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isweedan

Strange Class-Fandom interests smoosh.

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Apr. 20th, 2009 | 02:12 pm

Despite being TWENTY MINUTES LATE for African American Lit today, it has served me well, for now I have realized that BBC's Merlin is a Narrative of passing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity) I mean, I already know it, but now I've articulated it. Now Merlin's only trouble is, is he also a Tragic Mulatto? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_mulatta Because if he is in BBC-verse, he is so. very. screwed. (i.e. He's going to die a horrible death unloved and betrayed by everyone he knows.) Emphasis on the *Tragic.*

In alot of the fanfic I've read, and OMFG I've read alot of Merlin Fanfic this year, the big I-can-do-magic reveal to Arthur is met with alot of fury and and disappointment and feelings of betrayal because Merlin didn't trust him and was keeping such an important big thing secret from him. But typically, things turn out alright in the end, and Arthur either helps keep the secret or Merlin has to go away and can only come back once Uther is dead. Ficcers aren't heartless and no matter how much the Beeb is romping around and contradiction every little bit of Arthurian canon there is, we can't have Merlin getting his head chopped off for being a sorcerer. He's rather too important.

Except? I kinda want to see more fic using tropes of Tragic Mullato stories? Because that'd be academically interesting. And new. And We'd get more interesting stories about who/what Merlin's father is. I love those.


ETA:There are whole DAYS when I forget that the secrecy thing could be a metaphor for TEH GAY, y'see.  Today is/was one of them

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Comments {5}

Vermithrax Pejorative

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from: [info]fyrdrakken
date: Apr. 21st, 2009 06:50 pm (UTC)
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I might accept your argument on Merlin as passing, but the mulatto category requires hybridization between two categories that society insists on treating as absolutely separate even though they aren't. One is or isn't a magic-user in the Merlin-verse -- it's not like being a halfblood in Harry Potter, where people are classified by ancestry as well as by magical or non-magical status. (And in HP the muggleborns fit in as a story about children being taken from their families and educated in boarding schools to strip away the signifiers of their birth class and acculturate them for a higher one -- as is a well-known phenomenon in British society, which I hadn't realized till a particular discussion in a British fan's journal some years ago.)

And had you read that gorgeous story where the elves demand Camelot as the site for the tournament in which the candidates fight to become the new king or queen of Elfland, and it turns out Merlin's father was in fact Oberon the past king, and he winds up tapped for the competition with Arthur as his champion?

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isweedan

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from: [info]isweedan
date: Apr. 22nd, 2009 01:25 am (UTC)
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Ooh. Yes, I've got a problem there. And I can't even pull a druid card, since they were perfectly willing to believe Gwen and her dad were sorcerers too. But the strict secrecy Merlin has to keep and the fear of inadvertent discovery feel so much like the situations in Frank J. Webb's The Garies and Their Friends that I had to say *something.* You choose one world and have to stick with it...Morgana fits the Tragic mulatta story-path much better, now I come to think of it. She's raised in luxury, believing herself to be perfectly normal until (I feel it's kind of inevitable, but who knows what the BBC is planning) a grand reveal when she's booted out of Camelot society.
I know I've read that fic a couple of times too.

I have read that story! :D
I love it. Astolat is such a great writer- here Master and Commander fic. rocked my world. Especially Duende.
Every day after the Merlin newsletter goes up I head over to its del.icio account and read every story that's scored above a 20 in favorites. That way I avoid all the badfic and miss...pretty much nothing. Have your read Easy There by syllic? Oxford Boat Race AU. It is a flail-inducing beautifully detailed and IC take-your-fandom-to-work fic.

Merlin-verse magic has so few rules at this point it's pretty difficult to tell if magic is wholly hereditary, or is more of a knack or whatever else. It's either sloppy or cool that the show hasn't felt the need to expo-dump any rules on us. I kinda feel that they never settled on *having* any.

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Vermithrax Pejorative

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from: [info]fyrdrakken
date: Apr. 22nd, 2009 02:49 pm (UTC)
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You know, it says a lot about my tastes in fiction that I'm so used to the main characters having some great secret that needs to be kept from the public/family&friends that I don't even think about likening such to being a closeted gay anymore (which, yes, the obvious modern-day parallel now, the more so since the mixed-race thing no longer matters the way it did a century ago -- and do you know, I thought about Slash from Guns N Roses in terms of famous half-blacks before I even remembered our current President) -- it's just the standard requirement for setting magic/aliens/mutants/whatever in our current world rather than inventing some fictional locale, with possibly a side order of superhero secret identity or societal hate&fear for mutants/wizards/etc.

So, yeah. Merlin is actually tracking really well onto the X-Men in terms of official extermination policies for the powered minority, with Nimueh being the equivalent of Magneto in terms of trying to fight the normal human majority as violently as required to take control. It's not that one gets to choose a side, powered or normal, it's that those with powers have them, and have to hide them or become enemies of the state (whether they would actually want to be or not).

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Helen Harvey

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from: [info]ellierany
date: May. 14th, 2009 01:04 am (UTC)
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(sorry; reached you through djw)

in, like, Malory and shizzle, Merlin is son of a demon/devil father and human mother, which is why he has magic powers...

I'm curious (I've, sort of, grown out of fanfic) who does fanfic tend to say his father is (no, really, this is pretty much relevant to my degree as I've chosen to pursue it....)?

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isweedan

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from: [info]isweedan
date: May. 14th, 2009 06:37 am (UTC)
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Hiya and welcome :D

Magical hybrid powers! Like a prius ^.^

I took Arthurian lit about three semester ago and one of my pet projects was deliberately reading Idylls of the King in such a way that Arthur, (or perhaps Merlin & Arthur IDK, it's been a while) were aliens. Since you know what they say about sufficiently advanced technology ;)
Of course I was absolutely bonkers for Doctor Who at the time and in that show the Doctor really is Merlin in an alternate universe. The alien thing worked out...surprisingly well.

It hasn't really come up in fic all that often - the young fandom is rather less into general fiction and rather more into romance and smut. Totally OK with this.

But there's an AWESOME story where Merlin's dad is Herne the Hunter, and the half-elven story mentioned up-thread. Actually, as I look through my bookmarks I see another half-elven fic.

Herne story - http://community.livejournal.com/merlin_flashfic/9076.html READ THIS OMG. It feels so authentically true to folkloric elements. <3

Half-elven story with a tam-lin twist - http://linaerys.livejournal.com/644334.html

And the other half-elven story - http://intimations.org/fanfic/merlin/The%20Crown%20of%20the%20Summer%20Court.html

No one seems to want to write half-demon Merlin fic yet (perhaps because of potential to be too dark/angsty/depressing?), but I have confidence in fandom ~ wait long enough and it will provide!

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