Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Four/@comment-5102537-20131130132300/@comment-5102537-20131202154531

A more or less pointless episode with massive plotholes again.

More pointless due to the unspectacular story and the altering of Aithusa's destiny and less pointless due to Aithusa's birth - which was yet actually wasted since Aithusa wasn't explored at all in two entire seasons.

The plotholes:

In season one, Uther says that all dragons have been wiped out, execpt for the Great Dragon being held prisoner underneath the castle. So far so good, that's what Uther told the citizens and could have known more which he kept a secret. If that was the case it should have been mentioned, here in this episode at the latest, simply because for more than three seasons it was canon that Kilgharrah was the last of his kind.

And all of a sudden, Arthur knows about the egg because his father told him about it. Just one sentence about Uther keeping this secret from the people would have done the job and all would be fine.

The next one is Merlin and Arthur talking about their fathers, even though in a deleted scene only. While Merlin told Arthur in "The Sins of the Father" that he never knew his father when Arthur mentions that his mother died even before he opened his eyes as a newborn

("That's the same with my father. I never knew him. And my mother's barely spoken of him. I've got this...vague memory. It's probably just my imagination.),

which Merlin also told Gwaine, here in "Aithusa" he tells Arthur

"It was here that I last saw my father."

Two completely contradictory staments which obviously happened due to overlooked previous storylines again, but made Arthur and Merlin appear to be suffering from amnesia once again.

This scene, on the other hand, showed that Arthur has finally learnt that being King is not an easy job and that his father didn't do the things he did or had to do just out of fun or evil purposes. It was about time that Arthur saw that his duty required unpleasant and tough decisions in order to protect the kingdom. The days of simply going behind his father's back and pretending to know it all better and that he can handle things the way he wants are over. In regard to this, the scene better had been kept in the episode with a little adjustment and Merlin not mentioning that he saw his father here the last time.

Aside from that, it was quite disturbing that obviously also Arthur's grief was over already, and again the silly banter was in the focus of this episode. I  don't know how much time had passed between Uther's death and Julius Borden coming to Camelot, but it can't have been long. No sign of a sad or devastated Arthur, everything appeared to have happened years ago when it surely was only some weeks at the most. Why couldn't they point out grieving Arthur and a changed Camelot that was still mourning at least for a minute in this episode. It would have made everything much more believable instead of presenting every single character and the characters off-screen as some kind of emotionless zombies. A dead king would have some kind of effect on a kingdom, but here, all is normal and not even Arthur is in any sort of confusion or turmoil or sadness.

Speaking of banter and humour here, wrestling for Arthur's trousers in the court room was quite childish. I don't know what king would ever allow such a thing and what servant would ever dare to do such a thing, but neither Merlin nor Arthur gave the impression of being grown-up people here, let alone responsible adults that had to care for a kingdom, if not the entire land in Merlin's case.

This particular scene was completely done for children and teenagers and didn't do any good to the characters but reduced them to some silly teens in their puberty.

Same goes for the stupid bullying Merlin in the woods. I will never get the purpose of the knights teasing and bullying Merlin, it just didn't make any sense. This wasn't the usual banter and teasing among Robin Hood's Merry Men or the Three Musketeers or any other medieval or modern bunch of men being outthere together. It was directed at Merlin only and it served no purpose at all. Maybe it would have been different if Merlin had "fought" back and teased the knights, but hell.. this was just stupid and had no relevance to the rest of the show.

The characters have matured and the show has grown up? Not here, that's for sure. Again I missed Lancelot here. He would have never participated in such a stupid thing and I doubt that the other knights would have even started it with him around. Shame Lancelot was dead already. And, by the way, not even Uther, the one who didn't have a pleasant opinion about servants, would have done this. At least I can't imagine him in such a situation.

To me, the only interesting  sentence in this epsiode was when Gaius told Julius "The Old Ways should be left to die". This implies that there was not only some kind of a new religion planned (with Merlin as the one to bring it about) or desired and that the old ways of the Old Religion were indeed not very welcome even among some magic-users/sorcerers but also that Gaius had reasons for supporting Uther in some of his actions. This was a great hint for maybe two forces within the Old Religion - one defending and wanting the cruel Old Ways, and another planning a new era of a peaceful coexistence for which Merlin's birth had been determined a long time ago. Shame that this episode only approached it and then forgot about it immediatley and that the rest of the show didn't really deal with it again.

It also gave Gaius' character a new surprising twist by having him disapproving of the new dragon being hatched and condemning Kilgharrah to loneliness. Yet it fit his character when regarding his remarks of the Old Religion having almost destroyed the land long before Uther claimed the throne, plus magic corrupting and causing chaos. At the same time it released Uther a bit of all the blame for being a tyrant that only acted selfishly and ruthless. There were indeed good reason for fighting the Old Ways and they were even confirmed by Gaius.

Julius Borden was a quite uninteresting character to me for he only seeked power and probably wealth.

Merlin, once again, didn't listen and thought he would know better, risking the dragon egg, even though his reasons were noble ones. Here I wonder why Gaius just didn't tell Merlin everything when he knew but too well that Merlin wouldn't listen but help Kilgharrah and seeking the old dragon's advice. Instead Gaius surprisingly loses his temper and keeps Merlin the dark. Why the heck?

By hatching Aithusa, Merlin set events into motion that affected the future of Camelot when Aithusa later heals Morgana and helps her reducing Camelot's army in the battle at Camlann. Moreover, Merlin lied to Arthur once again and put everything into jeopardy by hiding the truth about the egg. It was understandable that he did in order to protect the dragons, yet I wonder why he didn't have a problem with Arthur when he did the same that Uther did, but had a problem with Uther due to the same reasons.

Kilgharrah... Uther is dead, yet he doesn't even mention this just once. Shouldn't Kilgharrah have a ball and be tremendously happy about Uther's death? He wanted him dead for decades after all, tried multiple times to manipulate Merlin into letting Uther die and wanted to kill him himself. But no word from him about it. Consistency, where are you?

Baby-Aithusa was such a cute little thing and I genuinely feel sorry for him/her. This poor dragon suffered beyond belief and it was extremely disappointing that his/her motivations and place in the propehcy was never explored. Actually, Aithusa's only purpose in the story of the show was to heal Morgana, even though Kilgharrah said that Aithusa will help Arthur and Merlin building the Albion that they're supposed to build. Where and when did that happen?