I think one of my favourite things abt Red Shoes is how it would have been so easy for Merlin's lesson to be that he needs to value other people for more than their looks. Yeah that is a big part of it, but really it's abt him realising that he has value beyond his looks/fame.
It rlly sticks out to me when the rest of the F7 are trying to woo Red Shoes and each are using their personalities to try and win her over (Hans bakes, Jack gives her presents, Arthur shows off his strength, the triplets make inventions to help her); but Merlin? Love spell, straight away.
The others all figure that if she's not going to like them for their looks, then there are other things abt them that she'll fall for, but Merlin doesn't see himself as having anything to offer anymore- beyond magic (and even then, he plans to use it on her, not for her).
So when she does start liking him for who he is, he literally doesn't understand it- I think- until two moments:
First, when he has the whole conversation with himself (oh sweet boy u have the emotional intelligence of an egg)
Then when Magichard (hehe) straight up asks if he put her under a spell.
This line also always gets me cos THAT WAS HIS PLAN!! He was going to cast a spell, but in the end he didn't have to, because she ended up liking him for him!!
It could have just been 'a handsome Prince-wizard learns that real beauty is on the inside when the beautiful woman turns out to look different to how she appeared' but no!
So at the end, when Snow says she liked 'short, green Merlin', he is able to reassure her by saying that that's who he still is on the inside! He finally gets it!! Snow doesn't have to spell it out for him, he gets it!!!


















