User blog comment:Dragonriders729/Maybe this is a dumb question, but....../@comment-867479-20120621103152

That really isn't a dumb question, I've been asking it myself a dozen times already... DW tries to make it a point that Merlin tries to keep his high tech stuff from directly influencing events, but on the other hand, that's exactly what happens all the time.

When discussing this kind of stuff with friends or my siblings, I call this the "Superman problem": if someone actually had the advanced tech or abilities described in many fictional universes, one would put them to much better use than the characters in the story usually do. Superman is essentially a god, as are many other superheroes, and still he always seems to use the most small-minded, limited-scale solution for every problem. Same with Star Trek, where the Borg, with an army of trillions of all but invincible high-tech zombies and a fleet of thousands of gigantic, self-regenerating warships, keep sending one or two ships to one system - if I were in charge, I would likely employ a different strategy to conquer the universe. And of course, the all famous 'Lord of the Rings' question: "Why didn't they ride to Mordor on the f***ing eagles in the first place?!?"

In most cases, the authors come up with a half-assed explanation as to why their characters "can't do this", but in most cases, it doesn't really make any sense.