User blog comment:Fimber/When family is what destroys you/@comment-67.239.100.57-20121123082221/@comment-5102537-20121123121632

Hello, have we met before? What you wrote sounds familiar.

Maybe I should start with this sentence of yours: "Arthur trying to kill his father was not shown to be a good thing. Merlin even lied about magic to keep Arthur from doing it because, as Merlin said, it would destroy him. How clear is that" 

This shows clearly what I was talking about which is that the morals were either not present or one-sided. So killing his father would have destroyed Arthur? Okay, and how about "killing your father is a crime/wrong"? See, this is what people miss on this show totally. It's never about the well-being of others but only almost all the time about Arthur and Merlin. Of course, killing Uther would have been a burden for Arthur but honestly, in this case, Arthur was the offender and Uther the victim and it was not about poor Arthur, but the right thing would have been to state out that he was about to commit a crime and that no matter how furious he was, Uther didn't deserve to die. Instead, and this is typical Overman, Gaius asked Merlin if he was tempted to let Uther die and Merlin admitted. It was made clear that he only saved Uther because of Arthur. The consequence of this is that both the characters as well as the viewers learn that Uther himself doesn't count, his life and well-being is unimportant. Only what Arthur might feel is the important thing. The morals we see on this show are often twisted and moved. It was shown to us more than once thtn Uther better dies in order to give the young heroes the freedom they want without being stopped in their doings all the time, even when they were wrong with their puppet loves or with other naive actions.? Do you think it's right to show that a person is totally unimportant and better dies but is only allowed to live in order to keep someone else happy? And here I'd like to say again that it doesn't matter if everyone hated or liked Uther. There are countless people in our lives we don't like, there are countless criminals on this world, yet we can't just think that their lives are unimportant only because of our subjective feelings towards them. This is not a moral lesson that should be told.

Yes, fairytales are cruel, but considering in what time they were written, it's not surprising. Yet, in those fairytales? the evil ones are clearly seperated from the good ones in order to make it understandable for kids. They are not presenting grey characters at first and make them suddenly evil later when you have already developed sympathy for them. And those fairytales movies we see today, the ones that deal with the cruelty are not made for children but for adults. I don't see Disney movies as cruel ones, for example. The family members that are evil in those stories are not multifaced characters like Morgana and Uther used to be. And the good characters usually don't do such questionable things that are sold to the viewer or reader as being okay.

What you said about Morgana and that people surely don't want to be like her - well, it's sad to say that there are numerous fans who see her as their role model and who really would like to be like her, who think that she has every right for what she is doing, that everything is only Uther's, Merlin's and Gaius' fault and that she is just a victim. How come? Maybe because she is hot and because she gives the false impression of a feministic strong woman who can fight for herself. But it's not that she fights for freedom or that she is very clever and finds ways to reach her goal without hurting others. It's about hatred, revenge, failure and insanity, yet a lot of fans don't see this and applaud her or defend her when blaming others all the time. There is a reason why she was never criticised on the show for killing her own father. The bad excuse by both herself and the fans is that Uther was never her father because she only loved Gorlois. I'm sorry? If you feel that your bilogical father is not the one you wished for, it's totally okay to kill him then? You can tell a lesson of revenge being wrong in a much better way but certainly not by having the characters saying "Uther was never my father" or "I'm sorry for what our father did you", hence blaming the one who was killed again and releasing the responsible people, the killer (!), once again.

Okay, since I've discussed the relationship between Uther and Arhur so many times, I'm actually quite tired of it, but this is a new blog and you asked me some questions. Maybe you would get my best answer/explanations from my blog about the "The Death Song..." episode but in case you don't want to read it all, I'll answer here.

Of course there were things that Uther criticised on Arthur and of course there are things he would disapprove of. Naturally, there are always things in real life with real people we don't agree with, within the family and among friends, collegues, etc... That doesn't mean that we a) forget about all the stuff we said and felt before, b) that we try to kill their loved ones, c) that we even hurt our own loved ones, d) that we cause mayhem and become a threat to everyone.

