Merlok 2.0

Merlok the Magician, also known as Merlok 2.0 after his transformation, is the overarching protagonist of the LEGO Nexo Knights TV series. He is the last remaining wizard in the kingdom of Knighton, and the mentor of Nexo Knights, providing them with advice and magic spells for fighting Monstrox's evil forces.
He was voiced by Brian Drummond, who voiced Axl in the same series.
==Biography==
===Pre-series===
Merlok used to be a member of the Wizards' Council alongside his sister Wanda Moorington and the arch-necromancer Monstrox. After Monstrox acquired the Forbidden Powers and wrecked havoc across the kingdom of Knighton with them, Merlok was sent to stop the villain and was successful in his quest. Monstrox later escaped, but was stopped by Merlok once again. The wizard turned the necromancer into the Book of Monsters, trapping his Lava Monsters inside him, and imprisoned the remaining monsters inside eleven other books, choosing to study them to understand their origin instead of destroying them. 
Years later, Monstrox's evil placed by him into Wanda finally corrupted the witch, forcing her brother to turn her into stone. Other members of the Wizards' Council were also turned evil by dark magic, and after Merlok defeated them, he was left the only wizard in the kingdom. Merlok eventually tracked down Wanda's young son, Clay, and took him under his wing without revealing the truth about the boy's ancestry to him.
===Nexo Knights===
During the Nexo Knights' graduation ceremony, Merlok scared and surprised everyone present by creating a fake monster for the knights to fight. At night, he went into his library and witnessed the royal jester Jestro and the Book of Monsters attempting to release Lava Monsters into the realm once again. As Clay was unable to stop the villains, Merlok locked himself inside the room with them and cast a spell which failed to stop Jestro, but scattered the evil books across the kingdom. Merlok was initially presumed to have died in the explosion, but was discovered by the junior knights Ava and Robin to have turned into a computer program. He turned the tide of the battle between the Nexo Knights and the monsters in the former's favor, and became their mentor since then.
Merlok was nearly destroyed twice during the war against Monstrox: first when he volunteered to be uploaded into the Techcalibur sword and have Monstrox struck with it, and when the reborn Monstrox attacked the capital and almost deleted the wizard by zapping him with lightning.
Merlok eventually revealed the truth about Clay's origin to his comrades, including Ruina Stoneheart's true identity as his mother and Merlok's sister. As Monstrox turned into the Colossus of the Ultimate Destruction, the wizard and the junior knights revealed the secret project they were working on. During the final fight against Monstrox, Merlok 2.0 entered the mech suit made for him and assisted Clay in destroying the arch-necromancer's colossus body, ensuring his defeat.
===LEGO Nexo Knights magazine (non-canon)===
Merlok 2.0 would witness the return of Monstrox in the form of a digital virus. As Monstrox's magic started weakening him, the wizard contacted Ava and used her help to save seven of his Merlok Powers and send them away. Ava also managed to hide him away from Monstrox's grasp before the necromancer could destroy him. Since then, Nexo Knights and Merlok would search for the powers and find Monstrox's InfectoByters on their way.
Eventually, the knights would take the fight into Knighton's cyberspace when Clay entered it. By that point, Merlok 2.0 had been weakened too greatly, and thus he made a decision to sacrifice himself to give Clay a fighting chance. Using the last of his life force, Merlok faded out of existence, but created a battle mech for Clay that helped him destroy Monstrox once and for all and save Knighton. Clay would preserve the remains of Merlok's power as a reminder of the knights' mission.
== Gallery ==
File:Wizard Council.webp|Merlok with the rest of the Wizards' Council.
==Trivia==
*Merlok's role in the series is vey similar to that of another LEGO hero, Master Wu from Ninjago:
**Both are mystical mentors to the main protagonists and are at least a few hundred years old.
**Both have a sibling who was turned evil against their will.
**Both have a nephew who eventually defeats the one responsible for their sibling's corruption.
**Both have sacrificed themselves at least once, only to return alive, but in a different form.
*It's possible that the fact that Merlok was not just Clay's mentor, but his guardian as well when he was a kid, was foreshadowing the reveal that the two were biological relatives.
*While most characters and official sources consider the original Merlok and Merlok 2.0 the same character, in The Forbidden Power book Izzy Richmond calls the latter a digital copy of the former, implying that Merlok had actually died protecting Clay and could only leave a backup of his mind. Her statement is later contradicted in the same book when the two are once again discribed as the same entity.
*Merlok claims to have a middle name, which he forgets in the episode "Hot Rock Massage".
==External links==
*Merlok 2.0 on the Pure Good Wiki.
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