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Yay myth and D&D!
Sep. 19th, 2010 09:24 pmToday was our monthly Viking Saga game, and I love love love how my players are letting me drag legends and fairy tales all together in a very satisfying fashion. Today, they helped Fata Morgana, aka Morgan le Fay, out of being encased in crystal by her former pupil, the nemesis of the PCs. Since one of the PCs used to hang out with Arthur and company, he was none too pleased at helping Morgan. Another was not fond of the idea of aiding a person who had encased Myrddin Ambrosious in crystal (as he's a member of the druidic order that follows in Merlin's footsteps in our cosmology). But, as one of the players said, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend, until they become my enemy." So, I got to have fun playing Morgan as an NPC. She's a great favorite of mine as one of the early bad girls of literature. But the bad-girl aspect isn't what I love about her. It's that she's so wonderfully ambiguous: sure, she raised her son (who she may have had by her own brother, Arthur) to take over Arthur's kingdom. Sure she had a huge grudge against the Pendragons. (And really, given the whole story of Uther and Igraine, who can blame her? Uther was a total jerk.) She may well have been hugely power-hungry, searching for magic greater than she could contain or control. But in several of the stories, she's also one of the women who escorted the fallen Arthur to Avalon, where he would sleep until his wounds could be healed. She's Arthur's antagonist -- until she's his protector.
What does that mean?
I suspect Robert Graves would suggest that she's playing out part of the story of the White Goddess. She's often considered part of a trinity of women (always with Morgause, who is sometimes Mordred's mother instead of Morgan, and sometimes with Nimue or Viviane or Elaine). A look at the Mordred story reflects Graves's depiction of the cycle of the Year King: the new king becomes the lover of the goddess, then must be slain by the king who follows him, who is in turn slain. The king's death is symbolic of the death of the year, and his life, the fertility of his kingdom. Morgan as a goddess figure -- or as a fairy figure, given her French title -- has distinct appeal, and makes her moral complexity, or her amoral standing, that much more interesting.
I'm not big on Morgan-as-hero, because I think casting her as the protagonist against Arthur and co. as the sympathetic figure in the narrative makes her less interesting. But Morgan as priestess of Avalon, as lady of the Tor or the Well (or the Tor and the Well), as the pagan sorceress participating Graves's mythic cycle -- that Morgan fascinates me. The Morgan in the game's cosmology is, as an NPC, less complex... but I've paired her off as a sometimes-consort of Loki. To me, that's like throwing two Tricksters in a cauldron, stirring, and seeing what comes out next.
What does that mean?
I suspect Robert Graves would suggest that she's playing out part of the story of the White Goddess. She's often considered part of a trinity of women (always with Morgause, who is sometimes Mordred's mother instead of Morgan, and sometimes with Nimue or Viviane or Elaine). A look at the Mordred story reflects Graves's depiction of the cycle of the Year King: the new king becomes the lover of the goddess, then must be slain by the king who follows him, who is in turn slain. The king's death is symbolic of the death of the year, and his life, the fertility of his kingdom. Morgan as a goddess figure -- or as a fairy figure, given her French title -- has distinct appeal, and makes her moral complexity, or her amoral standing, that much more interesting.
I'm not big on Morgan-as-hero, because I think casting her as the protagonist against Arthur and co. as the sympathetic figure in the narrative makes her less interesting. But Morgan as priestess of Avalon, as lady of the Tor or the Well (or the Tor and the Well), as the pagan sorceress participating Graves's mythic cycle -- that Morgan fascinates me. The Morgan in the game's cosmology is, as an NPC, less complex... but I've paired her off as a sometimes-consort of Loki. To me, that's like throwing two Tricksters in a cauldron, stirring, and seeing what comes out next.
