#i think this was mentioned before in the kilgharrah tag

[tiodolma]

i can't believe that Kilgharrah and Gaius were technically Merlin's uncles on both his Father's and Mother's sides.

[panharmonium]

...and damn the consequences

These are just some thinky-thoughts that I suppose could be an addendum to this old piece about Morgana, since I saw a couple of different discussion threads in that general vein in the tag a while back, and you know reading about this show always gets my brain going. :)

Most of what I ran into was written with the intention of shifting the blame for Morgana's issues away from Merlin, which is something I appreciate, personally - I've talked plenty myself about the myriad reasons why Merlin does not owe Morgana his secret and does not deserve "blame" for the things she does.  

But when the blame is shifted (rightly) away from Merlin, it does sometimes end up getting pushed onto others.  And while I do understand where that impulse comes from, I actually tend to approach this from a slightly different perspective, so since I don't think I've ever typed up anything about this particular subject before, I figured I might as well set down a few potential things to consider about a) Morgana (in relation to Gaius, specifically), and b) the more general question of "the blame" (and whether it's really a productive line of discussion, given that the question only has one legitimate answer, for me, at least).

disclaimer, as always: these are just my own thoughts, and nobody is obligated to share them!  If my particular perspective isn't interesting to you, don't worry about it - I'm just hanging out talking to myself on my own blog, so feel free to scroll past and continue interpreting the show in whatever way is most enjoyable for you!

i. my favourite patient is always welcome

So, first of all - some thoughts about Gaius.

I was really surprised at how infrequently Gaius appeared, when I first started poking around in the fandom.  For such a major character, and for someone who is such a huge part of Merlin's life, I definitely thought he would be more prominent, but essentially the sorts of posts I've seen about him are mostly restricted to two things: 1) memes, and 2) call-outs (he's in a very similar position to Kilgharrah, in that way).   

I don't necessarily think those things do him justice, and there’s a lot more we could talk about when it comes to his character, but for now, the only thing I'm really interested in working on is maybe adding some nuance to the perpetual question of Gaius, Morgana, Merlin, and "the blame."  

(For clarity’s sake: nothing that follows necessarily means that Gaius makes the “right” decisions.  The entire point of his character's history is in fact his failure to always do the right thing - see: Kilgharrah's line where he tells Gaius to “do nothing," because “that is, after all, your talent."  What I’m saying in the section that follows is just that there's more to consider about the choices Gaius makes than “he's a coward.")

So - some things to consider, when we think about Gaius and Morgana:  

1) One thing I'm not always sure people realize about this show is that neither Gaius nor Merlin knows that Morgana has magic until 2.03.  

And I definitely can see why people don’t necessarily realize it, because as we all know this show can be a little haphazard/loosey-goosey with its worldbuilding, but just to help clarify: until 2.03, Gaius does not know that Morgana has magic.  He knows that "some of the things she dreamt" have indicated certain future events (NOT all of them, importantly - more on that later), but her dream-visions are also specifically stated to be a separate gift from sorcery - dream-visions and magic are clearly established to be different things in this show, and prior to 2.03, Morgana has only ever demonstrated one of these abilities.  

At the end of 1.07, Merlin asks, "Is she like me?  Does she have the gift?" and Gaius's response is, "I hope not, for her sake."  Earlier, he also says, "The gift of prophecy is too close to the work of magic," indicating that the two things are, in fact, different abilities (if equally dangerous ones, in Uther's eyes).  “It's said to be an innate ability.  Those who have it are born that way.”  Whereas magic, in the Merlin-verse, is a learned skill.  We spend so much time around Merlin that we tend to transfer his experience to all other magic-users, but we have to remember that Merlin, in this world, is directly stated to be unique.  He uses magic without spells, without study; he tells Gaius he was born doing it.  But when Gaius hears Merlin say this, his response is, "That's impossible."  It's not something that happens.  

In the Merlin BBC-verse, people can be born with the "gift" - the ability to use magic - but their magic doesn't just manifest on its own.  What happens to Merlin (being able to use magic "before he could talk," with no training and no spells) and Morgana (starting a fire accidentally) is NOT something that is indicated to ever happen to other magic-possessors.  We aren't being introduced to a world where magical children will automatically start manifesting their magic in dangerous ways unless they're trained to use their abilities (ie, the X-Men model, or the Force-sensitive child model, where choosing not to teach someone is automatically irresponsible ).  Magic, as presented to us in this show, is something that cannot be used without training or specific spells/power-amplifying artifacts.  Merlin (and, later, Morgana) are exceptions to a universal rule.

