Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130214143847/@comment-5102537-20130217201328

MerlinUSA wrote:

A critical theme of the series comes from the Dragon's, "Perhaps your destiny is to change that" (about Arthur). But does the dragon mean the same thing by "fate" and "destiny," and can one really not change one's destiny? This introduces a major theme. One of the central themes of Merlin is going to be moral decisions.

The dialog carried a lot of weight, explaining in few words what the setup was. The finale also did this, with significant meaning packed into almost every word uttered. The ability of Merlin to make a little dialog carry so much weight will become a striking feature of the show.

I agree with some of the things you wrote but I have tried to avoid comparing the fisrt episodes to the dreadful seasons four and five and the horrible finale, because I'm losing my interest in rewatching the show when thinking about how it all ends.

However, the thing about fate and destiny... Good question. As I understand it, Merlin's fate used to be or was supposed to be to help Arthur uniting the lands of Albion, including re-establishing magic. His destiny was to change Arthur's attitude, or better, to influence him in a certain way in order to make their fate happen (which didn't happen in the end, as we know). Maybe there are various ways to achieve what fate demands, which is what is meant by destiny: doing it the soft way or the hard way, reaching the goal with friendship and love or by forcing others to obey, by killing or whatever, for example.

 "I'm still not sure how to take Morgana because she changed so dramatically. "

I agree. When I first saw her I became a fan of her immediately. She used to be one of my favourite characters alongside with Uther and Gwen. Now that she was changed so much I can't see her the same way anymore. But then, they did the same with Uther, suddenly and subsequently changing him even though it didn't make sense at all. On the other hand, Morgana has never been entirely good which was evident in season one already. She had this dark side inside of her and it had always been likely for her to turn to this dark side, just not to that silly extent. I would think that her character was simply a victim of exaggerated character descriptions by the showrunners and of simplistic storytelling in regard to villains. She had the potential to become one of the most fascinating and multifaceted characters of the show but unfortunately she was turned into a comic-strip villain. Nevertheless, I loved her in season one.

 "Uther's ambivalent legacy is represented when he makes Merlin Arthur's servant. It one of many decisions he'll make that have two sides. One scene in S5E3 touches on this moment directly. Uther reminds Merlin that he made him Arthur's servant in the first place, and for a couple of seconds the reaction on Merlin's face showed that at that moment he could have forgiven Uther anything. Uther's decisions, whatever they are, will drive the action of the show to the end. "

Have to disagree here. Aside from the fact that Uther's return as a ghost was a total farce and had nothing to do with what we had seen of him before in the previous seasons, Merlin showed no sign of compassion, forgiveness or any soft emotion whatsoever in that episode. There was only indifference and satisfaction when finally telling Uther about his magic. When Uther made Merlin Arthur's servant he actually signed his own death sentence by doing so since it was Merlin's fault that Uther died at the hands of magic in the end. Even though Merlin had saved Uther's life several times before, it was his doing or lack of action that caused Uther a painful death by the hatred of his daughter and magical interference. They could have referred to this in "The Death Song..." by mentioning that he probably went nuts as a spirit due to the brutal way he died. Alas, they simply changed him in order to give Arthur something that differentiates him from his father, which was ridiculous.

"The lighting is much brighter in this episode, and the producers have taken pains to show off the castle to us."

Yes, totally. Loved it! The atmosphere, the light and colours, the castle, everything. It was all so positive and promising, yet with a huge potential for drama that didn't necessarily have to turn into cruelty and pure drama and destruction without hope. Shame they changed it.