#the rohan saga

[rooksblvd]

UM I JUST FINISHED THE GRANDEST GAME WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW.

[ink4spots]

Ryoma tambien puede ser chavona jfhfhf

[lilaccatholic]

Did u leave cookies and milk out for Captain America or are u hoping for a Winter Soldier visit?

Girly pop at this point I'll take whoever stumbles on in

[rohan-kishibaby]

I don't think i was ready for just how hard this ending was gonna hit me.

It definitely had its flaws but God. That was a great experience. Pokèmon needs more stories with as much heart as this one.

[wysheful]

Cleaning out some folders + decided to post some old stuff I still enjoy <3

[opinions-about-tiaras]

So apparently the Rohirrim-focused Lord of the Rings animated movie is actually happening. I have to say that after it kept getting pushed back and there was no hype, no trailers, no nothing, I thought it wouldn't. But no, they showed like twenty minutes at Annecy and apparently it looks pretty good? They released no trailer to the public, but they did release some promo images, and I like what I'm seeing:

Image quality is kind of shitty, but that sure is the Golden Hall, and I do like a redhead. Very Princess Mononoke vibe from the whole thing.

So this is honestly a pretty good idea. I have zero interest in watching old man Viggo Mortensen track Gollum for four hours. That is... that does nothing for me. But the saga of Helm Hammerhand is a great hook; it's in familiar, iconic locations, but the events themselves are sketched out so roughly you can do an awful lot with them. There's political machinations, betrayal, war, conquest, pride, envy, some of that good shit that Tolkien really excelled at. Helm's daughter didn't even have a name in the appendices, which means that you're free to flesh her out just about any way you like.

But anyway! This got me to thinking about Helm and his reign.

So I hauled my books down off the shelf and read up on ol' Helm, and... okay, wow. I was honestly sort of surprised by what I found there. I remembered this, but hadn't really thought about it before.

Helm, the storied king of Rohan, second in renown only to Theoden and Eorl himself, is sort of... he isn't great. He sort of sucks, actually, I think.

You know what, I'm just going to excerpt the whole thing, which isn't that long:

Of the Kings of the Mark between Eorl and Theoden most is said of Helm Hammerhand. There was at that time a man named Freca, who claimed descent from King Freawine, though he had, men said, much Dunlendish blood, and was dark-haired. He grew rich and powerful, having wide lands on either side of the Adorn. Near its source he made himself a stronghold and paid little heed to the king. Helm mistrusted him, but called him to his councils; and he came when it pleased him. To one of these councils Freca rode with many men, and he asked the hand of Helm's daughter for his son Wulf. But Helm said: "You have grown big since you were last here; but it is mostly fat, I guess"; and men laughed at that, for Freca was wide in the belt. Then Freca fell into a rage and reviled the king, and said this at the last: "Old kings that refuse a proffered staff may fall on their knees." Helm answered: "Come! The marriage of your son is a trifle. Let Helm and Freca deal with it later. Meanwhile the king and his council have matters of moment to consider." When the council was over, Helm stood up and laid his great hand on Freca's shoulder, saying: "The king does not permit brawls in his house, but men are freer outside"; and he forced Freca to walk before him out from Edoras into the field. To Freca's men that came up he said: "Be off! We need no hearers. We are going to speak of a private matter alone. Go and talk to my men!" And they looked and saw that the king's men and his friends far outnumbered them, and they drew back. "Now, Dunlending," said the king, "you have only Helm to deal with, alone and unarmed. But you have said much already, and it is my turn to speak. Freca, your folly has grown with your belly. You talk of a staff! If Helm dislikes a crooked staff that is thrust on him, he breaks it. So!" With that he smote Freca such a blow with his fist that he fell back stunned, and died soon after. Helm then proclaimed Freca's son and near kin the king's enemies; and they fled, for at once Helm sent many men riding to the west marches.

It's been some years since I read this, and I have to say that... well.. Helm doesn't come off as the wronged party here, or as a just, evenhanded king. He comes off as a murderous asshole.

Freca is clearly an overmighty vassal, not doing proper homage to his king. This is a good reason for said king to mistrust him, but so far he hasn't done anything actually wrong.

