Ah, yes, a widely debated thing! I'm not sure what they did with the characters, I'm to be honest not sure it was in their favor!
disclaimer: I don't own the series or the folklore at all!
warning: character smashing and some language
Chapter two: the characters
Ugh…what's there to be said about this segment other than there are characters who make me want to reenact a scene from American Psycho due to how either stupid, childish, arrogant or downright egotistical they are!
Firstly, Robin Hood himself…..oh, yes this smug little pompous windbag is supposed to be the hero of the story, the problem is that in this series he is too idealistic and at times full of himself, but if that sense of idealism is shattered, then you better hide because he can be pretty dare devilish and unstable, extremely prominent in 'Eclipse' (season 3, episode 1)! I mean at times he's genuinely a great guy to hang around and have a few….squirrels with, but not sure he'd be pretty good hubby material, if you know what I mean, but he's not as bad as 'Tall, dark, and made adult women's panties go 'poof!'' that I'll talk about shortly, but he was the reason Mr. 'leather clad psycho obsessive bad boy's' sister ultimately turned evil, not cool, dingus, not cool at all.
Second, Marian of Knighton, yes she's aloof, cold and very 'you broke my heart, yet I can't tell you I love you because another batsh*t crazy in love suitor wants my hand!' in the first and most of the second season, but that pretty much gradually melts, before ultimately being 'plooped' in a fireplace, and on top of that, she's a sassy badass in this series. She's also ridiculously stubborn to a certain degree that's pretty much 'you're faffing reckless!' considering it's especially pumped when her father, Edward of Knighton dies in Season 2, Episode 7. And apparently love is blind…..and makes us idiots as demonstrated in Season 2, episode 13….oh, yes, this controversial episode! So, Marian, Guy, and the King are in this square in the holy land and Guy is at this time adamant about making Marian his Lady Gisborne, to where he'd take her by force as his bride if it was very necessary. I think we know how that worked out…as demonstrated here:
Me: *is in the holy land, trying to get Marian to let Gisborne down easy* Ok, Marian, no pressure, but you are going to have to let him down gently!
Marian: stop! It's over, Guy!
Me: not quite the start I had in mind, but do you…
Guy Get out of the way.
Marian: all this time I've been fighting for England, you think I'm going to let you kill England?!
Me: Ok, now you're starting to turn into Robin!
Guy: get OUT OF THE WAY! *as he's swinging a sword*
Marian: You're going to have to kill me first!
Me: Ok, now you're just asking to be dead! *sarcasm*
Guy: No, we're going to get out of this, I'm going to do this thing, and I will have power beyond measure, we will be together.
Marian: *smiles before laughing* I'd rather die than be with you, Guy of Gisborne.
Me: no, nooo! No, bad Idea, no extremely bad idea, Marian! What the heeeellll are you doing?!
Guy: *is pretty much shocked as he says 'no'*
Marian: I'm going to marry Robin Hood.
Me: oh, you're so dead at this point, Marian! Why would you say that to the one person who wants to kill your true love and is more crazy about you than normal?!
Marian: I love Robin Hood….I love Robin Hood….
*Guy pretty much stabs her before I leave, wanting a Shirley Temple and some quality time with Top Gun*
Yeah….why would you say 'I'm going to marry Robin Hood' to the one person (Or one of maybe three or four people) who wants Robin Hood DEAD!? Oh, and it gets even worse! Apparently on a website dedicated to TV, book, movie, etc. tropes, in the 'fridge' trope, the writers admitted to killing off Marian because they 'wanted to take something precious away from Robin'…mission accomplished because the ratings PLUMMETED from that time forward and the writers had to do something to make Season 3 extremely interesting for what's left of the viewers still even watching this at the time! And I feel bad for Robin, he finally married the woman he loved…only for her to die in 5 MINUTES!
