i 🩵 dark magicks

gwen & elyan's relationship literally deserved so much better... insane that the writers just forgot he existed when it was convenient. like are you truly trying to be tell me her BROTHER was just Okay With All Of That. gwen almost gets exiled then executed in season 3 after elyan has resettled in camelot and he does not appear in that episode ONCE. she doesn't even get a scene saying goodbye to him in the darkest hour even though it was thought the knights were ostensibly very possibly riding to their deaths. he doesn't have any reaction to it when arthur breaks up with her out of nowhere in his father's son in s4 and in fact has a scene telling him he would die for him straight afterwards... (which is fine but. is he not mad about the way he broke up with her out of nowhere). he doesn't even appear when arthur exiles her later the same season or try to leave with her. idk it's just so wild. because i KNOW he was not okay with all of that!

sorry for posting a tiktok i know that’s like bad etiquette on here or something but this edit is literally doing something to my brain… IMAGINE IF EVIL GWEN HAD BEEN GOOD. AUGH.

the thing that bothers me most about the whole exile arc isn’t even that arthur exiles gwen necessarily (though i maintain that the way it was done was still absolutely unnecessarily cruel) but it's more so the way that the narrative presents it. like the narrative framing the writers chose to go with is essentially that what he's doing is wrong because WE, the audience, know that she didn't actually cheat - therefore he’s overreacting about something she didn't do. instead of it being that a) regardless of whether she cheated or not it would STILL BE WRONG for him to exile her even if she did - because she’s a commoner without status and a single woman being thrown out of the only home she’s ever known without provisions or a place to go on the pain of death, and that he’s abusing his power without realising it. (like what happened to all that about class equality... ok!!). and also that b) regardless of whether she cheated she would still be sympathetic and that one mistake doesn't define you and that relationships are messy and people have flaws. idk it is just so ridiculous to me that she’s not allowed to make even one mistake before he exiles her after all that talk about how he would give up his kingdom for her. its a choice!

like ultimately regardless of whether she did it or not. how he responded was still wrong and it really bothers me that that ENTIRE arc (which did nothing but traumatise her!!!!) is made to about arthur and him deciding to take his mistake back and realising he regrets it. like SHE GETS EXILED and somehow the story is still only interested in arthur…. like truly what the fuck. they just put her through trauma and then discarded it all without ever giving it the space it needed to be processed either by her or the audience. it’s the way her pain and trauma are just sooo constantly sidelined by the show's narrative in order to better serve arthur and his 'character development' or whatever. im just so done !

someone replied to one of my posts with this and i am removing this from context but i just think gwen literally looks so so cute here im almost in tears about it… babygirl of all time…

sorry but im on the 4x05 rewatch and it kind of bothers me how arthur apologises to gwen after breaking up with her in this ep… like SHE comes to HIM instead of the other way around (way to make an effort man.) and he just gets her some flowers and calls it a day 😭😭😭😭 um. personally i would have been on my hands and knees begging her to take me back instead of acting like i was entitled to her forgiveness because i changed my mind or whatever but it’s fine i guess…

well. i'd assume her sanity for one! also hey anon what do you mean by 'dirt to gold'... quickly. in a way that's normal about class!

and u know what... in contrast to merlins trauma which is much more evident in canon (like we get to SEE all the suffering he goes through for arthur) and acknowledged by the narrative. gwen suffers SO much and sacrifices so much for arthur's sake too but because it’s never acknowledged by the show to the same degree we’re just supposed to ignore it.

gonna be honest i dont think EYE am the one being insane here ok. just. can u imagine. marrying the guy who arrested you and your father on multiple occasions and then his father has your father murdered for absolutely no reason other than because he's an insane tyrant. and then you start falling in love with his son which is okay because you think he's way better than his terrible dad except then he talks about how much he cares and worries about his dad in front of you all the time and you're never supposed to feel uncomfortable about it ever. in fact you have to comfort him about it. and then you almost get banished because of his dad discovering youre in a relationship with him and half the episode is spent showing how unfair and terrible this is because youre a single woman with nowhere to go and now you're being exiled from the only home you've ever known. and then one season later your now fiancee does the exact same thing to you he exiles you for kissing your ex one time and then you have to take refuge in your friends hometown because you literally have nowhere else. because your fiancee didnt consider that before. checks notes. exiling you to nowhere on the pain of death!!!! a normal engagement thats like a breakup but yikes tough luck turns out he's the king so he's allowed to do that to you! this is the same guy who likes to pretend that he's above 'class' but apparently also doesnt understand the concept of it. also the narrative will act like he was kind of justified in doing this to you because his feelings got hurtsies :( with no consideration of the power dynamic involved. also the entire time he's king as well as after you get married he will spend considerable amounts of time talking about how much he idolises and hero worships the legacy of his dead insane father. the guy who literally murdered your father and also almost had you burned to death multiple times. and youre supposed to be okay with all of this btw

