Board Thread:Series 5 Discussion/@comment-71.195.18.110-20130130220009/@comment-5102537-20130206223729

Then let me ask you this: would you kill or let someone die you don't like, someone who is in your way or of whom you are afraid of, especially when this someone can't be a threat to you anymore and suffered beyond imagination, and then simply tell yourself that it was the right thing to do?

I suppose that all of us who had the power to save somebody's life, no matter who this is, would do it immediately because our morals and our compassion would demand this from us. We would not watch somoebody die, especially not when this someone is the loved one of our best friend or even partner. We woudln't sit and watch the grief on our best friend's face, their desperation and fears when we had the power to save the life of their loved ones.

I'm in no way judging Merlin too harshly. On the contrary. Merlin actually committed a crime when he was willing to let a human being die only due to his personal opinion or because he seeked for an advantage for himself. If my best friend let my loved ones die willingly even though they had the power to save them, I don't know what I would do with them, but most certainy I wouldn't thank them for this. They would be dead for me once and for all.

Aside from the fact that Merlin let down his best friend Arthur when watching Uther die without helping, he also callously allowed the misery and suffering of a helpless and defeated person (Uther). This was callous, cruel and also cowardly because he let someone else do the dirty work for him (the Gleeman). Moreover, Merlin knew Uther and he knew that he wasn't evil but had good reasons from his point of view. He even told Morgana that she was the one who could change Uther's mind and soften his heart, so it was evident that Merlin didn't really think of Uther as an evil man or his arch-enemy but a misguided and suffering person (in his point of view).

I'm very concerned that the callous action of a main protagonist is being justified when it even includes the suffering and death of another person. And Uther wasn't the only one, by the way. He did the same with Mordred.

By the way, Uther wasn't ruthless towards everyone except his family. He was ruthless toward sorcerers/magic but he even offered his own life to Morgana in order to save the innocent people of Camelot.

Arthur, who obviously loved his father very much, should have cast a stone at Merlin for letting Uther die. The point is that if Merlin had saved Uther before rthur asked for magical help, Arthur wouldn't have wanted to use magic, he wouldn't have told Agravaine, Agravaine woudn't have told Morgana and Morgana wouldn't have killed her own father. All would be fine. The unpleasant (and absolutely stupid!) return of Uther's spirit would have been avoided too. It was Merlin's fault because of his selfishness they gave him up until season four  and Arthur even thanked him for this. Ridiculous.