A Hero Apart

There's a lot that went into the character of Morgan, but her original conception came from the question: what does a character in the 'position' of Kamen Rider look like in a world like this?

Hongo Takeshi, the original Rider, was rebuilt by the villains as a weapon of conquest, but turns against them to fight his own kind and the power-structure they represent. The Ulster cycle doesn't have a parallel figure; its heroes will turn against a bad king if they suffer a serious betrayal of trust, but they are fundamentally bought in to being human superweapons to further political or military goals.

This doesn't mean it has nothing in the way of inspiration for me. Cú Chulainn is set apart from his fellow warriors in his own way. He's not a standard burly bearded paragon; he's a weird little murder machine with multicoloured hair and eyes. His body is strange and malleable, alternately beautiful and monstrous. And though he's not actually quite the best warrior in Ireland in his day*, the gap between him and most of his colleagues is significant enough to cause jealousy. His lack of traditional masculinity in particular produces a lot of reactions, from discomfort (the Ulstermen in The Wooing of Emer) to constant challenge and doubt (many of his opponents in Táin Bó Cúailnge) to sensual admiration (Emer in Bricriu's Feast). (If this is a topic that interests you, Finn Longman has written very eloquently on a transmasculine reading of Cú Chulainn)

Morgan, a transgender woman, is obviously coming from somewhere different on that front; but I still wanted to capture the sense of separation and unease. A notable thing about Mac Da Tho's Pig is that Cú Chulainn isn't in it; the central hero there is Conall Cernach, likely Ulster's champion in older traditions, and more of a conventional one. Everyone cheers when he enters the hall, and he takes a big bite of the pig but still leaves the Ulstermen more than the Connaughtmen, and leads them to a subsequent sweeping victory. Many of the differences in my riff on the episode come from swapping him out for a more Cú Chulainn -like figure. Morgan is a useful ultimate weapon, but the Gordians aren't sure if they actually want her around, both because of her basic differences in bearing and because her strength and appetites are so over the top they don't leave room for anyone else to get a moment of glory. She saves them (from poisoning) only accidentally through that very greed, leaving a note of simmering resentment.

So all that formed the base for presenting her as a figure apart from her peers in rejecting the system they exist in. There's more to say about things like honour and gender in this setting, but that's best saved for after the second story is out to illustrate my points.

(* If you're curious, warriors Cú Chulainn couldn't beat in a straight fight and had to do something considered dishonourable to win against include Aoife, his son Connla, Fer Baeth, his boyfriend Fer Diad, and guy who actually isn't related to him Cú Roi. You could also interpret that he couldn't have beaten Scathach fairly from the way he ambushes her, but maybe he was just trying to save time)