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The BBC fantasy drama Merlin (also known as The Adventures of Merlin) premiered on 20 September 2008 and ran for five seasons, each consisting of thirteen episodes of approximately forty-five minutes.
Starring Colin Morgan as Merlin and Bradley James as Arthur Pendragon, the show retells the Arthurian legends from a different angle. According to Michelle (2020), James said Merlin is ultimately the story of King Arthur, but told through Merlin’s eyes. This narrative shift significantly transforms one of the oldest legends in Western literature. It shows Merlin not as an old mentor or an architect of destiny, but as a young man confronted with moral conflict, secrecy, and a lot of decision-making.
The Arthurian legend has never been a fixed canon. It has existed in hundreds of variations (Christian, pagan, medieval, romantic, modern), each establishing different themes and relationships. Because of this long literary tradition, Merlin participates in a cultural lineage where reinvention is not only allowed but expected. As mentioned earlier, the show diverges from common elements of the legend: Merlin is not an elderly prophet but a young warlock, intended to be only a few years younger than the prince.
Arthur, too, is reimagined in the show. While many traditional takes of the legends, such as Disney’s The Sword in the Stone (1963), depict him growing into magic under Merlin’s mentorship, the BBC series presents him as a young man shaped by Uther’s fear and intolerance toward magic. This narrative change becomes the core conflict of the show: Merlin’s destiny is to unite magic and mankind, yet the person he cares for most is also the one he must hide his true self from.
The relationship between Arthur and Merlin is widely recognized as the show’s main attraction, often described as “two sides of the same coin”. It is precisely this connection that encourages deeper exploration of their characters, and it is what inspired my own interest in them and their story.
The creators of the series have explicitly acknowledged this emotional depth between Merlin and Arthur. Julian Murphy, the showrunner, confirms that by the end of the series, the two characters had indeed grown to love each other, describing it as a “pure” love. In the commentary for episode 5x13, he elaborates, “We did, very genuinely, think of the episode as a love story between two men. Which is what I think it is, jokes and innuendo aside,” and reiterates, “I think it’s a love story, it absolutely is a love story” (Murphy, as cited in BBC Merlin commentary on the DVD, 2015).
The emotional intensity between Merlin and Arthur inevitably positions BBC Merlin within broader discussions of queerbaiting in media. As Urbank (2023) explains, queerbaiting involves using queer subtext to attract queer audiences while withholding explicit representation, a dynamic understood primarily from the fan’s perspective: it is the audience who identifies the pattern of suggestion without fulfillment. Merlin exemplifies this. The series invites queer readings through sustained intimacy, emotional declarations, and its consistent prioritization of Merlin and Arthur’s bond, yet it ultimately stops short of canonizing a queer relationship. Thompson (2023) expands on this framework by distinguishing different forms of queerbaiting and argues that Merlin most clearly participates in cultural queerbaiting. The show repeatedly hints at a non-heteronormative relationship and encourages emotional investment in that possibility, only to retreat at the narrative climax. This withdrawal reflects what Thompson describes as an industry fear of alienating conservative audiences, even as it depends on queer viewers’ engagement.
Within fandom culture, this tension has generated what Fowler (2021) and Ramírez (2020) describe as a form of digital resistance literature. Fans write fics not simply out of affection, but as a corrective to structural erasure. Merthur fanfiction becomes an act of reclamation, transforming the subtext the series withholds into explicit narrative. As Thompson notes, fanon often becomes so influential that it reshapes how audiences interpret the original text; Merlin, with more than twenty-nine thousand Merthur works on AO3 (29,980), stands as a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This essay examines Merlin and Arthur’s relationship by interpreting key scenes, lines, and emotional moments from the series, and placing them in dialogue with selected song lyrics to make it more dynamic. The songs serve as interpretive tools that help draw out themes of youth, regret, grief, devotion, and the weight of destiny that run through their story.
At the same time, my aim in doing this (reading academic papers and blogs, watching YouTube analyses, and examining the series through songs and close readings) is not only to understand Merlin and Arthur more clearly, but to become part of the tradition of fan resistance literature that surrounds this show since it aired. I think engaging with the text in this intimate, creative way is itself a form of participation in that culture of reinterpretation and reclamation. But one day, I hope to reach a point where I can write my own fic about them.