Remember "The Poisoned Chalice" when Uther punished Arthur at first for trying to save Merlin but later told Arthur that he did the right thing and that he was proud of him? He praised Arthur even though he disobeyed Uther. And remember when Uther told Arthur in "Excalibur" that he meant more to him than his entire kingdom and his own life after trying to sacrifice himself for Arthur? At this time, Arthur was not ready to be king yet, he wasn't even ready in season three when Gaius mentioned it towards Merlin, and Arthur said that he thought that he was a disappointment to Uther. Then Uther said that this was his fault and reassured Arthur that it wasn't true. So if Uther had died at that point of time, he would have left a kingdom to a young and unexperienced prince who wasn't ready yet, a son who thought of himself as a disappointment - and this shows more clearly than anything that Uther might have given Arthur the false feeling that he disapproved of the things Arthur did but that he actually was proud of Arthur exactly for what Arthur was. Plus, he would have left his kingdom to him, the one thing that he supposedly put even before Arthur's life in "The Death Song..."??? I think it's more than clear that something went very wrong in Uther's attitude towards Arthur in his last epsiode.

When Cornelius Sigan returned, Uther wanted to rush out to help Arthur against the Gargoiles, being well aware of the fact that they would have no chance to survive. He was only held back by a knight. If Camelot was so important to him, more important than Arthur, he wouldn't have tried to run out to save Arthur.

The fact that his children were more important than his kingdom was especially demonstrated when he sacrificed almost entire Camelot on the search for Morgana. Even Gaius couldn't stop Uther, and if Morgana hadn't returned, Camelot would be no more, at least not in Uther's or Arthur's hands. All that only for Morgana. Later, when Morgana showed her true self to Uther and told him how much she hated him, he gave up his kingdom and even his whole life. If Camelot had been more important to him, Morgana's hatred could have never caused him to give up himself and his kingdom. That's the whole point, his chidren always came before his kingdom, otherwise he wouldn't have went broken by Morgana's hatred in the first place. He had changed already before he died when he accpeted the knights with whom he shared a table at Arthur's birthday feast and when he surely witnessed Arthur's and Gwen's relationship. He simply didn't care about those things anymore because Camelot was not as important as his children were. And yes, he was aware of the knights at the birthday feast because we saw him talking to Agravaine in the background, so he wasn't totally out of order and most of all not blind to what was happening around him.

It made no sense that he suddenly disapproved of the knights and Gwen after his death. As for trying to kill Gwen, you said it yourself already: when he thought they were in love in season three, he banished Gwen but he didn't torture her and didnt want to kill her. He didn't even torment the magic-users he sentenced to death, so why the heck should he play those sick games with non-magical Gwen and then try to bur her alive? It also made no sense at all. Disapproving of something or someone or hurting, attacking, torturing and killing them are very different things. So no, it was NOT in-character at all.

But maybe we should discuss this on the other blogs about the epsiode.

As for Arthur killing Careleon, yes it was broached that it was the wrong thing to do but in the end it was all Uther's fault again. A lot of fans were convinced that Uther would have done the same and that poor Arthur was only the victim of Agravaine and Uther, even after his death. Many of them even defended Arthurs actions because Cearleon was on Camelot's ground. So no, it wasn't dealt with critically enough because even Merlin later told Arthur that he "only did what he thought he had to do", downplaying the cruel murder again. And Annis, the one who lost her husband, suddenly forgave and glorified Arthur as if nothing had ever happened. So Arthur was even rewared in the end even though he had killed a defenseless man. By killing Caerleon he made the first step in uniting Albion and he also gained new friends, the kingdom of Caerleon. How weird is that? Morally right or questionable? No matter what mistakes Arthur makes, he is rewarded for them in the end and people see that actually he is right and even when he kills or does other questionable things, it's all not so bad.

The only character who was? criticised on this show was Uther. And it was right to criticise his actions. The only characters who really put the lifes of others before their? own (Uther his children and the innocent citizens that Morgana killed, and Arthur the people of Camelot) without only trying to reach their own goal, like Merlin meanwhile does, were Uther and Arthur (and Gaius in season one when he wanted to die for Merlin). Every other character only sees what's in it for them, where the advantages lie and what they can accomplish by that. But really the only character who always stood up for his loved ones was Uther. Arthur betrayed his father's honour many times by hiding behind his back and by blaming him, yet Uther never ever spoke ill of his children towards others, he never would have tolerated others speaking ill of them and he always was willing to sacrifice himself for them. He defended Igraine against Nimueh's comment about her being barren and he even defended Katrina even though being enchanted) against "accusations" of others. No one could have ever convinced him that his children were betraying him, which is why Gaius and Merlin never told him about Morgana. And this character was the one was punished in the end by both his children. Arthur could have at least wondered how Uther is doing in the afterlife instead of simply sending him back. He never even considered that maybe Uther is suffering where he is but dismissed him as a vengeful, discontend and bad father. Not the right moral lesson at all.