And this is just something to keep in mind, because it does provide some context for Gaius's decisions.  It doesn't mean people have to agree with the choices he makes - it doesn't even mean *I* always agree with the choices he makes, to be honest - but I do think it's worthwhile to at least remember that Gaius doesn't make his decisions thoughtlessly.  As far as Gaius knows, even if Morgana did have magic, there is no way that it could ever manifest and become an issue for her without her being trained.  If she doesn't learn how to use magic, she can't use it, period.  And if she can't use it, no one will ever know she has it.  And if no one ever knows she has it, no one can ever kill her for it.  

(Once we hit 2.03, the conversation changes, obviously.  It becomes clear that Morgana is some kind of anomaly as well, and at that point, the only appropriate path forward is to tell her she has magic.)

(Which is, of course, precisely what Merlin does.)

2) According to the show, only "some of" Morgana's dreams have actually played out in real life; others have just been regular nightmares (and we see later on that even some of her prophetic dreams are vague to the point of incomprehensibility - eg, she dreams about a raven in 2.01, but how would she ever know what that meant, or if it meant anything at all, barring external context?)  Some of the risk/benefit analysis on Gaius's part has to take this problem into account - what if he did tell her that some of her dreams might be prophecies?  There would be no way for anyone to sort out which ones were real and which ones were just nightmares.  And Gaius has known Morgana all her life - he knows what she's like; he knows how headstrong she is.  She would assume all of her dreams were real, and she would act on all of them, because what if the one time she ignored a dream, something bad happened to someone she cares about?  

Gaius is familiar enough with Morgana to know with absolute certainty that this is what she would do.  And he knows that this could SO easily end up getting her killed, either by Uther, who would quickly figure out that something was going on, or by the sheer dangers associated with Morgana throwing herself into confrontations based only on uncertain visions (or worse, regular old dreams).

3) We also have to think about what this show tells us about prophecy in general.  Trying to act on prophetic information, in this world, is firmly established as a dangerous game, one which, more often than not, ends up directly causing the outcomes one was trying to prevent.  Trying to change the future, in the BBC Merlin universe, backfires on people every single time.  In 2.10, the Crystal of Neahtid is framed as holding "a terrible power," and Merlin knows instinctively that "no good [will] come of it," even as he feels compelled to look into it.  In 3.05, Gaius himself says of the Crystal Cave that "the crystals are treacherous," and Kilgharrah says that "to change the future is no simple matter, Merlin.  To do so is fraught with danger."  In Season 5, of course, we all know what happens with Merlin's attempts to prevent Mordred from killing Arthur - it ensures Arthur's death!  And that's not even mentioning all the collateral damage it causes - Kara's execution, Mordred and Morgana’s eventual deaths, etc.

I thought I could alter the future, but instead, I caused it.  I made it happen.

What you did was dangerous, even for someone as gifted as you.

These are truths about the universe in the BBC Merlin world, not Gaius's personal opinions.  Gaius had been brought up steeped in the rules of the Old Religion; he knows how that world works.  The risk posed by Morgana interpreting all of her dreams as prophecies (and the absolute certainty that she would constantly attempt to alter their outcomes) is not a trivial concern or something he should ignore.  It is real, significant, and extremely dangerous, for both Morgana and the people around her.

So in general, I do think there's a broader context to what Gaius does than we typically look at.  I'm not saying that it isn't a sticky situation, and I'm not even saying that Gaius makes the right calls.  All I'm saying is that I think it's worth acknowledging that the decisions he makes are a) always sincerely intended to protect Morgana from a number of very real dangers, not just Uther, and b) founded on more than simple cowardice or carelessness.

ii. of course what really matters is the blame / someone you can blame

More generally -

Whenever I see discussion circulating about Morgana’s descent into villainy, occasionally the conversation can start to feel to me a little bit like that scene in Into the Woods where all the characters start going "so it's HER fault/HIS fault/YOUR fault" as they backtrack further and further along the chain of events and tear apart every single character's innocuous decisions (the consequences of which could not possibly have been foreseen) in order to escape any scrap of personal responsibility, until the Witch interrupts their bickering and rips them a new one for worrying so much about who to blame when they have a real problem to solve.

These blame-placing conversations about Morgana, much like this scene, are interesting and enjoyable to think about in their own ways, but they rarely get quite where I want them to go.  I definitely love seeing people articulate the "we shouldn't blame Merlin for what Morgana does" angle, but things often then slide into "we should blame X person instead", where X person is Kilgharrah or Morgause or Gaius or Uther or whoever.  

