Quick Reaction: Merlin Finale

[hells_half_acre]

I can't.... I can't decide if I liked it.

Things I liked:

1. The fact that the magic reveal was early on in the episode and just between Merlin and Arthur.

2. The acting, it goes without saying, was phenomenal. My opinion of Merlin is that the talent of the actors has always far outstripped the talent of the writers - and that remains unchanged.

3. I liked the fact that Merlin and Arthur got at least one adventure together where Merlin got to openly use his magic.

4. I like the fact that we could see Arthur slowly coming to terms with Merlin as a sorcerer - I love that he went through the entire arc, from being frightened of Merlin to feeling just betrayed and then finally coming to see that Merlin was still the same person he always knew - and more than that, realizing that he had the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth as his manservant, and that the sorcerer LIKED it that way.

5. I liked the fact that this episode really was about the love story of Arthur and Merlin, which, of course, the entire show has been about - so it was nice to have the final episode completely dedicated to it.

6. I like that we got an ending for all the knights - some were sad (Gwaine, I'd argue, had the most tragic ending) and some were bittersweet (Percival being the last of Arthur's original low-born knights left alive - Leon, who I've seen some people jokingly call immortal, remaining Gwen's right hand knight as he was Arthur's). I think that scene between Percival and Gwaine broke my heart completely.

7. The final moments between Merlin and Arthur were horrendously heartbreaking and very well done. I half expected Arthur to tell Merlin "I love you" as his final words, but "Thank you" WAS actually more fitting, since the whole thing with Merlin is that he has constantly suffered without any thanks from those he suffered for.

8. Gwen being a badass queen was awesome. And I LOVE the fact that she was basically the only one who really did put it together that Merlin was a sorcerer without having to be told. She needed to have it confirmed, but that's hardly the same thing. And when it was, she wasn't betrayed, she was happy. I think Gwen will restore magic to it's rightful place in the kingdom.

Things I didn't like:

1. Magic wasn't restored to the kingdom in Arthur's lifetime. 

2. Morgana's death. Katie McGrath kept saying that she liked Morgana's ending, but I didn't. It was the death of a two-dimensional villain, not someone who was Arthur's sister and USED to have a good heart. I wanted either a sliver of redemption, or at the very least, an acknowledgement that she had gone about everything completely wrong and misguided.

3. The ending. I guess I just wanted a complete reincarnation/resurrection ending. If you're going to have a show that completely changes and plays with the Arthurian myths - like, just COMPLETELY rewrites the legends - WHY DO YOU STILL GIVE US A HORRIBLY TRAGIC ENDING?! Maybe it's just me, but the idea of Arthur's second coming isn't a a balm for pain of his death - nor is the thought of Merlin, immortal and unchanging, stalking the shores of lake Avalon waiting for his friend to return...never able to move on from the grief of having lost him in the first place. Why not give us an ending where Arthur miraculously survives and we see him restore magic? Why not give us an ending where it's the future but Merlin is young and he's walking up the road and he sees a group of boys laughing, and one of them turns and smiles at him and it's Arthur...and they have this sort of unspoken moment of joy at seeing one another again. I guess, I just wanted them to subvert the legends completely.

Sigh...

Anyway, yeah...I guess I'm conflicted. There were some really good bits, but the ending wasn't satisfying to me. I wanted it left open, I suppose, for canon-compliant future-fics to be written that could satisfy me in the days ahead - but alas. 

I'm going to really miss this extremely gay show. I guess I just wanted it to go on in my brain forever.

Now, even though I didn't like the tragic ending. I have to say that the final scene between Merlin and Arthur really was magnificent. I love the fact that Arthur told Merlin just to hold him...I love the fact that he used the last of his strength to reach up and put his hand on Merlin's head. I love that in the end it really was a love story between Merlin and Arthur.

Now I'll go have a sulk.

Comments

[nerthus.livejournal.com]

I haven't even seen this last episode (pt 2,that is)yet, I don't have BBC America so I will have to run down an online stream of it later; but from reading the tons of spoilers I tend to agree with you. I don't know, maybe it's partly because there have just been so many awful, wrenching TRAGEDIES lately in rl, and even if this episode's ending might make better creative or mythical sense as is, that hurt, grieving part of my heart would just like a miraculous, re-set button sort of ending just so Merlin and Arthur can be together in THAT time and place instead of waiting for the 'future' part of 'once and future king' to come to fruition. It just can never be the same again, and I guess that's what makes me sad, that sense of loss and the fleeting, ephemeral nature of time spent with those precious to you. I guess I just wish Merlin didn't have to pace through Time waiting for Aurthur to reappear, even if that falls more into line with proper canon. I might change my tune later, once the holidays are done and 'normal' daily life and routine is back in effect, subduing much of my current emo state; but some part of me is always gonna be so so sad that it ended this way as far as this particular tv series.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. Part of me wants to like it better on rewatch, but then another part of me just really doesn't want to rewatch it because the way it ended is too painful.

Even if Merlin had eventually traveled to Avalon to wait WITH Arthur, that would have been better than to conclude this epic lovestory with them being apart - even with the promise of a future reuniting, it's just to painful to leave it this way.

Also, it kind of irks me that the writers always very happily used their magic reset button up until now, when suddenly it became important for them to stick as close as possible to the legendary end.

But yeah, maybe part of my negative reaction is just because Merlin is my happy gay show, but instead of leaving me happy, it's left me devastated.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Have a wonderful dinner and a drama-free holiday! How'd did you like On The Road?

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Sans typos, of course...

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Thanks! You too!

On The Road? Am I completely forgetting about something?

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Ha! I think I responded to the wrong journal BUT! I still wish you a wonderful and calm holiday. We all need them!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, okay cool. I'm glad I'm not losing my mind. ;)

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Nope, leave the mind-losing to me!

Part 1

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thanks for this review! It pretty much summed up *exactly* how I felt about the episode, and now I feel oddly vindicated. :P

Or rather, how I felt right after I'd watched the finale. Because between then and now, there's 1 little detail that actually changed my perception of the ending. Because while, yes, they take the legend and rip it to shreds, when you sit down and think about it...it makes perfect sense that the Arthurian legend as we know it might spring from a story such as this.

See, key to the formation of this legend is that you'd have 2 sources: one is Merlin, who knows exactly how things happened (except for some small details, like Gwen being enchanted into cheating on Arthur) and the other is the stories that the people of Camelot would tell and pass on. Now, I think it's safe to assume that Merlin won't be telling his story for some time—he wasn't even at Gwen's coronation, after all. I think he needs time alone, to grieve.

But the moment that you think about things as the people of Camelot saw them, and the way that stories have a tendency to change over the years... Everyone knew that there was this kind of attraction between Morgana and Arthur before they knew they were siblings. Morgana was caught protecting Mordred as a child. I can see how over the years this could morph into the story of an illegitimate child that resulted from incest. The Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot triangle is self-explanatory.

