#about merlin

[goth-emrys]

Arthur's fantasy about being a nobody farmer STILL includes Merlin-

[merlinsbbeard]

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[panharmonium]

why are you being like this?

people i’ve met...they’re not like you.  they don’t care.  i don’t matter.

don’t ever think that.  we all matter.

i have to talk about merlin in ‘the hollow queen,’ which is an episode i really do appreciate, despite the fact that it’s part of the enchanted!gwen arc, which isn’t my favorite.

the usual disclaimer applies: i am doing this rewatch because i never finished season 5.  i don’t know how this show ends.  if you are reading this and want to engage with me, please be gentle and avoid spoilers for the last four episodes of this season - i appreciate you all very much for protecting my very late discovery of this show!  <3

and now, to the point, which is this: 

merlin looks happier walking around with this “druid” kid in the woods than he ever does in camelot at any other time this season.

and granted, maybe “happy” isn’t quite the right word to use, because "happy” for merlin now doesn’t even come close to what it was even just two seasons ago - but there is this quiet enjoyment to what he’s doing.  there’s a contentment.  he smiles a lot in these scenes, when we can practically count on one hand the number of times he’s smiled in episodes 1 through 7.  he’s smiling when he shows up in the woods and tosses daegal a packet of breakfast, when daegal insists that his arm doesn’t need treating, when they’re sitting on the log talking about gaius, when merlin tosses him the extra apples - even when merlin is showing him how to bandage his leg, after merlin has already been betrayed to morgana and subsequently rescued.

i think there’s something to be said about this, in terms of where merlin is in season 5 vs where he actually wishes he was.  in terms of what he’s doing, and what he actually enjoys doing.  in terms of what he has to be, and what he could be, if he were only given the space.

this episode really makes me think, but i’m not sure i’m going to be able to articulate my thoughts in a way that makes sense.  it’s just - the thing that this episode makes so clear is that - merlin is so obviously gifted at other things than his mandate to ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die,’ and he so obviously has other things that he cares about, things that his “mission” has made it impossible for him to pay enough attention to.  for example - he’s forced to spend all his time and energy protecting a regime that hates him, and there are a lot of downsides to that, but one of them is that he hardly ever gets to connect with his own people.  and merlin so obviously cares about them, like - every time he comes across someone who is the slightest bit like him - freya, little mordred, gilli, this new kid daegal - he feels an automatic sense of responsibility for their safety, an automatic kinship with them.  he wants to help them.  he belongs with them.  but it has always been difficult for him to help them the way he wants to, just by virtue of his situation.  and in season 5, it’s doubly hard, because he just doesn’t feel like it’s within his mandate anymore.  

merlin in season 5 has no room in his life for anything besides ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die.’  and even before season 5, his life had been slowly constricting around him, until it couldn’t accommodate anything other than his “destiny.”  but merlin’s commitment to that destiny has stolen so much away from him, so many opportunities - and it’s easy to forget that his life could be more.  that he has more to offer than just ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die.’  merlin forgets it himself - after all, he initially resists going to help daegal’s sister because he just doesn’t feel like he can.  he doesn’t feel like he can fit this into his life, however much he wants to.  he can’t leave arthur alone.  

but once he’s out in the woods, he’s so much more...at ease.  he’s happy to sit and patch up this kid’s wounds and talk to him about living in camelot with gaius.  he’s happy to give this kid all of the apples he has in his bag.  he gets a kind of quiet fulfillment from walking this kid through bandaging a leg wound and telling him he’s done it well.  he laughs when this hapless young person walking next to him is snapping his fingers at bugs like, “if i catch this fly, i’m going to eat it.”

this episode makes it so clear that merlin has gifts outside of ‘making sure arthur doesn’t die.’  he’s become a studied healer, for all that he keeps claiming “i’m not a physician.”  he’s a born teacher - an absolute natural.  he has an obvious gift for connecting with people, and he even more obviously loves doing this kind of work - it’s something that comes easily to him.  it makes him happy.  it fulfills him.  this - traveling to help someone who is ill, encouraging a self-hating young kid to discover the good he can do in this world, teaching someone to do something as simple as bandaging a wound - this is work he can feel good about.

i don’t think merlin always feels good about what he’s doing in camelot.  

he feels that what he’s doing in camelot is important, yes.  he feels that what he’s doing in camelot is necessary.  he also feels that what he’s doing in camelot is going to end up killing him, one day, and that if his visions are true and things keep proceeding the way they’re going this season, then all his pain and sacrifice might ultimately come to nothing.  

