Page vs Screen: Cursed

Born in the Dawn - To pass in the Twilight

As I write this, I'm still hesitating between writing a single post about the Thomas Wheeler (author) & Frank Miller (illustrator) book Cursed and the corresponding Netflix series, or keeping page and screen separate. Even with the series - cover each episode as I have done for other series? Or because it's Netflix and I marathoned through it treat it as a single 10h film? So many decisions... I guess I'll just have to start writing and we'll see what comes out of it.

Cursed is a feminist retelling of the Arthurian myth, written by Thomas Wheeler and illustrated by Frank Miller. It's a young adult fantasy novel that reframes the Arthurian legends by telling them through the character of Nimue, famously known as the Lady of the Lake in the traditional versions (sometimes an ally of Arthur's, others the keeper of Excalibur, and in yet others a protégé of Merlin's who steals his magic and leaves him trapped in a tree). In Cursed she is a young Fey woman (the Fey are various clans of humanoid beings with a connection to the spirit world that probably inhabited Britain before humans came, and have been slowly being pushed out of their lands by humans, more recently persecuted by  fanatics called Red Paladins sent by the Church), whose mother Lenore is the Arch-Druid and healer of her Sky-Folk clan. The story begins as their village is attacked by Red Paladins, and Lenore entrusts Nimue with a powerful sword and asks her to deliver it to Merlin.

Since books have trailers now (?!), here's a look at the book and show trailers:

 

I thought it would be interesting to contrast the book and the show, as they were pretty much created at the same time (Wheeler and Miller hadn't even finished writing it when Netflix optioned it for a series adaptation, and the book hadn't been released yet while the show was filming) and Wheeler is showrunner of the Netflix series. Well, book 1 and season 1 (in case others come out in time).

Obviously spoilers for both book and TV show below! (and potentially for a follow up book if they pick up some of the threads from the show that weren't in the book)

Usually I'd be the first to say "the book is always better than the movie" because a movie can rarely convey all the elements of a book (not to mention those who blatantly disregard their source material, to their detriment). But in the case of TV shows, there have been some notable exceptions to that in my opinion (off the top of my head True Blood and The Vampire Diaries come to mind). Sometimes the two (book movie/show) are such different creatures that they can't really be compared, and if they're both good you just accept the differences and enjoy each on its own merits (Game of Thrones being the most recent example of this). 

The only time I've read / watched a story that was so closely linked in origin as Cursed was The Princess Bride, with the author William Goldman also being the script writer (but with years in between the writing of the two), and there were so few differences (shrieking eels instead of sharks, and I think we can all agree that the eels are much cooler!), the movie was such an excellent and faithful adaptation of the book, that I honestly couldn't say which I like more! So I expected something similar here (particularly considering Wheeler - like Goldman - is known for writing for cinema and TV), and was surprised at the number of differences I found...

I pretty much watched the show and read the book at almost the same time (a week apart). I decided to start with the TV series so I could look forward to discovering all the extra little details one tends to find on the page, as adaptations always leave something out. Boy was I wrong! The only "bonus" from the book are the illustrations by Frank Miller, and you pretty much get those in the show in the scene transitions... Then there are two interesting storylines in the show that are non-existent in the book!!! Particularly Pym's story with the Red Spear (where did that come from?!), since part of Morgan(a)'s is hinted at in the book, it just takes place before we meet her (as opposed to it being part of the action in the show). In fact the one thing I preferred in the book was something they didn't do to Arthur's character, something that annoyed me greatly in the show and which I'll get to later (it brought up all sorts of memories of similar annoyance at Peter Jackson for blemishing Faramir's character in The Two Towers).

Let's start with Pym. It is implied that Nimue's best friend died with the rest of their clan when the village was attacked by the Red Paladin's. However in the show she manages to escape and eventually ends up involved with the Viking raiders known as the Red Spear. I guess it's possible that a continuation of the book (which is apparently in the works) will bring us this storyline through flashbacks? After all, the Red Spear ships only make an appearance in the final pages. Except Pym is among the raiders they free in Gramaire in the show, but isn't mentioned in the book when they free the raiders in Cinder. It's definitely a bonus in the show since she's a fun and very lively character who finds herself in over her head as their healer.

