Merlin (BBC) - Fanlore

Merlin (BBC)

Name: Merlin
Abbreviation(s): none
Creator: Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps, Julian Murphy
Date(s): 2008-present
Medium: television
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
External Links: official BBC site, IMDB, Wikipedia

Merlin title sequence
Merlin title sequence
Subpages for Merlin (BBC):

Communities · Gwen · Merlin/Arthur · Morgana


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Contents

Show Synopsis

Merlin the show is loosely based on the Arthurian legends, set years before the characters become their legendary selves. Magic is outlawed, Merlin becomes Arthur’s manservant, and other characters' backstories are quite different from those established in the traditional Arthurian legends. Official summaries alternately say that this adaptation follows Merlin’s early adventures in the court of King Uther... and his enthralling encounters with the young Prince Arthur[1] or describe it as the saga of a teenaged Prince Arthur (…) and the clashes with his young wizard, Merlin.[2] Whatever the particular focus, the show gets marketed as a story that centres on these two ambitious young men, struggling to understand their destinies.[2] The Great Dragon, who is imprisoned under Camelot, has a thing or two to say about these destinies and likes to tell Merlin all about it. He seems to be convinced that Merlin and Arthur are brought together by fate, that they are two halves of a coin (and therefore can’t hate each other!), and that they would be really awesome together (because they will achieve great things), leading fans to nickname him the Slash Dragon. All in all, the Dragon's opinion says a lot about the show’s appeal to both slashers and friendshippers alike.

Other main characters include Uther's ward Morgana and her hand-maiden Gwen (Guinevere). Although these characters don't have as much screen time, there is more than enough femslash potential. They also have a nice chemistry with Arthur and Merlin. Finally, the court physician, Gaius acts as Merlin's mentor and protector while Arthur's father King Uther, with his fanatical hatred of sorcerers, creates conflict and tension.

Merlin Fandom

Back in October/November 2008 Merlin fandom was young and growing. From the beginning the most active part was the Merlin/Arthur slash fandom.[3] The fandom grew so fast that it went from qualifying for Yuletide, the rare fandom gift exchange, to having more than a thousand stories listed in the newsletter when the 2008 Yuletide stories were revealed on December 25. By that time Merlin had already established itself as one of the big slash fandoms. [4]

The name of the MerlinxArthur community shows that the fandom is partially influenced by yaoi fandom traditions, however, the fannish infrastructure is strongly influenced by SGA fandom veterans. A few weeks after its creation, MerlinxArthur got additional mods and one of them introduced the tagging system[5] that was developed and refined for mckay_sheppard[6], the main John/Rodney slash community in SGA fandom, and it has now spread to other Merlin communities such as the merlin_vids community. In addition to that, the BBC Merlin Newsletter was created by the same people who created the SGA Newsletter.[7] The use of the term OT4 to refer to Arthur/Merlin/Gwen/Morgana (or team adventures) may also show the influence of SGA fandom.

In late 2009 there were two holiday gift exchanges for Merlin fic and art, camelotsolstice and the second year of merlin_santa. Other major fests of 2009 were the Box of Magic Big Bang challenge (23 longer fics with accompanying art) and two rounds of reel_merlin.

Since March of 2009 a great deal of fic and some artwork has been produced through the kink meme kinkme_merlin, where all prompts and most answering fics and feedback are posted in anonymous comments. Some authors later claim their works and post them on their own journals and websites. Since it can be difficult to locate prompts and fics among many pages of collapsed comments, the kink meme mods archive everything at the community's Delicious account. Many other Merlin communities and individual fans have also hosted memes where fanworks are posted in comments and may or may not later be reposted.

Although there is a steady stream of slash, het and femslash in fic, vids and art, there doesn't seem to be much gen. Merlin fanworks are mostly Merlin/Arthur centric, followed by Arthur/Gwen and Gwen/Morgana. Slash and femslash fandom both have their OTP with het more evenly split. To give a better impression of the ratio: in December 2009 the newsletter listed 5541 works as Merlin/Arthur, 368 as Morgana/Gwen, and 650 as Arthur/Gwen (other main het pairings: Arthur/Morgana 213, Merlin/Morgana 207, Gwen/Morgana 144). Only 519 fanworks were listed as gen.[8]

Vidding

There doesn't seem to be a distinct divide between LJ and YouTube vids. Many LJ vids are also available via download, Youtube, and formerly imeem, and many Youtube vids (that aren't just first experiments with adding music to moving pictures or slideshows) are eventually announced on LJ, too. However, LJ has some of the more experienced vidders, and not all of them have embraced Youtube, which means when it comes to the best vids so far, some of them can be better accessed via LJ.

Fanfiction

Fanfiction is often posted in serial format or short snippets (sometimes crossposted to Fanfiction.net), but there are enough medium length and longer pieces to satisfy the fic cravings of a huge fandom.

