Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24691863-20140413080351/@comment-5102537-20140426132718

Merlin After wrote: Thanks, Ozymandias! Oh yes, of course Uther loved his children deeply! The tragedy, that he also felt deeply, is he could never convince them of that. Good point, it could very well be that love is his fatal flaw, but then love and hate can be so closely connected... Looking forward to your further comments.

Definitely, I agree. This is what bothers me a lot on "Merlin". In the end, the love and trust for others is what destroys halfcharacters, with the exception of Gaius, Gwen and Morgana. Gaius and Gwen survived and Morgana had other reasons to destroy herself (whatever they were).

We have Uther who was destroyed by his deep love for Igraine and his children. The love for his wife resulted (among other reasons) in the Great Purge and his own doom, his love for Morgana resulted in a mental breakdown and his death because he trusted her with her life, his love for Arthur also resulted in his death when he saved him from the assssin (which wasn't an unusual thing to do, though) and all in all, his love for his children caused him to protect Camelot even more and getting fanatical about the threat of magic (though he was indeed often right, they were a threat), building up a stronghold (Camelot) against the "evil" outside that could harm his children.

We have Merlin who abandoned his actual mission and destiny because of his love (brotherly or otherwise, who knows...) for Arthur and failed in the end.

We have Arthur who we were supposed to believe was his own doom because of his love for his father, even though he was supposed to cut the cord in this illogical "The Death Song of Uther Pendragon"-episode, yet he didn't and continued his father's work. And his love and trust for his uncle Agravaine almost got him killed and resulted in the conquer of Camelot by Morgana.

To love and to trust those who are dear to you was shown as a fatal flaw throughout the show, especially within the own family. I wrote a blog about the destructive force of the family here on "Merlin" a while ago. In the end, "Merlin" demonstrated that it was the family that destroyed everything. Such a questionable message.