Amelia. 23. Can only manage about 1.5 fandoms at a time.
Currently watching: Justified s2
Currently reading: Winter's Bone, The Violent Bear It Away
“Not as quick as Arthur” ORLY
OOOOOH MORGANA HAIRPORN LET ME HAS IT
Like…. Am I a really, really heartless person if I still fucking hate Uther and I don’t feel a bit sorry for him? Because I still fucking hate him. And I don’t feel even a bit sorry for him.
1 - Don’t fuck with the druids
2 - If you’re going to search out epic weapons in order to protect them, DON’T LOSE THEM MORON.
3 - Arthur fucking Pendragon, who do you think honestly believes you’re going to hurt the kid?
4 - Emyrs, get. your. shit. together.
5 - “The only save place for the cup is the vault in Camelot” “Yea, but we’ve got to get it there first” — WORD. Listen to your manservant.
6 - I could always do with a nice Gwain hair swoosh, that’s when you know something is going to go down.
7 - “You are a wizard, Merlin, can I get an ‘accio’ or something?” Obviously, you need Harry Potter to complete your mission for you.
8 - Mergause really should’ve been consulting SOMETHING at least Nimhue knew what was up and who to target. Psssst, he’s not *just* a manservant, it’s a COVER.
9 - P.S. Uther, she is PLAYING you. Notice that smirk, that bitch face, seee it.
10 - Aaaaand Cenred’s dead. ‘Cause he’s a moron.
11 - “I’m not sure, having your knights go on a campaign with CAPES is the smartest uniform choice”
12 - McDollop-Head is constantly freaked out and PMSing.
13 - “We have a traitor in our midst” … and SHE is you know, gorgeous, waifish, dark-haired, wearing a green dress, STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU, her name… starts with an M and ends with ORGANA… come on Uther.
14 - Okay it’s times like these when Merlin, you’ve just got to tell Arthur to look to the left while you EVISCERATE EVERYONE. Bring on the lightening.
15 - “Sire, the citadel has been taken” FUCK GWEN. THEY HAVE MY KINGDOM. #epiclovebedamned
16 - Obviously they have some epic printing presses in Camelot, otherwise how did they get Morgana’s banners up so quickly?
17 - On the scale of things that are distressing, finding out that Morgana is your half-sister really shouldn’t be THAT bad considering all the other shit that is happening, Arthur.
Ahahahahahahaha
Seven
And fourteen
And fifteen
So fucking true
EVISCERATE EVERYONE
I’ve never fallen in love with a show that is so unsubtle about what it is and how it operates. With most shows, I need to have some kind of subtlety or it all just gets too over the top for me. This time, there was the right balance of rolling-my-eyes and cheering-out-loud. Tropes and cliches are thrown about unabashedly, but somehow it works almost every time. Let me go through why I loved each season.
Season 1: Merlin Is A Bit Of An Idiot Who Saves Arthur’s Life At Least 10 Times In 13 Episodes And Somehow It Doesn’t Get Old.
Merlin is presented to us as a naive child full of wonder. Magic is important to him, of course, but at this point, he uses it for tricks and making chores easier. Throughout the course of the season, he learns of his destiny and rather fumblingly fulfills it by protecting Arthur and keeping his magic a secret. It’s a near thing several times, and each time I hoped against all logic that Arthur would find out. Merlin, rightfully but rather childishly, gets a bit annoyed when he receives no credit for saving Arthur and Camelot several times over. Morgana is fiercely independent and struggling not to suffocate under Uther’s unyielding grip, yet she is still essentially good; Gwen is a loyal friend to both Morgana and Merlin and loves Arthur from afar, with a sad smile and a dip of her head. Uther’s tirades against magic became repetitive after the second one, but the twist with Arthur’s mother still blows my mind.
Season 2: Now That We’ve Established Relationships And Storylines, Let’s Fuck With Them.
Everyone grows up a little bit. Merlin is still young and raw, but he no longer uses magic for little things on a constant basis; Gaius has taught him well. Arthur begins to see Merlin’s oddities as something to be looked at rather than glanced over. He realizes that there are moments where Merlin is strange and distant and these moments encourage him and scare him at the same time, because for those little glimpses of time he understands, somehow, that he doesn’t really know Merlin as well as he thought, maybe not at all. That Merlin is much more than just his servant. Morgana’s magic finally rears its head when it cannot be suppressed any longer and it frightens her to death. Gwen and Arthur become more and more entwined, and Merlin gains and loses Freya in much too short a time. He really fell hard for her, and losing her the way he did really shook him hard, made him grow up a bit. Another thing that really shakes him is having to poison Morgana. He can’t stand the thought of doing anything to harm her, and yet Camelot is dying and he has no choice and it just about kills him. It forces him to understand that sacrifices have to be made, that not everyone can survive in tact; for his and Arthur’s destiny to be fulfilled, some people have to die.
