In the end of Trollhunters, Blinky and Jim lead the surviving Trollmarket trolls to New Jersey in search of a new Heartstone…
What if the Heartstone was in Gotham?
When the trolls first arrived in America they passed that Heartstone by because the area was super cursed, but now they can’t afford to be choosy.
Fortunately Gotham’s lack of sunlight, large extensive sewer system, and abundant trash make it very habitable for trolls.
Unfortunately Gotham is still very cursed so Jim has his work cut out for him.
Merlin’s got him constantly running missions to deal with whatever’s wrong with Gotham and he’s trying to help Blinky manage a restless population of trolls who are mourning their old home and trying to settle into a dangerous new one, all while trying to keep the human population from noticing them.
It’s not long at all before the Bats notice the new presence in their city.
Content warning: implied sexual assault, violence, genocide.
Merlin was born in approximately 8,000 BCE in neolithic Britain. His father was a wizard of extraordinary power and Merlin's mother was one of his many concubines taken from a conquered tribe. Merlin's father, known as the High Mage to his followers, used his magical powers to control and subjugate all the tribes around him, even taking advantage of their ignorance of how magic worked to build himself up as a quasi-religious figure. Using everything from outright magical force to religious manipulation to keep people under his thumb. He fathered dozens of children with his various concubines, training the ones who showed magical potential to serve as his lieutenants. But when any of his children showed too much promise, when it appeared that one day they might surpass the High Mage in power, he had them killed.
Merlin's mother was one of the few people who hadn't bought into the religious fever his father spread, and when her son showed magical potential, the first thing she taught him was to conceal it. To never let his father, his master, know how powerful he truly was. Merlin spent his childhood walking a razor's edge, struggling to master control of his magic, all while keeping how skilled he was becoming a secret.
Merlin's father taught him very little, but Merlin still learned a lot from him, mostly about what a wizard shouldn't be. A bully, a charlatan, a false prophet; someone with phenomenal powers who only every used them for their own selfish, petty gains. From an early age Merlin knew that magic was capable of so much more than what the High Mage used it for, that with magic there was no need for people to suffer hunger and sickness. Merlin believed magic shouldn't be used selfishly, but for the good of everyone.
The greater good.
Merlin's childhood was harsh and brutal, aside from his father there were many other dangers, thuggish older siblings drunk on the power the High Mage let them wield, jealous younger siblings who would do anything to get ahead, zealots the High Mage employed to spy on his own children. He walked eggshells for years, everyday a struggle to survive, and he lost many people along the way; his mother, friends, siblings. But at last there came a day when Merlin was strong enough to challenge the High Mage.
The battle lasted days but in the end Merlin was victorious. Killing the High Mage and declaring his reign of tyranny over and a new age of peace and cooperation would begin. Merlin thought that with the High Mage dead the worst of his struggles were behind him.
He was very very wrong.
From the start Merlin's leadership was shaky, the people who enjoyed many privileges under the High Mage's rule were reluctant to give up their power. Then there were people that still clung to the quasi-religious beliefs that the High Mage had initiated. That claimed, that for all his tyranny, the High Mage was a holy figure and Merlin killing him was an act of the worst blasphemy. Then there were the people who were more open minded, but still couldn't understand the limits of what magic could and couldn't do. Merlin was constantly frustrated trying to lay out and explain to people things that just came so easily to him; that just because he could dam a flooding river didn't mean he could bring the dead back to life.
As hard as it was Merlin struggled on and kept at it, leading and protecting the community, teaching children talented in magic as his apprentices, determined to do better and use magic to create the perfect world he imagined.
Then one day tragedy struck.
When Merlin was just about 300 years old one of his young apprentices started pushing him about receiving her staff. Merlin had the utmost faith in her talent, but knew that staffs could be used to channel enormous amounts of power that required years of experience to control, experience that she did not have. He turned her down, reassuring his faith in her abilities and gently urging patience.
The apprentice didn't listen, and created her own staff in secret. And in her first time using it summoned more power than she could possibly control.
Merlin tried to help and contain the massive rush of magical energy but it was too late. The apprentice annihilated herself and everything in a twenty mile radius, and for all of Merlin's power he was only able to shield himself from the blast. Merlin stood there, surrounded by the ashes of everything he'd worked so hard to create, and was overcome with despair. Paralyzed with helplessness and the futility of his actions. Merlin fell to the ground and didn't move from where he lay.
He stayed there on the ground for hours, not moving an inch, not even when when day turned to night.
Not even when a troop of Gumm Gumms came passing through.
Spotting Merlin lying there, not responding to their spear prodding, the Gumm Gumms concluded that Merlin must be insane and tossed him in their cart to eat later.
