Morgana (Tales of Arcadia)/Synopsis

:NOTE: This article is only for Morgana's role in Wizards and Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans. For her role throughout the entire Tales of Arcadia franchise, click here.
The story of Morgan le Fay from DreamWorks's Tales of Arcadia franchise.
==Fighting Her Brother==
Morgana was the sister of King Arthur and childhood friend of Guinevere. As children, the three of them often went into the Wild Woods to play together to escape their troubles. However, while Arthur viewed magical creatures as dangerous and demonic, Morgana and Guinevere loved them, and even came across Nari, who they didn't know was part of the Arcane Order. Morgana and Arthur's different beliefs about magical beings weakened their bond, and it weakened more when she proved capable of using magic.
Eventually, Morgana became Merlin's student with whom she experimented on magic, while Arthur became the King of Camelot and became married to Guinevere. However, Guinevere went with Morgana into the Wild Woods one day and accidentally fell into a Stalkling's nest, and even though Morgana tried to save Guinevere's life, it was too late. Guinevere's death led King Arthur to go to the extreme and genocidal step against magical creatures, regardless of whether or not they were good or evil; because of his prejudice against magical beings, Morgana fought for the freedom of troll kind.
==Joining the Arcane Order==
During a battle just outside of Camelot, King Arthur cut Morgana's left-hand clean-off though she blamed it on Merlin, which caused her to fall to her death, with Merlin later forging the Amulet of Daylight from her left hand. Following this, Angor Rot dropped her dead body at the shore, telling her to rest in peace. Afterward, Morgana was revived by the Arcane Order consisting of Bellroc, Skrael, and Nari, who used her magic to make a green prosthetic to replace Morgana's left hand, and the latter was declared the Arcane Order's "champion".
Morgana's hatred of King Arthur and his genocidal attempts on magical creatures corrupted her, and she also developed an intense hatred towards her former master, Merlin. She even came up with the idea of a doomsday scenario called the Eternal Night, which she could use to commit genocide on mankind by troll kind destroying them all without the fear of being turned to stone by daylight. However, she genuinely cared for trolls with kindness and didn't want them to live under fear by mankind, and wanted to conquer the world through the Eternal Night to ensure their freedom.
Unbeknownst to the trolls in the Battle of Killahead Bridge, when Deya the Deliverer, the first Trollhunter, banished Gunmar and the Gumm-Gumms into the Darklands, Merlin and Morgana clashed to determine the world's fate. However, Merlin won the battle and trapped Morgana in the Heartstone in Trollmarket, which was beneath the land that would eventually become the town of Arcadia, although he lost most of his magic upon doing so. After his battle with Morgana, Merlin went to his tomb, where he slept for centuries.
Despite her imprisonment, Morgana's spirit was completely awake and able to frequently exit her body, as she continued her plot to free herself and Gunmar so she could eventually unleash the Eternal Night upon the planet. During this time, she became the spiritual advisor of an evil organization of changelings known as the Janus Order, led by Otto Scaarbach, who became dedicated to freeing Gunmar. They worshiped Morgana as their Lady Creator, who spoke to them through an old turntable.
Additionally, in the year 1297 AD after the Battle of Killahead Bridge, Angor Rot sought out Morgana and asked for power so he can protect his village from Gunmar and his armies. However, full of hatred of her former master Merlin for siding with Arthur when she tried to kill the latter, the Pale Lady instead turned Angor's offering into a curse and created a ring called the Inferna Copula, which she would use to enslave Angor Rot by encasing his soul, using him to kill Merlin's Trollhunters that succeeded Deya. At some point in her life, she lost the Inferna Copula, which eventually came to another one of her creations, Stricklander, by unknown means.
Meanwhile, it was because of Morgana's failure to bring about Bellroc and Skrael's version of the balance between magical beings and humankind as their "champion" that they gave up on bringing it back, despite never acknowledging the fact that their actions brought devastation instead of balance, and Nari still believing in the balance. Thus, the two decided to change their endgame goals completely to unlocking the Genesis Seals, the very essence of magic, so that they can unleash the Titans upon the world and connect them to the Heartstone located beneath Arcadia.
