Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24691863-20140413080351/@comment-24785400-20140428110534

A lot of interesting discussion, and I do agree a lot with what is said. (great book Fimber!)  I do have a bit of trouble however, of calling Arthur and Merlin Heroes, however, and I think its mainly down to the questionable morality we see in the later part of the series. Arthur who seems to still, while not outright hunting those of the Old-Religion, Druids and Magic users, continues to oppress them, and they still live in fear. Arthur, who is quite prepared to use magic for his own desires. Who changes the law to suit himself when it comes to marrying servants and knighting commoners, but hides behind it for everything else. We have Merlin, who is quite prepared to throw his own kind to the wolves in order to protect Arthur, even before they've acted against him, who thinks that Arthur would hang him if he were to find out he has magic. Where is this kind character, who negotiates, who gets magic users on his side, showing Arthur and Camelot how good magic can be? I sort of wanted him to be like Doctor Who or somebody like that who, instead of blowing his adversaries out of the water, deals with them, gets them onside and sends them on their way (extending to even magical creatures). Where is this character who shows Arthur a possible future and tells him "thats you, you can achieve that"   Merlin who acts out of absolute obsession in regards to everything about Arthur, to the point where nothing else is important anymore, even his own hopes and dreams. But he really doesn't even do that properly, because he's waiting for the day for Arthur to see that magic is not all bad, that the Kingdoms need to be united, without doing anything to help his cause. At the same time letting Arthur walk all over him, letting him abuse his station. Arthur saw himself as "one of the knights - a band of brothers" but Merlin, who was loyal for a reason he could never work out, was still just a servant (and not a good one at that).

Its not heroism, I don't even see it as a sort of love, because obsession and love are not the same thing. (we're obviously supposed to think it is, and its often presented to us as such)

So they are heroes sort of by default, because of this dubious morality, everybody else has to be worse than they are.