The Winter King is an adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles books, all about King Arthur and the fight to protect England from Saxon invasion. The show ran its first season on MGM+ earlier this year. As a big fan of the novels, I was disappointed with how widely the show swerved away from the source material; for the first half of the season especially, sometimes I barely recognized the books I loved up onscreen. The show got harsh marks from audiences on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, but a lot of them were complaining for a different reason: they didn’t like that the show included Black people, such as Black actor Nathaniel Martello-White as Merlin.
A quick glance at the many one-star audience reviews will reveal how many people were put off by the color-blind casting specifically. “[A]nother race-swapping, culture-stealing, poorly acted, pseudo-medieval production to insult our intelligence,” writes one person. “[T]he program makers have thrown all that in the bin to make a WOKE version,” bemoans another. “But hey Merlin should improve the ESG score,” quips a third. You get the idea.
To these people, Cornwell has a response. “Well, if they’re critical on those grounds, they can write their own damn books,” said Cornwell on the official Winter King podcast.
Cornwell, who’s known for doing thorough research before writing his historical fiction novels, advised that Black characters in Arthurian Britian isn’t “out of the question.”
"Remember, this is taking place very shortly after the Romans leave Britain. And the Romans left Lord knows what kinds of people behind them. I mean, certainly people from Africa, from what we call the Middle East, as well as obviously all around the Mediterranean. They all came to Britain and there are going to be some of them left. Personally, I found the casting, if you like the colorblind casting, in the series to be very convincing, and it works."
Then there’s the character of Sagramor (Ken Nwosu), Arthur’s right-hand man, who was described as Black in Cornwell’s novels as well as in “various very ancient documents.”
“I know that some people thought Merlin couldn’t possibly be Black, but since watching the series I’ve actually found some medieval documents that claim that he was ‘dark’ – and they’re talking about his skin colour,” Cornwell added. “So I think [the casting director(s)] actually were ahead of the curve on that one. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a multicultural society, simply because of what the Romans had brought to Britain.”
The Winter King had a rough first season, but not because of diverse casting
This is a tricky topic, because while it’s absolutely true that many people review bombed The Winter King for silly racist reasons, I think there are legitimate reasons not to like the show. But voicing those reasons risks them getting confused for illegitimate ones. It’s important in these cases to make fine distinctions.
So here I go: while I have zero problems with a Black actor playing Merlin, I thought this version of the character sucked. In the books, Merlin is a wild, charismatic, trickster god-like figure whom I was always excited to read about. In the show, he’s a bland, standard-issue mentor type. And why is he so young? The books had a lot of fun playing with the wily old coot stereotype and I was looking forward to seeing that on the show. And don’t get me started on the time TV Merlin pulled a Jedi mind trick. I’m still mad about that one.
So I had a lot of problems with the show and with Merlin in particular, but none of them had to do with Black actors being a part of it, and that’s okay. You can stream all 10 episodes of The Winter King on MGM+ now. It will be available to stream on ITVX on December 21.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels