#anyway who wants to preach the mortal merlin agenda with me ❤️ the sun is shining brightly on mortal merlin hill. u guys should join me

[gwemrys]

on the topic of widely accepted fandom headcanons that aren’t actually canon i have to be so annoying here but immortal merlin is not canon... i admit the theory has relatively strong supporting arguments in the show like his near death experiences that arguably could be interpreted as him dying and coming back alive or his name “emrys” or the fact that in the finale he was shown to still be alive in the present day. But none of this confirms his immortality at all.

- he is a very powerful magical being and is very hard to kill, yet so are many other powerful magical creatures in the show, as well as the high priestesses, and they were all still ultimately killable. even in the mortaeus poison episode where his heart briefly stopped, it didn’t stop long enough for him to definitively be dead; real people in real life without magic have gone longer without a heartbeat and still survived… the best argument for his immortality is maybe him surviving the dorocha’s touch when gaius said no mortal man could, but even that isn’t definitive proof, bc emrys’ power is unprecedented and he could very well be the first and only mortal to ever survive the dorocha’s touch, he is after all the exception to so many rules. it proves that he is harder to kill than anyone else, due to his powerful magic protecting him, but not that he is unable to die.

- he canonically grows very very old but this too can be attributed to his abundance of magic. nimueh grew unnaturally old too.

- his name “emrys” meaning immortal also doesn’t prove anything as this usually isn’t interpreted so literally in the legends. it’s usually understood as his legacy staying alive forever through tales of his power and influence…

and as for my personal reasons for being kind of opposed to this immortal merlin theory. it’s first of all mostly the fact that it really just cheapens everything he goes through in the show lol. his own survival despite the dangers he faces is due to his determination to stay alive to fulfill his destiny, it’s thanks to his own stubborn perseverance and skill and yes, often luck. but not his literal inability to die. i feel like this theory really devalues his extreme struggle and the fact that he really was on the brink of death sometimes…

it’s infinitely more compelling to me that he’s ultimately still a mortal man. i prefer to think of his continued survival as hard-earned, and as a genuine wonder! he could have genuinely died so many times but he didn’t and he deserves most of the credit for it!

and on top of that, the complete inability to die is so deeply fucking depressing? never being able to die? i love a good tragic story but him outliving everyone else and staying behind alone (which is canon) is heartbreaking enough, i feel like the least i could do is allow him to die and rest at Some point…

so basically to me he’s only immortal in the sense that old age probably won’t kill him, but mortal in the sense that other things could. if not regular means then definitely excalibur.