Le Morte D'Arthur (compiled from common stories by professional insurrectionist and criminal superstar Thomas Malory from a dusty prison cell) is one of my favorite books. I do not recall it once even acknowledging the existence of non-White persons.
It treated men from anywhere outside of the Arthursphere as simultaneously alien and European. The narrative treated knights as being in strange and exotic situations any time they spoke to another White man from even a very slightly non-English or French setting. Rather than tell English lore about Africans who are not English, the narrative prefers to create a new, totally fictional kingdom of White europeans whose foremost traits are how strange and exotic they as White men are to the other Also White men.
The word "black" in the book is synonymous with "bad", "dark", or "evil" and is only used in this way except perhaps to describe the physical color of an object. The word fair is used often, and for its every meaning; "light" and "dainty" as well as "equal" and "just", and also is used directly to describe the skin of many women, in order to suggest to the reader that the woman is desirable.
After reading 300 pages of Mallory, if you came across the phrase "black man" (which you won't) you would assume it was a person with white skin who was involved in very bad things and possibly evil magic, i.e. a moral foil to actual Merlin who exists in the Euro cultural miasma.
The word black in the sense of sub-Saharan African can't be that old. People had all kinds of names for such limited contacts as they made like Nubian and Ethiopian. Though they were keenly aware of racial differences, conflating all Africans together doesn't make much sense until the context of slavery in the New World. Then, black vs white was keenly important, and the African's former tribe didn't matter much.
This. This is the correct take. There was no "Black men" in Malory's time, in that sense...
Also, at some point, "Africa" and "Libya" kind of swapped meanings... Not sure when that happened, but it may have been after Malory's time, too, lol...
Only Derfel and few others are Saxon there, and only by birth since he was enslaved as a newborn by British warriors and then given to Merlin as his slave.
Also the adaptation apparently strips him from the main character and gives this role to Arthur (and they must have changed even Merlin's role too as he's too young for that).
They made a major character off a minor villain(ess) who in the book even dies "offscreen" which is described in 1 short sentence, just because she was a weird woman who dressed like a man and carried a sword. (She also probably won't be raped by Owain here.)
It's the adaptation of Bernard Cornwall's The Winter King novel.
It's a great trilogy, but it's explicitly noted that Merlin is old, even at the start of the series. There's only one black character, and that's so rare that the saxons think he's a demon.
I knew this was going to be a disaster the moment it was announced.
It is a superb trilogy. It really mixes up the Arthurian legend, basing the heroes as the early Britons fighting against the Anglo Saxon invaders. I really like the mixing of the Druidic religion with the Christian theologian, painting a picture of what kind of transition of religion we would’ve seen.
It’s a very gritty and dark telling of the Arthurian mythos where the heroes of Camelot are upended and seen in a different light.
What a stupid take. They aren't "actually bad" they are as good as their awful world lets them.
The historically accurate world of mass murder, slavery, torture, rape, and encroaching literal barbarity. A de-fablefied grimdark story, the opposite of anything Disney.
The it is more realistic approach is something I've heard all too common when someone does something out of character being justified.
And how can the Disney trilogy not grimdark? Han and Leila are failed parents, Luke is a failed Jedi master, Han dies, the Emperor lives, every achievements your heroes earned are gone. Maybe I should clarify that I am referring to the Disney Star Wars trilogy.
Also I am not Billy D. If I were Billy, I wouldn't sold my website to someone else and disappeared without a trace.
Because Han and Leia don't do things like massacring and enslaving, raping and torturing, sacrificing people (and children). Maybe also because their world is made up and thus can't be historically accurate, but first of all because Disney shit is for kids.
Sacrificing is what Merlin does (and Nimue, and Morgan before she converts to Christianity). He's also insane. And well meaning, even if his (unattainable) goal means killing most everyone everywhere for the return of his gods. Like many other doomsday cultists throughout history and today too. (There are Christian fanatics in the story too.)
It's also kinda ironic because Merlin is a sort of fake druid like all his rivals during this time, since the real druids have been killed off by the Romans very long ago, so he's hunting for Roman documents about what the druids were like, and it's possible that the whole "them druids were sacrificing them kids" shit was a Roman slander. (As if the Romans haven't been ridicalously brutal and bloodthirsty themselves.)
Cornwell is the king of realistic historical fiction and has been so for decades. Far, far removed from the subvert-your-expecations drivel that is churned out these days.
Their Twitter ceased any activity on this day (May 17) and there has been nothing released since then (which makes it the total of literally 4 screenshots) while it's premiering in 2 months.
