Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20130929195208/@comment-5102537-20130930213332

ReganX wrote:

Fimber wrote: In case that the show wanted to make the viewers believe that she was hurt because she felt some kind of daughterly love for him and that she was actually right in being angry, Morgana was described as being more ignorant than she deserved. She was too intelligent and has lived for too long in the royal household to ignore that acknowledging an illegitimate child would be sociatal suicide, especially for a king. We cannot ignore the fact that the show presented us with a very different situation as far as the question of the status of an illegitimate child is concerned.

It is made very clear that Morgana has a claim to the throne as Uther's daughter, albeit after Arthur. It is therefore highly probable that the law as it relates to children born out of wedlock is different to what one would expect - perhaps akin to the situation in Wales, prior to the conquest by England, where all children acknowledged by a father had equal rights of inheritance, regardless of whether or not they were born in wedlock, and the word "bastard" referred to an unacknowledged child. Based on what I have read, Camelot is often set in Wales, which would support the theory that children born out of wedlock have rights of inheritance.

But in that case, Uther would have had no reason to worry about his reputation, as Morgana stated when she said that he only wants to save face, or better, that he pretends to be the perfect king. If being an illegitimate child wasn't such a big fuss in the world of "Merlin", acknowledging her and being a bit embarassed would be a very small price for the peace of the soul of Uther and Morgana. During their conversation when Morgana tries to make Uther confess, he's visibly fighting with the next step he's going to take and it seems as if he wanted to tell her everything but then decided against it. So to me, it seems that he suffered from not telling her. Given that he not only loved her dearly but was also very proud of her it must have been tough to not just tell the world that he had such a great and beautiful daughter.

The problem is that the harmless nature of acknowledging an illegitimate child is yet another thing that the show probably want to make us believe. It's the same with Gwen being accpeted as Queen and the nobles being totally fine with commoners as knights. I totally get what you're saying and you might even be right.

However, due to the statements of both Morgana and Uther it's not clear what the social rules in those times on the show were. Uther said it was for Arthur's sake, Morgana said that Uther simply wanted to play the perfect king.

So which one is true?

If you're right and Arthur was the reason why Uther didn't want to reveal the secret, Morgana was wrong in her assumption and also ignorant. She too should have known then that a potential future husband could take advantage of her status which would not only harm Arthur but also Morgana herself.

If it was indeed about saving the reputation of either Uther and/or everyone else involved, Morgana was ignorant too.

Either way, she estimated the situation wrongly.

Though what you write makes perfect sense and probably even was what the show wanted to present to us, it would nevertheless have damaged the reputation of Gorlois, Igraine, Uther, Morgana and Arthur because even today when a child was born to another man, the husband as a cuckold suffers from sociatal damage. Men who raise a child of whom they thought it was their own are very much hurt in their pride and feelings once they learn that their wife had been unfaithful. The mother is being called names most of the time and the real father is being rejected. Imagine, for example, a today's prince/king or leader of any country is revealed to be a cuckholded husband... what would society think and say of all the people involved, including the child? And it was even worse in those times back then.

Gorlois would have been regarded as a fool who was betrayed by his best friend and his wife. Vivienne would have been regarded as a whore, Morgana as an accident and Igraine as the one who married a man who had his fun and reproduced with other women. Arthur would have been regarded as the Prince who grew up with a half-sister who could have been a potential love interest for him and as the son of a hedonistic king who even betrayed his friend and as the son of a mother who was naive enough to marry that man. And Uther... well, I dont have to mention it.

Either way, revealing the secret publicly would have been a great risk and ignorance.

Uther's reasons, whatever they were, Arthur or reputation or both, were very good ones and the reason for Morgana to hate him even more because she was hurt never ever worked for me just a second.

On the contrary, the fact that she learnt of who her true father was should have convinced her that Uther would have never harmed her, given that he not only wanted to sacrifice himself for Arthur but also asked for magical help to heal her. Since it didn't open her eyes and didn't touch her on an emotional level in regard to family love, she only was hurt in her pride and also needed another reason to hate Uther, in my opinion.

Shame. If the show had continued to describe her the way she was in the first two seasons, she could have reacted much more interesting and believable. It's not her fault that she was being changed so much by the showrunners/writers.

As for your question if things had been different if she had known about it all as a child,  wish I could provide a believable idea. Alas, I have no idea whatsoever because I have very mixed feelings about her character even in season one and two. She has always been a very determined and dominating character, so anything could have been possible if she had known the truth as a child already.

Plus, the missing year with Morgause is still a mysterious secret, so I would say that knowing that Uther was her father wouldn't have changed anything from season three onward. I might be wrong, of course.

But maybe, she would have at least tried to understand Uther and his actions, had she known that she was his daughter. I have no idea.