#pretty much like in the episode where merlin WANTED morgana to kill uther

[gd-dollopole]

I believed I was the only one who thought this! OP, this is genius. I rooted for him from start to end, and when Edwin tried to kill Gaius? Honestly, I wanted him to do it even then, because Gaius participated in the murder of Edwin’s parents. I also agree on everything you said about Gaius. He is as responsible and as guilty as Uther.

Gaius was such a manipulative character, I swear.

They’re never going to make me hate you Edwin (or Kilgharrah, my beloved)

one of my favorite minor "disposable villains" in Merlin who tried to kill Uther is Edwin from 1s6e.

seriously, he was so good, I was rooting for him the whole episode. if it wasn't for his rush at the end, one slip up with gwen and trying to kill not only Uther but also gaius and merlin, (trying to kill merlin I honestly didn't understand. I'm sure he would have succeeded and could have gotten away with it. it was a very clever plan, you can't give him credit for it.

him being a Horrible Dark Sorcerer is not what I'm focusing on at all, because there are so many scenes in this episode that just…. kill me.

the way merlin is happy to use magic for everyday things and what a relief it is for him to share it with someone other than gaius. someone who tells him that his magic can be good and supports him (what a devastation it was to find out everything afterward)

how after edwin said "you watched my parents burn at the stake" gaius replied "they practiced black magic, and now you're practicing it too!" because it's such a convenient excuse - even though they were his friends, even though he watched thousands of innocents die who had nothing to do with black magic, and he knows it, knows he's to blame, but it's so much easier to redirect his anger at someone else than to face his mistakes.

the way the return of gaius is not happy at all, because really edwin is right, and gaius is too old and blind, and in the last scene one old blind man swears allegiance to another blind man, washing himself in blood

it's scary

[that-nerd-who-writes-fanfiction]

Hello, can I ask from both this ask game :

https://www.tumblr.com/threecheersforinking/677824836625694720/anime-ask-game?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/rafael-silva/90297624190/send-me-a-fandom?source=share

For series : Merlin BBC

Thanks ⭐

I’ve already done the first one, that’s here if anyone’s interested.

But the second one, this post, I can do :)

The first character I first fell in love with: So I never really “fell in love” with any characters, I genuinely thought celebrity crushes were bullshit up until a few weeks ago cos it just never made sense to me (I’m aroace so that’s the perspective I had growing up, even before I had the language to explain it.) That being said, the first time I watched the show, Morgana was instantly my favourite. I loved how strong she was to stand up to Uther, that despite being so strong and wilful, she was still kind and had a softer side with Gwen. She was such a role model of sorts for that when I was a kid.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Mordred. I was very much “he killed Arthur, he must be bad.” For a long time. It wasn’t until I started really getting into the show and writing character analysis and then fics with him in that I started considering that there was more to him. He was introduced as a child but was instantly vilified where Morgana and even Morgause to an extent had a chance to be ‘good’ first. I was about five or six when I first saw this show, or bits of it in passing on tv, so I still had the very childish ‘good guys vs bad guys’ idea, and I sort of held onto that for a while because I wanted things to be that simple. Coming back with renewed perspective as an adult though, I can see that he was just a kid in a shitty situation who was trying his best and hurting. I love how complex he is, the debate about if Merlin would’ve been right to kill him as a child if he knew that he was going to become a murderer, that with Merlin’s character development, he just lives rent free in my head with all his complexities and character traits.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: Can I say Gaius? I don’t know if people actually like him but there’s probably at least a few people. He’s fine, I get that he’s a father figure to Merlin, but by the end of season 3, I was kinda just bored of him. I felt like he was holding up the plot and

The character I love that everyone else hates: I don’t think i don’t like anyone who isn’t meant to be liked, or if I do it’s because they’re designed to be hated and I like the way they were written more than the character. Maybe Uther? Just watching the slow decline in mental stability and how delusional he was even from the first episode was interesting. I don’t like the character, I like the way the character is written if that makes sense.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: Gaius. I used to think he was awesome for being a good father figure to Merlin, taking him in and all that. When I actually started watching the show I just stopped caring about him as much. Then he started saying things like “I believe Uther is a good king” and with everything the show tells us about him ignoring advisors, refusing to help people, abusing his son and ward, I just couldn’t see him as a good person anymore. He’s traumatised and complex so he’s interesting, but I don’t like him the same way I used to.

The character I would totally smooch: pass.

The character I’d want to be like: Arthur or Lancelot. They’re just pretty cool well rounded characters. Obviously there’s the issues but who hasn’t got something to deal with, but they both seem chill.

The character I’d slap: Kilgharrah. It’s on sight for the bitchy basement gecko. He’s such a piece of shit in the show, I love a good Kilgharrah fic but 99% of the time I wanna slap him. Repeatedly. With a bat.

A pairing that I love: Most of them. It entirely depends on what I’m reading so it changes almost every few days. Merlin/Arthur, Gwen/Morgana and Merlin/Lancelot are my top favourites that I always come back to though.

A pairing that I despise: I’ll ship pretty much anything, if I don’t then I just don’t and tend to ignore it, so I don’t really despise anything. At most I’ll have an active indifference. I don’t know, I saw Morgana/Mordred once as a background thing in this fic I was reading, Mordred was 19 i think so it was fine(?). I don’t know, there’s worse shit on the internet and it’s fictional, so whatever. Just gave me an ick, I ended up not finishing it and probably wouldn’t have read it if it was tagged but still can’t say I genuinely hate it.

[gaiusbunnymask]

rewatch commentary: valiant

Valiant got his snake shield in some sort of black market. I'll assume the market where valiant met the sorcerer is not in Camelot since Merlin comments on the snakes being foreign. most likely it's from the western isles, the same place valiant comes from.

the sorcerer wasn't distrustful of Valiant and looked pretty relaxed while explaining how the snakes where used, thrilled even, so Valiant was not his first client, though he was certainly the last.

the thought of a black market were sorcerers sell their stuff discreetly is very intriguing.

"You see? This is how a true knight behaves, with gallantry and honour."

the scenes with Uther, Valiant and Arthur subtly hint at how much Arthur is feeling the pressure of needing to win to have his father's and the people's approval. and the fact that Uther acts so nice and welcoming to Valiant, even inviting him to be part of the knights of Camelot, seems like something designed to make Arthur feel threatened that someone is trying to take his place. Valiant already has his father's approval and Morgana's attention. Valiant and Arthur both did very well the first two days of the tournament, but Arthur didn't even get a nod from his father, whereas Valiant was openly congratulated.

Valiant winning would destroy Arthur's self-esteem.

so when Arthur summons the court it's not just to prove that Valiant is cheating; consciously or not, he also wants to prove himself to his father, make him see that the man he was clapping on the shoulder two knights ago is actually a fake, unworthy of the king's praise and approval.

which makes the humiliation that follows five times worse.

"The people expect their prince to fight. How can I lead men into battle if they think I'm a coward?"

i liked this shot quite a lot. this episode focuses a lot more on Arthur's struggles and his relationship with his father. when he wins and kills Valiant, the relief in his face it's clear. his father gives him a nod and the crowd cheers in approval. he proved everyone that he wasn't a coward and that he hadn't lied. but oh, the way he sat alone in his room after the humiliation at court. being bound to do what is expected of him no matter he wants or feels. this is all Uther's fault of course.

"And now they see you for what you really are."

the purge has not only made people fear associating themselves with any kind of magic or magic user, but for the last 20-21 years, and then in the canon timeline, they've only seen harmful and dark magic being used, so this helps build up the prejudice against it that sorcerers are bad people and that people that consort with them are equally dangerous. just look at valiant. the magic of the snake shield is exposed right in front of everyone, the king included, and it's being used by an ambitious man  for his own selfish gains.

said man then tries to kill their prince, but it's thankfully thwarted. people like Valiant and the sorcerers that make those types of weapons contribute to giving magic a bad reputation, especially in the eyes of the people that grew up with the magic ban (like Gwaine and the other knights, except Lancelot). most of the "good" sorcerers are probably dead or in hiding, and if they do anything good,  they probably keep it a secret. that makes dark magic the type of sorcery that the people in Camelot are more exposed to. this confirms their bias and inadvertently backs up Uther's claims that magic is a corrupting force that must be purged from the land.

Some more thoughts on the episode:

-ok NO ONE ever includes the part where Merlin beheads the snake as one of his coolest moments. he was SO badass in that scene, and he barely knew how to hold a sword correctly at the beginning of the episode!

-i think this episode is so underrated in terms of Merlin being bamf. he sneaks around, breaks into Valiant's rooms using a spell to unlock the door, perfected a difficult spell in one night.

-the Arthur x Morgana was rampant in this episode

-Arthur is not his father exhibit one: As he escorts Morgana to the feast he tells her that Uther will never apologize for not believing him about Valiant. Then not a minute later he goes to apologize to Merlin for sacking him.

-Merlin may not be good at thinking things through before acting but he sure is creative when it comes to solving problems.

[none-ofthisnonsense]

Merlin S2E8, “The Sins of the Father”

Okay so a sorceress is interested in Arthur. I’m not sure in which way.

So a knight slaying everyone in their way and making their way to the castle.

Ohhh they’re challenging Arthur. 

Morgana looks intrigued.

OH IT’S A WOMAN, AND NOT JUST THAT, ALSO THE ONE WE SAW AT THE START

Okay so Morgana knows her. Maybe.

TO THE DEATH? DAMM

Oh he’s lost. Didn’t expect that.

Morgause is at least an honourable opponent.

Their voices are both similar and not.

…lesbians?

Uhhh why is Morgause in Morgana’s room? When Morgana is sleeping?

What’s cool about Morgause is that she’s not mysterious at all.

Oh those guards must know SO MUCH STUFF and so many conversations.

I have a feeling this won’t end well.

Okay I’ll admit I laughed at Arthur falling into dung.

I love Merlin’s deadpan humour.

Gaius is kind and nice and I like that about him.

Oh. Arthur never knew his mother… I’m sorry for him.

The boys are bonding!! It’s really nice to see a sincere conversation.

Okay so they’re not lesbians. Definitely not. They still have insane interactions though.

Pretty lake!

Eeeeeeeerie. I don’t like this. But Merlin is funny. MORGAUSE DON’T DO THAT TO ME

Okay I was scared there for a while. Thought we’d get a repeat of the s1 finale.

ARTHUR IS CHANGING HIS BELIEFS ABOUT MAGIC OPENLY(ish) THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Morgause had an incredibly melodious voice she could enchant me and I’d thank her

Arthur finally getting to see his mother…

So this is how he learns.

Colin Morgan is SUCH a good actor!!

Last episode and now this one? NO punches pulled.

Arthur is the best swordsman in Camelot.

