NEWSFLASH: The "Maeve Stole Temra" story is FAKE!

I have to preface this missive by saying that though I watched Mystic Knights back when it first ran on Fox Kids in 1998-99, and had recorded the episodes back then, it was a LONG time before I watched the entire series again; probably at least 15 years. I had moved and lost the tapes I’d made, and so when I first came back to the fandom after my hiatus, I had to rely on much more recent internet sources like the Wiki. So when I came across references to this supposed plot point of Nemain claiming that Maeve had stolen Temra from her, I was confused, as I didn’t remember such a revelation at all. But I DID remember moments from prior episodes that clearly established Maeve’s claim to the throne; the mention in "The Curse of Kells" about Maeve’s father as King of Temra, and later in "The Prisoner Prince" about Maeve’s grandfather as King of Temra, laying out a very clear line of succession that didn’t appear to leave any room for Nemain.

I wondered, was I just misremembering? It had been a long time since I’d seen the series, had I forgotten, or simply missed hearing a brief line of dialogue? It was on the Wiki, surely it was correct. And I’d read post-series fanfic that built on the idea; surely those authors had gotten it from somewhere, right? I was so convinced that I even preserved mentions of the concept when I did my initial spelling/grammar clean-up on the Wiki, in spite of that little voice in the back of my head. We’ve talked about the subject here on Reddit, too, so I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought this was real.

But sure enough, as I did my pre-watch for this week’s Watch-Along, a line of dialogue from Nemain reached out and smacked me in the face: "Maeve stole LUGAD from me." I went ahead and watched the final three episodes just to make sure, and… Nowhere in any episode does Nemain say anything about Maeve stealing Temra from her. All we get is Nemain bitching to Mider about how Maeve stole LUGAD from her. (and as I’ll go over later today during the Watch-Along, she’s actually full of shite on that too) So, I was wrong, or more accurate to say, my instincts and my memory were right in the first place and I should’ve trusted them rather than anything on other websites.

So where did this obviously wrong wrong WRONG idea come from and how did it get established within the fandom? The nearest I can guess, multiple someones probably misheard/mistranslated Nemain’s dialogue, put it on the Wiki, and it snowballed from there like some demented game of “telephone”. Probably just a silly accident, but now that we know, it’s time to squash this bug, burn its carcass and salt the ashes. Needless to say, all relevant Wiki entries will be edited by the end of today. I think I just found a new use for Rohan’s Dragon Torch… 😂

This also totally torpedoes all previous theories and discussions I’ve had regarding Nemain, what she knew, when she knew it, and so forth. It actually feels…quite liberating, in fact. My fanfic plot bunnies are finally fearing ME. 😈