Thread:Fimber/@comment-3481504-20151102233729/@comment-5674726-20151108134048

One thing to remember is that Arthur did not know the full story until the very end.

As viewers, we see Merlin devote himself to Arthur and protect him at all costs, even when it means that he needs to live in an environment where he has to hide his magic, knowing that many of the people around him would want him dead if they knew of his magic. Arthur was kept in the dark about all of that. To him, Merlin was his clumsy, sometimes idiotic manservant, a servant initially forced on him but who he came to trust and to consider a friend. I don't think that Merlin was ever as important to him as he was to Merlin, partly because he had others in his life who came first with him, but Merlin not being the most important person in Arthur's life does not mean that Arthur did not care about him at all. It's not a case of one extreme or the other.

Emotionally, I think that Arthur was crucial to Merlin while Arthur would be able to get over the loss of Merlin but that does not mean that he didn't regard him as a friend, that he didn't trust him or that he didn't care about him.

I think that there is a tendency among some fans to read more into relationships than is presented on screen - not just the Merlin fandom, just about every fandom I've come across has it. In the case of the relationship between Merlin and Arthur, I've seen people who want to read it as romantic or soulmates, or Merlin is the little brother Arthur never had, or Merlin is the most important person in Arthur's life, the one he couldn't live without. I don't see any of this in canon.

The question I'd like to ask is why is it not considered enough to Arthur to see Merlin as his friend?

Why is it necessary or desirable for Arthur to care more about Merlin than anybody else?

Merlin himself said that he was born to serve Arthur. I think that he'd be happy to be considered a friend and, given how he championed Arthur's relationship with Gwen, I can't imagine that he would resent it if Arthur cared more about her than he did about him.