Merlin 5.13

[corilannam]

Well. There it is. Everything I wanted and everything I didn't want for this series all jammed into one episode.

I am truly happy for those of you who are taking so much joy in this episode. There were moments that I liked. I wish I could say I was satisfied.

But I can't. I just can't.

I have loved Arthur Pendragon since the instant I first saw Bradley James's stupid, stupid face in episode 1.01. My favorite episodes in every season are the ones where Arthur got to grow and shine and choose his path and show what a glorious king he would someday be. How worthy he was to claim the destiny of the greatest sorcerer of all time to be his servant for nothing more than love.

I could have loved this episode, if Arthur had gotten to live at the end. If he had gotten to rule over his golden kingdom like he was meant to. If Merlin had defied destiny one last time to save him. If he'd gotten to thank and forgive Merlin when it wasn't already a moot point. If he'd gotten to actually give Merlin those days off instead of condemning him to centuries of loneliness and waiting.

So no. Fuck you, Johnny Capps. Fuck you, Julian Murphy. Fuck you for making me care so much about Arthur and Merlin's glorious destiny and then leaving it in ruins. Throwing me a few lines of conversation I read in fanfic back in 2009 doesn't fucking cut it, you assholes.

Comments

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

Arthur was supposed to become King in S5 and the last show of him was supposed to be the one we got at the end of 4x03--that's probably where my headcanon will end from now on)

I agree. Based on the premise of telling the story of these characters before they became the famous characters of legend, the only logical ending would have been Arthur's coronation, maybe already with signs in the sky that Morgana might turn on him one day. However after season one they forgot their own premise and rushed ahead, jumping years and all the glorious stuff that was supposed to come, just so they could tell the ending of the Legend, which wasn't the story they had started to tell. That has been a source of incredible frustration for me over the years. On the other hand, they made Merlin/Arthur the endgame and the slash in this episode was off the scale.

I hope many people participate in merlin_redux because there is certainly a lot to fix in this canon. Also, now that modern Merlin (the old man is clearly his disguise) is canon and they hint at a return of Arthur, I want Avengers crossover so bad!