Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20151203163126/@comment-8345449-20151204055142

The problem with the Snape comparison is that lots of readers already guessed that something else was going on (based on interactions between D and Snape before the death scene). Reading that death scene with the above assumption already in mind, you could make quite a bit of sense out of the dialogue between the characters and sort of guess how the plot will develop (I for one nailed it).

You can't however, do the same with the scene where Hook kills Merlin. No matter how you watch it, it looks like Merlin was the unwilling victim and there was no foreshadowing that he and Hook were up to something whatsoever.

Of course, it could just be poor writing on the writers' part.