Thanks and Extras

Hello everyone! Once again, I hope you enjoyed reading this story!

I want to thank all of you for sticking with me along this, especially to those who wrote reviews about the story. It's a lot easier to keep writing when you know that you are in the right path, and a lot more rewarding.

So, that being said...

*takes a deep breath*

Thanks Aerist, AJsRandom, AndreKl, Assassin of Syria, bubzchoc, 1, camelotgirl15, Cel140, Charles Ceaser, Feyfa14Frost, ForIHaveTakenOverTheWorld, Freya13, General E, Guest, hithere, Howarand, Iricious, JACarter, josiah275, just a panda, Lady Flurryous, Magicisagift, mean melon, mergana always, Meri Ley, merlinlost, mersan123, NerdGirlAlert, NightsAnger, Nollypoo, ObiWanKedopy, OechsnerC, Patiku, Queen Kordeilia, rmatri540, sdsmile, shell22, Signal27, SpanishPlume, Starry Roses, SunnySmile1324, The Forrest of Fanfic, The PhantomHokage and Tolleren for the reviews all along the story =D

I will reply some of the last reviews at the end of this "chapter".

What's next is basically a bit of thoughts and comments about the story. Things I wrote. Things I didn't. Things that I faced while writing the things I wrote and not writing the things I didn't write. All that.


About the story

Dragoon the Great

So, this whole story started with an idea. What if Dragoon the Great actually existed? This, added to the fact that I hadn't liked how things ended between Merlin and Morgana was what made this story happen. He would obviously be a wizard, and I wanted for him to somehow help Merlin to fix his life a bit, but without making it too obvious, and at the same time making him a character worth existing. For that I created the whole legend of how the dragonlords were born, which expanded already existing lore and gave me really nice enemies for the final battle (who actually weren't a sure thing from the beginning). I always liked to think how people would be like if they lived "forever", and since Merlin was already kind of immortal, throwing a few more into the mix didn't seem that forced. Imagine all they been through, all that they saw, all that they learned. However I also wanted him to have a "funny" personality, kind of like the Merlin from the earlier seasons, but with a little more of cockiness (which I consider kind of inevitable when you are more than ten times older than everyone else around you). As time went by he became more and more "real", with his own interests, problems and troubled past.

At first I didn't have very clear if he was just a random sorcerer or something more. I did play with the idea of him being Merlin from the future or someone else who we already know, but I wanted to make him his own man, and honestly, bringing time travel into the story always complicate things a lot xD (for example, you would have to justify why isn't possible do it a lot, because otherwise he would just go back and fix every single one of his messes) (or at least try). Another option was that Dragoon was some kind of trickster god, but that wouldn't have been too good for the universe.

Merlin revealing his magic to... well... everyone?

So, since we started this story with really few people knowing the truth about him, there was the issue of how would each of the other characters find out about this, especially Gwen, Morgana and Arthur.

The trick part with this was not to repeat the same formula again and again, because while that it's kind of likely that it would happen like that in the "real" world, is really dull to read the same thing over and over again xD.

Gwen was the easier one because she was the one who was, in a way, less affected by it and because she had been Merlin's friend for a long time. While she had been in the receiving end of plenty "bad" magic, she was the one of the three who would be less inclined to reject Merlin's true self.

The idea that Arthur already knew about Merlin was something I already was planning from the beginning, but doing it was really tricky because too much things had to make sense (like for example, on certain chapters I would show what Arthur was doing, but not what he was thinking, because otherwise it would show that he knew about Merlin's magic). At first I didn't even remember that Morgana had told him about Emrys at the end of season 4, but when I recalled that everything started coming together. Still, writing that chapter meant I had to connect it to everything that happened in all my previous chapters, which took some work.

Merlin meeting Morgana

So, I knew that this meeting had to be with under some strange conditions so they didn't kill each other in sight xD. I liked using the two way books because they gave them a chance to know each other "better" again before actually realizing who the other was.

At the same time, Morgana learning about Merlin's magic first before learning he was actually Emrys gave her a bit more of time to accustom to the idea and gave the chance for Merlin to help her, showing her that Emrys didn't actually want to destroy her.

One of other ideas for their meeting that I ended up not using was using Aithusa as "something in common" between both of them. Merlin would meet Aithusa in the forest having no idea he was with Morgana, followed her, and something like this would have taken place:

Merlin saw Morgana's eyes wide in shock when she spotted him with Aithusa and he instantly moved in front of the dragon to protect her.

"Stay away from her!" they both yelled at each other. Confused by what the other said they took a few seconds before speaking a second time. "I won't let you hurt her!" they said, again together.

Merlin was shocked at the emotion in Morgana's voice. It was almost like she really cared about the dragon, but he knew better than to fall for her lies again; for all he knew she was probably training him to attack Camelot some day, and that he couldn't afford.

After that conversation Merlin would confess he was a dragonlord, but not that he was Emrys. It was interesting, but it had the problem that it sped things up a little too much and it was hard to make believable that that they would not attack each other (I would have to use the power of love a bit more there, and I tried to keep that to a minimum xD).