merlin loves camelot.  he wants arthur to live.  he wants all his friends to thrive.  but he also wants to be helping people - his people, in particular, and that is the one specific thing his mission in camelot prevents him from doing.  he’s supposed to be doing it by helping arthur, or so people keep telling him, but it doesn’t feel like that, sometimes.  how many years has it been, for so little to have changed?  

i don’t think that feels good for him.  it’s the same inherent contradiction he’s faced since he first arrived in camelot and stumbled into uther’s service.  the cognitive dissonance is the same.  he has an externally imposed responsibility to arthur, and an intrinsic desire to help his own people, and he doesn’t feel like he can fulfill both of these demands at the same time.  

it’s easy to forget, because of the omnipresence of the legend, and because of the entire premise of the show, that merlin is more than his duty to protect arthur.  that merlin was somebody before he met arthur, somebody who already had thoughts and ideas and imaginings about where he might go in this world, about what his life might be, about what mattered to him.  it’s so easy to forget that he was a whole person long before he came to camelot, that he continues to be a whole person, whether arthur is present or not.

it’s...a hard feeling for me to put into words, but i think the closest i can get to explaining it in this particular episode is with the smallest thing, which is when merlin gives daegal both of the apples, and daegal says “don’t you like them?” and merlin replies, “they’re my favorite.”

it’s such a simple little thing, that, but it just - opens up a door to something you’ve never had reason to think about before.  apples are merlin’s favorite fruit.  

and it hits you then, what you normally aren’t expected to remember, that merlin is a whole person, one who exists outside the context of his mission, who existed long before he ever came to camelot, who continues to exist in all his glorious fullness even as “destiny” tries to hammer his existence into this one single shatterpoint.  every tiny thing that makes up a person - all the beautiful, innumerable things that make each and every one of us so impossibly singular and irreplaceable, unique among billions - all of this was in place, long before merlin ever came to camelot.  he has always been somebody, a whole somebody, somebody whose favorite fruit is apples.

merlin is more than his duty to arthur pendragon.  he has always been more than that.  he existed before he met arthur, and he continues to exist now, on his own merits, as richly whole and perfectly individual as any of his compatriots in camelot.  he loves books.  he hates hunting.  he can’t hold his liquor.  he gets hiccups when he eats too fast.  he has a favorite pudding gaius makes for him.  he has a grudge against the royal cook.  he can’t keep his own room clean.  he has always had hopes, dreams, wonderings, plans, things he’s curious about, things he’s afraid of, things more mundane than ‘i might fail at fulfilling my destiny’ - things like ghosts, or leeches, or giant naked rats that eat you alive.  he has always had likes, dislikes, pet peeves, favorite sounds, least-favorite tastes, places he likes to go in the hour before supper when he’s supposed to be doing chores.  he has a favorite memory of ealdor.  he has a side he prefers to sleep on.  he has a leather bracelet he’s worn on the same wrist for years.  these things were true before he came to camelot, and they are still true now, even when the universe doesn’t want him to remember it.  

he deserves a life of his own.  he deserves better than a life that only exists for someone else’s sake.  we can see, in this episode especially, how good he is at other things - at teaching, at healing, at connecting with people and helping them feel better about themselves and find their place in the world.  we can see how...therapeutic, it is for him, to be doing work he can believe in.  how much more relaxed he feels, in those brief scenes in the woods, when he is allowed to be out doing what he wants to do, when he is allowed to be in community with his kinfolk, when he isn’t hiding.  when he is allowed to help people - his people - as opposed to drowning himself in the unending, merciless sea of suffering and fear that camelot has become for him. 

it isn’t right, that he can’t have a life that makes him happy, a life that honors all of his existence, not just the bits of him that work to make sure arthur doesn’t die.  merlin deserves a life where he can be more than just a ready sacrifice on the altar of albion’s future.

he deserves a life where somebody knows that apples are his favorite fruit.

[scottishtech]

@oxfordnotbrogues

[nowcountryroads-blog]

John Denver Greatest Hits | Best Songs Of John Denver

[scottishtech]

Headcanon: Merlin has a passion for motorcycles. In his downtime he enjoys working on his bikes. These are the ones owns but he always is looking for more. 

[scottishtech]

OKAY since I’ve never told anyone but my little group I chat with have this 

HEADCANON: 

Merlin’s actual accent is much like Kevin Bridges when he’s relaxed, comfortable around you, just waking up, or drunk. Normally he ‘masks’ it so people can understand him.