Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Four/@comment-5102537-20131207132547/@comment-5102537-20140121222704

98.193.78.231 wrote:

But then, I tend to be of the opinion that the writers and show-runners missed a whole bag of tricks as far as the Knights are concerned. They were basically non-events. There was a great deal of potential with Elyan in regards to Guinevere's storyline this series--her relationship with Arthur, then her banishment, etc. But honestly, until "The Dark Tower," I'd come to forget that they were even related... and then he died. Leon and Percival were like empty shells. Leon's saving grace was that he was sorta-immortal, Percival's that he had nice arms.

Never mind being late, the episodes can be discussed at any time whenever people have the time and will to share their opinion :-)

I agree. Yes, totally, I too often forgot that Elyan was Gwen's brother. If I'm not mistaken, their relationship was only revived in season five when Elyan sacrificed himself for Gwen and when they visited Tom's grave.

There's absolutely no reason why the show runners didn't explore Gwaine's reaction when it came to Caerleon. Given his assumed age, I think that Caerleon's father rejected the mother's plea. I think that the reason why they didn't explore this any further but treated the knights as mere extras was because they desperately wanted to focus on the relationship and banter between Merlin and Arthur.

It would have been simple to combine a little more background on Gwaine (and other knights) with stories around Arthur and Merlin. And in this case, in regard to this episode, they could have chosen another king instead of Caerleon in order to not distract from Arthur and his ridiculous naivety and later heroism.

Every interesting character and every interesting storyline were eliminated one by one in order to not distract from Merlin and Arthur who were supposed to be the bros fooling around and saving the day, all at the expense of good stories and fascinating characters.