Freca wants to make a match between his son and a daughter of the royal house. As someone with royal blood himself, a cousin to the king (Freawine is Helm's great-grandfather; Freca is probably Helm's third or second cousin) who has a mighty fief, Wulf would be an acceptable match. Helm, however, doesn't just demur, refusing the match; he responds to the offer with an insult. That's his right as king, of course, but it's still a dick move.

Freca responds by getting angry and "reviling" his king, and then issuing a veiled threat; saying in essence that Helm needs him more than he needs Helm. This crosses a number of lines; even when the king insults you in front of his entire court, you really can't do that back to him. Helm would be entitled to demand an apology, or banish Freca from his councils, or any one of a number of other appropriate proportionate punishments.

Instead Helm escalates about as far as you can escalate. First he forces Freca from his hall, probably so he can't be said to have slain a guest beneath his roof. (The Rohirrim are based on Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions and this had a strong, though not unbreakable, concept of guest right. I'm making a bit of an assumption there, tho.) Then he essentially says that in his eyes, Freca isn't one of the Eorlingas, one of the Men of the Mark; he is a Dunlending, which of course places him outside of the king's protection.

Then Helm simply straight-up murders him with his bare hands in cold blood.

Following this murder, of which there is not even a pretense of it being an act of a king dispensing justice rather than that of a thug murdering a rival, Helm puts the cherry on the sundae by dispossessing Helm's heirs and family and driving them from their homes by force.

And I mean. Fuck me. This is classic "how blood feuds start" shit. If I were Wulf I abso-fucking-lutely would have raised an army and come back and conquered the shit out of Rohan. The king murdered your dad! In front of everyone!

Helm Hammerhand is the proximate cause of his own kingdom's near-demise.

[two-braincells-in-total]

I saw that some people here are worried that glorious rivals might be NA, because of the deleted scene of tgg and I wanted to explain why I highly doubt it.

First off, there are different levels of YA. A book which has target audience 12 yo will be different than one with target audience 18 yo. I'm pretty sure that the tig saga in general is something in between.

This means that there are different 'spice' levels in YA (tho I wouldn't call them spice, since it's still YA). It's a wide age range, from 12-18 (correct me if I'm wrong), therefore it has different intensity levels. For example, the Shatter me series is also YA and I think we can say that it was more explicit than the deleted tgg scene of Rohan and Savannah. Even then, there are still 13 year olds reading it and it's not a problem, because it still isn't NA, the scenes don't describe the actions after make out and undressing, which is exactly what YA means. Just because the make out session is a little bit more intense and is suggesting further action, it doesn't mean it's NA unless the further action is described explicitly.

Secondly, even if she wanted to separate the two trilogies (which would be a very bad idea on her part, because she'd lose most of her audience, so I doubt it), the first book of the second trilogy (aka tgg) is still YA, she can't say "oh, you read the cliffhanger from book 1 but can't read book 2 because you're underage, even tho I said that you can read the series". Authors don't just change the age rating of the books mid series. Between series of the same saga, possibly, even if it risky (the whole losing audience thing), but definitely not in the middle of a series.

It's okay if you're uncomfortable with higher levels of YA (which, honestly, it's looking like we'll get there in the next book, that I can't deny), but you can't say it's not appropriately rated, because she's just changing the intensity, not skipping to the next rating.

So, yeah, I don't think glorious rivals or any future book from the saga will be NA, I don't think she'd risk losing most of her audience. Even if she's targeting older audiences on purpose by potentially switching to NA, it wouldn't be in this saga, because people who read NA probably wouldn't read 5 books of YA before they get to the NA book. It would be a lose-lose for jlb to do that, so I don't think we have any reason to freak out about the age ratings.

She's just changing the intensity. Again, it's understandable if you're uncomfortable with higher levels, but it still counts as YA. YA doesn't mean only having a 1 paragraph long kiss every once in a while, for some books it means sexual tension without action, or the characters doing it, but only having their emotions described instead of the action itself (again, I'm giving Shatter me as an example of such YA book).

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

Do you have any headcanons about Rohan’s folklore? What kind of fairy tales did they have (if any)? Superstitions? Thank you so much, and welcome back! Love to see more of you on my dash! 😊

This is such a great and fun question! It’s a big topic and one with a TON of room for creativity. I can’t say that I’ve built all this out in my HC yet, but I can give a start/framework based on a few things that I already had in mind or that make sense to me.

