Nice People

“You mean everything to me, Arthur. Once, there was Lancelot, a long time ago, but I hadn’t considered him in that way for many years. I thought he was dead. I thought I would never see him again, and then, when I did, I was overwhelmed. I was drawn to him. I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t know why. I love you. You mean everything to me.”

Merlin S4 E9, ‘Lancelot du Lac’ (2011)

You know why Merlin got so bad in its last couple of series? It was because the programme’s creators, after starting out according to the premise that this was an origin story – King Arthur and his crew before they carried out all the daring exploits that made them famous – then had that premise die a clear if not explicit death. They decided they wanted the story ultimately to end with le morte d’Arthur,¹ and so they tried to cram as much of the Arthurian legend they’d previously been deliberately neglecting, except for enjoyable hints and foreshadowing, into far too few episodes to really deal with it. It was messy, it was clumsy, too much was happening in too short a space of time, and things that should have been really dramatic and moving were robbed of the opportunity to be by the brevity of their build-ups. So Merlin had barely even established his aged, bearded, robe-sporting alter-ego Emrys before he became redundant; and Mordred went from being thoroughly loyal to Arthur to hating his guts based on the events of a single episode; and Queen Guinevere’s affair with Sir Lancelot consisted of one evening’s snogging (specifically, the evening of her wedding with Arthur, for extra dramatic impact) that Lancelot only initiated because he was an undead amnesiac under the control of the evil Morgana, and Gwen only consented to because she’d been tricked into wearing an enchanted bracelet that made her supernaturally susceptible to Lancelot’s charms (Morgana’s doing again).

 

That bracelet looked a bit more magicky and sinister than this rather cute one.

That last one annoys me the most. I had always assumed that one of the reasons the character of Gwen was set up, in the first couple of series, as so very sweet and kind and loyal and generally a Nice Person, was as a reminder – since everyone knows that the Arthurian story includes her affair with Lancelot – that even Nice People are capable of really appalling deeds. I was pleased that we the viewers were encouraged to empathise with this character, to see a lot of very commendable things about her; I was pleased that she was not reduced to little more than an easily-dismissed-and-condemned-carrier for the plot point of her infidelity. That Arthur and Gwen’s relationship was painted as so adorable and charming and innocent when it was budding only heaped emphasis on the point. Gwen was absolutely not the sort of person who would carry on with someone else behind her beloved’s back – which is why it was all the more striking when we remembered that she ultimately was, or rather would be.

But no, according to the creators of Merlin, the only reason Gwen betrayed Arthur was because of evil supernatural interference. Even she herself, when confronted by Arthur after he discovered her disloyalty, had genuinely no idea why she did it. By this point she had removed the bracelet and was no longer subject to its influence, and so my opening quotation doesn’t constitute Gwen trying to justify her actions to Arthur’s satisfaction so much as trying to figure out for herself why on Earth she did what she did.² Although this situation wasn’t quite on the level of having been possessed or directly controlled by magic (as happened to various characters by various means in various other episodes), it was abundantly clear that the action had none, or certainly very few, of its origins in Gwen’s own nature or will. It was all down to Morgana’s scheming: what a convenient get-out clause from having to explore what might have driven such a Nice Person to deception and betrayal.

Imagine if the programme had run for longer. Arthur and Gwen could have been married for some years. Perhaps Arthur’s attention was constantly demanded by an endless string of quests and wars and political crises, and his devotion to his people prevented him from neglecting any activity that might protect them, even at the expense of time with his queen. Perhaps Gwen was growing tired of feeling out of place at state events, of putting up with the contemptuous glances and whispers of visiting nobility who, no matter what she did, would never see her as deserving of a throne beside Arthur’s on account of her servile background. Maybe Arthur’s pre-existing arrogance and lack of respect for the status of servant was only being exacerbated the longer he stayed on the throne, getting rather accustomed to the constant homage and honour he was paid, and though he was aware of these traits and attempted to keep their effects under control, Gwen as his wife saw him at his worst, and comments that seemed offhand to him cut at her very sense of self: much as she felt like an impostor as queen, she would have felt just as much of an impostor resuming her old position as a servant, and yet she remembered that everything was so much simpler then, and that she was happy. Maybe Lancelot was the only one who ever really seemed to listen to Gwen, to understand her and care about what she was saying and be prepared to forgo knightly pursuits once in a while for the sake of enjoying her company. Maybe Arthur was away a lot on all his kingly business, and all those snooty foreign nobility meant Gwen hated going with him – Camelot was her home and the rhythms of the place were in her blood and she could sometimes manage to kid herself that she still felt she really belonged – and so she’d stay. And maybe sometimes Arthur would take Lancelot with him, but he liked to distribute opportunities and duties equally among his knights, and so sometimes he wouldn’t take him. And maybe when Gwen was lonely – so crushingly lonely and yet feeling unable to complain, because she was the queen, for goodness’ sake, wasn’t that enough? – Lancelot would be where she found company and solace from her problems. Maybe he would let the affection he’d always harboured for Gwen overcome his loyalty to a king and a friend who, he could persuade himself, would never have to know; maybe she would let her desperation to feel genuinely loved and desired and valued overcome a promise she made a long time ago when everything was different; and maybe that’s how it would start.

