Over the course of the next several months, they fall in love, and Merlin reveals the truth about the Grail and how he acquired magic. He expresses a wish to reforge the grail into a sword that can destroy his immortality, so that he can live a normal mortal life with Nimue as his wife.
In Le Morte d'Arthur, on the other hand, Nimue is still the one to trap Merlin, but Malory gives her a sympathetic reason: Merlin falls in love with her and will not leave her alone; Malory gives no indication that Nimue loves him back.
Merlin is in love with the Lady of the Lake despite his age, and every time she comes he promises to teach her magic in exchange for her love. Every time this happens, she binds him in the tree by using magical thread which the Norns had at one time taught her how to spin.
Who is Merlin's love interest in Once Upon a Time?
Nimue has been known in Arthur/Merlin stories as one of the names of the Lady of the Lake. She gave King Arthur his sword Excalibur, enchanted Merlin, and raised Lancelot after the death of his father. Nimue has been a love interest for Merlin in other shows/films.
Jonah was Lenore's husband and was presumably Nimue's father, until it had been revealed that Merlin is her father. He suspected of Nimue not being his biological daughter after the village began ostracizing her for having "demon blood."He eventually left the village when he couldn't handle Nimue anymore.
Pelleas /ˈpɛliəs/, or Pellias, is an Arthurian Knight of the Round Table whose story first appears in the Post-Vulgate Cycle. He becomes the husband of Nimue, the Lady of the Lake in Le Morte d'Arthur.
Gwen started to have feelings for Merlin but Merlin didn't notice of that even when she kissed him once, as they were in the same level in the Kingdom as the servants of Prince Arthur & Lady Moragana they were very friends and close.
He is a master of ancient magic and he is loyal to the Fey cause, though many of the Fey revile him due to his seeming allegiance to King Uther Pendragon. Merlin is also revealed to be the biological father to the main character of the series, Nimue. He is portrayed by Gustaf Skarsgård.
In Malory's anthology, he writes that Nimue trapped Merlin under a rock after realizing he fell in love with her. As she was done with him constantly making sexual moves, she eventually gets rid of him and becomes Arthur's new magical adviser at the court.
Merlin in the TV adaptation is black, which is strange for two reasons: First, Merlin is not black in the books. He is effectively a priest of a people that were almost entirely white, and an elder. I'm sure Nathaniel Martello-White is a fine actor, but he is also not old enough to play the Merlin from these books.
In the oldest stories his pupil/lover's name was Nynave (this is often changed to Nimue and sometimes changed again to other names, with Vivien/Vivianne being the most common), and she eventually betrayed him and bound Merlin in a tree, a rock or a cave, depending on the version of the story you're reading or watching.
In the episode “Excalibur” we find out she is the reason Arthur's mom conceived him. Arthur is now crowned Prince so he's around 20 years old give or take. Nimueh appears around the same age as Arthur, 25 at best.
One of the saddest moments came in the episode "The Fires of Idirsholas" as fans saw the beginning of Morgana's descent into evil. After teaming up with her sister, Morgause, Morgana becomes unaware that she is being used as a vessel in her sister's plan to take over Camelot.
Arthur, son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon, is thus Morgan's half-brother, and her full sisters include Mordred's mother, the Queen of Orkney. The young Morgan unhappily marries Urien, with whom she has a son, Yvain.
Guinevere is childless in most stories. The few exceptions of that include Arthur's son named Loholt or Ilinot in Perlesvaus and Parzival (first mentioned in Erec and Enide).
Some have speculated that they shared something more than friendship, and the producers confirmed this in the commentary of the last episode, "Diamond of the Day part two." Julian Murphy called it, "A love story between two men."
Merlin fell in love with Nimue. He was so in love with her that he was constantly at her side. Nimue accompanied Merlin on a journey so that she might learn his magic. Knowing that Merlin could take her unwillingly, she made him swear that he would use no magic to make her lay with him.
She's a pretty nice, rounded characters. Nimue isn't 'evil' at all. Nimue takes Merlin's power because she loves him, and traps him in the cave/tree (depends which version of the Arthurian legend you have) because she wants to keep him for herself.
Assuming that he was dead, Nimueh began walking away, but Merlin recovered from the blow while her back was turned and struck her down with a bolt of lightning. In doing so, he not only killed Nimueh, but mastered the power over life and death to trade her life for Gaius' (Le Morte d'Arthur).
In The Winter King episode 4, Merlin tries to kidnap Prince Mordred, but Arthur stops him, suspecting he would harm the child. Nimue, after being assaulted by Gundleus, discovers she is pregnant with his baby, and Merlin believes the Gods willed it.
