#my stupidest fanfiction goal is to do a complete canon rewrite of this terrible show

[aethersea]

absolutely losing it trying to figure out the economic situation in Camelot in BBC Merlin. Arthur says that “the people” make just enough to subsist, and the taxes are already as high as they can bear to afford (s2e6 “Beauty and the Beast pt 2”). he says he knows this because he’s the one who goes out among them, unlike his dad who just sits at home all the time. but do we ever see Arthur interact with someone outside the city proper? we do not. are the people in this city really living hand to mouth? they sure don’t look like it – there are taverns, businesses, we never see a single homeless person, and the one Ordinary City-Dweller whose house we do see (Gwen) lives alone, with no apparent financial difficulty, on just one person’s salary. this is never framed as unusual. 

but then again, Arthur did sound like he was talking about farmers producing just enough crop to feed themselves. so maybe this new tax is just punitive for people in the countryside, not in the city, and Arthur hangs out there between episodes. 

but then two scenes later we see tax collectors taking All An Old Man Has in the heart of the city itself. okay, I guess this means the city is not an economic center? for a slight tax increase to have such a devastating impact? 

but if everyone’s so desperately poor, how do they pay for so many guards? they literally just stand around in various palace corridors and city streets, every day, wearing their expensive chain mail and holding their expensive weapons. clearly Uther is taxing the populace blind to maintain his standing army. but honestly where are all these guards even coming from? Camelot is not that large! they never mention ANY population centers other than the city proper and “the outlying villages,” where they’re always sending riders whenever there’s some emergency. other than that it’s all cursed forests and meadowed hills for Arthur and Merlin to ride through dramatically. 

and on TOP of the regular guards, Arthur has a good 15-20 knights who work directly under him as an elite force – way more than that if you count all the ones who die and have to be replaced every few episodes – and every last one of them is a youngish man of noble birth. where are their families? do they have no sisters? cousins? baby brothers? parents?? Uther’s said to have “established” the knights as a way to solidify his rule, by binding the noble families together in a common covenant (s1e5 “Lancelot”), which suggests he brought a bunch of feuding families together under his reign. but then where are they now? it’s been like 30 years tops since Uther became king, they can’t have died out. actually we KNOW they haven’t died out because they keep sending able-bodied young men to be knights in Camelot! but WHERE ARE THEY????