BBC Merlin Pushes Authoritarian Ideals Regardless of Intent
This rant assumes that you are deeply familiar with BBC Merlin.
There is so much authoritarian bullshit in a fandom I love so much. The show, BBC Merlin is ostensibly about the experience of marginalization. In theory, it is. It sets up a beautiful world, based in the context of the Arthuriana mythology, where all the characters are young: Uther is still king, and the Arthur is a prince. In this rendition, Merlin rather than being an old man, responsible for Arthur's birth, is a servant to Prince Arthur.
Within Merlin we have the character Gaius, who fits the old-man-mentor trope. At the end of each episode, he reiterated the "moral" of the episode, and ensures that Merlin knows that it is important to keep his magic a secret.
As the show moves forward, the gymnastics needed to keep Merlin's Magic a secret becomes more absurd, as contrived lapses in Prince/King Arthur's consciousness allow the lark to continue.
Throughout the series there is significant subtext that Merlin and Arthur could be a reasonable romantic pairing. There is also obvious subtext that people with magic are [insert marginalized identity here]. The big thing is that people are born with magic, and cannot help it.
This is a recurring theme with the show. Both Morgana and Merlin are shown to be characters who are born with magic. Morgana has narrative consequences for wanting to stand up for the rights of magic users. While it is framed as abuse, Morgana is locked up, and scolded by King Uther for daring to verbalize the abuse she is witnessing. As she continues to cement her ideals, the show casts Morgana as a villain, rather than showing her point of view as reasonable. There are few tricks that occur in order to "sweep aside" Morgana's perspective, as unreasonable. First, they repeatedly cast her as an emotional woman. This is first seen in the episode where she goes to Gorlois's grave with Uther in Season 1. While Uther's move to cast Morgana in chains is shown to be an overreaction, she ultimately apologizes to Uther for daring to speak out against the urge to kill a druid child. The doubt is never on Uther's decisions, but on Morgana's reactions. The show is trying to say that Morgana's emotional reaction was the problem, not Uther's problematic policies.
Another point, is that Gaius regularly discourages Merlin from ever having an honest conversation with Morgana about having magic. The most insidious way to cause harm to a marginalized person is to isolate them. It is abhorrent that Gaius, a character that is built to not be questioned (despite at least my corner of fandom knowing that he is not a paragon by any means), so that Merlin's decision to connect with Morgana never happens. At the end of season 2, the fires of Idirsholas actually actively pits the two main-character magic users against each other such they can never truly work together again. Think about just how awful it is that Kilgarah, another extension of the "authors", told Merlin that the only way to save Camelot is to betray one of his own in the deepest way possible. This also starts a whole separate rant about the coercive nature of the whole destiny arc.
Back to Uther. Uther is a stand in for the tyrant archetype. This is okay. In general a tyrant is a fantastic antagonist for a story to use. However, as seen in Merlin, Arthur is proposed as the solution to Uther. In short, a benevolent monarch is proposed as the solution to a malevolent tyrant. However, it is made clear, throughout many many interactions between Arthur and Merlin, as well as Merlin's own antithetical decisions, that Arthur is doing the marginalized people with magic a favor by allowing them to exist, without being actively hunted. This is akin to the British Empire patting itself on its back for "liberating" India, by "allowing" them to "self-govern", while still keeping the economic ties, and the economic upper hand, exploiting resources and labor.
Another way that BBC Merlin distracts the viewer from closely analyzing the effects of the monarchical system, and the morality of oppressing sorcerers is by focusing too hard on Uther being an abusive father. He does a lot of the typical abusive parent tricks, such as pitting siblings against each other. One instance in the Witches Quickening, Uther refuses to explicitly name Morgana as the "traitor", while ensuring that both she and Arthur know exactly what the consequences are for betraying him. This power move, among others, such as the constant "golden-child"-ing of Arthur, creates an adversarial relationship between the two siblings. This is another reasonable take, on its surface. However, it distracts from the fact that Uther is still instilling the values of absolute loyalty, and absolute rule in both of his children. Merlin, through Gaius gets the same lessons. The focus on the abusiveness of Uther as a person and as a father, distracts from the fact the system generates people who default to abusing power.
