Arthur Pendragon: Enneagram – First Try
We use the tried and tested method of online personality quizzes to get to the bottom of Merlin and Arthur.
This week: Arthur Pendragon – First Try.
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30th January 2022 @ 2:31 pm
This was a fun episode! Love hearing your thoughts & justifications for Arthur’s answers. Even if the final result didn’t ring 10000% true, I was nodding along with everything you said.
But how could you not mention your own types! I’m curious if you’d like to share your own results 🙂
30th January 2022 @ 2:42 pm
oh, fair point! any time we did a hogwarts house sorting, we did include our own houses. guess we just forgot! OOPS!
We’ve not recorded the merlin ones yet, so I’ll make a note! haha Thanks 🙂
30th January 2022 @ 8:40 am
Great to hear from you guys again! I can see Arthur as a Perfectionist or idealist but the ‘resentment’/cynicism towards the world? That seems very Morgana!
In terms of being a performer, I think Arthur is very aware of a certain performance in his role which is also a burden. Like in Valiant, Merlin being new falls for Arthur’s performance and thinks Arthur is all about the glory and girls, but then starts to see what’s behind that image.
By the way, I once thought of writing a modern version of the jousting episode where Arthur is a young actor and the son of a big producer, so he always gets the ‘leading’ roles without effort. But he wants to audition for a more complex character (maybe in costume to hide his identity?) to prove himself.
I also just outlined a Merlin and Arthur in lockdown fanfic. So in my version Merlin is the excitable one, stocking up on eggs (the pickled eggs had to be there) while Arthur is more pragmatic, making sure Merlin doesn’t fall for puppy scams and the like! With outdoor exercise hours and a routine of video calls, Arthur realises he can survive lockdown after all. Ok, now I need to go & write it!
I think one of my favourite things about Merlin and Arthur is that they both subvert the tropes we initially associate with them. For a sporty, popular guy, Arthur has quite a few introspective moments. While Merlin is usually seen as the more sensible, calm one, but early on is full of energy to the point where Arthur has to tell him to sit still in that Edwin episode.
Looking forward to more of the character analysis 😊
30th January 2022 @ 1:04 pm
you definitely need to go write it, and then link it here, so we can all enjoy merthur lockdown fic1!!!!! haha
I think you’re right about the trope subversion / general versatility. it’s one of the things that I really love about BBC Merlin fanfic. I can read a storty in which Merlin is X, Y, and Z. And I will absolutely love it, it makes perfect sense, seems really in character, all of that. And then I can read a story from a different author, in which Arthur is suddenly the same X, Y, and Z. And it also makes sense! – A lot of that is of course down to good writing, and picking up and feeding in the right moments from canon, to sell both version of the characters. And I guess in part that’s also down to fairly loose (coughinconsistencough) writing in the canon. But additionally to that it is definitely down to the journey the charcters go on, and that the entire structure of the show is based on starting these legendary characters in places where you wouldn’t exopect them, hence you HAVE to subvert tropes and take them on an arch..
(sorry for horrible typing. I cut my pointer finger and have got a banadage over it, and after backspacing 13 times to correct a word, only to type the same mistake because the bandage is so big, I gave up hahaha sorry!)
3rd February 2022 @ 1:22 am
That’s a good point! Morgana definitely has a lot more of the negative traits associated with type 1. I like the idea that Morgana could represent the “shadow” of Arthur’s type, and they are already kind of positioned as opposites in the show; dark hair vs. fair hair, female vs. male, calculating vs. instinctive, etc. etc. Interesting…
27th January 2022 @ 7:37 pm
Nice to hear from you both! I’m a fan of the enneagram so this is a fun and interesting exercise.
I guessed Arthur was a Type 1 right off! That’s my type as well so maybe I just recognize the signs, ha. I’ve also heard it called The Idealist, which I think fits Arthur’s character in a general sense. I think I can see different sides of the type in different seasons: in the beginning he’s very invested in “being good” while Uther is still king and he idealizes both him and Gwen. He’s always pointing out what Merlin is doing wrong because he believes it’s important to do everything right! Later on, he’s positioned as the center of this new reformed Camelot, although the writing doesn’t really support that. The round table scene really cemented him as a Type 1 to me. He’s seeing the bigger picture and holding the vision, while gathering around him those that will execute the details of the plan.
Looking forward to Merlin’s type, I’ve got no idea what he might be!
30th January 2022 @ 12:58 pm
I do think that the way the description was written had an aweful lot to do with out feeling of ‘erm… not 100% sure about this’, because the type makes a lot of sense to me, but then the way that particular quiz chose to lay it out put me off lol but yeah, I think there’s definitely a LOT of type 1 in him, and the way you lay it out shows that perfectly.