Merlin S1 rewatch: episode 5
here we go! again!!
today we are watching the Lancelot episode. just a few random comments because. I am so very sleepy and I deleted the first draft by accident.
A nice little episode all in all. Nice set up for an incredibly sexy recurring character. Some nice foreshadowing. What's not to like?
• I like how this episode opens. Merlin picking mushrooms, looking so baby. Eyes full of awe and wonder. Looking like... like he's never seen a mushroom in his life, in fact. Anyway, something very cottagecore about this. Fairy vibes.
• Also he's scarfless? For much (most?) of the episode? It looks like early in the series they weren’t so obsessively attached to Merlin’s neckerchief as part of his character design
• I love how Merlin doesn’t even try to use magic against the Griffin. He just falls on his back, shuts his eyes and goes, “Welp, guess I'll die”
• HOW DID MERLIN CARRY LANCELOT BACK TO CAMELOT
• “Ever since I was a child I've dreamed of coming here. It's my life's ambition to join the knights of Camelot.” -> Guy who's spent his whole life dreaming about becoming a knight of Camelot doesn’t know the first thing about the job requirements
• (No but really, the funniest thing about this episode for me is Lancelot’s utter shock at finding out only noblemen can be knights. That's, like. The first thing about the knights of Camelot, it seems like. You’d think he would have done some basic research beforehand. But that's also how I apply to jobs so I won't make fun of him too much)
• Merlin is such a hype man, “LANCELOT THEY'RE GOING TO LOVE YOU!!” This is literally what he says! He’s adorable.
• Merlin's acting like a kid who's found a stray puppy on the side of the road and is trying to convince his dad to keep him. “He’s great, you’ll love him, I promise. He won’t be any trouble I’ll walk him every day”
• MERLIN: “He's saved my life” / ARTHUR: “That's blown it for starters” -> ARTHUR IS FUNNY. I just feel the need to point out that Arthur is funny, actually. Especially when he’s being a cunt.
• MERLIN: “You're not a nobleman by any chance, are you?” / LANCE: “haha, good lord, no” -> someone didn’t read the job description 👀
• The way Gaius pointedly glares at Merlin after telling Lancelot he’s sorry he can’t be a knight… Like, he knows his son might be tempted to do something stupid about it (commit crime)
• I did not remember Lancelot’s tragic Origin Story!
When I was a boy, my village was attacked by raiders from the northern plains. They were slaughtered where they stood, my father, my mother. Everyone. I alone escaped. I vowed that day that never again would I be helpless in the face of tyranny. I made sword craft my life. Every waking hour since that day, I devoted to the art of combat, and when I was ready, I set forth for Camelot.
"Every waking hour since that day, I devoted to the art of combat" -> Yeah that sounds like a sane and healthy way of dealing with the trauma of losing both your parents and your entire village in one go, well done my boy
• Merlin looks SO proud of his little fraud scheme! BE GAY DO CRIME
• Seriously he is such an instigator! He says, “DAMN THE RULES, THE RULES ARE WRONG”! But he can see Lancelot’s obvious reluctance so he’s like, “We're not breaking the rules, we're bending them” HE’S SO SNEAKY I LOVE HIM
• This is such a basic narrative trope (if it even is a trope) but I love first meetings of characters who are going to become famously important to one another. I'm talking, like, Holmes and Dr. Watson. Or yes, Merlin and future King Arthur. There’s just something about it that I find delightful. "They don’t even know!! They have no idea. But I do!" This is about Gwen and Lancelot.
• Such a cute Meet Cute™. I love the way it plays with what we know is going to happen. Even if we don’t exactly know how it's going to happen in the series, Guinevere and Lancelot’s romance is the stuff of legends. I love their obvious and immediate mutual attraction. The slight awkwardness. The foreshadowing! “I'm not a knight yet, my lady” / “And I’m not a lady.” NO YET, BUT YOU WILL BE!! AAAAAH
• I didn’t pay much attention to it the first time I watched this episode but Lancelot speaks in such a formal, lofty way compared to everyone else. He literally sounds like he walked out of a book of chivalric romance. "I faced it myself, Sire. Some days past. I struck it full square. I wondered how it endured"; "Arthur stands in mortal peril", like WHO TALKS LIKE THIS. BE NORMAL. But it never crosses the line into being obnoxious, and I love how his character is defined through his speech as well as by his behaviour. Well done, writers.
