by Jennifer Hudock

Created on: July 26, 2008

The tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable has been visited and revisited in film several times during the twentieth century, but nowhere does this story find a more emotional outlet than in the TNT adaptation of Marion Zimmer Bradley's epic novel, "The Mists of Avalon". Told from the feminine perspective of Morgaine Le Fey, the witch historically considered one of Arthur's most vicious rivals and enemies, we learn that there most certainly is more than one side to every story.

This tender retelling of a sister's love for her younger brother, and the paths that divide them on their way to power, begins with a demonstration of puppetry played by Viviane, the High Priestess of Avalon, and the Merlin of Britain. They plot to bring a great king into the world, and destroy the young Morgaine's family life, setting her father, Gorlois of Cornwall, up for murder and putting her mother into bed with Uther Pendragon, the next king of Britain.

With her mother enraptured by her almost hypnotic devotion to Uther, it falls into Morgaine's hands to care for her baby brother, Arthur, in the years before Viviane and the Merlin return to begin their guidance and teaching for the future. Eventually, Morgaine is drawn off to Avalon, where she will study the ways of nature and magic in order to one day become a priestess of the Goddess herself, and Arthur leaves with Merlin to be trained in the ways of a warrior and king. Each learns and grows, embracing their destiny until the day Uther is mortally slain in battle. With Arthur ready to take the throne, the ancient practice of marrying the king to the land at Beltane must take place in order to ensure the allegiance of the pagan tribes throughout Britain.

Unwittingly, it is Morgaine who plays the role of the virgin goddess to Arthur's God of the Hunt in the Great Marriage, and as a result of this tragic coming together the child Mordred is born. She discovers her pregnancy at Arthur's wedding to the pious Gwenhwyfar, who immediately feels threatened by Morgaine's attachment to the old pagan ways, and Lancelet.

Embittered and ashamed when she discovers that she was nothing more than a pawn to her Aunt Viviane, Morgaine turns her back on the ways of the Goddess and hides away with her Aunt Morgause in the court of Lot of Orkney. Morgause discovers Morgaine's secret and sets out to distance mother from child in order to get closer to the throne herself, and eventually Morgaine leaves her son to be fostered at Orkney

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