And for me, that analysis doesn’t quite hit the mark.  The correct endpoint of "we shouldn't hold Merlin responsible for Morgana's actions" isn't "we should hold X person responsible instead."  The correct endpoint is "the only person responsible for Morgana's actions is Morgana."

The last time I wrote about Morgana like this, I mentioned that ultimately, the difference between Merlin and Morgana for me is that Merlin owns his choices.  He feels guilt, he expresses regret, he apologizes for his mistakes, and he blames himself for his missteps (as well as for other things that aren't remotely his fault).  Morgana, on the other hand, never apologizes for anything (despite the fact that she's made plenty of mistakes worth regretting), and sometimes it feels like in fandom we don't necessarily expect her to do so, as if it's a benchmark we don't need her to meet.

So because I really do have strong feelings about the double standard we use when it comes to Merlin and Morgana, I want to talk for a minute here about Merlin and Gaius’s relationship, to provide a comparison.

Morgana isn't the only person who's had important information about her parentage and potential abilities withheld from her.  Gaius hides both Merlin's dragonlord heritage and the identity of Merlin's father all the way until the end of Season 2, when necessity forces him to reveal the information.  Merlin's mother, for her own part, has been hiding this information from Merlin all his life - out of valid fears for Merlin's own safety, of course, the same way Gaius is trying to protect Morgana.  But still, from Merlin's point of view, in the moment when the information is revealed to him, the justification offered by his guardians is unacceptable.  He is angry and upset, and he feels cheated out of knowledge he deserved to have, the absence of which has negatively affected him all his life.  “I had a right to know,” he keeps saying, on the verge of tears.

Has Merlin been harmed by the choices his guardians made for him, even if said choices were made to protect him?  Yes.  Does he have a right to feel hurt, betrayed, and angry?  Yes.  Is he entitled to every ounce of his righteous rage?  Absolutely.  

Is he also responsible for how he reacts, now that the information has been revealed?  YES.

Merlin has no say in what his parental figures do to him in the name of protecting him, and he has no choice about how it makes him feel.  He does, however, have a choice about what actions he will now take in response.  He can react in a way that hurts others, or he can choose a path of lesser harm.  And there's plenty we can say to justify both options, certainly, but either way, the decision he makes is on him.  

What that means, in short, is this: Merlin is not responsible for what was done to him.  But he is responsible for what he himself does next.  

The same goes for Morgana.  In absolutely no universe would we classify Merlin's behavior as acceptable if he'd reacted to the revelation of his Dragonlord heritage by assassinating Uther, claiming the throne for himself in the name of his murdered kin, and then shooting innocent civilians in the street when the knights refused to recognize his legitimacy.  We would never say that was okay.  And we definitely wouldn't then blame Merlin's downfall on Gaius, saying it was Gaius's fault for withholding information about Merlin's powers for so long.  The choice to act in a harmful way would still be Merlin's, in that situation.

The same standard holds true for Morgana - particularly when she has access to resources that Merlin can't even dream about.  She is rich, beyond his wildest fantasies.  One of her dresses costs more than everything Merlin has ever owned in his life - his house, his land, his livestock, every bushel of wheat he's ever harvested.  She isn't the 1% in comparison to Merlin; she's the 0.0000001% - a princess in all but but name, and one who would presumably be heir to her father's entire estate in addition to everything she already has in Camelot.  

Morgana has the wealth to go anywhere she wants, including places where magic is practiced freely (see Helva, as mentioned in S5).  She has the prestige to affiliate herself with powerful people outside of Camelot, if she chooses to do so.  Any person in her position would have a broad, high-status network of friends and allies, and indeed we do see that Morgana has political ties outside Uther's court (see: how easily she's able to go to Cenred, Agravaine, Annis in Seasons 3/4 and be admitted, recognized, and trusted, as well as her repeated ability to recruit and/or take command of external armies).  

She could leave Camelot if she wanted, learn about her abilities, and build a life for herself elsewhere.  She could stay in Camelot and use her considerable resources to work toward her people's liberation, without indiscriminately murdering and enslaving the innocent poor.  She could seek out other magic-users like Alator in the spirit of true solidarity, as opposed to just using them as tools to get what she wants and then turning on them when they decide that they don’t want to use her sort of tactics to achieve their liberation.  She has hundreds of options, none of which necessarily even require her to forgive or reconcile with the people who harmed her, and none of which are even remotely open to Merlin, who (like Morgana) is still learning about his own abilities, and who (unlike Morgana) has no money, no social power, and no connections that he can leverage or lean upon, besides a tiny village of dirt-poor peasant farmers on the other side of the border with Cenred's kingdom.