Oh that hurts for Merlin to say. Both for him to say to Arthur (also because he’s lying) and as a magic user. 

This episode is Arthur-centric but really showcases Colin Morgan’s acting ability.

I don’t think Merlin will forgive himself.

Arthur is backtracking. This could not get any worse.

Uther thanking Merlin personally??? What is going on?!

I kind of want a fic where Arthur does kill Uther in this episode.

[pippin-katz]

I agree and disagree.

If we are saying that fate was always going to end up that way, then yes, you’re right. But for the sake of argument that things could’ve turned out differently, Morgana could’ve been saved.

When Morgana discovered her magic, she was terrified and alone. Merlin wants to comfort her because he’s been through the same thing, but he had significant advantages.

Merlin was raised by Hunith who is one of the sweetest people on the show. Morgana was primarily raised by Uther who is an awful parent.

Merlin had Gaius to confide in about his magic. Morgana had no one.

Merlin is a servant who can act pretty much however he wants and talk to whoever he wants. Morgana is a lady of the court and the king’s ward; she is isolated.

Merlin doesn’t tell her he has magic, but he does tell her about the Druids. What’s the main reason she wants to stay with them?

She doesn’t want to be alone.

Having Merlin to confide in completely alters the way the show would play out. They are good friends. Morgana rode to Ealdor to help him with his village. An acquaintance doesn’t do that. If Merlin had told her the night she confessed she thought it was magic, they would’ve become even closer friends. Every event forward would be different, even things that don’t matter in the long run. She wouldn’t have gone to the Druids, which means Uther never would’ve stormed the camp, which means Merlin wouldn’t have “betrayed” Mordred. 

Beauty & The Beast: Part 1/2: Probably wouldn’t have gone as far as it did if Morgana was working with Merlin and Gaius. Uther listens to her the most and he was already suspicious of Catrina before she put the amulet on him. 

The Witchfinder: Aredian’s only there because Merlin fucks up and conjures a horse out of smoke. Why does he do that? Probably because he’s lonely, depressed, and wants to use his magic for something fun. Gaius doesn’t let him do that, but if he and Morgana were learning a little magic together? Merlin probably wouldn’t have ended up doing that. No smoke horse, no witchfinder.

The Sins of the Father: If Merlin was Morgana’s confidant, she likely would’ve brought up the strange connection she had with Morgause. I’ve also written a whole essay on how differently things could’ve gone if Morgause hadn’t chosen revenge over logic. Arthur finds out Uther’s an asshole and that magic is fine, but they don’t let him kill him without lying about his mother. Go read that if you want the full explanation.

At this point so many huge changes have happened that you can’t even follow the episodes the way they’re played out. But for the sake of argument, what if he tells Morgana about his magic, but all of that plays out the same way in canon?

There’s still a problem: The Fires of Idirsholas.

If Merlin and Morgana knew about each other’s magic, there is no conceivable way that the events of that episode would play out the same.

1. Morgana meets Morgause in the woods.  If Morgana had been talking to Merlin all that time, she would likely know about the plan to make Arthur king and help free magic naturally with him. She would probably not agree to help kill Uther so easily with that in mind.

2. Morgana agrees to help and ends up spelled. Saying she does agree, the moment people started falling asleep but she didn’t, she would’ve figured out something unnatural was going on. She’d still likely act the same way she did when Arthur and Merlin got back.

3. Merlin figures out the spell. Why the hell would Merlin not tell Morgana what was happening if they both knew about the magic? They had several moments where Arthur left them alone. There would be no logical reason for him not to tell her, especially considering how against the idea of hurting her Merlin was. He’s always been the “there has to be another way” guy. 

So let’s say he does tell her; what happens now? I could see a couple things happening:

1. Merlin suggests the poison plan and she agrees, knowing she’ll be saved and the spell will break. Morgana comes to before Morgause teleports them away, so she has a chance to explain.

2. Morgana seeks out Morgause to ask her to stop the spell. Maybe Merlin goes with her too, and they bring her into the loop of the who Golden Age plan. Maybe she doesn’t want to play nice, but she would do anything for Morgana. If Morgana told her to stop the knights, I believe she would.

You see how far this is spiraling? You could argue that Morgana was too bitter or too vengeful and whatnot, but the truth is that she was not unredeemable/unsavable until season 3. 

This woman was passing out bread to the poor during the famine. She risked her life to save a child. She risked her life helping Merlin save his village. She refused to accept Gwen being dead when she’d been captured. She would’ve had Uther send a whole battalion to save her, and she said so. When she had visions of Arthur dying, she was hysterical and tried her best to prevent it. Morgana was a genuinely kindhearted person.

But that bitterness and anger was still there somewhere, and then she spent a year with Morgause. She was encouraged to grow more angry and vengeful. When she came back, that’s when it was too late. 

Honestly, if one of these paths had happened instead, I’m not sure how she would’ve reacted to being Uther’s daughter. I’m not sure how she’d even find out considering she only learns of it when she’s in a coma from Merlin accidentally knocking her down the stairs, which wouldn’t happen. 

I’m not sure how Morgause would fit into this either. She only ever wanted to make Morgana happy, and free magic users from oppression. If things had been different, there may not have been any cause for her to encourage Morgana’s ascension to the throne. 

Speaking of which, her desire for the throne is an interesting point as well. She doesn’t ever seem interested in ruling until she learns of that she’s a Pendragon. Personally, at first it feels like she wanted it mostly out of spite for Uther’s deception. She also acknowledged that Arthur had always been a better man that Uther, so I’m not sure how much she’d object to Arthur becoming king. However if she ended up wanting the throne the same way even with all the possible changes, I fully agree that Merlin would never choose her over Arthur. 

This ended up going on WAY longer than I intended it to be. This is also why I will never commit to a full Merthur book or series of divergent canon. It gets too complicated far too quickly. I like occasional one shots where a specific canon event changes a bit, but I never plan to continue it past that point.

Anyway, that’s all that. I mean no disrespect to the OP at all! These are just my thoughts and opinions on the matter! Their opinions are also valid!

Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but I think the argument that Merlin could have turned Morgana away from evil a) overexaggerates their friendship, and b) underestimates the appeal and manipulative abilities of Morgause. Merlin would have helped her in the short run, but eventually, Morgause would have come into the picture, said and did the right things to manipulate a vulnerable Morgana. Merlin telling her wouldn’t have done any good. Morgana would still have remained resentful and angry at Uther’s cruelty, ultimately leading to her turning against him by seeking out HER SISTER. Merlin didn’t want to kill Uther (for Arthur), unlike Morgause AND Morgana.

Morgana was already isolated and raging against Uther in the pilot. Uther is Uther, Arthur at this stage is almost Uther 2.0, and Morgana stands alone and (she believes) without family. By the time Merlin arrives she’s already bitter and angry, albeit justifiably so.

Morgana is drawn into her fate with an inevitability that only the dragon predicts. Her instantaneous connections with both Mordred and Morgause are strong evidence that the forces of destiny are working basically /within/ her. Merlin, on the other hand, is separated from her by status and by the proprieties of gender. Even if he did confide in her, I don’t think that would have tempered the radicalising effect of what she saw Mordred suffer through, and the kindred spirit/mentor/family she found in Morgause. Not to mention the fact that the first time she leaves with Morgause after being poisoned by Merlin, she doesn’t even go of her own free will - she was genuinely clueless that she was the one putting everyone to sleep so that an invasion could be carried out.  Merlin’s persuasive abilities had nothing to do with that situation, and those events are the ones where Morgana is truly removed from Camelot and fully radicalised into the personality transformation that we see between the end of season 2/beginning of season 3. There was very little that Merlin could have hoped to have done to remedy it. By S3, Morgana is a lost cause. 

Additionally, Morgana finding out she’s Uther’s biological daughter was what really pushed her over the edge. I think she would have felt betrayed by that revelation whether Morgause or Merlin were there for her. At that point, she wanted what was rightfully hers. If she had turned to Merlin for help with it, he would not have told her what she wanted to hear, which was try to claim the throne or have Camelot know she was a Pendragon too.

Merlin would never have chosen Morgana over Arthur. And Morgana would never have chosen Merlin over Morgause/the throne.

Telling Morgana would have been a colossally stupid mistake. It can work in the world of fanfiction, where we soften character personalities to better enable development or alternate timelines, but in the continuity of the show and her character, she was always going to end up walking down that path.

Also, Merlin doesn’t owe anyone telling a secret about himself that could get him killed - except possibly Arthur. But that’s a rant for another time.

[jasminedragonart]

Please I need mooooooreeee!!

📓📓📓📓📓📓📓📓📓📓

Okay, so this one is a BBC Merlin fic that I've kind of gotten inspiration from to make this original work I want to make about an exiled prince.

So, during the Catrina era (my favourite episode in the entire show) Arthur gets banished, not just stripped of his title.

Merlin is nowhere to be seen because he's in hiding, meaning Arthur, for the first time probably ever, is on his own. Uther doesn't snap out of his enchantment in time, nothing, Arthur is actually banished. All he has is some unbranded armour, his sword, his horse and some money Gaius sneaked out for him.

Arthur doesn't know what to do with himself. He ends up staying in the woods for weeks, but all too quickly his shiny armour attracts bandits. The first one he fought off. By the fifth? Arthur's tired, he's wounded, he doesn't have anywhere to go or anyone to go to. Other kings would kill him just to get one over on Uther, Arthur has a lot of enemies and he doesn't actually have many friends. His only friend is probably Merlin who, he hopes, is back in Ealdor. He ends up going there, except Merlin, idiot that he is, didn't hear about the banishment yet and is hiding in Camelot. Arthur gets a bed at least, and something to eat before helping Hunith around her home wondering where Merlin is.

He knows he can't stay there forever. To begin with, he knows more than one person would figure he'd go find Merlin's mother if he ever needed somewhere to stay. Hunith asks if he really has nowhere to go, no one on his mother's side he could ask for help, which is when Arthur remembers his mother's side of the family.

He goes to Tintagel, only it's not like the Tintagel in the show. In this one it's more like the myths. Ygraine was married before Uther, Arthur knows this. Arthur also knows that Uther says he liberated Ygraine from her home because they were in love, they'd been meeting in secret and that she was thrilled to be taken away and saved.

When he gets to Tintagel he still sees the bodies from the battle. No one had bothered to clean up. Things were exactly as his father had left them. Arthur finds men, women, even children, slain in the halls. His first day there, he spends it burying and burning the people there.

The next day he does the same. Then the next until he finds himself wondering how on earth his father could just leave them here. Where was the honour in this.