• LANCELOT: "Are you two...you know" -> Lancelot wastes no time in checking if Gwen is on the market. GOOD FOR HIM. (I like how Merlin finds the idea of dating Gwen literally laughable. Bit harsh, that).
• “She seems lovely. Guinevere.” / “Oh, yeah. Yeah, she is. And the best seamstress in Camelot, I promise” -> MERLIN THIS MAN DOES NOT CARES ABOUT GWEN'S SKILL AS A SEAMSTRESS OPEN YOUR EYES YOU SILLY CHILD
• (But no, to be fair to him, he did notice)
• Arthur just... just BITCH-SLAPPING Lancelot out of the blue is actually hilarious. He's a comedian and he doesn't even know it.
• Merlin still acts like a bit of a teenager with Gaius in this ep. When Gaius discovers his forgery of the seal of nobility, Merlin tells him, “if you wanna punish me for it, go ahead” and then walks off! I’m sorry, this is a teenager acting out against his dad.
• Merlin does seem to be still testing boundaries with Gaius, but in a way that's an obvious request for reassurance, too – later in the episode he asks him: “Do you even care what happens to me?” (!!) And back in episode 1x02, when Gaius said, "What do I do if you get caught?", Merlin asked: "what would you do?" Insecure teen behaviour. Please Gaius just tell him you love him!! (He does tell him here, thank God).
• The broomstick fight scene. Much has been said about it already. The rituals are, indeed, intricate. Something so homoerotic about Arthur’s attempts to poke Lancelot in the chest with his stick. What I want to know is – did they know? Did they know when they were filming it that it would look like this. Like, was it deliberate
• @sapphickittykatherine it’s not much but there are some hints of Morlance in this ep. During Lancelot’s knighting scene, Morgana looks at him with obvious interest and asks “Who is this man?” And also later at his celebration (I’ll get to it).
The celebration scene! I love it! I’m gonna break it down into parts:
• “You played God, Merlin" -> I like this line. I think Gaius put his finger on an important character trait of Merlin’s here. He always means well, but he can be manipulative and controlling. Not so much here, perhaps, but it does emerge more in later eps.
• Not Arthur looking at Morgana with incestuous intent 💀💀💀
• “Tell me, do you think her...beautiful?” / “Yes, Sire. I do.” -> Another favourite trope of mine – two characters talking to each other but having two entirely different conversations. A bit like that cursed scene in the Disir, and with Arthur just as much oblivious (actually, could someone tell the poor guy what's going on. just once)
• Meanwhile, Morgana’s making sexy eyes at Lancelot while biting into a… cherry? I can’t tell. Some kind of sexually-connoted fruit, that’s for sure. I love how she also looks murderous while doing it. Praying mantis energy.
• Merlin and Gwen’s conversation is so cute. I’ve said it before but it’s giving girlie-and-her-gay-best-friend vibes. Look at them! They are a woman and her gay friend sitting in a bar, exchanging notes about the men around them. Over drinks. The way Merlin encourages Gwen to commit mischief too! “OH YOU ARE NO FUN GWEN. COME ON, JUST PLAY ALONG. WHO WOULD YOU RATHER F—”
• Arthur or Lancelot? I think I know what Merlin’s answer would be. At least at this point in the series. (Hint: it's not Arthur).
• “I think our Sir Lancelot might have eyes for you, Gwen” -> Merlin playing matchmaker already. I love that he’s noticed, and that he’s trying to push these two together because LOVE MUST TRIUMPH. He’s such a romantic.
~ END OF THE CELEBRATION SCENE ~
• Oooh no, Lancelot’s ruse has been discovered, SIR YOU’RE UNDER ARREST
• “You are not worthy of the knighthood bestowed upon you. You never were. And you never will be” -> possibly the worst thing anyone could’ve said to Lancelot, SIR PLEASE STOP YOU’RE BREAKING HIM. CAN’T YOU SEE HE’S ABOUT TO CRY.
• All I can think about when I see gifs of Merlin talking to imprisoned Lancelot is, “it’s okay hun”
• It’s interesting to see S1 Uther so unwilling to accept that the creature they’re trying to defeat might be magic when later in the series he will relish the chance of accusing anything and anyone of being magic. ...Growth?
(The bisexuality of this scene. Off the charts.)
• It seems to me like they were setting up Lancelot to be more of an important character that he ended up being? I mean, he was important, just by virtue of being Lancelot, but he was in a grand total of 6 episodes. But, I love that we can see Arthur’s obvious attachment (for lack of a better word) to him already. A bit like with Gwen and Lancelot, it hints at what’s to come – he is destined to become Arthur’s favourite knight (I know people like to say that it's Leon, but I think it was Lance. And after Lancelot's death it was Mordred, eventually. If you must know.) I love it, foreshadowing. You can feel the future hanging heavy in the air.
