Weirdly, this is one of those really specific ones that I know right off the top of my head.
You know that bit in The Diamond of the Day, where Merlin is in the cave and he doesn't think he has any magic left in him? And then ghost!Balinor gives him that whole spiel about how he is magic and he can't lose what he is. And then that thing happens. Where he opens his hands, and the butterfly comes out.
I cannot even begin to express how much I love this, but why don't I give a shot?
So, for one thing, the context. For the entirety of season 5, Merlin has been forced to repeatedly defy himself. He becomes so intensely focused on saving Arthur that he allows himself to suffer for it. This is especially obvious in episodes like The Disir, where he has a chance to show Arthur a different side of magic and threw it away for fear that it would be Arthur's death (which doesn't really fit with the revelation that Arthur is his own bane, but that's just another example of Merlin not having big-picture vision where he should, which I talked about in Day 2). But there are other instances like that as well, and not only in season 5 - the other obvious one being The Sins of the Father. But season 5 really struck me was the one where Merlin is repeatedly faced with doing the opposite of what he believes - our idealist hero chooses to refuse to save Mordred because of what he might, possibly do, and when he takes a moment to do the thing he does believe to be right in helping that "druid" boy, it backfires dramatically and he ends up nearly dying because of it. Not to mention one of the few good things Merlin managed last season, Aithusa, is actually an enemy now. Magic in general, something which is so huge for him and so essential to his being, is just generally not working out for him at this point in his journey.
And that ends up being reflected in how he uses magic. Because near the beginning of the series, the magic truly was part of him, and whenever you saw him using it you saw him enjoying it. Obviously there were times when he was using it because he had to, but not always. I think of The Moment of Truth, in the moment where he makes the Pendragon dragon in the embers of the fire. Or the horse in the smoke in The Witchfinder. He wasn't doing these things because he had to, he did them because magic isn't just a tool for him at this point. He did them because he's passionate about magic, and would find any chance to use it. This is the Merlin who said the words, "If I can't use magic, what have I got? [...] If I can't use magic, I might as well die."
Ouchies, considering the events of the first part of The Diamond of the Day.
But the point is, you don't see stuff like that through most of season 5 (or really, much anywhere past season 2, to be honest). You don't even notice him enjoying it that much in season 5, which is one thing that's distinctly different from the other seasons. It's simply a necessary tool for him, just something else in his arsenal to help him protect Arthur.
Because there's one other thing that makes this moment great, and that's that for the previous season, Merlin has become increasingly obsessed with protecting Arthur - to the point of it not even being entirely justified anymore. Even when he loses his magic, which would have absolutely devastated a younger Merlin to the core - and this Merlin certainly isn't happy about it, but his biggest woe seems to be that he's useless without it, rather than it being a part of him. It isn't, "Who am I without it?" It's "I can't protect Arthur without it." He puts Arthur so much above himself that it's concerning.
And now, Merlin knows that there's a battle coming, that Arthur is probably in the gravest danger he's ever been in (considering the likelihood of prophecies regarding Mordred coming true), and that he, Merlin, is far away and unable to directly help.
But in the moment he recovers his magic, none of that matters. He doesn't jump into protection right away. He doesn't use his magic like a tool.
He closes his hands, and when he opens them, a butterfly comes out.
It's been so terribly long since we saw Merlin do something, well, beautiful with his magic. It's also been a long time since we saw that kind of happiness on Merlin's face. This Merlin was always there, the passionate, joyful one - that's the one at the heart of everything, but it's been so terribly long since we saw that rise to the surface. And it's just so inherently Merlin - it's just the loveliest reminder of how sweet-natured a being he really is, when he has a moment to let himself be. It's like, this is who Merlin is in the dark. He isn't naturally the cynical, somewhat Machiavellian soldier that his circumstances have forced him to be. This is how he thinks of magic - a thing of beauty.
And it doesn't matter that in the next moment he's leaping into action to help Arthur, because fine, that's his duty, his destiny, if you must. The point is, he had that moment of love and joy for magic that he hasn't had since Aithusa was hatched. He had that moment of loving it for what it was instead of using it for its convenience.
And when he loves magic, he loves himself. In that moment, it's like he redeemed himself of all the times he ignored his own principles. Because this was a moment where he was really, unequivocally being true to himself, for the first time in a long, long time.
Remembering that at Merlin's core, he is actually full of passion and love - that is just really important to me.
Unrelatedly, the whole thing was beautifully shot. I love the lighting. I love how they've sort of camouflaged him into the crystal cave, colour wise, but he's still sharp and clear. It's beautiful.
And, basically, I just thought the whole thing was the loveliest thing I've ever seen.
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