#Merlin headcanon

[aspentreeonahill]

Merlin is a heavily complex character, whose character we see develop throughout the whole show, from turning from an empathic person into someone who has lost everything.

We see Merlin die constantly throughout the show but they don’t don’t bring much attention to it, never implying that Merlin even knows that he’s dying, only us, the viewer, understand he is immortal.

Even his prophesied name, Emrys, means immortal.

But Emrys is not Merlin.

Merlin was born of Hunith and Balinor. Emrys was born of pure magic.

Merlin is human. But Emrys is the embodiment of magic, it is not human.

And everytime Merlin dies a part of him chips away, leaving Emrys to fill in the cracks.

Something In the show that isn’t outright stated but is clearly seen through Merlin’s actions is that he not only gets better at magic but also a lot colder. He starts to get the mindset of “whatever it takes” to fulfill his destiny.

Even in the intro of the show kilgrarrah inknowledges that Merlin is changing, from calling him a young boy to calling him a young man, which could symbolize him slowly turning more in Emrys.

When he poisons Morgana in the Fires of Idirsholas, he cries and holds her, regretting what he’s done. But in The Diamond of The Day when he actually kills her he just stares down at her, no emotion in his face, then he just leaves her there and doesn’t look back.

We see him slowly start to hate Morgana more and more over the seasons, at first he doesn’t believe she could ever be evil and tries to help her, then during season three he starts to hate her until season five were he no longer feels any care for her.

During the whole of season five the only thing Merlin thinks about is his destiny with Arthur, he only cares about keeping Arthur alive. Which is only intensified with Mordred being in Camelot.

It’s very clear just how much Merlin hates Mordred, So much that he forgets that Mordred was and still is a child. He’s so blinded by destiny he can’t see that he’s making Mordred prophecy come true.

Not only that but he doesn’t interact with many of his other friends in season five, like he’s so focused on Arthur he ignores everyone else around him.

And even when he finally finds some happiness it’s taken away from him almost immediately, leading him to only become colder, becoming more like Emrys.

And It’s all because Merlin has been dying all throughout the season, slowly revealing Emrys underneath.

when he goes into crystal cave in The Diamond of The Day to restore his magic, Balinor tells him that the heart of the cave will reveal his true self, which is Emrys.

And when he does the last part of Merlin is broken away, leaving only Emrys left. Which not only lets him to have complete control of magic, but also causes him to lose his humanity.

But part of Merlin is still there, deep down inside Emrys, waiting for Arthur to return.

[ink-through-her-veins]

The phrase ignorance is bliss is coined by King Arthur Pendragon after finding out his manservant and only friend has magic and has been using it to accomplish increasingly dangerous feats in order to protect Camelot and his King. Where before, Arthur could mock Merlin’s laziness, clumsiness and cowardice, afterward Arthur is in a constant state of anxious worry.

[summertimeroses]

just came across a fic where aithusia is still a dragon but is disguised? can shapeshift? into a human form (smol child) with merlin as her father and now i’m obsessed with the idea of this dynamic, so consider:

- dragonlords all have dragon forms. merlin has a dragon form

- dragons all have human forms. kilgharrah as a man, bitter and cryptic and scarred from the purge, angry for being chained. aithusia, a young child, bone-white hair flowing long over her shoulders. her arms bend wrongly at the joints and tiny, paper-thin scars cover her body, from her time with the sarrum of amata

- there’s a distinction between the magic of dragons and the magic of dragonlords. the markings of dragons are different. their eyes in human form are all amber-gold, something in their teeth not-quite human. dragonlords are the natural leaders of the dragons, often more powerful in certain magics, especially in human form.

- in books of magical creatures and sorcery, dragons and dragonlords are put side by side, but categorised separately, for the difference in their appearance and abilities in magic. the sketches all show men with a beastly shadow, enormous and scaled and expressions set equally angry.

- the dragons are all kin, so culturally they all have a responsibility over the young. this counts doubly for dragonlords, protectors of the dragons. this makes merlin the natural guardian of aithusia.

