Any thoughts on s5 merwaine strained relationship (Merlin not wanting to save him in ep1/2,not hugging him in ep4, Gwaine not speaking up for Merlin when Gwen accused him of Arthur’s murder, Eira (ep12).
First off, I’m going to start with the obvious: season 5 eps 1 & 2 are painfully out of character, poorly written imposter episodes. The sole purpose of Merlin’s hesitance to ride out is to uplift Arthur’s character, making him appear more heroic and matured than Merlin, and by comparison to where we saw him in s4, without having to actually develop his character. It’s cheap, lazy writing, to put it bluntly.
But, if it helps… Merlin wasn’t just ~abandoning~ Gwaine. He thought Gwaine was dead and that Arthur was going on a fool’s errand to join him in an early grave. Regardless of the fact that Gwaine was very much still kickin’, this is the place that Merlin was coming from. If the writers really needed to take the route they did, they should have given us a scene of Merlin mourning Gwaine to make this clearer, but since the writers only care about Arthur, they only show us this information through Merlin’s concern for Arthur. But it is present in the text.
In 5x04, we can see that Merlin is frantic to get to Arthur because Arthur is walking into a trap. It’s a time-sensitive mission. The purpose of writing a scene where Merlin shoves off Gwaine’s hug is simply to express this urgency. It comes across worse because, again, the writers do not find it important to show Merlin and Gwaine after they save the battle. They only care about how these events fuel Arthur’s reputation (not to be mistaken with development… he does not truly develop).
The belief that Gwaine simply let Merlin be arrested in 5x07 is a fanon pet peeve of mine. We don’t actually see any of the knights’ reactions in the immediate aftermath— only that Merlin did indeed get thrown in the dungeons. Later, we see that Leon believes the accusation and fully supports Gwen. We also see Gwaine pursuing what he believes to be an intruder in the citadel and, later, releasing Merlin from the dungeons himself with a massive smile on his face. We can pretty easily infer from this that 1) Gwaine did not believe that Merlin did it; 2) He may have been attempting to find the real culprit; and 3) He was outnumbered by the knights who did believe Gwen/follow her orders (such as Leon). After all, if Gwaine had arrested Merlin or believed the accusation for a second, he would have shown guilt upon releasing him from the dungeons. And why have Gwaine specifically be the only knight to release Merlin otherwise?
Gwaine sleeping with Eira is not evidence of a strained friendship between Merlin and Gwaine. Rather, it ends up proving where Gwaine’s loyalties truly lay— and it showcases Merlin’s friendship with Gwaine, which has indeed been ignored in s5. The reason for this is because it is their last episode together, and the writers are aware that fans care enough about their friendship that it needed the attention promised from Gwaine’s intro ep.
Gwaine rescues a cute girl (and gets rescued in return) and takes a special interest in her because he’s attracted to her. Merlin does Gwaine a personal favor by tending to her wounds. Later, Merlin asks Gwaine to escort him into the Valley of the Fallen Kings and does not provide an explanation for why, because he trusts Gwaine to protect him. Gwaine acquiesces, leaving Eira behind even though she asks him to stay. Gwaine makes it clear to Merlin that he’s doing this for Merlin because he wants to and does not expect anything in return— in fact, he feels he’s gotten more than enough in return. Merlin trusts Gwaine enough to admit he’s lying to him, even if he won’t tell Gwaine what about. And Gwaine trusts Merlin enough to leave him to it, then leaves Merlin with his sword since he won’t accept Gwaine’s protection any further.
Offscreen, Gaius reveals to Gwaine that Merlin believes Eira to be the traitor in the court, and provides Merlin’s evidence. Gwaine takes Merlin’s word for it and sets Eira up, sending her to her execution. So, really, the whole Eira situation is functionally meant to boost our view of their selfless friendship… but a bit too late, since the writers have neglected them quite literally all season long. It’s very much a last minute “shit we forgot to care” project.
When they do give Merlin and Gwaine’s dynamic attention, though, the writers make sure to present how close they are, but they ignore this for the most part to focus on Arthur. Essentially, it’s not that Merlin doesn’t still care about Gwaine… it’s that the writers don’t. The writers literally do not care about anyone besides Arthur— not even Merlin, the titular character. Not only did they neglect to give Merlin any character consistency in s5, but they did so (and framed events in a specific way) to ensure that Arthur’s reputation would remain unstained, as he is a personified fantasy of avoiding accountability and being coddled for one’s own wrongdoings.
Fans, of course, buy into this and argue that Arthur can do no wrong because he’s “too ignorant” to know any better, instead placing blame on characters like Morgana for “proving the stereotypes right” or onto Gwen and Merlin for “coddling” him. Thus, these fans coddle Arthur, despite claiming the opposite.
The truth is that Arthur is responsible for his own actions and beliefs. Those actions and beliefs are the mass slaughter of innocent people simply because they have magic. He’s already seen more than enough evidence that magical peoples are not inherently evil or harmful, and applied this same logic to other areas of life (such as nobles vs. commoners), and found that no one is inherently superior or inferior for their birth circumstances. It is only in the topics of magic (and gender…) that Arthur believes this. But even after the Dolma saves Gwen, he still refuses to lift the ban… so, yeah, all in all you can blame the lack of Merlin and Gwaine content in s5 on the writers not wanting Arthur to either develop or be held accountable for his actions. Instead, they wanted to present a character to be lauded above all others no matter what he does. This tells you a lot about the morals of the people writing the story… and maybe some of the things they don’t want to be held responsible for. After all, 35% of all BBCM episodes come with a message of, “If you try to stop this oppressive bigot, you’re just as bad as he is!”
TL;DR: they shoved Merlin and Gwaine aside to make more room for monarchy propaganda.
