Reassessment of Morgan le Fay
From the late Middle Ages onwards, Morgan le Fay has not been portrayed as the independent ruler completely apart from Arthur and his world that she originally was. Nor do we see how she governs her realm from the inside. Compared to our extensive knowledge of Arthur’s rule of Camelot and all its inner workings, we know next to nothing of Morgan’s rule of Avalon.
This feels almost like a deliberate omission. How would Morgan rule the island of Avalon and the other multiple realms of which she is Queen – the Valley of No Return, the underwater lake realm, the forest realm, the mountain volcano palace of Mongibel, or the palaces within the Fata Morgana mirage itself? What would her leadership entail? What would it look like? How would it be structured? As a woman uninfluenced and unconstrained by a male-dominated world and man-made institutions, would she do things differently? If so, how? And, equally importantly, how would she have got to that exalted position? Where would her journey have started and how would it have evolved? What would it have been in her childhood, her background, her education, her experiences, and her development that influenced her, shaped her, and enabled her to reach that point?
These are some of the broader themes the Fata Morgana Series of novels is seeking to explore. By journeying with Morgan from a very young girl raised in a mortal world of all-male leaders to becoming to the Fata Morgana, the Morgan le Fay of legend, the series shines a new light on how a much-maligned female character became a powerful and independent leader. Through a series of adventures in the magical and mortal worlds, the novels examine how Morgan learns the skills to be a ruler in her own right, using her intelligence, her curiosity, her willingness to learn, her gifts, her compassion, her empathy, her anger, her sense of justice, and her determination to build a better world for all as the driving forces behind her leadership. A heroine and leader to whom, it is to be hoped, 21st century male and female readers alike will be able to relate to and with whom they can all sympathise.
