#everybody keeps telling merlin that one day he won't have to hide anymore

[panharmonium]

well, we started season 5 the other night.

[disclaimer again for anyone who doesn’t know me: i’m rewatching because I NEVER FINISHED SEASON 5.  i have never seen the last four episodes.  i don’t know how it ends.  please help me enjoy (or, you know, maybe not enjoy, given how things are going in the first two episodes, but...experience, at least) season 5 without spoilers.  thank you!]

i’m going to try to keep up with posting some things during season 5, but despite the fact that i don’t actually know how it ends, this season still kind of makes me feel like i’m being marched to my own execution, and sometimes i feel TOO emotionally invested in what’s going on to even want to write about it, but we’ll see how much i get done.  

anyway - the most important takeaway i want to put down about the opener is that merlin is a mess.

the writers/directors do a really great job of flipping the script between seasons 4 and 5.  in season 4, arthur was the disaster, and merlin was the one who had to take charge of everything.  but in season 5, arthur's gotten his life together, and merlin’s the one having a crisis.

the turnaround that arthur makes between S4 and S5 is amazing.  it’s like he’s a completely different person.  a better person.  i love seeing him like this - after spending all of season 4 so fed up with him, suddenly i get into season 5 and finally see the king i was looking for.  there’s no more agonizing over what people will think of his decisions or what his father would do - he just looks inside himself and does the right thing.  he’s confident.  comfortable in his leadership role.  and you can see that it’s changed his entire demeanor.  despite everything that’s happening, he never seems excessively worried about their situation.  he never seems overly stressed (in contrast to merlin, who is losing his mind) - he stays positive and just does what has to be done.  he seems happy.

it’s the kind of peace of mind that comes from being certain that you’re doing the right thing.  he almost never experiences that in season 4, but in season 5, he’s finally comfortable with who he is and what he’s doing.  even the tone of his confrontation with morgana is different than it was in S4 - he’s not second-guessing everything he did that could have made her hate him anymore.  he regrets the situation they’re in, but he’s not tearing himself up over it.  he’s not afraid of her.  

merlin, on the other hand - 

merlin is afraid of everything.

merlin in season 5 is a grade A disaster.  the - you remember how in this old piece i kept saying ‘merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon?’  

well, it didn’t, then.  but it sure as hell does now.

and not in a nice ‘you’re my best friend’ kind of way, either.  the fear of what’s coming - the idea that Something Bad is coming for arthur and that only merlin can stop it from happening, the fear that everything he’s worked for will come to nothing - it swallows merlin whole.  it changes him.  from the very first episode, his fear twists him into something unrecognizable.  like - even before mordred comes on the scene, after annis says that it’s likely gwaine and percival are still alive and being held captive - merlin tries to convince arthur not to rescue them.  he says “i’m not sure we should go to ismere.”

like - excuse me?  merlin’s advocating for NOT rescuing someone?  for just leaving his friends to die?  for abandoning GWAINE, of all people?

something’s wrong.  something’s big-time wrong.  

and it’s not like we’ve never seen hints of this...ruthlessness in him before.  merlin's worst moments have always tried to poke through when he gets too caught up in what kilgharrah tells him is “supposed” to happen, when he lets his fear of failing at his destiny override his natural compassionate instincts.  he almost leaves mordred to be captured in 1.08.  he almost allows uther to be assassinated in 1.11.  he does poison morgana in 2.11, though i’ll grant that that was in dire circumstances and under extreme duress.  for the most part, though, in moments like these, merlin’s better nature wins out, and he ends up defying the “demands of destiny” to do what he thinks is the right thing, the better thing, the kinder thing.  even when confronting morgana in the crypts in the S3 opener, he tells her “it doesn’t have to be like this.  we can find another way.”

but this season, merlin’s better nature is losing.  he’s losing himself.  and it’s noticeable, even to other characters.  arthur tells him “i’ve not seen you smile these past three days,” and gaius notices he’s not himself:

what happened to the young boy who came into my chambers just a few years ago?

he grew up.

which is, of course, exactly what morgana says to arthur in 5.2.  

watching this happen is the most devastating thing.  it’s TRAGIC.  for a character whose base personality has always been so sunny - how absolutely inconceivable is it to hear arthur advocating mercy in a situation where there was no need for further violence, and then to have merlin be the one shouting “you should have killed him!”

the juxtaposition of ‘he showed us kindness’ with ‘YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED HIM!’ is horrifying.  like.  good god.  even arthur thinks it’s bizarre.  he literally turns to look at merlin and goes “what is WRONG with you?”