i want to talk about the dark tower (5.06) because it is SUCH a frustrating episode for multiple reasons. it’s unique in that it’s one of the only morgana/gwen centric episodes in the entire series - and yet it ends up becoming a detriment to both of their characters’ development. this episode sucks not just because of the evil gwen plotline (which was terrible yes. we love the writers just removing her autonomy over and over again for no reason!) which resulted from it but also because the lost potential of it all - when this setup could have been easily used to create some of the most interesting plot lines for gwen (and morgana) in s5

like. sorry to say but would it be that impossible or insane for gwen to actually sympathise to some degree with morgana here without magical brainwashing. to me its not! the thing about gwen is that she's a morally driven character first and foremost. one of the main reasons she falls in love with arthur is because crucially, she sees him as a good person. she loves him for the values that she believes he upholds and his desire to do justice. it was same with lancelot - it's emphasised that she liked him because he's honourable and good. we also see that she values her morality and doing the right thing above her own emotions at times (re: her not wishing for uther's death even after he killed her father).

with that in mind, would it be that insane for her entire perspective on arthur and merlin (AND magic) to change because of morgana? firstly, gwen never finds out that merlin poisoned morgana. this is very important to me.... because although yes he didn't 'have a choice' (im not gonna get into all of that but i understand both sides of the argument. whatever) he still did something wrong. like. killing 1 or 10 people in the trolley problem still makes u a murderer. she has every right to hate him. he objectively betrayed her and took advantage of her trust. i feel as if gwen would sympathise with morgana and at the very least this would affect her opinion towards merlin to some degree, and make her realise he's hiding things (because she, like arthur, doesn't know half the shit he gets up to and does! she even less than him!). furthermore (and more importantly) i can absolutely see gwen sympathising with morgana against arthur to some degree too. like yes he's her husband but AGAIN she's someone who always puts her principles first and objectively arthur is upholding his father's legacy by continuing the oppression of magic users. he is textually an oppressor. in 5.13 its clear gwen doesnt fully distrust or hate magic from her conversation with gaius (although she might be suspicious of it considering her past experiences) so she would probably be very sympathetic and understanding if morgana were to explain to her what it was like to be a magic user under uther's reign. how demonised and oppressed they truly were and continue to be. like. she would absolutely still criticise and call morgana out for hurting innocent people but ultimately morgana's cause (despite it being not really true to what it claims to be) would be sympathetic. at the very least she would see that arthur is wrong, even somewhat, for continuing to uphold his father's legacy. especially because (as the writers seemed to forget for some reason.) of her extremely complicated relationship with uther in the past, considering he almost had her killed more than once and did in fact murder her father because of his obsession with banning magic. and now her husband is doing the same thing.

no of course gwen would not side with morgana at this point in the story. but she would understand her and sympathise and it would create such an interesting moment of character growth/conflict. it would make her question her marriage, the things she THOUGHT arthur and camelot stood for and whether those things are really true. it would make her doubt merlin's character and realise he's hiding so much more than she thought. it might make her distrust him or demand the truth. it might make her wonder what SHE wants to do as queen, as a ruler in her own right, especially if she starts to have ideological disagreements with her husband. there's literally so much that could have been done with her in s5 as fallout from just this one episode and they did the most boring thing ever and made it suck so bad. bbc merlin writers ur not seeing the pearly gates

I LOVE THE SCENE IN THE DARKEST HOUR PT2 WHEN GWEN TELLS AGRAVAINE OFF SO SO MUCH!!! i love especially that when she addresses the room she says 'prince arthur taught me long ago that every citizen of camelot is important'. like augh!!!! the way that its literally the opposite way around. that it's SHE who taught HIM that but she has to change her words around because she knows that the court won't take her seriously unless her filters her points through his words!!!

the way that gwen takes care of uther when he's sick out of nothing but love for arthur despite her hatred of him for killing her father. the way she is able to put aside her hate because of the strength of her love. did it hurt when you fell from heaven girl!!!!