Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20130803001002/@comment-5102537-20130804124759

Edrea wrote:

About other things, I think if she still found out about her being the daughter of Uther, she would still joined with Morgause to claim the throne. However, she would still very angry that Uther lied to her all these times and she had the right to be considered the heir of the throne. (About this, I have question, I am not really sure about who should be the next ruler of the kingdom in their tradition. In Asia, the ruler of the kingdom should be the first son or prince no matter how many sisters he has before him. Is it like that in Albion? Or the first child no matter what the sex is the one has the right to claim the throne?)

Generally, in Europe, the first born son was the legitimate heir to the throne in patriachial societies. After the first born son, the next son was the heir even if there was a daughter older than the third child (the second son). It was also important that the child was from the first wife/husband in case that the king or queen had children with a second wife or husband. Actually, in regard to history, Morgana would have had little chances to get the throne legally since she was an illegitimate child and a woman. Had she been Uther's and Igraine's daughter or the daughter of Uther and his second wife, Morgana would have been the legitimate heir after Arthur. However, I'm not sure whether she had the same right if she had been the legitimate daughter of Uther and Vivienne if they had been married before Uther married Igraine and before Arthur was born. I would imagine that this was up to the king to decide.

The way things were on "Merlin" - Morgana being the illegitmate female child of the king - she was by no means the rightful heir. I've often wondered why she claimed to be the rightful heir so often. In case that the show ignored the axctual rules of society in the dark ages and created its own rules, it should have mentioned it somehow in order to let us know that our historical rules didn't apply here.

I would imagine that Morgana wouldn't have developed the way she did if she had been a normal human being without her powers. In the first two seasons, she still was sane and not full of hatred. Even though she already fought Uther and even attempted to kill him, she still had some feelings for her friends and family up until "The Witch's Quickening" when she agreed to harm and/or kill everyone who served Uther, which means also her friends. However, I believe that she was willing to do it because she saw her powers growing and feared that she would be killed if Uther ever found out.

Nevertheless, being ready to kill not only her "guardian" (Uther) but also her best friends actually showed her ruthlessnes already. One could argue that she acted more or less out of self-protection due to her growing powers, but killing/harming even those who had already helped her in the past with sorcerers (like Merlin, Gwen, Gaius and Arthur when they helped saving Mordred) is a clear sign of sociopathy and selfishness.

So I think it's not easy to answer the question whether or not she had became such a mad killer without her powers. Fact is that she was always easy to be manipulated by those who hated Uther which were also those who had or used magic. While she herself was good in manipulating others and completely defied Uther's influence, she was a puppet on a string for magic-users. Here we see that she actually always put magic over Camelot and her friends, no matter what.

Now the question is, would this also have happened if she had absolutely no powers at all, not even the powers of a seer? Due to the fact that she suffered from nightmares and saw glimpses of the future, she had already feared that she herself had some kind of magical powers, in season one already. Had she never experienced anything like this, I doubt that she would have gone insane but that she probably would have continued trying to save magic-users/sorcerers the way she did in season one. Uther once said that she fought him from the beginning (assumingly when she came to Camelot at the age of ten) which indicates that she actually had a big problem with authorities, plus that she suffered from Gorlois' death and had to cope with a new life and family at a new place. In the beginning, her fight against Uther always seemed to be a fight for power and a rebellion against a person of authority (Uther), like teenagers who often fight their parents and teachers. Uther was the alpha male and his word was law, which was something she didn't accept since she herself had a strong drive for having a leading position.

Her growing powers and Uther's strict way of education as an old fashioned king (which is actually funny because for that time era, Uther was actually a very modern king) contributed to her rebellion against him and later turned into hatred, especially when she finally learnt of her full powers and now had the chance to turn the tables, meaning that she now was in a more powerful position and had the ability to destroy the one who had always been above her (Uther).

I believe that ths wouldn't have happened to that extent if she didn't have her powers, simply because she wouldn't have anything to fear in regard to sorcery/magic. However, she surely would have continued fighting Uther due to the reasons mentioned above. Like Uther said in a deleted scene, that Morgause corrupted Morgana with her powers (ReganX reminded me of this), the powers drove Morgana insane because she had no idea how to control them but only used them to finally bring down Uther, the one she had felt inferior to almost all her life. It wasn't even enough for her to win some battles against him, like when she rescued Mordred, when she manipulated Uther in order to get him to Gorlois' grave where he made big concessions, when she helped Alvarr to escape...

Morgana needed to be the winner all the time, and no little victory was enough to show her that she was indeed able to help sorcerers behind the scenes. She wanted more, and what she wanted was ultimate power. Morgana was the best example for what Uther had always believed and feared, which was that magic corrupted anyone and turned people to the dark side.

I think that even without her powers she would have been open to Morgause's influence. I'm just not sure if she had really hated everyone so much. On the other hand, in case that Morgause had taught Morgana to use magic as someone who wasn't born with it (like Gaius who learnt it by studying it), Morgana probably would have used it too and would have tried her best to gain an advantage over Uther, ignoring that she had always had an advantage over him because he loved her and trusted her whereas she despised him and used his love against him.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Morgana would have indeed become Uther's foe even without her powers, I'm just not sure if she had hated him and all the others to that extent that she was even willing to torture and to kill.

The argument that she hated Uther because he didn't acknowledge her as his daughter never worked for me. Morgana wasn't stupid, she knew about the rules of society and she knew very well that acknowledging her would have damaged the reputation of Gorlois, Vivienne, Uther, Igraine and Morgana herself. Uther was completely right in keeping it a secret and actually, Morgana should have known that. Moreover, killing someone because he is the real father doesn't make sense for a sane person but only for a psychopath. Imagine one of us would learn that our parents aren't our biological parents - would we go and try to kill our real mother or father? That's totally ridiculous.

I think that her powers corrupted her and drove her insane but that her personality at all made it all possible in the first place and that she would have become a more moderate villain without her powers as a High Priestess.