Merlin Fic: Succession

[meridian_rose]

Title: Succession
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings (if any) Uther, mentions of Arthur, Morgana, Morgause
Rating: PG
Word Count: 109
Prompt: For the writerverse prompt Hypocrisy
Summary: Uther is a father, a king, and a hypocrite. Spoilers throughout season three.
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): None

“I didn’t inherit this kingdom; I won it," Uther declares. He's proud of this fact. He will bequeath the hard-won legacy to his son and Arthur will rule Camelot.

Uther has another child, though he has never acknowledged her. He cares for her but she's only a woman, can never be as important as Arthur.

When Morgause takes his kingdom and him hostage with it, he says she has no right to the throne. Then Morgana steps forward and tells him she knows the truth, that he is her father.

Morgana is crowned queen. Uther is angry that she has stolen his child's birthright.

The double hypocrisy eludes him.

Comments

[eternal-moonie.livejournal.com]

Absolutely LOVE it honey!

[meridian_rose]

Thank you :D

[ami-ven.livejournal.com]

Very nice! I don't know this fandom, but I still get the emotions in this piece.

[meridian_rose]

Thank you very much :D

[brontefanatic.livejournal.com]

Very interesting.

Uther really is a hypocrite, isn't he? He never comes across well - whether on television, movie screen or page.

While I don't watch Merlin, the series, I always found his relationship/rape/deception of Igraine horribly creepy. Maybe they are portrayed differently on the show.

I'm trying to plow through genealogy in the Arthur!verse right now, and it is SO confusing - the various legends are extremely contradictory as to the blood relationships between the characters.

In some legends, Uther is Morgana's step-father, who, once he has killed Morgana's father and taken the throne, forces Igraine to send her daughter away, and sometimes Morgana is the same person as Morgan le Fay, which makes it even more confusing. Morgause seems to overlap with both characters - sometimes as mother, sometimes as half-sister.

It makes my brain explode.

[meridian_rose]

Thanks! He really is a hypocrite. Although the reveal came later, he'd always known that Morgana was his daughter in the show, and it holds true that Uther sent her father away to get killed in a war - possibly in order to have Igraine for himself. And that's how it happened in the show, that he tells Arthur how he won the kingdom, but then throws a hissy fit when Morgana marches in and takes it from him. Later she takes it from Arthur briefly too. But she's a woman and therefore evil in this universe and so she's never allowed to hold onto her prize D:

It makes my brain explode. Ha, yes, that's how I feel whenever I've read various interpretations of the myths. It's so hard to keep it all straight - impossible, really, since they're all AUs of one kind or another :D