Things that never happened (but that might had)

So, some of the things on this story I planned from the beginning, others no so much, and others I thought about but decided not to use.

Morgana being captured by Sarrum (a longer time)

So, another possible encounter was that Merlin saved her from Sarrum instead of Camelot, but this would mean that either he somehow learned really fast about it, or that they would torture Morgana, and I was trying to show that she had somehow healed a bit, which this basically destroyed. So, Morgana was captured by Camelot, Merlin found out quickly and saved her. Later on, Sarrum captured Aithusa and you know what happened. I thought about him capturing Morgana, but being captured once per story is plenty enough.

I also thought that when they were rescuing Aithusa, Arthur came to save them, so reveling that he knew about Merlin having magic, but I liked more the balcony scene instead, and that gave me room for Merlin reveling the truth to Morgana.

Mordred killing Arthur

This was addressed in the talk between Merlin and Mordred, but in the end it never came true. There was really no reason in this reality for Mordred to become evil (especially after Arthur wasn't a complete idiot and spared Kara). I could have made some strange scenario where this happened (like Merlin said, maybe it wasn't really Arthur and all that), but I didn't do this because it let me show that not all prophecies came true, and besides it would be repetitive considering what happened with Morgana's prophecy later on. Maybe I should have addressed this a bit more somewhere in there, but I never got a good chance to do so.

Elyan dying

The first reason that I think that it would be for the better that this didn't happen was because there was no way they could forgive Morgana if she somehow killed Gwen's brother, especially so "recently". I mean, the only reason they kind of forgave her was because all the bad things she did happened over a year ago and she showed she had changed. If she had killed Elyan this wouldn't have been true.

I could have made someone else killed him, but since I didn't write much about him, just make him appear one second before killing him felt cheap xD. (and to be honest I never felt very drawn to his "personality" to write about him much)

Dragoon revealing to Arthur he had magic

So, at one point a large part of Arthur allowing magic would be because of Dragoon telling him he has magic and showing him that it wasn't something bad (in this reality Arthur didn't know about Merlin yet and Dragoon told him that he enchanted Merlin to believe he was his uncle). I decided not to use this because it was a lot more powerful if the decision came from Arthur himself, and to be honest it would be a bit silly if showing Arthur magic was good was that easy. However, once I decided this, was the matter of how then would Arthur find out about Dragoon, so I made it that it was kind of obvious for him after learning about Merlin.

Arthur recognizing old Morgana and learning about Merlin's Dragoon

At some point when Morgana surrendered herself to Camelot Arthur would tell them that he already knew what she had done for Gwen in her "The Dolma" disguise. Also, here Arthur found out that Merlin was Old Dragoon (he already knew about his magic).

"Did you really thought I wouldn't recognize you just because you were older?" Arthur asked, looking at Morgana.

"Well, you never recognized me," Merlin pointed out, tilting his head.

"What do you mean I never reco—" Arthur opened his eyes. "Nooooooooooo..."

Merlin nodded with a smile.

Alright, Arthur probably wouldn't have said the "Noooooooo" line, but that was how I wrote it in the draft xD. Still, once I made Arthur already know about Merlin, this was too much, so I created the Le Fey storyline instead and then showed that Arthur liked Le Fey. As for the Old Dragoon, Arthur found out he was Merlin while Morgana was surrendering herself, so he had other things in his mind. I wrote:

In other situation Arthur would have probably reacted differently, but there was just too much going on. The king made a small laugh and shook his head.

Alvarr being the villain

So, at some point I hadn't thought about the two kings yet and Alvarr was the real villain, but taking in account Merlin's and Dragoon's powers it was really hard for him to pose an actual threat to them. One idea was that he summoned some kind of powerful dragon-snake-Idon'tknowwhat-something-creature to help him fight against Camelot, but it was weird. Still, in this reality he and Morgana would meet in the battlefield and they would say something like this:

Alvarr looked at her with hatred in his eyes. "What happened to you, Morgana?" he asked.

"I grew up," she replied.

*drops the mic*

So, as you might noticed I really like to reuse old phrases in a new context xD. However, since I didn't use this one I was allowed to use the "Is this what you wanted?" without repeating myself.

As for Alvarr, in the end he was downgraded from real villain to being disintegrated between lines... so... yeah... sucks to be him.

Morgana dying

Alright, I'll be honest here, I would have never had killed her (at least not permanently :p). The obvious reason behind this is that I kind of wrote all this to redeem what I felt the original story had done wrong. There was a possibility of Morgana redeeming herself and then dying a hero, but let's be honest here, that sucks. I mean, yes, there are series out there where everything is dramatic and heroes die to show us that everything is dramatic, which is fine, and I like some of them, but Merlin wasn't like this (at least not at the start). I wanted an ending that felt like its first chapter, which, to put it very simple, is happy. I think that today many series are creating finales that didn't fit the entire series just because they want to give a spin to the story. I think that there are valid reasons why some obvious finale are obvious, and that doesn't mean it's bad to use them.

