User blog comment:Aithusa07/List of Plotholes from Merlin/@comment-75.64.60.226-20121231080524

Now that Merlin is over there are a TON more...

Though to address your plot holes, I can justify that Morgause thought of Morgana like a sister, that could easily explain why she addressed her like so. Also, maybe Aithusa, being a young inexperienced dragon, didn't know Morgana was evil and simply helped her out of kindness. Gotta agree with Dryuu on the rest.

Where shall I begin?

1)Arthur knew Mordred was a druid.  So how come, when Mordred returned a few seasons later, he did not remember him at all?  This to me was the most glaring plot flaw for some reason, because there was really no way to defend it.

2)So, Aithusa.  And Morgana.  Get imprisoned.  HOW???  Are we to believe that Morgana-the-super-powerful-sorceress who almost successfully kills Merlin many times gets imprisoned by a king with no magic whatsoever?  I'll believe being able to contain Morgana once she's imprisoned, and the Morgana-Aithusa bond from being trapped together, but then (I forget, too lazy to look this up) the evil king lets her go, which is an extremely unwise strategic move, or she escapes, which also makes little sense.  Oh also, how could he manage to capture a dragon? A DRAGON?  Yes, a young dragon, but a presumably dangerous one that Kilgarrah would have gone looking for.

3)  The Great Dragon's prophecy.  Arthur is supposed to "unite the land of Albion with Merlin at his side," but he also is supposed to/does die at Camlan. Even if hypothetically-speaking  Arthur was just setting up the uniting of the kingdoms and not there himself, other kingdoms would have to be involved in this.  And though I can see some of these neighboring kingdoms peacefully merging with Camelot, I don't see those like King Odin willingy handing over their kingdom.  So yeah, no.

4) Dragoon as Merlin's "true form."  So, after Balinor tells Merlin to step into the light/heart of the crystal cave, to reveal his true form with the power needed to win the big battle, Merlin emerges as, duhduhduh, Dragoon.  I get that the writers needed this for the magic reveal to take place the way they had planned, it makes absolutely no sense. First, Dragoon, first introduced in season 3, was a way for Merlin to get around revealing his magic to Arthur.  He aged himself by about 80 years with a potion and tried to change himself back with a spell, and failed, but then by convenientitus (that's another problem, too many convenient things happen- though actually I don't mind that one as much) got the potion to change himself back.  In subsequent episodes, he can either change by a spell, which weakens his magic by constantly maintaining it, or a potion, which would then merely serve as a disguise. The writers seem to have established that age does not necessarily enhance power (i.e. Gaius). So what advantage is there in being Dragoon? It would either make Merlin weaker, or serve as a now useless cover. Merlin could have gotten that power, maybe more so, just as well as a young man.

5) See 4 for the whole aging problem, but in 5x09 when Merlin becomes  the Dolma, and older female version of himself.  He cannot become Dragoon for multiple reasons, one being that he cannot maintain that age and cast the powerful spell to save Gwen.  So from Gaius' idea he becomes the old sorceress Dolma.  We've established that being old takes more energy, so wouldn't maintaining a spell to be the opposite gender  AND OLD be even more taxing?  That would make it impossible to perform the spell to save Gwen.

6)Camelot's knights have a negative iq.  Seriously, I could take Camelot with those guards.  I'm not counting the main ones by the way(most of the time).  And how do they replace the guards so quickly?

7)  The utter obliviousness of everyone to Merlin's magic.  I'll pardon that one even if it does get extremely annoying, because I enjoyed the magic reveals and all of that.

8) Name one famale character who was not evil at some point (other than Hunith and random peasant women who have no lines).  That may not be a plot flaw per se, but I needed to include it.

9) The constant use of deus-ex-machina. This happens practically every episode.

10)Prophecies are supposed to be absolute, as we saw in The Crystal Cave.  How could Merlin see all these visions of Arthur being stabbed by Mordred and then falling and it not come exactly like that?  He was stabbed and then dropped to his knees, but he also stabbed Mordred; this was not in the prophecy.

11)In the final ep, Merlin and Arthur travel for two days through the woods to save Arthur's life.  As Arthur is dying, Merlin calls the dragon to carry him to the lake.  Why didn't he do so two days earlier?  It certainly couldn't have been much worse for his injury than traveling via horse for two days.

12) Lastly, a nitpicky one.  In Arthur's Bane Part II, everything is resolved and the characters are walking out of the cave.  And they walk, and they  walk, and they walk.  And FORGET MERLIN (he being unconscious from Morgana's well aimed spell).  THEY JUST LEAVE HIM THERE.  IN A CAVE FULL OF SAXONS.  Imagine that conversation (which never happened).  T'would be highly awkward.

As you can see from my extremely long rant above, there are many plot flaws in Merlin. I could probably find a bunch more, but I think I gave enough examples.

Wow! Long post. Didn't mean to babble on like that.