In today’s procrastinating I’m wondering who Judson was in history. I mean he was the first Librarian, an immortal like Jenkins, and I’m kinda assuming he took on a different name just like Jenkins.
Jenkins was Galahad. The villain in season one was Duloque (Lancelot) and Morgan le Fay made an appearance. We saw a little of the Lady of the Lake and of course Excalibur is a big deal. Duloque wanted to wind back the clock to when magic ruled the world – the time of Camelot. Is it much of a leap to think that the library was formed after the fall of Camelot?
I’ve said before that I think the library has more people tied to it than the ones we’ve seen, in immortality terms anyway. Otherwise how are Jenkins and Duloque immortal? I do think that tethering and the immortality component are not the same. You have to be immortal to tether but can be immortal without tethering (being the moral anchor).
My pet theory is that Judson was Percival. He was the original knight who searched for the holy grail (before Galahad ‘took over’) which is a nice thematic nod to how Jenkins took over management of the library after Judson.
Jenkins said that Merlin’s powers were fearsome. I can’t remember if I’ve posted here my theory that they discovered how to become immortal after Merlin’s death or not. I sort of headcanon that if Merlin had still been alive then it would never have happened, and maybe Camelot wouldn’t have fallen. I figure that maybe due to finding the grail, they magic-up a way to be immortal and then Lancelot makes his play to be King of the world. Arthur is killed, Camelot is consumed by war, with magic getting thrown around so many civilians are killed as the knights choose sides.
I know Flynn said that magic was drained off into artifacts but that never made sense to me. Ley lines, magic, is part of the Earth and therefore should renew themselves. The stone was referred to as a lock, with the sword being the key. What if instead of magic slowly disappearing, instead someone locked it away? Maybe it was even Arthur and the strain killed him. That would have ended the war, as there wouldn’t be all that magic to throw around anymore. That would also explain why the library was formed “to keep magic out of bad guys hands” – the only magic left in the world, aside from the trickle that kept them immortal etc. was in the artifacts.
Judson hoarded them like a dragon, content to just keep them out of Duloque’s hands. Jenkins saw no harm in research because maybe he was a “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” kinda guy. Should things ever go wrong, it’s better to have a few tricks up the sleeve. He didn’t have the power to put anything into action (like the magic door) until magic returned to the world, but then stuff like that wouldn’t be needed unless magic was around once more. Dangerous times, desperate measures.
Now I always wondered how come Flynn didn’t know Jenkins when that librarian from the past, Darrington Dare, did and Jenkins said “pleasure to serve you once again sir” which comes back to what I said about the annexes yesterday. Darrington Dare was Sherlock Holmes era. Jenkins went to parties with Dorian Gray which was about the same time – they were in London. So what if back then Jenkins was at the annex in London?
For an immortal 10 years is probably the blink of an eye and Jenkins was very much “librarians die, we go through them like tissues” at the beginning of the series. Also it’s like Eve said to Nicole Noone “you’ve spent your life saying goodbye”, it must be hard for an immortal to get close to people because they die. Jenkins took some time away from the library in Shakespeare’s time, and perhaps isolating in the Oregon annex was another time-out.
Which means that for today I just have one question left. If there are annexes, especially a lot of annexes around the world, why did Flynn not know about them? Is that because they got closed/shuttered mostly with the advent of jet travel? Enquiring minds want to know.
