#yea yea once again in the arthur trenches but i've been meaning to say this for SO long so yk

[queerofthedagger]

the thing i feel people don't really take enough into account when it comes to arthur's supposed obliviousness regarding merlin's magic is that merlin is the absolute opposite of what arthur has been raised to believe sorcerers to be. merlin is clumsy and kind and - in the earlier seasons - like walking sunshine. he so obviously has negative desire for actual power, nor any respect for it, and while arthur absolutely knows that merlin isn't stupid, he 100% is an idiot.

and it's not stupid or ignorant on his part! people just do this, whenever they are taught someone who does or believes a certain thing is inherently evil! it's never the friendly guy next door who snacks half of your breakfast and then just grins when you complain, obviously not! arthur trusts merlin even early on, and beyond belief later on. of course merlin can basically do magic in front of him, because there is no part of arthur that actually thinks someone like merlin could have magic. you don't see what you're 100% convinced can't be there. if he ever got there, his already brittle construct of indoctrination and supposed repeated confirmation of said construct would crumble immediately! as it does in dotd after like, a day. it only doesn't in regards to morgana because as far as arthur is concerned, the moment she started using magic she became the cold and ruthless enemy he still couldn't bring himself to actually pursue! like.

it's very easy to think it's startingly oblivious, but one thing i really wish people would keep in mind a little more is that the viewer watches from a different point of view, and operates with a whole other set of information. that arthur operates under a certain worldview in an environment that does not teach to question it at all, and gives little opportunity to do so. it's actually wild arthur questions uther's teachings as often as he does, and considering that every time he does, they, to his knowledge, just get confirmed again (nimueh, morgause, morgana, uther's death, and so on and so forth), it's even wilder that he keeps doing it

#*mine #mona's rambling #bbc merlin #arthur pendragon #bbcm #yea yea once again in the arthur trenches but i've been meaning to say this for SO long so yk #merlin meta #like. it's not as if he can go google 'are sorcerers actually evil' #he only has people's words and people's actions for it and his overall experience on that front is. uhm. not good #to put it mildly #it's frankly a lil infuriating but also very on the zeitgeist how this just rarely gets taken into account #but like. let's not go there i've managed to be so nice imma shut up while i'm ahead and all that <3