- merlin, after rescuing her from the sarrum, returns to camelot with a tiny, fragile girl in his arms, bundled in rough blankets. the only explanation he gives is my daughter before he’s pushing past arthur to take her to gaius, get her injuries seen

- alternatively, merlin approaches arthur asking for time off to go retrieve his daughter, the same way he asked it for his mother. he’s pale and shaken but there’s a steel in his expression that arthur doesn’t know what to do with

- also, merlin sired a child. his manservant.

- there’s about a million different magic reveals in this. too many to list, but the ideas are exploding in my brain. arthur, clocking on to the fact that aithusia is so obviously a magical child. arthur, heartbroken that merlin didn’t trust him. arthur, initially scared of what he sees as a beast. arthur, in awe of the dragon form, realising the power merlin has.

- the angst of merlin trying to hide her magic in camelot when she’s such a powerful child. the angst of him bringing her to camelot and revealing her existence to arthur only to immediately make plans to send her away to someone trusted, maybe hunith, and arthur doesn’t understand what he means by ‘she’s not safe in camelot’ until he does.

- gwen being so gentle with her. arthur being scared to break her. leon picking her up and letting her curl into the crook of his neck as he carries her back from somewhere she’s wandered off to.

- all the knights being doting uncles (most especially gwaine)

- arthur learning of what the sarrum did to her and why, and rethinking his stance on magic. arthur thinking of all the magical children killed too young, first tortured or persecuted. thinks of all the fear and grief they did not deserve to carry.

- merlin educating arthur on magic after the reveal. taking him to lessons with aithusia to teach her control of her magic, the pair of them watching her fly free in her natural form in the woods for a while. her injuries are healing, slowly, with the help of gaius and merlin’s magic.

- mordred, despite merlin’s suspicions, working hard towards earning trust he isn’t sure how he lost, and starting with proving he can be trusted with aithusia. he is, admittedly, really good with her and she loves him, so merlin can’t completely begrudge it. it leads to conversations that change all their fates.

- aithusia’s first language being the tongue of the old religion. the language of spells. she knows not to speak to avoid getting caught (merrlin tried his best to explain) but once, she slipped up around arthur. all of them freezing, even though arthur knows. the guilt he feels at her terror.

- kilgharrah’s anger at camelot manifesting again somehow. an attack of some kind. arthur being confronted with the question of the magic ban repeal and how to balance keeping his people safe from magic and reparations for decades of the oppression of magic users.

the fic that fuelled this is called The Darkest Dawn by spacegirl7 and quite a lot of the above takes elements directly from the fic, so definitely go read and check it out, it’s so good. i have been thinking about it and its premise for days.

[stevenslittleshop]

Constantly stuck between “Arthur and Merlin were still just boys, they were best friends with the whole world against them” and “they were in LOVE. They were ROMANTICALLY ATTRACTED to each other”

[asangsterswife]

Merlin: not to say I told you so but...

Arthur: you didn't tell me so

Merlin: I know that's why I didn't say it

[rosekiller-addict]

BBC Merlin Headcanons:

Arthur would have panic attacks, which were normally caused by built up stress from ruling the kingdom, his dad's expectations and never talking about his feelings.

No matter what Merlin would always be there for him, even if it was in the middle of the night.

Merlin walked in on Arthur having one of these panic attacks which then led to them becoming a lot closer and it was then, crying into Merlin shoulder, his arms wrapped around him that he realized he was in love.

[quotidian-oblivion]

Your go, Ms Void!!

Headcanon about Arthur (or Freya??)

Agh. I always take so long to come up with headcanons lmao

I've already done a couple on Arthur, but hmmm, let's see... Freya...

In my world, if Freya survived, she would be able to change in and out of her Bastet form whenever she liked (except for a few limitations like maybe she has to shift at least once a week or something because the curse is just so intertwined with her body).

