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Welcome to the inaugural episode of the
Pendragon Companion Podcast.

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I'm Megan Basham, culture and
entertainment writer at Daily Wire.

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Now, if you haven't already watched the
first episode, I do want to warn you

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that there are going to be spoilers as
we dive into all the myth, the magic,

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the legend of Stephen Lawhead's epic
hero's journey to really end all hero's

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journeys. Each week, we're going to
revisit an episode, drawing connections

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historical, literary, and even...
Theological undercurrents while also

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into what this series contributes to the
Arthurian canon. We'll be breaking down

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the action. We'll be exploring all of
these character arcs. And most of all,

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we're going to be analyzing the story.
Whether you're a longtime fan of the

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Pendragon cycle or you're a newcomer
that's just discovering this universe

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the first time.

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My goal is to closely examine this
amazing narrative and really get under

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hood a bit as we go, unpacking the lore,
exploring inspirations, and asking what

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it is about these ancient tales that
still speak so much to our imaginations

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today. So grab your cloak, steady your
courage, and join me on the long road

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from the lost lands of Atlantis to the
throne of Britannia.

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So I posted on X a few weeks ago that I
couldn't wait to talk about Pendragon.

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And I'm so excited that that day is
finally here because I get to obsess on

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every detail, every Easter egg to my
heart's content.

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And that's a lot of details and Easter
eggs because the Pendragon cycle, Rise

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the Merlin.

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occupies a huge world. It's drawn from
historical record, from British

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and even from Greek allegory like
Plato's thinking of the island of

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really a lot to cover.

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To zoom out for a moment, Lawhead's
Pendragon Cycle is a seven -book epic

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begins with the original trilogy,
Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur. So it's

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a straightforward retelling of Arthurian
legend like you might expect from

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Thomas Mallory or from T .H. White's The
Once and Future King or even that

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wonderfully weird cult classic from the
80s, Excalibur, which is a favorite of

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mine.

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But it's also not a, say, gritty,
stripped -down version of Arthur like

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Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles, for those
who have read those, or even the

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terrible anti -Christian 2004 film with
Clive Owen and Keira Knightley.

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Personally, I thought that one was a
revisionist crime against the canon.

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But instead, what Lawhead does is he
blends myth and history into a unified

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vision. He really merges the enchanted
world of Arthurian tradition with the

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real Britain of the 5th and 6th
centuries.

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Now, it's a time of shifting beliefs and
culture clash.

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We have the Romans withdrawing and the
barbarians invading, and we see

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Christianity emerge and conflict with
older pagan religions.

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Through these narratives that begin
before Arthur or even Merlin's birth,

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Lawhead builds the cultural, political,
and spiritual spiritual foundations that

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are necessary for the prophesied king to
rise, to claim that iconic sword, and

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to unite the tribes of Britain in the
fabled kingdom of summer. It's a lot to

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absorb, to say the least. But
thankfully, we have Merlin's prologue to

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scene for us.

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This is to be Arthur's story.

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To understand him, you have to
understand the land.

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This land, this.

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So I'm going to be really honest with
you guys. At this first scene, I let out

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major sigh of relief because I am a huge
fantasy geek and I consume a lot of it

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in all mediums. novels, films,
television series.

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So I have a lot of experience seeing how
easily fantasy can become cheesy if you

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don't handle it properly.

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So even though The Daily Wire has
obviously produced some fantastic films.

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The Pendragon Cycle was an undertaking
on an entirely different scale. We have

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these huge vistas. We're building out,
you know, several large worlds. We have

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to fully inhabit all of these spaces
with our extras and our costuming. So it

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was really a lot to do. And I mean, we
even hired a classicist to invent an

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entirely new language here.

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So I approached this series a little
like you might if your cousin suddenly

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invited you to hear her open mic
performance at the comedy club. You're a

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nervous to find out, okay, does she
actually have the talent to pull this

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And so this was the moment that I knew
that I could just relax and enjoy the

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show. I knew that the acting, the
costuming, and the overall production

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were going to meet my pretty rigorous
expectations here.

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And what we have in this initial scene
is Merlin looking back from an

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unspecified point in the future, and
he's acting as our guide, and he's

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delivering a sort of prologue that gives
us an overview of the characters and

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the storylines that we're going to be
following.

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And then we hear the name Uther.

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Not that Uther ever was one for a
scholar's poem.

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Now, that's someone that anyone familiar
with Arthurian lore is going to

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immediately recognize.

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We also hear a foreshadowing of the
threats that Arthur's going to face, and

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get a glimpse of Atlantean Princess
Caris.

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And, of course, the sword. But which
sword? Now, that's a question that will

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answered as the series progresses, but
right now we're not sure.