For folklore, which I think of as the culture expressed through poems, songs, stories, etc., I can imagine three big categories. (These categories exclude straight-up history, which the Rohirrim also document and transmit through song, poetic sagas, etc.)

Legends: These would be traditional tales that have some basis in historical fact but have become embellished or fictionalized over time. The Rohirrim have a TON of these about their most famous ancestors, like Fram, the slayer of the dragon Scatha, or Mahrwini, who led refugees out of enslavement at the hands of the Easterlings and wandered Rhovanion for years before eventually settling and establishing the Éothéod. These were all important people who did big things, but the legends really amp them up to an 11/10 on the hero scale.  

Myths: These are stories, songs, etc. that have no basis in history or science but are used to explain the unknowable things about the world around them, like where stars came from, what happens when you die, etc. Some of the Rohirrim’s myths overlap with the mythology of the elves and Gondor (i.e., the Silmarillion) because those stories are in wide circulation and were adopted. So they’ve got tales of Béma (Oromë) riding among their ancestors, teaching them horsemanship, etc. But they also have some that their own ancestors invented, like the tale of the herd of magical wild boar who raced across the plains and created the tracks and gullies that rain would fill to create the Entwash and the Snowbourn rivers.

Fables/fairy tales: Much like us, they have a bunch of entirely fictional little stories – often centered around animals of Rohan – that were created to teach children important lessons about morality, ethics or safety. So they might have a story about Wrenna, a little bird who wouldn’t share a bounty of summer berries with his fellow birds and then froze to death when they wouldn’t let him back into the flock’s root nest once winter came. This is meant to teach the importance of group cohesion and fulfilling commitments for mutual support and allegiance.

Superstitions are really fun to think about, and I find them much easier to come up with on the fly. Some of the superstitions that I like (based either on traits of Rohan that were already directly in my HC or that I’d adapt from real life) are:

They leave little hunting-related offerings for Béma when they’re hoping for his intervention in life events.

They never pick or display white flowers, as those are associated with death.

The day in spring when the first foal of the year is born is considered a particularly lucky day. Any human babies born on that same day are thought to be destined for greatness.

If you ever sound your horn indoors, you’re inviting defeat in your next battle.

Every stable has a small statue or carved figurine of Felaróf, the first of the mearas. People rub Felaróf’s nose when arriving at the stable in the morning to guarantee themselves a good ride, so the nose of every statue always ends up being slightly shinier/a different color than the rest of it.

If you sneeze once, it means a friend is thinking of you and will bring you good news. If you sneeze twice, an enemy is thinking of you and you should check to make sure your sword is sharpened. (If you sneeze three or more times, you’re just sick and need to go to the healers.)

I could make those all day, but then this post would be even longer than it already is, so I’ll stop there. But if anyone else wants to throw in ideas, please do! And thank you for the Ask! ♥️ It’s nice to be back and chatting about Rohan again with you all! 🗡️🐎👑

[ariscats]

honestly i dont even know what to say after todays post. if thats really savannah i gotta say im disappointed in jlb and know that we “”know”” that Rohan its going to have a girlfriend im wondering how jlb is going to develop not 1, not 2, but THREE relasionships from the zero AT THE SAME TIME while she also has to develop the plot, new secrets to keep the saga going and solve the secrets from the last series that she left to solve here

and she has to introduce, develop and creat secrets for all the 7 players, and ik we already “met some” but thats at least 4 new characters

all of these in 300-400 pages for 3 books

[sniperct]

Okay so the really cool thing about setting a movie during the Helm Hammerhand saga is we know the broad strokes.

We know when it begins, we know the major players, we know when it ends, how it ends, and the ultimate fates of most of the people involved. Its roughly a five year period, though they might compress the timeline for the sake of a movie, which is fine.

We know there are epic battles. We know there's a long, epic siege. We know Gondor comes to Rohan's aid. These things are perfect to expand upon in visual story telling.

But we know precious few details, and that's where you can make a movie really shine. This is where Hera comes in; she's unnamed in the source material and nothing is known of her role. We know her brothers and what happens to them, but of her the only thing we know is that she does not succeed her father. There's a LOT they can do with her story - I would not be surprised if she's the one sent to get help from Gondor, for example. They may even change who ultimately kills Wulf to her instead of her cousin, which I'm totally cool with.