My biggest headcanon that also fits in with canon is that the Bastet curse was taking up all her magical abilities which is why we don't see her doing any magic in Merlin. She used to have the magical abilities of an average person (say a step below Gaius's power), but when she was cursed, the curse caused her magic to turn against her and regularly turn her into a bloodthirsty-Bastet each night.

Which is why Merlin was the only one all this time who was able to calm her down in her Bastet form. 1) Because she loved Merlin and his soft, gentle and reassuring ways deeply and also 2) because Merlin is Emrys, he is magic and so he was able to reach out to Freya's magic through their connection with one another and calm it down.

And before the Lake of Avalon, while Merlin was sobbing and whispering for her to not let go, his magic listened and made Freya the Lady of the Lake. The Triple Goddess saw what Merlin was (subconsciously) doing and since he's Emrys, she trusted his reasoning and helped with the process to make Freya the Guardian of Avalon.

That's my two cents!

[merlins-sexy-magic]

i just think it's would be funny if arthur learned everything about magic from merlin so when he finally meets another magic user, he's surprised when they can't do the things merlin does (lots of magic without spoken spells, dragonlord stuff, stopping time, etc). and someone needs to explain to arthur that merlin is like a god among magic users lol

[mobycotton]

elaborating on this

1. arriving in the ‘new world’

- Arthur would be exhausted, both physically and mentally, and fighting not to get overwhelmed by the strange things all around him. He would isolate himself in a ‘safe place’ where, even though things are just as weird, it’s on a smaller scale and at least he can focus in on one thing that’s still familiar to him. He would take things in little by little, learn to accept that there are some things (and many of them) that he cant comprehend now, and maybe he never will, but freaking out won’t help his situation.

2. communication

- as a bilingual person, who entered the UK before I could speak a word of english, I relied on my one parent who was fluent in order to be understood, and with my large family, we fought for the attention to be translate, and translated to. Arthur would be relying on Merlin to do the same for him, but navigating the modern world takes energy and attention already, and so Merlin clarifies that he can’t explain everything as it appears, and Arthur will just have to pick what’s most pressing.

- Merlin was present as the language around him changed in real time. He understands it, is fluent in it, the new language feels more natural to think and speak in then the old one. This is a difficulty he needs to process as much as Arthur. It takes a few seconds to compose a response in his head to every one of Arthur’s questions, and then even longer to translate it in his head. Arthur still picks out inconsistencies in his speech and accent, he feels like the one thing he recognises is still changed, almost beyond recognition.

3. discomfort

- Arthur realises he is a burden. More so than he used to be. At least before, they understood each other. He could stand up for himself, didn’t need to be escorted around like a lost puppy. That’s how he feels. Even worse, Merlin’s responsibilities are doubled now, and paired with Merlin’s new life, the balance is almost impossible. On top of his job, his life outside of work and his home, he must make sacrifices in order to care for Arthur. Arthur feels guilty, wishes that he could be as competent as he once was, but what is there to do except learn?

- food. When I first moved, I was a child, barely comfortable with the small range of foods I grew up with, which were served at just about any house I visited. When I moved, a whole new range of foods was laid out before me, and I was overwhelmed. I didn’t like most of the things that young children go crazy for, but I was lucky not to have any allergies, and in a few years my diet changed to incorporate both foods from home and from my new home. Arthur won’t be as lucky. His medieval metabolism can only handle a few things, and even medicine might be dangerous. merlin sticks to a few safe foods from before - bread, cooked meat, vegetables, and milk. he makes these every day until Arthur is strong enough to experiment with new food, little by little, and build up any immunities he can, and identify any intolerances.

- sleep. Moving abruptly from a very rural place, where the whole street is dark and silent after sunset, all of a sudden to a place where cars are still running at midnight and streetlights cast light even through thick dark curtains, was a shock. I couldn’t sleep well for weeks, and it took a lot of time to adjust. So, going from one night sleeping in the silent castle in Camelot, all of a sudden to a busy city, would be almost impossible. It’s not only the light, and the noise, but overwhelmingly the feeling of everything moving, shaking with a constant vibration at all hours. It feels like an earthquake, deep below the earth, and every time a door closes it’s like the walls are shaking. Every footstep is like the floor is falling out from under him.

