I'm afraid Merlin did more harm than good in this round ultimately.
My thoughts as well. As soon as he burst into the room, it was just... oh, honey, no. I mean, I'm the last person who wants to see Arthur run his father through with a broadsword (so many fandoms, TOO MANY BROADSWORD MURDERS), but at the same time things were coming so close to changing for the better, and now this lie not only takes things back to the status quo but in fact makes them worse because Uther has greater confidence in his ability to go on lying to Arthur, and Arthur has a deeper commitment to following his father in opposing magic, and all of this spells SO MUCH DAMN TROUBLE for Merlin so whhhyyyy did he do it...? And, oh, of course he did it all to spare Arthur from doing something he would later regret, from having his own family's blood on his hands, from entering into the same riddled-with-guilt-from-familial-murder downward spiral as Uther. The fact that Merlin made such a monumentally backward decision for the sole purpose of protecting Arthur? Kind of breaks my heart, just a teeny tiny bit. (And now we're getting back to the whole lying-to-Arthur-for-his-own-well-being, siiigh. This gang is piling up so much drama!)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-11-15 03:41 am (UTC)My thoughts as well. As soon as he burst into the room, it was just... oh, honey, no. I mean, I'm the last person who wants to see Arthur run his father through with a broadsword (
so many fandoms, TOO MANY BROADSWORD MURDERS), but at the same time things were coming so close to changing for the better, and now this lie not only takes things back to the status quo but in fact makes them worse because Uther has greater confidence in his ability to go on lying to Arthur, and Arthur has a deeper commitment to following his father in opposing magic, and all of this spells SO MUCH DAMN TROUBLE for Merlin so whhhyyyy did he do it...? And, oh, of course he did it all to spare Arthur from doing something he would later regret, from having his own family's blood on his hands, from entering into the same riddled-with-guilt-from-familial-murder downward spiral as Uther. The fact that Merlin made such a monumentally backward decision for the sole purpose of protecting Arthur? Kind of breaks my heart, just a teeny tiny bit. (And now we're getting back to the whole lying-to-Arthur-for-his-own-well-being, siiigh. This gang is piling up so much drama!)