Season 3 Analysis

[nyxelestia]

Every episode, I do a review/analysis of the individual episode and the characters within them. Now that we've hit the half-way mark of the season, I'm doing one for the season/show at large.

Warning: here be spoilers!

Analysis of the Main Characters

This comment on this post got me thinking about emotional expression in Merlin, and I think I realized something: there's no one emotionally healthy on the show. (Maybe Gwen, which I think, at this point, might explain her character).

The comments were on the boys' emotional retardation, and how we all adore fic in which they are just so emotionally constipated, the angst can't help but reach epic proportions.

Quoting directly from my comment on this:

For Merlin, his position is that he won't talk about negative emotions because that means shifting his negativity to other people. He doesn't want to hurt other people, burden them with his problems, ect. - he wants to be a big boy and deal with this himself and not have to make other people put up with him...he'd rather be the easy friend who you don't worry about, because he's a sweet guy like that. tl;dr: he doesn't want to make other people deal with his problems.

For Arthur, the problem is more himself - from his end, talking about these things is a weakness. You don't have problems in your life, nothing's wrong, so obviously you have nothing bad to talk about it...or at least, that's the impression you have to give. And for him, it's a source of personal strength - pretend you're fine long enough, then eventually, you will be. And despite what romance media will like to say, this can work quite well - hence the existence of so many dysfunctional relationships in our society. If you ignore your weakness, it'll eventually go away, and you will be strong again. His source of pride and self is his strength, so this plays a bit part in it. And even if not, a weakness is only a true weakness if someone else can exploit it. The problem will never be that he has feelings for someone, but that an enemy knows of these feelings. He needs to be emotionally constipated because he needs to cover up his weaknesses to make them not weaknesses. tl;dr: pretend you're strong, and you will be strong, and even if you're not, pretending you are can be just as good.

In other words, both boys have good reasons/backgrounds for silencing their negative feelings and keeping it to themselves, no matter how miserable it makes them. For Merlin, it's about protecting himself by protecting other people, and for Arthur, it's about protecting other people by protecting himself. It's up to you to decide which one's more selfish or the bigger idiot, here.

Now, let's take it one step further.

Uther: the misguided father who loves his son and is too proud to admit it. He knows it's too late to be affectionate to Arthur, now, so he remained an uptight and overdemanding bastard, because if he can't make Arthur understand that he loves him, at least he can make Arthur strong as a man. He knows he's made mistakes - perhaps, if the look on his face when Gaius yelled at him after the witch finder incident is anything to go by, he even knows that his views on magic are, at the very least, not entirely airtight as he believed - which is somewhat proven by his request of Gaius to heal Morgana with magic. But he has too much pride invested in his path now to change it.

Morgana: she has a love-hate relationship with both Uther and Arthur. Arthur has what she wants: the freedom he gets as a male in medieval times, and the power as heir to the throne. Uther she's constantly in battle with, over her own existence, even if neither of them know it. She is already in a weak and subjugated position enough as the magic-hating-king's magical-ward and a High Lady of the socially restrictive Court. Her emotional constipation, like Arthur, is both a shield and a source of strength for her. It later becomes a shield and a weapon as she plots against Arthur, using Gwen when necessary, to get herself a chance on the throne.

Gaius: he is indecisive about what he feels. One moment, he'll be chiding Merlin about the abuse of his magic, and the next he'll be pushing Merlin to use powerful magic to save Camelot. He is Uther's man as much as Merlin is Arthur's - and both are in the position that despite the fact the Pendragon they serve would probably kill them if they knew the truth about their magic, they still use their magic and still serve their Pendragon willingly. Gaius and Uther are a potential outcome of Merlin and Arthur's relationship - distant, hesitant, and closed off. Gaius is relatively open about his emotions, but only to the extent of keeping Merlin safe. The details of his past are still hazy, even if future episodes promise to shed some light on him, but we do know that during the purge, Uther trusted Gaius enough to give up his magic...and that in the mean time, he had to stand back and watch the executions of, and perhaps even turn in, fellow sorcerers to save his own skin. He can't leave Uther, but he can't end up in that position again - especially with Merlin here. Uther used to drown children for the mere suspicion of magic - had he come just a few years earlier, Merlin would have been one of them. As such, Gaius is constantly swinging back and forth between the two extremes, between (b)romantic love for his king and his love for his nephew. What he feels will change in every situation.