And Merlin! This is the part that I think is completely ingenious. Because Arthur meets old!Merlin while he's still a prince. Old!Merlin is crazy, tricky, and powerful. And this is how the people remember him. He keeps on popping up and demonstrating his oddness and power to several people (the knights, mostly)—and ultimately saves them all, the most prominent force that won for Camelot that final battle.

I believe that after the events of this episode, Gwen will lift the ban on magic; I can understand why she might not make public that Emrys is Merlin, though, especially if Merlin goes into seclusion out of grief. But then, years later, I can see Merlin coming out of hiding—and then he'd hear these stories about the late King Arthur, many of them completely not how things happened, and he'd start correcting details, hinting at how his warlock companion had helped out.

There are lots of missing years, after all, for more adventures and stories than we've seen in the actual show.

But then, over the years, I can see Merlin getting tired of telling the same stories—of reliving those ten precious years again and again and again only to relieve the pain of Arthur's passing every time. And when he stops—that would be when the people who know the stories start mixing and meshing bits and pieces from different versions they've heard. By the time that someone thought to write it down: Voila! You have the legend that we know.

Yep, I've wasted countless hours thinking about this. I can't even watch Merlin send off that boat with Arthur in it without tearing up yet. I keep rewatching the episode, and I keep skipping that part. (Also the "Don't leave me!" part, which takes my heart in a fist of steel and *twists*.)

**Continues in Part 2 (yes, I seriously had too many thoughts for one comment)**

Part 2

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

**Continued from Part 1**

This is similar to what you said, but my biggest sorrow is the fact that Arthur wasn't the one to realize the Camelot that he and Merlin dreamed of. Arthur and Merlin laid its foundations. Without Arthur's years as prince and then regent and then king, it would never have happened. His death was the final sacrifice, and we can assume that had he made it home alive, Camelot would have been the wonderland that he'd always hoped it would be. But he died. And Guinevere was the one who reigned during that time—and there are only two reasons why I might argue that this doesn't actually conflict with my theory about laying the foundations for the legend that we know. First, because Gwen loved Arthur and *knew* that everything she was taking over was owed to Arthur, and would have ensured that people acknowledged that. Second, because over the years in those days, it seems fair to assume that people in a day and age that is so male dominated and with a system so reliant on physical strength would rather not speak of the wonderful queen who is after all a woman and not at all proficient with a sword.

On some level, though, I know that he had to die, and I'm glad that he did. Frankly, if Arthur had lived after this episode, I'd have worried for future interactions between Arthur, Merlin and Guinevere. The royal couple take Merlin *everywhere*, for crying out loud, and Merlin would never consent to another position that would involve him having to leave Arthur's side. (Can't you just see that conversation?
M:"I can't do that—you'd be dead before suppertime!"
A:"Believe it or not, Merlin, I can protect myself."
M:"And yet I have to save your life on a near-daily basis. Nope, you're stuck with me.")
And I don't mean to say that Gwen and Merlin would be at odds with each other. I think the one who'd start having problems would be Arthur.

Arthur has this tendency to put people in defined boxes. Merlin is his loyal, brave, idiot servant. Guinevere is his gentle, wise, beloved wife. He has an easier relationship with Merlin even after his marriage, because while they're friends, they're not really equals—and as such, he can use and abuse Merlin as he pleases (but he's kinder about it than others would be in his position, so Merlin seems fine with this). Guinevere, however, is the one he goes to for serious discussions, for emotional support and encouragement.

Can't you just see how knowledge of Merlin's power would make *both* relationship definitions crumble to the ground? Suddenly, Merlin's opinion would hold more sway than Gwen's. Merlin is Arthur's equal as Guinevere never could be, because if Gwen and Arthur disagree, ultimately the power to veto Gwen is Arthur's. But if Merlin and Arthur disagree, there's nothing that Arthur can do to stop Merlin from doing as he pleases. (Not that there's ever been, but Arthur believed that there was, on some level, which makes all the difference.)

I feel like if Arthur hadn't died, Gwen could never have become the wise and wonderful queen that she did become, because Arthur would probably have suddenly deferred to Merlin's opinions a lot more than Gwen's, demoting Gwen back to mere romantic interest. So on that level, I think it played out wonderfully.

It still hurts, though. :( I'm on a crazy rewatch of the entire series now, to heal my wounds. I'm in series 1 right now, incidentally, and I never realized how *weird* it is to go straight from series 5 to series 1, and suddenly watch Arthur flirt with Morgana and Gwen so blatantly interested in Merlin. *wonders if there's a fic out there where Arthur finds out that Gwen was a little in love with Merlin before Lancelot*

Anyway. This has been horribly long winded, but the bottom line is—loved your review. Seriously, there's not enough appreciation for the sheer wonder that the actors managed to create out of a half-hour emotional roller coaster that ends in a place so touching and so deep that you have to cry with Merlin as he loses Arthur, and wonder how the hell he'll go on after this.

Aaand I'm getting sniffly again. That's my cue to go grocery shopping to restock my bare fridge and empty stomach!

Re: Part 2

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I agree with your Part 1 - but, I argue that they still could have written a better S5 and had it plausible that our Arthurian legends came out of it.

I actually disagree with you about Arthur's relationship with Merlin though. I don't think it was dependent on Arthur perceiving Merlin as a lesser at all. Actually, I'd argue that Arthur had the exact same relationship with Merlin as he had with Gwen - he used Merlin for emotional support, serious conversations, and advice just as much - if not more so than Gwen. We see that again and again in late S4 and S5. Arthur continually sought out Merlin's advice before making a decision... and when Merlin approached him on his own with advice, Arthur listened to him.

I do agree that Merlin wouldn't have wanted to be given a different position in court - but I also don't necessarily think he needed to be given a different position. (I can't remember what I said in the post above, so if I'm contradicting myself here - it's because I've had more time to think about it). I think that Merlin could have continued to appear to be Arthur's hapless manservant, and could have continued to only be "Emrys" when he was needed to perform magic - and the same legends would have occurred. And why would he have done this? Well, time and again, Merlin won because people underestimated him because of his station and the idea that the most powerful sorcerer on earth wouldn't stoop to being a servant.

My main argument though is that the plot of S5 shouldn't have been the end game of Camlann. The plot of S5 should have been the establishment of Albion and the return of magic to Camelot. I still maintain that the writers completely forgot the story they had set off to tell and instead got sidetracked by thinking they had to end at the same point as the Arthurian legends.

The ONLY thing that I liked about the finale is the fact that metaphorically, it was about Arthur accepting his bisexuality and running away to live with Merlin for eternity...and I liked the possibility of an eventual Gwen/Leon romance, especially considering the back story that Rupert came up with for Leon and Gwen. That being said, I really wish they had given us a reunion scene instead of a "Merlin is alone and eternally in mourning" scene.

The ending was just far too depressing for me when it comes down to it. I signed on for a story about tolerance and compassion winning out over bigotry and hatred - and instead I got a story about how destiny will kill everything you love and none of your dreams will come true.