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Then the curtain rises on the arrival of
the baby Taliesin.

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And I love the biblical allusion here
because he's something like Moses being

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drawn out of the Nile by Pharaoh's
daughter because we have the Celt

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discovery of Taliesin there in the
river.

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How did Taliesin come to be there in the
water? We don't know. And that's all

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part of the mystery of who Taliesin, the
bard of legend, is. And like many of

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the other characters we'll meet, he was
a historical figure. He was a Welsh poet

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of the 6th century who's believed to
have served the courts of at least three

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different British kings.

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And his work does survive today in the
form of the medieval Welsh manuscript,

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The Book of Taliesin. Something cool
that you can actually go and look up.

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he's also a mythic figure associated
with Celtic tales of prophecy and magic.

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really a proper father for someone like
Merlin. And we get our first prophecy of

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Arthur's Kingdom of Summer.

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A bard the boy will be.

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A maker with words like no other from
the beginning of the world.

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And in his voice will be born a kingdom
of Donna.

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And now we finally hit our title card,
Island of the Mighty, which leads us

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directly to Atlantis.

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Now, Atlantis has a Mediterranean feel
with its clean white coliseum and this

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white -draped costuming. It's very
appropriate for a location first

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Plato. Now, in his dialogues, he
presented it as a powerful island empire

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the pillars of Hercules with advanced
wealth and military might, but corrupt

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ethics.

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It was destroyed by earthquakes and
floods as divine punishment for its

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So essentially, it served as a
cautionary tale for an ideal state

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decadent state.

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While some historians do believe it was
inspired by real events, most of them

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view Atlantis as a myth or a literary
device.

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But Lawhead uses this story as the
perfect launching point for his tale,

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an enlightened world of ancient classics
with the dark enchantment of pagan

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Britain. And here is where we meet
Atlantean Princess Caris.

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She's performing a dangerous acrobatic
ritual that was inspired by Minoan

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culture, where performers leap over
sacred bulls as a religious act of

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to their sun god, Bel.

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Now, bull leaping, or torokathepsia as
it's known, hopefully I said that right,

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was primarily a sacred ritual of the
Minoan civilization in Bronze Age Crete,

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and it represents a spiritual connection
between humans and the divine power of

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the bull. And this dangerous acrobatic
act possibly dedicated to an earth deity

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or Poseidon, involved somersaulting over
charging bulls. I'm not kidding. I love

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the sort of biblical feel here with the
golden bull. You can almost picture

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Moses standing on a mountain somewhere.

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And there's, of course, a Babylonian
god, Bel, in the Bible. But it also

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into Celtic myth, as they also have a
number of pagan idols whose names start

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with Bel, from which we get, for
example, Beltane.

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Ultimately, I would say the too long
didn't read here.

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Don't worship things called Belle.
That's just never a good idea.

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Charis, at this point, doesn't know any
better. So we watch her pray to Belle

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for strength before she goes out to,
quote unquote, dance with this bull that

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represents her God.

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And it's obvious from her agility and
from her athleticism that she and her

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have clearly been training to do this
for a large number of years.

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And there's a lot of tension over
wondering, is she going to survive this

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worship? And Karis passes this ordeal
with flying colors until she gets to the

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white bull.

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I just have to tell you that I love the
symbolism of all of this.

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In Greek myth, we know that Zeus
transformed into a white bull to abduct

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linking the bull to divine power, to
seduction, and to the origins of Europe.

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we combine that with Charis asking her
false god what he requires of her.

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And the answer, it just gives me chills.

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Everything.

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That's what he requires.

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I won't go on a theological rant here,
but I think that that is the

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representation of every false religion
right there. It takes everything from

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you. You must sacrifice as opposed to
the one true religion that we're going

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meet later in the story where the
sacrifice you don't deserve is made for

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So I think this is just a great thematic
scene here and great contrast to what's

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going to come later.

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Staying with that biblical theme.

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We have the apocalypse, the destruction
of Atlantis.

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And then we flash forward 20 years, and
I can't pronounce the Welsh name of this

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place, but it's clearly not Atlantis
anymore.

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We go from the clean, white architecture
of classic civilization to something

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like thatched huts in the Dark Ages. And
it's there that we catch up with

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Taliesin praying to his Celtic gods.

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And what I really love about this scene
is the juxtaposition of Karis' prayer

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and Taliesin. Because, of course,
they're both praying to false gods. But

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recognize that these first two major
characters that we've met are both

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sincere people who are looking for the
truth.

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I have not seen Taliesin in three days.

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In fact, from Elfin's words, it sounds
like Taliesin has been praying for at

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least three days before he at last gets
this vision that he's been seeking. But

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it's a vision of a dark god called the
Horned Lord, even older than his own

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And we get a glimpse of human sacrifice
in connection with this dark god. And

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from there, an encounter with an
otherworldly prophet and prophecy.