4. grief.

- I knew, when I moved countries, that there was no going back. even holidays wouldn’t be the same. I was supposed to become a different person, there was no stopping it. Missing out on my old friends growing up hurt, even when I was still young. It felt like grief in a way, knowing that I was robbed of so many experiences with the people I loved. But I had to learn to accept it, and let the new country foster my grief and my sense of loss. Arthur would be dealing with the same thing - feeling robbed of a happier life with the people he loved, and then losing them all at once. While they were still comfortably dead, though, he was thrust into a completely foreign life, almost alone. At least they died together. He had the worst fate of them all.

5. learning

- ending on a happier note. I moved when I was 8. I couldn’t read that well, even in my own language, after merely a year in school. My parents made me spend a summer reading, translating, and transcribing children’s books, the kind that english kids used to learn to read and speak at much younger stages. I felt silly doing them, writing out infantile rhymes for hours every day, but I came out of it able to read harder books, and in the end my reading age was higher than almost every other child in my class. The easiest thing to do was translating fairy tales and stories I recognised from my old language, it helped me identify words and phrases in both languages. Arthur figures out that this is a great help as well. Merlin finds him translations of original arthurian tales and legends, and keeps them side by side with the modern english versions. He switches between them for hours a day until he can at least read well in modern english. He feels silly celebrating such accomplishments, wielding simple, childish writing exercises, but progress has to be made.

[violet-moonstone]

haven't watched merlin in ages but sometimes i have random thoughts about how i'd rewrite it

and one of the things i'd like to see fleshed out more is the worldbuilding (including religion, clothing, history, etc)

but specifically i was thinking it would be nice to have more side characters from a variety of social classes.

specifically merchants and guildspeople.

and then i thought it would be cool if there used to be a very lucrative magic industry in camelot that got snuffed out by uther's witch hunts and magic bans - and if there were an antagonist who was in conflict with uther, not for any love of magic, but simply because their bottom line had been compromised.

I'm imagining a powerful merchant family that made quite a lot of money employing magic users and selling their products. maybe the head of the family is quite cynical and mostly money-oriented, but one of their heirs is more altruistic and comes to see the value in magic outside of its monetary worth

i think it would be fun if (despite the initial hit to their income) they were still quite influential and uther has to constantly put up with them having political influence, especially when they oppose him. i would especially enjoy this if they were commoners, so the nobles of camelot have to deal with the indignity of listening to the opinions of lowborn merchants

i'm very tempted to use this idea for an original story as well

[justaz]

The knights love and hate Merlin coming to training. They love it because Merlin is their little cheerleader and they seem to perform better when Merlin is there to cheer them on. They hate it because he never cheers Arthur on and Arthur gets jealous and shows off to catch Merlin’s attention which means that Arthur performs better when Merlin is there which makes him a demon on the field. Which means the knights have to visit Gaius after training to get new bruise salves and that one time when Percival had to get his broken nose set because he ducked too late when Arthur was swinging the hilt of his sword down because he was exhausted from how hard Arthur was pushing them

[rainbowsmagicandshit]