A month in, Arthur finds records. His mother was originally married to a distant cousin of the family. He's thrilled he has something of her to read, to know about her. But the more he reads the more confused he gets. The records say she was happy, that they were planning for a baby. Arthur even finds the crib. He finds so much care his mother put into everything. He even finds some of his mother's writings saying she was happy. He knows that his mother could just be saying this, maybe she didn't want to get caught out by writing something down like a secret affair with Uther. But the more he looks, the more confused he gets.

Merlin finds him there with Leon in tow. Leon was the one who suggested they try Tintagel, he remembered Arthur saying he would like to visit at one point. Leon tells Arthur that things have grown worse in Camelot, that Catrina is a troll, a literal troll, and is extorting the people so much that they can't even afford to live anymore. She's literally having people executed if they can't pay, and Uther is letting her do it. Leon begs him to come back, but Arthur's conflicted now. He doesn't want to be executed by coming home, but he also doesn't want his people to suffer. He tells Leon to get Morgana and Gaius, anyone, to see if they can find a way to change his father's mind because he literally can't help.

Leon goes, Merlin stays. Arthur shows Merlin what he's found, the two of them making plans to go to Agravaine and see what the truth was. Agravaine lives with his ailing father in their own kingdom (Pretty sure Ygraine was a princess of a kingdom in the myths). Arthur meets his grandfather for the first time. A man who still believes in magic and the good it can bring. Agravaine does too. He's not the slimy guy we see in Merlin either because Arthur, despite being Uther's son, came to them instead of following canon events and basically becoming Uther 2.0.

Arthur learns that his mother was happy. That Uther had spied her from afar. That they'd never even met before Uther raided her home and took her prisoner. Tristan and Agravaine had tried to get her back, but by the time they'd got there Uther had married her.

Arthur has a bit of an existential crisis. Eventually he asks for sanctuary, Arthur's grandfather granting it because while he is Uther's son, he's also Ygraine's and he loved his daughter deeply.

While they're there, Arthur slowly gets used to magic. Enough that he catches Merlin doing it one day. He figures Merlin has asked for someone to teach him a few tricks. He isn't angry, and Merlin, going along with the lie, agrees. Merlin slowly starts showing more and more magic around Arthur. Arthur learns more about his mother, about her life before his father got to her. He learns about Nimueh and Balinor, and that it was Ygraine who knew of these people, not as enemies but as friends.

Arthur slowly starts to find his identity again. He fights more in his mother's name than his father's, fighting in tourneys and helping Agravaine protect their kingdom. He learns from Agravaine the laws that help keep magic in line and eventually becomes heir there, after Agravaine.

Then the Saxon's come. They start raiding southern the coasts, taking villages and small towns. Arthur helps Agravaine fight them off, but all of them know if they don't band together they stand no chance. Arthur decides to go to the druids first. He offers them sanctuary within whatever kingdom I decided to give Ygraine's Father's lands. They agree and help Arthur and Agravaine hold off the Saxons.

Kingdoms start falling to the Saxon rule. Arthur knows more must be done, they need to start working together, all of them. So he starts going to different kingdoms. He beseeches them and, after a lot of negotiating and apologising, they agree to come to a sit down. The only one Arthur doesn't go to is Camelot- literally can't because he's been banished.

At this sit down, they all plan and execute an attack on the saxon's reclaiming a good portion of their land. With this proving effective they do it again, and again.

I wasn't sure how the story would go from here, but the end goal was that Arthur would take over Camelot- either by Uther's death or usurping him- and become high king like he is in the legends.

[veryhappyunbirthdaytoyoutoy-blog]

OKAY, okay, I'm rewatching S2 episode 3 of Merlin, and I have FEELINGS about what happened, so I have to talk about it.

To give a quick recap, this is the episode in which Morgana's nightmares have gotten to the point where her magic begins to physically manifest, setting fire to her room and exploding of vase of flowers that Merlin had given to her. Merlin decides to help her (giving a nice big middle finger to both Gaius and Kilgarah, who were both VERY much in the wrong here) and tells her where to find the druids (she gets injured too, which happens because she left alone and walked through the forest at night with no armor, but that's neither here nor there). Well, Uther thinks she's been kidnapped, and when Merlin goes to find and warn Morgana, the hounds pick up his scent, and he accidentally leads the knights to the camp. The druids have to leave, many are killed, Uther is now SURE the druids kidnapped Morgana, and overall things go pretty Bad.

Okay.

First, I would like to note that, while I understand Morgana was very upset and scared when she started doing magic, had Merlin and Morgana put their heads together for one ( just one!!) evening before Morgana took off for the druids, they could have come up with a plausible excuse for Morgana to leave -- maybe going to help in one of the orphanages in the lower town, or going to buy a special kind of fabric, or something -- and Uther wouldn't have gone berserk and think she was kidnapped. Instead, she left the evening Merlin told her, no plan, no armor, no sword, no excuse, and without thinking of the consequences. Which, as everyone knows, did NOT turn out well, and cut her visit VERY short.

Which I'll come back to later.

While she was in the druid camp, there was a druid man that was helping her, explaining to her that magic was a gift and not something she had to be scared of. He also said something that I thought was important and basically led me to write this whole thing. He said that Morgana should pity Uther -- which, up until this point, is not something that Morgana has EVER been told -- because his hatred of magic had "driven goodness from his heart." The druid man made it clear that Morgana shouldn't hate or fear her magic but also, and don't miss this, told her that she shouldn't hate Uther, to pity him instead.

Now, the reason that this is so important is because hatred was a trap Morgana fell into MANY times. Feel free to argue this, but the way I see it, it was ultimately Morgana's hatred of Uther that led to her downfall* and caused her to become so cruel, caused her to turn to Morgause, and made her feel like she had to do all the horrible things she did.

So my second point is that, had Morgana spent a significant amount of time with the druids instead of being discovered and having to run, more than likely, Morgana would never have gone dark. Had Morgana got to cultivate her powers in a peaceful place that taught her to use her magic for good and to deal with her hurt and fear in a healthy manner, Morgana would have never felt it necessary to align herself with Morgause. Morgana was happy with the druids, she didn't even want to go back to Camelot (though she would have, if only to keep the druids safe), and she felt for the first time as if she belonged somewhere. Call it imprinting or whatever, but had she got to spend some more time with the druids, had she learned their peaceful ways, had she not had to watch them die because they were suspected of hurting her, she may not have grown so consumed with hatred. Remember, at this point, Morgana was still young, and had the druids been who influenced how she felt about, and used, her magic, it would go against everything the druids would have taught her to join up with Morgause and bring Camelot to its knees.

Anyway, I could keep on writing about this forever, but then again, this post is already WAY longer than I had intended... But basically, to sum it all up, most of the bad things that happened to Morgana throughout the rest of the show could have been stopped right here if only Merlin and Morgana had come up with a plausible excuse for Morgana to spend some uninterrupted time training with the druids. That's all.

Feel free to tell me what y'all think!! If you have a different opinion, I would love to hear it.

*Okay, so what led most directly to her downfall was actually being poisoned by Merlin, but that wouldn't have happened had she not resented Uther enough to turn to Morgause and become a threat to the kingdom (thus resulting in Merlin having to get desperate), so really it's still true.

[princess-of-morkva]

Sooo

@kissme-withyour-cherrylipstick i want do address this first. in gwen's first three years as the queen, she was arthur's queen. while she did have power, she didn't have the lawmaking and executive power of such extent. as a queen, she probably did have her other duties and advised arthur, but she could not just change such a deep rooted law with her will alone. also, her political position must have been more than unstable in those years - not only was she from the serving class, but the last time she and arthur were engaged it fell through because of her cheating, (we know she was enchanted. but people didn't) and ended with her banishment. we can only guess her reputation amongst the lords and counsel was less than pristine. she simply did not have the authority to do such major changes, especially after camelot suffered a disastrous attack by morgana, representing magic forces, not once but twice in recent years and the first years of her reign they still likely had to deal with it's lasting consequences. the public opinion on magic could not have been favourable in those circumstances.

and we do see that while little change has been done to the laws themselves, the execution of those laws changed during arthur and gwen's reign. while the show loved to be wildly inconsistent, we do see that unlike in uther's days, association with magic alone was not a death sentence. even in first episode of s5, sefa was convicted for the crime of leaking sensitive military information and nor for having a sorcerer father.

season five setting is very sensitive in that way, while we see camelot knights fighting against sorcerers, it is usually not for the reason of them being sorcerers alone but for them being hostile forces that actively attacked camelot's forces. we do not see magical criminals being convicted for their magic alone, but for their actual crimes. for killing people, usually. (which is the showwrtiters fault. they completely leaned in into 'magic people be evil' narrative and did not allow any room for magic being redeemed in eyes of arthur or anyone else. which they did for plot convenience. they very conveniently left out any druids from s5, not only avoiding showing us how exactly did arthur proceed after his promise at the shrine. we do not see any druid persecution during his reign, but we also do not see any druids at all. because good magic representation was extremely inconvenient to s5 showwriters because then they would have to allow arthur to confront it and act accordingly. which with how they aimed to portray arthur would've had to end with him having realisations and acting accordingly. and they did not want that. so druids completely fucking dissapear and insted we only have renegade bands actively attacking knights and killing people all the time. because writers are inconsistent like that. )

to put it shortly, s5 camelot acted against magical forces mostly retroactively, unlike uther's camelot, where the 'action' was taken not even proactively as much as preventively. to put it in polite terms. and we do not see a case of a person being convicted for peaceful usage of magic. so (as ai said before, WE DO NOT SEE ANY PEACEFUL USAGE OF MAGIC IN S5 AT ALL, wtf writers?)

of course, there was still muuuch room for improvement in those policies, but that would be something that arthur would've had to do.

(i also want to mention the guy from the beginning of ep5. we know that he killed a camelot knight. and that was the crime he was expressly punished for but. we do not know in what circumstances it happened and who attacked first.)

okay this was a long side tangent. fuck. i didn't even begin to talk about my take itself yet 😭

alriiiiiiight

why do i believe that Gwen either knew or suspected about Merlin having magic?

I don't think she knew it for sure until the finale. But i think she had pretty strong suspicions. She wasn't even surprised at Gaius's confirmation. Not a bit. She figured it out herself and that is a fact, we only do not know when exactly.

I think it was a combination. Of everything. From the dog statue and her watching after merlin in poisoned chalice. (did you see the look she gave gaius in that scene? 'i know you're not telling the truth but i trust you so i'll go'. really bringing water was a stupid excuse from gaius and he didn't even use it in the end)

In the end of Servant of Two Masters, Gwen doesn't ask Merlin how he got rid of the snake. And she almost certainly knew it was his doing as he was gone, and than returned without it, even if we take it that Gaius didn't tell her what exactly he was going to do. Logically, she should've asked Merlin how he did, if she believed he had nothing to hide. But she didn't. She simply said she was glad that he was back, and didn't ask questions, sure that the snake was truly gone, not asking how. As she did with the dog statue, and the water fetching, and with when she was a doe-

about the doe

GWEN: I think. What are you doing here?