And finally…the one character who PEEVES me badly…everyone's favorite leather chaffing henchman, Guy of Gisborne. What is there to say about Guy in the series? He's vain, arrogant, temperamental, horrendously insecure, crazy and the worst assassin in history! Allow me to explain that part, he failed to kill not one….but FOUR PEOPLE! (Not sure if Isabella even counts to be honest and Marian was...well, we've seen it.) He failed to kill Robin Hood a hilariously high amount of times, failed to kill King Richard not once but twice! Failed to kill Prince John, and gods only know how he majorly botched killing the Sheriff of Nottingham! I know what some of you are thinking: 'at least he's good with kids, right?' *smashes the wrong answer buzzer button* Do I need to remind you he abandoned his infant son and lied to the mother of his illegitimate child about putting the child at a church?! (I'm not sure if it was ever explained in that episode since I never watched it!)Very contradictory considering that he's not about killing kids or anyone for the sake of getting a pleasant high! And his sister Isabella (We'll get to her!), he could have killed her, but chose not to….big mistake, doofus, I know the whole 'Ohana' thing…but the Gisbornes…yeah, doesn't apply for crap to those people. And also, there's this running gag that has gotten so old, it turned to ash faster than Guy's imaginative happy as hell world with Marian did when he killed her! And that's the whole 'Guy gets stabbed in the back' shtick, how ironic that the one person who didn't do that was his arch nemesis himself! Oh, and don't forget 'plot induced stupidity', how did the writers get away with writing someone who's 'Intelligent, cunning, good with a sword—'*careless whisper by George Michael starts playing before I smash the music player with Mjolnir* NOT THAT SWORD, PERVERTS! Get your mind out of the gutter! Where was I? *thinks for a moment before a proverbial light bulb shines above my head* Oh yeah! 'A skilled leader, great at combat, etc.', pretty much an idiot in many episodes, unless he's deliberately oblivious to what's going on around him! And sure, he has a softer side….but it's only shown a hilariously short amount of times! Like maybe 5 or 10 times at least!
Oh, and remember Season 2, episode 8? When Marian goes to the castle to save Robin Hood's life on top of getting Guy to leave her alone? Yeah, they're in a private room and Marian pretty much tells Guy that she's possibly 'going to be a nun', when in actuality she joined Robin's gang, and to pretty much leave her the hell alone! But of course, Guy doesn't buy it a single bit! And what does he say to Marian after she says she needs time to grieve over her dad's death? 'What better way to grieve, than to create new life?' that's right, he basically said to her 'You can cope with your dad's death by having sex with me and having my kids! But you need to actually marry me first in order to do that.' dude….you're majorly screwed in the head. But, this is the medieval times, and women didn't have much of any rights back then, noble, royal or peasant! Oh, and here's another kicker: again, from TV tropes, Richard wanted to make Guy as 'creepy as possible' when it came to his interactions with Marian, especially those kisses…may I say 'epic fail' because it had more women turned on than creeped out!
Friar Tuck doesn't really peeve me since I do like badass people, and especially since he's good with weapons and herbs, not to mention strategy advice!
Kate of Locksley…..oh, this bitch got on the nerves of everyone who watched Season #3, her voice is so….shrilled to where it's like nearly banshee wailing, but not quite there! Not only that, she gets herself into so many situations, ghostly Marian almost gave up hope on King Richard even coming home from the crusades! And Robin has the balls to say that she's compassionate like Marian…..HOW?! She nearly got raped multiple times, got herself kidnapped again multiple times! Ugh…she was the worst replacement….but she's not the only one in the useless and stupid love triangle to replace an even more complicated, yet deadly (literally!) love triangle, oh no!
Isabella of Gisborne…..she reminds me of some crazy bitches I've only seen in Maury and Springer along with some LMN stuff, movies and TV shows! We first see her in season 3 episode 5, when she is running away from her abusive douche of a husband's men and Robin kind of mistakes her for a decoy at first until she tells him after pretty much stopping Guy from striking the final blow on Robin, and it really doesn't help that Guy had sold her into marriage with Squire Thornton (I think that was a bit of a nod to Richard Armitage's character of John Thornton, the Northern England mill owner from Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Pride and Prejudice-esque' novel North and South!) for a fair price because they were homeless after their land and Locksley merged and they were banished due to having no lands any longer as well as a French mother….Francophobic/Xenophobic much? But bear this in mind: France and England back in the days of ye olden medieval times were bitter enemies in a feud, and that's a fact, history buffs (Watch season 3, episode 10 to see what started the feud between Gisborne and Robin because it will take too long to explain and everyone who watched the whole series would know about that episode!). She goes from a good guy to a bad guy thanks in part to Robin, who like Marian, kind of leads her on in this….relationship? Though to be honest, it's no friends with benefits relationship, I think…
What to even say about the characters? Some are good, some are bad, but then there's the so bad it's tragic type of characters! And the only other issue with this, apparently they tend to forgive people faster than the Flash can run around the world! And King Richard? He tries to kill the outlaws after automatically believing an emissary of the Sheriff of Nottingham in disguise when he tells him that Robin is going to kill him in the holy land….ugh….impulsive much?