What struck me last episode is how everyone, including the dragon, immediately seemed to assume that as far as magic was concerned, things would be fine once Arthur became king
Yeah it's very much an assumption and I think he could fall either way right now. Certainly he seems more capable of viewing magic as morally grey than Uther does, which is a positive step. Still, say Uther was killed by magic, that would probably sway him to consider magic pretty evil for the most part. On the other hand, say Uther or someone else Arthur loves is saved by magic, then he would be more inclined to believe it can be a force of good. His questioning of whether all magic is evil came from him experiencing magic that saved his own life (even while other magic endangered him).
My guess is the dragon is swayed by the fact Arthur couldn't be worse than Uther toward magic (plus he hates Uther) and so he was telling Merlin that Arthur would be a great king/bring magic back to Camelot as a way to sway Merlin into allowing Uther to be killed. I don't see where the dragon has really been shown to know the future, although I would guess he can see many possible futures and tries to guide Merlin toward the one that most benefits magic/the dragon himself. I know he's the magical Slash Dragon to most of Merlin fandom, but to me he' more a conniving old dragon trying to work Merlin as much as he can to make events happen the way he wants them to by feeding Merlin ideas about his great future at Arthur's legendary side. Which again, is not to say it's not a possible future, just not the only one would be my guess. Maybe in other possible futures Merlin didn't listen to the dragon and never came to be Arthur's friend and it's their friendship that causes Arthur to bring magic back (or he never saved Arthur's life and Uther survived long enough to get another heir somehow who was also opposed to magic).
If Merlin himself believed Arthur would be fine with magic right at this moment, he'd have confessed by now (unless he and Arthur are playing an elaborate game of don't ask/don't tell so Arthur doesn't feel he's betraying Uther - which I felt was a legitimate interpretation of the end of ep 10 with Arthur basically telling Merlin that he had been talking about Will and that he shouldn't keep dangerous info from Arthur again). So I think Merlin isn't as certain Arthur would bring magic back, just that he wouldn't be as hard a king as Uther.
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Yeah it's very much an assumption and I think he could fall either way right now. Certainly he seems more capable of viewing magic as morally grey than Uther does, which is a positive step. Still, say Uther was killed by magic, that would probably sway him to consider magic pretty evil for the most part. On the other hand, say Uther or someone else Arthur loves is saved by magic, then he would be more inclined to believe it can be a force of good. His questioning of whether all magic is evil came from him experiencing magic that saved his own life (even while other magic endangered him).
My guess is the dragon is swayed by the fact Arthur couldn't be worse than Uther toward magic (plus he hates Uther) and so he was telling Merlin that Arthur would be a great king/bring magic back to Camelot as a way to sway Merlin into allowing Uther to be killed. I don't see where the dragon has really been shown to know the future, although I would guess he can see many possible futures and tries to guide Merlin toward the one that most benefits magic/the dragon himself. I know he's the magical Slash Dragon to most of Merlin fandom, but to me he' more a conniving old dragon trying to work Merlin as much as he can to make events happen the way he wants them to by feeding Merlin ideas about his great future at Arthur's legendary side. Which again, is not to say it's not a possible future, just not the only one would be my guess. Maybe in other possible futures Merlin didn't listen to the dragon and never came to be Arthur's friend and it's their friendship that causes Arthur to bring magic back (or he never saved Arthur's life and Uther survived long enough to get another heir somehow who was also opposed to magic).
If Merlin himself believed Arthur would be fine with magic right at this moment, he'd have confessed by now (unless he and Arthur are playing an elaborate game of don't ask/don't tell so Arthur doesn't feel he's betraying Uther - which I felt was a legitimate interpretation of the end of ep 10 with Arthur basically telling Merlin that he had been talking about Will and that he shouldn't keep dangerous info from Arthur again). So I think Merlin isn't as certain Arthur would bring magic back, just that he wouldn't be as hard a king as Uther.