Merlin Episode 5 Sketches Part 1

Da die Faschos nun verstärkt das tun werden, was sie schon die ganze Zeit tun werden, nämlich Krokodilstränen heulen, die Organe des Rechtsstaats diffamieren und Zweifel an völlig normalen und rechtskonformen Vorgängen streuen, lasst uns laut und deutlich klarmachen:

Wer sich nicht an die Regeln hält, die für alle gelten, der wird bestraft. Und wer meint, die Regeln seien unfair ihm gegenüber und würden politisch gegen ihn genutzt, der hat nicht vor, sich an die Regeln zu halten, wie sie jetzt sind und wie sie seit dem 2. Weltkrieg aus gutem Grund aufgestellt wurden, und ist damit verfassungsfeindlich.

Tl;dr: Die AfD ist das Kind im Sandkasten, das rumheult, wenn es rausgenommen wird, weil es andere Kinder mit den Förmchen haut.

Bbc Merlin made two big mistakes.

1) They told a story about a young sorcerer trying to survive in a land where magic is punishable by death. One of his end goals is to legalise magic again. The biggest opposing party in this objective is the tyrant king who started a genocide. This is a very black and white conflict, there is no both-siding this. On the one side you have a mass murderer, on the other side are people who are being killed for existing.

Now the series does establish that Merlin is the good guy and that magic isn't actually evil, but then they go ahead and constantly frame Uther as a guy who is really not that bad. Sure, he killed some people (hundreds or even thousands) - whoopsie. But come on, at least he's trying. And think about Arthur! The emotional comfort of one person is totally worth letting people die for.

At the same time they keep bringing in villain of the week type of characters and like 90% of those are evil magicians who are consumed by their thirst for power and/or revenge or monstrous beasts which are also creatures of magic. They rarely introduce "good" sorcerers or creatures.

To sum it up: They frame the victims of a genocide as evil, almost blaming them for their own plight while making excuses for the people murdering them. It would make sense to explore this part of Camelot's history if the conflict was more complex, but it really isn't that deep. They waste way too much time dragging out this black and white conflict as described above.

2) (Screen)time is being wasted on the wrong conflict, yes, but in my opinion also on the wrong characters.

Arthur's character development is inconsistent at best. He wildly swings back and forth between believing in some magic being good or at least neutral and then condemning all magic as the world's true evil. He learns time and time again to be less arrogant and self-centered and snaps at Merlin again in the very next episode. I enjoy Merlin & Arthur's banter as much as anyone, but if you're not even taking Arthur's character anywhere then why waste so much time there?

Merlin and Arthur as a duo also go through the same dance routine three times a season: Merlin discovers a plot against Arthur, but fears to simply be dismissed if he says anything. Eventually he does say something and, surprise, Arthur reacts dismissive. In the end Arthur learns that Merlin was right all along and he should trust him more. Three episode later Arthur doesn't remember he already learned this lesson, the cycle repeats.

Gaius is important to the story because Merlin needs a dialogue partner to talk about magic. But Gaius also holds Merlin back a lot and keeps him from growing. And so just like Arthur, Merlin doesn't really learn much from his experiences, his life barely changes of the course of 5 seasons. He's still living with Gaius and still relys on him instead of becoming more independent.

So we have four characters / dynamics (Uther, Arthur, Gaius and Merlin) which the show keeps focusing on even though they're not that complicated at all. On the other hand we have side characters that are supposedly important like Gwen and the knights and we know very little about them. It almost seems like they become less important the longer the series goes on, that's not how this works!

You can't say "This is the once and future queen, there are prophecies about her and she's the most important person in Arthur's life" and then she never really does anything! The knights too. Merlin and Gwaine are best friends (kind of), but do we ever see them casually hanging out? Nope. Percival is one of the most famous knights from the myths, yet we only know his name and that his family is dead. How did they die? Who even was his family? Does it mean he lost his parents, did he have a wife? We will never know. There are so many amazing characters they could've included more, but they never did.

So while I love the series in general, these two points really rub me the wrong way.

In most applications I think Bayesian reasoning is not that useful in everyday life, but I do think it would be pretty effective a strategy for like, planning the perfect murder. When people talk about committing the perfect murder they always come up with all this elaborate stuff like "oh we're gonna dissolve the body, blah blah", but the thing is, a ton of murderers don't get caught, and there are widely available statistics on every conceivable type of murder and just how likely it is to get solved. By going through all these statistics, you could not only plot a murder with a very low probability of getting caught, but get a quantitative estimate of just how likely you are to get caught and rationally weigh that against the expected pay off.

Someone should write a ratfic whodunit about this.

i dont think this should need to be said but i feel like it's time for a periodic reminder that if your feminism/politics are exclusionary of sex workers and kinksters or other vaguely defined "weird people" you're a shithead and i have no interest in having you around. you cannot build a just society primarily built around the exclusion of specific groups, that just makes you a fascist. same thing goes for prison abolitonists who still want to reserve the right to kill certain "gross" or "wrong" people rather than actually investing in rehabilitative community justice.

Propaganda I AM falling for:

what I really like about all these vintage couple’s portraits is that there is a very certain romatic decorum kept up – certain themes and poses – which, while of course being the mainstream preferred view of couples repeated throughout many studios, are just… so nice to look at. 

this staged affection, a mix of theatricality and intimacy, the couple holding still for a couple of moments and now immortalised in a very set sequence of embraces and kisses. there is a charm to it even when I can’t tell whether this was a genuine couple portait or just actors hired by the photographer.

the kiss on the bare shoulder (eyes perfectly averted), the cheek caress, the piano and the violin, the interrupted embrace, the woman tilted back as in a half-stopped dance…

Honestly, y'all, I'm begging you. Take the time to think and learn for yourself. Even if it's just something casual like knitting or cooking. Exercise your brain. It's important.