Even when Arthur is King, knighting some common folk, he is still creating a system of absolute loyalty. The only people in King Arthur's court who will challenge Arthur's decisions are Gwen, Merlin, and Agrivane. In my opinion, it is an intentional decision that Agrivane is constructed to be "evil". Of the "main-5" knights, four of them are common folk. (I'm counting Gwaine here, because he is not wealthy, and does not particularly claim his father). This is a power move, because Arthur expects absolute loyalty from his knights. Choosing knights from common folk who do not have much power in society otherwise, means that the balance of power is always in Arthur's favor. This is intentionally not explored in the show. But think, if a common person is promoted to the rank of knight, recently a rank only afforded to nobility, must necessarily keep themselves within the favor of the monarch who promoted them. Otherwise they could loose their knighthood. This "debt" means that even if they might not agree with Arthur's decisions, they will not defy him, as defying Arthur will immediately throw them into poverty. This concept is explored somewhat, during the episode Lancelot Du Lac, when Lancelot returns from the dead as a shade, and seduces Gwen. As the betrothed of King Arthur, Gwen was effectively a noble woman at this point, but then was thrown back into poverty. I would argue that, from the way Gwen was costumed and portrayed at this time, during the first Mithian episode, Gwen could have been doing sex work. On the page, she was "cleaning out the pigs", but then was dressed in uncharacteristically provocative clothing when speaking to a wealthy man.
Remember that the assertions that Gwen was doing sex work is speculation, and out of scope for the show itself, but it makes sense that this is the only kind of work she would have gotten access to given that she was known in the land, and known to have betrayed the King. The king with absolute control. The King who Gives can take away. While it seems like a "benevolent" attitude, it is an even more insidious way to maintain absolute power than the tyrannical approach, as it is even more difficult to justify going against the coerced actions. After Gwen and Arthur get married, Gwen has a little more freedom to speak against Arthur, as she is now the queen, but there is still the history that should she go too far Arthur can take away her rank. I am not saying that he would, but I am saying that this is now in her history, and not to be forgotten. Understand that this is an analysis of the power balance, and not about the romance.
It is also relevant to note that the show is also showing that the "ideal" romance happens when the man has power over the woman. In season 1, Arthur was the one who used his power to allow Gwen to stay keep her job and stay in her home. Then later on, as mentioned previously, he asserted his power when he felt betrayed by Gwen. Then, finally, when the relationship truly is on equal footing, the show brainwashes Gwen, so that she is evil. This is one of the chronologically last instances of the show having problems with powerful women. In the earlier seasons, the show either punished Morgana, or cast Morgana as evil, for daring to use her authority as a high ranking noble woman. I acknowledge that there was a time-hop. However, I think that it is notable that the time-hop includes most of the time when Gwen was a powerful woman, without being cast as "evil", vis-a-vis Morgana's mandrake-root rituals.
Other times when powerful women were cast as "evil" or alternatively shown to be people not to root for include the singer from episode 1, Catrina from the troll episode, Morgause as a witch who dared to challenge a knight, Nimueh, who was cast as a "villain" even though her motivations are to stop, and to get revenge for a massacre that was started by her administering fertility treatments to Uther's wife. They continue on, with the Docra being the only one who knows the old religion as well as Morgana, the Lamia portrayed as a siren-esque magical creature, and more. It is also notable that benevolent or neutral magical creatures are consistently portrayed as men. Think about the bridge-troll in The Fisher King episode, Taliesin from the Crystal Cave episode, Anhora from the Labrynth of Geodreff, or even Alator of the Catha. There is one notable exception to the rule of "men are trustworthy and women are not", is Finna. However, Gaius does not trust her, despite the fact that she is completely worthy of trust, and the episode she is in ends with a reassertion, via Gaius, that he was still reasonable to not trust her.
This is a pattern, not one offs. This pattern, rather than any explicit "rule" about women, is a subtle technique to prevent positive, and reasonable representation of women in power.
Then, the overarching destiny plot, as well, as the back-and-forth between Arthur and Morgana or Uther, creates a conflict between different people being the head monarch, rather than any meaningful critique of the system itself.