I am glad that you've come to make a little peace with it though! I'm sorry that I haven't and have just become even more bitter. :P

Re: Part 2 I

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're perfectly right—I didn't mean to say that Arthur doesn't carefully heed the advice that Merlin imparts when he himself is at a crossroads and at a loss. Not at all. Actually, I feel like Merlin recognized that he had this power, and doomed them all when he told Arthur to reject magic with the thought that it would save Arthur's life.

This was, to me, the most devastating moment of series 5. Yep, more than even that finale. To me, the situation itself was a double-edged sword that left Merlin with no right answer. If he'd said, "Yes, Arthur, accept the Old Religion and bring back magic!" then he would be putting his own interests and ambitions first. By saying what he did, he showed us that Arthur, the man, not the great king that he's supposed to become, is more important to Merlin than anything. By heeding that advice, Arthur showed us just how much he really trusts Merlin—and doomed himself. *headdesk* If ever there was a good reason for the writers to wait so long for magic to be accepted, though, this was it. The plot device itself was one designed to put this bond between them to the test, and by caring so damn much about each other, they fail.

When I said that Merlin is ultimately a subject of Arthur's, one under his command whose advice Arthur takes and discards as he pleases, I was more referring to the times when Arthur isn't at a crossroads. It's weird, this system between Arthur and Merlin, because when Arthur is lost, he first turns to Merlin, and listens. But when Arthur is sure of himself, while Gwen's words can give him pause, Merlin's he scoffs at and either has to be convinced to heed him or receives an "I told you so" later on. These cases are all generally results of Merlin having information that Arthur doesn't because of magic, and so would most definitely be decision making processes heavily affected by Arthur's knowledge of Merlin's powers.

The way things always were in the show, my feeling is that Arthur's relationship with Gwen and Merlin only balanced out because he wasn't really seeing all of Merlin. He indulged Gwen and listened to her most of the time, but she never had quite as much advice to offer as Merlin did. Merlin's advice was sometimes taken and sometimes not, but there's so darn much of it. But once this mask called magic is gone! Oh, then all of Merlin's warnings and suggestions and advice would suddenly be valuable, because there would no longer be unsubstantiated arguments like, "I had this odd feeling that this is the case."

Which is why, if they'd done the reveal earlier, I feel like it would have gone differently. I feel like we'd have had Arthur shy away from Merlin for a bit longer than a day, and ignore his advice time and again until he finally accepted him. And then suddenly Merlin would be everything, so important to not only Arthur but also to the kingdom...that I feel like Gwen would have to fade into the background.

**Continues in Re: Part 2 II**

Re: Part 2 II

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

**Continued from Re: Part 2 I**

I agree that they could have designed that last series differently, to avoid this very annoying phenomenon of "But Guinevere was the one who ruled during the golden age that Merlin and Arthur built! The prophecies never said a word about that!" They could even have done so in this whole build up that led to Camlann. Arthur could have accepted the Old Religion, accepted magic, but remained personally skeptical about it. There could have been some other disagreement between Arthur and Mordred that led to his death. And because Merlin knew that Arthur was still skeptical of magic, he could have chosen to wait for an opportune moment...only to have the finale play out in much the same way. The only thing that we'd miss in such a retelling was the example that I mentioned that showcased how important Arthur and Merlin were to each other.

There are a million other things that I think they could have done differently, to make the show more interesting: an Arthur who figures out Merlin's magic before being told, for instance, and then having known for a while when Merlin finally tells him. That would have been fun to watch.

I signed on for a story about tolerance and compassion winning out over bigotry and hatred - and instead I got a story about how destiny will kill everything you love and none of your dreams will come true.

I think that my feeling is the exact opposite of yours. At the risk of sounding redundant, I felt like it showed us that if you want your dreams to come true, you have to actually focus on your dreams. I maintain that all it would have taken was Merlin telling Arthur to accept the Old Religion, and WHAM: crisis averted. I saw it as a story about two people who united in their dream of a better kingdom, and ultimately never realized that dream for themselves because they became too wrapped up in each other.

It's not that much less depressing, yet I find it sweet. But I will not argue that a reunion scene would have been very, very welcome.

Re: Part 2 II

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Well, at least we both agree on wanting a reunion scene!

I can see your point about Merlin vs. Guinevere. I guess my problem is that by S5, Arthur WAS paying attention to Merlin's funny feelings etc, even when he didn't have all the information. And Merlin's words COULD make Arthur pause just as much as Guinevere's by then too... and I think even knowing about Merlin's magic, Arthur would still stick to his guns on things... but I recognize that this is a subjective stance and at this point we're just arguing character interpretation. (We could also get into how it was never really fair on Arthur to withhold so much information from him constantly - but that's opening up a whole other can of worms.) But yes, once Arthur REALLY knew Merlin, they would have to establish a metaphorical threesome in order to resolve the plot without permanently separating Arthur and Gwen (like I said, the only part about the finale that I liked was the metaphorical running off with Merlin part.)

I agree that Merlin doomed them all in the Disir episode... or rather that the Disir were the ones that actually doomed them all. Because it WAS a double-edged sword. And as you say, it was a decision between achieving his dream and saving the man he loved - and Merlin chose to save the man he loved, and in so doing, actually doomed both.

So, yeah, still a horribly depressing moral of the story, in my opinion. And again, one I'd prefer not have watched, no matter how bittersweet it was. I just think that S5 shouldn't have had Camlann on the horizon at all.

But, again, like you said, we could be here for ages thinking of all the multitudinous different ways that S5 could have been written - and each version would be awesome in its own way, but inevitably piss SOMEONE off. I'm just saying that the version they chose was the version that pissed ME off. :P

I'd have much preferred to follow Arthur as he slowly united Albion, while piecing together the evidence that his manservant was a sorcerer, and then having Merlin tell him, having an episode where Arthur pulled away due to the betrayal/lack-of-trust of it all, and then come back for love of Merlin, rescind the ban on magic, create Albion - and fade to black happy ending time.

Again, just my opinion, and I'm biased, because I'm not a huge fan of tragedies... except for Hamlet and S1-S5 of Supernatural (ignoring the last few seconds of 5x22).

Re: Part 2 II A

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Ooh, me too—the Arthur/Merlin part was very satisfying. In fact, I felt kind of sorry for Gwen, who seems to have faded away in Arthur's mind during those last two episodes. In the first part, Arthur's preoccupied with the battle and Merlin's desertion; by the second part, I wonder if he even thought of his wife much at all. To me, even the part where he gave Gaius the signet ring for Gwen was about Merlin—in any other situation, wouldn't you say he'd have waited for the last moment and then given it to Merlin? Or even just trusted Merlin to know without being told? After all, he's been on death's door before, but he's never tried to pass on his signet ring before he was even dead. I think that at that stage—having only just found out about Merlin, and probably wondering how this powerful sorcerer was plotting to take over Arthur's beloved kingdom—he was "thwarting" Merlin. But then, after that...the way that he says, "I know now everything you've done for me, for the kingdom that you helped me build..." I think they had must have had a lot of discussions about magic that we didn't get to see. I think that Arthur was so busy figuring out Merlin, thinking about him, learning about him, that he sort of...forgot about Gwen.

