Line #3 YMMV/TheMistsOfAvalon


1	!!YMMV for the novel
2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Gwen's reactions throughout the story make sense in the context of someone suffering from what appears to be severe agoraphobia, and the condescending attitudes towards her from everyone who has anything to do with Avalon. While the text attempts to paint her death in a nunnery as a tragic one, it can just as easily be read as her finally finding peace and happiness through escaping the clutches of Avalon's intrigues and Morgaine [[SourGrapes refusing to accept a rival religion or a lifestyle outside her narrow ideas of what living well looks like could possibly provide such a thing, especially when her own have brought her nothing but misery and despair]].
3	* {{Anvilicious}}: Religious extremism and intolerance are bad, inclusive spirituality and freedom of religion are good. Of course, ProtagonistCenteredMorality winds up breaking this Aesop...
4	* CharacterRerailment: For Morgan le Fay to some extent. Originally, Morgan wasn't a villainous character in the Myth/ArthurianLegend; she was mostly depicted as a benevolent sorceress or goddess-type figure, who was most noted for bringing her brother Arthur to Avalon to be healed following his death. However, over time she was conflated with her sister Morgause, who ''was'' often characterized as a villain; hence, Morgan became an evil sorceress who plots her brother's downfall via her son Mordred (often born of an incestuous union). ''The Mists of Avalon'' presents Morgaine as a separate character from Morgause and depicts Morgaine far more sympathetically; she's a priestess of Avalon rather than an evil witch and while she does still conceive Mordred with Arthur, it was unknowingly. Morgaine is loyal to Arthur up until the point he stops supporting Avalon and thus [[IDidWhatIHadToDo feels compelled]] to oppose him to prevent her culture from dying out; [[spoiler:shortly before he dies they make amends and she fulfils her original role of bringing him to Avalon]]. This depiction of Morgaine was popular enough that many subsequent Arthurian adaptations tend to portray her as an AntiVillain, if not quite fully heroic.
5	* DeathOfTheAuthor: A near-literal example. Marion Zimmer Bradley appears to have intended for the book to portray the tragedy of an inclusive, women-empowering, closer-to-nature society being torn down and superseded by a belief system based on bigotry, close-mindedness, and superstition. However, following Bradley's death, the posthumous revelations about her beliefs and subsequent re-evaluations of the book, a not-insignificant number of readers now view ''Mists'' as being about an abusive and backwards theocracy being replaced by [[MirroringFactions another equally-oppressive one]], with neither Christianity or paganism coming off particularly well and many of the characters - [[NoWomansLand though especially the women]] - suffering because of it.
6	* DesignatedHero: Viviane wants to save Avalon, but the methods she uses are highly unorthodox. In fact, they're ''so'' unorthodox and self-serving that they include arranging for her own niece and nephew to have sex with each other without their knowledge to conceive a child, which can be considered RapeByProxy and indeed leaves both of them traumatized. It's to the point that some readers consider her to be not an anti-heroic and well-intentioned spiritual leader trying to protect her people, but a straight-up villainous and power-hungry cult leader willing to use and abuse anyone to keep her position. When the narrative tries to present her as TooCleverByHalf and her methods as failing in execution rather than concept because of it, this can easily be seen as [[NeverMyFault deflecting any moral responsibility for the catastrophic consequences of her actions]] by UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming, making the fallout the fault of the victims for trying to assert themselves instead of going along with her manipulations "properly."
7	* DontShootTheMessage:
8	** Some of the book's central themes and messages, such as the harm caused by religious intolerance and misogyny, are worth discussing, but some readers find that the story can get excessively preachy and heavy-handed about it, and even hypocritical in some instances (e.g. pretty much every Christian in the book is portrayed unsympathetically but the Avalonians also do some things the average reader would find pretty shady or extreme and the narrative never judges them in the same way).