Gwen: believe it or not, she is just as closed off as the rest of them. It likely started with her father's death - she still lives in the Pendragon household, and apart from ignoring it, there's really no way to ignore that Arthur's father killed her own - and escalatede from there. As of Season 2, she's been hurt and abandoned by both Arthur and Lancelot - Lancelot came to rescue her, only to leave when there appeared to be a competition between himself and someone who he respected, Arthur. Arthur flirted with her in ep. 202 The Once and Future Queen, and even tried to imply a chance as he mentioned that things might be different when he's king. But by the end of ep. 208 Sweet Dreams, reality came crashing down - he's a prince, she's a serving girl, it's never going to happen. Her heart's been runover and trampled on throughout Season 2, and likely in the gap year between S2 and S3, something happened, if her distance from Arthur in S3 is anything to go by. She benefits tremendously from keeping her heard locked in carefully, and she is no less dysfunctional than the rest of the core cast.

So, that's where we're coming from.

This is where we're going:

Season 3 Analysis So Far

Merlin certainly has a lot of action and a magic-centric plot, but it is still largely a character-driven show. The two servants and the two nobles that act as the biggest parts of the plots contrast each other in separate ways. Arthur is a prince, Gwen is a serving girl, a very sharp contrast of rank. Merlin and Morgana are fairly self explanatory - love/hate, light/dark, everything that the Dragon told us. They are the biggest and most direct contrast. As characters, they are probably supposed to represent this, even if they are starting to lean a bit towards this. (Both images are work safe - the first is the actual yin-yang symbol, the second is the symbol without the dots inside the alternating halves, turning them into absolutes).

Merlin has become a mix - he uses dark methods for light means. Morgana is perpendicular to this - she uses dark methods for dark means...but as far as she's concerned, she's the same as Merlin - kill one or two men (Uther and Arthur), and she can take the throne and return magic to Camelot and bring it to a new glory. She will save the innocent lives Uther would so willingly end in his hatred of magic. And, from a more objective point of view, this isn't so bad a thought - Arthur has show no sign so far of definitive, permanent alteration on his views of magic, and Uther keeps killing off innocent people in his spurts of hatred. Why shouldn't she take the throne? Why shouldn't she kill Arthur and Uther and save hundreds of innocent people that can and will be killed in their purges of magic?

There have been multiple prophecies from multiple sources saying he was to be a great wizard, Emrys, and that he would help the Once and Future King, Arthur, rule. And here's the interesting thing about the prophecies of the show - most of them are very self-fulfilling. Morgana became evil because Merlin tried to stop her from being evil. Mordred became an enemy because Merlin tried not to make him an enemy. ep. 305 The Crystal Cave, especially, brought this to the spotlight - the more Merlin tried to fight against what he saw, the more it happened and the more he was a part of it. Who's to say that his future as Emrys and Arthur's future as the Once and Future King won't also be similar? Merlin already works, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, to make Arthur a good man so he can one day be a good king, a great one. It may be because of his work that Arthur becomes a great king, and if he's not a part of the equation, then it won't happen, because he's the only one who heard the prophecy, so he'll be the only one to fill it.

But - Morgana doesn't know this. And by now, she's been so manipulated and so twisted around her own head, even if Merlin told her, and offered proof, it wouldn't matter. And in light of the information she has, not what Merlin has, her actions make perfect sense. It's horrid that she's lost all love for her friends, but necessary, a necessary evil - what's two friends in the face of hundreds of people? (This isn't necessarily her feelings, but her rationalization - people who are evil rarely believe that of themselves).

Wild Cards

This season still has a few wild cards left, though.

Mostly character-wise:

Morgause: she actually is a bit more emotionally open, at least from what we have seen (which admittedly isn't much). She definitely loves Morgana, but how much is idea and how much is reality? Morgana is slowly going out of Morgause's control, acting against her wishes. But Morgause still clings onto her, hoping that together, they can bring back glory and magic to Camelot. She has likely spent a large portion of her life training in magic and waiting to meet Morgana, the sister she never got to meet and was separated from as a child. She at least reflects this. Whether she is only manipulating Morgana or genuinely loves her or something else altogether remains to be seen. What will she do, especially to retain her grip over Morgana?

Cenred: Yes, believe or not, King Leather Fetish. The reason why I call him a wild card? I think we're missing part of the story. So far, he has actually proven to be very rational - he doesn't act hastily, and not without reason. When Morgause tries to goad him into war in the first episode, he won't respond just to the tantalization of power - even if there's a good chance he'd win, he won't go to war just for some idle chance at Camelot. The kingdom losing Uther isn't good enough - he needs to know they have another advantage (Morgana) before he would go forth - and he retreated, refusing to pointlessly kill thousands of his men, when that advantage was lost. Later on, he says outright that he's doing everything he does to please Morgana - while having Camelot would be nice, he doesn't actually need it, as he is already rich and powerful. Either he is actually in love with Morgause, who is using his feelings against him and playing him, or she's holding him under a love spell. Either way, this characterization intrigues me, and I can't wait to see more of it.