MERLIN: You were injured.

GWEN: Oh, yes, I remember now. Where's Morgana?

No further questions asked. She just accepts the fact that Merlin somehow instantly knew she was the doe while nobody else did. AS WELL AS THE FACT THAT SHE HAD AN ARROW IN HER LEG. AND IT'S HEALED NOW. No questions asked.

And Gwen is smart. You can't tell me she just accepted everything at face value. She must've had questions and she must've come to conclusions. And those conclusions led her choosing not to voice the questions.

So I believe she definitely knew there was something Merlin was hiding, and it was of illegal, probably magical nature. But she also completely trusted him with it. Really with the amount of borderline illegal magical books in Gaius's chambers she's definitely seen throughout the years it wouldn't even that far stretched of a guess.

also i think you can very clearly see that i'm biased and it's all cherrypicking. and also i'm sleep deprived and high on caffeine. but it's my personal theory and i like it. also writers are inconsistent bitches. i said it. s5 makes no fucking sense.

i believe Gwen always knew or at least strongly suspected that Merlin had magic. ask me why i'll tell you

[theonceandfutureking6481]

BBC's Merlin Season 1 Episode 6: A Remedy to Cure All Ills Analysis

Spoilers for the show

This episode is interestingly about Gaius, it is his arc we see here, not Merlin's or Arthur's and so this is a very interesting episode to watch because it is a vision of the world of Uther, and a vision of Gaius' own flaws. It is a world Merlin and Arthur will one day change and redeem, but as of yet this is a story more about the past then the present.

Gaius

This is something I believe I will come back to later, I'm pretty sure there's another episode later on that also addresses this idea and that is Gaius' deeply flawed nature. We as an audience love Gaius, he's a good character and Merlin loves him like a father, so we can't really help but love him too. But Gaius is flawed in perhaps one of the most dangerous ways, he is not cruel or even a bad person in any real way, but he is a coward. He is the person who in the face of injustice stands by and does nothing. His flaw is in some ways the most understandable, at least for me, its hard to be brave and to oppose power is not easy. Gaius has been a coward and has been complicit in the pain and deaths of so many in his silence, although arguably there wasn't really anything he could of done to stop it. This is revealed most of all in an exchange he has with Kilgharrah (though the 'blind eye' is also mentioned with Edwin).

Gaius: I will not choose between them (Uther and Merlin)

Kilgharrah: Then turn a blind eye. That is, after all, your talent

This is one of the first times we've seen Kilgharrah openly express emotion aside from telling Merlin about his destiny, its perhaps the first hint that he is more personally invested than he lets on. And its in an interactions with Gaius, and you can hear the disdain in his voice. This dragon has been a mouthpiece for destiny, for everything that's going to happen, he's a mouthpiece for the future and in this you realise that he and Gaius have a past, that there is more darkness in the past then we've previously understood. In this you realise that Gaius has failed to be the person he should've been, he's been a coward, and he has betrayed an entire people in his silence.

Gaius elects to turn a blind eye again by leaving, in some ways he's choosing Merlin but in leaving he's making it so he's not really making that choice, he's leaving whatever will happen in other hands. And Gwen says one of the most powerful lines in the show when he tells her that he has no choice.

"In life we always have a choice sometimes its easier to think that you don't."

Cause we do, Gwen's right. It's dangerous and easy to think that you don't have any choice but one, and everyone in this show makes that mistake at some point. Uther probably thinks that he has no choice but to persecute magic users because they're are evil. Everyone seeking revenge on Uther thinks they have no choice but to do so, and in doing no choice but to let collateral damage happen. Because if you accept that there is a choice then you accept responsibility for your actions, you accept that you are responsible for any damage you cause. You may still make the choice, but you are accepting that it is a choice you choose and the results are one's you have chosen to be acceptable. But I also love Gwen's response when Gaius tells her that he is choosing to leave, its a non-choice and also in Gwen's view its the wrong choice, but she doesn't judge him at all for it. She just says "then I'll miss you." She doesn't expect him to be brave, and she continues to care about him even as he doesn't do the right thing.

There is another note here that will be of more relevance later on. Gaius is and has been a coward, but Merlin is his redemption. Merlin is the redemption for everything Gaius has done (or hasn't done) that has helped facilitate Uther's regime. Obviously in sheltering Merlin, Gaius is already rebelling in a more meaningful way then he has in years but later in the show he will make choices to support Merlin and his destiny that will redeem him, and like so much of the show it is for the love of Merlin that he makes them, emphasising the importance of love once again.

Edwin

In many ways this is an uncomfortable episode for someone who is both not a kid and has already watched the whole show. Out of every villain in the show, Edwin is in some ways set up as the least villainous. He takes no collateral damage, he risks Morgana's life yes but ultimately he gets Gaius fired and tries to kill Uther. He doesn't even try to kill Gaius until the end, his revenge is so proportional, so seemingly justified, he hates Gaius but he doesn't try to kill him. Ultimately the show (in this episode at least) doesn't really address that complexity, they have some last minute making Edwin more evil ( he tells Merlin that they could be all-powerful together, the trying to kill Gaius and Merlin (though that was an under danger from them situation), and his parents having practiced dark magic). This ultimately succeeds, and we can go away happy in the knowledge that good triumphed over evil. This works this early in the show, this early on and we are not really sure how to feel about magic, how to feel about the great purge, how to feel about Uther, so we can accept the shows presentations of Merlin protecting Uther with little questions.

Ultimately I'm not opposed to Merlin protecting Uther, but that's largely due to how the show questions it later, because the show does address it. It does address whether or not Uther should be protected when honestly most of those seeking revenge are at least justified in the killing Uther part of their revenge.

But this has not been addressed yet, so we're left with a villain who ultimately did not seem that evil being killed and then Uther being saved.

This is also paired with this episode being perhaps the first one to truly address the horror of the great purge. Edwin's backstory is chilling, the scars on his face are there because he tried to run into the fire to save his parents when they were being burnt at the stake by Uther. There's also this sense of a barely spoken history between all the older characters, Geoffrey and Gaius don't want to remember that time, Kilgharrah reminds Gaius of how he turns a blind eye, and even in Uther and Gaius right at the end.

Uther: Do you remember them, his parents?

Gaius: I remember them all, sire

This happens, even after everything that has happened in the episode, so the episode itself doesn't even entirely erase the confusion regarding Edwin, and we don't really know who was really right. It's also an interesting moment for Uther, a moment where we see his resolve about magic slightly shift, and there is a hint of unacknowledged guilt there.

The fact that immediately after this Uther apologises to Gaius really cements this, Uther rarely admits he's wrong and he only does so when his own sense of his rightness has been questioned. He doesn't admit he was wrong with magic (and he never will), but that feeling perhaps prompts him to be able to admit he was wrong to Gaius.

Why Gaius serves Uther

Now this is a question that's hard to answer, because ultimately Gaius does serve Uther loyally for much of the show, rarely opposing him and it goes somewhat beyond just not being able to do anything else because Uther's the king, and Gaius both can't do anything but also just isn't a very brave person (though that is certainly part of it). We do find out later that Gaius ultimately doesn't think Uther's a bad king, he believes that Uther on the whole is fair to most of his people (except magic users), he's not great but he's better than a lot would be. And you see the hint of that in:

Gaius: You have always done what you believed to be right

Gaius perhaps sees in Uther a king who isn't purely driven by selfishness, a king who does genuinely seek to act in the interests of the people, and I guess that's probably better than most kings.

I also think there's a warning in that, a warning about doing purely what you believe to be right. And by that I mean acting purely in accordance with your own feelings without reference to the possibility of being wrong. Doing what you feel to be right is not always the right choice, and its something Merlin does often consider, not only because consequences are often far beyond what one person can consider, but because you may be wrong. Every person is blinded by their own experiences, Uther's blinded by his anger and hate and he mistakes that for righteousness.

Also, ultimately I might note, Gaius is physician. Most of the time serving Uther does not ask too much of him, he saves lives, he helps people, he doesn't usually have to participate in the bad. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that he still does occasionally, and he is reasonably loyal.

I enjoyed this episode, but its never been one of my favourites and it's hard to go away from this one entirely satisfied that all right ends have been achieved. The show chooses not to fully address the moral complexity at the heart of it yet, and that's fine this is after all a children's show and we are still so early in it but that does mean that in setting up complexity and not going through with it there is a level of dissatisfaction, as we struggle really to know if right really won here.

[empyrangel]

This is definitely going to be a long, unhinged rant, but I really need to get this off my chest.

So, I’m watching Merlin again out of boredom, and I’ve reached season 5, where I’ve come face to face with the same problem I always have at this point. Now, I know the fandom is in pretty unanimous agreement that the writing of season 5 (and potentially before) has atrociously butchered pretty much the entire cast of characters. I mean, the only one that I can’t find enough wrong with to be mad about is Arthur, though I’m sure I could if I tried hard enough.

After Gwen became queen, the only thing she would ever do or think about is Arthur. She never showed any sort of fucks towards other characters anymore. All she did was wine to Arthur to stay home and not go help other people, or try to convince him that others getting hurt was fine because that meant it wasn’t him in their place. The writers didn’t know what to do with her after she and Arthur married, so they just reduced her to his worried wife. The only thing she really did in s5 was that whole brainwashed by Morgana plot line that the writers shoehorned in when they realized they didn’t have any more plans for Gwen. But, honestly brainwashed Gwen was so much less annoying than whiny Gwen.

Morgana suffered a similar fate. At first we saw her hatred for Uther conflict with her love of her friends, which was interesting to watch- but when she found out she was Uther’s daughter, everything changed. She turned her sights to wanting to conquer Camelot. In s3 it wasn’t that big of a deal because she still felt like a person, even though she was apathetic towards her old friends. But starting with s4, she just felt like a plot device. She never showed any emotion other than spite, except for occasionally fear, which was refreshing. She had no inner conflict whatsoever. She only appeared in the story to generate conflict, or move the plot along- then she’s defeated and put back in the writers’ toolbox until the next episode where the cycle repeats. We don’t even get any explanation of her personal life outside of the really big events. Where did all of her funds, supplies, and support come from? All she ever does is lose. Surly simply believing in the same cause isn’t enough for all those people to risk themselves to work with her. At this point Morgana barely felt like a character, much less a person.

