allirys

Announcing the next round of the BBC Merlin Reverse Bang! Sign-ups open NOW!

Artists, writers, betas, and alphas are all encouraged to sign up! We need betas/alphas for both fic AND art!

Check out THIS YEAR’S SCHEDULE!

We have made a few changes to our guidelines this year, so please re-familiarize yourself with our newly updated FAQs!

Now head to our site HERE to sign-up!

But THIS scene in particular.

I have magic and I use it for you, only for you Arthur

I was born to serve you

Made me 𝘗𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 recoil. I hate it I hate so fucking much. It sucks in the show and it sucks when I see it in fanfics idk how people like it.

First of all,it is simply not true. No matter which way you slice it, Merlin has never used his magic just for arthur.

He used it to help Lancelot become a knight. Used it to make Little dragons out of flame. Used it to help with chores. Used it to heal Gwen's father. Used it to defend his village. Used it to bring Gaius back to life. Used it to become an old man so he could save Gwen. Used it to steal food off of Arthur's plate to give it to Freya. Used it to make Arthur trip into the mud after Arthur was rude to him. Used it to get a dragon's egg and hatch it. Used it to fight bandits that would have killed him and daegal. Used it to play with the smoke. Used it to create butterflies in the cave. Used it to see what was wrong with the villagers in the lamia episode. Used it to burn the bodies of his beloved friends.

Merlin uses his magic for 𝘏𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 plenty. And that's how it should be. Merlin's magic is a part of him. It is 𝘩𝘪𝘴. And his alone. It should be used primarily for his own sake and no one else's.

And two,I don't want to watch or read about Merlin scrambling to justify his existence through this. Especially in the last episode.

The whole fucking point of the show is that magic isn't evil and thus people should be able to use it freely. Merlin has never used his magic only for Arthur but even if he had,that doesn't somehow make other magic users lesser for not doing so.

It is horrible,. A magic reveal should have had Merlin with his head held high. With the Same confidence that dragoon and the dolam exhibited. "I am who I am,I am who I've been and I am who always will be" and "there is only evil in the hearts of men"

So when the reveal finally happens, instead of "I have magic and I use it for you, only for you," I wanted something closer to: I have magic. I've always had magic. I've used it because it's right, because it's who I am, and yes, many times because I chose to save you.

Those are completely different statements.

The first turns Merlin's magic into something that only has value insofar as it serves Arthur. The second acknowledges that Arthur mattered immensely to Merlin without making Merlin's identity, morality, and right to exist contingent on Arthur's approval.

What frustrates me most is that the show itself had already laid the groundwork for something far richer. Merlin's relationship with his magic was never written as purely instrumental. It was existential. The first episode goes out of its way to establish that magic isn't merely a talent he possesses; it is the language through which he experiences the world. Before destiny ever enters the conversation, before Arthur becomes the axis around which the narrative revolves, Merlin is a boy asking one devastating question: "If I can't use magic, what have I got?"

Gaius scolds him for using magic frivolously, and Merlin immediately pushes back: "What is there to master? I could move objects like that before I could talk!" Magic isn't something Merlin learned. It isn't a weapon he picked up or a discipline he chose to study. It's as instinctive as speech, as breathing, as moving his own limbs. It's as innate as breathing. He has literally never existed without it. To tell Merlin to simply stop using magic is, from his perspective, absurd. It's asking him to amputate a part of himself because other people have decided it's unacceptable.

Gaius talks about discipline because Gaius has spent decades internalizing the fear that magic is dangerous unless carefully justified. Merlin, meanwhile, is bewildered by that framework. To him, using magic is no stranger than using his hands.

"If I can't use magic, what have I got? I'm just a nobody, and I always will be. If I can't use magic, I might as well die."

It's the first honest articulation of what living under Uther's regime has done to him. He has spent his entire life being told that the defining characteristic of his existence is worthy of execution. He's internalised enough of that hatred to wonder whether suppressing his magic would leave anything of him behind.

