Board Thread:Series 5 Discussion/@comment-71.195.18.110-20130130220009/@comment-5102537-20130326121510

"This time around, Uther was dying and he  was surrounded by people, it was not left upto Gaius alone, that he can smuggle his sidekick in, and cure him magically. When a dying person is suddenly cured, sorcery is involved. Then Gaius would have been accused. Merlin clearly did not want it. There was Aggraivane around, already known as traitor to Merlin and Gaius, waiting to pounce on Gaius or anything magical just to find a scapegoat; taking the miracle magic cure chance is difficult. All the times you mentioned, Uther was seriously sick, but he was not stuck with a poisoned blade moments away from his death."

Yes, he was. In "A Remedy to Cure all Ills" Uther was just one step away from death and nobody asked later how the bugs and Edward were being stopped. Uther knew quite well that Edward had used magic, yet he never wondered how Gaius had managed to heal Uther and obviously to kill Edward. No consequences, no questions, no problem. Same goes for "Love in the Time of Dragons" where Gaius explicitly said that Uther won't survive the night. He was poisened by magic (the Manticore) and there was no normal cure for it. Arthur asked Alice for help and realised that she couldn't and/or didn't want to. Nevertheless, Uther was magically healed and nobody asked any question. Alice was still in prison, so she couldn't have defeated the manticore. Yet Uther didn't wonder how Gaius was again able to heal him and to defeat the manticore.

I don't see why it couldn't have been the same way in The Wicked Day. If Merlin had healed him secretly, yes, they would have known that magic must have been involved. So what? It happened numerous times before. And even IF Uther had suspected Gaius of using magic in order to save Uther's life - he even asked Gaius to use magic in order to heal Morgana. Not to mention that Merlin could have disguised as Dragoon and healed Uther so that Gaius wouldn't be under suspicion. Merlin could have even suggested magic to Arthur before Arthur decided to use it. He also could have suggested it to Arthur as Dragoon. There would have been so many possibilities to heal Uther without consequences for Gaius and Merlin.

The show can't show us for three seasons that there is always a way to use magic for good and then suddenly make us believe, without any explanation whatsoever, that it's suddenly impossible for Merlin to secretly use magic in order to heal someone who is about to die - something which has been doing all the time ever since he came to Camelot. It's plain ridiculous.

The point is that Gaius and Merlin didn't WANT to heal him. Take a look at Merlin's face when he tells Arthur to just accept that Uther dies. It speaks volumes. There is no compassion but only cold pragmatism. He was observing Arthur for a reaction, probably even remembering that he himself lost his father and now won't be the only one anymore who has to accept losing a loved one, not to mention losing him to Uther. It wasn't comforting Arthur but emptying a bucket of cold water over his head. In this moment, Merlin totally switched off his usual compassion and willingness to help. And in this moment, the viewer knew that Merlin has changed.

"And end of day, Merlin has no moral, ethical, logical responsibility whatsoever to cure Uther magically and thereby risk exposing himself or watch Gaius being accused once again. He cured Uther when risk of exposure or blame was less. And it was a favour, he does not have to do it over and over again."

We can hardly speak of a simple favour when someone saves someone else's life. Of course Merlin had the ethical responsibility to heal Uther, as well as healing anyone else. To willingly let him die is the same as murdering him, which is something that Merlin would have never done in the fisrt three seasons. And it doesn't matter if it's about Uther or someone else. As long as he is the only one available who can help a helpless, dying and suffering person, he has the moral and ethical obligation to do so, unless he wants to be as bad as the ones he actually disapproves of. And I won't ride again on the fact that he let down his so called best friend Arthur who was devastated and desperate. Merlin had no problem whatsoever to see Arthur suffering because Merlin finally wanted Uther be gone. Suddenly.... because he "grew up"... what a joke. I didn't know that wishing death on people or that even killing them is a sign of maturity. And we saw that even four years later, Arthur was still suffering from his father's death.

