BBC’s show Merlin versus Grendel & the Dragon

                BBC’s hit show (which sadly canceled) “Merlin” is based upon the Arthurian legends about Merlin’s (the sorcerer) impact on King Arthur’s reign. BBC embedded many different allusions and adopted a lot of Campbell’s ideas within the t.v. show (with some minor tweeks). As I briefly brought up in my “Grendel Journal”, after reading about the dragon in Grendel, it made me question the impact of the dragon in Merlin’s story and the dragon in Grendel’s story. In a nutshell, Merlin enters Camelot as a scavenger to find a way to control (and hide) his magic under Gaius, his some-what mentor. But immediately when he arrives to Camelot, the younger version of Merlin runs into a hot-headed youth named Arthur, in which he gets in a fight with (before realizing, of course, he is the kings’ son). After getting thrown in jail temporarily, he is determined to leave Camelot and almost refuses his “call to adventure” until he meets a dragon, who in which he finds chained into a cave below the castle because of King Uther’s dislike for magic and magical creatures.  The dragon in Merlin, alike to the dragon in Grendel, notices his quick decision to change his fate and immediately stops him, by saying that Merlin and Arthur are meant to be “two sides of the same coin”. Or in other words, he must continue his role in Camelot to make Arthur a successful ruler, whether Merlin is happy with that or not. Of course, Merlin is convinced to stay (even though he swears to not believe in the dragon’s words). At the dinner towards the end of the first episode, Merlin saves Arthur’s life and is hired to be his manservant, forever stuck in his role in the kingdom.

                Though it is debatable of whether the dragon in Grendel is a bad being or a good being, his impact on Grendel’s decision leads Grendel to continuously destroy the community. Though in Merlin his role is the complete opposite – Merlin is supposed to keep balance by saving people with magic, especially Arthur – the dragon still holds a selfish dark side that destroys the kingdom.  Though it is not addressed in the beginning of the show, in the middle of the second season it is revealed that the dragon actually despises the kingdom and has been using Merlin as a way to cause chaos (like the Dragon in Grendel has been using Grendel to physically destroy the kingdom). After the dragon realizes that Merlin’s place in society had not backfired and he, frankly, has not screwed it up yet, the dragon reveals to Merlin that he will not guide him anymore if he does not let him go. Merlin is skeptical, finally seeing that the dragon could be potentially angry at Uther but he refuses to release him because of his love (context of this ‘love’ has been debated greatly) for Arthur. After a certain point though, when Merlin and the Dragon make one last final deal that the dragon will help save Arthur one last time in return with being free, Merlin is forced to release the dragon. The dragon burns down the majority of Camelot, trying to prove to Merlin how balance between the magical creatures and mortals is impossible (which, ironically, he had been telling Merlin the opposite to keep him in Camelot). That, in the end, only time will tell how the humans pan out.