As long as they hit the major events (Helm killing the dude, the invasion of the dunlendings and their mordor aligned allies, the siege) almost anything else goes.

They could even have an epilogue involving Saruman and how he got Orthanc, come to think of it.

[gizkalord]

oh dear the rohan anime looks ummm huh.

i feel like the art direction/character design is just the uninspired generic anime portrayal of white people and western fantasy (not to mention the girlboss outfit lmao). like it looks like knock-off vinland saga yknow. not to mention the animation looks pretty stiff (esp the character animation), and really doesn't feel up to par to what i would expect from a high profile project. i feel they tried really hard to preserve the costume detail of the movies and "realism" which meant losing a lot of animation fluidity.

i know it probably wasn't really possible for them to stray away from the peter jackson look given how involved philippa boyens and warner bros are, but i really think they would've benefited from some creative freedom design-wise, like star wars visions.

granted, star wars visions is kind of an extreme example since the animation studios were given total free reign, and not every animated short was a home run, but i think the overall philosophy allowed for some truly memorable and novel moments that still felt true to the core of star wars.

[halaxia]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。 request rules !

please refer to these before requesting anything as if the request doesn’t abide by these rules then i won’t be writing it, thank you!!!

please specify the gender pronouns you would like for me to use and if you would like nsfw to be afab reader or not—otherwise, i will write requests for a gender-neutral reader :)

not what you were looking for?

— what i won’t write :

- rape, noncon, etc.

- smut (i’m bad at it)

- incest

- male!reader

- any kinks including intense physical/mental harm

- eating disorders

- pregnancy/miscarriage

- yandere

— what i will write :

- pretty much anything else lol

- suggestive content

- fem!reader, gn!reader, afab!reader

- suicidal themes (not overly graphic)

- fluff, angst, dark content (as long as it abides by the rules above)

- alternate universes

thank you for reading :)

— who i write for :

this list is changing often—if you don’t see a character here you would like to request, shoot me and ask and i’ll let you know if i’ll write them or not :) (bolded characters are who i enjoy writing the most)

attack on titan

╰┈➤ eren yeager, levi ackerman, jean kirschtein, connie springer, armin arlert, bertholdt hoover, reiner braun, porco galliard.

bleach

╰┈➤ kurosaki ichigo, abarai renji, kuchki byakuya, hisagi shuhei, urahara keisuke, uryu ishida, shihoin yoruichi, aizen sosuke, ayasegawa yumichika, ichimaru gin, ukitake jushiro, hirako shinji, kira izuru, ulquiorra cifer, grimmjow jaegerjaquez.

bungo stray dogs

╰┈➤ dazai osamu, akutagawa ryunosuke, fukuzawa yukichi, nakajima atsushi, edogawa ranpo, nakahara chuuya.

chainsaw man

╰┈➤ hayakawa aki, denji, power, hirofumi yoshida.

demon slayer

╰┈➤ kamado tanjiro, uzui tengen, rengoku kyojuro, tomioka giyuu, iguru obanai.

final fantasy vii

╰┈➤ cloud strife, sephiroth

jojo’s bizarre adventure

╰┈➤ joseph joestar, caesar zepelli, kujo jotaro, kakyoin noriyaki, higashikata josuke, kishibe rohan, jolyne kujo.

jujutsu kaisen

╰┈➤ geto suguru, gojo satoru, fushiguro megumi, fushiguro toji, itadori yuji, inumaki toge, okkotsu yuta, nanami kento, mahito, kamo choso, higuruma hiromi, shiu kong.

my hero academia

╰┈➤ dabi, shigaraki tomura, hawks, shoto aizawa, todoroki shoto.

obey me!

╰┈➤ lucifer, mammon, asmodeus, leviathan, beelzebub, belphegor, satan, barbatos, simeon, soloman.

one piece live action

╰┈➤ roronoa zoro, sanji, shanks, luffy

spy x family

╰┈➤ loid forger.

the disastrous life of saiki k

╰┈➤ saiki kusuo, kaido shun, kuboyasu aren.

tokyo ghoul

╰┈➤ kaneki ken, nagachika hideyoshi, nishio nishiki.

vinland saga

╰┈➤ thorfinn, canute.

[borom1r]

for the asks, how do you feel things like autism/neurodivergence are regarded in Rohirric society (as opposed to Gondorian)?

