History YMMV / Cursed2020

* EvilIsSexy: Many fans have this opinion of the Weeping Monk, Father Carden's right-hand man. He's a LongHairedPrettyBoy played by Daniel Sharman and gets a ShirtlessScene. His cool fight scenes (see above) and the [[TragicVillain tragic revelations]] about his character help boost his attractiveness for some fans.

!The Series

!The Fanfic
* HilariousInHindsight: [[spoiler:On ''Series/GameOfThrones'', Littlefinger dies the same way as he does here, because the word of the girl he sent to Ramsay Bolton, begging for his life from Sansa Stark, and getting his throat cut.]] However in this story, Sansa does it personally rather than leave the duty to someone else.
* TearJerker: It's hard not to pity [[spoiler:Littlefinger]]. He's been fighting the same battle his entire life for the hand of the woman he loved, and it drove him to do horrible things. [[spoiler:And Sansa is horrified by the rough cut she makes in his throat. She hadn't intended on making him suffer]].

* LauncherOfAThousandShips: The Weeping Monk quickly became this. He's been shipped with Nimue primarily, but also with Gawain and the Red Spear. And he's been the target of {{Crossover Ship}}s, including being paired with ''[[Series/Merlin2008 Merlin's]]'' Morgana and Creator/DaisyRidley's version of Film/{{Ophelia}}.

** Wroth, the leader of the Tusks. [[spoiler:His eventual death is treated as a tragedy]], but it's hard to care much seeing he spends most of his episodes being a bigoted asshole. He defends some of his people beating an innocent human to death as them being riled up by the crimes of the Red Paladins (the man in question wasn't a Paladin or necessarily a supporter; he had a red cross on his door, but as Nimue points out most of Gramaire painted these crosses to avoid being persecuted by the Paladins). When Nimue cuts the hands off one Tusk who showed no remorse and laughed about the murder (but otherwise spared him) Wroth's response is to sulk over it and declare that Nimue isn't his queen. He's a jerk to Arthur [[FantasticRacism purely because he's human]] even though he treats him with respect and risks his life to help the Fey. Wroth is even prepared to lead his people to their deaths fighting out of pride, rather than doing all he can to save them.

* ClicheStorm: While not ''completely'' cliche-riddled, the show's main plot is extremely common in fantasy fiction: the protagonist [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer doesn't fit in]] because of her [[CursedWithAwesome special abilities]], finds out she's TheChosenOne, and after the bad guys [[DoomedHometown destroy her village and kill her family]] she must fulfill her dying parent's last request to escape with a magic PlotDevice that [[OnlyTheChosenMayWield only she can wield]]; she subsequently uses said Plot Device to [[AProtagonistShallLeadThem fight back]]. She also meets a charming rogue who starts out selfish but becomes heroic out of love for her ''and'' she turns out to have a SecretLegacy explaining the origin of her powers.

** Arthur and Uther being UnrelatedInTheAdaptation results in some missed opportunities for intriguing storylines. Arthur's growing sympathy for the Fey coincides with him taking more personal responsibility and standing up for something bigger than himself, which could have even more weight if he's the heir to throne. Arthur feeling torn between his affection for Nimue or taking the Sword for himself could be expanded into him wanting the Sword out of [[WellDoneSonGuy loyalty and desire to impress his father]], who desperately wants to claim the Sword (Arthur gets a bit of this with his uncle, but it's not touched upon much after "The Red Lake"). It would also give Uther's conflict with the Fey a more personal angle, if his son and heir were running around with the Fey Queen (potentially [[AdultFear putting him in the line of fire]] from the Red Paladins, and further straining things between Uther and Father Carden).

** The entire subplot involving King Rugen and the lepers, which takes up a lot of screentime in the first three episodes. Although Merlin's goal is stealing Fey Fire in Rugen's possession to destroy the Sword, it never comes up again as a plot device after the midway point and has no impact on anything else that happens. Even them sending the Fisherman after Merlin, and his hunt for Merlin, adds nothing, as the mortal wound he inflicts on Merlin adds little to his interactions with Nimue or Uther [[spoiler:and is made redundant when Uther's men deliver far more severe wounds on him]], and the Fisherman's only impact is murdering the family of the Midwife, something she's not even made aware of happening. The book ends with [[spoiler:a badly wounded Nimue being rescued from the lake by lepers]], but as this [[AdaptedOut isn't included]] in the show the subplot feels superfluous.

** The concept of an Arthurian prequel revolving around the Lady of the Lake and her connection to Excalibur before King Arthur's time is an interesting one; they could have also have explored the Lady's side of the story around things like [[MerlinAndNimue her relationship with Merlin]] in a similar manner to {{perspective flip}}s centered on Morgan le Fay. However, ''Cursed'' doesn't have much to do with the Arthurian mythos at all [[InNameOnly besides sharing a setting and some character names]]; telling an original story is not a bad thing, but it's disappointing for some viewers who were hoping for a story more closely tied to the legends. Some have opined that it might've been better if they'd completely dropped the connections to the Arthurian legend to let the story stand on its own, as people would inevitably compare them.

