Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5102537-20140217120328/@comment-24629321-20140304030753

In "The Disir", it seems to me that something more was going on to lead Merlin to reply the way he did. Between the dragon's advice, and the fact that it was Mordred who was wounded and magically prevented from healing, it seems that Merlin was being guided (or played) by forces of the Old Religion to advise Arthur against accepting magic. The test was for Arthur alone (he is his own bane, after all)—Merlin just played the part in it that he was meant to. How much would Arthur's acceptance of magic really have meant to the goddess if he was only following the word of his servant advisor (who has his own agenda)? To change Arthur's fate in the face of such crimes against the Old Religion, surely the goddess would have required his repentance to truly come from the heart—and what better way to ensure that than to require him to go against the word of his most trusted advisor to come to the proper conclusion?