Board Thread:What If?/@comment-173.245.80.12-20140903054558/@comment-37017073-20190501214549

I'm clearly in the minority on this, but I don't think showing Arthur the necklace would have changed anything. All it would have done is prove that his father was deliberately killed by sorcery (which is what he already believed) and Dragoon would still be the obvious suspect.

Dragoon, who was actually in the room when his father died.

Dragoon, who when Arthur first met him in 3x10 was trying to hide a magic poultice under his pillow in broad daylight.

Dragoon, who publicly ranted about his hatred for Uther and admitted to enchanting Arthur and Gwen as part of plot against Camelot. (And bear in mind that Arthur knows he and Gwen weren't enchanted, which means that from his perspective Dragoon was either a) lying through his teeth about what the poultices actually did, or b) so incompetent that he had no idea his poultices were ineffective. Neither option would be comforting when asking the man to heal his father.)

Dragoon, whose last known words before he escaped were, "A curse upon you all! I shall have my revenge!"

With such an obvious suspect already at hand, why on earth would Arthur jump to the conclusion that Morgana was responsible? There wasn't a shred of evidence connecting the necklace to her outside of sorcery (which, again, Dragoon, right there), and absolutely nothing to suggest that she had managed to infiltrate Camelot or had a spy within their walls. Heck, the only reason Merlin and Gaius figure out what happened is because they know Merlin didn't plant the necklace and were already suspicious of Agravaine for asking about Merlin's magical alias in 4x02, and they can't exactly tell Arthur that.

Also, while I agree that Dragoon killing Uther after bartering for freedom of magic doesn't make much sense, I would like to point out that hardly anything Dragoon does makes sense from Arthur's point of view. He attempted to sabotage the kingdom by planting ineffective poultices in broad daylight. He claimed to hate Uther yet volunteered to heal him and thus prolong his reign. He made Arthur give him a piggyback ride to the castle, for Pete's sake. The man isn't exactly a poster child for sanity.