Status Updates From The Crystal Cave

The climax seems to be coming down to a sword fight, which is pretty unsatisfying. Since the beginning we've been told in no uncertain terms that Merlin isn't a warrior. It seems like a pretty big miscalculation for him to keep ending up in fights with bigger, stronger men, and it doesn't really measure anything he's been cultivating. What happened to the fire blast he learned in that cave??

The prose is great, but it's still *a lot* of narration and direct exposition. Merlin explaining his abilities to people is repetitive. I don't think we need this minute play by play of the battle strategies daddy's using to conquer Britain. Could have cut the middle 50%, aged up Merlin, told us the results of the invasion, and introduced Arthur, and we wouldn't have lost anything character or plot wise.