User blog comment:MerlinUSA/Merlin -- The Big Picture/@comment-5102537-20130120143649/@comment-5995315-20130122014455

Hi Lurker --

I said what we "falsely" call homosexual. The characters live in the Dark Ages, so I don't think we can use modern labels to stigmatize them. But it's easy watching the story to notice eroticism between them, even if nothing comes of it. On the other hand, some scenes in S5 imply something sexual did take place.

I'm gay, so for me and all the gays I know watching the show, the homoeroticism just jumps off the screen at us. Even the show's director, Alice Troughton, referred in a tweet to the show's going out on what she called "a homoerotic high." I don't know if that's what I'd call the finale, as tragic as it was, but  for us it goes way beyond friendship or brotherhood. It is a distinctive feature of the show.

If you're not gay, you're not necessarily going to pick up all the clues scattered around because they are usually carefully edited. The editing allows you to skip  over these parts, but some scenes are pretty far out, even by my standards.

Here are two examples. Arthur's Bane I is now notorious for erotic insinuations between Merlin and Arthur all throughout. In the bedchamber at Annis's,  Arthur throws his boots off while talking,  then sprawls out on the bed an splays his arms and legs. There was no reason to show those last few seconds except for the tease. If you're gay, those few seconds are astonishingly bold. Every gay male knows what that splay means.

In Drawing of the Dark Arthur is trying to show Merlin something in the woods. He grabs Merlin's shoulder and forces him on his knees at crotch level. That's where Merlin says, "Now I see two dirty pairs of britches ..." and the deer looks.

Both the scenes happened quickly and anyone can, of course, deny they meant what I said. But no male is going to miss the significance of being forced to your knees by another man, no matter how short the scene was. Gays immediately pick up on it, but straights most likely never notice. I could go on and on with examples, but you get the idea. The show is intended to be taken different ways by different viewers.

I hope you don't get pissed off if a male bond is taken to be homoerotic, even if it isn't. So what if Merlin did have sex with Arthur at some point? Does it hurt anything or anyone? Did they do anything wrong? Mistaking a straight male bond for a homoerotic one should be a cause for amusement and laughter, not outrage. People must start becoming less defensive about homosexuals. Please remember that people like me get murdered every day all over this earth, and there's just no reason to get upset or angry about sexuality.

Regarding Merlin, this is a case where everyone is right, and if you think of the relationship as purely platonic I have no problem with that at all. Either way of looking at it will work. Merlin, more so than most shows, almost requires the viewer to add something of their own to make the story come out. It more or less forces us to use our imaginations. I think that's what half the plot holes are there for anyway, and it's actually interesting to find out what other viewers take them to mean.