#incoming headcanon: camelot was a small but mighty kingdom that succeeded in centralizing power within the region

[pendragonsclotpole]

rewatching an episode of season one of merlin right now, i have a lot of thoughts (arthur legit looks so young it’s messing with my mind realizing how much the characters grow over the seasons and oh my lordy merlin used to be so pure, so trusting, so naive *ugh*) but one thing that just popped into my head: how small Camelot looks.

this is probably due to budget reasons, but the fact that random people can show up and demand an audience with uther or appear mysteriously and meet with a prince, it just makes me wonder what that must have been like for merlin both during his time in camelot and after

we’re talking a kingdom’s whose golden age was in an era of petty states and kings, a few centuries after the fall of the roman empire. merlin fics sometimes bring up how popular merlin is among the people of camelot. it highlights the unspoken notion that camelot and its nobles and royals aree within degrees of separation.

the world, after arthur’s death, must have gotten so frightfully big for merlin. i just think, what if merlin had served arthur or another such king in a later era when the size of the kingdom was so much larger? remove the feudalistic background, if that is what they were going for in the series, and who is merlin? its for that reason that i love the joke that merlin would lowkey be a monarchist because yeah, merlin lived an early era of kings where royals could be in such close proximity and held to the standards of their people.