User blog comment:Dryuuu/Agravaine and Morgana's awkward relationship/@comment-5036924-20120119182519

...I fond their relationship pretty awkward the whole way through too but I didn't really enjoy it. Particularly that moment where he half lies on top of her when he finds her unconscious in the forest; was really cringing at that point. At first I thought they were related (still not sure on the logistics of that one) and I was like "er, what? I thought incest was off limits" when Agravaine was doing his weird creepy falling-at-her-feet servitude thing.

Plenty makes Morgana 'better than him', or at least in her mind it does. She could clearly overpower him with her magic so that's always going to put her in a dominant position, and she's also far more driven, domineering, passionate and innovative than Agravaine - he just follows orders while she masterminds everything.

I actually thought Agravaine might reconsider his mindless loyalty to her when she threatened him, particularly after he looked so queasy when Elyan was being tortured, but alas, there was no intriguing second betrayal. I don't really get why Agravaine would be so brainlessly attached to Morgana when all she actually does is insult him, threaten him, demand things from him and occasionally say "...you've done well..." to him. I guess perhaps they were suggesting he's in weird, pseudo-incestuous, unrequited love with her, hence the endless loyalty, but, like virtually all relationships on Merlin, it had no backstory or build up and so looked rather odd to me.

I guess there wasn't enough onscreen time between them for me to really work out their relationship. I never really saw Morgana as caring for him at all, and I felt a bit dubious about him being so obsessed with her. Still, both actors did a very good job and Agravaine certainly served his purpose.