• I didn’t remember that Gwen and Lancelot met again and she begged him not to go and I think they should have kissed here
• It’s so funny that while Merlin’s trying to master the spell to defeat the Griffin, Gaius goes, “Don't worry Merlin, we have plenty of time” GAIUS NO YOU LITERALLY HAVE LESS THAN 2 HOURS
• Actually this is a thing Gaius does a lot, telling Merlin he can make it when the chances of success are pretty slim, which on one hand is very sweet, like I get it he's being a supportive dad, but on the other hand it's also... setting Merlin up to be HUGELY DISAPPOINTED if he fails? I don't know, just something I've noticed in other eps.
• The scene of Lancelot killing the Griffin is actually pretty cool? I like the glowing blue spear (how did Merlin think Lancelot wasn’t going to notice) and THE SOUNDTRACK!!
• Merlin's PURE JOY after Lancelot's killed the Griffin is SO adorable, you just feel so happy for him. YES BABY YOU DID IT!!
• I love the parallel “You did it!” scenes with Arthur & Lancelot, Gaius & Merlin, and Arthur & Uther. Very nice, big fan of symmetry
• Gaius’s pride when Merlin comes back victorious is so heartwarming. I’ve said it before but I'll repeat it, Merlin and Gaius’s relationship is possibly my favourite in the show. I think Gaius doesn’t get enough credit for being Merlin’s main source of love and hugs during his Camelot years.
• “The Code bends for no man” / “Then THE CODE IS WRONG!” (!!) -> SAY IT LOUDER MY MAN!! S1 Arthur is so vocal with his father about what he believes is right and wrong, we love to see it
• Lancelot saying he must prove himself worthy of being a knight – of course, he might have been holding the spear that killed the Griffin but he wasn’t the one who actually defeated it, and this will not do. He must now abandon his life-long dream of being a knight and go fight strangers in a cage for money. It’s the only logical next step.
• LANCE I LOVE YOU BUT WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS
THE END!!
next episode is... one no one really cares about, but I really really liked it the first time I watched it so. hopefully it will live up to what I remember :3
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🎢🛠🌞🦅 for the ask game! <3
Fanfic Writer Emoji Asks!
🎢-Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?
It's hard to say as my fics, at least what I think of them, they tend to be on the calmer side, no hard hitting action or crazy, off-the-wall shenanigans, or really the creation process behind most of them is a pretty calm and normal affair.
At best (and probably just me being vanilla), my wildest fics are probably the smut ones. The Experiment has my character Houki with IkeSen's Mitsunari and she tries to find out just how unaware he is when he goes into his reading trances. Happy Birthday Vincent was me being unhappy with Vincent's 4th birthday story and wanting to do his CG justice (cunnilingus for that one).
Outside of the smutlings, uhhh… probably A New Resident as there is a birthing scene and Comte cuts his arm open (it's not too heavily graphic, but yeah, mind the tags on that one).
And outside of smutlings and mutilations… Probably Reunion, my MidCin fic. MC had faked her death and Alyn had been searching for her. There's a chase scene in it and Alyn does do some breast biting, so… tame, but a little spicy, if the above ones are a little too much to handle.
🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?
Onenote! It’s a note-taking program that I can use between both my laptop and my phone if I wanna write things. Though, when I wanna do some editing, figuring out what the wordcount is, and sending it off for beta-reading, I'll use google docs then.
🌞Do you have a preferred time of day to write?
When I can get around to doing it, honestly. Sometimes I can work during daylight hours and have it be nice and coherent. Then there are also times I wake up at 3 am with an idea and have to write down before I go back to sleep. This is specifically how The Red Shawl (my Jonah von IkeRev fic) was written as well as Family (Arthur von Ikevamp's fic)
🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?
Majority of the time, it's by the seat of my pants. Just first draft it, then edit later, no planning a lot of the time, just brain dump and go.
That aside, I do outline my IkeSen long fic A Second Glance, as by its nature (multi-chaptered) and I need to have a plan so that the plot can flow nicely.
I have posted this before on my writing blog, but here's the mostly worked out rough outline for Chapter 5 of Second Glance for a glimpse of my outlining style (when I actually do outlining that is!) Major spoilers blotted out in green!
Thanks for the ask!
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