User blog comment:MerlinUSA/Merlin -- The Big Picture/@comment-5102537-20130120143649/@comment-5995315-20130122215826

Hi Duke01 --

Many of the episodes contain lessons, and the moral to Freya and Daegal were the same. Merlin is punished for trying to escape his fate, which is to be at Arthur's side. If he didn't kiss Daegal, it may be because he expresses same-sex attraction differently.

Gwen and Arthur weren't just kissing; they were starting to make love in front of Merlin. The agitated way he tore out out the room shows it. Gwen asked for the bath to get Merlin into the kitchen, where she knew Morgana was sending Daegal. Merlin's seduction at that point was a sure bet.

You do make a good point: If the show is gay-friendly, why don't they act gay? Certainly many shows give us characters that do just that. I don't watch them. They're like the stepnfetchit characters whites used to laugh at. But I agree, Merlin is a strange character, especially the way he lurks in the shadows.

But overall he gives us a non-stereotypical character whose behaviour is much like that of straight men. This is how most gay men are most of the time, and we appreciate that a same-sex bond is brought forward without stigmatizing it with modern labels or turning the males into laughingstocks for the amusement of straight viewers.

I keep hearing that the story arc was changed to please Merthur fans. I don't agree because the Merlin/Arthur bond was the backbone of the story arc from the start. What I think caused the changes you all are talking about was that nobody at the start could have foreseen how well Colin and Bradley were able to project so much chemistry between Merlin and Arthur.

Nor could anyone have predicted the extent to which Colin Morgan's acting began to outstrip everything else. The producers saw they had gold on their hands, and they would have been fools not to start giving Colin time that might have gone to other plot lines.

Then, because Colin was becoming so great an actor, they began throwing scenes at him which they never would have given a lesser actor, and this meant giving him harder themes and increasingly tragic episodes.

With Colin Morgan they realized they had a nuclear bomb of an actor and they may have changed the scripts to make use of his talent. His surprising strength is what actually caused a lot of the twist in the story arc, and most viewers liked the result.