But then, heh, maybe that's my wishful thinking. I grew to like Gwen in the last series, but I had trouble warming up to the Arthur/Gwen dynamic before that. In series 2 and 3, I just found their Romeo and Juliet mentality (and the sudden onset of this all-encompassing affection) a little bit tiresome. And series 4 was alright...up until the incident with Lancelot, at which point I got a splitting headache. In series 5, though, I liked them together. Gwen makes a great Queen. :)

Don't you kind of wish Morgana had had better resolution, though? The drastic change in her personality between series 2&3 was always attributed to the love that Morgause offered as compared to the fear that she suffered under Uther, combined with the knowledge that Merlin had tried to kill her. But I read somewhere a theory that Morgause had subjected Morgana to the Dark Tower as a rite of passage of sorts...and wouldn't that explain a heck of a lot? Even with the original interpretation, the fact that Merlin just sort of stabbed her was...well, kind of nice, in a way, because Arthur was there and stabbing is a thing that Arthur understands, but still. I wish there had been a little more about her. Aithusa, too.

It's interesting, though, this moral that love for a person over love for your ambitions will doom you. Because isn't that ultimately how the Arthurian legend goes? Traditionally, Arthur dooms Camelot when he chooses to wed Guinevere despite Merlin's warning that she's meant for another. And then when Guinevere and Lancelot can't resist each other, Arthur is perfectly willing to live as part a menage a troi, but his people see it as weakness and ultimately he has to punish them. And in being forced to send away his best knight, he dooms Camelot because they can no longer win the battle with Mordred's forces. (Which, incidentally, also broke out over a misunderstanding—the armies were facing each other with instructions not to fight, but it was hot, and some soldier had a fly buzzing around his head, so he drew his sword to stab the fly, the other side saw the glint of the sword and thought that they were dishonoring the agreement...and ta-da! War!)

**Continued in Re: Part 2 II B (I admit it—I'm enjoying this discussion too much to try to delete paragraphs when the comment doesn't fit. :P)**

Re: Part 2 II A

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I agree that Gwen got sort of left behind a bit in the finale - which actually worked for the metaphor of Arthur running away to be with Merlin. I did feel bad for her, until when Gaius basically told her that Merlin and Arthur had run away together, she was happy for them. Gwen knows what's up. ;)

I think I was always fairly fine with the Gwen/Arthur story line. It didn't annoy me, but it didn't thrill me either. I was just neutral on it.

I DO wish Morgana had a better resolution. I really thought they were going to give her a better one in the lead up to the finale too. Katie McGrath said that she liked Morgana's resolution, so I just assumed it would one that displayed a different characteristic than "smirking villain"... but it didn't. I really thought that they might give Morgana a little compassion in the end - like between Mordred giving her a hard time in 5x02 and the fact that whenever Arthur sees her, he basically just starts crying and telling her that he loves her (I'm exaggerating, I know, but you get my point)... I thought that MAYBE she would actually feel bad about her actions at some point and show us a bit of S1 Morgana underneath all the madness/hatred. But alas.

I read the theory that Morgeuse had subjected her to the dark tower too - and even though it's horribly sad to think about. It's really the only thing that makes sense to me for why Morgana suddenly paints Arthur with the same brush as Uther, kills the citizens of Camelot to try to get the knights to swear allegiance to her, etc.

It's interesting, though, this moral that love for a person over love for your ambitions will doom you. Because isn't that ultimately how the Arthurian legend goes?

Yes, that's how a lot of those old legends go. I still hate the ending. :P The premise of the show wasn't "let's retell the moral of the Arthurian legends" it was "let's follow Merlin trying help Arthur create Albion, but the catch is that magic is outlawed and Merlin has to get Arthur to accept his magic." - and to me the resolution to that story is "Merlin and Arthur create Albion and Arthur accepts Merlin's magic." And I don't care if that meant that that meant that the show finished with untold epic parts of the Arthurian legend.

But again, this is just coming down to a matter of opinion.

I do think that depending on the telling of the thing, Arthurian legend can have any sort of moral. I've seen/heard versions where it was Arthur's lack of willingness to live in a menage a tois that doomed the kingdom - ie: jealousy is bad. I think Arthurian legend can be fairly warped to suit whatever moral you want to give. "Don't have incestuous sex with your sister" hahaha :P

Re: Part 2 II A

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Haha! Well, that's one way to see it. That scene always made me sadder, because I interpreted it as Gwen thinking, "Of course, he'll bring Arthur back to me!" only to learn that...no...no, he failed. I've been dying to read a fanfic where Gwen and Merlin talk after those events, but...I just can't find any, and I never have the time to write one myself...

Yeah, it's not that there's anything bad about the Gwen/Arthur storyline, I think everyone would agree on that. It's just...so pitifully weak next to the developing relationship of Merlin and Arthur.

I can sort of see the logic in having Merlin kill her with Excalibur. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was a little excited to see Merlin wield that sword: he made it, after all, and it was kind of a nice turnabout that he killed Morgana with the sword he'd made for Arthur. But what kind of ruined that moment for me was those seconds before the stab. She just kind of stands there, as if she's forgotten that terror of Emrys being her doom (though I suppose one could argue that she was overconfident because it looked nothing like the scene from her vision), bragging, and does nothing to stop herself being impaled. I mean, come on—even if you were positive it wouldn't kill you, you'd think she'd want to avoid having a blade through her stomach...again.

I'm at series 3 in my rewatch cycle, and I'm finding a scary number of parallels between post-dark-tower Gwen and this new Morgana. Plus Morgause's utter faith that Morgana won't betray her: you could say it was just because of their bond, as sisters, but it's so much more resonant when you think that maybe Morgause knows that Morgana is little more than her loyal puppet.

It's all a matter of opinion! Doesn't mean it's not interesting to think/talk about. I'm sure there are people out there who felt completely and utterly fulfilled by the finale, but they wouldn't be much fun to discuss the episode (and the entire show) with. ;)

I think Arthurian legend can be fairly warped to suit whatever moral you want to give.

Very, very true. Some versions even seem to have all of Arthur's mistakes lead back to Uther, for some reason or another. I really, truly loved that this show didn't have the incestuous sex, though I confess to being pretty disappointed in what they did with the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot triangle. I could accept that it was just a spell. But Gwen pledges her love to Lancelot at one point! And then just turns to Arthur because Lancelot isn't there! *sigh*

Re: Part 2 II A

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not that there's anything bad about the Gwen/Arthur storyline, I think everyone would agree on that. It's just...so pitifully weak next to the developing relationship of Merlin and Arthur.

It's true. It's kind of hard to make the Arthurian legends a metaphor about homosexuality and then still have Arthur hook with a girl and NOT have it seem like the lesser relationship.

I agree about Morgana's death where she just sort of stands there (I could say the same about Mordred killing Arthur though). Like... really. It must be a pendragon trait to just await death. :P

I just can't help but think the show showed us the twist of Morgana being under the influence of the dark tower or something - and in her last moments she was able to snap out of it somehow through the love that she USED to have for Arthur.

