#a connecticut yankee

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

mordred through time (movies, tv shows, opera and musicals)

Part 2: From 1982 to 2002

Other Parts: Part 1: From 1949 to 1981 -> here Part 3: From 2002 to 2010 Part 4: From 2014 to 2017 Part 5: From 2018 to 2023

EDIT: There is a mistake in the video, Blind Guardian's Mordred's song was released in 1995 not 1989, so I corrected it in the description.

Complete list of part 2 media with extra information and some of my thoughs regarding the evolution of Mordred’s role is under cut.

We left part 1 with Mordred appearing only as a generic villain not related to Arthur until 1960 where White's novel is adapted into a musical. The musical follows the novel enough to introduce Mordred as Arthur's incestuous son with Morgause. Since then the "son" element has been kept in almost every single adaptation. We also have the first tv iteration of Mordred as Morgana's son instead of Morgause: Excalibur 1981.

This is not only the first time we see Morgana as his mother on tv, but also one of the first time ever. I made a list of the evolution of Mordred's mother in novels here.

You can see Morgause is pretty constant until 1980-1982. I have no idea what happened in those years but for the first time we have the 1980 novel "Firelord" by Parke Godwin itroducing Morgana as Mordred's mother instead of Morgause (in this case Morgause is completely eliminated). The 1981's movie Excalibur does something similar (Morgause is eliminated and Morgana absorbs her role), and I am pretty sure it could not have been influenced by "Firelord", given the two events happened so close in time (and less than a year is not usually sufficient to write and produce a movie). In 1982 Marion Zimmer Bradley published "The Mists of Avalon" which does something similar to Catherine Christian's "Pendragon": Morgause is still officially Mordred's mother by adoption.

From this point onwards you will see that Morgause ends up completely eliminated in her role as Mordred's mother from future movies and tv shows.

Full list for part 2 and more info:

1982 Camelot: I wrote a bit about the musical in part 1. This is a stage adaptation filmed live, so it retains all the songs (even Mordred's songs previously cut in the movie) and Richard Backus plays Mordred.

1984 Morte d'Arthur: A tv movie that probably was preserved thanks to Jeremy Brett's popularity as he played King Arthur. This movie is a strange adaptation of Morte d'Arthur, with the actors playing the scenes on a stage with no dialogue. A narrator tells the tale (and the dialogues themselves). Nickolas Grace played Mordred.

1985 Merlin and the Sword: Also known as "Arthur the King", this movie actually exists in two versions, the cut version missing some scenes (Arthur's funeral apparently!). The movie focuses mainly on Merlin, Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot and Mordred plays the role of Arthur's son (from Morgana) and a kind of minor comedic fumbling villain. He was played by Joseph Blatchley.

1988 New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court: One of the many adaptations of Mark Twain's novel, this one is a bizarre Ukranian (Soviet) movie that depicts Hank Morgan as a destructive force in Camelot. The movie is absolutely stunning, but being in Russian I could not understand the dialogue. Mordred plays a very minor role, he is Morgana's son and he is killed by Hank in a treacherous duel (Hank shoots him). His death is what leads Arthur and Morgana to ally to try and defear Hank Morgan. Mordred is played by Ukranian actor Mark Gres.

1989 Mordred's song by Blind Guardian: the correct date is 1995.

1989 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: This is without a doubt my favorite adaptation of Twain's novel. Here Hank Morgan is actually a little girl called Karen. Mordred is a comedic-like antagonist and the main antagonist of the movie, played by Hugo Blick (who is mainly known now as a movie director).

1989 Doctor Who Battlefield: This is a 4 episodes arc in the 26th season of Doctor Who, with the Seventh Doctor being revealed as Merlin. Later on it was adapted into a novel. The episodes are set in modern times, with Morgana and her son Mordred having survived Camlann and travelling through time. Mordred is mainly shown to hate a new knight called Ancelyn who also survived Camlann. Christopher Bowen played Mordred.

1995 Mordred's song by Blind Guardian: So I decided to add the few songs/album that acts like a "Mordred's point of view/as if he was singing" kind of media. The singer here is singing as Mordred. It was also used in this 2016 rap song!

1998 Merlin: Probably one of the most popular arthurian miniseries! It follows the life of Merlin, from his childhood to his elderly years and the second episode mainly focus on Camelot and Arthur. Mordred is Morgana and Arthur's son, magically aged (like we saw in Excalibur 1981) and he becomes the main villain of the story alongside Mab. He is played by Jason Done.

2001 The Mists of Avalon: This is a miniseries adaptation of Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel, focusing on Morgana, Arthur and Guinevere. In my opinion it makes the novel much more palatable and easier to digest. Mordred here appears once more as Morgana's son, but he is a adopted by Morgause and raised to hate Arthur. Mordred is the main antagonist in the second part, and his character here is turned into an almost sympathetic villain. Hans Matherson played adult Mordred (I was obsessed with that man 15 years ago).

2002 Justice League (and the 2004 sequel Justice League Unlimited): Justice League (two seasons) and Justice League Unlimited (3 seasons) are animated shows (for a younger audience) which adapts some stories from DC (both DC and Marvel have interations of Morgana and Mordred). Mordred is a kid (Morgana put a spell on him to keep him young) and immortal, both him and Morgana are villains who use magic. He is voiced by Soren Fulton.

