User blog comment:Silver adtr/Camelot Future/@comment-76.24.93.127-20130630175643/@comment-5102537-20130701103818

Yes, I think this was the intention of the showrunners. On the other hand, aside from what others have already written, when taking a look at our real world and seeing Merlin wandering the streets of a modern world, magic must have died out.

ReganX has also mentioned some very strong points, and considering that in a world of progress and technology, magic is a mere legend and fairytale, not really something that is empirical, the final scene showed the opposite of magic having been restored/allowed.

If the United Kingdom is supposed to be united lands of Albion, I wonder why it was always said that Arthur and Merlin were the ones who were supposed to untite the lands. Gwen (in our history) wasn't responsible for it. Even if she had started the progress, which actually would have been quite impossible, someone else succeeded to build the United kingdom in the end. Not Arthur, not Merlin, not Gwen.... Magic is gone and Merlin actually failed.

If it wasn't Merlin's destiny to bring back magic but only his and some other people's personal wish, then his magic could as well have supported Uther in uniting the lands of Albion which had already started when Uther united the Five Kingdoms in "Sweet Dreams". In that case, it wasn't about bringing back magic in the end but only about some sort of half-equality in regard to commoners and nobles, and Merlin's great powers and the Old Religion were actually superflouse. Not to mention that not much has changed, there are still class systems all around the world. The word doesn't "belong" to the nobles and royals anymore and we have human rights at least in parts of our planet, but basically, ordinary people are still inferior to the rich and powerful.

Additionally, Arthur had always thought differently about commoners than Uther. It didn't take Merlin to change his mind because Arthur was in love with Gwen already. So either way, things would have also developed that way without magic and Merlin if it was only about Arthur giving more rights to commoners and servants.

In the end, Merlin's magic didn't contribute anything to Gwen's opinion about equality. And magic has vanished in the modern world. So there was no point to the entire story with the finale of the show.