Board Thread:Series 5 Discussion/@comment-209.196.232.2-20121230195253/@comment-29289194-20180118115813

174.217.14.158 wrote: In my opinion the 'evil Gwen' arc should have been scrapped and replaced with something else. Then they would have had more time to end things properly. As for saving the ending with minimum effort the only thing they would have had to do would be to show Merlin getting apointed court sorcerer by Gwen and removeing the modern bit.

That would have implied that Gwen rules over the golden age and avoided making the ending(and everything before it) totally pointless without having to change it to much. Gwen seemed like a better ruler then Arthur anyway(at least to me) because she wasn't trying to follow in Uthurs footsteps and she was more compassionate towards people. She seems less likely to slaughter everyone who has magic and more likely to consider whether they have been using it for evil.

The scene where Merlin tells Arthur to reject magic in order to kill Mordred was a really bad choice on his part. I think the show became to fixated on saving the lives of Uthur and Arthur and making that Merlin's real job. It became more important to him then what his real destiny was supposed to be. Ironically this caused him to fail at both, he failed in his intended destiny and he failed to protect both Uthur and Arthur.

I agree! The time wasted (three eps) when magic could be explored. I enjoyed that storyline but it happened at the wrong time.

I am rewatching Merlin now, and I am on the final few eps and what really annoys me is how moody and kind of rude Merlin was being, based on things that hadn't happened yet and could be changed. I thought he would have learnt already that being that way towards people like Mordred (like he was with Morgana in 1-2), not letting things improve for magic, would only lead to thing you don't want to happen.

And he is incredibly selfish - nothing else matters other than saving Arthur and keeping things the same. He would probably throw Gaius off a cliff to save Arthur and that future, but how on earth did Merlin see that happening when he says things like "magic is evil" to Arthur? Tbh, I'm surprised Morgana and Mordred focused on killing Arthur when Merlin was the one they should have went for after everything he said, the way he treated them, the secrets he kept that made them live in fear of magic and then continue to live in fear when Arthur might not have made them feel that way.

I just rewatched the ep where he tells Arthur magic is evil and I'm like, what the hell is he saying? How can I root for the show when nothing ever really leads anywhere except the same circle of events repeating, and a failed future that was talked about for five years but never seen, technically destroyed by our own hero?