#but yes every character develpment is a jump or no development because the authors just couldn't

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

What did you think of Merlin BBC ending?

WELL.... This is going to be long, I am so sorry.

I have conflicted feelings about Merlin BBC in general. I do think it was an original and fun concept and I really enjoyed the way it re-imagined some elements, from Arthur being a re-known prince, to Merlin being just a young guy like him, magic being hidden, Gwen going from being a servant in the castle to a queen. I remember that the first two seasons tended to set some elements that might have been a bit far away from general arthurian common knowledge but that seemed quite enjoyable.

The whole show seemed to be based on “magic needs to be secret”, but “Merlin has magic” and his magic is going to be the stepping stone to make Arthur into a good king. The show literally said that Arthur is DESTINED to be a good king.

And then nothing ever happens.

Merlin BBC took the coward way. Instead of introducing development and change, they simply did the same old same old, probably too scared to change the dynamic they had. Here are some examples:

Magic. The show starts with magic being illegal and seen as bad. The show ends with magic still being illegal and seen as bad. There is no character development in Arthur. This is the whole premise. From a normal storytelling point of view we would expect the relationship between Arthur and Merlin to be fundamental to change the way Arthur sees magic, not to mention that Uther’s death should have been part of this process. Instead, nah.

Arthur and Merlin are supposed to be friends but their relationship never seems to reach that stage. I know I am going to make a lot of people mad (probably?) with this, but I don’t think the relationship between Arthur and Merlin ever changed from season 2. Instead of building up, it just gets stuck into comedy moments, and the same old gags and mini dramatic moments. 

Arthur is destined to be a great king but he literally do NOTHING. When Uther dies, the show has to introduce the random Agravaine to give him the role of Uther because they are clearly not ready to develop Arthur’s character. This ends up in some villanous behaviour (from Arthur’s part) that is never addressed because the show works like this: “If the narrative TELLS you that an act is good,  the act is good” (ex. Merlin threatening to kill some random druid children. It is seen as fun! Or Arthur murdering an unharmed man/king is seen as smart but reckless, when instead it is clearly awful and dumb). When Agravaine is out of the picture... we get a 5 years time jump. We don’t see any changes in Arthur’s kingdom. Magic is still illegal, for example. Nothing is shown to tell us that Arthur is a great king, and then he LITERALLY DIES. Like... immediately? What did he do? How was he a great king? I am so confused