sto Helit, I’d say Michelle Dockery.

• One headcanon about the character

God, only one? Well, I’ve covered some of my big ones - Morgan’s main internal struggle being between her capacity for love and her desire for revenge, Morgan seeing herself as the embodiment of karmic punishment for Camelot.

If I were to go further than that, I’d say that Morgan is probably the best parental figure of her siblings - despite the fact that she hated Urien, and that the first time she met her son after several years was by locking him in a dungeon. She’s the best parent in Mordred’s life, that’s for sure, which in and of itself is a problem.

(Also Morgan is really gay, had a big gay crush on Guinevere and is basically acting as her bitter jealous ex the entire time she’s trying to destroy Camelot)