And of course there’s Mordred. Tragically underrated by both the fanbase and the writers. When we see him as an adult at the start of s5, he aims to pay back Arthur for saving his life as a child, which gets him promoted to knight. Then his objective changes to fulfilling that position to the best of his abilities. He gradually forms a wholesome father-son relationship with Arthur- which we should have seen way more of on screen by the way. Mordred wants to impress Arthur, and believes that Morgana’s way is not the right solution to the war on magic. It’s glaringly obvious to both the characters and the audience that he had no intentions of ill will to Arthur until his hastily written love interest was killed. I know sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between a character doing a bad thing with the author’s intentions, and just plain bad writing, but I think this situation clearly falls under the later.

But everyone already knows all that. What I really want to get off my chest that I haven’t seen mentioned enough- Merlin is a Mary Sue. Let me explain. He’s apparently the greatest wizard who ever lived. I mean we hear about all these great historical healers and seers, and this guy is somehow better than all of them. And yet it’s true. We see it time and time again. There is no limit to Merlin’s powers. He could have saved Arthur’s life, but the writers had to pretend he couldn’t for plot reasons. Mary Sues tend to be overpowered compared to the rest of the cast. And everyone’s always telling him how great he is, aside from when he gets clowned on by people who are oblivious. We have to hear over and over again about how amazing Merlin is, and watch all these important magic people lick his boots. Mary Sues tend tend be liked by everyone, and those who this doesn’t apply to are usually portrayed as villains. Which bring me to another point. Merlin’s almost always portrayed as right. Morally, whenever Merlin makes a decision, or is involved in some kind of ethical conflict, the story always portrays Merlin as the right one, and the other(s) as either villainous, or stubborn and uneducated. And he’s always right objectively too. Whenever Merlin has a hunch or something of a character’s true intentions, or about how a situation will end up, he’s always proven right. (At least on an episode to episode basis. Results may vary for overarching plot lines) It’s so annoying. Heroes are supposed to win some and lose some. That’s what makes for a compelling narrative. But the only times that Merlin lost that actually mattered were when Morgana killed Uther, and when Mordred killed Arthur.

And what makes all this even more infuriating is that Merlin is (maybe not completely, but mostly) the reason that Morgana and Mordred’s Villain arcs were set in motion. I mean, you can’t pretend that a character is the pinochle of morality and then have them cause the deterioration of the two main villains. Merlin caused Morgana to find out she was Uther’s daughter, which, like I stated earlier, got the ball rolling. Instead of just letting Uther die, Merlin accidentally mortally wounded Morgana, but then almost let her die before saving her because of other peoples grief. This actually made everything worse in every way. For all we know, Morgana could’ve just killed Uther and been done with it, but a bunch of terrible stuff ended up happening because Merlin couldn’t just not meddle in things beyond him.

With Mordred, he tried to kill/ get him killed on multiple occasions because of some vague, sourceless prophecy about a child being a murderer. And remember, like I said before, Mordred had no such intentions before his gf was executed. And why did that happen? Merlin convinced Arthur to keep with the execution plans. He hoped that distancing Mordred and Arthur would prevent doom from happening, even though he was already told that Arthur and Mordred’s fates were bound together. Merlin blindly trusts random prophecies and visions, except for when it really matters. Anyway, when things don’t go how Merlin thought they would (which may be the only time in the series a hunch of his had been wrong) Merlin finally realizes, a little too late, “Oh, wait a minute! If Mordred likes Arthur, he won’t want to kill him.” Like no shit dumbass.

The last thing I want to say about this is that Merlin pulled a Gwen as the series went on, and gradually cared more about Arthur than anything else. On multiple occasions, he dumped on magic, the very thing he was supposed to be fighting for, to try to sway Arthur’s opinion about it to protect him from whatever. And it wasn’t even worth it, because Arthur died anyway, and he died with a somewhat negative view of magic at that. Merlin abandoned creating Albian, the end game of his destiny, for Arthur, a piece of his destiny.

In conclusion, we as viewers and fans were robbed of the story we deserved to see- and the characters were robbed of the story they deserved to be apart of.

[hiimsociallyawkward]

his father's son

ayoo back again. these are always so much fun to make because otherwise it's me just yelling at my ipad of everything i'm thinking while exercising and singing show tunes and that's never fun. basically, all of my thoughts while watching his fathers son. hi bestie @lady-ofmagic-andstars

OH

IS THIS WHAT I THINKI IT IS

KNIGHT RUNNING?

CAMELOT RED WITH THE CAPE FLUTTERING?

PLEASE

SAL;DFJSADLKFJASLDKFJASLDF

KNIGHT MERLIN

HE ACTUALLY LOOKS SO GOOD HOLY CRAP

ASLJSALFASD AND HIS FACE WHEN THEY FIGURE OUT THAT THAT THIS IS AN ATTACK

STOP THE EPISODE JUST STARTED 🥵🥵🥵

omg merlin is still wearing the cape wtf he looks so good pls bbc have mercy

go away now agravaine.

let me relish in the joy of merlin wearing a cape

damn

you're welcome for this btw 😎😎

stop 😭😭 not arthur thinking that he's not worthy

ok i wish knew arthur knew his destiny but also i know why he can't know but i just don't want him to be sad because he's doubting himself yk???

i actually hate agravaine actually stop i feel like it's harsh but drop dead please 🤪

arthur is so good he just wants peace. agravaine please stop you're making him doubt everything that he is

i wish arthur listened to merlin but after watching this ending i can appreciate it

'i can't just kill a man in cold blood' 🥺🥺

arthur don't push him away he's just trying to help 😪

merlin has his blankie 2x this episode and you better believe that i'm commenting both times

arthur is just. i feel so sad for him sometimes. he's still so young and he has to rule a country now and just-

i get why arthur is doing what he's doing and such but i'm still sad.

alskdjfaslkdfjasdf jeez arthur not knowing abt merlin's magic is just. wow this episode is starting off strong 🤪🤪

ARTHUR DON'T BE MEAN 'stick to what you do know'. i mean. fine i'm just sad. SOMEONE TELL ME WHY I'M SO SAD SO EARLY ON IN THE EPISODE IT JUST GETS WORSE I NEED TO STOP

agravaine please leave now

ok that was hot how arthur walked in after the fact though. 'arthur pendragon. pop off'

arthur just wants peace i'm so sad he doesn't want to kill him but jsalkdfjsal;dkfjasdf

watching spn i watch the beheading a lot so i was expecting it but this is merlin haha

GWEN

WHY IS SHE THE BEST I ACTUALLY LOVE THEM TOGETHER. fvck you agravaine. actually die. please STOp

ok so merlin says 'dont push your friends' and while arthur says that he doesn't need anyone, at least he doesn't say that merlin isn't his friend. it's the little victories 😭

these castles are actually gorgeous

agaravaine please die now. stop

you manipulating arthur by claiming these things will make arthur into a good king is just making me so sad

fricken 'appropritate person' aalskdfj;alskdjfasldf

i literally just want arthur to be happy

dude i'm like 13 mins in and i'm angsting so hard over this

'a matter of the heart'🥺🥺

agaravaine die please :,)))))))

ok i'm so sad for arthur

he's still so young and he has the weight of his entire kingdom on his shoulders. he just wants to be a good king for his citizens and he wants peace and every good thing is just taken from him. he doesn't want to kill caerleon. he wants to marry gwen. and we have FREAKING AGARVAINE. this is why we can't have nice things.

ok the arthur using merlin as a punching bag transitively but also literally?? idk my head is blank. but like; merlin is letting himself be used as a punching bag and also it's his 'duty' to let arthur use him as a punching bag? idk idk thoughts?

stfu i don't want these white old men saying long live the king

pls chill

alright alright morgana

she is actually p good at getting onto annis's side so i'll give her props for that

oh shoot kneeling down to the queen? this is a power move but not a power move yk?

CLOAK

ok this is dumb but i love seeing merlin meander around with his little chores

ok what is bbc thinking when they have the "oh i'd never sleep in a bed with merlin" am i supposed to laugh? well i'm not. alrighty then

gwen :,) look at her in her pretty dress

you're breaking my heart right now arthur

you're BREAKING GWEN'S heart right now arthur

laksdjf;laskdfjasdlfkj I. JUST. WANT. THEM. TO. BE. HAPPY. please i need to read fanfic i'm angsting too hard over this

you tell him gwen. you're a badass and arthur is a sadass

i will not take gwen hate or slander

oh frick i was voted onto my school's hoco court so basically i had to walk across the football field and i felt so awkward and arthur walking down the step while everyone stares at him; i wonder if he feels as awkward as i did

LMAO 'he's not alone gwen' and pan to the arthur standing on a cliff alone?? pls

aw the domesticity 🥺

leon ruffling merlin's hair and that clink was such a good clink

where were these knights last episode. i'm suing

saj;flasjslad and arthur just loking at them fondly pls. he's so sweet i love him

'he's our king' that line makes me feel stuff

arthur sdfsd;as i just want him to be happy

MERLINS BLANKIE. WHY IS HE SO CUTE

bruh 💀 i laughed at the pure absurdity of him tripping over the tent

ok ok you know that vine 'two bros chilling in a hot tub 5 ft apart bc they're not gay?' that but 'two bros, chilling in 2 separate tents 5 ft apart bc they're not gay'

was- was that supposed to be a slap?

arthur is so earnest here and i love him he's the sweetest

sa;ldkfjsldfa arthur being protective over merlin

annis is such a badass. actually queen energy here. literally

merlin saying that they're friends again and arthur not denying it :,))))

these knights are so honorable

stfu agaravaine

'only one person who is just an honorable... ME' - arthur pendragon. HAHA sorry i cackled at this

agaravaine. i stg if you look at morgana like that i'll actually gank you

you absolute freak pervert person

alright ik morgana is evil and everything but i stan her improvement in magic

like- can merlin please get on with learning more magic??

as;dlfkjasdlfkja THE RING. dude i can't rn

merlin saying 'camelot needs you alive', i'm going to say yes.. but also if we swap out 'camelot' with 'i' then this is just a perfect insert line for fanfics :,)

THANK YOU OLD FRIEND. PLS you can't do this to me

aw when arthur asks if merlin is ready and merlin says ready

dude this episode is making me a lot more sad than it should

dude what is annis's champion. like look at his shoes??? they're leather?? literally stab him in the foot and we're golden.

youre welcome for the feet pics ;)

ok idk abt you guys but i can't write fight scenes with swords that well so i just base fights off tv and stuff and if you want inspo this is a great fight to write

legit the first battle with arthur and lancelot in the courtyard? yea i stole that

omg even with the champion is on his knees he's still taller than arthur??

alsjfalskdjasldfkjas ARTHUR AND MERLIN MEETING EACH OTHERS EYES AND ARTHUR NOT KILLING ANNIS'S CHAMPION

dude the trope of 'you make me want to be a better person'?? please i live for this stuff

ok the knights saying long live the king? i love that

alright alright annis&arthur

annis is ACTUALLY queen energy i love her. i love her pop off queen

oh shoot annis hit morgana where it hurts. bring up uther that's right queen

oh yes more castle pics 🥵🥵🥵

a aaw the ceremony for them

merlin and arthur are PALS i love them togehter

stop. there are so many words but i'm so glad they're lads

arthur is lying so awkwardly on that bed HAHA

DUDE THIS IS SO PRETTY AND CUTE AND OH MY FRICKEN ALSKDFJALSDJFASDLFKJASDL. alrighty then

yes arthur you're a dumbass you're lucky that gwen is taking you bad she's a frickin badass biatch who doesn't need you

alright arthur say what you mean why don't you

are we.. are we gonna kiss rn

THE SOUND TRACK PLEASE I LOVE IT. THE ROMANCE SWELL I ACTULALY LOVE IT

THEY'RE SO PRETTY TOGETHER

i love arthur in his night clothes and his bare feet. like that just makes it feel so much more domestic and homely and they love each other and just everything they're actually everything. THEYRE SO CUTE.

