Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Two/@comment-5102537-20130727145913/@comment-5102537-20130728115733

Aithusa07 wrote:

The one scene that seriously bugged me was when Merlin left Morgana to be turned into a shish-ka-bob by the knight of Medhir, I hate that scene. I despise it with all my being. Even though I understand what was going though his head then. He wanted Morgana to die without him being directly responsible, I get it. He was scared and desperate. But come on! Hi Aithusa07, nice to see you back here :-)

What you wrote above was a repeating concept. It wasn't the only time that Merlin wanted others to kill the ones he either considered to be a threat or to be in his way. Instead of getting his own hands dirty, he left Morgana to the Knight of Medhir here. Later he stood by and watched Uther die instead of healing him until Arthur decided to use magic which is why Merlin saw an advantage for himself. Then in season five, he adviced Arthur to kill Mordred in "Arthur's Bane" instead of doing it himself, and last but not least he wanted to let Mordred die at the hands of the Disir instead of advicing Arthur to allow magic and then killing Mordred himself (not that I would have ever approved of this. Just mentioning that Merlin wanted to have a clean slate when letting others do the dirty work for him).

In this episode here, Merlin had at least one other reason to leave Morgana to her fate since he dragged Uther around and tried to keep him save. It had been a risk to help Morgana and leave Uther alone for the time being. Nontheless, his facial expression demonstrated quite well that he saw an opportunity to get rid of Morgana. While I understand why he did it - and I think he also did it to find out whether the knight would spare Morgana - it was actually unlike him up until that point of time. Then, in entire season three, we didn't see such a behaviour of his again, up until season four when he wanted to let Uther die.

I think it was a mistake to suddenly show Merlin being such a coward and such a sneaky character. It contradicted his entire character up until season four. Here, in "The Fires..." Merlin really tried to directly kill the one he wanted to be out of the way only when he had no other choice anymore, as he did with Agravaine later in season four. While he looked satisfied when killing Agravaine, it was obvious that he would have preferred someone else to kill Morgana, Uther and Mordred.

Now, what you and Selecasticon wrote about Morgana:

I'm absloutely not convinced that Morgana would have tried to stop it all had she known that she was the source of it all. I don't even believe that she didn't know what was going on, meaning that people were about to die. She was rather scared of the tremendous power and confused because she didn't know what was yet to come with the Knights of Medhir.

The reason why I think that is that "In the Witch's Quickening", Morgana readily agreed to harm and kill everyone who served Uther, which means also her friends (and her half-brother, though she didn't know about it at that point of time). Alvarr didn't need much effort to convince Morgana that it was "necessary" to kill even her friends in order to bring Uther's downfall. When she was ready to do it in that situation, why not just a short time later when Morgause wanted to bring Uther's downfall?

Morgana had already proven that she was willing to sacrifice innocents and her friends, so there's no reason whatsoever to think that she wouldn't have done it just one epsiode later.

The reason why she was scared seemed to be that she wasn't fully informed by Morgause and didn't know the exact plan. Plus, it must have a been a spooky feeling to wander the town and castle completely alone with nobody being awake, like a ghost town. She didn't know about the extent of her own powers and she didn't know what was going to happen next, so she was afraid. I too wondered why she didn't kill Uther when she was alone with him, holding a sword. But honestly, had she killed him, being the only one awake and being the only one with a sword, Arthur and Merlin would have known that it was her, of course. Had Morgana known what was going to happen, meaning Morgause's plan, she could have easily killed Uther and then escape, leaving Camelot to its doom. However, she had no idea and surely was waiting for a sign of Morgause to finally find out what the heck she had planned. Maybe Morgause needed Uther for something else? How could Morgana have known? Maybe Uther's death would have lifted the ban and everyone would have woken up, seeing Morgana being the murder of the king?

She simply couldn't know, so she had to wait and see what happens, being scared because she was being left in the dark. And scared because she saw her powers growing.

Merlin poisoning Morgana:

I understood why he did it and I felt sorry for him that he had to kill someone he had considered a friend. Since the show failed to clarify whether or not the dragon was right with what he told Merlin all the time, we have to assume that Morgana's death was indeed the only way to stop the spell, hence saving thousands of lives in entire Camelot.

The question is: was it Morgana's actual death or the very fact that Morgause sensed Morgana's death which gave Merlin the opportunity to force her to stop the spell and the knights? Maybe the dragon knew that Morgause would do anything to save Morgana and knew that she would stop it all once Merlin blackmailed her. Morgause stopped the attacks of the knights and everyone woke up when M&M disappeared. So we don't know if it was Morgana's death or simply Morgause stopping it all.

If Merlin had told Morgana, chances would have been that she had fled or tried to stop Merlin. There was no guarantee that Merlin would have had any chance anymore to stop Morgana, had he told her. This is something I would have liked to know.

What I liked about the episode was that in the beginning, Morgana said that Uther cared for no one, which was proven otherwise in the end when Uther told Arthur that looking after Morgana was his own duty and when he stood in front of her mirror, watching her jewelry and being devastated. Not to mention the following year when he was looking for her and almost sacrificed his entire kingdom only for Morgana. This was the very point when Morgana finally should have realised that she was plain wrong about Uther. At the latest when he went broken after her betrayal instead of hunting her down.

Morgana was eager to talk herself into hatred, she really desperately wanted to believe that Uther didn't care for her or anyone else, despite the fact that he had demonstrated the opposite on many occasions with both Arthur and Morgana.

Morgana's reasons why she wanted to kill Uther never really had a solid basis. It was totally exaggerated and she acted like a neurotic maniac. I have absolutely no sympathy for her attempts to harm, torture and kill her own father, her half-brother and her best friends as well as innocents. I think it's a shame that they turned Morgana in such a psychopath. This character didn't deserve it.