User blog comment:Morganaforever/Is Kilgharrah a good prophet?/@comment-5659316-20121108010827

Well, Kilgharrah happens to be my favorite character on the show (I've loved him best of all since episode one), so naturally I'm a bit defensive towards him. I also tend to get a bit annoyed because I feel like so many fans choose to blame the great dragon for EVERYTHING that goes wrong in Merlin's/Morgana's lives.

That said, I admit his advice hasn't always landed Merlin in the right place, but overall, I think he gives generally good advice that can sometimes be misapplied or misunderstood. Sometimes, being a very rounded (sometimes good, sometimes more ambigious or self-centered) character, he makes mistakes like all of the characters. No character on the show is entirely blameless.

However, as a whole, you have to see the dragon's POV in context.

In season 1, his dearest wishes seemed to be conflicting. He wanted to be free, and he wanted magic back and for Merlin to take up his rightful destiny. At first, it seemed to be both were entangled. One couldn't be without the other. But then he sees different things happening, going wrong. Mordred shows up, as a young boy, and he warns Merlin against helping him. Merlin, though he tries not to, end ups helping him anyway. The dragon might have felt a tad slighted in this; here he is, trying to avoid the future untimely death of Arthur, and Merlin, who's supposed to be on his side, unwittingly thwarts this. Then he has a falling out with Merlin, because it comes to a choice between helping Merlin personally and saving his and Arthur's destiny, which Kilgharrah wants so he can be freed; so he 'betrays' Merlin, allowing him to unknowingly give up his mother's life in exchange for Arhur's. Merlin's reaction is understandable, the dragon should have warned him, BUT so is Kilgharrah's annoyance/even despair. Merlin says he will never let him be freed. Magic returning means nothing to the dragon without his freedom. It isn't as if he can be happy for the other dragons, since he's the only one left.

Season 2, a jaded Kilgharrah is still chained up, Merlin not visiting him at all in the time jump, leaving him completely alone. I'm sure this was very boring and depressing for the dragon. All the dragon knows is he tried to bring about the right thing and (on a more selfish level) his own freedom and Merlin is the one who betrayed HIM (from his perspective). So then he and Merlin patch things up, but relations between them are uneasy. Kilgharrah comes to a point where he believes Merlin lied when he said he'd free him in exchange for his help.

Kilgharrah never said, by the way, for Merlin to poison Morgana and botch it up by giving Morgause a chance to save her. He said, simply "You must kill her." It was Merlin's idea to convince Morgause, when she came charging in there, to stop the knights, because he still cared about Morgana. If he had refused to show Morgause the poison no matter what, the enchantment still would have ended, and Morgana would have died when everybody still loved her and believed the best of her. Kilgharrah's advice didn't make Morgana go evil. She was already starting to lean more towards Morgause (understandably) than towards her friends in Camelot; the poisoning (and whatever Morgause told her when she woke up and lived with her for a year) completed whatever was started. It wasn't the dragon's fault.

Season 3, Kilgharrah is free (he was breifly a bit of a villian, for one episode at the end of season 2 but reptended since Dragonlord-Merlin spared his life), but Merlin still can't just take his advice one way without trying to either stick to it letter of the law or else dance around it. He even forces the dragon to save Morgana's life against his will.

Also, it was season 3 when we saw the crystal cave. How do we know Kilgharrah's visions (or however it is he sees/knows the future) are any different from what Merlin glimpses in the crystal or Morgana sees in her dreams? Aside from the fact that they're clearly more detailed, there seems to be little implied difference. Maybe, just as Merlin tried to stop what he saw in the crystals but only made it happen, the dragon doesn't know what to do. So rather than chance it, as Merlin does, his answer is kill the future danger now ask/wonder if it was entirely right later. And, really, brtual as it is, even unfair, one has to admit, Kilgharrah's way WOULD work. If Mordred had died as a child, if Morgana had died of poisoning (horrible as those things would have been, espeically plot-wise), Arthur's life would be much safer, Merlin's task that much easier. Also, people would always remember Morgana pleasantly, not as Kilgharrah knew her as "The witch". Ditto, the poor druid boy Mordred.

And season four, I don't know why he thought Aithusa was a boy, but maybe the dragon just got over excited; this is the first time he's seen another of his own kind in ages. He's not going to look under it and find out its gender the second it pops from the egg; he and Merlin are too much in awe to bother straightaway. Moreover, Dragons are reptiles. Some frogs genders actually CHANGE when they grow up. Aithusa could be the same. Like them dinos on Jurassic park who were supposed to be all female but then some of them turned male. "Life finds a way", ya know? Two dragons left, one of them turning female, if Kilgharrah wasn't merely mistaken, not as weird/impossible as you might think.

As for season five, once again Merlin botched up the dragon's advice. He wanted to have Mordred die, like the dragon said, BUT Kilgharrah never told him to tell Arthur not to let magic back into Camelot. Merlin simply came to that conclusion on his own. He wanted to kill Mordred to save Arthur and Mordred was supposed to die if Arthur denied the Disir their demands.

So there you go.

Kilgharrah and his future-telling is not the problem. It's the way people (coughcough Merlin coughcough) uses it wrong.