User blog comment:Morganaforever/Episode Review: A Lesson in Vengeance/@comment-5674726-20121118224151/@comment-5674726-20121119232347

Since you wrote that you think that the writers might intend to tell us about Morgana being brainwashed because the happenings are so similar, I was under the impression that you too think there must have happened something with Morgana.

I think that something happened but that Morgause may not have gone to the same extremes with Morgana as Morgana did with Guinevere.

I think that Morgause genuinely loved Morgana and I hope that she wouldn't have wanted her to suffer. She had over a year with Morgana, while Morgana had only a few days with Guinevere, so I'd say that her brainwashing technique was slower and gentler than the method Morgana used. If Morgause used mandrake, I'd say that it was subtler than locking Morgana in a room full of the stuff. I could also see love-bombing, given Morgana's utter devotion to Morgause. Morgause may not have viewed it as control; if Morgana’s words about the mandrake showing the truth are any indication, it could be that she viewed it as an unpleasant necessity to help Morgana see the truth about the Pendragons and develop the strength she needed to fight back.

''All the reasons you gave why Morgana was afraid can't explain this pathological hate for Uther and everyone else. There were and are many people in Camelot who were and are afraid of either Uther or Arthur but none of them went so wacko and insanely filled with hatred. I think the missing year with Morgause and Morgana returning as pure evil happened for a reason.''

I don't think fear is the cause of Morgana's shift in personality, but I think that it is a factor that made her more vulnerable to manipulation than she would have been if she wasn't so frightened of Uther. If Morgause was trying to mould Morgana into a weapon to be used against Uther, Morgana's fear made her more malleable clay. There was also a predisposition to trust that those with magic were the good guys. She saw them as being like her and wanted to believe that they were good. I think that was warped into a belief that those without magic were enemies that needed to be killed before they had a chance to kill her and everybody like her.

This could make things doubly interesting with Morgana because I would imagine that it'd make it more difficult to overcome brainwashing than it would if her feelings were entirely the result of manipulation, instead of having roots in genuine feelings of fear.

''She also overheard Uther talking to Gaius about being her father, so she surely heard that he wanted Gaius to use magic in order to heal her, too. Unfortunately and interestingly, she totally rejected any kind of love and sympathy from Uther towards her. It was as if she didn't want him to love her, totally hiding in her hatred.''

What interests me is that, for a moment, it seems as though Morgana welcomed Uther's love. She looked devastated when he wouldn't say that he was her father and it wasn't about thwarted ambition, she hadn't even considered the idea of her potential succession rights at that point.

I think that it's possible that, without knowing it, Uther had the opportunity to weaken Morgause's influence because of the double revelation that he was Morgana's father and that he was prepared to put aside his hatred for magic in order to save her life. Maybe the shock was enough to weaken the hold on her, if only enough to allow a brief window of opportunity. I think that there was a part of Morgana that badly wanted to believe that Uther loved her more than he hated magic, perhaps a part of her that was trying to fight back, and, had he proven that to her, it would have undermined the beliefs Morgause cultivated. It wouldn’t have been a quick fix but it might have sown a seed of doubt.

Instead, his rejection stripped away that hope, and cost him his chance.