Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Three/@comment-5102537-20130907213023/@comment-5102537-20130914105040

Yes, Elena was great. She was sweet and funny, even when she was released from the sidhe that possessed her. I wish she had returned at some point during the show.

I think this was a filler epsiode, yet it dealt with an actually important part of life in the royal court in medieval times, which was the future of a kingdom depending on the marriage of Prince or Princess/King or Queen. This episode also contributed to the character development of Arthur and Gwen.

However, since Lord Godwyn already was a good friend of Uther, the marriage might not have been much too important in regard to stabilising the realtionship between the two kingdoms. Godwyn (who I liked very much too) seem to have been a quite friendly and understanding man - which actually also was compliment for Uther because he obviously chose his friends wisely and preferred the kinder ones rather than ruthless Sarrum, Cenred and other cruel kings.

Nevertheless, Arthur and Elena made the right decision in regard to their feelings, yet they disregarded protocol and ignored the reasons for the arranged marriage which was astonishing for that time era.

The whole situation had two sides, and while it's understandable that they refused to marry in the end, Uther had good reasons for finding a suitable wife for his son. On the other hand, it wasn't quite nice to present Arthur with a fait accompli when Elena and Godwyn had already arrived. There was no warning before and Arthur had to suddenly handle a difficult situation that would also have decided his own future.

For a king of the dark ages, Uther gave up and in much too quickly once Arthur and Elena had cancelled the wedding. Basically, he could have forced Arthur to marry her, and Godwyn could have done the same with Elena. It was quite disappointing that this episode made Uther pretending that love was not important for a marriage when he himself had built the past decades on his love for his own (dead) wife only. They either ignored that fact in order to give Uther tough character traits again or it was to show that Uther wanted to spare Arthur similar experiences of losing the love of his life one day and/or being captured in grief or depending on just one person only, like Uther did with Ygraine when he could not get over her.

Anyway, the humour was good, Elena was lovely and Gwen proved great moral fibre when she saw "sense" and didn't talk Arthur out of the inevitable. Though it showed a glimpse of resignation too.

Morgana manipulated people again and finally learnt that her observation of Arthur and Gwen's love had been true all along. It's a shame that she took so much pleasure in the misery of others, especially those she used to love.