User blog comment:MerlinUSA/Merlin -- The Big Picture/@comment-5102537-20130120143649/@comment-5995315-20130122195955

Hi Fimber --

The sources you're quoting me to prove nothing erotic is in the episodes are the same people you have it on good word lie about everything else concerning the show.

Alex's actual statement was, "It becomes a brilliant love story between Arthur and Merlin." He started to say "in a platonic sense," but he took it back with his final statement because he knew it was Arthur and Merlin he was talking about.

Alex says the finale is a love story. Katie McGrath constantly pushes the Merlin/Arthur angle. Bradley James said the last episode was his favorite. Alice Troghton, the director, said the show Bradley cites as his favorite closed on a "homoerotic high." The fact is, the lot of them knew exactly what they where they were taking the episodes.

I've had many exchanges with you and have yet to say anything about Merlin that isn't negative. So I'm kinda flying blind here, if you know what I mean. I mention something I like, you shoot it down. The best I can come up with is that you liked the use of magic. But Balinor, in 5-12, tells us that magic is simply the universe we know already -- reality, physics. I don't see how you can be happy with that.

You haven't liked the show for two years and you won't be voting for Colin Morgan or Merlin for the BTA awards. So I just don't understand your purpose on this fourm.



If the scenes I cited to Lurker and S-09 don't mean anything, why were they included in episodes where every second counts? Your interpretation of the "splaying" is odd. Do you mean that if any man splayed himself on your bed, you wouldn't see anything to it?

As for forcing a man to his knees, I think that, unless you're a man, you might not see the unavoidable implication at all. You seem to be saying that unless they show the entire act, it never happened. But even if they could, I'm not sure you'd be convinced. The difference between this and Gwen's scene is that Gwen went to her knees in public, not in a secluded spot.

And the whole point of many, many scenes is for the viewer to finish the thought. People complain that they didn't show Merlin's exposing of Gwen. We only saw Arthur's reaction. Well, we're supposed to imagine that for ourselves. The show cannot spell out everything in its every detail to convince to help viewers understand the plot. That's what children's television might do, but not a more complex work.

You say you don't like romances and love stories. I don't either, nor do I like any television. This is why Merlin is the first program I've watched for years. It depicts an incipient erotic relationship between males in a way that connects with me and millions of others who have never seen anything like it on television.

I get what you're saying about the other aspects of the show, but those don't bother any of us. We all agree they're there and they're part of the story arc. The problem is that the finale made it unmistakable that one relationship counted more than all the others, the love between Arthur and Merlin. Given all the clues, not just the ones I cited, it's hard to see how anyone could miss the unique relationship that was slowly building between the two.

The double standard that allows straights to see and read into every program whatever heterosexual eroticism they find, but that deplores it when gay males  do exactly the same thing, is an example of homophobia. Again I'll ask: So what if Merlin isn't straight? So what if two males develop erotic feelings or even act on them? What crime have they committed? Whom have they offended? In what way does that weaken either character?

And again I'll point to the immense popularity of this show among gays, bisexuals and gay-friendly straights men as evidence that the show is most definitely homoerotic. You don't have to see it if you don't wish to; the episodes are flexible enough to allow for that. But to deny it categorically is to contradict the evidence seen in almost every loving frame over five years.