Drama
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ is more noble than his other works, but it’s quite graphic all the same.
The legend of King Arthur is old—as old as the hills of Wales, as ancient as the cliffs of Dover.
But it wasn’t always so. The stories of Arthur and Merlin, of Avalon and Camelot, were once new—fresh and young stories added to an already ancient island, steeped in Roman history and druidic mystery. Legend and fable knotted in fact and woven into the fabric of the land itself.
The stories of Arthur—his rise, his labors, his fall—have been reimagined and reinterpreted countless times and in countless ways, from epic novels to Broadway musicals to Monty Python farces.
And in The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, we’re introduced to yet another iteration—with an explicitly Christian subtext.
The story opens long before Arthur arrives to defend England’s blood-soaked shores. Rise of the Merlin sets the table—the Round Table, if you will—beginning in an age when Rome’s own rule of the island was a not-so-distant memory, and warlords galore squabble for land and power.
Oh, and then there’s the fair folk from Atlantis. We can’t forget them.
These former Atlanteans reside in the fortress of Ynys Avallach, and they consider themselves a slice of mutton above the island’s common rabble. Like Tolkien-esque elves, they dress well, keep to themselves and live an awfully long time. Only recently, does it seem, have these fair folk deigned to talk with the native Britons. But they open their doors to one such group, led by the impressively mustachioed Elphin.
And the band makes quite the impression—not so much because of Elphin’s mustache, but because of his son, the talented and already near-legendary bard Taliesin. The poet/singer/seer wasn’t so much born as found, fished out of a stream like Moses by his adopted father. The local sage quickly pegged Taliesin for greatness: “A maker of words like no other since the beginning of the world,” the sage proclaimed. “And in his voice will be born a kingdom of summer.”
But Taliesin’s world is soon shaken: First, he falls head-over-heels for the Atlantean princess, Charis. Second, he receives a glorious revelation from God Himself. And suddenly, Taliesin realizes that the Lord has some pretty staggering plans in store.
And Merlin, it seems, will be a prime player in God’s upcoming drama.
The Pendragon Cycle—the first season of which is subtitled Rise of the Merlin—is based on a series of books written by Stephen R. Lawhead. The idea behind the books is, apparently, to place Arthurian legend into a more grounded, more historical setting—while still embracing (and even doubling down on) more fantastical elements.
The conservative outlet The Daily Wire gobbled up the television rights for the books, and the resulting show just might be the most ambitious (and likely most expensive) series ever attempted by its streaming adjunct, DailyWire+.
The results are mixed.
Rise of the Merlin takes its aesthetic cues from fantasy heavyweights. The Atlanteans’ elvish homestead can feel an awful lot like Lord of the Rings’ Rivendell. Briton clans seem plucked right from a Braveheart casting call. And DailyWire+ pulls out plenty of tricks to make the series feel like prestige TV—from its impressive CGI lead-in animation sequence to its slow-motion battle sequences to its liberal use of blood.
The show’s willingness to spill some hemoglobin is especially relevant, given that Rise of the Merlin leans hard into its Christian underpinnings, too. Once he receives that God-given vision, Taliesin wastes no time becoming the island’s most passionate evangelist. “Wherever I came from, it was for this purpose,” he says. “To know [God] and proclaim Him.” When his future bride turns frisky, he begs her to wait, “in the way of the Christians.”
Rise of the Merlin is built with a faith-based audience in mind. But the show will raise eyebrows in that same audience with some of its choices.
While Taliesin steers clear of sex, the show has no qualms about turning many of its rare female characters into eye candy, complete with plunging necklines and buttocks-exposing undergarments. Additionally, battles can get bloody, with weapons of death sometimes impaling their unfortunate victims.
And while God is most assuredly at work in this story, we see other mystical, magical elements at play. Atlantis itself was sunken by its own vengeful deity. A mysterious, near-satanic being sits on a throne and demands human sacrifices. Taliesin can apparently see the future long before he sees Christ, and truly divine revelations can often feel like magic. And let’s not forget that Merlin himself is traditionally portrayed as a wizard—the most famous wizard of all. If and how that magic is portrayed in the show, we cannot say at this early juncture; but certainly many a faith-based viewer might wonder how the show’s magical elements align with Scripture.
So even though the show does its best to come across as top tier, Rise of the Merlin, unfortunately, falls well short of that mark.
Listen, I get it: Fantasy is hard to pull off. In every fantasy story, you’re asking viewers to buy into some pretty big, often outlandish assumptions, and a story rises and falls on how successful that sales job is. Ultimately—as much as I wanted to like this show, and as much time, effort and money as DailyWire+ clearly invested in this property—I just wasn’t buying.
Much of the show feels a bit uneven, from the writing to the acting to the pacing. At one point, I wondered whether I had just missed a few critical scenes between the first and second episodes. At times, it felt as though the folks behind Rise of the Merlin were trying to hit a deadline and said, “Welp, it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough.”
