Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5102537-20140620091030/@comment-6047958-20140707220225

ReganX wrote:

It's a fairly common occurrence in fiction, where the bad deeds of the protagonist are ignored, people on the protagonist’s side are basically good by association, while anybody opposed to the protagonist is portrayed as bad, even if they have valid points on their side.

TVTropes put it quite well on their page for ‘‘Merlin’’.

''“Protagonist-Centered Morality: Too many examples to list, but there's a lot of this. For instance, Merlin repeatedly kills supernatural antagonists in cold blood, even when said enemies have understandable or admirable reasons for opposing him; these slayings are portrayed as triumphant or even humorous. The best example, though, has to be when Merlin frees the dragon to fulfill a vow and save his mother's life, despite being perfectly aware that it will put everyone in Camelot at risk (including other people's mothers, who apparently aren't important). Sure enough, hundreds of civilians die. Merlin never displays any real remorse, most of his angst during the carnage has to do with his daddy issues (at one point he actually pretends he's worried about the people in Camelot, to hide that he's actually sulking about his mystery dad), and the narrative generally treats the event as a tragic inevitability rather than an act of reckless, destructive selfishness. Of course, if the Monster of the Week had done the same thing for the same reasons...”''

This would seem to be the bane of much modern fiction, no?

But in a serious vein, I haven't actually seen much of this, myself. But then, I've seen maybe a fraction of the entire series. And the part with the dragon--I have to admit, Kilgarrah is probably my least favorite character--this is going to sound heartless, but his knowledge of the history of magic and of the future is about the only thing he has to offer; he certainly isn't a very good mentor character!--I thought Merlin's motivations were a little different from what it says here. But maybe that's just me; it's been a while since I saw the episode. Also, it seems to me that there are a few counter-examples in there; for instance, Merlin has been known to defy Kilgarrah when he knows it's the right thing to do, regardless of the reflection on his destiny. Later in the series, though... *sigh* I so want to bite Kilgarrah.