For all the hype I remember for this show merlin is kinda terrible. Not in the "it's campy bad television and I hate fun" way but it has sinister themes and annoyingly inconsistent writing. It keeps teasing a better show with a bigger narrative with lasting consequences and real character growth but just falls short of doing or saying anything. Like I SEE the potential but Jesus this shit is so bad it makes me angry but it also a delicious type of garbage that I kinda love hating.
Also Arthur and merlin have no chemistry idk what crack y'all was smoking back in 2008 but them MFS are NOT fucking. now GWAINE AND MERLIN maybe just maybe. And only bc whenever gwaine is involved I think the things that make me dislike merlin as a character are diminished significantly.
One of my complaints is how the writers are much more concerned with maintaining some sort of status quo rather than tell a compelling narrative. I understand that its following an episodic formula but they can do that AND write a good story it has been done. Bc of this formula no one's character motivations make any sense any character development is reset immediately. Morganas descent into "evil" is sudden and cartoonish. Instead of slowly showing her growing isolation and disillusionment with Uther she is just suddenly evil and doesn't care about hurting the ppl closest to her??
The writers also seem to not understand how a prophecy works. If the prophecy is to come true why does merlin have to be reminded not to make certain decisions constantly and has to be the one to MAKE SURE it happens.
Uther isn't allowed to die by magic or Arthur is going to end up hating magical creatures anyways but when they had a perfect opportunity to show Arthur that Uther is a flawed tyrant and magic is just an objective force they??? Lied to him and inadvertantly reinforced his prejudice against magical creatures??(This goes absolutely no where by the way but more on that later) Also if Arthurs possible support of magical creatures is THAT flimsy that it would override his friendship with merlin then Arthur isn't an understanding and great king he has the exact same qualities and capacity to be a violent tyrant just like Uther which makes sense but they are t concerned with actually helping Arthur realize his father isnt a great king or even help groom Arthur into a better person that his father they're extremely unconcerned with actually giving Arthur any depth and actually dealing with how he should feel about his father's rule and how he is to be better than him and instead constantly restarts his character growth from ep to ep and give him very little agency over his actions and the things that happen to him. The show is far more concerned with...not commiting treason against Uther and flip flopping how we're supposed to feel about him??? Which isnt inherently bad. Ppl are multifaceted Uther can be reasonable and unreasonable he can be tryrannical but also a somewhat loving father. That would make more sense if they actually explored Arthurs conflicting feelings about Uther his rule and his role as his father but no they don't. And Uther is such a bad person that he has to be magically compelled to feel any sort of remorse(this also goes absolutely no where but it was fun to watch him cry like a bitch) but we're also supposed to watch merlin protect him for multiple seasons for some reason.
The show wants me to believe that Uther is unreasonable in his hate of magic and magical creatures but the show is also constantly reinforcing uthers ideology. Magical creatures and magic users are treated as automatically suspicious and malicious and are only treated as misunderstood and oppressed as long as they are intelligent, humanoid but most importantly nonviolent. Fantasy having themes of xenophobia and Christofascism in its portrayal of non human magical creatures as either "good or evil" isnt new. Man having dominion over non human magical creatures and decidedly killing them if they are malicious/evil in nature is a bit problematic but thats typical fantasy. it's the tremasnt of human magical creatures that tries to say something but what it's saying is disgusting.
The most egregious part of the show is how the themes of descrimination and liberation are handled and merlines relationship with those themes especially. Merlin is NOT a liberator. He's a slave catching centrist. He constantly punishes magic users who are literally trying to liberate themselves from an oppressive and violent ruler who literally kills them for just existing but their anger and noncompliance is vilified in the show. If they can't hide their magical nature then they must just allow themselves to die but if they can, they must assimilate and watch others die. Any sort of violent liberation is seen as wrong in the show, specifically treason... Merlin is a peace keeper protecting the status quo of both Uthers oppressive regime and the literal narrative.
But merlin is always right even when he's wrong and is never punished for his actions everything always just comes together in the end and merlin actions were actually heroic even if they're destructive and selfish. Merlin never has to over come any flaws. His impulsivity, naivety, and self righteousness always rewards him. He's constantly undermining the advice of a thousand year old dragon then running to him and not even saying sorry but constantly repeating this again and again with no intention of actually letting the dragon go just using and manipulating him. When he gets free he doesn't sympathize with kilgarrahs pain of being hunted and trapped or the last of his kind but immediately subjugates him with some innate ability he only just learned about bc he's a Mary fucking sue. In the socerers shadow he gives this whole self righteous contradictory speech to a grieving boy about honor and weaponizes his dad death to manipulate him into not killing his oppressor... He also randomly revealed his magic to him but allowed morgana to be tormented by her fear of Uther and her magic in isolation that isolation is what allowed morgause to manipulate her but merlin never offered her support and empathy but he gives it to this random dude he's known for like a day bc both their dads died...??? He picks and chooses who's a good or evil magic users, who is and isn't allowed grace and forgiveness, whose allowed to be saved and who must be punished. When Uther lives or dies. It's ANNOYING and I hate him.
The sins of the father was one of my favorite episodes. It highlights everything wrong with the show but also it's potential. Before this point I was annoyed with the show but still thought it just needed to find itself. I THOUGHT it was eventually gonna get better but that was before this episode. In the episode they reveal why Uther hates magic that his own misuse of magic got Merlin's mom killed espevially bc it was just to keep the Pendragon rule going. Arthur gets to meet his mom and learn what happened. Arthur gets angry and confronts his dad (the actor for Arthur really showed his ability in the episode it was the most compelling performance from him in the whole show so far probably bc the scrip for this episode was pretty good) and to stop it merlin lies and says morgause lied?? Which I am a little confused about. Morgause is vilified but this specific part I'm sure she didn't lie she was just using this to manipulate arthur and they had to lie to him to...fulfill the prophecy... Arthur can't kill his dad in anger bc that will make him evil or whatever. Yeah sure I can buy that So to deescalate the situation by lying and accidentally reinforcing his hate for magic. Cool sounds like great set up for future events but ... Nope this goes no where. We never hear about it again. Arthur as always has his entire character refreshed and basically doesn't even care anymore. He also doesn't actually care about magical creatures one way or the other. Arthur has been raised by his paranoid prejudiced father he would need actively to unlearn his bias and own hatred but that never happens instead it constantly reinforced by that episodes and the show. No Arthur like any rich white boy is unconcerned with the suffering of oppressed ppl. No He's more concern with duty and making sure he enforces his father rule but only sometimes rebelling when he personally feels like it. The show never challenges Arthur or Merlin I'm just supposed to believe they are good ppl trying their best. While Arthur fumbles around helplessly and merlin is secretly sabotaging other magic users and denying them justice and divinity.
So by the shows own themes violent liberation is bad and punishable by death. So oppressed ppl must resign themselves to a fascist ruling class and hope to outlive that ruling class while never taking any direct action. Hmmm I wonder why the white British writers think that 🤡
Anyways I'm only on s3 and I definitely will be finishing it bc I'm having a great time watching it with my friend but omg this show is terrible but yay for gwaine/merlin
Also ... Wtf what that episode where they gave merlin that weird awfully paced love story with the girl who was cursed??? That episode is fucking awful one of the worst.
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