and then when they’re contemplating getting inside the fortress, merlin says again “i told you.  you should have killed him when you had the chance.”

and arthur gives him this look and the tiniest little shake of the head.

what is wrong with you.

last season, it was merlin telling arthur “this isn’t like you.”  this season, somebody desperately needs to tell merlin the same thing.  

it’s bad.  it’s bad, bad, bad.  that’s all i can say about it.  we’re only at the opener of the season and merlin’s entire life has already been consumed by this fear.  everything else falls by the wayside.  he does things that go completely against his nature.  it’s a far cry from the merlin of yesteryear, who fought the dragon every step of the way when kilgharrah tried to make him abandon morgana or let the druid boy die or even allow uther to be killed.  it’s a far cry from the merlin of 2.11, who shouted “where does it say my destiny includes murder?!”  it’s a far cry from the merlin of previous seasons, who said things like this:

you're telling me that little boy is going to kill arthur?

it seems that is up to you.

no.  you can't know that for certain.

you have it in your power to prevent a great evil.

there must be another way.  the future isn't set in stone.

does season 5 merlin not remember what happened the last time he acquired a little bit of foreknowledge and tried to actively stop the future from happening?  he ended up causing the exact events he was trying to prevent.  

i repeat - HE ENDED UP CAUSING THE EXACT EVENTS HE WAS TRYING TO PREVENT!

and obviously i haven’t finished this season, so i don’t know, but i just don’t think anything good can come of this constant ‘trying to get mordred killed’ thing merlin has going on.  so far, mordred hasn’t even done anything to hurt any of them.  i actually like mordred, in fact, from what we’ve seen of him.  and yeah, okay, probably i’m going to get burned for that later, but the merlin we knew before would always rather get burned for trusting someone and seeing the best in people instead of just advocating for cold-blooded murder.  

like - maybe mordred IS secretly evil!  maybe he is!  but merlin in previous seasons would never have just taken kilgharrah’s word for it.  he always used to say ‘we can find another way.  there must be another way.’

nowadays, it’s like he’s given up.  he is single-mindedly focused on the only purpose he can see for his life anymore, and that purpose is simple, stark, and cold: ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die.’  there is literally no room in his life for anything else.  

and you know - some people would see that as like...i don’t know.  romantic, or something.  beautiful.  but i don’t. 

arthur and merlin actually love each other in this season, and i think that’s beautiful.  arthur’s finally gotten out of ‘be a dick’ mode, and even in just the opener he displays genuine care and concern about merlin, and that’s beautiful.  the two of them are on more equal footing than they ever have been in the past - for the first time, it feels to me like they’re actually friends - and that’s beautiful, too.

but the utter collapse of merlin’s entire sense of self and the dissolution of any bit of his life and worth that doesn’t have to do with ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die?’  that’s not beautiful at all.  merlin is miserable in season 5.  he’s lost so much of what made him who he was.  he’s hidden himself away for so long that the lie has stuck; he hardly remembers who he used to be, and he’s stopped hoping for better, because people kept telling him ‘your time will come’ but it NEVER DID, and arthur is king now but NOTHING HAS CHANGED, and i don’t think merlin’s ever felt more alone than he is when we see him in S5.  

i don’t think he remembers what it was like to think things could be different.  it’s been three years since he had a friend to love him for who he was.  lancelot is dead.  ealdor feels like a dream.  he has gaius, and that’s all - the rest of his life is a lie.  and it’s like he’s resigned himself to it now.  he doesn’t talk about telling the truth anymore.  he doesn’t chafe at not being able to reveal himself.  this is the season where he literally hears arthur say ‘maybe my father was wrong, maybe not all sorcery is evil’ and then merlin declines an opportunity to free himself, just to make sure mordred will die.  

it visibly kills him to do it.  you can see the agony of that decision on his face.  the pain that he is in during this season is slowly destroying him.  but it’s like he doesn’t think he has other options.  he’s given up on his own life, he’s given up on his own liberation, he’s given up on anything that isn’t ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die.’  

i hate that this is all he thinks his life can be.  i hate that he thinks this is all he was fashioned for.  merlin at his core has always been such a happy, hopeful, sunny person.  he’s always looked at things and seen the good.  he’s always been so curious, and gregarious, and loving.  he’s always had a smile for everybody.  but so much of that has just been crushed, now, under fear and stress and isolation.  

i don’t know.  this is only the first two episodes and it puts such a feeling of grief - and dread - into my heart.  i worry for the future.