Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130214143847/@comment-5995315-20130220025604

'' If a friendship is based on the fact that one person is dominant over the other then it's not a friendship. Friendship is something that overcomes and gets past barrires like that''

Friendships are never equal because people aren't equal. If the inequalities become barriers, then yes, friendship means getting past that. But the fact that two people aren't equal doesn't mean there has to be a barrier.

''Why couldn't Merlin and Arthur be friends? They were, and they just had to overcome the secrets that Merlin was keeping and their bond would become stronger.''

Well, they were friends, but the friendship grew out of the master/servant relationship. Merlin was happy to be Arthur's servant, and he said so early in season one. And Arthur enjoyed Merlin's attention.

It is one of the interesting things about the show that this is so. All Merlin would have had to do was ask, and Arthur would have given him any higher-status position once he became king. But Merlin never asked. It seems they were both happy with things the way they were.

''They woudn't have to fall head over heeals for each other to stay on good terms. Overcoming something like that on screen is nice juicy $ for drama shows.''

The Reveal broke the bond between Arthur and Merlin because that bond was based on Merlin being beneath Arthur, not over him. The way they actually overcame it was Merlin's declaration that he was "born to serve" Arthur. That was a powerful statement, and apparently true. It solved the problem in the finale.

A season six could not hold the friendship together the way it always had been before the Reveal, so Arthur or Merlin would have had to change in ways that may easily have weakened the story lines. The producers must have thought that a more equal relationship would not have led to compelling stories that viewers would watch.

Most important, neither Bradley James nor Colin Morgan wanted to do a season six. They were now famous, and Colin Morgan wasn't about to sign on for anything beyond the original five-year contract. The problem was simply that Merlin was the victim of its own success.

The fact that Merlin and Arthur were never true friends without secrets that could work together was a huge disappointment for me.

People can and do form powerful bonds in which one or both is holding something back. I find it hard to say that such bonds do not count as friendships, and I'd be hard pressed to find any two people on earth who are completely candid with one another. This inability to come clean with the other person is part of the drama of human life itself. Instead of a disappointment, it should count as a challenge. Merlin and Arthur show us how two particular people dealt with it, but the challenge remains for all the rest of us as well.