Merlin: 5.13 Commentary

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I hadn’t quite intended on commenting on Julian Murphy’s eye-popping commentary on 5:13 because…well I thought it pretty much spoke eloquently for itself. But I reckoned of course without the formidable powers of denial and provocation within the Merlin fandom.  And the nagging powers of gatepromise :P So here I am again, dander up once more

Frankly, some of

Comments

Re: Part 2

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Yeah - Ive had a go before at the wild use of pejorative labels to silence people in the fandom - 'you dont like Gwen, you're racist', 'you think Morgana is a waste of screen time, you're sexist', but the reaction to any suggestion that Merlin and Arthur could have been romantically in love HAS been blatantly homophobic in some places Ive seen. To label anyone disgusting for seeing romantic love between two men is grossly homophobic IMO. But that IS one prejudice/ bigotry thats alive and shockingly well in parts of the fandom - hopefully very small if very loud parts.

The reveal wasnt that important? On that at last I disagree. To me it was vital; Id never have forgiven the programme if Arthur had gone to his rest in Avalon never knowing who Merlin was and Merlin had to struggle knowing that and never having been accepted. The whole seat at the round table thing would have been lovely - it'd have been great to see the interaction between Arthur and openly magic Merlin. But I really didnt want yet more of Merlin secretly influencing Arthur on magic; when Arthur found out he could even think Merlin had done it for his own ends. I think in a way he had already come to love and value Merlin without magic - we saw that in his devastated reaction when Merlin left in 5.12 and his obvious relief and joy when he returned in 5.13. Arthur the king loved Merlin the servant anyway IMO as 5.13 showed; finding magic didnt make him love him or respect him, it just showed him how very much Merlin loved him and how much he owed him. The issue was of course right to the end - right to the start of 5.13 - they persisted in writing Arthur as being an arse *only* to Merlin - to every other man woman and child he met he was noble and polite - but because they just couldn't let go that 'Arthur abuses Merlin safety net however outdated it was, they had Arthur always behaving badly to Merlin alone. It was inexplicable and I never saw the Js challenged on how it was meant to make sense. But as JM said, they didnt like fans who didnt just 'go with it'- i.e. watch and praise and accept and never question. I think though we were meant to know that Arthur already valued and needed Merlin beneath the senseless bluster. :)