Kilgarragh: Merlin has control over the dragon - he has to do what Merlin says. What will this mean in the future? Merlin has an incredible power at his hands, not just as a Dragonlord, but in the form of a Great Dragon he can enslave if he so chooses. And he is slowly starting to abuse this power. In the grand scheme of things, how long will the dragon tolerate this? How much can/will he be pushed before he does something drastic in rebellion - and if he does snap, what will he do? Kill Merlin? Call up some new power to let him ignore a Dragonlord? Kill himself?

And finally...

Uther: The consistent root of all problems throughout the show, the king of Camelot himself. He is a bit of an anti-thesis to Cenred - he is very irrational, which has been proven to himself and the court time and time again. He is inconsistent, one moment condemning Merlin to death and the next speaking to Merlin like a most trusted confidante. Even after he falls to legitimate madness more than once, he continues to rule in the same pattern - making exceptions for those close to him, asking Gaius to use magic to heal Morgana. He will rationally not send men to Ealdor or after Gwen - realistically, he shouldn't risk several hundred people's lives for the sake of one village, and Gwen is one servant with little more worth than the many soldiers he would have lost had he sent them to retrieve her from Hengist's fort - we don't like it, but from an objective point of view, this is exactly what he should do: think about the majority. Yet at the same time, he will thoughtless sacrifice hundreds and hundreds of men for one Morgana. He loved Ygraine tremendously, but his love for her resulted in the largescale slaughter of hundreds of innocent people over the last two decades. While he does offer more help to his people than Cenred - he quickly distributes what food they have when the famine hits Camelot after Arthur kills the unicorn and he will send protection for any villagers being attacked in his own kingdom - he is inconsistent and rash in his ruling. He loves his people and the women in his life tremendously, there is no doubt about that, but that love is very conditional and comes at a price, a price measured in lives.

(Irony - if we combined the two kings into one, we'd get either the best king in all of Albion, or the worst - and it's like tossing a coin, what you get...anyone want to take that chance?)

A little side note, here - a lot of people have been saying that Morgana has the right idea, and Merlin should just let her kill Uther. Possibility - Uther kills hundreds of innocent people in his persecution against magic. But if he dies at the wrong time and Arthur gets the throne before it's his time, it's possible thousands of people will die in the ensuing chaos. There have been hints some other kingdoms aren't doing so well, and Cenred is ready to go to war with the slightest weakness Camelot shows. Definitively kill hundreds, or possibly kill thousands? Morgana is the risk taker, here - Merlin is the overtly-cautious one.

I wonder if this show is attempting to stick true to the legend with all this madness - Arthur was known as a beacon of light in a time of darkness. Up until he came along and accidentally pulled the sword out from the stone while serving as a squire for Kay (as most of the stories along this line go), the kingdom was in chaos, which was the point of Arthur coming along and becoming this kick-ass king in the first place. It may be perhaps that this is what the show is intending? We know some of the kings from the Five Kings treaty signing the few weeks before (well, at least one, probably more) haven't been doing so well. Since Uther started his military search for Morgana, who wants to bet the treaty has been completely held up? Now Cenred and Uther are a step away from war, with both of them running kingdoms on the brink of collapse and chaos...

You're playing poker with half the table wearing glasses and a bunch of wild cards in the deck. You know what's supposed to happen, you know the rules of the game, you can glimpse at what your opponent's cards are in the reflection of their glasses...yet you still have no fucking clue what's going to happen.

God, I can't wait.

...in fact, I won't. :) Speculation on the rest of Season 3 is this way!

Feel free to discuss here.

Comments

[kuhekabir.livejournal.com]

interesting comments :)

[katelinmr.livejournal.com]

spoilers..

so... tempting.. must.. resist ..

*runs*

[angelqueen04.livejournal.com]

Her heart's been runover and trampled on throughout Season 2, and likely in the gap year between S2 and S3, something happened, if her distance from Arthur in S3 is anything to go by.

I'm wondering if the distance between them might have been due to Morgana being missing? In the first two series, we saw that Gwen and Morgana adored each other and were much like Merlin and Arthur: two sides of the same coin. Whatever Gwen's feelings for Arthur were in the second series, Morgana was still very much the center of Gwen's world. Granted, we didn't see much evidence of this after Morgana disappeared. There was that scene with Gwen and Gaius in The Last Dragonlord where they take a few seconds to fret over Morgana, but I think their minds were more focused on the immediate threat, in that this huge, huge dragon comes to Camelot every night to try to burn it to the ground. But in the year that passed between the second and third series, I imagine that once things were stable enough in Camelot, Uther was kicking Arthur and the knights out to go off in search of Morgana -- but there wasn't a hint or whisper of her, she'd completely vanished, thanks to Morgause. Time continued to pass, and nothing, which makes me wonder if Gwen might have had some anger issues over Arthur failing to find Morgana. It isn't rational, but then, love and anger rarely are. In Gwen's mind, she thinks that Arthur was able to find her when she was kidnapped by Hengist, so why can't he find Morgana? Again, not completely rational, but emotions aren't. So she keeps her heart locked up tight and keeps away from Arthur as much as she can. She won't be rude -- she's been taught too thoroughly to be respectful of the royal family -- but she won't seek him out unless she has to.