Fans of the originating books may feel much differently. And many fantasy-loving Christians may forgive the show of its stumbles. Very rarely would you see a high-gloss production like this give such an unmistakable call to faith. But for me, Rise of the Merlin couldn’t overcome its issues. Though perhaps, with time, the show will find its footing.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
It’s Britain, circa the fourth century A.D. Elphin, a young clan prince considered to be very unlucky, sees his luck turn when he pulls a baby out of a river. Meanwhile, Charis—an Atlantean princess who leaps over bulls in the local arena for fun—runs headlong into what she believes to be a manifestation of the Atlantis’ god, Bel. (And Bel, it seems, is bent on destruction.) Twenty years later in Britain, Charis meets the river baby, now full grown into the well-known bard Taliesin. And once again, Charis feels her whole world shake.
Charis wears revealing outfits throughout the episode: Her bull-leaping getup bares midriff and quite a bit of backside. (Other female athletes wear the same style of outfit.) In Britain, Charis’ favorite dress features a neckline that plunges nearly to the navel. She decides to bathe in a nearby lake (where she’s spied upon by Taliesin), again wearing a thin, white garment that—when wet—reveals much of her body. (Audiences see the outline of Charis’ breasts, and the garment clings to her skin.) Men sometimes appear without their shirts.
Charis prays to Bel, calling him the “god of fire and light, ruler of skyways, lord of the underworld and of all things.” Bel is represented by a statue of a bull, a sun disc rising between its horns. Taliesin runs into what appears to be a dark deity in a vision: The antlered being has glowing eyes and demands a human sacrifice—one dutifully given via knifepoint. (Taliesin also talks to another strange, apparently supernatural being—one who tells him that Taliesin will be his servant. “Men will hear your voice and who it is who speaks,” he says.)
A couple of Christian monks hoping to restore a small chapel meet a woman there who they mistake for the Virgin Mary. “There are those who would call me savior, but I’ve never heard of this goddess, Mary,” she tells the monks. Someone has a divine revelation at the chapel—one so powerful that it burns his skin.
We hear talk of magic and things being bewitched. People use dark magic to foretell the future. An animal is apparently sacrificed to some dark beings, splattering the sacrificer in blood.
A couple of people die while fighting bulls for sport: We see a horn skewer someone’s shoulder with a shower of blood. One woman is gored in the stomach, and she exhibits other bloody wounds as well. An earthquake shakes Atlantis and, apparently, sets off a volcano. A bull dies, seemingly from supernatural causes.
Taliesin recovers from his remarkable, divine vision, babbling about everything from Moses to Sodom and Gomorrah. “Henceforth, I shall be known as prophet,” he says. “My name shall be known until doomsday!” But all is not well with his clan, who had a falling out with the Atlanteans. Atlantis’ king, Avallach, was willing to give the clan land but at a price too steep to pay. Now he wants nothing to do with the Britons, and he certainly doesn’t want his daughter, Charis, cavorting with them.
Taliesin is enraptured by the Christian God, “A God who does not ask us to sacrifice what we love, but He sacrifices what He loves for us.” But he’s equally taken by Charis. They kiss passionately, but when Charis fumbles at Taliesin’s belt, he pushes her away, telling her they should wait ‘til they’re married—in the manner of Christians. They do apparently tie the knot (with the help of a Christian monk), and Taliesin baptizes an unsure Charis. But when she has visions of her traumatic, old life—apparently shedding the sin and guilt of that life through the act of baptism—she has doubts no longer. She and Taliesin then have a romantic night together: A shirtless Taliesin removes Charis’ nightgown, but all we really see is her shoulders before the camera takes its leave.
We see a past Atlantean cataclysm, when the island was consumed by a volcanic blast (we see fiery stones rain from the sky.). Someone walks around in a blood-soaked dress. A character is shot through the chest with an arrow, the point sticking straight through. Another character is attacked by (we’re told) Irish raiders. The woman is tripped by a rope strung between two trees. At first, she proves to be a match for the men attacking her, but they eventually overcome her—punching and kicking her as she spits up blood—before she’s rescued. An advisor is kicked in the stomach and mocked.
Taliesin repeatedly talks about his faith and his God. A woman casts a spell, changing her appearance to look like someone else. A man accuses Taliesin of blasphemy—and then is stricken down by a divine curse, removing his ability to speak English. When King Avallach tells Charis that he’ll find a suitable match for her among their own people, Charis says that the king’s broodmares get more respect than she does.
We hear a reference to spells and herbs that can restore “virility.” Time is frozen after a merlin falcon is rescued. We see a bloody birthing scene, where a child is apparently stillborn (before miraculously coming back to life). People pray.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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