I’ve been lettin this ask marinate for a bit bc I wanted to give a relatively coherent answer snfjjs. anyways blah blah I’m too lazy to find it and link it— the post is somewhere on the blog but that ask u sent abt the fellowship + neurodivergence n my comments on Gimli being Astounded that Men make these things a Huge Issue when you could just. work to accommodate people. That.

but like. okokokok so I’ve mentioned. offhand that i quantify my gender best as an ulfheðinn. I am a wolf and I am also a man at the same time. I know my brain doesn’t work the way people expect it to. human society is a struggle. I still don’t Get It, but at least I can fake it well enough — and that’s like. A Thing. we have stories of berserkir coming home from raids and never being able to adapt to life in regular society. + that’s iron-age Norse society, right, but we know there were 1) these niches that existed on the sidelines of society that one could argue served as an outlet for people with mental illnesses (and berserkir taking part in psychoactive substances before battle is. Highly Likely Bullshit — 42:01 for discussions specifically of hallucinogens; tldr there’s no archeological evidence of such substances in viking warrior burials + the last thing you want to do is run into battle intoxicated. any substance use would be for bonding + rituals PRIOR to battle w/ enough time to recover from any adverse effects) and 2) there was some level of care for warriors/vikingar who returned with what could probably be classed as PTSD (there is at least one saga I can think of where an ex-berserkir had married and had children; Egils saga Skallagrímsonar — Skallagrím went into a fit while playing a ball game with his son and nearly killed him. He was only brought out of his rage by the intervention of a servant girl)

anyways. Rohirrim. SO, the Dunlendings seem to get all the shitty violent aspects of “viking” culture meanwhile the Rohirrim get the romanticized Wagner-esque sort of portrayal where they’re all noble mounted warriors and that’s Simply Bullshit. but if we take canon as filtered through a pro-Gondorian lens then it’s easy to understand why the Dunlendings would be portrayed this way. I’ve said it before but I do think it’s a very natural conclusion to draw that the Rohirrim were once a raiding culture and I’d argue the conflicts between them and the folk of Dunland began WELL before the Rohirrim were gifted land by Gondor. all this to say like, I’m certain the Rohirrim (and Dunlendings too, but we’re sticking with the Rohirric focus) had at least basic ideas of how to manage symptoms of PTSD even before they’d settled in what would become Rohan

as for like, autism specifically. not to be like “all the Riders have autism” nfnsjfjsjf but let’s be. Oh So Very Real here. what do you do when your child is struggling and simply cannot cope with life in the village? when they need an even more rigid, structured routine than you can give them? when they have more anger than you can manage? when you’re doing your absolute best for them but they still keep getting into trouble and you likely have other mouths to feed and responsibilities to take care of? when even if you love them to the best of your abilities, they still chafe at their surroundings? send them off to be a Rider.

let them work out their battle-lust against Orcs, let them burn off all their wild energy on horseback patrolling the open plains, let them flourish in the rigid routine of a soldier surrounded by other Riders who may not understand but still accept and embrace them because they are all brothers in arms.

and this isn’t to like. GLORIFY vikingar/berserkir from my end. this is me saying very genuinely that if I had lived in that time, knowing how my brain works and how I both struggle with societal expectations And how I quantify emotions/relationships/the Self in a decidedly non-human way— if it was socially acceptable for me to run off and live in the woods with a pack of my brothers-in-arms As A Wolf, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I think you run into a lot of “that’s Brigdwine, he’s a little strange and he still doesn’t speak, but he tends the horses well and even the meanest stallions are calm around him” where it’s like. Yeah They’re Weird But They’re Part Of The Community So Who Cares? + on the flip side, there’s probably a smaller but not insignificant amount of “did you hear Sigewynn got a letter from Sigeofor? seems he’s made a good name for himself amongst the Riders. better than terrorizing the goats and chickens and biting other children.”

sometimes nobody understands you and nothing that’s expected of you makes sense and you have no idea what to do with your emotions and everything is Too Much All The Time. and sometimes the answer is “go forge an unbreakable bond with your Éored and kill Orcs about it.”

[daavld]

Tolkien's middle earth, brief discussion

I began my journey with the harry potter books in high school, these were the books that introduced me to the genre but what made me love it was Tolkien's ring saga.

