User blog comment:Fimber/Things that went wrong in "The Death Song of Uther Pendragon"/@comment-7285162-20130415005522/@comment-5102537-20130426102712

Wow, Ambrosius, you were in quite a mood when you wrote this reply, weren't you? :-D

I don't know where to begin because I feel we're going around in circles. However, what you wrote here:

"So, now let us commence with Uther the good guy. You see, big deal it is, drowning newborn babies (and lots of them) in wells and all. "

It has never been mentioned anywhere that he drowned babies. Gaius told Merlin that he drowned children - which isn't any better though, and I hated that they later added this to his character in order to make it all "darker" and more "mature" - but there wasn't a single little baby mentioned anywhere.

This is exactly what I mean: people tend to add their own interpretation and wrong thoughts when they hear something. As I said, drowing children was a despicable thing to do, but when people suddenly assume that he also drowned babies, they simply believe their own ideas to be the truth. Killing babies would make a pure monster of a person (if it isn't for a mental illness) because especially babies arouse normal people's natural protective instinct by their physical and accustic appearance only (schema of childlike characteristics, I'm sure you've heard of this). A human being feels the natural need to protect a baby or a puppy, for that matter. It's a universal instinct that creatures on earth are born with, humans, animals... The showrunners didn't go that far because even they, despite the fact that they overdid a lot of things later in order to get "darker", there is a line that must be drawn (and I wish they had drawn it with the children in the first place).

I've also read on a message board the ridiculous claim that Uther raped Igraine because the person thought that Igraine had no knowledge of it all, didn't want a child (??) and was "raped" by the magic that Uther used. This person obviously also confused the common story of Uther disguising as Gorlois and sleeping with Igraine who was Gorlois' wife, with the story of "Merlin". Suddenly, not only this person but also a few others were convinced that Uther was also a rapist. I just waited for the next step, making him skinning puppies alive and eating children for breakfast.

See, it's easy to bluster into things that aren't true (well, actually, nothing is "true" in a fictional story...but you get what I mean). I could as well think that Morgana killed all male babies whose names were Uther or who had green eyes but it would be an assumption totally taking out of context. I could also assume that Morgana was born with a mental illness, and even though this thought may be not so far from the "truth", it's not what the show ever told us, thus it would be my own idea only without a valid basis.

Anyway, as for the drowned children (and Uther is not my "beloved" Uther. He is only the most interesting character to me since he provided the most complicated and multidimensional storylines):

It has already been mentioned on another blog (or in the forum) - In "The Tears of Uther Pendragon", Morgause and Morgana needed Uther's tears in order to make the mandrake root do its work. This means that the visions he had were the most painful memories in his subconscious which is why he didn't see zombies or skelletons or whatever trying to kill him but the dead children and his beloved wife. Psychologically, he connected the death of his innocent wife to the death of the innocent children (which was a brillant move by Julian Jones, in my opinion). His doings subconsciously had tortured him for decades, that's why they came to the surface when the mandrake root started to affect him. This was done to show that he had a conscience and not just killed children or others out of fun or because he was upposed to be a ruthless and evil a***

This never justifies killing children, but it shows nevertheless that he suffered from it, hence showing to the audience that he wasn't a villain/evil or a coldhearted monster they suddenly showed us in "The Death Song..."

Now Gwen and her father. What makes you think that since he had her father executed, he would happily kill her too? He has no reason to do so unless she violated the law and used magic. Her father was killed because all evidence was against him. He worked with an assassin, Tauren, who wanted to cause havoc in Camelot, ruin their finances and kill Uther. While Tom didn't know about that, Uther didn't and couldn't know that Tom was actually only naive. And do you remember that during the conversation with Morgana in "To Kill the King", Uther told Morgana that he was sorry for killing Tom?

Such things are gladly forgotten by some fans, especially when the showrunners suddenly changed Uther in his last episode. The point is, they showed these sides of remorse of him in order to make him not a mere villain but to present him to us as multidimensional, complex character who doesn't like to kill others, who feels indeed sorry and who tries to do what he thinks is best and right. If they wanted the viewers to believe that he was a coldhearted dictator and tyrant who had no likable and redeemable traits, they would have done that from the beginning. But they didn't.

Remember when he told others (Morgana, Arthur, Katrina) on several occasions that no-one knows what it's like to be king, that it is a burden and that he takes no pleasure in sentencing sorceres to death? Why did the showrunners/writers add this to his personality, or better, made it the core of his personality? Certainly not to make him a comic-strip villain in the end.

As for Gaius, his "friend":  I see their relationship as complex as both characters were themselves. In season one their friendship seemed to be mutual but later, especially in season four it seemed to have been one-sided and that Uther thought of him as a friend but not vice versa. Gaius was not pure at all. Whatever his reasons were to stay in Camelot even though he wasn't forced to do so, he wasn't innocent at all, plus he helped Uther finding sorcerers. They could have explored Gaius's reasons and his character, yet they moved away from this all and focused on Merlin and Arthur only. Anyway, whether Gaius was considered as a friend by Uther or not, they didn't live in a happy residental community in our today's democracy but in the dark ages in a kingdom that was threatened by all sides. Uther was the king, the one authority in this kingdom where everyone else had to obey. Totally normal for that time era. When he sentenced Gaius' to death, the writers/showrunners didn't make him just shrug and leaving Gaius to his doom but they made him being devastated about him being forced to sentence Gaius when Gaius confessed in front of everyone to have used magic. Uther can't make exceptions in such a situation because he can't sentence others to death but pat Gaius' shoulder and say "never mind, use magic as often as you want", let alone when the entire court witnessed his (false) confession. Even Merlin feared that Arthur would kill him if he learnt of Merlin's powers, and as it seems, he might have been correct. Arthur told Merlin in the final epsiode that he doesn't know if he had accepted it. If Arthur was just a holy person, the messiah and the hero, why did Merlin and Gaius think that Arthur would kill Merlin if he learnt of his true nature?

