The Queen Of Hearts- Season 3, Episode 10

 Summary

Arthur & Gwen's Wedding 

The episode opens with the scene of Arthur and Guinevere's wedding, which at first glance appears to be a happy and festive occasion. But beneath the surface, it's clear that this is Morgana worst nightmare, and she keeps having vivid dreams about this happening. Morgana plays the part of Arthur's fiancé on the outside, but their relationship is strictly political. Bothered by recurrent nightmares, Morgana confides in her sister, who then says that this must be a prophecy. She then makes it her goal to do anything for this "prophecy" to not become reality. Motivated by self-interest, Morgana comes up with a clever plan. Manipulating Arthur's vulnerabilities, she encourages him to spend more time with Gwen because it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. When Gwen lies to why she needs to take the day off Morgana knows that her plan worked and now she can catch them in a compromising situation where king Uther would see them in such position. Morgana ends up having another plan for the certain downfall of Arthur and Gwen's relationship. she puts a bewitching pouch under Arthur's pillow to frame Gwen because she knows Practicing magic if not authorized by the king is punishable by burning at the stake, so she starts hinting at the fact that maybe Arthur was being bewitched by Gwen. This comment made Uther become suspicious and he looked for any magical element that might explain Arthur's behavior which they did find. After this Uther orders for Gwen to be brought to the dungeon and for her to be burned at the stake, while she was being taken away, she saw that morgana was smiling at this whole ordeal, so she confides in merlin and tell him that she thinks that morgana is the reason for all of this. After finding this out Merlin is determined to free Gwen so when he finds a spell that disguises him as a much older wizard, he goes for it and he makes it so it looks as if he is the responsible one for the bewitching of Arthur. all went to plan except that when he tried to go back to his normal self the spell would not break. He got caught and Gwen was free to go but he was the one that would now be burned at the stake in the morning. his mentos went to his aid but the potion that breaks the spell is complex. In the end he ends up getting Merlin the potion and he runs away to drink it and when he is found he is back to normal self, Morgana did not accomplish her wishes, and Arthur and Gwen are still seeing each other after all of this.

Representation Of Characters 

In this retelling of the Arthurian stories the few characters that I saw were similar to the books that we have read in class. I do think that in this way we see their personalities shine through the story because in the books the details we not necessarily about the characters themselves but rather the storyline. For example, Merlin is a huge character in the Arthurian world but in the stories that we read he was in there once or twice and we knew the basics of his character but nothing else. In this specific episode we see how ambitious he is in the way that he knows the spells are hard, but he is willing to deal with the consequences, we see him be sarcastic and witty with Arthur, and he is also a very caring person especially with Guinevere because he went to great lengths to make sure she was proved innocent. We also see characters such as Uther, which we can see here that he's had his fun in the past but now he is focused on his kingdom and what he has to do to make it flourish. For Arthur we see some of his rebellious years of going against his dad, sneaking out to see his girlfriend, and not caring about his title as prince. As for Guinevere we see her before she was an assertive queen, we see her as Morgana's lady. 

Storyline adaptation & How It Relates To The Arthurian World 

Knights Of The Round Table 

In this adaptation they follow the storyline, but they add a modern spin to it. In this show we see the depiction of the stories that we have read before, and this helps us have a better understanding of the Arthurian world than we previously did. Due to this new understanding, we have a better sense of how courtly love was, how much prowess meant to the knights, and how the jousts worked/ what they meant, those are a few things that opened up our perspective on the world. Because it does have a modern spin to the story lines, we can relate to the stories more than we previously did because in the Middle Ages love and courting was extreme different, but this specific telling helps us relate to it and enjoy the stories more than we would if they were not relatable. The adaptations follow the Arthurian story lines whether they stick strictly to it or if they loosely be based on it. They help people be interested in this topic because while the stories are interesting the fact that they are in a way where it is hard to understand makes people stray away from them because of that. These adaptations take the Arthurian world and implement more magical elements that we see in the stories, but it keeps the stories interesting, and the public engaged. It shows how the relationship between Arthur and Merlin became to be because as we know Merlin is Arthur's trusted magical guide in the stories. In the show we can also see the addition of the knights of the round table and their impact on the story line because without them there would be no quests, jousts, or adventures. 

Citation 

Squad, GAME SHAKERS - Knight. “Merlin S03E10 Queen of Hearts - Video Dailymotion.” Dailymotion, Dailymotion, 16 Dec. 2019, www.dailymotion.com/video/x7p8zhh.