 

Someone’s artistic impression of Arthur and Guinevere, apparently, though the tags on stock photos probably aren’t the most reliable source ever.

Well, that’s something like how I imagine the programme’s creators might have gone about it if they’d had the time. It would have been, in a way, all the more emotionally devastating – a ruthless exhibition of Gwen’s failings, Lancelot’s, Arthur’s, inkeeping with each of their characters and without any need to blame all the resultant heartache on the plotting of a convenient nearby villain. It would have acknowledged that so often, the problems aren’t down to specific bad guys wreaking havoc for purposes generally agreed to be nefarious; they are down simply to Nice People giving in to human desires.

If Gwen had known about the magic bracelet, she could have alleged its influence in her defence when she stood facing the judgement of her husband and her king, charged with adultery and treason. We have no such defence to offer against the charges of spiritual adultery and cosmic treason for which all humans will one day have to give an account to the King of the universe. We might, like Gwen, be Nice People in our own eyes, but we still do horrible things – and the Bible makes it very clear that, much as the existence of evil spiritual entities is a reality, our wrongdoings have their origins in our own corrupted nature and will, and cannot be truthfully scapegoated off on some supernatural influence, the equivalent of Gwen’s bracelet.

For there is no truth in their mouth;

Their inmost self is destruction;

Their throat is an open grave;

They flatter with their tongue. – Psalm 5:9³

David wrote those lines specifically about his enemies, but Paul later quotes them in such a way as to confirm that they actually apply to the whole of humanity: “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.”⁴ At the inmost self of every Nice Person is destruction. In the real world, Gwens cheat on Arthurs all over the place, and they do it because of their own inclinations, no evil supernatural intervention required. If there’s any justice in the world, then, they’ll one day face the consequences; we’ll all one day face the consequences of our wrongdoing.

Arthur was merciful to Gwen; though her crimes warranted execution, he only exiled her – and later forgave her and agreed once again to make her his queen. God is also merciful to us – but how much more so; he spares us the execution our crimes warrant, forgives us, and adopts us into his family, even though Jesus had to undergo every agony we deserved to make that happen. And part of our new saved, forgiven, adopted identity is that our inmost selves are no longer destruction, because we are gifted Jesus’ own righteousness – the very righteousness that was so generous, humble, and self-sacrificial that it took him to the cross on our behalf – as if it were our own. That means that when judgement arrives, we’ll be able to stand uncondemned despite all our wrongdoings, and also that we are empowered to resist the temptation to commit those wrongdoings even now. It’s a much better deal than even Gwen ever got.

But in order to access all that, we have got to stop kidding ourselves that we’re Nice People who only do wrong because we fall susceptible to the influence of magic-bracelet equivalents, whether we envision those as spiritual attacks or societal influences or injustices of circumstance or whatever. The inmost self of every supposed Nice Person is destruction – until that person acknowledges as much before God and receives from him a new nature found in Jesus’ righteousness. Glory to God.

Footnotes 

¹ This, the episode title of Merlin’s first series finale, is taken from the title of Sir Thomas Malory’s version of the Arthur story, which hit the shelves in the fifteenth century and is still one of the best known and most frequently referred to. If you fancy a peruse, some kind soul has archived the whole thing online (in an updated version that’s a bit easier to read): http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mart/. 

² Some lovely person has uploaded the whole scene to YouTube; here’s the first part of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSNG2YI9gYE. 

³ Whole chapter for you: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+5&version=ESVUK. 

⁴ And again: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3&version=NIVUK. I’ve given you the NIV, much as I’m not the greatest fan of it as a translation, because it gives you footnotes indicating where all the quotations come from so you can go and check them out.