Morgana has options.  The choices she makes are hers.  Gaius's decision not to tell her about her dreams is not equivalent to her receiving a blank check for harmful behavior.  She has so many resources.  She has so much power.  She could have chosen so many other paths - like Merlin tries to plead with her, in the crypt, after he tells her that he does not believe she deserves to be executed, despite what she's done: “We can find another way.”

She's the one who says, “There is no other way.”  She makes that decision.  She chooses to dismiss the thousand other paths available to her.  

That's on her.  That is always going to be on her.

iii. i'm going to give you one more chance

This last section...it’s more just a muddle of feels-riddled musing as opposed to a real opinion.  It's not something that has a right answer or a solution; it's just something I ponder sometimes.  

When we talk about harm being done in the real world, we talk about how intentions don't matter.  And that is absolutely true, in terms of both the impact of harmful actions and the harm-doer's responsibility to own what they did/make restitution.  If someone knocks you down, and you break your arm, the impact of that event doesn't change depending on whether the person in question did it on purpose or not.  Your arm's still broken, either way.  Intent doesn't matter, in terms of impact and responsibility - the actual harm done is the same, and the person who knocked you down should still be apologizing and making amends, regardless of whether they intended for you to fall or not.  

However - intent does matter when you're considering the future of your relationship with the person who knocked you down.  It affects how you react to what they did.  It changes how you respond to their actions.  If someone threw you to the ground on purpose, you'd (probably) feel differently about that than if a friend knocked you down because they were trying to pull you out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, or because they were carrying too many things in their arms and didn't see you turn the corner.

I think about this sometimes when it comes to Morgana and Merlin.

I don't want to frame this as "Morgana should have forgiven everybody who hurt her," because I don't think that's the case.  I've written before about how I fully understand her reasons for ultimately rejecting Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Gaius, etc.  She's not required to reconcile with anybody if she doesn't want to.

At the same time, though, I do wonder sometimes about intent.  And sometimes I ask myself how things might have been different if Morgana had considered intent, before things went completely to hell, and whether the story’s ultimate outcome might have changed, if she had given even just one of these people a chance.

Morgana has plenty of reasons extend some degree of understanding to the people who caused her pain.  The vast majority of the people who caused Morgana harm did so either a) out of love, in a sincere attempt to protect her from being killed, b) without any knowledge of the fact that she needed help, or c) after they thought she was attempting to kill everybody in the city.  Everything Gaius ever conceals from her is concealed with the intention of keeping her safe.  Arthur knows absolutely nothing about Morgana's parentage until after Morgana has already violently invaded Camelot, and he knows nothing about her prophecies/magic, either.  Gwen, too, is never told anything about Morgana's parentage or her magic, even though Gwen supports Morgana when Morgana thinks her dreams might be sorcery.  And Morgana never comes to Merlin for help, despite his demonstrated support in 2.03 - what he does later, in 2.11, is a response to him legitimately thinking that she is actively trying to kill everyone in Camelot.  When she comes back a year later, he forgives her for it immediately, and when he realizes she has turned against them again, he STILL tries to talk her around, to offer his hand.  

So I think about that sometimes.  And I wonder what would have happened if Morgana had chosen to recognize things like this.  Merlin, for his own part, always chooses to recognize things like this when it comes to the people who've done him wrong (and by this I do not mean to say that his response is always the best one - I'm not talking about him consistently allowing Arthur to continue oppressing him and his community, here.  I'm talking about him, on an interpersonal level, being able to recognize when the people who've harmed him did so in an attempt to keep him safe, or without fully understanding the potential consequences of their actions.)  

Merlin understands that his mother lied about Balinor and the dragonlords in an attempt to protect him, and he continues to love her in spite of the fact that the deception legitimately hurt him.  He understands when Gaius gives Finna up to Arthur, because he know that Gaius sincerely believed her to be a trap laid by Morgana.  He understands many of the things Morgana does, too, and he gives her all kinds of chances - he knows why she tries to kill Uther in 1.11, and he holds no grudge.  He knows she tried to steal the Crystal of Neahtid in 2.10, and again he holds no grudge - he doesn't even suspect her, at the beginning of the next episode, when the entire city falls asleep.  He forgives her in 3.01 after she (as far as he knows) tried to kill the entire city at the end of the previous season, and even after she reveals herself to be a traitor in 3.02, he tells her he doesn't believe she deserves to be executed for who she is.  He still feels for her.  He still understands.  He wants to connect with her.

