Skip to main content

merlin - How does T. H. White's Merlyn experience time?



In The Once and Future King it is clear that Merlyn was "born backwards in time", but I cannot determine exactly what that means.


In The Sword in the Stone, chapter three, Merlyn says:



“Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for the ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to join those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards, instead of backwards and inside out. But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having a second sight.”


...


“Have I told you this before?”


...


“You see, one gets confused with Time, when it is like that. All one’s tenses get muddled, for one thing. If you know what is going to happen to people, and not what has happened to them, it makes it difficult to prevent it happening, if you don’t want it to have happened, if you see what I mean? Like drawing in a mirror.”



In The Queen of Air and Darkness, chapter four, Merlyn mentions the Mafeking Night and the Boer War, which happened 1899-1902. Merlyn also mentions Victorian fox hunting and Henry the Third. King Arthur says, “I wish [Merlyn] had been born forwards like other people.”



How does T. H. White’s Merlyn experience time?




  1. Does Merlyn age in reverse? Does he physically grow younger as time advances like Benjamin Button?




  2. How does Merlyn experience memory? Does he see both the past, present, and future like an oracle or prophet? Or does he only see the present and future and not the past? The above passage makes me think that Merlyn "remembers" the future but does not remember the past.




  3. How does Merlyn experience time? Does he live backwards literally (i.e. if I spoke a sentence to him, he would hear it backwards)? Or does he go to sleep every night and wake up on the previous day with knowledge of all following days (like a twist on Groundhog Day)?





I would be interested in any additional passages in T.H. White’s books or interviews given that explain this concept in clearer terms. I am only looking for sourced answers to this question.



Answer



This view of Merlin is canonical with the original written translation of the Arthurian cycle, "Le Morte d'Arthur" In it, Merlin is said to "remember what is in our future", and to "have no knowledge of what is in our past". He physically does not age, and this is never explained, only mentioned. There is never any reference to his perception of speech and motion being backwards as well. All in all, there is no reason to think that T. H. White’s Merlyn is any different from canonical Arthurian myth. Merlin living backwards is mentioned in "Excalibur", "Camelot", and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" and a number of other stories.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more