There is another thing: due to Uther's condition before he was stabbed, Merlin, Gaius and everyone else could have assumed that maybe, in case Uther gets over his almost catatonic state, he might have changed his opinion after all he went through with Morgana. He never gave the order to hunt her down but hid in his depressed mind, only because Morgana hated him and because she had magic. If he wanted her dead, he wouldn't have fallen into this condition but would have tried to kill her in rage. So it was very likely that a person in Uther's condition has changed his mind since he obviously had given up his fight against magic. This would have been the chance for Merlin to finally bring about a change when healing Uther (secretly and/or as Dragoon) with magic and showing him despite everything, there was also good magic who even saved its biggest enemy. Uther could have seen that there would also be hope for Morgana since even Merlin himself once told Morgana that she was the only one who could change Uther's mind. Now it could have been the other way around and Uther might have changed Morgana's mind. Merlin was well aware of the fact that Morgana and Uther were key to each other and the only solution for both to change. It would have been worth a try. But the way that Merlin acted, he knew that Arthur would be suffering and be devastated, becoming king at the expense of his father's life and that Morgana would get what she wanted, leaving Camelot even more vulnerable than ever before. It wasn't only callous but also illogical.

"Hey just coz Karma was not known does not mean it was not there. Half the stuff of nature that science can explain now, was not known, and does not mean they were not there. Poor analogy, but you get the drift."

Karma is often misinterpreated. We can't simply explain the showrunner's decision to kill off a main character with Karma. Not to mention that the way most people intreprete Karma, it would mean that everyone who suffers and/or dies deserved it because of Karma. Very often, people edit out that Karma doesn't only mean that bad things come back to you and bite you in the butt but that it also means that the good things you've done are supposed to be rewarded too. So according to the common interpretation of Karma, all the people that Uther killed deserved it because they had done something wrong in their life. That's not the way Karma works and it's much too complicated to discuss it here.

"Calling Merlin selfish and callous would be a bit too much, since most of the time he does things not for his personal gain. You can call him getting slightly obsessed with greater good philosophy, but loads of great and good people make awful choices when enchanted by greater good thought. And yeah I think he grew up. It means he thought a way lot more, started weighing his options before taking a decision. It is good at times, it is bad at times. But you cannot call people selfish for that. Oh and I too think, as we grow up, we have darker thoughts, things become gray instead of being just black and white. .....

''He always wanted Mordred to die except for first season. Ever since the dragon warned him, he did not want to interfere at all. He only came first time because Arthur risked his life to save Mordred and would have been caught and punished hard.''"

Merlin showed his indifference and sudden coldness on several occasions in the last two seasons. Not only when he wanted Uther to die but also when he demanded Arthur to kill Mordred in "Arthur's Bane" which was even as cowardly as letting the Gleeman doing the dirty work for Merlin and taking advantage of it by not helping Uther at first. Merlin wanted Mordred dead, yet he wanted Arthur to do it and didn't kill Mordred himself. He never considered and tried to find another way but only relied on a vision/prophecy without questioning it. And no, especially in season five he didn't think of the greater good anymore but was only obssessed with Arthur. He abandoned his kind when telling Arthur that magic had no place in Camelot only because he didn't want to lose Arthur. It's not that Merlin had no other option. Since he wanted Mordred dead, he could have adviced Arthur to allow magic and then kill Mordred himself afterwards. I wouldn't have approved of killing Mordred before he even committed a crime but it would have been a "logical" solution from Merlin's point of view. Yet he didn't do anything for all oppressed magic-users but selfishly told Arthur to not allow magic. If Merlin had really grown up and would have still been his former self, he would have talked to Mordred about the prophecy or he would have tried to find another way. But all that Merlin cared about was to be with Arthur while everyone and everything else became unimportant. And it's a mircle that Merlin never really did anything about the fact that Arthur still persecuted sorcerers. He obviously had no problem with it but had a problem with Uther doing it. Why? Because he loved Arthur and was blinded by his brotherly love, lost sight of important things and acted selfishly by sacrificing or wanting to sacrifice other for his personal advantage.

Both Merlin and Arthur were right in not bowing to the Triple Goddess, yet Merlin didn't reject it because he thought that the Triple Goddess was evil. The show demonstrated to us that he did it to keep Arthur around, the one who still persecuted Merlin's kind. And Merlin also kept Arthur in the dark about almost everything. Arthur never knew that Morgana killed his father even though he had a right to know. Lying, cheating and manipulating until the very end.

It's a shame that they changed the once so interesting and good character of Merlin into a submissive and intriguing, sneaky servant who was obssessed with his prince. I liked the Merlin of the first three seasons much more. He was much wiser and mature.