User blog comment:Fimber/Why I understand Uther's reasons for banning magic - and why no one is a saint on "Merlin"/@comment-5191335-20120613020311/@comment-5102537-20120618233204

Thank you for your fascinating thoughts on this subject. Although I am quite sure that our imagination and our speculations are far from what the show had actually planned to provide, I enjoy such conversations and discussions because it actually shows how great the series used to be and what fantastic subjects it has broached. It 's a pity that the fans have to fill the holes and probably will never get an answer to this all.

Personally, I don't like the thought of being a tool for a Higher power in order to serve the greater good. It would not only indeed take away the free will but my point of view is also that every individual, as a part of the greater good, deserves a life in happiness and THE "greater good" itself. Because, if an individual has to suffer in order to serve, let's say society or the balance of the world, I wonder why the many are more important than the few when actually the many consist of the few, or better, the individuals. The ONE, the individual IS what the many consist of, they are all individuals. If they have to serve the world or even something beyond the world, maybe in connection to the universe, I find it very unbalanced and unfair when some have to suffer like hell while others "get the good job", so to speak. We can see it in our real world every day, it happens to humans and animals alike, to every creature on this planet. And when people say that they thank God for everything, even for the sad and terrible things that have happened in their lives because they think it happened for a reason, they actually accept the unfair non-balance of victims and offenders, of those who are lucky and happy and those who have to suffer. They accept it for themselves as well as for others, and I think it is because we just can't comprehend and can't deal with the fact that we are helpless when it comes to the huge problems of the world in which millions and millions living beings are suffering beyond imagination each and every second.

However, meanwhile even scientists have come up with the theory that free will is just an illusion and that evey single thing in the universe is predestined and can't be changed. They assume that there is a universal plan, wether by a higher power or by the universe and all its material itself and that we just think we could chose and decide on our own when actually our brain has already made the decision before we know it. For us, the moment when we realise our decision, is the moment when we make it, but according to those scientists, we just learn of the decision that our subconscious has made for us before we consciously could even think about it.

I don't know if this is the case or if there is indeed free will, but personally, I prefer free will. Though I also wish for some kind of a higher power that takes care for everything in a helping way - but reality actually proves us that there can't be a higher justice that looks after us all when we see what terrible things every day.

So, in regard to the show, if everyone's destiny and actions have indeed been predestined, it means that none of them had ever had a choice and that none of them actually is responsible for what they did or do. I think it's a very cruel idea that one character had to suffer and spent a live in misery (Uther) without having a choice in order to serve the plan to wipe out the evil and the corruption, just for someone else who has to do the opposite later in order to restore the balance. If Uther was the chosen one to end the corruption and the misuse of dark magic, the mysterious Higher Power (or Old Religion) not only let him suffer for almost his entire life but also those he had hunted down. A lot of innocents suffered under the Great Purge, and I wonder why a Higher Power that is supposed to be almighty or at least almost almighty can't take care of it before it happens. Why does such a power need human beings like toy soldiers to do the higher power's job? And what makes people like Uther or those who suffered under his reign because of the ban of magic, less important than those who can live free and happily when Merlin and Arthur have done the last step of restoring the balance? If a higher power/the Old Religion wishes for the people to live in peace, then why did it kill the wife of someone in order to make him bitter and desperate just to let him kill countless people, when all of them, Uther, Igraine and Uther's victims actually are a part of those people and have the same right to live a happy and fullfilled life?

As fascinating as I find the idea of a predestined future, I actually don't like it on Merlin, because if it is true and if they all don't have a choice and are just puppets on a string, they are to be pitied and none of them is responsible for their actions. It's a boring thought to have them play the game of a higher power and I wonder what sense life would make for them at all. And it's actually a cruel game.