#like the the Vates had talked about how he'd waited for the day with sorrow it very much seems like

[kateis-cakeis]

I might make a bigger post with quotes about this eventually, but there really is something about how the Vates, Osgar, the Disir, Finna, they all talk about Camelot's downfall as a part of the prophecy. Not only that, but they all know how close it is, especially Finna (due to the Catha guarding the information that says just that for hundreds of years).

And I can't help but think about how Camelot was never really threatened? Like sure, if they failed at Camlann it could have fallen, but there's something about it as if... Camelot’s ruin was a destiny that could be thwarted and prevented, while Arthur’s death, which was what everyone was trying to stop (even the Disir arguably) was a fate so bound to the earth, so true, that any move to prevent it was a step closer to it happening.

Except, as much as Camelot was saved, it doesn’t survive forever. It becomes a legend, and Merlin lives to the modern day – a modern day that presumedly reflects our own.

Which brings me to an alternative interpretation: As Camelot flowers, the seeds of her destruction are being sown – because one day it will be no more.

I think much of the prophecies in BBC Merlin are simply talking about the wrong time. They think they know, but they have no idea of the larger scope of it all. Sure, uniting Albion, Arthur’s downfall, Mordred’s, Morgana’s, they were set for a certain time. But Camelot’s destruction? Hell, returning magic?

Maybe the prophecies were talking about a different age, and the seers across the centuries just got it wrong. We don’t even know how much it was known that Merlin was immortal, sure it says it in the name Emrys, but nobody talks about it until Balinor does in the Crystal Cave.

It seems as if the interpreters of the prophecy hoped that it would happen in the time when Emrys and the Once and Future King were born, but what if it was just that? Hope? What if it was always meant for the modern day we know now?

What if… even those who thought they knew, like Alator, like Finna, had no idea? What if the Disir were simply playing their part to ensure Arthur’s downfall would be right on time? What if the tragedy that followed was just to arrive at a better time, at a time where Camelot’s destruction came and went, at a time where magic is needed most?

It’s just the continued assertion that Camelot will fall from everyone knowledgeable about the prophecy in Series 5… it makes me think it’s talking about a future they cannot conceive of. And if that’s the case, then what else was never meant to happen in their time?