Floating On Avalon

as a rule it's always more interesting when two people who know each other outlive a third person that they both loved and then their relationship becomes So Much Weirder and more emotionally fraught, entangled, and charged when that third person dies

i have to make a post because now i'm annoyed: arthur never EARNS gwen's love! with the exception of the singular lancelot x gwen episode in s2, arthur just assumes that his love is reciprocated, and gwen just hands it to him. the challenges that their relationship face are mostly external to the relationship, social expectations and hierarchical restrictions and whatnot. if lancelot didn't die in s4e2, we could've had a proper love triangle arc throughout s4 where gwen's love for arthur wavers, and he has to EARN it. he has to prove to her, and the AUDIENCE, that he's better for her than lancelot, but there's never an opportunity for an actually complex situation to emerge. we could've had lancelot, the noble knight torn between love and duty, and gwen, the good woman torn between love and loyalty, and merlin, the loyal servant torn between his friendship with lancelot / gwen, and his friendship / duty / suspiciously intense situation with arthur. we could've had merlin discover a secret affair between two of his friends, and struggle to keep yet another secret from arthur. who does he side with, his king or his friends? we don't know. we never get to see it. if arthur had suspicions about an affair between lancelot and gwen, would he still be a fair leader to lancelot? would he purposefully put lancelot in danger to eliminate him as a threat? would he decide to put effort in and prove to gwen that he's a good partner deserving of her love? we don't know. we never get to see it. the writers were too cowardly to let gwen (and lancelot!) make complicated "morally gray" decisions (ones that ALIGNED WITH THE LEGEND), and too nervous to write actual competition between lancelot and arthur, because we can't risk a knight outshining the guy whose face is in the middle of the poster. the battle was over before it could even start. instead, arthur gives gwen a limp flower from the side of the road (and gwen ACCEPTS it!!), he later forgets their anniversary, gwen's autonomy is undermined (for the 100th time), lancelot's autonomy is also undermined and his legacy is tarnished, and merlin's loyalty to arthur is untested.

i'm not done i'm not done! let's say that merlin keeps the gwen x lancelot secret (they're his friends, he doesn't want to see them hurt, he tries to find a solution where he doesn't have to tell arthur, bc their relationship really has nothing to do with his destiny, right? right? let's phone a friend, let's ask the dragon...the dragon is watching love island and won't pick up the phone), arthur finds out about the affair, then finds out that merlin KNEW and KEPT IT FROM HIM! his closest friend kept an enormous secret from him, something directly affecting his personal life, something very important to him -- and merlin, who he thought always had his back, and was always on his side, lied to him!!! chose lancelot over him, just like gwen! and now arthur doesn't trust him, and merlin witnesses the severe reaction, potentially loses his job because of it, or gets demoted and now rarely sees arthur, and decides that he could never tell arthur about his magic because if this is how arthur reacted about one secret, can you imagine how he'd react about another??? BUT NOOOOOOO. we can't have complicated storylines that test relationships because???? because???? what's the reason????????