#but hunit would never approve of what he did to her son

[daritskaya]

one of the things about gaius' character that makes me terribly angry and confused is that he also tells merlin about destiny from the beginning, even though it's not even something he truly believes in. prophecy is important to the druids, it is - in one sense or another - important to kilhgarrah, it is important to the sorcerers. It makes some sense for them to throw this weight of knowing destiny on merlin. they don't know him; he is to them the messiah they have waited too long for. he is to them the long-awaited release and/or long-awaited revenge

but gaius has turned his back on the sorcerer community. he doesn't wait for the prophecy to be fulfilled, even if he believes it to be true. he's been convincing merlin all show that it's too soon for change - it's too soon for merlin to reveal magic, it's too soon for arthur to take the throne; when in fact it's gaius who isn't ready for change, it's gaius who wants to leave things as they are. He's comfortable where he is. all he's doing is making it harder for merlin to fulfill the prophecy - even if he does it unintentionally.

and he knows merlin. merlin is not just a distant image from the prophecy, not just a messiah, he is the boy that gaius calls son, a boy who is too young to carry such a burden.

and despite all this! he still keeps reminding him of the great destiny as something that defines merlin and everything around him, with absolutely no thought of how it affects merlin, because…. it's convenient? in the first, uh. two, maybe, episodes it could be just a (dubious) attempt to encourage merlin, after all, these are his first weeks in camelot. but later? later it turns into a way to manipulate him, to push him at crucial moments (one of the most striking cases in the first episodes: merlin doubts whether he should go kill the griffin? remind him of his great destiny! gaius just… uses it as a convenient excuse after which he doesn't have to explain anything).

"you have a great destiny, merlin" = "you have my permission to use magic, merlin."

gaius' approval is important to merlin. gaius restricts merlin a lot, (ultimately exacerbating merlin's fear of his magic) and if he turns a blind eye to his prohibitions, then the situation is very serious. and guess what? the only times merlin has gaius' approval are when merlin needs to destroy someone or save the prince and/or king. he literally learns merlin to think that his magic is good for killing and guarding pendragon and nothing more. that's all he can afford (that's what gaius can control. if anything changes, gaius loses control and he doesn't want that)

and that's one big reason why, in the end, merlin sees himself as a weapon in arthur's hands and sees nothing beyond that

what the hell, gaius.