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hide-in-imagination · 6 days ago

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Why Merlín's character is fundamentally wrong

I previously made a post talking about Marrey and why a big part of the fandom prefers Rey over Merlín, and now I wanna do a deeper dive on why Merlín's character was set up for fail with the way he was written.

Let's go to the core conflict of Merlín's character 'journey' (because he doesn't evolve in the whole season) and subsequently the main obstacle for the main couple he is part of. Merlín is 21 years old and the prince of Krikoragán, a country that his father took over after staging a coup on the previous monarchs, Max and Florencia. Merlín, due to moral reasons, believes his father, and consequentially, his whole family, shouldn't be in power, and that the real princess, and future queen of Krikoragán, should be Margarita. This ideology is reinforced by his father and uncle being shown as very strict, cold, 'evil' men, from which control Merlín tries to escape, first, by living in Argentina instead of Krigoragán, and after, sneaking out of the university campus he stays in without his uncle's knowledge to do whatever he wants. He's shown as kind of a rebel prince, but with a good heart. He rebels because his father and uncle are 'evil.' I think it's important to mention that not all his family is evil, since his mother is shown as a submissive but kind woman, and his little brother looks like a very sweet kid who Merlín loves very much.

Now, we don't know for how long Merlín has been planning to woe the exiled princess Margarita to give her the throne, but considering he pursues this plan from episode one, we can only assume he came up with the idea of marrying her a long time ago. At least, I want to believe he thought it through and it wasn't just a sudden idea, but even then, maybe that would just make it worse.

Because here's the issue with Merlín's logic. Well, one of the issues-- I'll dive into every one of them. Merlín says he wants to marry the exiled princess as a way to return the throne to her. He thinks this is the most fair thing to do and, again, his moral compass leads him into that direction. But how, exactly, is he planning to achieve this in the long run? Because he's only prince and she is only princess-- His father still lives, and doesn't look very old or sick to assume he's on death's door. So, let's imagine that Merlín achieves his goal and marries Margarita. Now what? He has condemned her to at least 20 years of life in a country where his direct family would mistreat her (they made the coup for a reason, they didn't like Max and Flor, why would they want their daughter anywhere near them?), where he wouldn't have any real power to change any laws and make things better, and therefore, she would have even less power to do anything, and where they'd be under constant surveillance, or at least that's what we're lead to believe, seeing as Merlín is shown escaping from them from day 1. If he escaped, it couldn't have been a great life, was it? And yet, he wants to imprison Margarita alongside him, living that life until his father eventually dies and he gets the throne. They could be 60 by the time that happens.

Unless he's planning to stage a coup on his father, because that man would never give up his throne peacefully. Merlín would have to, maybe, find some law or some part of Krikoragán's Constitution that would give him the grounds to take the throne from his father. If, and this is a big if, he already has that law prepared and it's just waiting to marry Margarita to enact it and take the throne, then I guess he wouldn't be so inconsiderate toward Margarita, but he would still be being inconsiderate toward his entire country.

And here we get to one of the main issues, if not the biggest issue, with Merlín's character. His whole conflict (both alone and with Margarita) is shown to be Duty vs His Real Wishes. He even says it in one episode when he's trying to get Margarita back after he lied about being engaged to Petra: "I keep bouncing back between my duty and what I want to do, and in the end, I end up doing nothing."

But, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you: What is Merlín's duty?

Merlín is the prince of Krikoragán (as he says 40 times on the show). Therefore, he has the duty and responsibilities of a prince. What is the duty of a prince? Well, if you're a good one and have good intentions, as we are lead to believe by Merlín's character, then your duty should be toward the well-being of your people, right? Your duty should be to get the best education you can, especially in politics and history, to be able to help your country in the future, to be able to lead it toward prosperity. You would also have a duty to marry and have children to continue your bloodline, secure the throne for future generations, and teach those future generations for them to do things right when it's their turn to rule. Somehow I don't get the feeling Merlín is even thinking about that part of his duty when he's thinking about marrying Margarita. And all the rest? He completely ignores it.

That's the thing with Merlín. He keeps saying he's doing his duty, trying to do his duty, but he's not doing that. Because if he were actually doing his duty, he would be focusing on his education as much as he could instead of escaping from his university to pursue music or whatever behind his uncle's back. If he were actually doing his duty, he would be in Krikoragán, doing whatever little he can to help the people, to help his country, and yet, we learn in one of the last episodes that the death penalty is still legal and enforced in Krikoragán, and when Margarita mentions this to Merlín completely distressed by it, thinking that surely he must not know about it, Merlín tells her that he, indeed, does know about it. And yet, his solution to this thing he sees as a problem, something that should be corrected for the well-being of the people, is to... marry Margarita. Because that will somehow fix everything ??