9	** The messages around sexual freedom being preferable to sexual repression are also not bad ''in theory'', but some readers find the execution of this theme questionable at best, considering that some of the Avalonians seem to think that being sexually liberated means harmful and non-consensual sexual practices are acceptable in some circumstances too, and that those who refuse to accept them are being bigoted (which gets especially disturbing considering what we now know about the author's personal life).
10	* FridgeBrilliance:
11	** Morgaine and the other pagan characters keep expecting things to go their way because the gods are on their side or the rules of magic demand it, only for them to be proven wrong. As we are told in the prologue, [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve belief shapes reality]] and belief in paganism is fading. Morgaine is playing by a set of rules that are in the process of being rewritten - small wonder she keeps losing!
12	** The one time Gwenhwyfar not only gets pregnant, but doesn't miscarry immediately and carries the child for five months, takes place during a period of time when she's first caring for a dying Igraine in her convent, then confined in a nearly bunker-like palace with few attendants while Arthur prepares for war. This turns out to be quite significant with TheReveal that Morgause had been paying servants at the palace to slip contraceptive herbs into her food - clearly, none of Morgause's mooks had access to Gwenhwyfar during that period.
13	* FridgeHorror: When [[spoiler:Sir Balin kills Viviane by splitting her head open with his blade]], it's noted that she had no time to turn around, yet also had a hand on her knife. She was approaching King Arthur just then, and a few chapters ago, she and her followers were discussing the best way to install Gwydion/Modred as King. Chances are good that Viviane was going to solve that problem by ''stabbing Arthur to death''. [[spoiler:Balin didn't just avenge his mother; he saved Arthur's life.]]
14	* HarsherInHindsight:
15	** The revelation that Creator/MarionZimmerBradley's daughter had been molested by both her parents makes the dynamic between Viviane and Morgaine (especially regarding the Beltane ritual) ''so much creepier''.
16	** In general, a lot of the more questionable or troubling aspects of the story's setting and some characters' actions tended to be chalked up as DeliberateValuesDissonance, depicting a fictional/semi-historical culture whose practices don't necessarily align with modern values, but the later revelations about the author's personal life and family make it all look a ''lot'' more disturbing and suspicious.
17	* ItWasHisSled: Morgaine being [[SurpriseIncest tricked]] into having sex with her half-brother Arthur is one of the plot twists that most readers are aware of, especially considering that it's one of the most infamous parts of the Myth/ArthurianLegend.
18	* JerkassWoobie:
19	** Morgaine may be rather manipulative and shady at times, and many of the tragic events of her life are the result of her own close-mindedness and pride, however it's really hard not to feel bad for her, considering that her entire life is a TraumaCongaLine- thanks to Viviane; she loses her father, is taken away from her mother, separated from her beloved young half-brother Arthur (whom she is then tricked into having sex with), her child is then taken by evil Morgause and turned against her and Arthur, she doesn't end up with the man that she loves, and eventually her whole culture is lost to Christianity.
20	** Gwenhwyfar may be a higly religious bigot, especially towards the Faerie folk; however, it's hard not to feel bad for her either since she was never able to have children of her own (which she clearly wants), let alone produce an heir to the throne of Camelot since her womb was cursed by the evil Morgause. This is what leads her to a downward spiral to the point of even committing adultery. It doesn't help that, even if she's RightForTheWrongReasons, a lot of the bigoted accusations she hurls at Avalon [[StrawmanHasAPoint turn out to be factual descriptions of their actual behavior]].
21	%%* LesYay: Morgaine with half the women she encounters:
22	%%** Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar.
23	%%** Morgaine and one of TheFairFolk.
24	* {{Narm}}:
25	** At one point Morgaine laments the fact that all the men she's fallen in love with have been closely related to her. It's meant to be sad, but comes off less as "Fate has treated me cruelly" and more as "Why can't I stop falling in love with my relatives?"
26	** She's also upset with Lancelet for daring to give her gentle foreplay before making love, instead of just taking her immediately.