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I haven't read the book, so I don't know
yet what this scene portends, but I was

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fully engaged here. I'm asking myself,
is the hooded specter the old gods?

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So, demons trying to reassert their
dominion.

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Is the old man on the stone chair their
man, the old gods, or is he the true

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gods? Now, the prophecy made him sound
like he could be either, so I'm trying

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get an answer to that one eventually.

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Then we play witness to the last gasp of
a dying world. We have the Romans

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battling the barbarians before they
prepare to pull up stakes from

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and Roman Britain ultimately falls on
the ash heap of history.

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Fun fact, St. Patrick was actually a
Roman Briton, but we'll get into that.

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As a legend for another time. Here what
we have are Lawhead and the series

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setting the stage for Britain's great
need.

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Civilization is withdrawing. The Roman
world is increasingly overrun by

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hordes. So order is giving way to chaos.
And only an enlightened king is going

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to be able to set things right.

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We also learn in this scene that the
horned god was asking for Taliesin's

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allegiance, but Taliesin refused, and
his people are now worried that this

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rejection could lead to, ultimately,
their doom.

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So next scene, we arrive in the
Summerlands, and we see our first

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Christian Britain.

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Now, we know that Christianity has
become somewhat established in Roman

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It does have an organized church
hierarchy. It includes bishops, but it's

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widespread yet in Britain. It has what
you might think of as a small footprint,

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and that footprint is imperiled by those
barbarians that Elphin is worried

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about, though clearly Elphin and
Taliesin's tribe have not yet met the

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themselves.

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Now, it's been 20 years, but we see that
Caris is no older, so clearly she is

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something more than human. And in just a
bit, we're going to hear her people

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referred to as the quote -unquote fair
folk.

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So Lawhead here is tying the myth of
Atlantis to Celtic folklore about

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or as Tolkien framed them, elves,
because apparently an editor of his

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that fairies sounded too effeminate, so
he went with elves. But Lawhead goes

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with the fair folk.

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But our two monks mistake Caris for
something else entirely, for a heavenly

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vision of the Virgin Mary.

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Though, I don't know, I think Mary might
throw on a little camisole or something

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underneath that robe, but that's just
me. But Caris corrects their

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misapprehension, and she leaves with one
of those great scene -ending lines.

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I trusted a god once.

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What happened?

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I killed him.

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And now moving on to the court of Enos
Avalac. Now, I don't know about you, but

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I personally started getting big
Rivendell vibes right about here, which

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make sense as Tolkien and Lawhead were
both drawing from some of those same

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source myths.

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An elfin is visiting, and we see Carys
and Taliesin in the same room, and my

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daughter and I might have let out a
little bit of a squee when we saw them

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together. Just great chemistry.

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We're already shipping these two.

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Now, you do also have to feel for Elfin
in this scene, because his people,

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besieged by the Picts, clearly need
help. But you get a wonderful

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from Doran Fulton -Brown, who's
balancing his pride with this duty he

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to see his people protected and provided
for.

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Now, this is our second meeting with one
of our key villains,

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Morgion. Caris's sister.

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We saw her briefly earlier, but here we
get a little bit more understanding of

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her character.

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She dabbles in sorcery, for one thing,
and she's generally always depicted as

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something of a seductress.

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And I will admit that is how I played
her when I played Morgan Le Fay in

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in high school. So yes, I was a theater
geek in addition to being a fantasy

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geek. So my geekdom goes far back and
encompasses most of my life. But here,

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Morgan, in keeping with canon, hints
that she'd be willing to trade, let's

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romantic favors for the use of the Lea
Fale.

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If you're not familiar with that name,
Leah Fale, if you've never been to

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Ireland, It is a real place. It is a
real stone called the Stone of Destiny.

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I've been there. I've seen it. And
according to Irish mythology, it was one

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the four treasures brought to Ireland by
the Tuatha de Danann. Those were the

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original fair folk who sailed from over
the sea from mythical lands, and it

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served as the coronation stone for the
high kings of Ireland.

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Now, legend holds that that stone is
going to roar whenever touched by a

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rightful monarch. Unfortunately, it
didn't make any noise when I put my hand

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it. on it, so I guess I am not destined
to be a queen.

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Now, this next scene is subtle, but it
was probably my favorite in this

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We see Taliesin's tribe dining with the
Atlanteans, and I think we could say

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there's a little bit of a contrast in
their table manners.

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And it was a hilarious moment that
seamlessly flows into our first bardic

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performance from Taliesin. It was just
sort of a gorgeous sequence encompassing

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a lot of emotion and very reminiscent,
again, of Tolkien.