Then miracle of miracles, Morgana is finally found and returned. Throughout the third series, we often see Gwen giving Morgana the occasional look, which makes me think that Gwen recognizes that Morgana is not who she used to be. At first, I can see Gwen writing it off as the effects of being locked up and held captive for nearly a year, but in time it continues, and thus Gwen begins to gravitate to Arthur again. The Gwen/Morgana coin is slowly being severed over the course of the series.

Why shouldn't she kill Arthur and Uther and save hundreds of innocent people that can and will be killed in their purges of magic?

That's a good point, one I hadn't considered. Morgana's hatred of Uther is personal, bound up in that she feels that she should be able to practice magic freely and not be constantly living in fear of the pyres, as well as the fact that she is his own child but he won't recognize her as such.

(Side note: I am a little torn about her being in a snit over Uther not recognizing her. On the one hand, I understand that Morgana would like some public recognition over the fact that Uther does love her and that he recognizes his family's connection to her, but in many ways, it would be a demotion for her. Right now, to the world she is the daughter of Gorlois, his only heir really, since Morgause was thought dead by everyone but Gaius who got her out of Camelot. Being the daughter and heir to a nobleman is nothing to sneeze at (especially if he has lands and such). If Morgana's true parentage is revealed, then she's no longer the daughter of Gorlois, but Uther's bastard child, a symbol of Uther's weakness to some. Yes, it highlights the royal blood in her veins, but it also shows that she was born out of wedlock and is a firm reminder to everyone that she was born before Arthur, when Ygraine was still alive. She would ultimately lose some people's respect for being a bastard. But I digress.)

Morgana's desire to get rid of Arthur, in contrast to Uther, doesn't seem personal. She finds out that she's Uther's child, and in her mind that gives her a claim on the throne. Arthur still has the better claim, which makes him her rival. She wants him out of the way because of that rivalry. It doesn't seem personal, merely a means to an end. (And she gets pissed off every time a plan to off Arthur is foiled, usually by Merlin. Now those two... they need to have it out, a no holds barred magical battle. It would be aweome. ;) )

[weltea.livejournal.com]

I agree that alot of Gwen's emotinal state right now has to do with Morgana. Although I think that they were growing apart in Season 2 already. For me in S2 the moment I noticed that was when they were riding together (2x04 I think it was?) because I felt that S1 Gwen and Morgana would have talked about any feelings,even if they involved the prince. Also,Morgana only talked to Merlin about her magic even though she must have known that a)Gwen was loyal to her and b)probably had suspected Morgana having magic the same way Morgana had,Yet she hadn't told anybody... So while S3 is indeed servering the Gwen/Morgana coin that already started with Morganas problems in S2 and her closing off...

[weltea.livejournal.com]

Wow,that's some really great Analysis' :)

Although I disagree a little with your two Wild Cards Morgause and Cenred. As for Morgause I think it's pretty clear that she isn't manipulating Morgana and that she cares deeply for her. As for Morgana going against her wishes,I don't think that's such a big deal as you seemed to make it out as. She does exactly what Morgause tells her too,the only time when she was prepared to go against that was when she was in a very emotional state in 3x05 after her world-view had just shifted (knowing that the man you considered to be your father and loved as your father isn't your father and it's instead the tyrant that murders people like you and who never admitted,not even to you that you are his daughters IS a big thing to find out...).
As for Cenred,I don't believe Morgause is manipulating him either (or at least not in such a big way you wrote). From their first interaction I got the impression that they have known each other for quiet some time. Personally I think it'S even possible that they (partly) grew up together,after all the Isle of the Blessed looked as if there had been nobody there for a few hundred years and were else would Pristesses (or magically inclined people) hide -unless they're named Merlin- than in a magic-friendly kingdom. I got the feeling that they used to be close adnd aren't really now,probably even hadn't seen each other in a while and Morgause clearly cares less about him than about Morgana she has brought him on board with her plans and seems to believe in telling people the truth to get them to do what she wants (she didn't even try to trick Arthur into killing Uther...The truth works in her favour most times ;).And Cenred does what he does because a) having magic back and Morgana on the throne is useful for him and b)friendship not love (although he probably wouldn't say no to a tumble in the hay with Morgause ;)

[meri-sefket.livejournal.com]

Good thoughts. I totally agree that there's something more going on with Cenred.

[anyusa0030.livejournal.com]

very incitefull ,its always very easy for us farns to forget that morgana and merlin have the same goal just difference on how to achieve that goal.