Headcanon that when Merlin started working for Arthur, he didn’t know what over half the names of things were—not only the parts of armor, but also just things around the castle and noble/city life—so he’d just make up names for them. When Arthur would ask for something, he’d have to describe what it was he wanted if Merlin didn’t recognize what the thing was by name, and then Merlin would go “oh, you mean the (weird name he came up with)!” and go get it. It always frustrates and annoys Arthur, and he tries to correct Merlin every time. Merlin eventually does learn the names of most of the stuff but still calls everything by the names he came up with because he knows how it annoys Arthur. Arthur still tries to correct him sometimes, but after a few years has accepted that Merlin’s not gonna stop and is doing it on purpose. Arthur will sometimes ask for something and Merlin will “correct” him with “you mean the (wacky name he came up with for it)” and Arthur rolls his eyes throwing something at him or cuffing him over the head as Merlin ducks away with a grin to get what he asked for. Eventually it gets to the point that Arthur adopts Merlin’s names for things without really realizing it. It just saves time. It gets to the point that Arthur will be talking to his knights or some noble or royal and he’ll end up using Merlin weird name for something. No one will know what he’s talking about and ask him to repeat himself. He does and they still look at him confused. He goes to explain what he’s talking about because he’s used to doing so with Merlin, and halfway through his explanation he realizes he called it Merlin’s stupid name and clears his throat and calls it by it’s proper name, a slight blush on his cheeks. No one calls him out on it or says anything to his face because he the prince and then the king, but Arthur stil complains to Merlin about what happened and “this is all your fault!!” while Merlin is grinning and laughing until Arthur has enough and throws something at him.

I just really want these two to have a language together. We get them having “prat,” “dollophead,” “cabbagehead,” etc. but I want it to extend to random objects too. Arthur adopts Merlin’s insults in canon and throws them back at Merlin occasionally, so I wanna see them do it with other stuff also. I think it’s be so funny and cute. Showing that Merlin really has a big impact on Arthur even down to the vocabulary he uses—changed irrevocably forever after. No longer the arrogant prince but the king Merlin made him, using vocabulary from the people rather than just the nobles and royals, setting him apart from his predecessors.

[ink-through-her-veins]

Lancelot looked between Merlin, his sign and Arthur’s disappointed face, rolled his eyes at his friends and asked Merlin, “Why do you do this?”

Merlin waited for Arthur to face his opponent before he turned his sign around. “Do what?”

The crowd cheered and jeered as Arthur blocked blows, struck his opponent, and proved his skill and superiority with a sword. Lancelot ignored the sparring in favor of watching Merlin lean against the rail, shout himself hoarse and wave his ‘Go Arthur’ banner like an idiot.

Arthur won and immediately looked to the crowd searching for Merlin’s face. By the time he found him, Merlin’s banner read ‘Arthur sucks’ and he looked entirely unimpressed. Arthur’s face fell, he pushed sweaty hair from his forehead, glared at his manservant and tore his eyes away to look upon his more adoring subjects.

Merlin felt Lancelot’s disappointed glare. “Someone needs to keep him humble,” Merlin argued. “Listen to them.”

The crowd cheered louder as Arthur raised his sword and waved to his subjects.

“Yet he only cares what you think,” Lancelot grumbled beneath his breath, just loud enough and close enough to Merlin’s ear for him to hear over the cheers.

Merlin tried to push the guilt away. It wasn’t true. Arthur could care less what Merlin thought, but his King’s eyes kept finding Merlin in the crowd and every time they did the glimmer of victory and the smile of pride faded just a little.

“You’re evil,” Merlin told Lancelot as he turned his sign once more.

Arthur’s face lit up. His smile stretched from ear to ear and Merlin’s did just the same.

Lancelot leaned in and teasingly said, “You like Arthur’s smile.”

Merlin elbowed him in the stomach, blushed and fumbled his banner. “Go make cow eyes with Gwen!”

[biarthurpendragon]

hey tumblr. is anyone still actively posting about BBC merlin (and merthur by extension) in 2025?

could you like/reblog this post? I really need some mutuals who are still here <3

[merlinmylove]

Merlin, who is so powerful he doesn’t need spells because his magic is instinctual

Merlin, who’s slowly been learning spells from Guius’ book but he finds them difficult and unnecessarily complicated (so he ignores it)

Merlin, who mostly just says what he wants to do and the magic within him lets it happen

Merlin, who ends up writing his own spells in the moment because he’s channeling the magic of the earth in his hands

Merlin, who is the most powerful sorcerer in the world, son of the sky and the sea, the last dragon lord, and a mamas boy

“how did you do that? what spell did you use!”

“idk man, i just wanted the mountain to move so it did”

[cthulhum]

does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship