Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5102537-20140620091030/@comment-5102537-20140705102853

ReganX wrote:

At no point was Merlin ever held accountable for this but, as the troper pointed out, the storyline would have been treated very differently if one of the "villains" had done the same thing.

That's the problem with the whole situation. It wouldn't have come across as such an inevitable and "right" thing to do if the show had pointed out that what Merlin did was a mistake or at least extremely irresponsible.

I understand why Merlin kept his promise, given that he was aware of Kilgharrah's age, knowledge and the power of the Old Religion, especially when considering that Merlin's actions had severe consequences when saving Arthur with the Cup of Life and Morgana with the dragon's involuntary help. He had ignored Kilgharrah's warnings and realised that ignoring Kilgharrah led to serious problems. Every time that Merlin thought he could deal with the situations the way he saw fit, the outcome and Kilgharrah proved to him that he was wrong.

So probably, Merlin thought that keeping his promise and listening to the dragon for once would be the lesser of the two evils.

But this was never stated out by the show. Had Merlin had regrets and questioned his own actions, realised that he made a mistake and learning from it, things would have been much more understandable and believable. The search for the one who had released Kilgharrah would have contributed to the credibility of all people involved, plus it would have demonstrated that Merlin wasn't perfect and that actions didn't only depend on by whom they were done, making them automatically good or bad,  but on why they were done and to what consequences they lead.

It was completely incomprehensible that the entire royal household seemed to have forgotten that there obviously was a powerful traitor in their midst, someone who had the power to release a dragon from  enchanted chains. It would have been first priority to find the one who was responsible instead of just forgetting about it all once the dragon was believed to have died. I really wonder why Uther never asked Gaius about it and never suspected him, given that Gaius knew where the dragon was being held captures, was able to access the vaults and that he was one of the few people who might have known how to break the spell.

Letting Merlin off the hook here and not questioning or explaining his actions was yet another example for the inability to differentiate between evil people and bad decisions. Just like it was in "The Sins of the Father" when Merlin did the same as Uther had done before, but at the same time blamed Uther for sacrificing Igraine. While Uther didn't know that she would be the price, Merlin was warned by Gaius and Kilgharrah, yet he made the deal with Nimueh and blamed Uther for something he couldnt have know more than twenty years ago. And again, Merlin was the hero while others were the villains.

Does this indicate the possibility that the whole story was only created by the old man wanderingthe streets? I guess we will never know ;-)