comparing bbc merlin and bbc atlantis and how the writers are racist
bbc merlin and atlantis were written by the same people. i have been a merlin stan for a while, im very familiar with the show, fandom and any behind the scenes info.
i have just finished watching atlantis and noticed a lot of things which had a same/similar harmful pattern as merlin.
first of all the cast is majority white with only one person of colour in the main cast (gwen in merlin and ariadne in atlantis).
both gwen and ariadne had tragic storylines.
gwen lost her father, her best friend, faced execution multiple times, was banished and generally no one was there for her in the way she was there for other.
ariadne suffered from (pasiphae), faced execution lost her father, had to deal with the weight of being a princess/queen, her duties, near death and deal with medea (will come to medea soon).
the main love stories were gwen x arthur in merlin and ariadne x jason in atlantis. woman of colour with a white man.
in the later series of merlin, gwen and arthur didn't have a lot of screentime and affectionate scene as they had done earlier on. the couple scenes in S5 were mainly when gwen was enchanted. she was given less screentime throughout the series and if you have been in the fandom, you'll know how some merthur stans are racist, invalidating towards gwen to ship merthur.
in atlantis, the second season barely revolved around ariadne despite the fact that storyline was mainly about ariadne trying to retake atlantis. the show then introduced medea and a small love story began between medea and jason.
medea and jason are cousins so not only is the couple like....that. but there was absolutely nothing wrong with ariadne x jason! they were happy, in love and would have died for one another.
the show was cancelled but the finale ended off with a very heavy indication that medea and jason were going to become even more of a thing and ariadne would be cast aside.
not only were the lead women of colour given less screentime and clearly cast aside, another thing which is noticeable is the fact the only other people of colour (specifically Black people) in these shows was either given an evil/bad storyline or murdered.
these writers have a LOT of issues and clearly are inherently racism. to have not one but two shows with the same racist undertones is completely awful and shows how antiblack/racist they really are