Obviously 1 season and it's canceled, like Cursed. Also 1 season too much.
Considering the Arthurian mythos are in the public domain and any random schmuck can make something for it (which is why there are like 5 billion different movies of it), I would imagine it is.
I actually think this is a more desirable state for the protection of our cultural stories vs. IP law letting corporations own exclusive rights to a work of fiction and its characters. Yes the vast majority of something being "remade" in the public domain will be shit, and most of the time nobody pays any attention to it. Everyone knows the Arthurian legend. Some random schmuck with yet another take on the tale doesn't affect our shared understanding. When a large corporation (Disney, Amazon) is attached and has sole ownership of "canon", it adds an undeserved and unearned reputation to the production, making it easier for them to legitimately take old icons away from us and destroy our culture. You'd always have people trying, but the attempts wouldn't get much attention.
On the other hand if someone makes some really good and inspiring version of something that people love, like trekkies making better lore-accurate versions of Star Trek than what CBS puts out, that can become "canon" in the minds of fans. That's the free market of ideas at work.
Agreed. Its the same as how almost every Star Wars fan I know basically picks and choses from the Disney Star War the stuff that they like, and then everything else they enjoy about Star Wars is still the "Legends" continuity. And then much like with Trekkies, there are plenty of Star Wars fan made things that are beloved by the community.
There is a part of me that thinks we might actually be able to get to a point of more stuff being the public domain like that though. Mickey Mouse is coming up on the end of his time as the exclusive property of Disney. In the past, they could have just gotten an extension to their copyright and gone on with their thing. But now that there is growing anger from parents and consumers over the company (Disney has recently been polling in line with the likes of EA in terms of approval), and the fact they have alienated an entire political party who would have done it for them? Now, there is a good chance Mickey could go out to be used by anyone, just like Winnie the Pooh (another example of the woke not being able to effect his shared cultural reputation).
Le Morte D'Arthur (compiled from common stories by professional insurrectionist and criminal superstar Thomas Malory from a dusty prison cell) is one of my favorite books. I do not recall it once even acknowledging the existence of non-White persons.
It treated men from anywhere outside of the Arthursphere as simultaneously alien and European. The narrative treated knights as being in strange and exotic situations any time they spoke to another White man from even a very slightly non-English or French setting. Rather than tell English lore about Africans who are not English, the narrative prefers to create a new, totally fictional kingdom of White europeans whose foremost traits are how strange and exotic they as White men are to the other Also White men.
The word "black" in the book is synonymous with "bad", "dark", or "evil" and is only used in this way except perhaps to describe the physical color of an object. The word fair is used often, and for its every meaning; "light" and "dainty" as well as "equal" and "just", and also is used directly to describe the skin of many women, in order to suggest to the reader that the woman is desirable.
After reading 300 pages of Mallory, if you came across the phrase "black man" (which you won't) you would assume it was a person with white skin who was involved in very bad things and possibly evil magic, i.e. a moral foil to actual Merlin who exists in the Euro cultural miasma.
The word black in the sense of sub-Saharan African can't be that old. People had all kinds of names for such limited contacts as they made like Nubian and Ethiopian. Though they were keenly aware of racial differences, conflating all Africans together doesn't make much sense until the context of slavery in the New World. Then, black vs white was keenly important, and the African's former tribe didn't matter much.
This. This is the correct take. There was no "Black men" in Malory's time, in that sense...
Also, at some point, "Africa" and "Libya" kind of swapped meanings... Not sure when that happened, but it may have been after Malory's time, too, lol...
Which makes it extra confusing.
See: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Libya.htm#:~:text=In%20Greek%20this%20became%20%22Libya,the%20entire%20continent%20of%20Africa.
we wuz anglo-saxons n sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeit
We wuz Vikangs!! 🪓✊🏾
Only Derfel and few others are Saxon there, and only by birth since he was enslaved as a newborn by British warriors and then given to Merlin as his slave.
Also the adaptation apparently strips him from the main character and gives this role to Arthur (and they must have changed even Merlin's role too as he's too young for that).
Derfel is the main character. How do you take away the main character from a story like that?
They made a major character off a minor villain(ess) who in the book even dies "offscreen" which is described in 1 short sentence, just because she was a weird woman who dressed like a man and carried a sword. (She also probably won't be raped by Owain here.)
It's a literal shitshow and the director was previously involved with Paramount's Halo and this bizarre Antifa Robin Hood movie (a deja vu poster of which: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pk_B8LJz4uA/movieposter_en.jpg).
