okay but we need to TALK about how Merlin just casually gives merlin the most insane, compounding trauma and then expects him to go back to polishing boots like nothing happened
this is a teenager who shows up in camelot and within approximately five minutes is told by Gaius:
“hey so you have world-ending levels of power :) also if anyone finds out you will be executed :) have fun!”
and then Kilgharrah is like:
“your destiny is everything. your feelings are irrelevant.”
cannot tell anyone who he is
cannot be fully known by anyone
cannot even react honestly to the things happening to him
Will dies protecting merlin’s secret → merlin learns: people die if they know me
Freya dies in his arms right after he allows himself to love someone → merlin learns: if i love someone, they die
Balinor (his father!!) dies basically immediately → merlin learns: i don’t get to keep family
Lancelot sacrifices himself → merlin learns: good people die for me
Gwaine is tortured and dies → merlin learns: i can’t save everyone, even when i try
saving his life in secret
shaping his entire existence around this ONE destiny
and what does merlin get?
arthur finding out the truth for like five minutes and then dying in his arms.
no processing.
no support system.
no “hey maybe this boy has severe survivor’s guilt and complex trauma”
because merlin can’t even GRIEVE properly.
that balinor was his father
what lancelot actually did
how many times he saved arthur
so all of that grief just sits there. unspoken. unacknowledged. unresolved.
the responsibility for a kingdom
the knowledge that your loved ones died for or because of you
and the fact that the ONE person it was all for is gone anyway
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