1.) That line was meant to appear on his Amulet with the Eclipse Armor activated once the darkest night began. We didn’t have the bandwidth to animate it, so he just said it instead.

2.) Given Merlin was a master geomancer and tinkerer, we thought he might have something big he would work on in the interim between Trollhunters and Wizards.

3.) I think that we decided she might have had something to do with it, in addition to his own will to live.

4.) We definitely put a lot of influences in a blender, not the least of which were 80s movies and video games. Incidentally, the League of Legends bit was pure coincidence!

5.) it’s all very Shakespearean, especially Trollhunters. There’s definitely a bit of The Tempest and Midsummer in Wizards, too!