The Red Spear themselves are a confusing difference between page and screen. In the book the Red Spear are the Ice King Cumber's warriors. He considers himself the "true Pendragon" (and Uther a bastard) and is invading England to take the throne from Uther. But in the show the Red Spear is a woman who leads a band of Viking raiders who are against Cumber, mortal enemies it appears even! She appears to have a particular bone to pick with his eldest daughter Eydis. And even though we don't get the raiders' storyline from the show in the book, in both of them we witness their female leader at the very end, in the fight on the beach (in the book she comes to Arthur and the Fey's aid because Nimue released some of her men from Cinder, who were captives of the Red Paladin; in the show it's because she's an enemy of Cumber and is there to fight his men who happen to be attacking the Fey). What is different in this meeting is that in the show we meet her several episodes sooner (threatening the throw Pym overboard), while in the book the difference is that she tells Arthur her name: Guinevere!

Next there's Morgan. Or Morgana in the show. On both page and screen you can tell she's an angry young woman with little patience for fools (particularly her brother Arthur), who cares for the Fey and is trying to help them, and has an interest in magic. When we meet her in the book she's working in a tavern and helping to smuggle Fey to a safe place in nearby caves. We learn she has spent some time in a convent, and she's Arthur's half-sister (the show just calls her sister, no idea if full or half). In the Netflix show she's still in the convent under the name Sister Igraine (?!) and her anger at Arthur is less that she considers him a fool (as in the book), but more resentment that he "let" their uncle Sir Ector (another difference, in the book there's no relation with Ector) take her away and put her in the convent when their father died. This allows the show to add this convent storyline that is non-existent in the book (and definitely can't appear in a sequel) as Arthur asks his sister to give Nimue sanctuary there from the Red Paladins. Which doesn't work out very well since they show up at the convent's doorstep asking for help to heal one of their brothers, attacked by "the Wolf-Blood Witch" (aka Nimue). Morgana and Nimue escape and meet up again in the Fey refuge Nimos (which Morgana knows because like in the book she has been secretly helping Fey all along). Morgana has a much bigger role helping Nimue in the show (adventure in the caves, the Cailleach, the Widow...), setting her on her own path to a magical dark destiny.

The convent storyline leads to another difference between the two media: the character of Sister Iris. In the show she's a fanatic young nun who wants nothing more than to join the Red Paladin and take down the heretical Fey, and kill the Wolf-Blood Witch. In the book (age 11) she's already one of them, with the role of "First Fire, an honor Father Carden bestowed upon brothers and sisters considered most pious. It was the job of First Fire to enter the heart of impure villages and set the straw alight, drawing bodies to the flame for easier capture." The Fey call her "Ghost Child". This affinity for fire is reflected in the show since she burns down the Convent considering them all to be impure for having harbored Nimue and other Fey! In both versions however she ends up a "refugee" among the Fey who think she's just a harmless child, victim like them of the Red Paladin. And in both versions she takes the key shot at the end of the tale, the one that leaves us on a cliffhanger, hoping for more (book or show) in the near future!

Speaking of that ending, the show is ambiguous about Nimue's survival, the book isn't. In the show you just see her twitch once, but she's still underwater with arrows in her body. In the book she has washed up on the shore and lepers are taking her to the Leper King (which in itself is another scary cliffhanger for her, considering his enmity with Merlin).

Finally, the changes with Arthur. As I mentioned before, they tweaked Arthur's character somewhat between page and screen, a tweak that reminded me of the Faramir travesty in the Lord of the Rings (in the book, when his men capture Frodo on his way to Mordor, Faramir is not tempted by the One Ring, whereas in the Peter Jackson movie he is, and goes so far as to start taking him to Gondor). In the book Arthur is still maturing, he's a sellsword and although he says he wants to find his honor, he's too quick to take the easy way out (until de decides to stick to Nimue). But he's upfront about it all. In the show, after leaving her in Morgan's care at the convent he steals the sword and heads off to participate in a tournament, hoping this powerful weapon will help him win it and regain his family's honor (lost when his father died penniless and with debts that he had to take on as a boy). He finds his true path, and his honor, by the end of the show, along the same lines as the book (although with some extra show-time spent proving his worth to Gawain and the other Fey), but this detour down the path of a thief is a blemish in Arthur's character for me. 

Another difference is Arthur and Morgan(a)'s origins. In the book it is implied that their father was a simple soldier, who told tall tales about his adventures and inspired in his son dreams of being a knight. But basically a nobody for the time period. Whereas in the show we don't know much more about the father, but Lord Ector and his wife are named as Arthur and Morgan's uncle and aunt! Not sure if maternal or paternal, but there seemed to be a desire in the show to link Arthur to the nobility. Oh! And related to that, Ector's the lord of Gramaire in the show, with the town being called Cinder in the book. Being fluent in French I must say that name really made me want to laugh (grammar = grammar) each time someone mentioned it!