THE HOBBIT

A few years ago my family was going on vacation and The Hobbit was the book I picked up to distract myself during the car ride. Unbeknownst to me it became the focus of my vacation. I finished that book in three days and spent the rest of the trip thinking about Bilbo's unexpected journey through Middle Earth. The introduction to Gandalf and the dwarves, the Shire, the Hobbits, etc. Every detail was burnt into my mind, at first the songs where a bit distracting but I made the effort to read, and almost put a tone to a few of them. The Hobbit had a charm that not many books have, it's almost a road-trip journey but with fantastical elements sprinkled all around, the elves, giant spiders, the bear/man/wizard that lived around bees, a dragon with a hoard of gold and a magical ring that helped Bilbo succeed in outsmarting every encounter he found himself in. The whimsy additions helped lighten the mood and made me laugh in a few occasions. It's a book about a little guy trolling and being his honest self around a world that feels huge in comparison. When he finally returned, clad in gold and with newfound friends I felt like I had finished a masterpiece. But I was wrong, the masterpiece was around the corner.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS

It's a shame that I waited three more years to pick The Fellowship of the Ring up. I got the motivation to read it after I got a copy of the entire trilogy from my local library and kept it for a whole year before returning it. TLOTR accompanied me for 12 months, it's the longest time I've spent reading a book in my life, and I consider myself a bookworm, I finished the entire Harry Potter saga in a year during high school, but the trials and tribulations of my first year of university prevented me from enjoying any kind of pastime or hobby. In the end I consider this a blessing, this book is a comfort story to me, the characters became real and I felt a connection to Frodo and Sam as they climbed the grueling steps of Mount Doom, my Mount Doom was studying for finals in the middle of december. The first chapters felt really slow, the months and years the story spends in the Shire felt a bit unnecessary to me at first since I had already read The Hobbit and was aquainted to the little community. In the end this really paid off, The Scouring of the Shire is one of the little gems that Jacksons trilogy failed to capture (I watched the movies after finishing the books, 10/10 will review later) and without all the slow parts that developed the four hobbit's home it wouldn't hit the same. The same can be said about Tom Bombadil, his presence serves as the last remnant of the whimsical nature of The Hobbit, he's almost a backyard god, a powerful force of magical will forgotten by everyone around his dwellings. I must say that after they reach Bree the story picks up the pace dramatically. I rushed through the introduction of strider, later revealed as Aragorn, the battle on Weathertop and the chase to reach Riverdell (poor glorfindel was left out of the movies, he could predict the Witch King's fate but not his own). I like how the way everyone coincidentally arrives to Elrond's council feels like the hand of fate putting the team together, how suspicious Boromir feels all the way to the end, until he's killed defending the hobbits. The best part of this book comes during the mines of Moria, the questing intensifies as the crew fails to navigate their way through the pass of Caradhras and has to go down to the caves. I almost cried when they had to leave Bill the pony behind, he was the best pet, only competing with Shadowfax. Then after the betrayal happens I thought the book slowed down a little. The three hunter's journey to save Theoden and Rohan's final stand against the Uruk-hai were of epic proportions and I could not stop giggling at the flowering relationship between Legolas and Gimli. I also love the message behind the Fangorn forest taking revenge against Saruman. But the best part in my opinion was the latter half, when Frodo and Sam find Gollum, how his mind is broken apart by the ring, the constant dangers they face and the encounter with Faramir, a man as noble as Aragorn that first felt as a threat but quickly became an ally. I have a slight arachnophobia, it's gotten better with time but I still couldn't prevent my brain from crafting the most horrendous, abominable depiction of Shelob. And then The Return of The King solidified itself as y favourite part. Helm's Deep didn't stand a chance against the siege of Gondor, the raising of the armies of men, the kingdoms uniting against the common foe, the challenges Aragorn faced to command the dead and the development that Pippin goes through when faced with the mad king, Eowyn defeating the Witch King, etc. And still it didn't surpass my love for Frodo and Sam's last trek through Mordor, the pages turned slowly, the distance seemed infinite, this book managed to make me feel as tired as the characters through every step of the way. The tension was high all the way through and you knew that Frodo would come apart at any moment, I never expected him to turn at the last moment, it was a surprising twist, perfect way to make me feel an inconsolable despair even if it only lasted a few pages. In the end everything worked out.