A small note: All these movies here are for tv! Cinematic releases for arthurian movies in general do not seem to be as prominent. It is kind of heartbreaking noawadys to see the disappearance of cheap tv movies.

[glimeres]

2002 - Mary Testa performs To Keep My Love Alive from the musical A Connecticut Yankee

[sickfreaksirkay]

girl help they're sending me to the stocks until tomorrow morn for saying unto the king that i think sir lancelot of the lake and sir gawain of orkney should just kiss already

[artbyblastweave]

🔥Isekai/portal fantasy

I've got two!

In the same way that I think people confuse the Billionaire superhero archetype with deliberate billionaire agitprop instead of recognizing that it's just a narrative shortcut to handwave the logistics of the thing, I think critics of the portal fantasy genre sometimes jump right to "self-insert self-indulgent power fantasy" without giving a fair shake to how portal fantasy allows you to neatly pair constructed fantasy worldbuilding with a protagonist that thinks in legible 20th-21st century idioms and comes with a pre-built quest motivation (get da hell outta here). Obviously there are better and worse ways to flesh the protagonist out from there but it's an incredibly useful starting point.

I strongly suspect that that one XKCD edit of "Steven Moffat hates women vs Japan hates woman" miiiight have some applicability to some of the backlash I've seen against Isekai- For every yikes-inducing overly-wordy-titled power fantasy manga you present me with, I could pull something equally deranged and indulgent from the bloody pulps or the YA algae bloom. Mark Twain got in on the ground floor with this shit, good or bad none of it is new

[mapsontheweb]

Border between New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox fans in Connecticut based on Facebook data

[queer-ragnelle]

Merlin (1998) | Merlins Vermächtnis by Peter Schwindt | The Winter King (2023) | My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult | New Adventures of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1988) | Guinevere Evermore by Sharan Newman | Knights of the Round Table (1953) | Blessed Bastard by Ruth Lehmann | The Green Knight (2021)

[tootditoot]

You'd probably win against a lancer if you had a lasso too

[forthegothicheroine]

The problem with most adaptations of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is that they may get the humor, but they miss the anger. It's a very angry book. The narrator is angry about serfdom, angry that they are forbidden to learn to read, angry that a flighty mistress can kill one for no reason and legally get away with it, angry that King Arthur is a good man for his time but until he's experienced all this himself he just doesn't get it. (It took me a while to get it, myself- that Mark Twain, author of Huckleberry Finn and Puddinhead Wilson, was probably talking about something more than medieval feudalism.) The only version I've seen that captures this is, of all things, A Knight in Camelot with Whoopi Goldberg.

[kay9leo]

WIP Tag Game

Rules: Share a snippet from whatever you’re currently working on, and then tag 5 people.

@myokk tagged me and seeing how I needed something to get me back into the writing world again after a hiatus, this seems like a good way to get back in 🤗

So while not a "true" WIP, it's an idea stuck in my head since in my original WIP (written and hidden in my computer files) of where Iñaki Martinez Cariaga (or MC) is used, I have Hogwarts Legacy take place in the late 2000s...but what if Iñaki's Ancient magic takes her back in time...to the year 1890? As a play on the name of a title of a famous Mark Twain book, I present a small snidget of an idea that's been flying circles in my head:

A New York Yankee in Hogwarts' Courtyard, 1890

Iñaki walked around Hogsmeade, trying to reconcile the past with the future wizarding village that she remembered before she was sent back in time over more than a hundred years ago.

Hogsmeade was still Hogsmeade with its quint shops, townhouses and stone ruins nearby its town entrance, but it was also different from how she remembered back in 2008.

For one, the MCC or the Muggleborn Cultural Center hasn't been made yet, a place where all muggleborns would go to get a taste of home away from home (even though it wasn't truly a taste of home for her, with her home being an ocean away in New York). Two, the Shrieking Shack building didn't exist yet and three, there was no Tim Howards Coffee Shops yet - the only American magical coffee shop chain that somehow made it across the pond.

If you think about it, I might be able to run into Tim Howards when he's still a baby in this time period. He doesn't become a famous Quidditch player until the 1920s. Iñaki frowned at that thought.

"So, what do you think? Is Hogsmeade up to your standing Yank?"

Iñaki blinked out of her thoughts and looked over to her right to see a brown haired boy, Sebastian Sallow giving her a confident smile despite the nervous look in his eyes. He was currently giving her the grand tour of the place. To her surprise, Sebastian wasn't the cocky boy he made himself out to be before the duel that he lost in DADA class. The entire walk, Sebastian was friendly, jolly and curious about her homelife back in America, never once meeting a Yankee. Soon that became her nickname when he saw how it made her smile as he asked questions to get to know about her a bit more.

It was hard to be tight lipped about her homeland. Especially as far as he and everyone but Professor Fig knew, she was just another girl from their era and out of her element because she was the new kid in a new country and NOT being stuck in the wrong time period. She had to be careful about what she said, to reveal little about the future as possible like Professor Fig and all those time traveling books and movies taught her before.

