such_heights | Merlin Meta: Race and Gender Statistics

beccaelizabeth started this current meta trend off with statistics on Torchwood - out of the speaking characters, how many are female, how many non-white characters are there, and does it pass the Bechdel test (women talking to each other about something other than a man)?

dsudis crunched numbers for the first season of Stargate SG-1.

lefaym also did a post last year on Doctor Who and the Bechdel Test. (If anyone knows of other, similar sets of stats out there, I'd love to see them!)

So, I decided to run the numbers for Merlin.

A couple of notes - this is looking at speaking characters only, and though I've tried to be objective as possible it's possible I've overlooked things, misjudged things, or that there are simply two valid cases to be made. (Especially with regard to the Bechdel Test, because I really wanted 'The Moment of Truth' to pass, for instance, but I don't think it does.)

Episode Title	No. of Speaking Characters	No. of Women	% of Women	Bechdel Test?	No. of Non-White Characters	% of Non-White Characters	Death Tally
The Dragon's Call	12	6	50%	Pass	2	17%	1 WM 3 WF
Valiant	10	2	20%	Fail	2	20%	2 WM 1 NWM
The Mark of Nimueh	8	3	38%	Pass	2	25%	(none speaking, misc. plague victims)
The Poisoned Chalice	11	3	27%	Fail	2	18%	(none)
Lancelot	8	2	25%	Fail	2	25%	(none)
A Remedy To Cure All Ills	8	2	25%	Fail	1	12.5%	1 WM
The Gates of Avalon	10	3	30%	Fail	1	10%	1 WM 1 WF
The Beginning of the End	12	2	17%	Pass	1	8%	1 WM
Excalibur	11	3	27%	Fail	2	18%	2 WM 1 NWM
The Moment of Truth	10	3	30%	Fail	2	20%	2 WM 1 NWM
The Labyrinth of Gedref	8	2	25%	Pass	1	12.5%	(none)
To Kill the King	8	2	25%	Pass	2	25%	1 WM 1 NWM
Le Morte d'Arthur	8	4	50%	Pass	1	12.5%	1 WF

[code - WM = white male, WF = white female, NWM = non-white male, NWF = non-white female]
[All corrections on both my counting and my maths welcome!]

Overall Stats

Out of 42 speaking parts over the 13 episodes, 27 were white men, 8 were white women, 6 were non-white men, and 1 was a non-white woman, giving us a 76/24 male/female ratio and a 83/17 white/non-white ratio.

In posts in other fandoms, people have made reference to the way these reflect the society in which the show is set. Though I would expect (well, hope for), a roughly 50/50 gender balance, the show's too anachronistic to make it worth my while pulling up figures on the different populations in Britain in the Middle Ages - which means, of course, that the set-up of the show allows them to cast as diversely as they'd like.

I'm not going to make a lot of commentary of the above figures, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. All this really tells us is a baseline about who gets to speak, not anything else about representation or positive presentation. One last set of stats, however:

Congratulations! You've just ended up in Ye Olde Camelot. Here's how your survival chances are looking based on your gender and skin colour once you get there, assuming you get a speaking part.

If you are both white and male, you've got a 40% chance of dying.
If you're male but not white, you have a mortality rate of 67%.
If you're white and female it's 62.5%.
Good news, though! If you're female but not white, you have a guaranteed 100% survival rate. It's just that it's also 100% likely that you are in fact Guinevere.

eta: figures changed thanks to

heather11483's correction!
eta2: and again thanks to

oconel! (This, this is why I shouldn't be allowed near numbers.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okies, a proper reply now that I'm over my glee at seeing Merlin meta. *g* Thanks for putting these numbers together!

Firstly, that last line. Oh, Gwen. Oh, sweetie. ♥

So I knew there was some fail, demographically, but seeing it spelled out -- whew. Before seeing this I would've guesstimated that overall, the show passes the Bechdel Test, but not even half the episodes do -- The Moment Of Truth was so ensemble-driven that I was also hoping it would pass. But alas, I reckon they were talking about men or to men the whole time. *sigh* (It's funny -- at first I was 'oh! oh, but Gwen did talk to Hunith for like half a second... o wait, that was about Arthur and the food. -_-')

Interestingly, there also doesn't seem to be a strong relationship between percentage of speaking women in an episode and whether that episode passes the Bechdel test -- and indeed, the one where women were least prominently shown passes -- but of course this is because the entire weight of the Bechdel test rests on Gwen and Morgana's shoulders. *pets them* I can't think of any other women who interact with each other apart from Sophia-Morgana (and that conversation definitely didn't pass *g*). Gwen and Morgana are really the only females on the show who don't exist to further a plot (arguably). Even Nimueh doesn't qualify, which is a shame -- I would've loved for her and Morgana to meet.

