I’m brainstorming for my post-season five fanfic and I’m a bit stuck.

Merlin is running in the desert, he’s a foot soldier and has deserted. He’s running with a friend. They spot something glinting in the distance, not a mirage – the holy grail. The cup turns his friend to dust but Merlin drinks and around him the enchanted forest springs into existence, and he gets magic and immortality and foresight and all that cool stuff. He also gets the ability to select an author and must have appointed several over the years.

Anyone got any guesses as to where the grail came from? Like who chucked it at Merlin and why? Also, you know where all this author crap stuff came from? I really hate that plotline but both the grail and the storybooks are kinda a big deal in the finale and ignoring them would be wrong.

This isn’t the canon I want, but it’s the canon we have and I kinda need to work with it, however much I’m swearing over here.

I’m wondering if maybe something to do with with the greek gods or the titans? They chucked Hades, Zeus and Hercules into the mix so that mythology exists in canon. The magic of a world has to come from somewhere and gods would have the ‘almighty’ power necessary. The real question is why and then – the author. Have I mentioned how much I hate that plot? Yeah I know, I’m a broken record on the subject.

It’s just the author has power over free will, the power to affect reality and nobody should have that power because it renders character development irrelevant. People don’t have to take any responsibility because “the author made me do it” and it’s hard to root for them as people, if they are obviously just characters and puppets on a string.

You know I did have a theory for a brief time that Merlin was a time traveler. It explained how he could be both in the tree and in the land without magic talking to Emma as a kid simultaneously. It would also explain his prophecies, he knew what happened if he saw it happen. But time travel makes everything so much more complicated and there is a much easier theory about Merlin being in two places at once – he wasn’t, his apprentice is a dab hand with glamours.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The show doesn’t bother explaining anything everything and so long as I work out how the storybooks and the grail got to the public library in New York, then everything else can just get handwaved with a “because it just does” reason.

As an author doing a “because I said so” kinda hurts. If I can’t make something stack up logically then I’m doing my job wrong but this isn’t my fictional universe. Coming up with a coherent theory as to the origins of the world is a little bit beyond me I’m afraid.

Yup I think I did just render this entire post pointless. I’m just venting really because I do want to know the answer to these questions. I just don’t have any theories and I doubt the show will ever explain it, mostly because I’m 95% certain that the writers/creators don’t have a clue either.

My other two WIP are canon divergent AU’s and there is no author plotline to screw everything up annoy me but this one is going to be first on the starting blocks.

Spoiler alert – there will be a Rumbelle true loves kiss. Like season 6 could have anything else …