Can we please dimension just what a selfish, useless prince Merlín is? Because the entire story, he's just thinking about what he wants, trying to soothe his conscience by marrying Margarita (hurting people in the process, but we'll get to that), and not at any point did he think to himself: "Hm. Maybe I should do something for my country instead of trying to give the throne to someone else."

Because that's the thing-- Merlín doesn't have to want to be the prince, he doesn't have to like it, it even adds angst to the character if he does things he doesn't necessarily want out of duty-- but HE should do his DUTY!! The entire show he is completely escaping his duty, trying desperately to put that responsibility on someone else, and sure, okay, let's say his goal is to rule alongside Margarita, to work on changes together-- What the hell is he doing on his part, right now, to help his country? And you can't tell me that woeing Margarita into marrying him is to help his country, because how does he even know? How does Margarita's presence help in any way? He didn't even know her before he started flirting with her. She could've been stupid, selfish, evil like his father and uncle-- He didn't know!! He was riding the whole future of his country on the chance that Margarita would be a good ruler, because, allegedly, her parents were good before they were dethroned. But he didn't know that. Margarita could've been an awful person, unfit to rule, and then what? Well, then I'm guessing he would've had to step up and figure out how he was going to improve the future of Krikoragán, which, again, IS WHAT HE SHOULD'VE BEEN DOING FROM THE BEGINNING.

Okay, so Margarita seems like a good person, let's say she looks fit to rule (is she smart? No one knows. Academics are not ever discussed in this show), how does that by itself help his country? His people? Simply because she would be well-liked? Because she would support him when he wanted to make good changes? Any good wife would do the same. Merlín simply wants to marry Margarita because he feels guilty about how his family ended up in power. That's what his whole character revolves around: Guilt. Not duty.

So now that we've established that, see how that distinction corrodes everything Merlín claimed to do out of duty, everything he justified for 'having good intentions.'

He flirted and declared his love to Daisy-- Out of duty? No. It wasn't his duty. It wasn't even necessary for his goal. He could've been honest about his intentions from the beginning. Say 'Hey, I want to marry you to give the throne back to you, so, let's get to know each other, alright? You seem like a lovely girl and I'm sure that, with time, we'd grow to love each other."

There was no need to lie to her, constantly. There was no need to say he loved her over and over when it wasn't true. There was no need to say he wanted to marry simply because he wanted to be with her and not because of other reasons. All of this he did it because he is stupid. I can't find another explanation, at least. And being stupid is not a sin. He's still young, only 21, so he's bound to make mistakes. But this needs to be acknowledged. This whole thing with Daisy wasn't something he did out of duty. He did it out of foolishness, and recklessness, and pure selfishness. Because let's go back to the first scenario I presented. Both of them, married, living in Krikoragán for years and years, waiting for Merlín's father to die so they can be on the throne, and in the meantime, what? Merlín keeps lying to her about his feelings? She keeps believing he truly loves her when he does not? For years? For her whole life? You can't tell me that doesn't sound diabolical. It's cruel, and again, completely unnecessary. It would be so much different if Daisy chose it. If she had the information, and she chose to still be princess and queen of Krikoragán because she cared about her country and she wanted to help them. It would automatically make her a better ruler than Merlín, who has done nothing until now but renounce his responsibilities and act selfishly at every turn.

You know what real Duty vs Real Wishes looks like? Petra. This poor girl is doing everything she can to help her country, and when Merlín finds out, how does he react? He berates her. He screams at her. He tells her to leave Argentina and never come back. He gets on her face, telling her menacingly how she's the worst human being on the planet because-- What? Because she lied to him? She was doing it out of duty. She was doing it because, otherwise, Merlín's father would've hurt her country and her people. She didn't do it because she wanted to. Her intentions were noble, she never wanted to cause anyone any harm. But does Merlín care about that? No. And it's very interesting, when we take into account that, throughout the whole show, he's been claiming to do the same thing.

Isn't that right? Didn't he say he had to marry Daisy? Didn't he act like lying to her was necessary? Didn't he agree, barely a few days back, to lie alongside with Petra, to the whole world, saying they were in love and engaged, because he wanted to renounce his titles of nobility? Because he claimed he had to renounce his titles of nobility?

And again-- HOW DOES HE RENOUNCING HIS TITLE HELPS HIS COUNTRY IN ANY WAY?????????????

It's been established, many times, that his father and uncle are evil and therefore unfit to rule. By renouncing his title, he's just giving them free reign to do whatever they want, and leaving all of his responsibilities TO HIS LITTLE BROTHER. Who Merlín claims to love. Why would he subject his little brother to this fate he doesn't even want? What does that accomplish? If anything, his brother is way more susceptible to manipulation from his father, so it's possible he might grow into being an evil ruler just like him, and it would all be Merlín's fault. Because he thought he was doing the right thing, god knows why.

