User blog:Adelina Le Morte March/Why Merlin/Mithian would just be a repeat of Arthur/Gwen

Some fans, now that Morgana has gone to the dark side, and Freya hasn't reappeared since The Coming of Arthur part 2, have started pairing up Merlin and Mithian.

And why not? After all, Arthur's happily married to Guinevere, so he's not going to end up with her. And, like Elena, Mithian was (in the opinion of most of us fans) one of the more likeable princesses in the series. Furthermore, Merlin's pretty much all alone, if you don't count Freya (she is still "alive", as the lady of the lake, after all; they've already been reunited once -given, via Avalon water puddle, but still- it can happen again, writers' willing).

Oh, and there's a picture of them (Merlin and Mithian) together in Another's Sorrow recently released in which they look fairly chummy.

I got to thinking about this (fairly) new pairing myself. Merlin/Mithian. What did I think of them?

On the one hand, I liked Mithian's character quite a lot. She did strike me as a character that could have been stolen off the cast of "The Tudors" or out of any ABC/HALLMARK princess movie, but there's a reason we love those kinds of characters. Quite simply, they're loveable, that's all there is to it; even though they've been over-done, 9 out of 10 times, they HAVEN'T become Mary-sues. Mithian strikes me as a typical "Eva Ibbotson" herione. She's lady-like, delicate, funny, nice to all the characters we care about (even chides Arthur for being playfully mean to Merlin, and at the same time understands that Merlin is actually very important to him and his unacceptance of her may be a bigger deal than Arthur lets on), dresses prettily, yet she's spunky and resourceful (she can even hunt deer!); we know we've seen this character before, but we don't care, provided she's well done. And Mithian, in my opinion, was. The actress and writers alike seem to have done a good job thus far, despite the fact that she has appeared in only one episode thus far (Another's Sorrow coming soon), so her character still has room to change for better or worse.

Also, what I liked about Mithian's character in Hunter's Heart was that she is similiar to the Guinevere of legend: a high-born princess who is arranged to marry Arthur before meeting him yet grows to like him anyway. The closest thing we've had to that before Mithian was Elena (and as lovely as she was, I don't think anyone really believed there would be anything between her and Arthur or Merlin; though I've heard some people have paired her up with Lancelot in fanvideos and fanfics, possibly because the name is similar to Elaine, a scorned lover of Lancelot's from the legend). The character may not be 100% original, maybe, but she's fairly new stock for the show, and that's what matters.

As I think the above paragraphs show, I do like Mithian.

But do I think she'd be great with Merlin? Meh. So-so. To be honest, I didn't notice a whole lot of feeling between them aside from resentment on Merlin's part because she was taking Gwen's place and Mithian's desire to be accepted by him, and Arthur by default. However, I think this could, if done right, be drawn out into something before, but I don't think the writer's should. That would be pushing it a bit.

Why? Because a) We've seen Merlin's exchanges with other female characters on the show and we've seen more chemistry with pretty much all of them than his breif exchange with Mithian.

There was Freya, who he fell in love with.

Morgana, who was his friend (he seemed even to have a bit of a crush on her in season 2, before she got all buddy-buddy with Morgause and he had to poison her).

Even his banter back and forth with Gwen and Nimueh (though I think we all knew neither of those relationships were going anywhere. Nimueh was against Camelot, and Gwen was sooo going to fall in love with Arthur and Lancelot).

Recently, he was friends with Sefa before she betrayed Guinevere; I sensed more feeling between them than Mithian too.

And B) Mithian/Merlin could be the best love story since Romeo and Juliet (which is doubtful) and it still would be a not so great idea for the show. Simply because we've already HAD the servant falling in love with a royal on the show.

We had four seasons of that. Arthur and Gwen couldn't be together because of their class difference, had break-ups, make ups, and the occastional threat of death. Unless the writers have a REALLY good idea for making Merlin and Mithian's story VASTLY different from theirs, why would we want to see that again? I could understand if it had some connection to the legend, but it hasn't so far as I can tell/research. It would just be repetitive. We had fans complaining that The sword in the Stone and The Coming of Arthur were too much alike (I was NOT one of these, I liked both episodes and found they had key differences along with the things they were the same in); they aren't going to take well (most of them, I don't think) to a romance that's almost exactly like what we've had throughout the WHOLE SHOW right up until it was resolved with Arthur and Gwen's marriage.

Arthur and Gwen were great, do we really want them to seem like little else but a precurser to another romance that closely mirrors theirs?

I think, if Merlin/Freya (my first choice) is out of the question, both Merlin/Sefa and Merlin/Morgana would be better choices.

Given, if the writers can make Merlin/Mithian work and become the next fangirl worthy pairing on the show without making it too repetitive, great for them, I just don't think it's the best idea.

What do you all think?

Please comment and let me know.