As Arcadia is the center of the universe, this would eradicate the universe completely, allowing the Arcane Order to remake the Earth in its own image. To kickstart their new plot, Bellroc and Skrael resurrected Morgana's brother, King Arthur, and turned him into the Green Knight to help them achieve their new goal.
==Massive Changes in History==
Morgana reappears after Douxie Casperan, Jim Lake Jr., Claire Nuñez, and Steve Palchuk time-traveled to the 12th century and are brought before King Arthur. She tries to convince him that his prejudice is unfair, but he does not listen to her. When King Arthur tries to have Sir Lancelot and another knight bring Jim into the sunlight to slowly and painfully turn him into stone, Claire uses her own shadow magic to bring the sunlight away from Jim, something Morgana is impressed by.
Both Claire and Morgana plead with him to let Jim live, which Arthur reluctantly does, but also has Sir Galahad throw him in the dungeon. When Arthur has Douxie return to Merlin and Steve go with Lancelot to the barracks, Morgana takes Claire as her handmaiden. After that, Morgana argues with Merlin about him creating the Amulet of Daylight when he tries to tell her why he is doing so, with Douxie trying to use it as a distraction so he could get the Time Map even though Merlin sees him and tells him to help him. She tells Merlin that creating the Amulet is pointless and that Arthur will eventually come after the both of us, and calls him a fool before leaving.
When Claire enters a room in the main castle in Camelot and reports for handmaiden duty, Morgana arrives and tells her that she witnessed her using shadow magic in King Arthur's courtroom. She then asks her what she knows about shadow magic and reminds her that she stood against Arthur to save a troll, claiming that magic is not weakness, but true strength. She demonstrates her powers by casting a spell on a painting of her and Arthur, slowly covering it in darkness as the darkness surrounds the painting of Arthur's face, but she hesitates and the painting returns to normal. When Morgana asks Claire if she will ever be able to save trolls from him, Claire mentions that she is stronger than she believes she is and that she might convince Arthur to free the trolls, but Morgana tells her that Arthur used to be a good person until Guinevere died, though she must do what she can to end his prejudice.
Unfortunately, Arthur overhears this and accuses Morgana of treason, telling her that she is blinded by her sympathy towards trollkind and that they never quit attacking Camelot. Morgana calls him out for driving innocent trolls out of their homeland and imprisoning them in his dungeons, but much to Morgana's horror, Arthur concludes that he'll kill all of the imprisoned trolls at dawn to protect his people. Later on, Douxie and Claire help Jim and the trolls escape from their dungeons, and as Jim and Claire are about to be killed by Galahad, Morgana saves Jim and Claire's lives by making it look like a dragon is near and causing Galahad to flee in terror, thus playing a crucial role in the trolls' escape from Camelot as Claire uses her shadow magic to block the sunlight so the trolls can flee. Afterward, Morgana thanks Claire for helping free the trolls and tells her that she will deal with Arthur.
==Rebellion Against Her King==
After the trolls' exodus from Camelot into the Wild Wood, King Arthur sends Morgana to his throne room and accuses her of being the one who ultimately freed the trolls, threatening her life that if she doesn't help him kill the trolls who fled to the Wild Wood, he will execute her. When she follows him into the Wild Woods, they try to chase down Jim and Callista but lose them, so they venture out on foot. Along the way, Morgana tells Claire that Arthur accused her of treason and that she is the only person that she can trust, but she doesn't mention what made Arthur stop trusting her. Douxie later uses his magic to help Arthur and Morgana remember their past in an attempt to get them to reconcile, but it proves futile when Lancelot tells Arthur about a Gumm-Gumm wandering in the woods, and he and his men kill it despite Morgana's pleas. After Bular is captured by Arthur's knights, he decides to have him taken to Camelot to be killed after a private tournament, and Morgana questions him who is the real monster.
