#she should have had at least a scene like merlin's famous rant lol

[mr-and-mr-pendragon]

Great analysis! Italian chef's kiss level post

I have to add this, as part of Gwen's loyalty to Arthur and generally being lovey dovey with him (which was in the context of this all-or-nothing situation as beautifully laid out above) Gwen also had to care for Uther when Uther was sick! That's the guy who had executed Gwen's father! I find this the worst offence. And not once did Arthur consider how that must feel to Gwen!

This angle is not presented in the show, I think we're just meant to believe that Gwen simply loves Arthur enough (to look past her father's execution? are we meant to forget about it by that episode?), that she's genuinely such a helpful person as to care for Uther.

But all the time I felt that Gwen, as much as she was fond of Arthur, had been cornered into going along with his every whim. Be a secret girlfriend? Ok. Be courted? Ok. Care for sick Uther and pretend that you love doing that? Naturally. Be banished even though you were enchanted? Thank fuck she's at least alive, right? After all that, marry Arthur and pretend to have no residual bitterness about anything? That's what a girl's gotta do in a man's world.

It was interesting to me how in season 5 Gwen did show bitterness and her personality was much hardened compared to her s1 self. It must have been a tremendous pressure to be queen; I don't think people around her forgot her steep status rise from one moment to the other.

And the other side of this love triangle cannot be left unmentioned either. Lancelot just fucks off all the time! He loves her and he loves her a lot which she reciprocates, but he doesn't consider her feelings at all. He doesn't ask Gwen what she wants. He just lets Arthur have her, we're sort of led to believe that he does this out of courtesy, realising that Gwen wants Arthur, not him, so he steps aside but is that true? Based on Gwen's reaction in the morning it's not. It just feels like Gwen is treated as a commodity between these two men and since Lancelot doesn't want to shoulder the commitment he lets the higher ranking man have her. I really wanted to see Gwen's story more from her perspective. Something like the episode where she's captured by Morgana - finally it's addressed that these two women have a really complicated history with each other! I wanted more episodes that delve into how Gwen feels...

On Guinevere and her marriage

This was originally written in response to this post, but turned into a very long rant about why BBC’s Guinevere was as much a victim of contract marriage as the Guinevere of legend is, because BBC Merlin is very, very problematic.

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