fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2251 ]

[ SECRET POST #2251 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2251 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 112 secrets from Secret Submission Post #322.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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07. http://oi45.tinypic.com/mifocn.jpg

Not ALL of fandom hated her...mostly just the really loud ones (and then there were those who didn't hate her exactly, but they either just didn't like her much or had gripes with her storyline). Usually in fic I see authors either ignore her or throw her a bone by having her in a nice side pairing with Lancelot or sometimes Morgana (aw yiss).

Never seen the show, but I notice that tends to happen with characters the writers are uninterested in.

I'm just watching Merlin (late to the party and etc.) and I find her to be a very likable character. Arthur, on the other hand...

Completely agree about the writers, but despite that I thought she was a likable character. (Maybe not the most interesting one...but that wasn't her fault.)

I don't see much hate but I don't see much love either. That said I only have experience with the fandom on tumblr as of late, so maybe it's different elsewhere.

Really? People don't like Guinevere? I love her!

Really? I have to disagree.

Gwen went from a badass blacksmith's daughter who could hold her own in a fight to a flower-arranging floral arrangement who parroted everything Merlin said to Arthur but with boobs attached IN ONE EPISODE. What they did to her was terrible! She stopped being a person and started being a love interest, then a prospective wife, then a wife. The number of episodes in which she did NOT get kidnapped, bespelled, or somehow bamboozled into being a plot device for Arthur's growth were slim to none.

The episodes in which she actually flexed her independent Queen muscles were wonderful but way too few. We saw practically none of her growth and acceptance of her role, or the trouble that she absolutely would have faced at court from being a peasant turned queen. It was just 'she's GWEN! of ~course everyone loves her!' I found it weak and forced. But then I felt that way about her entire relationship with Arthur and only warmed to them in the very last season.

Obviously her character development wasn't as huge a disaster as Morgana's but the only way Gwen could be say to have been consistent was in the fact that, barring season one, she remained the exact same thing until almost the end of the show: a story point/victim/hostage used to push Arthur's story. As such an important part of the legend, she got shafted big time and it still pisses me off.

Thissssss

Sometimes like to pretend the show never went past one season.

I still haven't seen Season 5 and I honestly don't feel like I'm missing much.

I've started to think of characters as completely different characters from season to season and I usually have to "pick" one when trying for a characterization in any other fics or AUs (and I almost always pick the initial appearance over anything else - snarky big sis Morgana beats evil cutout Morgana anyday).

(no subject)

cloud_riven - 2013-03-03 02:33 (UTC) - Expand

I like Gwen. I do think that she became a boring character though. She should've done a lot more but I was so pleased when she figured out Merlin had magic. Some people will say that was just more mary sue but idk I loved it and I thought she was great.

Let's be real a lot of her Merthur haters (not shading Merthur, it's my otp to end all otps) aren't capable of being critical of her character or seeing the actual problems with it and only hate her because she doesn't have a penis and because she's a poc. I once saw a post saying it's not historically accurate for Arthur to be with a black woman and the post had 200 notes. Um, it's not accurate for HUMAN CIVILIZATION ON EARTH to have magic and dragons. I know this secret isn't about Merthur v Arwen but damn.

Super-late to the party, but on the off-chanc you'll see this, next time someone DARES argue about inaccuracy about race and (early) medieval representation, just point them to this: http://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/page/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?ArticleId=30

And if they go on about late-medieval, you can remind them that the medieval Arthurian stories (1200 onward) often included 'Saracen' (i.e., Moorish, not-white) knights that converted. Palamedes FTW.

I disagree on her having a coherent story arc, but she is the only character I still found likable by the end of the show.

Well, she walked off with the best ending, that's for damn sure.

I love the fact that she went from being a servant to a Queen and had easily the best ending of any character on that show while also being the only truly likeable character by the end...but very little of that 'peasant to ruler' story arc actually happened on-screen and she didn't have character development outside of her relationships after season 1. I love Gwen and she'll always be my favorite but the only character the writers screwed over more than Gwen was Morgana.

I don't even know what to say, other than: I totally agree!

I...actually agree, but only in the sense that she dodged a huge bullet in comparison to the other characters who got COMPLETELY shafted. Ironically, I think that the writers' lack of interest in Gwen actually SAVED her from the bad writing that plagued Merlin, Arthur and Morgana. I mean, it was still bad writing - but there was less of it.

Merlin/Arthur got all the screentime, but it was always one step forward two steps back in their development. Even as late as 5x03, Arthur was still grappling with Daddy Issues he should have got rid of mid-season 2 had his development been handled better. And don't get me started on Merlin's pathological inability to just tell the goddamn truth. I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that nearly every bad thing on this show can be traced back to his procrastination on this issue.

Yet even though Gwen got the least amount of screen-time, and she was so often shoved into the love interest/damsel in distress role, her tiny little thread of development didn't have any back tracking or giant WTF? moments. Because the writers didn't really care, it was just allowed to happen.

Martin Freeman, invertebrate British actor, will star in the 2014 remake of The Blob.

....what?

And here I am in my teeny tiny corner of fandom shipping Gwen and Merlin. (Even after I forgave Arthur for not being Peter Pevensie I shipped him more with Mithian)

Although I never shipped them that hard, Gwen/Merlin were pretty cute in S1 and I definitely would've preferred them over Arthur/Gwen (that is, as long as Merlin didn't become so unlikable). Never got into Arthur/Mithian though; I liked her, but I was just fed up with him by the time she was introduced.

She was the best character on the show.

Gwen was certainly my favorite character, but I didn't participate in that fandom very much.

Yeah, I guess I can see what you're talking about.

She went from timid serving girl. To helping her friends do the right thing. To speaking her mind. To becoming a regal queen.

I do like her, but there just wasn't enough focus on her to love her.

I liked Gwen alot, but I can't agree with her getting a coherant story arc. I think like all the characters it started off promisingly in the first series,then was hit and miss and then got progressively terrible in season four and five. The stuff that happened first with her and then her brother, significant events that were never addressed, could have provided great character development for both of them, the whole Gwen turns evil plot which seemed to be there just because the writers didn't know what to do with her character which was also just forgotten. I can even see why a lot of people didn't particularly warm to her relationship with Arthur initially the way that develops.

it is true that panderings to fans and fandumb often makes the "popular" characters worse instead of better. when characters are ignored by fandom, but the writers have to keep them on the show, they often get more consistency.

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