I really, truly loved that this show didn't have the incestuous sex, though I confess to being pretty disappointed in what they did with the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot triangle. I could accept that it was just a spell. But Gwen pledges her love to Lancelot at one point! And then just turns to Arthur because Lancelot isn't there! *sigh*

Agreed. Although, to be fair, I kind of hate the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot triangle story, so I'm kind of glad that they shoved it to the side the way they did. That being said, I don't like what they did with Lancelot... so, I guess I just want to have my cake and eat it too. I'm not a big fan of love triangle storylines.

Re: Part 2 II A

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Yet that makes it interesting, because there really aren't that many stories where a friendship and a romance can be compared, and have the friendship win out. (Ignoring the fact that one could refer to Merlin and Arthur's relationship as a romance...)

Mordred, though, I felt actually stood there because he wanted to die. He was never like Morgana: he turned to her side out of grief, because he was suddenly so alone. It makes my heart ache to think how he must have felt. He turned aside everything he believed in for Arthur, and yet Arthur knowingly took away the one and only person outside of Camelot that Mordred loved. He must have felt so abandoned, so lost to know that not even Merlin would help him. I think that all he wanted was to stab Arthur–and once he had, he had nothing left to live for and was happy to die.

Hm...it's not that I like the love triangle. In fact, they generally annoy me. I only like this one when it's really played out as a triangle: as in, each of the three loves the other two equally. And when they're happy to live like this, then I like it. What they did was sort of a cop-out. Gwen pledges her love to Lancelot, then falls for Arthur, then Lancelot dies for Arthur for Gwen's sake, then he's enchanted into briefly seducing Gwen just long enough to mess up her relationship with Arthur...and is gone. I almost wish they'd just left the love triangle bit out of it.

Re: Part 2 II A

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

So what you like is a threesome, not a triangle. To me, "love triangle" by definition means that the participants aren't content to live that way, nor love each other equally (or one loves two equally, but the two don't necessarily love each other.) This is just arguing definitions though - obviously you define "triangle" the way I define "threesome."

I couldn't really sympathize with Mordred at all. Or maybe I did, but by that point I was too annoyed withe season to sympathize with him in the right way. I mean, when it comes right down to it, Merlin blew the whole thing with Mordred from the jump, because he treated him like an enemy the entire time so of COURSE he becomes one. I do think that at the end Mordred had a "what have I done?!" moment and probably welcomed death, as you say. And yes, that was heartbreaking in a "you're a dumbass" kind of way... but like I said, at that point I was pissed off.

I see every relationship as a romance...or as a not-romance. Basically, I widdle every relationship down to love and ignore who is actually kissing... so, yeah, to me it wasn't about friendship coming out on top of romance. It was about Arthur accepting who Merlin was and who he was in the face of great prejudice against it, which like I said, was the only part that I liked. :P

Re: Part 2 II A

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Yay, weekend!! It's been a crazy week, and I've only just finished my rewatch of S4.

Ah, yeah, I pretty much agree with that definition of love triangle. Love polygon, really, since it's rarely actually a triangle. It's not that I define this relationship as a love triangle, but that it's generally referred to as such, where I like to see it as a relatively happy threesome broken by outside influence.

But it's not so much that I like a threesome—I just tend to be happy with any relationship setup as long as the characters (or the ones that I care about, at least) are happy. I liked Lancelot a great deal (possibly more than Arthur) in this show. It pained me to see his story end the way that it did. (Gwen doesn't even mourn him the second time around! Nor Arthur, though that was more understandable. Damn it, people!)

Yeah, I can understand not being able to sympathize with Mordred. I actually didn't either, up until I started writing that little paragraph, when I suddenly saw the light. :P

Hm...I guess I don't really put much in store by the term "romance." I'd agree that Arthur/Gwen was a romance, and Arthur/Merlin, and Gwen/Lancelot and even possibly Merlin/Lancelot, but that doesn't necessarily mean I think it was sexualised. Similarly, I don't see friendship and romance as being exclusive. I think that Merlin and Arthur had a romance and a friendship, and that plus Merlin's utter, complete, unwavering devotion makes their bond deeper than Arthur and Gwen's. I also think that Arthur and Gwen's romance, while including a friendship that grew over the story, ultimately was more sexual in nature. It's just nice to see a non-sexualized relationship win out over a sexualized one, for once.

Again, I'm not rejecting the possibility that Arthur and Merlin's relationship could have included a sexual element, or might develop one in the future on Arthur's return. But their bond, their closeness, means that the sex is inconsequential: whether or not they're together that way, their relationship is one that holds strong. I'd argue that this isn't the case with Gwen's relationship with Arthur, as evidenced by Arthur's response to Gwen's betrayal and ultimate forgiveness, which was less of an, "I want you to be happy and to be a part of your life" and more of an, "I need you to be mine in some capacity."

Re: Part 2 II A

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

It's just nice to see a non-sexualized relationship win out over a sexualized one, for once.

Yes, true. And again, probably the only part of the finale that I liked. :)

Re: Part 2 II B

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

**Continued from Re: Part 2 II A**

To be perfectly honest, I hate tragedies too. I get so sucked in, so utterly wrapped up in the story, that when everything falls apart, my spirit breaks a bit, and I get depressed in real life and end up spending days of just burying myself in romantic comedies or just plain comedies to pick myself up again. That is, in all honesty, why I was very hesitant to watch Merlin at all. The Arthurian legend and variants of it are the worst kind of tragedy to me, because the better the writing, the more it hurts. Do you know the Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley? I read that when I was 14, got sucked into it, and was depressed for a month after I finished. (Possibly my trepidations about this Guinevere originate in Bradley's version of Gwenhwyfar, because I seriously hated her closed-minded ways.)

Maybe I'd feel differently about that book if I read it again now, but I don't much feel like risking it. It's like the Fountainhead, or Crime and Punishment: they make me think, and take me on a profoundly emotional and intellectual journey, but it's so very sad and painful that I never quite want to relive it.

Actually, no, that's not quite entirely true: I am tempted to reread C&P. And I'm debating the idea of reading Atlas Shrugged.

And here I am, getting side-tracked. I'd also rather have watched Arthur uniting Albion and rescinding the ban on magic after learning about Merlin, though I have my doubts as to whether they'd ever have given us a straight up happy ending. (After all, isn't the crux of the legend the idea that Arthur will rise again, to rejoin his trusted warlock who awaits that day?) All I mean to say is that I see why they did it how they did: they made the characters and their relationships more important than the formation of this mythical kingdom, which is a decision that I can be fairly happy with, since ultimately I derived a ridiculous amount of enjoyment out of the Merlin/Arthur relationship dynamic. :P

Re: Part 2 II B

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly honest, I hate tragedies too. I get so sucked in, so utterly wrapped up in the story, that when everything falls apart, my spirit breaks a bit, and I get depressed in real life and end up spending days of just burying myself in romantic comedies or just plain comedies to pick myself up again. That is, in all honesty, why I was very hesitant to watch Merlin at all.

