Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20130906200850/@comment-5102537-20130928132816

ReganX wrote:

Mind you, the plot line would work better if they hadn't made Morgana irredeemably evil, and better still if she remained a fixture in the castle as Arthur's half-sister and heiress presumptive, loyal to Camelot and wishing no harm on its citizens but disagreeing with the laws against magic. Indeed. She would have become a second Merlin and by that a possible ally. Which is, as I believe, one of the reasons why they changed her into a mere villainess because she would have been a competitor to Merlin. Another reason probably was to let the other characters look much better than they actually were.

If they had described Morgana as a moderate opponent, Merlin could have fallen to the dark side for a while and in the end, both could have worked together towards a legalization of magic. Even if both had been loyal to Camelot they could have had different opinions about the way they work for their goal.

On another note, in regard to things that would have been different if Uther had not died: Merlin would have had a very good reason to hide his true nature instead of this far-fetched reason why he kept his secret from Arthur. If Uther hadn't died, the show wouldn't had had to present Arthur as a fickle man who doesn't know what's right and wrong and who changes his opinion about magic almost every week... banning magic, tolerating druids, persecuting sorcerers, rescuing a witch, hating magic, using magic himself, denying magic-users a proper burial, blaming his father for hating magic...

With Uther still being alive, Merlin could have used every opportunity to change Arthur's mind with Arthur slowly doubting the ban of magic, even more than he already did in the first three seasons. Merlin could have tried the same with Uther in case that he hadn't changed his opinion after Morgana's betrayal anyway. And even better: in case that Uther had changed his mind, Arthur could have been the one who hated magic even more, now that Morgana had fallen from grace and turned against pretty much everyone he loved. This could have been a reason for him to fight magic the way that Uther did when seeing that even loved ones can't be trusted due to corrupting magic.

I can only repeat that it was a huge mistake to write Uther out of the show.