Still, the fact that some of you thought that she might actually die means that I didn't make this too obvious, which I'm glad for.

Also, in previous drafts she didn't "die" from the deadly curse, but from an arrow made of old dragonbone that the enemy had. In the end the curse just fit better (although the name never really convinced me).


Things that I had to consider while writing

The past is set on stone (kind of)

So, this is one of the reasons I sometimes took a bit longer in submit chapters, because when I submit one, I couldn't change the things I wrote there anymore. This might not sound so bad, but it meant that I had to know a bit where I was going with the next chapters before submitting one, because otherwise I would destroy some possible choices in the future or commit to write about something that doesn't really matter. One example of this (although this was on purpose) was limiting the powers of the Cup of Life a bit. The fact that you couldn't take just any life to heal a person was what let me made the Cup appear again. Otherwise it would be just too powerful to exist. I mean, "Hey, I'm dying. Look an enemy! I'm fine =D!". However, since I made those limits I had to somehow hint that there was some kind of love between Gaius and Nimueh, so that Merlin killing Nimueh to save Gaius made sense.

I did change some details of certain things and rewrote a few chapters, but never changed what you might call a "big concept".

Stealing ideas (but not really)

Alright, I've read a lot of books and watched many movies and series (probably too many). This means that many times when I came up with an idea I remembered that I've seen something alike somewhere else and I felt like I was stealing it. However, at some point I realized that there are only so many ways to show some specific scenarios, and some superposition within existing stories is expected. Besides, many of those stories already have ideas in common with each other. As long as I don't use a character called Horry Patter I think we are fine xD.

There were a few times where I did this on purpose, like the "Spoilers" bit, but that was more as an inside joke/tribute (also, with the previous idea in mind, this wasn't just used by River Song from Doctor Who, but a very similar thing was done by Xellos from Slayers ("That is a secret") and by Mikuru Asahina from Haruhi Suzumiya ("classified information")).

Spells (and some other gibberish)

At the beginning of the story when someone casted a spell I wrote it in ancient English and then clarified what it meant at the end of the page. To do this I used merlin_wikia_com (the _ are dots) for the spells that they already used in the series and hord_ca/projects/eow for those extra words that hadn't been used (sometimes modifying an already existing spell). As the story advanced I did this less and less because I wanted to use spells that were a bit more strange, and having to write that in old English was actually really hard and it really didn't add that much to the story because since many of those wasn't easy to understand and I would have to clarify what just happened anyways.

When Dragoon "called" Ouroboros in the final chapters I had to choose between using the phonetic spelling or the actual spelling. I ended up using the phonetic one because the other one was even harder to read than old English:

Ωδρακον, έάωμαλερόςσοφόνουςφθέγγομαιτείδεάναδικέω! / O drakon, e male so ftengometta tesd'hup'anankes!

Besides spells, I used a few websites looking for names for the new characters and making sure that the names made sense with the time/place where this story took place, to look for the names of certain fencing moves and to translate some words from spanish to english (wordreference_com).

Merlin's past (the remembering of)

This would be what happened in seasons 1 to 4. So, as I wrote this story, many times I wanted to know more about what happened to some characters, or exactly what did someone said in an episode. Here the first prize goes to merlin_wikia_com without any doubt. Besides all the character and episode info, they even have the transcript of most (if not all) episodes, which was great for the scenes that somehow happened in season 5 (like Arthur talking with Odin and such). I did actually watched a few of the scenes again to recall them a bit better, but without the wiki this would have been a LOT harder.


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One last time, I hope you liked it.


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Thanks OechsnerC, mersan123, AndreKl, NightsAnger, NerdGirlAlert and Meri Ley for the reviews on the last three chapters =D

OechsnerC: She did!

mersan123: I'm glad you liked the ending! And I'm also glad you didn't enjoy the ending of Chapter 35, because that was kind of the point xD (yeah, I'm evil). In the end they did have a happy ending so with any luck I'm forgiven for that :p

AndreKl: Thanks! Glad you liked it!

NightsAnger: Sometimes it happens that you just don't like a character, and that's fine. As you said once before, even in this site, different people have different views on the different characters of the series, like some of them like Kilgharrah and some others thinks he's completly evil, or that some think that Morgana got what she deserved and that her tranformation actually made sense, where other think that that was just wrong. Still, I'm glad that you liked the interaction between characters because I put a considerable amount on effort on that (giving each one of them their own "voice", trying to make everyone present in a room give their input on whatever they were dealing with, etc), so thanks for that :p

NerdGirlAlert: Glad you liked it! Like I said before, it's good that you thought that Morgana dying was an actual possibility, because that means that I didn't make what would happen too obvious, and since she didn't die, is even better!

Meri Ley: I'm glad you liked it! Writing magic is always a challenge because you want your characters to do impossible things, but at the same time the reader has to understand them, but at the same time you don't want to explain them in full detail because that slows down the story, so you have to try to mix all that xD. I'm glad to hear it worked =D