ANYWAYS i'll be back next week to endlessly rant about a servant of two masters. thanks i love you bye 😘

[like-sands-of-time]

Thanks for the amazing read !!! Op was able to convey everything I was thinking but didn't have the historical knowledge to say 😅

Still don't know if we're supposed to think morgana is older or younger than Arthur in BBC's version. If she's older, that would explain her (in show) desire/claim for the crown. But even if she's younger she still has the gifts/powers to become a high priestess since Nimueh is no longer in Camelot. Not to mention, as the daughter of the king's former knight she should have had a seat on the council right? Affecting actual policy, making a stand even if the older nobles rolled their eyes at her more out of the box opinions.

And like I said, she's the daughter of a knight (king or kings best man, either way a very high status). Given what we know of her personality, she absolutely would have done more than be a background character. She was willing to argue with the king in the first episode, and persuade Arthur to help in the third (?) . Why the writers themselves just sort of kept "forgetting" about her I've no idea.

It's like there was the potential for an ensemble cast, but they just couldn't/didn't want to support that? By that I mean: they didn't want to keep any of the round table knights around, or give them much backstory, they didn't want to keep Gwen or morgana around even when both of them were essential to both Merlin and Arthur according to THE PLOT. They introduced all these characters and then just kept putting them to the side or killing them to do a case of the week type procedural show where even Arthur is a background character and uther is hovering more than the future king himself.

All that to say, yeah this show 1000% takes place in some alternate universe where the 6th and like 14th centuries collide, and not in the ancient world we know where castles were no bigger than what we think of as forts, and the folks to the north probably still painted themselves when they fought, and the druids believed that nature itself held a kind of magic. And in this alternate universe, the future/modern time would likely be a lot different than our world. So people can pretty much do whatever. Maybe king's still rule land, but they fight with tanks. Who knows.

It's very late middle ages / age of Christianity for me and the fandom (the show but tbh they took the christian/norman influences to the MAX so) to assume women held few roles of power/authority/influence

I mean I don't have a history degree and I don't know a lot but I know boudica was a badass warrior lady who led armies against the Romans only ~500 years before King Arthur could have lived. And if the native people (or the Welsh natives specifically who managed to mostly avoid roman subjugation to my knowledge) were to continue any types of traditions or ways of life id assume it would be that women could be druidesses/priestesses, possibly even warriors and certainly queens.

Anyway morgana being only the king's ward, "powerless" in her own castle/home, and not even allowed a chance at a throne that is her birthright, kind of doesn't make sense?

Like if Uther was trying to be sneaky and marry the half siblings to each other to solve the succession issue I guess that makes sense?? Especially having her spend so much time in the castle. But they make Morgana's swordfighting skills this novel thing, mentioned only really a few times in the whole show, mostly in season one it feels like. If she was raised with a blade as the daughter of a knight she could/should be a knight too, just like Arthur. She could be his official second in command, since her known status is lower than his, but yet higher than sat Leon's because her father was such an important knight.

[101flavoursofweird]

Fandom: BBC Merlin, Ship: Glimadora, Character: Kipo, Crossover: Marvel x My Hero Academia, Top Five: Layton, Randall, Henry, Dimitri & Don Paolo?

001 | BBC Melin

Favorite character: He’s a royal pain in the arse, but I think it’s Arthur now. I wouldn’t like him as much on his own, but Merlin brings out a lot of the best qualities in him. One of the reasons I was so invested in the series was because I couldn’t wait to see him become king.

Least Favorite character: Arthur’s uncle… Agravaine de Bois. (I had to look up his name.) Uther was thick as mud sometimes and he could be cruel, but at least he was a complex antagonist. Agravaine was just the Obviously Evil Uncle and Morgana’s lackey. He really dragged down that part of the series for me.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Arthur/Merlin, Merlin/Lancelot, Merlin/Gwaine, Gwen/Morgana, Gwen/Lancelot. None of these ships end well.

Character I find most attractive: Gwen. Her actress is so naturally pretty! I love all her outfits too!

Character I would marry: Lancelot if he wasn’t… you know. He would have been a good husband to Merlin and/or Gwen ;_;

Character I would be best friends with: Any of the knights. What a bunch of lads.

a random thought: I’m sorry for what Uther did, Morgana, but please don’t blame Gwen. I get why you’re mad at Merlin after he tried to poison you, and I know Arthur is Uther’s son… but Gwen doesn’t deserve your hate.

An unpopular opinion: I swear I read somewhere that Melin/Morgana were meant to be endgame in another season that never happened? Maybe it’s just my dislike for Enemies To Lovers but I just can’t see that working, sorry. Those two have tried to kill each other too many times

my canon OTP: Gwen/Lancelot

Non-canon OTP: What do you mean Arthur/Merlin isn’t canon

most badass character: Merlin, even though he acts like an idiot, will not hesitate to explode enemies on the spot

pairing I am not a fan of: I’m not a super big fan of Arthur/Gwen… I like it in concept but not how it was written a lot of the time. Like in the episode when Lancelot returned for the dead and Gwen was so OBVIOUSLY put under a spell to ‘cheat’ on Arthur, so Arthur exiled her? Are you sure you don’t want to look into that, Arthur?

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Morgana… She was so much better written in the earlier seasons before she become a full-on villain.

favourite friendship: Merlin and Arthur!

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: Gaius! Gaius is an amazing mentor and father figure to Merlin. He’s like… the complete antithesis to Severus Snape.

002 | Glimadora

when of if I started shipping it: A couple of episodes into Season 1. I think I really started shipping it during the Mystacor episode when Glimmer tries to help Adora relax. Glimmer’s just so patient and soft towards her.

my thoughts: I didn’t need them to be ENDGAME but I really didn’t need them to have that huge argument in Season 4. I feel like their relationship was never fully repaired— at least, not to the level they were at before, and that makes me sad.

What makes me happy about them: The episode after Princess Prom where Adora goes in save Glimmer, but then she gets caught by Shadow Weaver, who tries to wipe Adora’s mind, so Glimmer breaks free to save Adora :)

What makes me sad about them: I think the ‘break apart’ plot line really could have worked better if they focussed less on other arguments and more on Glimmer working with Shadow Weaver in secret. If they had gone with that scenario, I would completely understand why Adora would be angry at Glimmer, but also why Glimmer would want the help of a skilled sorcerer.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: I haven’t read that many She Ra fics, but anything that involved needlessly bashing Glimmer to prop up Catradora would annoy me. Or vice-versa with Glimadora and Catra

things I look for in fanfic: I did read an AU fic where Glimmer took the fail safe instead of Adora… Glimadora was endgame and it was GLORIOUS. But, at the same time, Catra had a really compelling arc too.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Catra/Adora is an obvious one (after Season 5), but there’s also Glimmer/Catra and Adora/Perfuma

My happily ever after for them: Season 4 rewrite

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Adora is the big spoon, Glimmer is the little spoon

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Sleepovers!

003 | Kipo

How I feel about this character: For the hundreds of angsty heroes ‘cursed’ with powers, Kipo is over here loving life with her mega jaguar abilities. She’s such an unashamedly joyful, good-hearted protagonist— Not a cynical bone in her body!— and we need more characters like her.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: I don’t really have a romantic ship for Kipo— Something I actually like!— but I’ve seen a lot of fans shipping her with Asher and I can definitely see that happening!

My non-romantic OTP for this character: There are too many… Kipo & Wolf. Their relationship gives me so much serotonin. My absolute favourite scene is where they exchange birthday gifts ;_; Also, Kipo & Benson, Kipo & Jamack and Kipo & Hugo

My unpopular opinion about this character: I doubt this is unpopular but again, I love how kind and hopeful Kipo is to everyone she meets. That said, she’s willing to go Full Mega Jaguar to protect those she loves!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wanted to see her missing Wolf and reuniting with Wolf in the Wolf Movie! I know they’re reunited by the end of the series but I wanted the FEELS

my het ship: I don’t have one

my fem/slash ship: Kipo/Asher

my OTP: I guess it’s Kipo/Asher again

my OT3: I can give you a BrOTP? Kipo, Wolf & Benson (And Dave!)

a head cannon fact: Hugo was there for Kipo’s high school graduation :’)

004 | Marvel x My Hero Academia crossover OTP

Firstly— Thor/Any of the adult heroes because it’s Thor

Peter Parker can may as well join Class 1-A…

005 | Layton, Randall, Henry, Dimitri & Don Paolo

Henry, Randall, Don Paolo, Layton and Dimitri. (Randall moved up the list slightly since I just wrote a fic about him.)

[panharmonium]

okay, honest question about 5.11 -

are we seriously supposed to watch this episode and still come down on arthur’s side?

i’m not saying that’s what the show wants us to do.  on the contrary, i think they actually do a pretty good job this episode of NOT hammering us in the face with “you’re supposed to root for camelot,” which i appreciate, because there have definitely been other times when they’ve approached the moral dilemma of magical oppression and have kind of punked out at the end - most noticeably in ‘the sorcerer’s shadow,’ when they finally force us to look merlin’s cognitive dissonance in the eye by putting him in the position of saving uther from a magical youth fighting for freedom, and then they back off from that uncomfortable question by having kilgharrah say “you, like i, must hold hope that arthur will bring about a new age, an age where the likes of you and i are respected once again.”  

they don’t quite do that in this episode, which i really appreciate, because i just cannot see how they would have been able to pull it off without sounding ridiculously disingenuous.

arthur is WRONG.  

