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thegreatestsorcerertoeverserve · 3 years ago

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Honestly it surprises me how few people ship merwaine in comparison to merthur. like just look at any interaction between the two and you can automatically tell how much Gwaine adores Merlin and vice versa. like with merthur you’d need a reason or story behind why they’re a couple. with these two just add a label or kiss to any scene, and boom, their canon. Like I don’t get it.

It’s not even that I have an issues with merthur I’ve written for it. it’s just when why do so many people ship that over merwaine????

This is about to be a very long post so hold on to your hats.

Note: this is not to shit on merthur, strictly speaking, but to explain why it sits strongest in people’s minds despite more likely mutual ships such as merwaine.

I think the reason for merthur’s popularity (*in juxtaposition to merwaine’s or mercelot’s) is in the fact that their dynamic receives the most narrative focus. Merlin and Arthur are ultimately the two mains despite the core four’s potential so their relationship is upheld as the most important one by the narrative.

*The reasons for merthur’s popularity over merwaine and mercelot are entirely different from its popularity over arwen.

However, just because a relationship bears significance does not mean it is (strictly) romantic. Romantic love is only one type of love, and you’d be hard-pressed to interpret a lot of Merlin & Arthur scenes in that way. This isn’t to say that it’s impossible to make those inferences: I’ve seen strong arguments for unrequited love, with Merlin pining helplessly after an unattainable Arthur. Even with Merlin being the #1 Argwen shipper, I can make sense of that (though, not interpretations where Merlin holds any sort of grudge against Gwen… huh? He set them up himself, for their happiness!).

The most likely canon scenario for the unrequited hc would be one where Merlin doesn’t even recognize his feelings for what they are, or can’t define them. But I haven’t seen particularly strong evidence of Arthur sharing in those potentially romantic feelings, especially given his canon interest in Gwen (and no, Arthur doesn’t have to be attracted to specifically Merlin for you to headcanon him as mlm, no worries). Not only does he consider Gwen to be the only one he’s ever loved, but it’s made pretty clear that he wants monogamy (painfully so if you’re Lancelot). My point being: Arthur and Gwen aren’t divorcing, and they’re likely not bringing Merlin in as their third.

It seems to me like you’d have to completely erase important aspects of his character to make it work. He starts out conflicted over his romantic feelings for Gwen because that kind of relationship with her is forbidden, whereas with Merlin, he can have the dynamic he desires without making any change. He is also only able to acknowledge that he thinks of Merlin as a friend in the direst circumstances, even after marrying Gwen. They’re distinct relationships.

Unlike Merlin, his feelings are not at all vague. That’s exactly why Merlin is an open field for speculation. He only gets one confirmed love interest in the form of Freya, and their circumstances are full of compulsive choices based on their similarities. Merlin nearly runs away and elopes. They only know eachother for a handful of days (about the length of one moon phase, so maybe three total), so it’s safe to say they weren’t in love like Arthur and Gwen were. His romantic orientation is arguably inconclusive, since their feelings may stem from their need to be accepted more than an authentic, budding romance. Gay Merlin and Lesbian Freya truthers flock to me.

Outside of that? While not Merlin’s central focus in life, Lancelot and Gwaine are perfectly believable romantic interests for him in ways that no other characters are. I know this ask is about merwaine but I’m gonna dig a bit into both, and probably merelyan.

With Lancelot, you have his rushed, passionate feelings for Gwen that seem to have developed from his first impression of her, and only grew as he came to know her later on. Like with freylin, they only know each other for a short time when they decide to pursue the other romantically, but this is broken off for the sake of arwen, the relationship which is more fully-formed with a gradual build-up. Lancelot’s appeal to Gwen is in its ease: he’s handsome, true-hearted, and available, while her relationship with Arthur is forbidden and conflicted due to classism. But she finds that having Arthur’s love is worth it.

This leaves Lancelot alone in 4x01, rejected once again at his final parting with Gwen. He seems to realize the finality of this: there is no hope of ever being with her, because she’s made her choice, and he helped move that along. It’s after what feels like an honest break-up, when Gwen sets this clear boundary with a lovesick Lancelot, that we watch him make Merlin his #1 priority, protecting him to the end (quite literally). He makes a vow to Gwen to protect Arthur, but discovers that there’s no need to fulfill this vow at all (and no way to break it) because Arthur isn’t the one who’s in danger. Merlin is, so it’s he who Lancelot gives his life for. Again, this doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have fulfilled the vow, if it ever became necessary. But that never came to be.

To me, this can easily come across as Lancelot realizing his feelings for Merlin have been overshadowed by his feelings for Gwen—exchanging his motive to fulfill his promise to Gwen with a self-appointed purpose in protecting Merlin—as he finally begins to process the reality of her rejection. It doesn’t read like he’s only just falling in love with Merlin, but like he’s just uncovered what was there the whole time now that he’s given up on a romance with Gwen. Obviously, this interpretation isn’t confirmed, but it explains much of what happened. It’s also supported by the parallels between Gwen and Merlin’s mourning, Gwen in the light and Merlin in the dark, reflecting the openness of their feelings.

