#the moral goal of the show is impossible to suss out mostly because it doesn't really HAVE a conscious moral goal

[july-19th-club]

above all of the other things good bad and sillyridiculous that it is, bbc merlin (2008) is a long, slow, dreadful commentary on being closeted among people you love but cannot trust, and the two primary characters this commentary follows (merlin and morgana) each take opposite, yet equally destructive, paths to deal with this struggle. his assimilationist tendencies put him in danger as often as they protect him, and he can never fully know whether his friends and family would protect him if he were out or not. she goes full rebel, but allows it to embitter her until she can't see good anywhere and her eagerness for justice curdles into a habit of violence that also fails to change the society that produced that habit in any meaningful way. and there is no golden age, because no matter how much you'd like to try, it takes more faith than anyone here could reasonably be expected to have to be open when your life is on the line