This whole time Merlin didn't react in the slightest, allowing the Gumm Gumms to haul him underground. He had just resigned himself to being eaten when he realized that the Gumm Gumms hadn't brought him back to camp, they'd brought him to the front lines.
Where they were raiding a small troll village.
In that instant in his mind Merlin was a child again, helplessly watching his father and older siblings lay waste to an unsuspecting tribe with their magic.
Merlin shot to his feet and, using the full might of his magical skills and power, drove the Gumm Gumms away.
Once the Gumm Gumms were gone Merlin was about to sink into back into despair, when the trolls he saved approached him and insisted that he stay with them. Merlin still insisted he was no one's savior, but didn't have the will to resist them.
This is when he met Gorgus the Great, who would later be known as one of the greatest heroes in troll history, and one of Merlin's oldest friends.
Gorgus told him that just because he failed didn't mean he couldn't fulfill his goal of creating a better world, saving the troll village from the Gumm Gumms was proof that he was still capable of great things.
Merlin sharply retorts that he spent three hundred years trying to create a better world with nothing to show for it but ashes.
Gorgus slaps their knee and laughs, saying that they've been battling Gumm Gumms for over four thousand years, and that by troll standards Merlin's barely more than a child.
Stunned by this revelation, Merlin slowly starts to listen, realizing that for all his three hundred years studying magic, the world is so much larger than he imagined, and that there is much he does not know.
Merlin stays with the trolls for many years, flourishing under the tutelage of trusted teachers for the first time in his life, slowly regaining hope.
Magic can be used to help people, trolls and how they worked magic into their lives are proof of that. And while the world may never be perfect, Merlin can use his magic to make it a better place.
After two centuries studying with them Merlin bids his troll friends farewell and returns to the human world, determined to forge a better world.
And he does. Merlin spends centuries, which turn into millennia, traveling, teaching, sharing knowledge and building kingdoms. Sometimes he stumbles, people let him down and things fall apart, but Merlin always picks himself back up and keeps going, never giving in to despair.
But in refusing to give in to despair he succumbs to something else, cynicism. Little by little Merlin loses faith in the people around him, which leads him to start doing more dubious things in the name of the "greater good".
The young warlord will never listen to Merlin's sound advice, so why not manipulate him into making the right decision? Hearing that her son fled the battle like a coward will only drive the queen to hysteria, so why not lie and say he died heroically?
And as the years go by, Merlin going from a young man to an old one, having surpassed or outlived all the wizards before him something else creeps in, arrogance. He has lived so long and has seen so much he has become very wise, but no longer believes that he can be incorrect about anything. Unable to tell the difference between what he considers "the greater good" and what would truly be best for everyone.
By the time of Camelot Merlin has become almost unrecognizable to his young self. He still fights for the greater good, that hasn't changed, but he's allowed himself to fall far in what he considers "the greater good". Camelot may subjugate magical creatures and magical users, innocents undoubtedly suffering, but that's a small price to pay to protect the majority and ensure another figure like the high Mage doesn't rise. Arthur may be short tempered and thuggish, but he's a monarch that Merlin knows he can manipulate down the right path.
He'd be the first to admit that Camelot is far from perfect, but Merlin believes that it's the best that can be achieved.
It takes the efforts of his apprentice, a young wizard full of as much fire and idealism as he once was, to shatter Merlin's shell and have him believe again in things being better.
hi aaron. i have an ask about the ending of wizards!! (hoping it hasnt been asked yet)
i believe(?) i read that one of the ideas for post-full-troll jim was for him to become a changeling. was there a reason he turned fully human again instead? thank you!!
For Wizards, we’d originally planned for Claire to use her new mastery over dark magic to turn Jim into a changeling, just as Morgana originally created them back in the Middle Ages. (Merlin couldn’t do it or refused to acknowledge the possibilities its powers, because he never learned or trusted dark magic.) Jim would have been able to shift between human, half-troll and beast form at will — or perhaps via his emotions, not unlike The Hulk.
This ending was altered when those working on the follow-up film determined Jim’s arc for the movie would revolve around him coming to terms with losing his powers and being “merely human” during the magic apocalypse. Sadly, our ending simply wouldn’t work with that direction for the film.
For the curious, I’ve attached a small snippet of the original outline grid to see how it would have slotted in rather elegantly.
TOA Mermay Au 2025, my Seafolk, loveable giant Leviathan Aaarrrgghh!!!
Ok, so if wasn’t obvious, Aaarrrgghh is inspired by a Archelon, a giant sea turtle. Originally I had him as a type of blue whale, but I did some further exploration and this just fit too well.
Parts of his design are also taken from other reptiles, such as a snapping turtle for his spikes and horns.
Also disclaimer, Aaarrrgghh is actually bigger than his troll self in this Au, due to deep sea gigantism. But due to time and magic his flippers are powerful enough to support himself on land just like Blinky’s.
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