The whole time, he was only doing what he wanted without caring if it hurt people or put them in danger. Because taking Margarita to Krigarán is putting her in danger. Of course it is! If it were Daisy, it would be dangerous because of course his father and uncle wouldn't want her there. If they already killed her parents, what's stopping them from killing her too? Did Merlín not think about that?

And even Margarita could be in danger, even if no one knows she's the real Margarita, because she clearly has different political views, different opinions of how things should be done in the country, and it is established that Merlín's father doesn't take well to opposition. The death penalty was mostly enacted on people who opposed him. Death Penalty. Just for people who thought differently than him. And who clearly thinks differently than him and it's stupid enough to say it openly? Margarita. What was Merlín's plan to protect her? Apparently nothing, because the only reason they didn't die on that plane was because of Margarita's fairies magic.

Magic. That's what saved them. In the real world, Merlín would've gotten them both killed. Out of duty? No. Out of stupidity.

The only thing Merlín did that could be justifiable or redeemable, I guess, if you squint, is him flirting with Margarita and pursuing her romantically, because at least then you could say he was just a boy in love, and love makes people do crazy things.

He still went about it very selfishly though, as I established in my previous post, and this one, if you've been paying attention. Also, he's 21 years old, playing around with two 17-year-old girls. Let that sink in. Put that into perspective and ask yourself, as I do: Why did the writers think this was a good idea?

And with that I mean all of it. I genuinely don't understand it because these are people who've been in the industry for years. Who've created very successful ships before. Incredibly loved characters to this day, even if their respective shows ended decades ago.

How did they write Merlín's character so badly? How didn't they see the inconsistencies? Didn't anticipate that all his selfish lying would be a turn-off for a big part of the audience? How did they expect the audience to root for this man as the love interest for the protagonist when he does nothing but hurt everyone around him at every turn? Even their couple song, 'Si quieres herirme', makes nods at this: "If you want to hurt me, go ahead. I don't know how to defend myself from someone like this, who keeps secrets, lies, and spins tales, who makes me suffer. If you want to hurt me, here I am, come to me."

Is this the romance they want for the new generations? Is this the love they're teaching little girls to receive? To hope for? To tolerate in the future because surely if it hurts it must mean is true love?

The writers' construction of Merlín's character is incredibly damaging and dangerous because of what he represents. The fact that the whole narrative defends him and pictures him as the good, noble guy is frustrating, because he's not. If he has a way to take the throne from his father, he should've done it yesterday. If he doesn't have a way, then he's selfishly setting Margarita to a life of misery. And if he does have a way but for some clause he needs to be married to take the throne, then it didn't need to be Margarita/Daisy, it could've been any woman fit for the role (read: WOMAN, because these two are still 17-year-old girls), and even if he insisted on it being Margarita/Daisy because of his noble (and it's the only noble thing about him really) idea of returning the throne to her, he didn't need to lie about it. He could've stated his intentions from the beginning and no one gets hurt.

By this point, I'm thinking maybe Merlín knew he was too stupid to rule a country and that's why he's been running from his responsibilities his whole life and desperately trying to give the throne to someone else. At least then it would make a little bit of sense. At least then he would be doing it for the well-being of his people... kinda? Because his brother would still have to take his place, and how does he know, at this young age, that he would be a better ruler than him? Does he plan to help him grow into the best prince, and then king, Krikoragán has ever seen? It is never mentioned. It is never even alluded that he ever considered his little brother would have to take his place if he stopped being prince, which is stupid because-- of course that would happen. Anyone would've seen that coming from galaxies away-- That's how lines of succession work.

So, I've gotten to the end of this analysis, my friends, and the only conclusion I can gather from all this is... that the writers were overconfident. They knew this show had a target audience of little kids and therefore didn't worry about making it make sense. They expected the audience to eat it up from vibes alone. They expected no one to question it and just blindly believe what the narrative fed them.

Well, they were wrong. Fundamentally wrong, if you ask me, because even if the target audience is children, who watched Floricienta? Who would be the most invested in the story of their daughter? The little kids? No. The grown-up adults who watched Floricienta or grew up with the other shows by Cris Morena. And they have developed thinking skills. We have the ability to see the issues in the narrative. And we won't shut up about it. Even if, at the end of the day, it'll make no difference at all.

#margarita #margarita hbo #margarita hbo max #margarita si te quiere #cris morena #notice how I didn't say anything about the actor who portrays him at any time because it has nothing to do with acting #if I'm misremembering something about the first few episodes you'll have to excuse me- I won't rewatch them- it's a pain #also notice how I didn't even mention Rey this time. He's just a better option compared to Merlín- but ANYONE would be a better option #srsly- if they don't want Marrey- then just put Margarita with any other character and I'll be happier than with Marlin #My Post #meta #c speaks

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