Notice, too, that Merlin doesn't ask Gaius how to become more useful. He doesn't ask whether he'll ever be powerful enough to save Camelot. He asks, "You don't know why I was born like this, do you?" That's a profoundly different question. He's searching for meaning, not employment. He wants to know why he exists this way. Why he was made different. Whether there is some explanation that makes his existence make sense.

And immediately after that comes the question that matters even more: "I'm not a monster, am I?"

That is the emotional heart of Merlin's arc.

Not "Will Arthur accept me?"

Not "Am I fulfilling my destiny?"

Simply: Am I something that deserves to live?

The tragedy is that the show understands exactly what question Merlin is asking, because Gaius answers it without hesitation. "Don't ever think that." He doesn't say, "You're useful." He doesn't say, "Your powers can help the kingdom." He doesn't even invoke destiny yet. He reassures Merlin's humanity before anything else. Before purpose comes dignity. Before destiny comes personhood.

But then the towards the end, of the episode, Gaius begins talking about Arthur. About destiny. About finding a use for Merlin's magic.

Gaius doesn't say, "Perhaps now you'll understand one part of what your magic can do." He says they've "finally found a use for it." That "finally" unintentionally suggests that Merlin's magic existed in a kind of moral limbo beforehand, waiting for a sufficiently noble purpose to validate it.

But identities are not validated through utility.

You don't become worthy because someone powerful benefits from your existence.

You were already worthy.

Arthur may give Merlin a cause worth fighting for. He may become the person Merlin chooses, again and again, to risk everything to protect. But Arthur does not retroactively bestow value upon Merlin's magic. He cannot, because that value was never his to give.

In fact, I think that's precisely what the first episode initially understands so well. Merlin's crisis isn't that he lacks purpose. It's that he fears his existence is inherently wrong. Those are entirely different anxieties. One asks, "What should I do?" The other asks, "Am I allowed to be?"

And the episode begins by answering the second question. Gaius looks Merlin in the eye and says, "Don't ever think that." For a brief moment, the show rejects Uther's worldview outright. Merlin isn't a monster. He never was. His magic isn't evidence of corruption. It's simply part of who he is.

Then the narrative pivots toward destiny, and from that point onward, Merlin's magic increasingly becomes something defined by what it accomplishes rather than what it is. Instead of continuing to explore what it means to be born magical in a kingdom that wants you dead, the show becomes preoccupied with what Merlin can do for Arthur.

That's not an inherently bad story. Merlin's devotion to Arthur is one of the most compelling parts of the series. But it should never eclipse the more fundamental truth that the first episode establishes: Merlin's magic belongs to Merlin before it belongs to the narrative.

Arthur is someone Merlin chooses to save.

He is not the reason Merlin deserves saving.

That's why the reveal should never have hinged on proving that Merlin "used his magic for Arthur all along." Of course he did. Arthur mattered enormously to him. He loved him. He believed in him. He built his life around protecting him.

But that is a testament to Merlin's character, not a justification for his magic.

The reveal should have been Merlin refusing to let those two things become conflated. It should have been him saying, in one way or another, that his magic has always been his own. That he has used it for countless reasons—for compassion, for survival, for curiosity, for anger, for joy, for love, and yes, very often for Arthur. Arthur occupies an immense place in that list, but he is still one reason among many, not the reason that makes all the others legitimate.

Because the moment Merlin has to frame his magic primarily as a service rendered to Arthur, the terms of the conversation are already wrong. He's no longer asking Arthur to confront his prejudice. He's asking Arthur to make an exception.

And an exception is not justice.

Justice would have been Arthur realizing that Merlin never needed to justify his magic in the first place.

me and my girlfriend started to rewatch merlin again... i fear i developed an unhealthy obsession??

(season 2 spoilers under cut! (is it even possible to spoil a show that ended 10+ years ago?)