Is this an indie film? The account has barely any followers.
It's the adaptation of Bernard Cornwall's The Winter King novel.
It's a great trilogy, but it's explicitly noted that Merlin is old, even at the start of the series. There's only one black character, and that's so rare that the saxons think he's a demon.
I knew this was going to be a disaster the moment it was announced.
It is a superb trilogy. It really mixes up the Arthurian legend, basing the heroes as the early Britons fighting against the Anglo Saxon invaders. I really like the mixing of the Druidic religion with the Christian theologian, painting a picture of what kind of transition of religion we would’ve seen.
It’s a very gritty and dark telling of the Arthurian mythos where the heroes of Camelot are upended and seen in a different light.
Absolutely recommend it.
Sound like some subversive your heroes are actually bad storytelling. Your synopsis of the plot make this sound like the Disney trilogy.
What a stupid take. They aren't "actually bad" they are as good as their awful world lets them.
The historically accurate world of mass murder, slavery, torture, rape, and encroaching literal barbarity. A de-fablefied grimdark story, the opposite of anything Disney.
Also are you actually Billy.
The it is more realistic approach is something I've heard all too common when someone does something out of character being justified.
And how can the Disney trilogy not grimdark? Han and Leila are failed parents, Luke is a failed Jedi master, Han dies, the Emperor lives, every achievements your heroes earned are gone. Maybe I should clarify that I am referring to the Disney Star Wars trilogy.
Also I am not Billy D. If I were Billy, I wouldn't sold my website to someone else and disappeared without a trace.
Because Han and Leia don't do things like massacring and enslaving, raping and torturing, sacrificing people (and children). Maybe also because their world is made up and thus can't be historically accurate, but first of all because Disney shit is for kids.
Sacrificing is what Merlin does (and Nimue, and Morgan before she converts to Christianity). He's also insane. And well meaning, even if his (unattainable) goal means killing most everyone everywhere for the return of his gods. Like many other doomsday cultists throughout history and today too. (There are Christian fanatics in the story too.)
It's also kinda ironic because Merlin is a sort of fake druid like all his rivals during this time, since the real druids have been killed off by the Romans very long ago, so he's hunting for Roman documents about what the druids were like, and it's possible that the whole "them druids were sacrificing them kids" shit was a Roman slander. (As if the Romans haven't been ridicalously brutal and bloodthirsty themselves.)
Cornwell is the king of realistic historical fiction and has been so for decades. Far, far removed from the subvert-your-expecations drivel that is churned out these days.
It's a TV series on MGM+ (Amazon owned).
Their Twitter ceased any activity on this day (May 17) and there has been nothing released since then (which makes it the total of literally 4 screenshots) while it's premiering in 2 months.
Obviously 1 season and it's canceled, like Cursed. Also 1 season too much.
Considering the Arthurian mythos are in the public domain and any random schmuck can make something for it (which is why there are like 5 billion different movies of it), I would imagine it is.
I actually think this is a more desirable state for the protection of our cultural stories vs. IP law letting corporations own exclusive rights to a work of fiction and its characters. Yes the vast majority of something being "remade" in the public domain will be shit, and most of the time nobody pays any attention to it. Everyone knows the Arthurian legend. Some random schmuck with yet another take on the tale doesn't affect our shared understanding. When a large corporation (Disney, Amazon) is attached and has sole ownership of "canon", it adds an undeserved and unearned reputation to the production, making it easier for them to legitimately take old icons away from us and destroy our culture. You'd always have people trying, but the attempts wouldn't get much attention.
On the other hand if someone makes some really good and inspiring version of something that people love, like trekkies making better lore-accurate versions of Star Trek than what CBS puts out, that can become "canon" in the minds of fans. That's the free market of ideas at work.
Agreed. Its the same as how almost every Star Wars fan I know basically picks and choses from the Disney Star War the stuff that they like, and then everything else they enjoy about Star Wars is still the "Legends" continuity. And then much like with Trekkies, there are plenty of Star Wars fan made things that are beloved by the community.
There is a part of me that thinks we might actually be able to get to a point of more stuff being the public domain like that though. Mickey Mouse is coming up on the end of his time as the exclusive property of Disney. In the past, they could have just gotten an extension to their copyright and gone on with their thing. But now that there is growing anger from parents and consumers over the company (Disney has recently been polling in line with the likes of EA in terms of approval), and the fact they have alienated an entire political party who would have done it for them? Now, there is a good chance Mickey could go out to be used by anyone, just like Winnie the Pooh (another example of the woke not being able to effect his shared cultural reputation).