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Anyone who's familiar with Welsh
mythology or the Chronicles of Prydain

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say, may recognize a few names there,
like Anuvin, the underworld.

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And certainly the singing of Taliesin's
people creates...

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This somber, otherworldly atmosphere
that casts Karis's mind back to her

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encounter with her dark god and the
destruction of her former life.

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So now we know what happened in that
Coliseum and just what it was that

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her people to the shores of Britain. We
also get a reminder of just how deeply

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pagan Karis' culture is at this point.
And I will say that one of the biggest

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questions I received from Daily Wire
fans after the trailer was released was,

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about those costumes.

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As a mom, I personally kind of wanted to
throw a robe over Charis, but we have

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to remember that she's coming from an
idolatrous nation that doesn't prize

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modesty in women as Christianity does.
Now, as I said, I haven't read the

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but a friend who has told me that this
was very consistent with how Lawhead

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portrays the Atlanteans in the novels.

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Part of the way we shape character in
film is through costume, so it's going

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be interesting to see how Charis'
clothing evolves throughout this story.

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what we can tell is that she's haunted
by Taliesin's song as it dredges up

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traumatic memories of her cursing her
god before he dies before her. And then,

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the end of her world.

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Does Belle's death bring about the end
of Atlantis? Did Charis' victory as a

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bull dancer doom her people?

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These are the kinds of thoughts that are
plaguing her mind as she listens to

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Taliesin's song. And what I love here is
that we see him recognize her pain,

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even as he's singing.

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It occurred to me, you know, how many
men are that observant? I'm going to

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Charis. He looks like a keeper to me,
girl.

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Unfortunately, when she flees and he
goes after her, Taliesin finds Morgion

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instead. Now, so much is revealed in
this scene. Morgion's hunger for power,

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effortlessly Taliesin wields his magic,
yet also how little care he has to

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display those great abilities.

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We also see that she's going to be
suffering from some unrequited love.

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Poor Morgion.

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Between that and her care for her horse,
I do have to say that we feel a bit for

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her here. It has to be hard to be the
little sister of the savior of her

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Come on.

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Sorry, Morgan. The chemistry between
Caris and Taliesin, that's too strong

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anyone to overcome. Because immediately
in this next scene where Caris says she

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has no need of the company of a savage.

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Yeah. Famous last words, girl. We've all
been there. A handsome savage is going

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to be the end of us all eventually, I
think. It was for me. But I love her

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in this scene.

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Perhaps we're both just people.

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I'm not just anything, singer.

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I actually had to restrain myself, I
think, from saying a little yes, queen

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here. But a little less queenly is
Morgan, scrabbling with her elderly

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over the Lea Fale.

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True power is killing what you love,
little girl.

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Not letting it kill you.

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Now, this is not the kind of advice you
want to give a character like this,

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because you can be sure that she's going
to take it. And that will play itself

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out later.

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Caris, meanwhile, continues to put up a
good show of not caring whether Taliesin

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stays or goes.

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But I don't think anyone's buying it,
princess.

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And he continues to pursue her as a
proper hero should. So well done,

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But just as we think we're wrapping up
this episode, two shocking things that

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entirely reset the trajectory of where
we're going next.

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First, Taliesin stumbles on the shrine
where these Christian monks have come to

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pray. And he is hit with this blinding
vision that is reminiscent of the

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Paul on the road to Damascus.

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But the scene then cuts off before we
understand what impact this is going to

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have on our now heathen bard.

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He's already rejected the false god. If
he has just met the true one, what is he

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going to do with that revelation?

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Paul became an apostle after this. So
what will Taliesin be?

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Now, Morgion may revile what I can now
only assume is her former elderly lover,

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but she does take his advice.

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to kill the thing that she loves in
order to acquire power.

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And the way that Emery Franklin played
this scene was so chilling. I love that

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she didn't try to do something sort of
sorcery looking, no flourishes, no magic

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words, no hocus pocus. It's just one
cold slash.

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And it sets her up as the perfect foil
to these two lovers who said no to the

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dark power when it was offered to them.
So there we have it. The inaugural

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episode of Pendragon done.

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And I got to say, that was a lot to pack
into our first entry. We certainly went

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to a lot of places.

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We've got lost civilizations, star
-crossed lovers, a woman scorned, and a

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sacrifice. And all of this as we leave
the ruins of Rome and plunge headfirst

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into a dark age.

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I'm eager to see where Caris and
Taliesin go from here. And more

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I'm ready to meet Merlin. So we'll see
if we get the chance to do that in our

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next entry. But in the meantime, have a
question, a comment, a favorite moment

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you want to discuss.

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00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,140
Comment below and we'll see you next
time. Thanks for joining us.