ok, so i just watched s01e08 of merlin and it's absolutely insane??
first off, we've got uther executing a child because he's associated with magic? dude. that is far. even for you.
then there's everybody's reactions? merlin at first is normal about it, wanting to save the child, but then for some kind of contrived reason needs to talk to the dragon and the dragons tells him yeah, so that child is going to kill arthur, so better just let it die. and that is honestly really interesting as a moral quandry for merlin. but that's not really the focus of the episode. there's just some scenes of merlin being tortured and trying to make up his mind, and then he decides that letting the child die is better than letting it kill arthur at some vague point in the future. the thing is, at this point merlin and arthur's relationship isn't particularly developed, so merlin decides he's going to let a child be executed because he is destined to kill somebody whose destiny is supposed to be intertwined with his own. he doesn't know what that entails exactly. he just knows because a dragon told him.
morgana is hellbent on keeping the kid alive, not fully because it's the right thing to do. there's the fact that she pities it/sees herself in it, because she knows a magical gift is not something that one can develop. which, yeah, duh. has anyone talked to a person with magic in this show? how does the general public not know more about magic?
and uther becomes even more of a caricature in his evil, not only wanting to kill a child, but also being physically abusive towards morgana <3
i cannot overstate that the conflict this episode revolves around the characters' approach to letting a child die.














