Hey! I know you really dislike the merlin finale, but I was wondering what you think about how they revealed Merlin's magic to arthur. Sorry if you've already talked about this. Thanks!
Hi! Yeah, you’re right, I do really dislike the finale X) And as for the magic reveal - aka the scene with the “i use it for you, only for you” line? Yeah, it’s not really my cup of tea.
I try not to talk about the finale too much, because I mostly try to engage with Merlin in a positive way and the finale is something about which I really only have negative things to say. It’s a failure of storytelling on a catastrophic scale, and I don’t think this scene is any better than the rest of it, personally.
It’s - it’s kind of hard for me to critique individual scenes in the finale, because for me the entire premise of the last two episodes is just so flawed that analyzing bits of it in more detail just feels silly, but some of the things I find unsatisfying about it are these:
- I don’t think Merlin would confess. I just don’t. Especially in a situation where it wasn’t unavoidably necessary. There was no reason why Gaius couldn’t just tell Arthur “we need to get you to the Lake of Avalon to be healed; Merlin will take you.” There wasn’t any inescapable need for Arthur to be told that Merlin has magic, and without being forced to, by circumstances beyond his control, I don’t believe Merlin would ever willingly give up his secret. (Maybe later, when they’re approached by soldiers and Merlin has no choice but to use magic to fight them off - but I don’t think Merlin would ever reveal himself without his hand being forced.)
- I do not think Merlin desperately scrambling to justify his existence as a person with magic by saying “I use it for you; only for you” was the right tone for the writers to have him take at the end of this show.
- to clarify: I despise that line. What message, exactly, are we trying to communicate here? The point of the ‘liberate magic from oppression’ storyline was that we were trying to get to a spot where people with magic could proudly say it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are. The story was supposed to be driving at the world’s recognition that there is nothing inherently wrong with having or using magic, and Merlin was supposed to be the one ultimately championing that cause. But instead we chose to end on a flinching, desperate note of ‘i have magic, BUT! i only use it for you, so it’s okay. i’m not bad like all those other people.’
That’s bullshit. Merlin should not have to provide a “but - ” at the end of “i have magic.” That is not the message this show was driving at for the previous five seasons. Merlin was supposed to reach a point where he could genuinely declare what Dragoon confuses Camelot’s dungeon guards with: i am who i am and i am who i was and i am who i always will be. And Arthur was supposed to reach a point where he would acknowledge that magical folk do not need to apologize or make excuses for their existence.
Moreover - the line ‘i use it for you, only for you’ is untrue, no matter how much shippers love hearing it. Merlin does not and has never used his magic solely for Arthur’s benefit. Never. Merlin uses magic for his own purposes, his own missions, for things he personally thinks are important. He protects Ealdor, hides Freya, helps Lancelot become a knight, retrieves the dragon egg, releases Kilgharrah, saves his mother, heals Gwen’s father, rescues little Mordred. He does his chores with magic so he can sit around and read books. He cleans stained shirts with magic so he can show off for his friend. He makes horses out of smoke and dragons out of sparks because it's fun. His magic is not and has never been a gift for Arthur alone; it’s part of who Merlin is.
I just think the show missed the mark with this moment. There is nothing about it that I find compelling or emotionally satisfying. It does not take Merlin’s character anywhere near the place where he was ultimately supposed to go. And trying to wrap up Arthur’s “change of heart” on magic in one episode was impossibly ill-conceived. It doesn’t feel believable. There is no way that a situation of this magnitude could have been resolved so quickly. The way they zip Arthur from “magic bad” to “magic good” does his character a terrible disservice. He’s never allowed to grow or come to the conclusion “magic good” on his own. He never has to work for it, so his turnaround feels completely empty. It’s not a victory. It’s a waste of his potential. He didn’t have to do any hard work to change himself, so he didn’t actually achieve anything.
I know there are other people out there who really like the finale, and that’s fine; I’m glad folks are enjoying themselves! It’s just not something I can engage with, personally. I don’t recognize the last two episodes as good storytelling, so most of the time I just try to ignore them and focus on other things.