[theaddictedwatcher]

Hello everyone!

Today I am delighted to present you the series you were able to choose thanks to the survey done on my Instagram (@theaddictedwatcherreviews) last Saturday and that is ... Oh no, I'm not going to tell you just like that! It's a series created by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy (yes, that's a lot of people!) in 2008 for the BBC. Need more clues? It's a medieval fantasy series that revisits a great myth. Do you have it yet? Yes, of course, I'm going to tell you about the Merlin series!

To begin with, I'll give you a short synopsis: In medieval times, in the Kingdom of Albion, King Uther Pendragon has banned the practice of magic. Merlin, a young magician sent to the castle to be educated by Gaius, must hide his extraordinary powers in this age of terror against magicians and sorcerers. Propelled as Arthur's valet -the son of the monarch Uther Pendragon and future sovereign- following a fortuitous combination of circumstances, Merlin has sworn to protect his lord Arthur at the request of Kilgharrah -the dragon secretly imprisoned beneath the castle of the monarch Uther Pendragon. And a short technical presentation : Created by : Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy. Music by : Rob Lane, Rohan Stevenson, James Gosling and Michal Pavlicek. Main cast: Colin Morgan, Bradley James, Angel Coulby, Katie McGrath, Richard Wilson, Anthony Stewart Head, John Hurt.

Merlin is a freely-adaptated story of the Arthurian legend that largely rewrites its roots. Over the course of 5 seasons and its 65 episodes, the creators and screenwriters have attempted to modernise the themes of the original legend, including the following examples from the first episode:

Uther Pendragon -played by Anthony Stewart Head- governs the kingdom of Camelot which, in the legend, does not exist under his reign.

Merlin -played by Colin Morgan- and Arthur -played by Bradley James- are approximately the same age, which is not the case in the Arthurian legend.

Morgana -played by Katie McGrath- is the ward of King Uther and Arthur's adopted sister.

Guinevere -played by Angel Coulby- is the mixed-race daughter of a black smith and works in the castle as Morgana's lady-in-waiting instead of being the daughter of the King of Carmelides -a clan federated by Arthur- in the legend.

And there are other alterations that I'll leave you to discover as the series progresses (although I'll talk about some of them below but I'll warn you when I will)!

I realise that, for people familiar with the legend, this can be very confusing and even unpleasant. But, if you manage to put aside your pre-watching knowledge of the subject and give the series a chance, I think you might just enjoy it all the same.

The main cast of the series - although different from what you might expect - has been meticulously chosen. The characters may differ in character from those in the legend, but there's no denying the acting ability of the cast. Some of them were well known before the series, such as Anthony Stewart Head -notably known for his roles in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, in the film The Iron Lady alongside Meryl Streep and more recently in the TV show Bridgerton -, John Hurt -notably known for his role in the Harry Potter saga, in the film V for Vendetta and more recently in the Doctor Who series- and Katie McGrath -notably known for the King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur movie, the Tudors series and, more recently, the Supergirl series which I'll talk about in a later article. However, the revelations that turned out to be Bradley James and Colin Morgan are not to be outdone either. As for the guest actors and actresses, many of them are well known to the British public, and some even to international audiences. Indeed, actors such as Asa Butterfield (Sex Education), Tom Hopper (Umbrella Academy), Tom Ellis (Lucifer) and Warwick Davis (Harry Potter, Willow, Leprechaun, Star Wars) have enjoyed successful careers since Merlin went on air (and some even before that) and are recognized as major talents internationally. Whether they are recurring, main or guest actors, the unity formed by their complicity both on and off stage helps to make this cast a family with its affections, tensions, passions and losses. The relationship between Merlin and Arthur, despite their complicated beginnings and the fact that their social positions put them on different levels of equality, is a brotherly one. Merlin, on his mission to protect the future King Arthur, will do everything in his power to learn how to live at court and make himself useful to Arthur, who, for his part, will come to recognise Merlin's usefulness at his side and will develop a great affection for him, albeit tinged with teasing. Even during their quarrels, the bond that unites them always leads them back to each other, and to me, this is a fine illustration of a brotherly friendship. The bond between Merlin and Gaius is also important and touching, because, in the series, Merlin was raised by a single mother and Gaius acts as a father figure to him. Indeed, Gaius protects and educates him as best he can. In the end, a real bond and understanding develops between the old man and his apprentice, and I think it's important to show that a parental figure is not necessarily linked to a blood relative.

