Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140517082836/@comment-28430223-20160522172910

The ending was pretty bad, but not because it was a sad ending, but because it was badly written, especially when you take into account the rest of the series. I mean, I don't have a problem about Arthur dying in the end, but he should have died after he accomplished what prophecies told us he would. Or at least we need an explanation about why he didn't. Instead we have Arthur dying before the golden age, without united Albion, and with magic still banned. And the worst part is that the show doesn't even acknowledges that Arthur and Merlin have failed. We have the Dragon telling Merlin the opposite, with no real arguments at all for this conclusion, despite all failure evidence. And the part with immortal Merlin in our present day waiting for Arthur to raise again it's simply pathetic IMHO. It was't enough for Merlin to sacrifice his youth for an unfulfilled destiny, the show still has to made him waste thousands of years waiting for Arthur to be back. I mean, poor Merlin, let the guy to be free already!

As for the bromance, the relationship between Arthur and Merlin has been stagnated since the first 2 seasons. We have certain friendship between them, but this is developed early in the show. However, for all this time Arthur still doesn't acknowledges Merlin as his equal, and still bullies him and treats him as a servant. Some rushed declarations after the reveal meanwhile Arthur is dying are not enough to compensate for the lack of development in that area. So I can't understand why a Merthur shipper would be happy either. Not to mention that homosexuality doesn't even seem to exist in canon Camelot.