It's All Fun And Games Until You Remember That The King George III In Bridgerton/Queen Charlotte Is Technically

Merlin: I never know whether I should use ‘farther’ or ‘further’

Leon: ‘farther’ is for physical distance and ‘further’ is for metaphorical distance

Morgana: And ‘father’ is for Emotional distance.

Gwen: morgana nO-

Arthur: no, no she’s got a point.

«Perfectly on time, Potter»

And I quick colored the kiss🫶🏻

doctor who textpost (doctor who as ao3 tags) 🧍‍♂️

ao3 tags from @thefunniesttags

Bbc Merlin made two big mistakes.

1) They told a story about a young sorcerer trying to survive in a land where magic is punishable by death. One of his end goals is to legalise magic again. The biggest opposing party in this objective is the tyrant king who started a genocide. This is a very black and white conflict, there is no both-siding this. On the one side you have a mass murderer, on the other side are people who are being killed for existing.

Now the series does establish that Merlin is the good guy and that magic isn't actually evil, but then they go ahead and constantly frame Uther as a guy who is really not that bad. Sure, he killed some people (hundreds or even thousands) - whoopsie. But come on, at least he's trying. And think about Arthur! The emotional comfort of one person is totally worth letting people die for.

At the same time they keep bringing in villain of the week type of characters and like 90% of those are evil magicians who are consumed by their thirst for power and/or revenge or monstrous beasts which are also creatures of magic. They rarely introduce "good" sorcerers or creatures.

To sum it up: They frame the victims of a genocide as evil, almost blaming them for their own plight while making excuses for the people murdering them. It would make sense to explore this part of Camelot's history if the conflict was more complex, but it really isn't that deep. They waste way too much time dragging out this black and white conflict as described above.

2) (Screen)time is being wasted on the wrong conflict, yes, but in my opinion also on the wrong characters.

Arthur's character development is inconsistent at best. He wildly swings back and forth between believing in some magic being good or at least neutral and then condemning all magic as the world's true evil. He learns time and time again to be less arrogant and self-centered and snaps at Merlin again in the very next episode. I enjoy Merlin & Arthur's banter as much as anyone, but if you're not even taking Arthur's character anywhere then why waste so much time there?

Merlin and Arthur as a duo also go through the same dance routine three times a season: Merlin discovers a plot against Arthur, but fears to simply be dismissed if he says anything. Eventually he does say something and, surprise, Arthur reacts dismissive. In the end Arthur learns that Merlin was right all along and he should trust him more. Three episode later Arthur doesn't remember he already learned this lesson, the cycle repeats.

Gaius is important to the story because Merlin needs a dialogue partner to talk about magic. But Gaius also holds Merlin back a lot and keeps him from growing. And so just like Arthur, Merlin doesn't really learn much from his experiences, his life barely changes of the course of 5 seasons. He's still living with Gaius and still relys on him instead of becoming more independent.

So we have four characters / dynamics (Uther, Arthur, Gaius and Merlin) which the show keeps focusing on even though they're not that complicated at all. On the other hand we have side characters that are supposedly important like Gwen and the knights and we know very little about them. It almost seems like they become less important the longer the series goes on, that's not how this works!

You can't say "This is the once and future queen, there are prophecies about her and she's the most important person in Arthur's life" and then she never really does anything! The knights too. Merlin and Gwaine are best friends (kind of), but do we ever see them casually hanging out? Nope. Percival is one of the most famous knights from the myths, yet we only know his name and that his family is dead. How did they die? Who even was his family? Does it mean he lost his parents, did he have a wife? We will never know. There are so many amazing characters they could've included more, but they never did.

So while I love the series in general, these two points really rub me the wrong way.

this is from a real diary by a 13-year-old girl in 1870. teenage girls are awesome and they’ve always been that way.

every episode of merlin is like

morgana: the best way to kill arthur is to make him piss rocks. here i have this magic snake where anyone who is bit will piss rocks! he’ll never see it coming

arthur: i am pissing rocks

gaius: merlin is at the tavern

merlin: i have found a special flower that only opens when you recite a spell at it and it can be used to cure rock pissing disease. enjoy this tea i’ve made, arthur!

arthur: i have stopped pissing rocks thanks to the bravery of my knights. the moment they captured this random soldier who brought the snake to camelot, i was drinking my tea and i quit pissing rocks.

morgana: thwarted again! if only emrys didn’t know every detail of arthur’s life that only his servant would know!

Honestly, the biggest crime the BBC Merlin fandom has ever committed is portraying Merlin as some kind of homely loser nerd who somehow got the popular jock. Merlin is canonically hot. He has fifty boyfriends, plus Mary from the tavern was like, “Arthur who” as soon as she saw those dimples. That boy could get it from anyone he liked. Arthur wishes he could be that sexy while tripping over his own feet. 

“Why can’t these two just get alo- nevermind.”

Wolfstar fights be like. 🤠 Lesson of the day: Don’t tell Padfoot where to go. It’ll be in Moony’s pants.

Dialogue inspo from @redadidassneakers text post 🤪

abab

assigned born at birth