** In the final episode, [[spoiler:Merlin]] is run through by several swords curtesy of Uther's men, with the first very visibly stabbing him through the back. When he's then dragged out of the room, we clearly see his completely unharmed back, without so much as a hole in his leather coat.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** The people who bullied Nimue for apparently no reason in their village. It was apparently common for her powers to go haywire by themselves and seriously harm, almost killing anyone that tries to attack her, but people kept finding reasons to intimidate her for no particular reason, and constantly getting their ass kicked by her powers acting on their own.
** Merlin's negotiation with Cumber. In exchange for proof of his claim for the throne, his only plan is to offer Nimue to him ''as a war prisoner'', let her offer him the sword (the Fey's only leverage in this conflict) and then beg for him to spare the fey. It's no wonder even Arthur, someone who wants to avoid conflict and direct fighting, realizes that a nearly suicidal siege is a better offer than that.
** Iris wants to join the Red Paladins, but is told that they don't accept women. After she runs away, she tracks down some Paladins and is mistaken by them as a boy due to her more androgynous appearance at the time. You'd think she'd go along with this to increase her chances of acceptance, but instead she immediately informs them she's a girl and thus they immediately dismiss her.

** Until she meets back up with Nimue, Pym's subplot with her falling in with the Viking Raiders under the Red Spear's command, and the Red Spear's rebellion/war against Cumber, really doesn't tie in with anything else going on, and once she does reunite with Nimue, the Raiders disappear from the plot entirely. Fortunately, this is one of the better received subplots in the show.

* WhatTheHellCostumingDepartment: While the costumes aren't generally thought to be badly designed, some reviewers and audience members have questioned how everyone, even the peasants and Fey refugees, are frequently wearing clothes that look brand new. The style of the attire also seems to be an inconsistent mix between fashion that is a few centuries too early (the tunics and dresses appear to be 11-14th century in style), to outright pure fantasy and HollywoodHistory (the viking raiders' fashion, which look more like modern popular perception of Vikings as being dirty, gritty warriors; in actual fact Vikings were quite well-groomed and liked to wear clean, simple attire); its not too much of a big deal when the show is swinging towards being a fantasy series, but it stands out after they start talking about Rome, the Pope, the celts, etc, and remind viewers this is meant to be somewhere in 4th-7th century England.

* SpecialEffectFailure: Most of the special effects are good or decent, but the CGI wolves in the first episode aren't terribly convincing, more so in close-ups. To give them credit, furry creatures are more difficult and more expensive to animate (one of the reasons that the direwolves appeared less and less in ''Series/GameOfThrones'').

** For much of her life Nimue has been [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer bullied and ostracized]] by the Sky Folk for her powers; the only people who seem to accept and defend her are her mother, Pym and Squirrel, and some of the Sky Folk can come across as just as hateful and bigoted as the Red Paladins in their treatment of her (if not quite as murderous). One might think they could explore Nimue having more mixed feelings about her role in saving the Fey because of this, perhaps initially not seeing it as her fight because they never treated her as one of them. However, Nimue has no qualms whatsoever about fighting for the Fey, seemingly forgetting her lifelong persecution, and any parallels between the Fey and the Paladins are ignored. The Fey are also quick to accept Nimue as their leader despite her supposedly being cursed.

** Many of the Fey distrust humans ''at best'', especially now a particular faction of humans is hunting them down, and yet their chosen queen has a human lover. This seems like it would potentially cause some problems for Nimue's leadership and her romance with Arthur, but it's completely ignored.

* TrappedByMountainLions: The entire subplot involving King Rugen and the lepers, which takes up a lot of screentime in the first three episodes. Although Merlin's goal is stealing Fey Fire in Rugen's possession to destroy the Sword, it never comes up again as a plot device after the midway point and has no impact on anything else that happens. The book ends with [[spoiler:a badly wounded Nimue being rescued from the lake by lepers]], but as this [[AdaptedOut isn't included]] in the show the subplot feels superfluous.

** Merlin's negotiation with Cumber. In exchange for proof of his claim for the throne, his only plan is to offer Nimue to him ''as a war prisoner'', let her offer him the sword (the Fey's only leverage in this conflict) and then beg for him to spare the fey. It's no wonder even Arthur, someone who wants avoid conflict and direct fighting, realizes that a nearly suicidal siege is a better offer than that.

* SoOkayItsAverage: The general opinion of Season 1 among both critics and audiences. Many viewers feel the show's quality is dragged down by clichés, slow pacing, too many side plots and taking too long to explain things, but that the overarching story and characters are interesting enough to be a passably-decent teen fantasy series.

* WhatTheHellCostumingDepartment: While the costumes aren't generally thought to be badly designed, some reviewers and audience members have questioned how everyone, even the peasants and Fey refugees, are frequently wearing clothes that look brand new.

* ClicheStorm: While not ''completely'' cliche-riddled, the show's main plot is extremely common in fantasy fiction: the protagonist [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer doesn't fit in]] because of her [[CursedWithAwesome special abilities]], finds out she's TheChosenOne, and after the bad guys [[DoomedHometown destroy her village and kill her family]] she must fulfill her dying parent's last request to escape with a magic PlotDevice that [[OnlyTheChosenMayWield only she can wield]]; she subsequently uses said Plot Device to [[AProtagonistShallLeadThem fight back]]. She also meets a charming rogue who starts out selfish but becomes heroic out of love for her ''and'' she turns out to have SecretLegacy explaining the origin of her powers.

* SoOkayItsAverage: The general opinion of Season 1 among both critics and audiences. Many viewers feel the show's quality is dragged down by clichés, slow pacing, too many side plots and taking too long to explain things, but that the overarching story and characters are interesting enough to be a decent teen fantasy series.