(Note: Lancelot having feelings for Merlin doesn’t erase his feelings for Gwen, just like him having feelings for Gwen doesn’t erase his feelings for Merlin. The man just can’t focus on both at once lol.)

That’s probably another factor towards merthur’s popularity: the promise of a happy ending. Mercelot ends tragically and merwaine is fairly ambiguous, but with Merlin’s immortality, merthur doesn’t have to be, because Arthur is fated to return someday.

Mercelot is not a relationship that can be maintained through the remainder of the series, what with its tragic ending nearly 2 full seasons before the finale. So who is there until the end, aside from Arthur or Gwen (who is also a perfectly viable love interest post-Camlann if you consider Merlin to be mlw)?

That would be our very own Mr. Gwaine.

It’s pretty clear from Gwaine’s first appearance that his core relationship is with Merlin, and that even with his sense of justice and duty towards Arthur, Merlin is his #1 priority due to their emotional bond. This can be true of any friendship, but paired with Merlin and Gwaine’s queer-coded start (and by that I mean, Gwaine trying to convey that he’s an effortlessly talented fighter in a strangely flirtatious manner, then waking up naked in Merlin’s bed and basically asking, “Did we, uh… you know.”) and Gwaine’s canon queerness in the original legends, not to mention the forbidden feature of their relationship being paralleled to Arthur and Gwen’s… it pretty much spells out MLM Love Interest.

Now obviously, Merlin and Gwaine’s dynamic is often put on the back burner and undermined to make way for the heavy Merlin-Arthur focus of the series, but the flip side of a relationship not needing to be romantic to be important is that a relationship doesn’t need to be the single defining factor of a person’s life to be romantic. Much of Merlin’s existence is dependent on his dynamic with Arthur, and by default he spends more time with Arthur than he does with anyone else in Camelot, barring Gaius. But this doesn’t mean his dynamic with Gwaine can’t be romantic, or that it’s not also important to him.

Merwaine also makes a much more compelling pairing than Gwaine with Percy, which is… pretty bland, if you want my honest opinion, and probably only exists as a side pairing to merthur because it’s easy pickin’s. You know who has more chemistry with Percival than literally anyone else? Elyan. Yes I am very passionate about this topic how could you tell?

Moving forward… just because Merlin’s entire world doesn’t revolve around Gwaine doesn’t mean he can’t possibly have romantic feelings for him, nor does it mean he can’t care for Gwaine as much as he does for Arthur. After all, people headcanon that Arthur has romantic feelings for Merlin when Arthur’s world is very clearly not centered on him. That doesn’t mean that Arthur doesn’t care about Merlin, only that not all stakes have to be romantic in nature. Arthur has clear motives outside of his canon romance, which handily proves that point even more.

Merlin’s first reactions to Gwaine—and his continued adoration of the man even after Gwaine openly states that Merlin should be done with him the way everyone else eventually is—lead into Merlin being told that he can be valued for more than just his uses in servitude and destiny. Because Gwaine takes a moment to be vulnerable with Merlin when Merlin needs someone to show him his worth, to show him that someone values him higher than the royalty he waits on hand and foot. In a way, he’s returning the favor that Merlin gives freely by accepting him for who he is. There’s also enough tension and miscommunication between them in seasons 4-5 to explain why, realistically, they wouldn’t act on any feelings they have for each other. It just makes sense.

Anyways, there are other good contenders for Merlinmances, such as Elyan who’s in love with Percival but open your mind for a minute. He’s seen riding together with Merlin on horseback in his introduction episode, in a way that some would naturally construe as romantic if it were a man and a woman. Even though the show doesn’t expand on their dynamic much, we can see that it would make a cute romantic subplot if anything ever happened, especially in relation to their common acquaintances. Gwen’s brother with her best friend… cute, right? Nevermind that they don’t get a lot of screentime together, you can’t possibly deny that you’d love it.

The point is that lots of Merlin ships hold more water than merthur does, so I don’t think that merthur’s popularity in relation to merwaine is based on chemistry, realism, or anything like that, per se. I think it has more to do with factors like how much screentime they get together, how much the narrative tells us of their importance, and that Arthur is the most significant figure in Merlin’s life (which is automatically inferred as romantic, and expected to be reciprocated by default). Stuff like that. Merthur seems to be about the expectations, not the results.

But other characters are important too, even if their relationships to Merlin aren’t “plot relevant,” and even if they don’t get a lot of screentime. There’s no denying Arthur’s iconic love for Gwen, even though her romance with Arthur gets less screentime than Arthur’s friendship with Merlin. So yeah, it may be that it appeals to some but doesn’t appeal to others depending on how much attention they’re given, rather than the actual content we receive (although tropes and complexity do play into it). I guess you can consider it a matter of quality vs. quantity.

#don’t agree with all if this but i do love it #and I would love to hear more about elyan/percival #mergwaine #merwaine #mercelot

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