So we expect Uther to spare Gaius (and yes, this would have been awesome!) and think he is bad and evil and whatnot when he has to execute the law, but we think that it's totally normal and alright that Arthur would freak out over Merlin's powers and probably kill him (before the final epsiode aired, the one that provided a helpless and mortally wounded Arthur whose hormones certainly were running amok being so close to death). This is double standard.

Nimueh: if you still recall the first season well, you may have noticed that Nimueh was the one who chose Igraine to die. She didn't warn Uther that someone close to him would die and she didn't mention Igraine at all. It was in her powers to choose someone else, yet she chose Igraine and later blamed Uther alone for her own doings. Merlin and Gaius made clear in "Le Morte d'Arthur" that it was Nimueh who decided who had to die. I don't know what kind of friendship it is when your friend grants you a wish but kills your one and only love in the process - and all that without a warning. Nimueh was indeed an evil witch. Moreover, during the first seasons and also in season five, numerous situations referred to the Old Religion/magic having been a destructive and dangerous force long before Uther was even born. Camelot was almost ruined and the land was in chaos before Uther took the throne. Gaius told it to Merlin and even Arthur told it to Merlin and confirmed it in season five in "The Disir". He said that magic almost destroyed the land before Uther became king - and Merlin didn't object at any point of time. Neither did anyone else. Igraine's death certainly opened Uther's eyes about the danger of this seductive power called magic when an innocent person died as the price for a wish that was granted. This contributed to the destruction that magic had brought to the land. The Diamair/Euchdag told Merlin that its/her/his race was being hunted for centuries and then wiped out (not by Uther). Given that Uther wasn't Methusalem, the war between magic and non-magic had been going on long before he was born. And the only way out he saw was to ban it from his land and to, sadly, kill even good magic-users in the process.

As for the genocide, despite the fact that the Great Purge can't be justified, Uther didn't hunt down sorcerers because he simply disliked their hair colours or the religion. He was convinced that magic corrupts each and every person and that it was the pure evil. The purge didn't have anything to do with power or territory, racism or whatever but only with him being convinced that all evil in this world came from the Old Religion. And yet he suffered when killing them. We could compare it to other stories about people killing demons, maybe, or fighting the devil. This is what magic was in Uther's eyes. And it's not sentimentalising things but merlely the attempt to point out that he wasn't described as an evil character who simply wanted power or who enjoyed the misery of others but, on the contrary, who disliked his own compulsion of fighting "evil" and who destroyed himself by it bit by bit. They made him a tragical character, not an evil character. And especially in season one and also after Morgana's betrayal he was pushed in his description of character that far that he was more than ready for some kind of redemption. Until they threw it all out of the window and turned him into a comic-strip villain in season five all of a sudden.

If Uther was the coldhearted bastard you mentioned, why did he never invade/attack/conquer other kingdoms but wanted peace and united the Five Kingdoms? Why did the writers/showrunners make Nimueh being the one who betrayed Uther and killed his wife even though she could have chosen someone else? Why did they tell us over and over again that magic had always been dangerous and destructive, even before Uther came to the land? Why did they show us the Triple Goddess as a ruthless, demanding goddess who oppresses people and threatens them, which Arthur disapproved of? Why did they show us Uther as a loving father who tried to sacrifice himself for his son, almost sacrificed the kingdom for his daughter, got broken because of his daughters betrayal and gave up his own life until he indeed died for Arthur? They certainly didn't do this all only to tell us in the end "it was all a lie and you fell for it."

It's so obvious that they changed him later because they had failed to make Arthur being a real good and much better person when they described him as the one who continued his father's work, when they gave him the Camelot that his father had built, when they presented Uther as the one who united the Five Kingdoms in the first place and when they made Arthur being a threat to Merlin (as everyone thought) because of Merlin's powers. They needed a quick solution to distinguish Arthur from Uther, therefore they made an evil psycho of Uther instead of stating out Arthur's qualities and will to change things, most of all bringin back magic. That's it, period.

You don't need to like Uther or to make him your favourite character in order to see that he was a different character in the first three season and in the first three episodes of season four. The actors, showrunners, Anthony Head himself always emphasized that Uther wasn't evil but misguided and that it was good that he wasn't a real villain but a complex character with very humane sides. How does this fit with the final statement of the producers when they said that he was always evil and the way he was in "The death Song of Uther Pendragon"? And how is it consistent that he torments Gwen when he never even tortured his biggest enemies? And how come he suddenly hurts his own son even though he was the most important thing in his whole life?

If they had made Uther like this (like he was in season five), I wouldn't have wasted a second thought on him at all from the beginning. The fact that he was totally different in the pervious seasons was the reason why he picked my interest in the first place because mere evil characters/villains are totally boring und uninteresting.