27	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: In regards to the novel's feminist treatment of the Arthurian legend. Nowadays, there are a fair amount of retellings from a female perspective (such as ''Literature/{{Gwenhwyfar}}'' and ''[[https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nancy-springer/i-am-morgan-le-fay/ I am Morgan Le Fay]]''), many of which take a less [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed]] approach than ''The Mists of Avalon''. It's easy to forget how groundbreaking [=TMoA=] was, in spite of its flaws, with a lot of the original readers commenting that back the early 1980s, there weren't a whole heap of fantasy stories centered around women (in particular women who hold positions of power and influence).
28	* OvershadowedByControversy: In 2014, Bradley's daughter went public with the fact that she had been molested by both her parents during her childhood, and she was far from the only one, suddenly putting Bradley in the same company as Roman Polanski and Woody Allen regarding the debate over how much of an artist's own life should impact the judgement of their work. The fact that ''The Mists of Avalon'' heavily features sexual abuse, incest and manipulation from parents/parental figures throughout its plot (e.g. Viviane tricking her niece Morgaine into having sex with her half-brother) makes the controversy surrounding Bradley stick even more closely to this particular work.
29	* {{Squick}}:
30	** In the book, while Morgaine is preparing to greet the Horned King, she sees that the little girl who scattered blood on the fields is being ''raped'' by a sinewy old hunter. Oh, and about a page later Morgaine realizes she's had sex with [[spoiler: ''her own brother.'']]
31	** Lampshaded when Nimue needs to pass water and is afraid to do it in public. Morgaine is puzzled as to why would anyone want to spy on someone passing water.
32	** As if [[spoiler:Meleagar's rape of Gwenhwyfar]] wasn't horrific enough, [[FridgeHorror it's never proved that he wasn't her half-brother after all]].
33	* StrawmanHasAPoint: ''Constantly'' with Gwenhwyfar. Borderline once a chapter she says something about Avalon that the viewer is intended to see as unreasonable and bigoted, only for the Avalonians to turn around and do the exact thing she accused them of.
34	* ValuesDissonance: For all that MZB liked to position herself as progressive, the book doesn't reflect that. Its treatment of queer characters, ''especially'' the men, is rather poor. The narrative values male-female over same-gender relationships; every queer woman's true love will inevitably be male, and every queer man is mocked and dismissed as a genetic dead-end even if he ends up with a woman. (The bisexual Lancelot falling in love with the magically-sterilized Gwenhwyfar was ''probably'' not a coincidence.)
35	* TheWoobie: Igraine. She loses her husband, and then eventually has two of her children taken away from her. One can hope that joining the convent gives her some sense of peace, after all the trauma she's faced.
36	* UnintentionallySympathetic: The reader is supposed to hate Gwenhwyfar for her hatred of Avalon, but she never actually does anything to harm them, is horribly mistreated by them in turn, and is constantly being blamed by both the characters and the narrative for things she had no influence over. Even if she [[RightForTheWrongReasons has no actual proof]], the text treats her like a bigot for accusing the Avalonians of doing bad things, but a lot of the time it turns out Avalon actually ''is'' doing the very things she accuses them of doing.
37	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The reader is supposed to sympathize with Avalon for its culture being overwhelmed by Christianity, but it's hard to feel sorry for them when they demand respect from other cultures while simultaneously belittling them constantly for being “backward” (note that Avalon is just as superstitious, self-righteous, and dogmatic as the cultures being mocked) and consider the rape of a child by an adult as perfectly natural and "holy."
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39	!!YMMV for the miniseries
40	* HilariousInHindsight: Young Morgaine is portrayed by Creator/TamsinEgerton; around a decade later she was cast in another Arthurian retelling, ''Series/{{Camelot}}'', only this time she was playing ''Guinevere'', which is ironic considering the tense relationship between the two characters in both retellings.
41	* RetroactiveRecognition: Young Arthur is played by Creator/FreddieHighmore, several years before he became famous for his starring role in ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory''.

Context YMMV / TheMistsOfAvalon