Merlin (TV miniseries)/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Villain: It's a bit hard not to feel for Queen Mab as she fades from existence along with the last of the world's magic and the Old Ways, crying out for Merlin and Frik to look at her, rasping that she loves Merlin as a son while her voice grows increasingly thin and hoarse.
• Alternative Character Interpretation / Well-Intentioned Extremist: Queen Mab acted completely selflessly througout; her entire plot was an answer to the woman's prayer in the beginning, who cried "Queen Mab!"; It was an ordinary British human who prayed for the Old Ways to come back.
• Complete Monster: While most of the villains have some redeeming traits, Vortigern goes all the way. In addition to being a tyrant and a power-hungry conquerer, he takes the daughter of one of his most loyal lords captive and threatens to kill her himself if her father doesn't behave, just because he doesn't trust anyone, and casually refers to having murdered men, women, and children just for mouthing off to him.
  • Mordred is even worse. He injures or murders castle servants while practicing archery, shoots arrows at everyone in the room just because one of them commented that his performance was "less than perfect," acts disturbingly excited and pleased at the thought of Elaine's heartbreak, laughs at his own mother's death, starts a war and plunges Britain into chaos, etc. In the novelizations, his evil is stepped up a notch, and his motives border on Chaotic Evil Omnicidal Maniac doing it For the Evulz.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: Shortly after Morgan le Fay dies, Mordred comments, “She sleeps alone, at last.”
  • The second time we see Vortigern's castle under construction collapse:

Architect: The foundations are as strong as-!

• camera shifts to Vortigern's face, we hear the castle fall and see rocks tumble down the cliff in the background, and Vortigern's suppressed rage*
  

Vortigern: *Death Glare* ...you were saying?

• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Several. Just about every one is also a Tear Jerker, though.
  • One specific example is Merlin telling Arthur, "you were the right man to hold Excalibur", and seeing the look of gratitude on his face, moments before he dies.
• Crowning Music of Awesome
• Fridge Logic: If forgetting Queen Mab is the only thing that can ultimately defeat her, then isn't Merlin shooting himself in the foot by spending the rest of his life telling stories about her?
  • Thought it becomes Fridge Brilliance if you consider that the decline of the Old Ways and Mab's death in particular were very bittersweet for Merlin. He may be trying to keep them alive despite himself.
  • In the novelizations, Merlin doesn't include Mab in any of his stories, instead attributing her deeds to Morgan le Fay or Mordred, and Frik does the same thing. This is implied to be the thing that Frik noted was "omitted" from Merlin's story at the end.
  • Maybe he took a page from Terry Pratchett? When you tell stories about something, people know about them more, but believe about them less. Tell magical, fantastical stories about the Fair Folk today: next stop, nursery wallpaper.
• More Fridge Logic: So, Gallahad was the real Chosen One, instead of Lancelot . So, a 10-year-old boy was supposed to win the joust?
  • I roll my eyes at this one, since it makes no sense that had Merlin known that Galahad was The Chosen One that he'd put a kid in a jousting match. Also, it's that he would be the perfect knight when he was grown up, not as a kid. This isn't a case of Fridge Logic because it's not suggested that he has to win a jousting match anyway, just that he has to be a man of pure heart.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Just look at the costume ^{[dead link]} Martin Short wore as Frik, and consider that Morgan is played by Helena Bonham Carter.
• Jerkass Woobie: Morgan le Fey grows up insecure about her lisp and drooping eyelid. She witnesses Uther rape her mother via Bed Trick, then murder her father and his men, all because Merlin let him. Later, she's used as a pawn by Mab and Frik, and eventually her son completely stops caring about her in preference for a surrogate, "Auntie" Mab, who kills her in the end. On the other hand, her reaction to the childhood trauma is bitterness and eager complicity in the plot to screw over Arthur, and she probably has a lot to do with Mordred's poor character.
• Moral Event Horizon: Vortigern casually referring to having killed men, women, and children simply for insolence, or deciding to sacrifice Nimue to a dragon simply because it was most convenient.
  • For Mordred, this moment is probably when Mab kills Morgan le Fay, and he responds by laughing about it and complimenting her on it. “That was very clever.”
• Tear Jerker: The deaths of Ambrosia and later Arthur, and their final words with Merlin. Also, How Frik's relationship with Morgan le Fay ends.
  • The Lady of the Lake's final conversation with Merlin, and the lingering demise of both Queen Mab and Magic.

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