Merlin/Arthur

The fandom favors Arthur/Merlin first time fics. With a canonical magical bond between Arthur and Merlin (in one episode Merlin is linked to Arthur in a way that allows him to know what Arthur is doing and he sends him a light from afar to help Arthur escape certain death), Merlin being Arthur's manservant (which means he has to dress and undress him, make his bed, bring him his food and polish his weapons), both of them risking their lives to save each other, and Merlin needing to keep his magic a secret (or Arthur's father will kill him), the fandom loves its tropes. A lot of interesting stuff happens in Arthur's chambers or out there in the woods. Alcohol, magic and drugs make them lose their inhibitions; fighting as foreplay is popular, or they need to share body heat; Arthur is secretly pining after Merlin but Merlin is usually the POV character (in vids it's often Merlin who is pining after Arthur); there is secret magic, the reveal of the big secret, and the Great Dragon is playing matchmaker; voyeurism, evil unicorns, and Merlin/Arthur/Lancelot emo jealousy drama (okay, that one was a vid[9]) have made an appearance too.

One distinctive genre in this fandom is "Arthur finds out" fiction, also referred to as Reveal fic, where Arthur discovers Merlin's secret, and either reacts well or poorly to having been lied to. A variant on the Reveal trope is "Uther finds out" since it is Uther who is committed to purging sorcery from the kingdom.

While most fics keep up the light tone and cheerful anachronism of the show, some authors have written stories set in a more realistic medieval setting which often attempts to reconcile show canon with the traditional Arthurian legends.

Merlin AUs have included mpreg, Animal Transformation (cat!Merlin), genderswap, and historical AUs, but the most popular variety is the modern AU, which usually takes place in contemporary Britain and reproduces the power dynamics between the characters on the show - Arthur might be Merlin's boss, a fratboy where Merlin is a serious student, or even the Prince of Wales. Magic may or may not be part of these stories.

Gwen/Arthur

The relationship between Gwen and Arthur was hinted at in the first season and became canonical in the second season. The show's casting of Gwen as a servant has added the conflict that allows them to keep the couple apart due to class differences and Uther's expected opposition, should they try to have a public relationship.

camelot_love is a major and busy LJ community for the pairing. Listings on bbc_merlin_news indicate that Arthur/Gwen is the fandom's second most popular pairing, after Arthur/Merlin.

Gwen/Morgana

During the first season of Merlin, femslash fans (and other fans of awesome female characters) were pleased to find a prominent relationship between two women that was not always oriented around the men. Gwen had been Morgana's maidservant for years before Merlin's arrival in Camelot. She brings Morgana flowers to make her happy and comforts her when she has nightmares.

Gwen/Morgana fic has been posted at the LJ community gwenmorganabbc since October 2008 and at merlin_femslash since October 2009.

Gwen/Morgana often appears as a background pairing in Arthur/Merlin fics.

The characters had less canon interaction in the second season (2009) and some femslash fans embraced the Morgana/Morgause pairing.

Other Pairings

  • The term OT4 in this fandom usually refers to Gwen/Arthur/Merlin/Morgana. (OT5 is OT4 plus Lancelot.)
  • Morgana and Merlin both have magic but need to learn to trust each other.
  • Uther/Morgana

Crossovers

Common fandoms for Merlin crossover fics are Harry Potter (because of the magic) and Doctor Who. The actors who play Merlin, Uther, and Gwen have all also appeared in different episodes of new Who, most memorably Colin Morgan (Merlin) in the 2008 episode "Midnight".

RPF

In 2009 Merlin RPF still qualified as a Yuletide fandom.

LJ communities

For a list of LJ communities for Merlin, see the Merlin Communities subpage.

Archives

Fan Works

Resources

References

  1. ↑ Amazon.co.uk. Merlin Vol.1 (2008) DVD. (Accessed 25 October 2008)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 CTV secures Canadian broadcast rights to 'Merlin', 15 October 2008. (Accessed 25 October 2008)
  3. ↑ MerlinxArthur has as of this moment 636 members (almost twice as much as the next biggest communities - Merlinslash and Merlin TV), more than 500 entries and over 5,200 comments. (Accessed 11 November 2008)
  4. ↑ MerlinxArthur has almost 3,800 members (still twice as much as Merlin TV and thrice as much as Merlinslash), more than 5,200 entries and almost 35,000 comments. (Accessed 12 September 2009)
  5. ↑ lavvyan. New tagging system, admin post in merlinxarthur, 14 October 2008. (Accessed 11 November 2008)
  6. ↑ http://community.livejournal.com/mckay_sheppard/profile
  7. ↑ See mamoru22's announcements for the creation of the SGA newsletter (02 August 2005) and the Merlin newsletter (15 October 2008). (Accessed 11 November 2008)
  8. ↑ BBC Merlin newsletter, delicious links accessed 26 December 2009.
  9. ↑ You Will Destroy Me [1](Accessed 29 December 2008)
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