If you haven’t noticed already by my posts, I’m pretty much team Meldred when it comes to the love triangle in Unicorn: Warriors Eternal. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I’m a basic bitch; they called each other “my love” and that was enough for me to pledge my alliance to them.
Of course, given Emmelyn’s predicament, Edred’s less than ideal reactions to the conundrum, and Melinda not even remembering her own story with him, it all makes for some very interesting character interactions and dynamics. And given how we still have much to learn about their original selves and their pasts, that allows us to speculate about how they met, fell in love, and how it all evolved into the situation we’re facing now.
In light of The Heart of Kings, I have come up with a few reasons why this ship is so compelling to me, namely, why Melinda fell in love with Edred even though we are still missing her perspective in this whole situation, and how it explains (though not necessarily justifies) some of Edred’s recent actions.
To make a long story short (not like it matters, I’ll be sure to expand on this nonetheless), I would say the reason these two love each other so much is because their each other’s everything.
In Melinda’s case, I’d say the reason she fell in love with Edred is because he is probably the first person in her life since at least her mother’s death to love her unconditionally.
As we first learned in The Past Within and recently confirmed in The Heart of Kings, ever since she accidentally turned her mother into the Evil, Melinda’s relationship with Merlin has been strained. Today’s episode showed Merlin does indeed love his daughter, but he’s been blaming and reprimanding her for what happened and her perceived “lack of control and strength” since she was a little kid. And until Emma stepped in and put Merlin in his place, Melinda had clearly been carrying that burden her whole life, internalising that fault, throughout all her reincarnations. Or, as she said herself, for over a thousand years.
So while there’s clearly love there, it was far from being the kind of unconditional love one would expect from a parent.
Moreover, there’s everyone’s reaction to her. Throughout the entire episode, everyone aside from Merlin and Unicorn had referred to Melinda as either “the dark witch” or “Edred’s witch” (which I’m convinced is just a clever way to undirectly call her his bitch, given the show’s setting). Nobody calls her Melinda, not even when the flashback showed she was around when Edred ran away and in the present everyone seems to know it was her he left everything behind for. And judging by his throaway line about how everyone blames her for leaving, even though they had never returned since then...it all seems to indicate not many people had actually interacted with Melinda up to that point, even though they were all familiar with her.
This, alonside the fact that she was distant and in hiding during the wedding ceremony (which, admittedly, could be because the elves don’t like outsiders intruding upon their traditions, though, then again, they seemed perfectly fine with Unicorn once everything was resolved), seems to indicate Melinda was an outcast, probably has been her whole life as a result of her powers and dark and mysterious nature.
(This is clearly her watching Edred’s wedding, c’mon)
An outcast Edred gave everything up for.
At this point I wholeheartedly believe Melinda fell in love with Edred because he was the first person in her life who consistently placed her as his top priority. The first person who never failed to look out for her and reassure her he loved her.
Because I think we can all agree Edred’s love for Melinda has been one of his central, most consistent traits, as well as one of his most redeeming qualities. He’s been devoted to her since the very beginning.
Whereas Merlin callously brushed off her near death experience when they first battled the Evil (in the show, at least), the moment Seng confirmed she was hurt Edred rushed to her side and got angry on her behalf at her father.
Even now, even when they’re fighting the Evil or its minions, Melinda’s safety is one of his biggest concerns. Whenever she gets hurt or knocked out he is always the first to call out for her. If anything happens to her during a fight, he will immediately ask Seng to find her. And he will be worried sick for her if it seems like something’s troubling her. Except for the ship incident, whenever Melinda needs help, Edred is always there, willing to give her and ready for her to just...take it. Even if making sure she’s okay means preventing her from seeing nude statues of men, he will do anything for her without question.
Even if that anything means abandoning everything he’s ever known and breaking the unbroken line for her sake.
Melinda is everything to Edred, and that means everything to Melinda.
In a way, his loving promise as they said their goodbyes when they thought their time together was up sort of feels like a reassurance on his part. Almost like it’s not the first time he’s had to remind Melinda that his love for her cannot be changed.
And of course, this all ties back to Edred’s side of the story.
As I was saying, Edred essentially turned Melinda into his whole world when he left his kingdom and family behind for her. We don’t know if by that time Unicorn had already been formed or if on the contrary that was just the beginning and he met Melinda under completely different circumstances. But we do know this: Edred gave everything up for Melinda.
He essentially came to the conclusion that he didn’t need anything else as long as he had Melinda.
As we’ve already seen during the episode, this was in no way ethical nor logical, and directly led to a lot of trouble, but the matters of the heart rarely are logical or even ethical.
Now, with this in mind, let’s think about his actions so far during the series.
I don’t mean to justify any of them, because one of the things about Edred is that he can be equally heartwarming and charismatic as he can be flawed. So it’s important to understand his actions still had harmful consequences (hurting/alienating Emmelyn, undirectly causing the kraken that destroyed Copernicus as well as Winston’s lycanthropy...); it’s just that now we have a better understanding on why he did what he did.
Edred not only left his home, but also agreed to fighting an endless battle against a powerful Evil that has clearly endangered his life and those of his closest friends for centuries, and it all seems to indicate he did that for two reasons: for the good of the world, and for the promise of being reunited with Melinda every cycle.
But suddenly, upon his latest reincarnation he finds out the love of his life doesn’t remember him, seems to be fonder of some random human than of him, isn’t even acting like the woman he fell in love with, and might not ever return his feelings at all during that reincarnation. And, apparently, all because her host’s spirit is asserting herself over her and holding her back.
From his perspective, his desire to bring Melinda back and lack of care for Emma make perfect sense: without Melinda, he has essentially lost everything. It basically means sacrificing everything for her in their first life was pointless.
That’s why he’s so desperate to get her back, why even the smallest sign of affection from her is enough to render him flustered and as happy as a kid on Christmas Day. Because right now it’s the only thing he has to go by that his love is still there somewhere.
Edred and Melinda love each other and, dare I say, work as a couple because, alongside Seng and Copernicus, they’re the only constant each other has in a life of neverending change.