While she ran into some more recognizable names - Weasleys were a dime a dozens, Prewett was an extinct family name in her time period with their remaining line married into one of the Weasleys' family branches and Gaunt was the original family name of the founder of Ilvermorny- there were a few she didn't recognized.

Onai was one. So was Sweeting. And then there was Sallow.

Sebastian Sallow was a name that rang a small bell in her head, but she couldn't remember for what reason it was for as she smiled at its owner with a light smile as she pulled up a half lie.

"I think it's cute, like it's from a storybook. It reminds me of another wizarding village I visited in the past at home..." Or was it future? It didn't matter, it's in my past now... Iñaki thought with a small painful smile as she looked over the smaller village in this era.

"You really miss home, don't you Iñaki?" Sebastian said as he placed his hand on her shoulder. Iñaki looked up to him with a tight smile, fighting back tears that suddenly appeared in her eyes.

"Who me?" Iñaki chuckled, waving her hand off playfully as if she could physically fight off the emotional pains that came every time she thought about the new country she found herself in due to her dad's new job, the time period that she didn't belong to or the possible reality she might be stuck here for good and might never see her parents, family, friends or even her neighbor's pet dog ever again.

Heck, she might be in the history books of another country and her loved ones would never know what happened to her.

And if she let one tear escape, the whole dam would break and she wasn't certain if she would survive the floods of her emotional pain since she woke up in 1890 after accidentally tampering with a magical place she thought nothing of. It wasn't like it was a time turner. Just a bunch of standing stones that reminded her of Stonehenge that stood in up in a forest nearby Feldcroft that called to her for some reason when she was flying around, trying to free up her mind from the thoughts of being homesick.

She was really far from home this time around.

"Yes you. You seem to keep your distance from everyone you know? We don't bite." Sebastian smiled at her. "Take it from someone that had to move before, you'll find yourself fitting in sooner than later. Natty practically befriend you -"

True...Iñaki thought.

" -Ominis seems relaxed and happy to be around you since you met him your first night-"

It probably helps that my first thought of his surname that I told him was that one of his ancestors rejected her family's prejudicial pureblood beliefs and founded Ilvermorny and not of his infamous descendent that is Tim Riddler...or what ever his name was.

" -in the Slytherin Common Room-"

I was a Gryffindor in my time period.

"-and I do need a dueling partner in Crossed Wands." Sebastian winked at her. "Yeah." Her voice croaked. That's what it seemed it was good at doing since she moved to London for her Dad's work. "I-" She cleared her throat with a smile. "-I DO like dueling."

Dueling made it easy to forget, to not remember that she was no longer home. That there was no DeLorean or ruby heels she can tap together three times to bring her back to her time period, to her world.

It wasn't until the Troll fight she had with Sebastian that she thought, maybe she didn't need a time traveling car or magical red heels to go home. Not when she felt that same magical force that brought her to this time period flow out of her when she defeated -no vanquished- the troll.

If Ancient Magic brought me back to the past, I'm going to find a way to use it to get back to my own time with no problem. Iñaki thought with a smug smile as she helped repair the town back, unaware of the only flaw in her plan as Sebastian Sallow gathered her for a quick drink at the Three Broomsticks on him.

And never once did she notice the awe in his eyes as he looked at her or the growing heart he wore on his sleeve for her the longer she remained stuck in the past. She would have noticed it if she looked back, but the only flaw in that was this:

Iñaki was too busy looking forward to finally go back home, back to the future where she belonged.

No Pressure Tags: @theladyofshalott1989 @ps-cactus and whoever sees this and is interested in writing as well/needs a small push to return to the writing world 😁

Thank you @myokk for tagging me and helping me to slowly return to the writing world for a bit after the hiatus I took💖🥰💖

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

I bought a copy of A Young Connecticut Yankee so I could have a good quality video of handsome Galahad

[wallflowerglitter]

Queen Guinevere A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court (1989)

I really liked her costuming. She reminded me so much of Disney’s Maid Marian (in costume, demeanor, and voice) and not so much Guinevere, but I still really liked her.

[coquelicoq]

[bolts upright in the shower] i need to reorganize my bookshelves

[salticid]

marking some twain

[idkaguyorsomething]

reading through mark twain’s catalogue of books will be like:

social stratification is so extreme that society will treat functionally identical people in opposite ways for merely believing that they have different origins, forcing them to either be crushed by or perpetuate the unjust system of government that began this whole situation.

even the most brilliant innovator who fights tirelessly to improve the rights of the people will face pushback from bigots resisting any kind of threat to their power that can manipulate the masses into giving up their rights in order to preserve the status quo.

local rascal plays a prank on his neighbors and starts a pirate club :D

discrimination and violence is baked so deeply into the foundations of society that children wanting to do the right thing will believe they are condemning themselves to hell by defying authority in favor of viewing oppressed minorities as humans deserving of rights.

[queer-ragnelle]

New Adventures of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1988) || For Whom The Bell Tolls by John Donne

[shinobicyrus]

"There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."

― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court