Still, Gwen and Morgana's overall dynamic gets a lot of points as far as I'm concerned; they're woefully underused (especially Gwen) but what we do get to see of them is generally awesome. Most of the women have actual depth and strength as characters. (It kind of sucks to have to lower standards to be happy, but the fail isn't as epic as I've seen in many other shows. It's definitely no Supernatural. *g*)

As for the race numbers, those are probably least surprising and considering the time period I guess it's good to see some PoCs at all. Off the top of my head I think Gwen and Lancelot are the only speaking PoCs to've made it through the first series, though. :/

You're welcome! It was a fun way to procrastinate. :P

I don't know how The Moment Of Truth didn't pass! I could have sworn it would have! It's all feminist and everything! But, alas, under that set of criteria it's a no.

I can't think of any other women who interact with each other apart from Sophia-Morgana

The only non-Gwen-Morgana interaction I had was the first episode, where the sorceress and the serving girl have a scene together.

I still can't believe they killed Nimueh - what a waste!

Most of the women have actual depth and strength as characters.

Yes, this. They get treated badly by the show at times - I mean, I think Sophia is the only flat out 'evil' character, the other female villains have seriously understandable motivations and I'm not quite sure why it is they deserve to die, but that's a topic in itself.

It's the high death rate that bugs me about the non-white characters, really, because the show creators obviously have actually made the effort to cast them in the first place when high fantasy is all too good at not bothering at all. There is one other guy who survives, though! His name is Gregory, he's one of the guards, he has all of about two lines but they're said in separate episodes and everything! I had no idea it was the same actor both times until I watched the credits. (He's one of Lady Helen's guards in the pilot and he meets Arthur on the way back from getting the flower in 1x04.)

Yes, this. They get treated badly by the show at times - I mean, I think Sophia is the only flat out 'evil' character, the other female villains have seriously understandable motivations and I'm not quite sure why it is they deserve to die, but that's a topic in itself.

THIS. I think this deserves a whole other post altogether. More often than not I find the show's 'conscience' when it comes to whose death is a just one is more or less arbitrary and based on the main characters and who we're supposed to like, more than anything else.

I really wish Nimueh had survived. :/ So much wasted potential (and also, I didn't think she was any less sympathetic than Uther or even Gaius.)

The high death rate for PoCs and magical women who aren't Morgana are what bug me as well. I must rewatch the series soon, though -- didn't even pick up on that Gregory fellow. *g* Good to know someone else made it, heh.

More often than not I find the show's 'conscience' when it comes to whose death is a just one is more or less arbitrary and based on the main characters and who we're supposed to like, more than anything else.

For SERIOUS. It is Bad and Wrong to kill Uther even though he has killed lots and lots of people, but the rest of time Arthur and Merlin will quite happily kill their opponents and enemies rather than defeating them in other ways, and these enemies usually deserve death because they're killed (or attempted to kill) people along the way.

And with Nimueh, she doesn't even do that! Merlin asks her to do something, accepts the consequences, and when it doesn't go to plan he offers to sacrifice himself instead, but when Gaius gets there first he ... decides Nimueh must die. I have no idea why. It's very Uther 2.0, as it sounds like it's pretty much exactly that series of events that got magic driven out of Camelot in the first place, and it's not exactly Nimueh's fault!

And with Nimueh, she doesn't even do that! Merlin asks her to do something, accepts the consequences, and when it doesn't go to plan he offers to sacrifice himself instead, but when Gaius gets there first he ... decides Nimueh must die.

It wasn't Merlin's best moment. :/ I know he was angry, but since when is anger a justification to haul off and kill someone? He kind of forgot what Gwen told him in the previous episode. *g* And furthermore, Nimueh did nothing more and nothing less than she said she would (she told Merlin it wasn't his life that would be taken and he didn't even hear her), and what she was asked to do. She didn't make the rules, and she didn't deserve to die just because Merlin couldn't handle the consequences of his decision to play around with that sort of magic. It's something that I hope gets explored in the next series, but I doubt it does. :/ I seriously think that the show expected us to believe that justice had been served, or something, but I found it pretty unsatisfying, dramatically.

I'm not sure I like the message being sent (albeit probably unintentionally) by the fact that Magic is pretty much only okay when Merlin does it/when it's in the service of the king/prince, and it's never okay in the hands of women, so far. And I think the next series would benefit greatly from a female sorcerer who's benevolent. So far we've got Morgana, but chances are good that she will eventually do something bad even if it's for the right reasons. *dreads*

If I were better at organizing my thoughts I'd do a whole other meta on this stuff. :P

Merlin Meta: Race and Gender Statistics

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