And, admittedly, neither Morgana nor Merlin are obligated to extend this kind of understanding to the people who've harmed them.  The impact of the harmful actions is the same, and Morgana doesn't have to give her friends a chance if she doesn’t want to.  She doesn't have to consider their intentions.

But she could have.  And I think that in some of these situations, there are compelling reasons why she should have.  

It's important to me to recognize that Morgana's choice not to ever consider her friends' intentions, particularly when it comes to people like Gwen, who didn't even understand what was going on and who were given no chance to prove their willingness to help Morgana before Morgana attacked first - completely obstructs the possibility of making amends, working things out together, making a connection, or seeking a more positive outcome.  Morgana’s actions come out of nowhere, for most of the people who know her.  She starts trying to kill them before they ever even know anything is wrong.  She doesn’t give them a chance to help her.

And she doesn’t have to, certainly.  But I wonder sometimes what things would have looked like if she had.

[panharmonium]

Top 5 Merlin side/minor characters?

LOL THIS QUESTION IS UNFAIR I LOVE ALL OF THEM.  LIKE - sometimes I see criticism of Merlin’s “filler” episodes and I never ever understand that, like - those are…some of the best episodes of the show???  They?  Are some of the best stories???  Those are what gives this show so much of its charm?????  Idk, to each their own, but I aDORE those episodes and all the characters in them.

For the purposes of this question, I’m going to define side/minor Merlin characters as anybody who isn’t Uther, Gaius, Kilgharrah, the Core 4, or any of the knights.  If I were working on different definitions, I would definitely put Mordred on the following list of faves, because I LOVE him, but I think for these purposes he counts as a major character.

1) Not that this needs to be said, but…my absolute favorite is WILL!  Everybody who’s been on my blog at least once in the past year knows that Will is my number one most beloved side character.  I post about him incessantly, and if you want to understand why I love him so much, my tag for him is ‘no kings no masters.’

(The rest of these are not ranked in any particular order, because I love all the other minor characters the same.)

2) ELENA!  I adored her.  I loved how she just…in that opening scene, she’s just chowing down on an apple and checking her teeth in the mirror and farting in her room and I’m like “YES!  THAT IS A NORMAL HUMAN GIRL!  WE ALL DO THAT SHIT OK WE ARE JUST REGULAR PEOPLE’ it was like that feeling of what girls don’t get to be because somebody is always watching, but when we are home alone we stay in our pajamas and don’t look nice and just EXIST.  i just loved her.  And her dad was great, too; I liked him a lot.  And Grunhilda is in this episode, too - just a perfect, goofy side character.  Just delightful.

3) CATRINA OMG.  The troll arc is the funniest gotdam thing I’ve ever seen and the actress playing Catrina just went for it.  She just threw everything she had into that fucking role and it kills me every time.  

4) Mary the barkeep from Gwaine’s episode.  Lol I fuckin loved her.  Anybody who deflates Arthur’s ego in the process of praising Merlin is automatically my favorite person.

5) Annis.  That actress had a real presence, too, and I loved her character.  I was so happy she reappeared in S5, however briefly.  

Others because this is an unfair question and 5 is too small of a number.

GEOFFREY OMG.  How could I not mention geoffrey.  I was SO upset not to catch a glimpse of him in Season 5.

Mithian was frickin great.  I loved Finna and Alator.  I loved Freya and Gilli and Daegal.  I thought Myror the assassin was a badass, and I loved the fake knight from that same episode (Sir William) - he was so chill and like…just having a grand old time getting mixed up in all this silliness XD  I thought the Witchfinder was a GREAT villain, and his actor was fantastic.  I loved all the druids we met, including Kara.  I loved all the villains-of-the-week.  I loved the Fisher King and the Cailleach.  I loved Hunith and Balinor.  I loved Tom :’(  I liked Morgause a LOT in her first episode (though I feel like her development/motivations fell off later, personally).  I thought Nimueh was fascinating.  I even had a soft spot for Vivian - like, she was fucking rude to Gwen, okay, and that is a big no-no for me, but I loved how she legit did not give a shit for Arthur and slammed the door on him, and I LOVED how when her dad discovers her and Arthur together and he’s being all shouty and aggressive she’s not bothered at all and just makes a face like, “Father…” like she’s seen it all before and she thinks he’s being a little dumb and overdramatic lol.  

Honestly, the answer to this question is that there isn’t actually a side character on this show that I DIDN’T like.  Even the “bad” guys were entertaining and interesting to me.  I just…Merlin is a show that is almost entirely delightful to me, and I’m really happy that I had that kind of experience with it.