Comments | crabby_lioness: Merlin Episode 12: Living With a Dysfunctional Family

crabby_lioness

Merlin Episode 12: Living With a Dysfunctional Family

Mar 17, 2009 15:12

Sorry to be late with this. Life's been extremely bus lately. Owl is crawling and standing up for whole seconds at a time and basically getting into everything, and on top of that I have Uther-fic crowding into my brain which must wait until after I've watched the last episode. On with the meta....

We all realize by now that the Pendragons are a ( Read more... )

merlin, commentary

Comments 16

archaeologist_d March 17 2009, 21:32:41 UTC

Thanks! I agree with everything you said here. I found the heart of this episode was the moral dilemma of taking out a tyrant or not. Merlin came close to making a decision that could have been wrong - actually either way, he was wrong.

I liked how the gang had matured in their actions. It will be interesting to see what they do next season.

crabby_lioness March 18 2009, 00:43:27 UTC

Thank you. I'm starting to think all of S1 is about how to deal with a tyrant who's firmly in control.

archaeologist_d March 18 2009, 01:03:51 UTC

It could very well be. After all, Merlin hiding his power is really about avoiding Uther's wrath and Arthur seems to be doing more of that as well.

clancy_s March 17 2009, 21:42:27 UTC

An excellent and thought provoking analysis.

I tend to agree with you about Merlin being stronger than he (or those humans who know about him) realises, I suspect that starting to use formal sorcery rather than just his natural magic +/- continuing to mature has led to a great increase in his power. As far as we know he's never been seriously hurt directly - I found it interesting in ep 10 that he was worried he'd have to leave Camelot if found out but didn't fear for his own safety.

I thought Uther's apology to Morgana was epic but it wasn't clear to me if he thought having Tom killed was a mistake because it upset Morgana (on a topic Uther feels she's entitled to become upset about) or because Uther believed killing Tom to be wrong in itself.

givemethebook March 18 2009, 08:16:34 UTC

Thank you for writing another of your detailed episode reviews.

Nevertheless, I have one question. Why do you assume Morgana knows she's magical? (I wouldn't call prophetic dreams magic anyway, but I guess, that's just a problem I have with the series.)

Yes, she had the dream, and she thought she recognised the woman. But as far as she knows, she was wrong. Nothing bad happened to Arthur and I doubt, Merlin or Gaius would tell her differently.

crabby_lioness March 18 2009, 13:50:16 UTC

She's had other dreams, she told Gwen she refuses to discuss her dreams directly with Uther for fear he'll kill her, and she told Merlin "what if the magic chooses you?"

givemethebook March 18 2009, 14:21:51 UTC

True.

crabby_lioness March 18 2009, 13:51:11 UTC

Prophetic dreams are the form the magic takes for Morgana. Same energy, different channel.

oconel March 18 2009, 08:19:14 UTC

she has clear title to her home (I guess there were some outstanding debts)
Not necessarily, I wouldn't be surprised if the properties of someone sentenced to death would go to the king. For Uther, sorcery is treason, after all.

I agree about Gaius and Merlin, they're not dealing with Morgana's magic and that might be dangerous in the future (and I'll tell you more after the last episode).

Colin Morgan looks older and more serious (and hotter)
I can't help but agree ;)

crabby_lioness March 18 2009, 13:52:31 UTC

I've seen the last episode. It's a great temptation to skip the analysis and start immediately on the fic.

thornyrose42 May 5 2009, 22:39:50 UTC

Hey I've been really enjoying these commentaries but was wondering if you were going to review the last episode would really like to see what you thought of it!

crabby_lioness May 5 2009, 23:24:05 UTC

I'd really like to remember what I thought of it! Life's been so crazy I haven't had time to sit down and watch it AND write a review while it's still fresh. I do have some notes though, and will get back to it when I can.

thornyrose42 May 7 2009, 13:05:45 UTC

Brilliant! I was just curious and as I understand it the last episode was a bit of a divider.

crabby_lioness May 7 2009, 14:06:08 UTC

I saw the fuss, but didn't get it. It's a difference in perspective. I'm a parent and a homeschooler, and I can tell somebody on the writing staff is a former teacher because the episodes are set up the way educational material is set up. The next challange is to do the same thing over again -- but at a much harder level and with much higher stakes. That's the way a teacher looks at the world.