Further, into the Wild Wood, Morgana is told by Arthur that she must join the right side and that she can only return if she kills any troll that comes in her way, but she refuses to be obedient to him, which is made clear when she helps Jim back up after he stumbled while running and attempts to draw Arthur and his knights away from him and Claire. However, Arthur pummels Jim to the ground, realizing that his suspicion of Morgana turning against him and helping the trolls was true. He reminds her of what would happen to her since she didn't kill anyone along the way and attempts to execute Jim on the spot, but she uses her Shadow Staff to defend him from her brother and immediately fights the latter, but Merlin blasts her magic against her. Feeling betrayed by her own master, Morgana declares everyone around her as traitors, including Douxie, Archie, and Claire, even though they were trying to calm her down. She creates shadow versions of herself to fight them all off, resulting in a battle during which Morgana tries to kill Arthur, but he cuts off her left hand and she falls to her death off of a cliff, her dead body being washed away by the ocean waves.
Eventually, Morgana's corpse is found floating in the Black Sea by Angor Rot, who feels sorry for her and drops her corpse off at shore, saying that he hopes that the spirits will guide her home. The Arcane Order soon finds her corpse, and Nari revives her creates a green prosthetic where her left hand used to be. When Morgana asks her why she was resurrected, Bellroc tells her that she will be the Arcane Order's champion. Soon, each member of the Arcane Order has been introduced afterward. Bellroc and Skrael tell Morgana that they have watched over the magics ever since the stars were young, but they saw mankind destroy the balance between the magic and themselves, as they tried to destroy her. They also tell her that she can correct mankind's mistakes because while she is human, she fights for the magical beings, and they don golden armor on her created by their magics, to which Morgana accepts and becomes a member of the Arcane Order. While Morgana continues to scheme with them to kill Arthur and thus end his prejudice, she quickly finds Claire and Archie spying on her through the Shadow Realm, and chases them out.
==Plot to Assassinate Arthur==
It turns out that Morgana's plot was that to send a Changeling named Janus disguised as a normal civilian of Camelot to kill Arthur while he is busy at the same tournament he created, which was made to further prepare for the war against Gunmar and where the tournament's winner is given the honor of slaying Bular in front of the crowd.
Claire arrogantly comes to a false assumption that the Knight of Skulls is Morgana's champion who wants to kill Arthur just because she heard him saying that he needs to achieve victory for his "dark queen", so she follows him into the tournament while wearing purple armor under the alias "Sir Clairee of the House of Nuenz". She uses magic against him and demands to know Morgana's location, but he doesn't know because the queen he serves is Queen Sophia of the Dark Isles. However, Claire soon saves Arthur's life as he is about to be killed by the Changeling and the latter is killed by Douxie and Merlin, but not before freeing Bular. After her plan fails, Morgana tells Bellroc and Skrael that it is only the start.
Morgana then ventures to Gunmar's location and tells him that she was responsible for destroying Arthur's keep, and gives him and Bular the offer of achieving freedom through the Eternal Night, which they accept. Gunmar later reports to Morgana that Arthur has sorcerers of his own and that they won't be tricked by her Changelings anymore, and Morgana enchants his Decimaar Blade so that he can use it to brainwash anyone to his will. Gunmar then uses it to create a Gumm-Gumm out of green crystals and tells the Gumm-Gumm to bring Morgana to him, but because the witch is standing in the sunlight, the Gumm-Gumm crumbles to stone. Morgana orders Gunmar to create a Gumm-Gumm army, and he tells her that their enemies will tremble.
==Finding Repentance==
Despite her imprisonment, Morgana is eventually freed from the Shadow Realm by Bellroc and Skrael during the 21st century because of them using a ritual that ultimately destroys the Amulet of Daylight, so that they could use her as their pawn once again, even though she was in peace when she was in the Shadow Realm. Morgana becomes remorseful for her actions, and it causes her to turn against the Arcane Order and redeem herself.
She also works as a team with Claire as she tries to save Arthur's soul, while Claire tries to save Jim's. However, Arthur refuses to let Morgana help him because he believes that he is beyond redemption and that he has to redeem the world by remaking it under the name of the Arcane Order. Morgana continues to fight her brother to get him to change, but he fatally wounds her by thrusting one of his shards into her abdomen. In her final moments before her death, Morgana redeems herself by lifting up one of Camelot's remains to crush King Arthur.
Morgana reappears in Camelot's castle in the afterlife with Douxie and Merlin, as Douxie fell to his death and Merlin was killed by Arthur. As Merlin and Morgana live peacefully in the afterlife, they walk out the door together while Douxie returns back to the planet Earth.
Category:Synopsis