I think that that's why I'm pretty pissed off about the finale. Because, in my mind, Merlin was sold to me as a comedy from S1-S4. Every series ended with a victory, even the tragedies that were in each series were mitigated to have good sides "it wasn't really Lancelot, and it freed Gwen up to see and warn of Morgana's plans", "Uther is dead, but that means that Arthur is now free to create Albion..." etc.

So, to suddenly have my comedy turn tragedy so completely just for the final series was very much like I'd been stabbed in the back by the show and then told that I should have seen it coming. Maybe THAT's the moral of Merlin... I'm like Arthur, and sooner or later Morgana, Agravaine, Gwen, and "Lancelot" are going to betray me. :P

I don't read Ayn Rand, because of the horrible politics in her books (plus I'm just not interested in them.) But I know what you mean about tragedies... I get far too attached to characters and when they die, I tend to go through all the stages of mourning. Which is why I try to stay away from them. One exception, of course, is that one of my favourite books is For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down... and it's a tragedy, but for some reason I just really like it.

But yes... side/tracked. I think I take a more pessimistic view, and in my opinion the writers didn't make the relationships more important, instead they just forgot what story they were supposed to be telling. But, I'm glad you think differently and can therefore enjoy S5. I can't, so probably your way is a better way to think about things...sadly, my heart refuses to be anything but angry and betrayed. :P

Re: Part 2 II B

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Yep. Series 5 in general was pretty surprising to hop into: so much darkness, so suddenly!

I'll keep an eye out for For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down...I'm curious, now. :)

I just try to come to terms with the end of stories if I liked the whole thing leading up to it, because a bad ending can ruin the entire thing for me. (Do you know of Avatar: The Last Airbender? I loved the show so much...up until the finale. At which point the storytelling was suddenly so horrible that I haven't been able to watch a single episode since.) And this was sad, but not irredeemable, to me. They went out with a bang, in a way that a lot of TV series don't have the opportunity to do: either they're forced to end earlier than they were supposed to, or they drag on longer than they should. The ending was...not the most uplifting or what we hoped for, but I can't deny that they made it incredibly powerful.

Re: Part 2 II B

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down is by David Adams Richards. I'm not sure what part of the world you're in - but he's a Canadian author who tends to write about the same area of New Brunswick over and over and over again. I'm not sure if the book is for everyone, but for some reason I just fell in love with it as a teenager.

You and I are like opposites!! Haha, I absolutely adored Avatar: The Last Airbender - INCLUDING the finale, which I thought was epic and awesome. (note the icon I'm using in this discussion ;)

Which just goes to show that there must be people out there who love the Merlin finale and think it was a great end to the series. Meanwhile, Merlin to me is like A:TLA to you... I love the series, but now find that I can't bring myself to watch a single episode because I hated the finale so much.) Well... that's not QUITE true. I find that if I convince myself that the series was unfortunately cancelled at the end of S4, I can watch episodes before then... which is what I've been doing.

I've also debated re-editing S5 to change it, but that would be a lot of work, and I'm not sure I want to put in the time and effort (plus I'd have to watch those episodes again, and they make me so angry now.)

Re: Part 2 II B

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

I'm in Germany, and my only access to English books is an international library...but I'm sure I'll find it eventually. :)

Ha, yeah, the live-in-denial-of-the-ending is the strategy I adopted for living with A:tLA. Too many plot devices popped out of nowhere all too conveniently for my taste in that finale. Which I think maybe is exactly why I can be at peace with Merlin's ending: they let the story carry them to the end it naturally led to, rather than suddenly trying to force it backwards down a road that maybe would have made sense at the planning stage, but kind of comes out of nowhere.

Though I do admit, it was really frigging surprising when Arthur died. Because you know, you go, "Meh, they've got a whole episode! They won't just let him find out about Merlin and die." But he does.

Re: Part 2 II B

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Which I think maybe is exactly why I can be at peace with Merlin's ending: they let the story carry them to the end it naturally led to, rather than suddenly trying to force it backwards down a road that maybe would have made sense at the planning stage, but kind of comes out of nowhere.

We really are exact opposites on this, because this is what I believe Merlin DID do, and A:TLA did not. To me, Merlin totally forced the story sideways down a road that maybe made sense at the planning stage but comes out of nowhere and completely defeats the point of the series. Whereas A:TLA may have used some archetypal plot devices, but at least they told the story they had set out to tell in an effective and entertaining way.

So, I think we're both just going to have to agree to live in denial of our respect hated finales. :P

GERMANY! I lived there once. It was nice. Seeing as how we have such different tastes when it comes to finales, I make no claims about whether you'll actually enjoy the book or not if you do find it! I think it's kind of written with the express purpose of being unsatisfying. They made a movie out of it here in Canada once and completely changed the ending. :P

Re: Part 2 II B

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yeah, I can see that... Being at the beginning of S5, I'm feeling this missing time all too acutely. The dragon says, at the end, "All that we had dreamed of has come to pass." This, combined with Arthur's comfortable familiarity with the other monarchies around his kingdom, I take to mean that Albion is unified already, even if "High King" isn't actually Arthur's title. Which is a little unnerving, really, because it does give this feeling of there being an entire series missing between S4 and 5, doesn't it?

Ah, well. It's not that I'm jumping for joy that S5 is what it is, but ultimately, I'm still pretty darn happy with the finale. Maybe I'd feel differently about A:tLA, too, if I watched it again. The only real elements left that I can't forgive are the loose ends of Azula and Ursa, which broke my heart. With Korra dealing with bending-bending, I feel like I can forgive that massive deus ex machina, though it still is jarring and comes out of absolutely nowhere.

I'm quite loving it so far, though my German is slow to improve. :)

I'm starved for good reading, so I'll take anything right now. I just read a David Gibbins novel for the first time in half a decade and I think my brain fell out. His characters are more fleshed out than Dan Brown's (heaven forbid that his male or female lead should be one step short of improbable perfection), and the chains of events feel more realistic than John Grisham (seriously, sometimes I want to smack those characters upside the head and call them out on their idiocy)...but while now and again I'd find myself intrigued, 1-2 pages later some contrived statement/description/dialogue would jar me out of it and I'd have to struggle to engage myself again.

I should just give up on trying to read thrillers, really. And yet they're the easiest type of book to get one's hands on, and every now and then you do come across a good one.

I'm now reading Daughter of the Sun by Barbara Wood, because it was on sale for 1 euro. So far, I'm 3 pages in and all I know is that it's set in a pre-colonization Chaco Canyon, 2 characters are in love and getting married, and the groom's dad really wants his son to just have sex with the girl and get it out of his system because his lust is addling his brain.

Re: Part 2 II B

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I know that they followed up with the Ursa storyline in the A:TLA comics (which I have yet to read, but am planning to buy soon)...so maybe that's why I don't mind so much that it's not followed up with in the series.

