#the once and future king
BOOK REVIEW: The Once and Future King (1958) by T.H. White
This summer, my parents and I went on holiday to Cornwall and visited Tintagel Castle, which was supposedly the place where King Arthur was conceived. It’s a popular tourist attraction, surrounded by gift shops where you can buy your kids a toy Excalibur or Merlin’s pointy hat. Since I love to buy books in the place where they are set or were written, I decided to buy a copy of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (and a beautiful hardcover edition of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca).
I knew that it told the story of King Arthur, that it was on every single list of best fantasy books, and that my sister-in-law, who is an avid fan of Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, and Terry Goodkind, had been begging me to read it for years. I figured that it would be an epic fantasy story with lots of drama and violence – which it is. It is also nothing like that at all.
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the once and future king
WHY IS THIS MAN SUCH A PAIN TO DRAW??!? The amount of times I had to redo the one on the right is ridiculous and I still hate it. But whatever, practice is practice lol. Also y’all have been super nice with my last post (I think that’s the most likes any post of mine on a sm has gotten!!!) so tysm for that
New BBc Merlin #Dtiys Challenge! :)
TheBBC Merlin SountrackhadNO RIGHT to go that hard.
Listen to this! 2:10 - 2:41 of ‘Merlin buries lancelot’ has me in literal CHILLS. The grief and loss and magic and love that crescendo conveys is just so extraordinary I have to go and be alone for a while.
MerlinISMagic. Surely this makes him more than a little different?
I have this Headcannon that because of all his various powers, Merlin is physically quite different to what is usually expected in medical science and Gaius is completely fascinated by absolutely hates it.
I’m talking things like one day he comes stumbling into their chambers with an arrow clean through the left side of his chest, wheezing but somehow Not Dead.It’s because like his dragon kin, Merlin’s heart is on the right side of his body. Gaius swears off everything Merlin related there and then. (He lasts about 30 minutes).
Or how under the concealment charm tied to his neckerchief, Merlin’s eyes are naturaly a blazing gold all the time, fuelled by the magic in his veins. Surprisingly, they also allow him to see quite well in the dark. ‘Like a cat’ Gaius remarks when he finds out about it.
His teeth are a little too pointy? Or at least his canines are. It’s Merlin’s most obvious ‘Medical Mystery’ trait but fortunately nothing that can’t be explained away easily enough. It does however add another point to the creature side of ‘Human vs Magical Being’ tally Gaius has been keeping in his head. For scientific purposes. Of course.
Merlin’s speed and agility are much greater than it has any right to be, even if you take into account the amount of physical labour he does for Arthur; The boy practically flys over the ground. Unfortunately the knights don’t realise this until they bet all their money he couldn’t beat Gwaine in a race.
He can talk to animals too! Mind-speak is easiest but his other method has Gaius tearing out the little hair he has left because his ward Should Not Be Able To Do That. To talk to animals, Merlin simply replicates THEIR language: be that neighing, breying or barking. Laws of Vocal Chords be damned, Merlin can do it.
To top it all off, the Knights aren’t wrong when they banter with Merlin about how little he weighs. Gaius is just glad it shields the boy from anyone thinking too hard about the definitely unnatural fact HE could even lift Merlin with one hand if he so pleased. They’re not sure if it’s an Emrys thing, a hollow-boned dragon thing or if there’s some pixie blood mixed in there but Merlin is secretly quite pleased when his creeping footsteps make much less sound than anyone else’s.
Gaius dreads the day he has to treat Merlin for an illness which isn’t immediately obvious because Dear Albion it could be ANYTHING.
BONUS: for anyone with magic, Merlin can be spotted from a mile away because he literally LEAKS it. Again, Gaius says this is Not Normal and no magic should be coming out of him if he’s not actively wanting it too but the druids spot his unique trait a mile away and it puts other magic users at ease when they’re around him. It’s like a giant warm blanket.
Bisexual Confessions
Do you ever think about how Merlin has spent 1000+ years waiting for Arthur to come back, meaning that he has had a millennia to come up with an awesome one-liner to roast/love Arthur with. As language and slang changes, Merlin keeps to the words Arthur would know, that were special between them. He goes through phases: “Hello, clotpole,” *bows* and sassily says “my lord,” “the pain in my arse has finally returned.” That kind of Merlin banter Arthur loves.
But then, after all this time, all these centuries, Arthur finally comes back and Merlin knows his sick burn just like he knows that that man…that’s Arthur. At that realization, at seeing the Once and Future King for the first time outside of his dreams and waking memory for 100s of years, Merlin enters such a gay panic that he can’t remember any of his opening lines. Thankfully, Arthur seems to feel the same as he struts over and makes out with the suddenly young again sorcerer. And they both live happily gay after.
