(I'm really sorry for that pun I'll see myself out).
This is probably not an answer that most people share with me, but do you guys remember that moment in The Diamond of the Day, where she's sitting on her throne and, after being informed that Arthur hasn't been found, screams, "I WANT HIM DEAD!"
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
And it's all about the delivery here. When you're reading it it just looks like a villain having a villainous tantrum, but that isn't what you get from hearing it. It's desperation, and fury, and soul-wrenching brokenness.
I love it.
And I love it because Morgana does manage to break my heart a little, even after everything she's done and all the various horrors she's wreaked. This character, who used to be such a one-sided villain, suddenly fleshed herself out in season 5, and it was both saddening and intriguing when that fleshing out only revealed just how far she'd plunged.
This scene is all about her madness. And I might have been the only one, but that was something that made Morgana interesting to me again. As much as I enjoyed watching her slink around with super-obvious evil smirks on her face through season 3, or watching her lurk around forests and yell at Agravaine through season 4, season 5 is the first time, to me, that we get an actual look at Morgana from a perspective other than "she's just evil now." Because it showed that she does still love - Mordred and Aithusa being a case in point - and though her madness is alienating, it's also humanizing, in that it allows her to betray emotion that doesn't circle around smugness or contempt.
I also love how they've set this up. Because Morgana is sitting on some throne in a castle that no longer means anything to anyone. She looks like she should be powerful, sitting in a throne like that and having people (the Saxons?) answer to her. But the problem is that everyone knows it doesn't mean anything, that the throne she's sitting on doesn't hold any real power. It's a parody of power. And that's reflected the moment she opens her mouth - "I WANT HIM DEAD!" - it sounds powerful, but the way she delivers it, so desperately, it only underlines how powerless she truly is. She couldn't kill Emrys, she couldn't kill Arthur, she couldn't save Mordred. In all likelihood, this is the most powerless we've ever seen Morgana. Ever.
Which is why this moment is all about her humanness as well. Because we all know that this isn't just about wanting Arthur's throne anymore. Arthur killed Mordred, and Morgana saw Mordred as kin. This moment has the grief from Mordred's death - one of the only people, probably the only person, we ever see Morgana care about since Morgause died.
And it's interesting that Morgana's version of mourning - for of course, this is what she's still doing - is diving headfirst into rage. Distraction, I suppose. I mean, Morgana's emotional and mental strings have been fairly frayed for the entirety of season 5 - I think we all knew that she wasn't all there way back in Arthur's Bane, during the "I want to watch crows feast on his eyes" speech. But Mordred's death is the final straw. Any semblance of sanity that Morgana had left - I think we all know that it's gone now.
And while the destiny that Morgana got is sad, I do find it intriguing.
And I do adore the contrast between this final version of Morgana and the one in early seasons. The elegant, flirtatious, and compassionate lady who lived in Camelot is completely unrecognizable from this lunatic priestess, and yet how she got there does make sense to me. I actually buy her descent. And that's why this moment is so interesting and rich to me - it encapsulates everything that ever went wrong for this character.
And it actually made me think about that in a way that most of Morgana's tantrums don't. It actually made me feel something for her in a way that most of her tantrums don't. I honestly felt pure sympathy the first time I watched it, and that's a pretty unique reaction to invoke from a character screaming about murdering one of the heroes of the story.
It's because we know it doesn't matter - Morgana's failed. She's lost the cohesion that was keeping her mind together, and she's lost the battle against Emrys, and going on to try to kill Arthur - she isn't a threat anymore. She's just a lost soul who for so long has dedicated her existence to beating Arthur out of the throne - generally by murder - that it's gotten to the point that she no longer knows how to do anything else. It's been pretty much her sole purpose, and now she's failed and she either doesn't realize it or refuses to accept it. I didn't look on her as evil anymore, I looked on her as pathetic (and not in a contemptuous way - more in a "oh my lost child" kind of way).
And that still isn't positive, but it made her a lot more human to me, and that's what makes character interesting.
And basically, I just thought it was a really good moment of characterization and a look at how deluded and crazy our poor Morgana has become. And I'm a big fan of descent arcs, and this moment summed hers up for me. So of course I loved it.
I apologize for my morbid taste in character moments.
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