However, there was one aspect of the actors' performance that I didn't like, but I think that has more to do with the artistic direction than the acting ability of the actors: I'm talking about the fight choreography. I'm aware that sword fighting or even hand-to-hand combat isn't easy, but that's precisely where I think they should have been better choreographed to make the various battles that take place throughout the series more believable. Indeed, when we talk about the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, these epic stories are often punctuated by numerous battles. It was only natural, then, that when I watched the series I expected big, strong, rhythmic and carefully choreographed battles. Unfortunately, in my opinion, most of the fights, especially the sword fights, failed to live up to these expectations…

I'd also like to say a few words about the different filming locations. Pierrefonds Castle in the Oise region in France, near Compiègne, was one of the locations used for the Camelot Castle set. This 14th-century fortress is open to visitors and many of the sets for the series can be seen there.

The series was also filmed at Goodrich Castle in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, on Penshurst Place in Kent in England and in Wales. The fact that the majority of the sets are real means that the use of special effects - especially green screens - has limited, as the series ages, the diminution the quality of the images.

Speaking of the quality of the images, I'd like to talk very briefly about the special effects used on the series. As a fantasy series, Merlin necessarily uses special effects to symbolise the magic and mythical creatures that inhabit the kingdom of Albion. The computer-generated images were produced by the British team The Mill, whose credits include the special effects for Gladiator and Doctor Who. However, the quality of the effects varies depending on what is being represented. As long as the effects remain minimalist, such as smoke or a change in the colour of a character's eyes, they have aged well and remain effective in their own right. But as soon as they are more important, such as a fall caused by magic, a physical transformation or the animation of a dragon (this is not a spoiler, the word dragon appears literally in the name Pendragon), the effects have generally aged rather badly, look a little crude and, let's be honest, quite ugly…

On the other hand, one of the aspects of the series that I liked the most was the work that went into the characters' costumes. From what I've been able to see and learn in the course of my research, the costumes chosen for the characters by the series' costume designer, Charlotte Morris, are fairly faithful to the armour and court dress worn in the period that the series aims to reflect. One detail, however, bothers me personally in this temporal cohesion, and that's the cut of Merlin's brown jacket. I find that this jacket, which appears to be made of nubuck, seems too modern, too recent to blend in with the atmosphere that was intended to be created.

Let's take a look at the changes that have been made to the Arthurian legend! BEWARE OF SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH! In the series, Merlin -who in the legend is a druid and in the series a magician- is Arthur's valet, to whom he hides his magical powers while using them to save his master without his knowledge. He is the son of a single-mother and farmer called Hunith and his father is unknown. It was Hunith who sent Merlin to her friend Gaius, a physician in Camelot's court and a former magician. In the legend, Merlin's parentage differs radically from one version to another. Speaking of the origins of the legend, an anecdotal but noteworthy fact is that even Geoffrey of Monmouth appears in the series as a court genealogist. The real Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095-1155) did exist, and he is known to have been the first to write a very extensive version of the Arthurian legend that served as a model for all later Arthurian stories. Finally, in the most remarkable changes, Morgana, who is Arthur's adulterous sister and Morgause's consanguineous sister in the legend, is in the series Morgause's adulterous younger sister and Arthur's consanguineous older sister. END OF SPOIL. All these changes have enabled Merlin's authors to modernise the various themes and make the series more accessible to a wider audience. They also took this opportunity to slip in a few nods to the British literature to which the Arthurian legend belongs.

Finally, as usual, I'd like to end with the series' soundtrack. It was created by Rob Lane, Rohan Stevenson, James Gosling and Michal Pavlicek and for me it's one of the series soundtracks that best fits the genre of this one. Unfortunately, the link I've provided is missing a lot of tracks, but there are enough for you to get a good idea.

That's it for this article on the BBC series Merlin (2008). I hope that if you were reluctant to watch it, I've been able to help you in your choice. And for those of you who have seen it, let me know what you think and whether you agree with me.

Don’t forget to keep an eye every Saturday on my Instagram account (@theaddictedwatcherreviews) if you want to be able to choose the subject of the next article!

Until our next adventures, I wish you a great weekend and a wonderful week ahead,

Eli.

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