Otherwise, the story is the traditional Arthurian legend, simply turned inside out. In the novel, Merlin is a position held by two different men, but it’s combined into one character here. She worries for Avalon and for Arthur, and fights against those who seek to control her–especially her aunt, the Lady of the Lake, Vivianne. The storyline is streamlined for television–some of Morgaine’s complexity in the novel is sacrificed to make her a clearly sympathetic figure. The miniseries also focuses briefly on the other female characters, like Gwenhwyfar (Bradley’s preferred spelling of Guinevere) and Morgaine’s aunts, but this is nowhere as in-depth as in the book. The Mists of Avalon is the story of Morgaine, who is not an evil sorceress who wishes to destroy Arthur, but his doting half-sister and a priestess of Avalon who is trying to save her religion in the face of encroaching Christianity. When I came across the TNT miniseries adaptation at my school library, I was downright curious about how such an adaptation would even be feasible. And I mean huge in all senses of the word–not only was its impact huge, but it’s also over nine hundred pages long. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon is absolutely huge, when it comes to feminist retellings of legends, giving voice and dignity to the oft-maligned Morgaine le Fay. Based on the novel The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
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