So, let’s talk about the casting of Angel and the blind hatred some of the fandom apparently have towards her depiction of Guinevere, for no other reason than her racial descent.

Many people tend to bullshit their way through this accusation with claims on “historical accuracy”, but the main reason Guinevere is actually described as “fair” in the most original texts is because of the binary oppositions regarding religion — she’s meant to represent the pure, Christian ideal, as opposed to the Other — the pagans, the Saracens, who are always depicted as being “dirty” via means of their physical appearance. Her skin colour has little actual historical grounding; it’s enforced because of moral and didactic implications, as with everything in medieval literature.

The fluidity of Arthurian canon is one of the things that makes it so wonderful — Guinevere’s appearance is by no means the only detail which fluctuates throughout. There are no set rules or regulations as to how a particular character should look and I, for one, think that the BBC’s interpretation is fan-fucking-tastic because it actually breaks the pre-conceived medieval binaries — which are sadly still all too present in today’s society — and says, “Hey, you know what? This woman is actually stunning, men would totally fall at her feet.” And it’s so disappointing for some people to turn around and be like, “Ew, no, never.”

Because that’s the one thing with Guinevere. She is always beautiful. In the original Welsh legends, in the lais, in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, in Roman de Brut, in Chrétien de Troyes, in Malory’s Morte Darthur — regardless of the intricacies of her personality according to each author, her beauty is what sets her apart from everyone else, what makes Arthur and Lancelot (the greatest knight in all the land, btw) fall head-over-heels for her. That is the only huge consistency in Guinevere’s character throughout Arthurian literature — there is nothing about whether she has this-coloured hair or that-coloured eyes — and it’s actually really rather irrelevant because we know she’s gorgeous. (And don’t even try to tell me that Angel isn’t because fuck, no.)

But whilst on the subject of historicity, shall we talk about the fact that Mordred is Arthur’s son, incestuously conceived with his half-sister? Or that Uther dies at Arthur’s birth? Or that Agravaine is not Arthur’s uncle, but his nephew? Because I sure don’t see any complaints within fandom about that being dealt with differently on the show, and if people claim to be so interested in the Arthurian canon being dealt with accurately — which I don’t believe for one single second, tbh — then I think there are some slightly more important issues to raise than the colour of someone’s skin.