History Series / Merlin1998

* JerkassHasAPoint: None of Mordred's accusations of Arthur's hypocrisy are ''wrong'', but are definitely made just to stir up unrest instead of making any kind of moral point. And he may be correct about the law saying that Guinevere's adultery is treason because the husband she's betraying is the king, but that's a very unjust law.

* JerkassHasAPoint: None of Mordred's accusations of Arthur's hypocrisy are ''wrong'', but are definitely made just to stir up unrest instead of making any kind of moral point.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Mab.

* ArchnemesisDad: Lot to Gawain, temporarily.

* BedTrick: Arthur and Mordred are both conceived in this way.

** Morgan le Fay is a composite of both the legendary sorceress and Morgause, Morgan's sister and the true mother of Mordred in the Arthurian Cycle. Every one of Morgan's defining aspects in Medieval tradition (her healing powers, her magical studies under Merlin, her unhappy marriage to King Urien and the resulting lovers she takes from among the knights of Camelot, her rule over Avalon and her taking of Arthur there after the Battle of Camlann) are gone. The character is really Morgause in all but name.

* AmbitionIsEvil: Morgan le Fay is entirely motivated by getting herself closer to the throne.

** Some of Frik's disguises seem to reflect the future; for example, his dashing swashbuckler-character wears 18th-century clothes and wields a smallsword (yes, a smallsword, not "a small sword") that isn't going to be invented in centuries. But then, Mab does mention that the fairykind sometimes see into the future.

* AntagonisticOffspring: Mordred to Arthur. He's also quite dismissive to his mother.
* AnyoneCanDie: By the end [[spoiler: Merlin, Nimue and Frik are pretty much the only characters left standing.]]

** Uther later delivers a more true moment - although it too is undercut by Merlin's voiceover, and it is when he first sees and lusts for Igraine.

* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Lancelot. Mordred also looks like this, or at least he would if he wasn't scowling or smirking all the time; he acts more like he has BarbarianLongHair.

* MasterOfIllusion: One of the most frequently used spells in the series. Frik uses them to make himself and Morgan Le Fay look beautiful, while Mab creates an illusory world to trap Nimue and Merlin in.

** The Novelization clears this up, we are seeing the story as it really happened in Merlin's memories, the story Merlin is telling his audience is leaving out a significant detail, Queen Mab, so as not to undo the {{Unperson}} gambit that caused her death.

* WhatHaveWeEar: When a young Morgan le Fey first meets Merlin and aks him to show some of his magic, Merlin performs this trick. Morgan immediately calls him out for the fact that this is just a Sleight of hand trick, and reveals she knows how to perform it herself.

* MakeMeWannaShout: Mab does this when Ambrosia refuses to send Merlin back to her. Ambrosia was already sick and dying and this is enough to finish her off. The novelizations aptly mentioned that Mab was the inspiration for the banshee.

* {{Bishonen}}: Mordred is a rare live-action example.

* UnrelatedInTheAdaptation: Gawain is Arthur's nephew in the legends and his father Lot is Arthur's brother-in-law, but here they have no relation to Arthur.

** The Novelization clears this up, we are seeing the story as it really happened in Merlins memories, the story Merlin is telling his audience is leaving out a significant detail, Queen Mab, so as not to undo the {{Unperson}} gambit that caused her death.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To John Boorman's ''Film/{{Excalibur}}'', with its focus on Excalibur, Merlin and mysticism; both draw on Malory's ''Literature/LeMorteDarthur'' and generally hit the same story beats, but some like Morgana/Morgan Le Fay's seeing through Uther's disguise prior to his seduction/rape of Igraine, Uther wielding Excalibur prior to Arthur, a belligerent enemy lord convinced to recognise Arthur's kingship after Arthur hands Excalibur to him, a literal circle of people inspiring the construction of the Round Table, Mordred's RapidAging and the exact way Arthur kills Mordred are specific to both. Trevor Jones composed the soundtrack to both productions, too.

[[quoteright:332:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MerlinMiniseries_6545.jpg]]

* FourElementEnsemble: The novelization explicitly says that there are four elemental beings: Mab (Air), The Lady of the Lake (Water), the Rock of Ages (Earth) and the Great Dragon (Fire).

* HasTwoMommies: Merlin. Three, counting Ambrosia.

* YouKilledMyFather: Thanks to her ruthless policies, Mab manages to give Merlin ''three'' separate excuses to go against her, all relating to her harming the people he loves. Uther wish to kill Vortigern who killed his father and Morgan hates Uther because he Killed her Father.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: For all her flaws, Mab does show some for love Merlin, however twisted. In a private confrontation with Nimue, a frustrated Mab makes it clear that she both loves and hates the son she created. A more straightforward example being her relationship with Mordred who becomes her next surrogate son and one that happily does as she wishes, she shows genuine grief at his death.

* BadassBaritone: The Rock of Ages, to be expected when voiced by James Earl Jones.

* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: Several examples. Merlin has no father, as his mother Elissa was impregnated magically by Mab. Elissa dies in childbirth, and Merlin's adoptive mother Ambrosia is later killed by Mab. Arthur's father Uther commits descends into madness and suicide, but not before killing Morgan Le Fay's father Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall.

''Merlin'' is a television miniseries released in 1998 that retells the legend of Myth/KingArthur from [[PerspectiveFlip the perspective of the wizard]] Myth/{{Merlin}}, starring Creator/SamNeill in the title role, Creator/MirandaRichardson as the antagonist Queen Mab, Creator/MartinShort as her henchman Frik, Creator/IsabellaRossellini as Nimue and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Morgan le Fay.

*** That could just be TranslationConvention, though. Almost all of the place names should really be different, and they wouldn't be speaking modern English with American accents either. Or an Antipodean accent, as in the case of Sam Neill.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Vortigern may be aging, but he is still a deadly force on the battlefield as the king.