Funnily enough, Korra kind of soured me a LITTLE on bending-bending (or as my bestfriend and I called it: Spirit-bending). Because when we originally watched A:TLA, we thought it made a lot of sense because each of the bending groups had their own ultimate bending... water=blood, earth=metal, fire=lightening...but what about air? Well, we thought that when Aang learned spirit-bending, THAT was the ultimate Air Bending... that you could bend the spirit/soul (given how much more religious/meditative air bending was always portrayed as.) With Korra, suddenly bending-bending can be done by waterbenders, and that irked me. A:TLA was about each bender learning their ultimate bending skill (or learning how to fight against it in the case of Zuko) except, apparently, for Air. :P

I'm quite loving it so far, though my German is slow to improve. :)

My German is slowly disappearing because I've barely used it in 10 years. :P

I don't read many thrillers, it's not a genre that I particularly enjoy... though yeah, they're VERY easy to find. Thrillers and romances are the two most available genres, I think.

I just finished reading Warm Bodies. It was really good! I'm debating whether I should go see if the movie is still playing somewhere.

Re: Part 2 II B

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know about the comics! That's quite mollifying, actually.

Yep, true about air never going much further... I also always found it quite sad that air bending has basically deteriorated to the avatar plus 1 master. I'd have thought that so much knowledge would have been lost, but that never really gets addressed after the first season.

I guess that the fact that it became more than just a one-off that Aang could pull was what comforted me about bending-bending. I mostly just didn't like that it took away from that final stretch of Aang's journey, by a method unknown by the generations and generations of avatars before him. He basically invents a magical way to strip people of their powers that make them dangerous instead of killing them. This bothered me on several levels: first, because it implies that Ozai was only scary and unmanageable because of his bending (which I thought was a prejudice we were supposed to have overcome in watching Sokka, the Kyoshi warriors, etc.). Second, because while it's beautiful and lovely to think that dedication to pacifism can win out and solve everything, I'm a little bit too far gone into cynicism to see that as anything but a huge, glaring lie. I saw Aang's dedication to pacifism as something similar to Mahatma Gandhi. But the thing is, even with millions upon millions of followers, Gandhi had to make sacrifices—huge sacrifices—to make his pacifist ways pull through, and even then couldn't do everything peacefully.

Aang was never disillusioned. He never sacrificed anything. It's a Disney "If you wish upon a star" scenario, and I wish I could believe that that story could really have gone that way, because after all it's a fictional world...but I can't. It feels like the way depressing classics are sometimes given contrived happy endings in children's books, and my own inability to see past that and just appreciate the sugar-coated happy ending makes me a little sad.

That's the way of languages, sadly... I took Russian for 3 years at and before uni and loved it, but now can't remember more than enough for a (probably ungrammatical) cursory conversation about my name, where I live and possibly what I study.

Which part of Germany were you at?

Re: Part 2 II B

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yeah, I totally understand your problems with the A:TLA finale. For some reason that stuff just doesn't bother me though *shrug* I guess I just prefer the contrived happy endings to depressing classics. Reality is depressing enough, in my fantasy worlds, I want things to turn out alright.

Everyone tells me that if I went back to Germany, my German would come back pretty quickly - but um, I'm not sure what reason I'd have to go back to Germany. With my German at the level it is now (also being a Canadian), I wouldn't be able to get a job there. I mean, I'd love to go back, but at this point I have to accept the fact that I'll only ever be a tourist when I do.

I was down in Freiburg in the Black Forest. I loved it there. I still have friends in Germany, but they're in Berlin now... so if I ever visit, I'd probably be visiting Berlin rather than anywhere else. Which is fine, when I lived in Germany, I mostly just saw the south, because it was closest - I never did get to see much of the North.

Re: Part 2 II

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot one comment I meant to make: I had this feeling that in S5, Arthur wouldn't have listened to Merlin's "senses" and only ended up doing so because of some outside force. Most often I remember the knights in The Dark Tower, finding signs that Merlin was on the right track and persuading Arthur to listen to him. In any case, I think I'm going to rewatch the series and pay more attention to that...

Re: Part 2 II

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I think it's a matter of interpretation. I saw those looks between the knights and Arthur as sort of a "how is he doing this?!" question... and at the time, I was excited because I thought it was another clue for Arthur to figure out that Merlin had magic before (or in time for) Merlin to tell him.

Sadly, it didn't come to that.

But again, I really don't think that Arthur was as dismissive of Merlin's 'senses' or advice in S5 as he was in the past. Some of evidence of which, we don't even get to see... because how was it that Merlin convinced Arthur to follow Gwen out to the woods and witness her meeting with Morgana? At some point, Merlin would have had to say "Gwen has been bewitched and is working for Morgana, and I can prove it if you follow her with me one night"... and Arthur will have had to say "you've just insulted my wife and the queen, but yeah, okay, I trust you enough to follow you out to the woods and see if you're right." Likewise, we see constantly see Arthur taking Merlin's advice - like with Mordred's girl, even though Mordred never saw the amount of chances that Arthur gave her.

Or, even the Dolma episode, when Merlin says they're being followed, and Arthur says "one of your funny feelings?" - you could interpret it as dismissive, I suppose - but Arthur doesn't smile when he says it, instead he looks back at the ridge that Merlin is looking at and then when he finds out later that Mordred was indeed following them, he tells Merlin "you had a funny feeling." Meaning that he a)kept it in his mind, and b)feels that Merlin's 'funny feeling' has been confirmed as accurate... which only means that in the future he'll be paying even more attention to them (though I already feel that he did pay attention to it enough to make note and remember that Merlin's 'senses' had warned him of something.)

Re: Part 2 II

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you about that scene about Gwen. Actually, I take that scene in conjunction with how when Gwen accused Merlin of poisoning Arthur, Arthur apparently just waved her off the moment he heard about it. It kind of slays me that we don't see either confrontation, but I agree that somehow, by series 5 (even series 4), Merlin is already several notches above everyone else in Arthur's esteem.

And I'm ashamed to say that all those instances of Arthur taking Merlin's advice slipped past me... Though I did remember the one with Mordred, and saw Arthur's words as a kind of awed incredulity. I guess I was really hung up on all the little instances when Arthur didn't immediately listen to Merlin. Anyway, I'll get there eventually in my rewatch cycle.

Still, though, knowing about Merlin's magic would have to raise Merlin above and beyond where Arthur sees him now, and that...seems like it would just make Arthur's esteem/regard/affection for Merlin fly off the charts, don't you think?

Re: Part 2 II

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Still, though, knowing about Merlin's magic would have to raise Merlin above and beyond where Arthur sees him now, and that...seems like it would just make Arthur's esteem/regard/affection for Merlin fly off the charts, don't you think?

Oh yes, definitely. I just think that it wouldn't trump the fact that Arthur thinks Merlin is an idiot (just as Merlin thinks Arthur is an idiot, and admits to Arthur in the finale that Arthur's not wrong about him being an idiot - "it's just part of my charm")... so, although Merlin is elevated in esteem/regard/affection after the magic reveal (because Arthur knows just how loyal, invaluable, special Merlin is to Camelot, not just to Arthur) - I don't think it would change their friendship that much. In that, I think they're well established in the way they relate to each other (ie: giving each other a hard time for the fun of it.)

