Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24762954-20140406143644

First of all I am not trying to criticise the series or Merlin, it's just an idea about character I got.

Merlin, as made in the series has valid reasons to go insane.

He is the person that keeps Camelot from being destroyed while every other are either the reason of it or makes a fool of himself. Then, Merlin in spite of that and all his talents is overlooked on daily basis - in S2S1 Arthur had actually replaced him with Cedric, in S3 while others(some of whom we have seen first time) were knighted and he got nothing - it's like he is overlooked not even as savior of Camelot, but even on more personal level. And he neither can nor want to express them(If I remember correctly, he mostly shows this side as Dragoon)

Then there is Great Dragon who imposed destiny of protecting Once and Future King and returning magic on him. Fulfilling this destiny he nearly lost his Mother and Gaius, lost Freya and Balinor(who also had to escape because of Purge), which always could be blamed on Arthur at least to some extent. And there are predictions(S2S11 and S3S5) he was unable to prevent, Dragon urging to make morally questionable decisions(which he feels guilty for), while morally right decisions backfiring. 