The end of season 2 marks a giant turning point in Arthur and Merlin’s relationship, I believe; until this episode, keeping magic from Arthur was very important to Merlin. Here we see that it has become the most important thing that Merlin has ever done. Merlin’s father, the dragonlord he just met, dies right in Merlin’s arms, and Merlin covers his mouth so that Arthur won’t hear him crying and suspect anything. I cannot emphasize this enough. Merlin’s father has just died and still, the first instinct in his mind is to protect Arthur from the truth. And when Merlin sends the dragon away and lies to Arthur, he does it with a smile and tears in his eyes. This is the point where Merlin finally stops feeling any sort of bitterness about keeping his magic secret. Of course it still hurts to have to live “like a shadow”, as he puts it. But he puts his bitterness aside here and really, really starts to grow up.
Season 3: Merlin And Arthur Grow The Fuck Up And Entirely Too Much Time Is Spent On Morgana’s Evil Smirk.
I’ve few words to quite describe how much I loved this season. It felt darker, like so much more was at stake. Morgana returns and her subsequent double act gets old after the first few episodes, but it all becomes worth it to see Uther utterly destroyed by her betrayal. Sorry, I just have no sympathy whatsoever for that man. I don’t believe he deserves to die, but it’s satisfying in a very dark corner of my mind to finally see him get a bit of what he does deserve. When he pleads with Morgana that she killed innocent people for no reason, she cruelly and correctly points out that he did precisely the same thing.
Enough about Morgana. I’m really not all that interested in her since she’s such a one-dimensional character.
There’s a difference in Merlin between season 2 and season 3; it’s actually rather subtle at first, thanks to Colin Morgan’s often astounding acting. Sometime after his visions of the future, it hit me just how grown up he is in season 3. He’s different, wiser, much less Arthur’s chew toy and much more his friend. He gets the chance to be a mentor to Gilli and reverse in a sense what he’d done to Morgana; he refuses to leave Gilli alone in the dark and does his best to help him.
The two-part finale is more about Arthur growing up than Merlin, and it’s done in the most beautiful way possible. Everything comes together perfectly when he pulls that dusty old sheet off of the Round Table and all of his friends sit around it. He speaks to them as equals, taking his first concrete, measurable step away from his father. All throughout the series we’ve been shown that he is different in some essential way; he’s kinder, more fair, less fixated and paranoid. He can see the dimensions of things, the facets and the perspectives of his people and their lives. Most of the steps he takes away from his father’s footsteps are tentative and eventually backtracked or hidden; this time, Albion is at stake and he’s forced to be the leader, and he does it with a finesse and a caring, fair hand that his father never could possess.
In general, the final episode was really the culmination of three seasons of buildup and it worked perfectly. All of the setup with Lancelot and Gwaine and Elyan and even Sir Leon came together like loose pieces to a nearly finished puzzle, and the story finally became something really epic. Using the names of characters that have been in our collective consciousness for so long is one thing; finally bringing it around to the beginning of the pillars of the stories, like The Round Table, Excalibur (oh I grinned SO FUCKING HARD when Merlin plunged Excalibur into the stone), The Lady of the Lake, even serious talk of Arthur becoming king; that makes the show into something completely different.
—
This went in a far different direction than I originally anticipated. It’s 5 in the morning. My back hurts. It’s bedtime.
He’s not evil, or at least he isn’t trying to be. He’s not doing these things for teh lulz. He truly loves Arthur, and Morgana, and Camelot. He wants whatever’s best for them, and he’ll do anything in his power to make sure they get it.
That is what makes him so horrible.
That’s what makes me hate him with every fibre of my being. He wants to do right by his kingdom and his children, but it’s physically impossible because he refuses to listen to them. He loves them, but he’s got too much of a power trip to ever see when he’s wrong. I believe that the only way to know what’s best for someone is to listen very carefully to what they have to say, and Uther never, ever does this. Rather than hearing Morgana and Arthur out, ever, he threatens them, shouts at them. When incontrovertible evidence is provided, he completely ignores it in favour of what he believes to be true. And I’m not even going to scrape the surface of his quarrels with magic, because it reminds me too much of my own father.
This is why I cannot stand him. He’s arrogant, and mean, and entirely too afraid of being wrong.
I dunno. Whatever.
At this point I’m maybe a little bit in Nimueh’s camp. I like Arthur, and of course I don’t want to see him die, but she kind of deserves a little retribution.
#this is my evil half talking
#pay no attention
FUCK YOU WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN TO FUCKING LISTEN TO OTHER PEOPLE.
YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF.
He’s a bit of a douchecanoe to Merlin. But he’s much more open-minded and fair than his father.
