Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Four/@comment-5102537-20140118143939/@comment-24456706-20140123200145

Fimber wrote:

Merlin found out about the true reasons because he witnessed Arthur's confession, which wasn't planned by Arthur since he wanted to go alone. It was very obvious that he wanted to keep this secret.

When he talked to Merlin and Gaius about the ghost in private, he deliberately kept the secret from them, so he couldn't know that Merlin would follow him and find out, thus he thought they kept believing it was Uther, his own father, plus not caring about Elyan's fate either.

In this conversation he should have told the truth at the latest. He should have felt the urge to take away the blame from his father, not to mention making arrangements for the future of Camelot and Elyan - Arthur thought that he would die in the woods after all. It was irresponsible, short-sighted and cowardly in regard to his reputation. Lurker here. Decided to forge ahead and nab myself an official identity. Hey, ya'll.

I agree with a few points you mentioned. Overall, the big problem is that there wasn't a real sense of resolution here. At least, nothing believable. I agree that it was important for the viewers to see how Arthur clarified this situation with Agravaine and his Knights, given how Elyan's apparent "betrayal" is forgiven and forgotten by everyone by the next episode, when they're all hunting and feasting together again. Clearly, someone must have told them something. But then, what's more important: showing us how Arthur salvaged Elyan's reputation to his friends, his peers, and the Court... or Arthur and Merlin's banter-y, "No chance we could have a hug" dialogue?

The fact that Merlin was the only person present for Arthur's atonement speech was a not-so-subtle hint from the writers that his opinion was the one that held the most weight with Arthur. Who cares if no one else knows the truth? Merlin does, and Merlin saw him say sorry, so that's all that matters.

Again, there's nothing in this episode to indicate Agravaine, the Knights, or the faceless Court ever held Uther responsible for the ghost's attack. None of them had the magic know-how to make the connection that the shrine was a battle site, that disturbing it would awaken a vengeful spirit (regardless of what Merlin tried to warn them), or that that vengeful spirit would try and kill whoever was responsible. I think it'd be safe to assume that magic and anything "otherworldly" was still held in such low regard at this point that they could easily have believed the spirit was attacking them for no apparent reason, except that it could.

Would it have been right of Gaius, Merlin, and Arthur to allow them to continue believing this when they knew the truth? Maybe not. But I understand why this might appear, to Arthur, to be a more acceptable option. Again--a scene where Arthur explained all to the Knights would have provided a lot of clarification here.

I can think of only one explanation for why Arthur didn't reveal Uther's innocence to Gaius and Merlin, the only two people who ever explicitly blamed him for the spirit's attack:

I don't know that Arthur believed he would die in the woods. He knew that going out on his own would be a huge risk, yes, but he may have believed there was a very real chance that once he atoned for his actions, the attack would end, as Gaius had told him it would. The only thing that stands to contradict this hypothesis within that scene is when "Elyan" is apparently about to kill him, and Arthur was going to let him do so. Had Merlin not been there, obviously your concerns as to what happened next, in regards to Elyan and Uther's suspected complicity, would be completely correct. But we as the viewers know that Arthur was never going to die... which is apparently enough of an excuse for the writers not to explain a lot.