Of course, that being said, Arthur's love for Merlin (although it was already there) does grow in the finale... and it WOULD change things had Arthur lived. Like I said, the only part of the finale that I liked was Arthur and Merlin metaphorically running off together. I suppose the show just replaced the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot love triangle with an Gwen/Arthur/Merlin love triangle - and Merlin "won", if you can call it that.

Maybe I'm just an idealist who happens to have had unconventional but healthy relationships in the past, but I do think that Arthur could have lived, gone back to Camelot - and had his wife and Merlin without much changing. The fact remains that Gwen IS a good Queen and a shrewd stateswoman - whereas Merlin is not. So, whether or not Gwen has all of Arthur's heart (which I argue she never really did, because Merlin HAS always been in there in some capacity), she still plays a pivotal role in the kingdom. Not to mention the fact that just because Arthur loves Merlin, doesn't mean that he doesn't love Gwen (not giving her much thought in the finale aside... think more about the "With All My Heart" episode.)

Re: Part 2 II

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

I do wish we'd seen that! It would have been wonderful to have at least one adventure with an Arthur who knows and accepts Merlin's magic! *wishes really hard*

...Nope. Damn you, Disney! Making people believe that wishes come true! *shakes fist*

No arguments from me on any counts. I agree that we had that little triangle going, that Merlin won, and that Gwen was a good Queen as Merlin never could have been. I think the last we see of them kind of illustrates that perfectly: Merlin, grieving horribly and then still waiting, over a thousand years later, versus Gwen, steeling her heart and turning her attention to the kingdom.

I'd add to what you said that to some extent, Arthur was never totally Gwen's because it was Merlin who made them see each other as they learned to. Gwen learned through Merlin that Arthur could be talked to as a human (and a prat), rather than just as a king; and Arthur learned through Merlin that servants can be friends and companions. They knew each other before Merlin, but I doubt there'd ever have been any sort of romance without Merlin there. Arthur was always heavily aware of his responsibilities, his role in life. And while he kept everyone at arms length, and always talked about doing what's best for the kingdom (was willing to break up with Gwen if that was best for his people), he's never been able to do so with Merlin—and when he tries, Merlin refuses to take it sitting down. It's fun, in a way, because Arthur's world orbits around Merlin without him ever really knowing or realizing how much it does. I almost wish we'd had more than that little snippet in Servant of Two Masters (which is one of my favorite episodes) as to how Arthur'd react to losing Merlin.

Similarly, I think that Gwen was never truly Arthur's the way that Merlin was. She'd do almost anything for him, and she loves him, but under all of this has always been the undertow called Camelot-comes-first. She does a lot for Arthur, but watching Merlin, her contributions seem miniscule. I might tentatively suggest that with series 5, the show writers were trying to show us that Gwen's first love was Camelot, where Merlin's was purely Arthur. (And so he caused Arthur to die. I'm tearing up now...)

Re: Part 2 II

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Agreed! I really don't have anything else to add to this...you've basically said everything that I was thinking.

I also LOVE a Servant of Two Masters for the fact that we get to see Arthur's reaction to the idea of losing Merlin. And I'd argue that that episode also shows how Gwen always thinks of Camelot first (like a good Queen)...I've seen a lot of people give Gwen flack online for how she tried to convince Arthur not to go looking for Merlin... but I think it just shows that Gwen is thinking more about what would happen to Camelot if Arthur was killed while searching bandit-infested woods for a manservant, it's not that she doesn't care about Merlin (or the fact that her boyfriend's heartbroken with worry), it's that she thinks of Camelot first... whereas Arthur thinks of Merlin first. Arthur and Merlin's first love is always each other, whereas Gwen's is Camelot itself. I think this is also reflected in the way she asks Lancelot to look after Arthur in 4x01. It's not so much because she loves Arthur more than Lancelot, it's because CAMELOT needs Arthur more than it needs Lancelot.

Re: Part 2 II

[aegyptae-liber.livejournal.com]

So true!! That thought makes me feel a lot better about Lancelot's death; it's so much nicer to see it this way, than to think that Gwen was simply thoughtless when she made her request.

I loved Gwen in that episode. My one small qualm was how she apparently didn't think they should tell Arthur. I get why Gaius wouldn't rush to (especially if he suspected that they might need a magical cure), but would he really have been able to sway Gwen if she didn't agree? What would they have lost by telling Arthur? Maybe it would have shaken his faith in Merlin a bit, knowing he was being mind controlled...but still. I feel like it was more that the writers wanted to avoid giving Arthur cause to doubt Merlin in any capacity before The Reveal.

I also love SoTM because I feel like it shows us that down to the bottom of their souls, Merlin could never hurt Arthur, and Arthur could never doubt Merlin. Humorous as it is, Merlin could hardly make that many failed attempts on Arthur's life without there being something else at work. First, with the lunch: while I find it somewhat plausible that he simply didn't know that Gwen would be bringing Arthur his food, you'd think he'd know when Arthur would expect it, and try to be there on time. Second, with the crossbow: the fact that it mysteriously didn't fire when Arthur opened the cabinet, though it fires whenever Merlin opens it? I sense magic afoot. Third, with the sword...that was a pretty spectacular crash. He bounced from the pillar into wall! Clumsy he may be, but I hardly think that Merlin would ordinarily manage a failure that extraordinary without it being deliberate to some extent. And finally, with the bathwater, I suspect that had Arthur actually touched the water, it would have felt maybe a bit too hot, but wouldn't have seriously harmed him.

I've read several interpretations on why Merlin never used magic to try killing Arthur in the episode, ranging from "Because Morgana didn't know" to "Because it's part of what makes Merlin Merlin, so the Femorrah would have taken it away." But by this point in the story, Merlin's magic is so completely Arthur's, for Arthur's protection especially, that I wonder if the magic—somehow providing a small subconscious resilience against the Femorrah—wasn't there the whole time, protecting Arthur from Merlin himself. Or, alternatively, that Arthur's rooms are so perfused with Merlin's magic that it's difficult to kill Arthur in there, whether the perpetrator was Merlin or otherwise.

And Arthur! How many times he fails to notice Merlin's increasingly conspicuous attempts on his life, right under his nose! I feel like there's a second when his eyes flicker to the curtain that Merlin's pulling over the crossbow arrow at some point—and he just takes it in stride when Merlin's collapsed on the floor right behind him, sword clearly outstretched. This from the man who even doubted his most trusted uncle in this episode.

Re: Part 2 II

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Agreed once again.

I've always been of the opinion that Merlin didn't try to use magic to kill Arthur because Morgana didn't know about the magic - but I never really considered that Merlin (or Merlin's magic) was probably actively fighting against the assassination schemes that Merlin did try. I like that interpretation. Especially since you're quite right that, at least with the sword, there was no reason for Merlin to be THAT clumsy in the situation.

It didn't really bother me that Gwen didn't want to tell Arthur. Maybe it didn't make sense, but I think by that point everyone was just so used to hiding EVERYTHING magical from the Pendragons that it was just instinct. But, I can see your point too... and yeah, it was probably so that the writers could keep Merlin as the one person who had never under any circumstances betrayed/hurt Arthur.