To wrap up the Page vs Screen element, I'll say Cursed is going to join my list of "shows that are better than the book". Not just because of the storylines mentioned above (raiders and convent) which greatly enriched the show, but because the historical inaccuracies (mentioned below) were more obvious in the book than the show and pulled me out of the story quite frequently. And in truth, the book feels a bit cold and "empty" compared to the show. As if it were an initial treatment that the screenwriters in the show then had the liberty to develop further, particularly by developing more the characters of Morgana, the Red Spear and Pym.

 

It's decided. This is already getting to be quite long for a single post, I'll leave going into more detail about the show and its ties to Arthurian Legends for another post (or series if I decide to do one post per episode). I will leave the Historical references section here, since there are a few more page vs screen issues to point out.

Historical Shudders

Ok, so I get this is Fantasy, and the Arthurian tales are legends after all. They've been reinvented every which way. So plenty of freedom to make your own world. But when it's being sold as a historical fantasy (which I've seen mentioned in a few places), I think you owe it to the readers/viewers NOT to screw up the historical stuff!!! You don't want to do the research and make it fully historically accurate, fine. But to put in stuff that is just wrong? UGH! Historical Fiction is one of my favorite genres, so this annoys me to no end, and it quite often just pulled me out of the book. Not so much in the show where so many other elements distracted me from these issues (and they also weren't mentioned as much).

So here go a few points that particularly annoyed me:

• The historical period. Either they've set this story at least 400-500 years after it's usually set (possibly inspired by the 14th century setting of T.H. White's The Once and Future King), or they've moved forward other references forward a few centuries in History. Convention sets the mythical King Arthur in the 5th-6th century AD, shortly after the Romans have left and at the beginning of the Saxon invasions, but there are too many reference points in the book and show (including the style of clothing and architecture) that would place this story several centuries later:
• The papacy (the office of the Pope) was established in Rome at that time (5th c), but had nowhere near the lay power they appear to have here. And the zeal Father Carden and the Pope seem to show in chasing and burning the Fey is more reminiscent of the persecution of heretics by Inquisitors in the later Middle Ages.
• In episode 4 Merlin mentions his time advising Charlemagne (telling him not to trust the Church), who is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD.
• The Holy Roman Empire - in the second episode of the series a proclamation is read in the name of the Holy Roman Emperor, a figure that was only revived (after the fall of Rome) in 800 AD! (plus England was never a part of it so they wouldn't have read proclamations in the name of the HRE in the towns)
• Vikings. So Cumber the Ice King and the Red Spear are Vikings? *sigh* They should be Saxons. The Saxon invasions of Britain are one of the key elements in Arthurian tales and would be historically accurate. Vikings actually invaded Saxon England several centuries later (for a great story on those clashes check out Bernard Cornwell's Uhtred novels and the TV show (also on Netflix) The Last Kingdom)
• Oh, and speaking of Vikings, Viking strongholds in the south of France??? (p144 in my copy of the book) Yeah... Vikings (Norse and Danes) raided and pillaged, they weren't known for setting down roots other than in Normandy (after the French kings granted them land hoping they would stop other invaders), England (fighting the Saxons for it) and Ireland (Dublin!). Plus of course Iceland and Greenland.
• There are too many clearly French terms being used in the show! The town of Gramaire, Ivoire Abbey, the Gothic architecture in some places... this would place it even later in history, 800 years later during Norman England!!! 
• And the final point that really kept pulling me out of the book, frequent mentions of England, Francia and Aquitaine. As if the story took place in all three territories at once (which were definitely not called that at that time - just for starters England didn't exist, it would have been called Britain), and as implying that Uther's kingdom included lands in Francia and Aquitaine, as if he were a Norman king of England, not a Briton! King Henry II Plantagenet would have loved that, considering he did rule over vast swaths of France (Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine) and the troubadour's tales of King Arthur were popular at that time.
• Now that I've listed these points, and reviewing The Once and Future King of it all (I need to re-read that book)... It really seems to me this book must have been their inspiration. Between the 14th century setting and the Franco-Norman rules... Hmmm, but then the Vikings still don't fit in. 

Oh boy, that rant went on longer than expected! Like I said, points that really distracted me in the book, but of which I was more forgiving when watching the show (other than the Red Paladins and co) because it was engrossing enough for me to ignore them (and they weren't mentioned as much).

For anyone who read this to the end, here's a fun bonus! A video on Thomas Wheeler's Instagram account of Katherine Langford (Nimue) reading the wolf fight scene from the book with split-screen showing that same scene in the show. Enjoy!