Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-110.33.239.213-20121226023324/@comment-5102537-20130929145756

Ongard Odin wrote: Good points, here is my own personal counter argument;

Arthur was said to return when Albion's need is greatest, then Arthur would return. Now I take that to mean when Albion needs Arthur most, he would return. He was not needed at the time of all these horrors because there were other people to do what he did. During World War 2 there was Churchill, during the Crusades there was Richard the Lionheart. The reason Arthur did not return was because there was already an "Arthur" around for that time. Arthur is a good, brave, compassionate and strong leader, but he is just a leader and he is the leader Camelot needed to end the injustice of Uther's regime.

The time Arthur will be needed is the time when England needs a ruler, a leader, when it is in such a state that only a man as great as Arthur can truly pick up the pieces.

I hope you don't feel uncomfortable discussing against at least two people here :-D

I see your points as interesting reasons for debate. We're only exchanging opinions after all.

Anyway, I wouldn't compare the picture we were supposed to have of Arthur's character to Churchill or Lionheart. Chrurchill was as much a questionable leader as any other, with great power and great destruction. Naturally, since the world was at war because of the psychopath Hitler. Nevertheless, Churchill, like everyone else, allowed to have cities being bombed to ashes when all it did was killing civilians.

Richard the Lionheart was the very person who led one of the most important crusades in history when trying to conquer Israel/the Holy Land. He was was far from being a hero, despite what we are always seeing in the movies. The crusades were a terrible slaughter in the name of Christ. Lionheart's men killed everyone who was in their way, children and the weak as well as soldiers. It was Saladin who managed to achieve a truce with Lionheart. We should not forget that Lionheart brought the crusade to another continent in order to proselytise an entire different culture in a land that simply didn't belong to Great Britain.

He was far, far, far from being a hero or a second Arthur, on the contrary.

The crusades were a war on religion and England started it with Saladin in the Holy Land. Wasn't the story on "Merlin" actually a war on religion too? The magic-users/sorcerers/High Priests and High Priestesses fought for their religion, the Old Religion while Uther had declared war on it after the Old Religion had actually already declared war on those who didn't support the Old ways long before. And Arthur had continued it by not lifting the ban of magic and by persecuting sorcerers.

When Lionheart (in case it happened in that fictional time, too, depending on whether or not the modern world on "Merlin" referred to our world) brought the crusades to Jerusalem after the crusaders had already caused mayhem and tyranny at home already in the attempt to proselytise the people, wouldn't this have been the very time for Arthur to rise again, especially since he (for some weird reason!) had accepted magic/Merlin shortly before he died?

This very thing should have made Arthur to return in order to stop his fellow king-collegue and to prevent another war on religion that cost hundreds of thousands of people (men, women, children) a terrible death.

"History" (inverted commas because Arthur was only a legend whereas Lionheart was real) repeated itself with the crusades. From what we know about them I would even say that what Lionheart/ Britain did at those times was even worse than Uther in this fictional story. The crusaders brutally slaughtered everyone in the attempt of bringing them their religion and to destroy another culture (the moslems) in the process, even though they knew that they were fighting against other human beings and not evil demons.

Uther was convinced (and often confirmed) that all magic-users/sorceres/the Old Religion was the pure evil. He didn't try to proselytise other countries or people or cultures from a particular religion but only fought what he thought was evil, a supernatural power, something which could be compared to the devil or demons.

The crusades on the other hand only happened to opress other cultures and to gain power over them.

When Arthur was convinced that such things were wrong, when it was even wrong what Uther did, however much Uther thought he was protecting others from evil, the crusades was the first thing that should have "awakened" Arthur from the death.

As for Gwen, I agree with ReganX. You're right, Ongard, because this is what the show most likely wanted to tell. However, the point is that it's all too naive and actually also impossible. The characters and stories have become much too unbelievable during the last two seasons.

It was just plain impossible that Camelot had endured and was as strong as ever after all the wars with Morgana and the search for Morgana. Even if Camelot had the "money" due to some magical trick, there weren't even enough people to replace the lost soldiers, not to mention there wasn't enough time to train them well enough. It's not that soldiers are growing on trees or are being produced in a factory and you can simply take them like you could buy machine guns. It takes a lot of money, effort and time to replace such a huge loss. Thousands of men! How could this have ever been possible?

Moreover, it's not only the followers of the Old Religion who may have held a grudge against Camelot, Arthur and Gwen especially after Morgana's death, the war against magic and the persecution of sorcerers, but there were also all those in all kingdoms (inside and outside of Camelot) who were afraid of magic, hated it and didn't want it to return. It's so naive of the show to pretend that especially people in the dark ages would EVER approve of witchcraft and sorcery, except for a minority. Naturally, people were afraid of it because they didn't understand it. Gwen could have never succeeded in convincing the people and other kings of the harmless nature of magic, not to mention that magic wasn't harmless.

Last but not least, Gwen herself didn't have any reason to trust magic after everything she had experienced. Merlin killed the soldiers of the Saxons but what else did she know of his doings? He might as well have manipulated people around him and been responsible for many weird things that had happened in Camelot, as far as she was concerned.

All in all, the show and the finale totally failed in delivering a believable happy ending.