Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
The idea of Arthur being a villain was interesting when it was introduced last week but seeing his motivation in this week's Once Upon a Time made it less appealing. He's obsessed with repairing the broken kingdom of Camelot, and while it's a worthy enough goal, it wasn't fleshed out. We needed to learn more about why Camelot was broken and why that's bad in order to understand why Arthur is so obsessed. Were the subjects starving? How were they suffering? As it stands, it felt hollow. Arthur appeared to be driven by only selfish reasons, and it made him boring.
There was a hint of him desiring power with the flashback to his childhood, but he didn't seem like the ambitious type who only acted in order to be in charge. He got swept up in Merlin's prophecy. He didn't really show a passion for Camelot independent of being what Merlin told him he would be. Villains work best when there's a tiny part the audience can relate to, and we get inside Arthur's head enough to grab onto anything. However, he is acting so cruelly that it is at least fun to dislike him.
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The idea of Arthur being a villain was interesting when it was introduced last week but seeing his motivation in this week's Once Upon a Time made it less appealing. He's obsessed with repairing the broken kingdom of Camelot, and while it's a worthy enough goal, it wasn't fleshed out. We needed to learn more about why Camelot was broken and why that's bad in order to understand why Arthur is so obsessed. Were the subjects starving? How were they suffering? As it stands, it felt hollow. Arthur appeared to be driven by only selfish reasons, and it made him boring.
There was a hint of him desiring power with the flashback to his childhood, but he didn't seem like the ambitious type who only acted in order to be in charge. He got swept up in Merlin's prophecy. He didn't really show a passion for Camelot independent of being what Merlin told him he would be. Villains work best when there's a tiny part the audience can relate to, and we get inside Arthur's head enough to grab onto anything. However, he is acting so cruelly that it is at least fun to dislike him.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...