(i’ll get to merlin later, he’s...he’s got a whole different issue going on, but let’s just deal with arthur first.)

that whole conversation where he interrogates kara in front of the court - just look at it:

were you part of a cohort of saxons who attacked an arms shipment bound for camelot?

yes.

and were you acting under the orders of morgana pendragon?

what i did, i did for myself.  for my people, and for our right to be free.

i have no quarrel with the druids. 

i have spent my life on the run because of my beliefs, and seen those i have loved killed.

once, maybe.  but i’m not my father.

you don’t kill those with magic?  it is not i, arthur pendragon, who needs to answer for my crimes.  it is you.  you and your father have brutally and mercilessly heaped misery on my kind.  it is you who has turned a peaceful people to war, and it is you and camelot that will pay the price.

are we supposed to look at this girl and condemn her?  nothing she says is wrong.  

whenever we encounter these magical rebel types, the show always tries to play it like ‘well uhhhhhh they’re a little extreme......i mean......they kill people 0.0,’ as if camelot’s regime hasn’t been killing magical people all along.  like - kara stabs that soldier when she’s escaping from the cells, and the show kind of plays mordred’s reaction as...‘omg she killed someone oh no what a baddie,’ but dude!  the soldiers are about to kill her!!!!!  she’s running for her life!  killing a guard is nothing merlin and arthur haven’t done a hundred times, when escaping from captivity on their own adventures, but it’s never been framed as some sort of evil thing, for them.  why is kara the only one branded as a sinner?  a knight’s life isn’t more valuable than any of the children uther drowned.  a knight’s murder isn’t more deserving of reprisal.  

the girl’s murdered innocent men in cold blood.  we are at war.  i must be resolute.

we hear arthur say that and we kind of just want to shake him like - CAMELOT has murdered innocent people in cold blood!  if arthur can use “we are at war” to justify killing someone who has magic, then the same justification should apply to magic-users attempting to kill him.  camelot declared war on magic-users decades ago.  these people are fighting for their lives.

arthur is showing his father’s reasoning here.  his own rules don’t apply to him.  his rationale, his justifications, they only go one way.  there is so much to pick apart in his response to this situation - he tries to make it sound like ‘the problem isn’t magic, it’s that you murdered some guys,’ (he tells kara “you stand before the court not because of an act of sorcery or sedition, but because of an act of murder”) but literally in the previous episode he sends out a squadron to hunt down finna (and merlin, unknowingly) just because gaius said finna practiced the old religion.  

finna had killed no one.  she’d done absolutely nothing wrong.  but arthur went after her and said she ‘must be found and brought to trial.”

brought to trial?  for WHAT????  she hadn’t DONE anything.  nothing except be a follower of the old religion.

and his hypocrisy!  ‘it is [people like morgana] that have terrorized camelot and forced us to outlaw such practices’ - really, arthur?  literally two episodes ago, you went the cauldron of arianrhod and used magic to save your wife from an enchantment.  at the beginning of season 5, you used magic to summon your father’s ghost.  at the beginning of season 4, you used magic to try to save uther’s life.  

arthur has always been willing to use magic for his own purposes, when it suits him.  all while continuing to restrict others from doing the same.

this show is big on pushing the narrative that “arthur’s different from uther” - and he is - but how different, really?  seriously.  in the end, how different are they?

i feel like because we are fond of him - because we’ve gotten to know him personally, in settings where we can temporarily forget the impact of his policies - we’re sometimes asked to sort of look past the real harm that is constantly being done in his name.  like - ‘it’s okay for us to let it slide when arthur persecutes people with magic, because he has valid reasons to think magic is a threat.’  but what, then it’s not okay for someone like kara to want him taken out?  

she has valid reasons to think ARTHUR is a threat.  he IS a threat!!!  to people like her!  that’s the reality.  these people have every justified reason to want arthur off the throne.  they have every rightful reason to riot.  they have EVERY RATIONAL REASON TO REBEL AND REMOVE HIM FROM HIS SEAT OF POWER.  

if this were star wars, they’d be the rebellion.  we’d be rooting for them!  it is not wrong for an oppressed population to rise up against their oppressor!!!!!!!!!!  we all know this!!!!!!!!  just because we like arthur on a personal level doesn’t make it less true.  we CANNOT fault these people for refusing to just sit back and wait for arthur to someday wake up and give them their rights.  that never happens.  that is never how people become free.  we can’t fault these people for not choosing to be like merlin, for not choosing to hover in a morally questionable limbo for years and years and years and become complicit in their own oppression.

(and again, i’ll...i’ll deal with merlin later.  he keeps fucking up and i hate to see it but i also have to remember that he is a victim of the same oppressive policies as kara and mordred so it’s like...his case is more complicated.)

but arthur.  i honestly feel like the most telling moment is when he gives kara that opportunity to “repent,” which is supposed to be like ‘oh wow look how benevolent,’ only the thing is he’s completely missed the point.  the point is not that she needs to apologize for her crimes.  the point is that she hasn’t done anything wrong.  

no.

it isn’t.

the way they cut to merlin at that particular line is devastating.  it’s this...reminder of how far we have wandered, from who he used to be.  he used to think this, too.  he used to fight for himself, too; he used to come home to gaius angry and upset saying “i want to be seen; i want to be free.”  and now he’s just...locked into this impossible place where he can either ignore the veritable chorus of dragons, seers, and literal gods who keep telling him he has an absolute responsibility to make sure arthur triumphs, or listen to their counsel and thus betray himself, and his own people along with him.  and all this while still living under threat of execution himself - what is he supposed to do?  

this episode calls back so strongly to ‘the sorcerer’s shadow,’ which is the first place where the show confronts this problem so directly, when merlin outs himself to gilli and gilli challenges him about his choices:

i know how it feels.  i understand.

then you understand why i have to fight.  if uther is killed, so what?  how many of our kind have died at his hands?  how many more will?  it's time those with magic fought back.

gilli - 

you can't tell me what to do!  

you need to learn to use your magic for good.  that is its true purpose; it's not meant for your own vanity.

i'm not going to apologise for who i am!  you can be a servant and - and pretend you're less than them -

no, that is not what I do - 

no?!  you're defending the king!  protecting a man that would have you dead!

i'm protecting you!

you've been pretending for so long now that you've actually forgotten who you are.

merlin gets so upset by this.  he’s visibly shaken, and on the verge of tears, and he weakly protests, and then the next shot is of him lying awake in his bed, agonizedly stewing over it, because deep down he knows that gilli is right.  

this conflict has never been resolved.  i would add, as we move toward the spot where i am now in season 5, that it’s not so much that merlin has “forgotten” who he is, exactly, but that he’s been forced to abandon who he is, for the sake of his mission.  and most of the time he tries not to think about that, because it’s the only way he can survive, but he feels deeply conflicted about it still.

watching 5.11, it is so easy for me to get frustrated at merlin, because i feel like he should do more, in this episode, and do the Right Thing, but honestly at this point the only way for him to do the right thing is to reveal himself.  that’s it.  there is no other option for him.  we’ve exhausted all other avenues; there is no other step he can take.  he is trapped, in his current situation, and his deception is not just hurting him, now, it’s...it’s an abdication of his responsibility to everyone like him.  

i don’t like saying that.  because in real life it’s never okay to just say like...’oh, you need to out yourself because you have a responsibility to the community.’  that’s never okay.  a person’s primary responsibility is to their own safety, when they’re living as a marginalized, threatened person.  

so in real life, i would never say that.  but this is fiction, first of all, and it’s more complicated than that, for merlin, because he is already in a position of responsibility over these people, whether he wants to be or not.  the decisions he makes are things that impact their lives.  

and secondly - how threatened is he, really?  he is supposedly the most powerful sorcerer who’s ever lived.  do we really think arthur could successfully get merlin up on a platform and hang him?  do we really think arthur could hold merlin in a cell?  when merlin was newer to intentional magic and unstudied, absolutely, yes.  but now?

the risk merlin faces now isn’t necessarily to his life.  it’s to his lifestyle.  he might have to leave camelot.  he might lose all his friends.  and these are valid fears and i UNDERSTAND, because merlin has never felt safe and he has so rarely felt loved and i UNDERSTAND how paralytically frightening it is for him to consider doing anything that would jeopardize even the tiniest bit of belonging that he has been able to scrape together for himself, but i do not see that he has another option - not one that doesn’t poison his soul, at least.  he knows that what is happening to kara in this episode is wrong.  he tells arthur “free them both.”  he knows that’s what should have happened.  but then arthur executes her, and merlin does nothing to stop it, and i hate to put one more burden on merlin’s young shoulders but the fact of the matter is that this cycle of violence will never end until merlin ends it himself.  merlin cannot continue to stay trapped here between the dictates of destiny and his own sense of right and wrong.  it is killing him, and now it’s killing other people, too.

it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are.  

merlin desperately needs to remember that.  he needs to remember it for his own sake, not just for the people around him.  he is one of them.  their struggle is his struggle.  it is not the magical community’s fault that merlin has more information than they do - how are they supposed to know that arthur is supposed to be some kind of great saviour?  without knowing that, why would they ever choose to bow to him?  he has done nothing to earn their trust.  they have no reason to approach this situation the way merlin has, with infinite patience and a willingness to suffer constant injustices.  

merlin has to understand that.  he has to know that.  he can’t condemn them for fighting for their freedom.  they haven’t done anything wrong.  and i think he does know that, deep inside.  but he is trapped, where he is now, and the only way out is for him to tell the truth.  

the truth will set you free.  it might upend your entire life, but it will set you free.  and it is past time that merlin was free.  from camelot’s oppression, and from the oppressive dictates of destiny, too - if destiny had shut up for two seconds about ‘don’t trust mordred,’ we wouldn’t necessarily be in this situation now.  

i guess overall this episode leaves me feeling pretty grim.  and sad, i guess, because honestly like - it’s hard to for me to even root for arthur, as we enter the finale.  i can’t condemn mordred for running away to join the rebellion.  i don’t think morgana’s ideals are exactly pure, obviously; we’ve already seen several seasons ago how her goals have slid from ‘liberation’ to ‘power’ - but mordred is only motivated by the fight against injustice.  he’s in it for freedom.  and i can’t fault him for that, because he isn’t wrong.  i can’t fault him for giving up merlin’s identity, either, because merlin’s been treating him like crap from the very beginning (and again, yes, it’s more complicated than that - merlin is in an impossible position; he has reasons to trust all of the people who make prophecies at him - but still.  that doesn’t make mordred less wronged.)

so it’s kind of like - i’m going into the finale feeling like i shouldn’t really be rooting for our heroes.  which is kind of...depressing.

i mean.  yeah. 

he kind of does.

