Friday, April 24, 2020
Can Will be a nickname for Arthur?
I liked this reading well enough, I'm not a huge fan of the YA style but I thought adding the extra laying of having it all relate back to King Arthur was interesting. One question I have though is why is he named Will, like Jen sound similar to Guinevere, Lance to Lancelot, Marco to Mordred, but Wills name doesn't seem to have any connection to Arthur. Also do you think Morton is Merlin? He did try to abandon them, but he also imparted a lot of valuable information.
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I do think Morton is Merlin, yes. IIRC, the one thing the Disney Channel movie did a better job of was having a nerdy friend be Merlin - he was kinda satisfying. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWill is actually named Arthur (like his dad) but because he's a Jr, he goes by his middle name.
Or is he just "A. William Wagner Jr"? Maybe I just assume that the "A" stands for Arthur and we are never told for sure? (I admit that I did not re-read the novel this year - since I have read it several times before, I gave myself a Pandemic Pass this time around!)
DeleteI noticed this as well, I kind of assumed it stood for Arthur, but it was never explicitly mentioned. I was hoping they would say something at the end but they didn't.
DeleteI was thinking the same thing and I'm hoping someone has some answers to give us!! Why not just name him Artie or something like that, what does Will have to do with anything?? William?? Oh who knows.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you here. The character that is meant to resemble Lancelot is given the name Lance, so why is the character representing Arthur named Will? This was definitely a question I had while I was reading through this novel.
DeleteThe only thing I could think off is maybe he's not named a version of Arthur because part of the story is how Ellie is changing how the story is supposed to go. Ellie's supposed to be Eliane but then becomes the Lady of the Lake so maybe its about how he's not limited to just being a version of Arthur?
DeleteI was confused during this part as well on how they came up with the name for Arthur because the name William has nothing to do with Arthur. After trying to figure it out I googled it and it says the person that played Arthur was named Arthur William so they just called him William.
ReplyDeleteGotcha, so the A in A. William Wagner Jr, does stand of Arthur? I assumed as much but I wasn't 100% certain.
DeleteYeah, I think Mr. Morton was Merlin. Although it was revealed at the end, Mr. Morton was a character that did his best in advising Will, but not overbearingly. I think that Mr. Morton was there for Will, but he did not want to influence anything too much. By sitting back the story got to unfold, maybe not the way Mr. Morton wanted, but the way it needed.
ReplyDeleteI see your point here, I do feel though that in other versions of the story, Merlin was little more hands-on then in this one. Looking back on it though, I kind of like the fact he wasn't, it allowed them to make their own choices.
DeleteI think the choice of making Arthur William is a case of not being too blatant. When every character has exactly the same name as their counterpart, it can be a bit grating, as if the author were beating you around the head with the connection.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you here, I think it could either be for this reason, or because part of the story is how Ellie is changing how the story is supposed to go. Ellie's supposed to be Eliane but then becomes the Lady of the Lake so maybe its about how he's not limited to just being a version of Arthur?
DeleteI agree that is very odd that Will represents Arthur. I was pretty confused due to the fact that everyone else have a similar name. So I'm glad I share the same confusion as everyone else who has commented here, but after reading Dr. MB's comment, it does make a little more sense to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly how to relate this to your post other than I can relate to how Arthur(Will) doesn't want to go by the same name as his father. My father's name is James and he goes by Jim. My grandfather's name is James and he goes by Lou. Even though we all have the same first name, we all chose to not use the same name, albeit at different times and ages.
ReplyDelete