I’ve been rewatching Merlin and I have genuine thoughts about it
One is that it only makes sense is Merlin has unrequited romantic feelings for Arthur- otherwise a lot of his choices make no sense.
EVEN SO morally the entire series is extremely centrist if not blatantly conservative. We are asked to sympathise with a genocidal king and see his perspective as justified meanwhile those of whom who critique him are labelled as bad. A handful of those are coded as Indigenous folk.
Every “villain” is justified, if not entirely ethical. Many “plots” to assassinate the king are done so without much cruelty and attempt to minimise collateral damage. It makes no sense that these attempts of Uther’s life are framed as particularly egregious when they’re actually very merciful.
There’s many missed opportunities of development and depth of character. We only ever see Morgana develop. Characters are given development within an episode and then it’s reversed as soon as the next episode begins.
Anthony Head is a fantastic actor and I love him. He steals every scene he is in and even in plot lines that cheapen his character he still knocks it out of the park.
Narratively Gaius and Hunith should have died. It leaves Merlin without the opportunity to grow and develop his own moral backbone. This may happens. In particular Gaius is a cheap was for the directors to have an exposition dump and not have any faith in their audience.
Likewise, having the Magic reveal ONLY AT THE VERY END is a missed opportunity for development, a changed dynamic, and so many sick storyline’s that would make it interesting. But the directors evidently didn’t trust the audience enough to stay without the suspense of the reveal.
Gaius is an awful person who caused the death of many of his friends and of innocent people- children explicitly are included in this. He is not punished by the narrative for this. The story believes that turning a blind eye to the death of a people is morally okay.
I disagree with Merthur as a concept. For one- narratively as I said I believe it only makes sense if Merlin’s feelings are unrequited and painful for him. Secondly, Arthur is abusive and cruel. The dynamic would indeed shift if the magic reveal was included in this but again- the power dynamic and the tension of both being afraid of each other would make far more sense and be far more narratively satisfying if it were Merlin’s unrequited feelings for Arthur.
Why does Merlin never actually break down? Why does he never get a moment where in his grief and rage and trauma we see a full outburst of his power?
Katie McGrath is so gorgeous she makes me not care about how egregiously historically inaccurate her costuming is I do not care.
I had another point but I forgor.
I will continue this thread as I continue my rewatch.
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