A notion I've seen repeated many times in fandom spaces is that "Merlin betrayed his kind for Arthur" or " Merlin chose Arthur over his people and that's why died" and tbh I've always found that to be a very.... dishonest reading of Merlin's motivations , intentions and actions pushed by merthur shippers and/or "Merlin was actually the villain of the story and Morgana was the true hero" truthers.
First of all,why are we acting like "saving Arthur" and "fighting for the freedom of magic users" are two mutually exclusive things?
Merlin doesn't choose Arthur's safety over the freedom of magic users. He fully believes that Saving Arthur is ๐ช๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐บ to their freedom.
Why? Because the prophecy - the prophecy that the entire show is ๐๐ฎ๐ข๐ฅ๐ญ ๐จ๐ง - dictates as much.
Merlin is loyal to Arthur in big part ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ข๐ถ๐ด๐ฆ he believes he will bring about the golden age, returning peace ๐๐ง๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ ๐ข๐ to the land of Albion, ending all wars,๐ช๐ฏ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ the one on magic. I don't understand why that gets lost in translation.
Boiling down ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐บ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ Merlin does to "he just loves Arthur so much" is not only wrong. It is ๐ฅ๐ช๐ด๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต๐ง๐ถ๐ญ. It minimises his fear,his motivations,his actions,every heartbreaking choice and every loss.It minimises the fact the weight of ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ด๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ด of lives on his shoulders. It paints Merlin as merely an extention of Arthur and not his own person. Merlin is someone with autonomy and he exists outside of Arthur and not everything he does is a reflection of his love for Arthur. It's so much larger than that.
Merlin was given exactly one instruction on how to make this golden age happen (saving Arthur) and he threw himself into that at his own detriment because he wanted to help his people. He wanted not to live in hiding and fear anymore.
And for the record, Merlin isn't wrong,nor irrational,nor stupid for believing in this prophecy. Like,I know we joke that it was all some mad dragon's rambling to end the Pendragon line(which is admittedly kind of funny) ...but it is not true.
A good chunk of the magical world clearly seems to do so as well. From the druids to the fisher king to the Catha. There is nothing( besides that dogshit ending) that suggests that prophecy is anything but genuine.
And I would like to discuss Merlin's treatment of Mordred. Contrary to popular belief, Merlin ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ Mordred. He says as much himself. And everything he does isn't just because he believes Mordred will kill Arthur( and more than kilgarrah have warned him about this as well) it's because he believes that by doing so he dooms the golden age. He dooms the ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ต of their kind.
All of that brings me to the disir,the episode that most people point at to say that Merlin betrayed his kind,which is not true.
Merlin's decision here - saying that magic shouldn't be allowed in Camelot - is essentially the trolley problem,one of many he's faced with throughout the story( I think the entire show is one big trolley problem from Merlin's perspective actually,but I digress). ๐ฌ๐ช๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ด๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ๐บ.
If Mordred dies here โ> he cannot kill Arthur โ> the imminent threat to Arthur and Albion is goneโ>Arthur is alive to bring about the golden age(which includes freedom of sorcerers) โ> Merlin has time to backtrack on this statement. Plus,if Arthur had allowed magic to return here, there's a good chance of it being conditional at best, easily revoked at worst,since he may very well believe he was coerced into it(he's dumb like that).
Is it somewhat stupid? YES. but you can see the train of thought behind it and it definitely was NOT Merlin Loving Arthur more than he wanted his freedom and turning his back on the magical community. Can we ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ฆ put the shipping goggles down for a minute I'm begging you.
And of course, Merlin does love Arthur outside of the prophecy. I'm not saying he doesn't. But even if he didn't,even if Merlin didn't have an ounce of genuine for Arthur,I firmly believe he would have made the same choice because it's NOT ABOUT ARTHUR. It's not even about Mordred. It's certainly not about Merlin's love for arthur. It's about the greater good. It's about playing the long game instead of the easy(but likely not great) solution. It's about Merlin giving himself over completely to destiny.That's it's own tragedy,but it wasn't a betrayal not to all of his kind,to Mordred yes,but not the rest.
Merlin here doesn't put Arthur above the greater good. He believes Arthur IS the greater good,and he has good reason for doing so.and I will repeat that as many times as it takes for people to get it.
Genuinely the only way I would have come out of the disir with the conclusion that Merlin betrayed his entire kind is if I ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ญ๐บ watched this episode and have no context for everything prior. But I do.
And another thing,why are you people so certain that if Merlin had said "yes I think magic should be allowed" Arthur would have changed his choice? It's not like he's ignored Merlin's -usually sound- advice countless times beforehand right?๐
And just watch this scene again. Merlin is teary eyed. His face is ashen. He looks in literal physical pain getting those words out( absolutely devestating acting by Collin Morgans btw) and that doesn't even earn him a sideway glance from Arthur. Which it ๐ด๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ, considering how long they've known each other at this point. Merlin was being very obvious,it should be abundantly clear that something is wrong,but of course Arthur doesn't notice. Or my guess, ๐ค๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐ด not to notice,Likely because he's already made up his mind.
But frankly,even if Merlin would have had any bearing on Arthur's decision.....it was ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ก๐ฎ๐ซ'๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง. Merlin didn't hold a gun to his head to force him to do that. Arthur is the king and -as previously stated- has ignored Merlin's advice often enough before,this one time he decided to take it because it aligned with what ๐ฉ๐ฆ wanted. That was his choice.
Like as another post on here so aptly put it, Arthur is confronted with the trolley problem and his response was to let the train run over the one person(one of his favourite knights mind you) so ๐ฉ๐ฆ can go personally stab the five people on the other train track. Who exactly should we be judging in this situation?( I'm sorry I can't find that post and I don't remember the blog name).
Arthur is a grown adult. He shouldn't need to have his hand held through figuring out that genocide is bad.
And this is why all those "Arthur's death was Merlin's punishment for putting him above Destiny " or "Merlin was actually Arthur's bane" never work for me. (Don't even get me Started on the people that day that Merlin didn't try hard enough to convince Arthur that magic wasn't evil)
For one, it's very antithetical to a theme the show sets up in the ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐บ ๐ง๐ช๐ณ๐ด๐ต ๐ฆ๐ฑ๐ช๐ด๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ฆ . "Someone shouldn't be punished for another person's actions". Grief is not punishment. Grief ๐ด๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ฃ๐ฆ punishment.
And I'm sorry but it sends such a terrible message. Was Lancelot's death also Merlin's punishment? Was Freya's? Balinor's? Like if you come on here and imply that Merlin somehow ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฆ๐ณ๐ท๐ฆ๐ฅ his losses for trying to help as many people as possible I will fight you.
Secondly,it paints Arthur as this innocent who did nothing wrong and was only collateral damage and,again, that's simply not true.
Arthur was infact his own bane. His death was ๐ฉ๐ช๐ด punishment. Delivered by Mordred. For holding on to his prejudices. For oppressing a group of his people. For ordering Kara's execution.
Please stop blaming Merlin for Arthur's choices thank you.
