panharmonium

I think Kilgharrah tells us what he’s all about in the first episode.

He lays it out for us right there.  Kilgharrah is a dragon and cannot reasonably be evaluated by human standards of morality/justice/etc.  I don’t think he perceives time the same way humans do.  I don’t think anything about the world or human life looks the same way to him that it would to someone like Merlin.  I certainly don’t agree with the idea that he was malicious or actively sabotaging Merlin, but I do think dragons perceive the world a little closer to the Old Religion’s stark philosophy of “the Old Religion does not care who lives and who dies, only that the balance of the world is maintained.”

And I think there is probably something to be said about that in terms of why the Dragonlord-Dragon connection used to be so important, and how the sundering of that connection might have contributed to the things Kilgharrah does that everybody gets worked up about (ie attacking Camelot).  It’s Merlin sparing Kilgharrah’s life that ultimately changes his behavior, after all:

I have shown you mercy.  Now you must do the same to others.

(GOD that is just such a powerful line - )

And Kilgharrah does listen.  So that’s honestly a fascinating moment, for me, and makes me think about the kinds of (not conventionally human, exactly, but still powerful) connections that dragons might have been capable of, before their traditional bonds with the Dragonlords were obliterated.