[witchmd13]

The thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately in regards to the Druid episode in S4 is how we all assume that nothing ever came of it but I'm wondering of maybe that's the wrong way to look at it? I mean Arthur promises that the druids would no longer be raided and senselessly slaughtered and in 5x04 we see Arthur ask the man hanging the sorcereress if she'd received a fair trial. That actually suggests to me that he did keep his promise in the sense that sorcerers were no longer being killed without reason the way they were under Uther. Even with Kara, he didn't kill her simply bc she was a sorcereress but bc she pledged her loyalty to Morgana and killed multiple innocent people. So in that sense, he did keep his promise. Beyond that, I actually think it's a bit unreasonable to expect him to simply lift the ban on magic when he didn't know the full truth and had reason to be wary of magic users. I mean aside from the Dolma pretty much almost all of Arthur's interactions with magic users even in the last couple of seasons were where they threatened him or his people. When you think about it, Arthur was betrayed and lied to by magic users so many times yet he still found it in himself to at least question the belief that all magic users were evil. I don't think it's fair the way people try to judge and condemn Arthur when the truth is that he did the best he could with the knowledge that was available to him. Beyond that, it's really not his fault that nobody would tell him the truth. While I don't believe that Merlin had any obligation to tell Arthur about his magic, I do think that would've been the thing that changed Arthur's mind for good bc I have every reason to believe that while he would probably have been upset at having been lied to (and understandably so IMO) he would've come around to it pretty quickly. Anyway, I'm just wondering if maybe we look at Arthur's promise in the Druid episode the wrong way in some ways

I agree 100% with everything you said.

I’m going to elaborate on the way I see it. I realize a lot of people are going to strongly disagree with my answer, but I’m going to write it once and for all.

First time watching, I honestly thought Arthur did change his policies regarding the Druids just like he’s told the Druid boy. I thought he was just teasing Merlin. Later, and mainly because of tumblr, I changed my mind and assumed I read the situation incorrectly, but now that I’ve had the time to watch it again and let it set with me, I really believe my initial impression was correct. Arthur didn’t fully lift the magic ban (for all the reasons you’ve mentioned and I’m going to elaborate on that in a moment), but I fully believe he did stop persecuting Druids and attacking them based solely on the fact that they existed. The main thing that makes me believe it so is what Arthur tells Merlin in Arthur’s Bane about the murdered Druids they find (just after Merlin hears Arthur’s death prophecy for the first time). He says: “We’ll leave once we give these people a proper burial” which, I believe, is something Uther would’ve never allowed had his policies remained unchanged. Mordred tells Merlin later that sorcerers were not allowed marked graves, do you think Uther would’ve permitted that to Druids?

I also totally believe Arthur stopped persecuting people for being born with magic (for the same reasons he presented to Uther when he was defending Mordred in the Beginning of the End; that he was just a boy and there was no telling what he’ll do when he grows up), but he didn’t stop persecuting people who actively practiced magic, and since he had very good reasons to believe all magic was evil, I think was a very good change at that point. 

The show made it perfectly clear that in the end the story became about Merlin and Arthur, and I truly believe that’s what they were going for at the end. The story zeroed in on Arthur and Merlin so much that we weren’t even shown what Gwen did as queen, what happened to everyone else, hell we weren’t even shown the result of the battle, only what happened to Arthur and Merlin. You are free to see that as a flaw in the storytelling of the show (as I do), but it’s another reason why I believe we weren’t shown the gradual change in Arthur’s policies regarding magic in the years between s4 and 5 and after the episode with Dolma. Still, like you said, we could see it in the whole Kara issue. I believe Arthur had 100% the right to have her killed. He had given her the opportunity to go back on it and get away with it, which, yeah, she tried to kill the King in time of war, had killed multiple people, and had publicly declared her allegiance to Morgana. How can anyone really expect Arthur to let her live? are you kidding?!? 

Morgana’s actions and her constant attacks on Camelot made it impossible to change something as drastic as an almost 30 year old magic ban. 

I never saw anyone talking about this, so I’m mentioning it here. Morgana’s story from Arthur’s POV must’ve been a literal sobering nightmare on how magic can corrupt. I’m honestly surprised it didn’t turn him away completely from magic forever even before he asked Dragoon to save Uther. Here was this girl who was good and kind to everyone suddenly without warning turning into this monster that broke his father’s heart and wanted to kill him and his people (still, the one time we saw his reaction to her being imprisoned and tortured was clear hurt for her). All he knew was that one day Morgana cane near magic and then became the polar opposite of who she was. How can you blame him for thinking magic had corrupted her? How can you blame him for thinking magic was pure evil?

Arthur’s betrayal at Merlin’s secret was just that. It was because Merlin didn’t tell him, not because he had magic. It was about them, about their friendship and their personal relationship. It was never about the magic or not trusting Merlin himself. He was willing to send Merlin back to Camelot and to Gwen, to his kingdom and his queen! He absolutely trusted Merlin. He was just hurt. 

I don’t believe either Morgana or Merlin owed Arthur the truth, but we have to keep in mind that Arthur was kept in the dark about magic almost his entire life. All he knew was that it corrupts and kills and hurts people and he still made the choice to assume the good when he had the choice. If anything, that shows his true character more than anything.

[bellamyblakru]

HEYYYYYYY i’m so excited to respond to ur ask it made me so happy to see u in my notifs and i’m so excited for u for ur milestone! anyways i kinda want all of them but i decided to cut down to 🥺 :)))) 👀 pls rant i will read it all and ☕️ for morgwen andddd manon from the tog books. <3 <3 :*

HEY AMY!!! i hope you had a lovely day today🥺thank you for the ask💞

🥺- for my mutuals, ill talk about why i follow you and why everyone should be as well

omg im pretty sure i met and started following you like the day of that bellamy scene™️ because i remember thinking how fucking horrendous that episode ended, and, at the same time, how amazing that night on tumblr was aksnakaaj. so that night, tumblr was a fucking disaster and chaotic and funny asf. i remember texting @tkstrrand the entire ep (bc she couldn’t watch it for some reason) like how boring it was/how she wasn’t missing much blahblah and then when the death scene happened at the last fucking second, i sent her about a thousand separate incoherent texts in the span of like two minutes LOL tumblr was in shambles and i made a few posts about how fucking dumb the show was—one post i made i told my few new followers to fuck the 100 and just watch merlin and you texted me about it!! we have literally so much in common (with merlin, atla, the 100, tog!!!) that when you texted me about how you felt about that scene compared to merlin’s ending, my thought was like “this blog is so kind and we feel the same way and i need to follow asap.”

you are literally so sweet and lovely to talk to🥺that night™️ may had been disastrous, but i can look on it with a lighter heart because we met because of it!! every time we talk i always smile so much (and dw, i know i still have to get clone wars for our boy anakin👀👀)

dude, everyone should be following you because your blog is incredible, your tags are superb, and you are literally one of the sweetest people i’ve met on here😭💞 i adore you.

👀 - and ill tell you a parallel from merlin or the 100 that still fucks me up

this post for merthur still FUCKS ME UP by @camelotsheart

THE EYES. THE GIFSET’S BEAUTIFUL COLORING. THE EYES. EYES. I CANT. THIS GIFSET HAUNTS ME. parallels, man, i fucking love them.

☕️ + send me a ship/character/movie/book and ill give you my opinions on it

my opinions on morgwen:

I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I SHIP IT WITH MY WHOLE ASS SOUL. dude, their potential as a ship is incredible😭i fucking love them together. i wrote them as a side pairing in my first multi-chapter merthur fic and i adored writing their interactions and dynamic sm. if morgana was going to be with anyone, my first choice will always be gwen. i also read them as a pairing in fics all the time because the pure power-couple potential is insane.

hot ☕️ here™️: i think if someone was to bring morgana back from the brink of hatred, it should have been gwen (not merlin). so, like, i could definitely see merlin telling her about his magic and whatnot and maybe that would have stopped her from going dark side...but...i didn’t think merlin should have (ekk probably an unpopular opinion).

see, i love merlin with my entire heart..and tbh telling uther fucking pendragon’s ward that he had magic was just too much of a gamble—especially with arthur’s life on the line, which literally became merlin’s sole purpose in life (another matter for a different essay™️). i understand his need to keep it a secret from her even more when the large reptile repeatedly got into merlin’s head that she was bad news from the jump (also another matter for a different essay™️).

SO. that leaves two options for our miserable magical gal: arthur or gwen. now, i honestly believe arthur wouldn’t have hurt her if he was told. and i even think he may have became more sympathetic to the magical community because of it—especially when he saved mordred wayyyy early on that cemented the fact that arthur was not uther. but i can also understand why morgana wouldn’t tell arthur, and it’s pretty much the same reason merlin didn’t tell her about his magic: the risk was too big and she didn’t want to gamble her life with an unknown reaction.

now we get to the main point: gwen would have been the best option for her. whether it is platonic or not, gwen was always there for morgana. gwen is such a kind, loving soul, and she deeply respected and adored morgana—you can tell by the way she smiled around her in the beginning seasons, how she would get her flowers, how she would worry about morgana’s wellbeing. even though gwen was morgana’s servant, she cared for her in more ways than were required and it showed. they were best friends. the entire incident with gwen’s father, which was horrendous, might be the reason gwen would be rightfully upset about the subject of magic; however. she knew her father wasn’t magical, she knew uther was a tyrant, and she knew morgana’s heart. someone is gonna tell me that if morgana had explained to gwen what happened, how her magic was innate, how morgana would never fucking choose to have magic anywhere near her shithead guardian (who probably would have killed her imo if he knew bc you know the whole “fire will purify” bullshit), that gwen would hate her??? I MEAN LITERALLY WATCH THE LAST EPISODES AGAIN. when QUEEN GWEN realizes that the whole time it was merlin saving everyone’s asses, and she connected all the dots, her face showed nothing but pure understanding and acceptance.

gwen was such an underused character. her fucking potential arcs could have been phenomenal (again, LOL, another matter for a different essay™️), and the way canon made morgana use gwen was fucking gross and im not a fan🙃 but fuck canon. i ship them and i love them to pieces ✌🏻thank you for coming to my talk✌🏻

my opinions on manon mf blackbeak:

oh boy, where do i start? i would die for her...is that too extreme for the starting place? i fucking LOVE manon blackbeak dude. oh my god, so, remember when her and aelin fought for the first time in QoS? i remember jumping up from my lounging position with my hand over my smiling mouth because i love both of these badass hardcore women with everything i am. i mean, aelin owns my ass (she is probably my favorite character of all time rn) but manon hits differently. her storyline at the beginning was so bleh, but, man, did it escalate fast to “holy shit” to “i fucking love her” to “oh fuck im sobbing.”

the only thing i will complain about with her character in canon was the fact that my girl was straight???? excuse me?? she has been alive for fucking forever and she is straight? no. i cant accept that. tbh i ship manon and elide🥺 (i also ship dorain and chaol oops). but her character development was everything and i cant think too long on what happens because i will start crying tbh sksjsmakks

okay wow im so sorry for, uh, spilling every thought i had into this. it legit took me like a day to respond 😔

i appreciate you so much. thank you🥺💞