Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Three/@comment-5102537-20130831114747/@comment-5102537-20130903104926

I agree Merlinarthur. "The Crystal Cave" is my all time-favourite episode. Such a brilliant story. It was Greek tragedy, philosophy and character exploration all at the same time.

Except for a few things I wondered about, like why Uther was in bed and asleep while the castle gave intruder alert and Arthur was on his way to Uther already to inform him. For some reason, Arthur never showed up but Morgana and Merlin did instead, plus Uther obviously didn't wake up due to the noise and the alarming bells. It's quite unlikely that while the castle is affected by the tumult, the king is sleeping and not informed and/or protected by the guards. Also, Morgana obviously entered his chambers easily without anyone standing outside or stopping her.

Another thing is that even though Uther knew that Morgause had magical powers, he obviously never considered the possibility that Morgana might have inherited Vivienne's powers too. In case that Vivienne had magical powers, which is likely since both daughters had magical powers and most certainly inherited them from their mother. So he should have wondered and suspected Morgana of having magic, especially since he was close to Vivienne, to say the least, at a time before the Great Purge. Did he never fear that his own daughter was a sorceress when he even slept with one, her mother?

When I saw this episode for the very first time I thought that the show will get at its best now and that such an amazing plot is lying ahead. All the stuff around Morgana, Morgause, Uther, Igraine, Vivienne, Gorlois, magic back then, the Great Purge (Vivienne's fate, in case she had magic) and whatnot... It could have been so great while Merlin and Arthur as the main protagonists would have been included and also affected by this all. It was about magic and the consequences of past mistakes, it was about Arthur's half-sister and Uther being the father of a powerful sorceress. It could have been about Uther slowly changing when he used magic in order to heal his daughter which would have affected pretty much everyone and everything in Camelot, most of all Merlin, Arthur, Morgana and Gaius. What great stories they could have created from this, what a great potential it all had.

Such a shame they suddenly dropped it all. Nobody ever asked about Vivienne's fate and she wasn't mentioned ever again. Was she a sorceress? Did Uther know back then? Is she still alive or did she die? If she died, did it happen during or because of the Great Purge? Who was Morgause's father? And ever since "The Sins of the father", I wanted to know why Morgause was smuggled out of Camelot as a baby. Did the High Priests and Priestesses want her and had they prepared and used Morgause for the things she did?

I really loved that Uther asked Gaius to use magic when Morgana was about to die. It showed that he loved her more than he hated magic - which could have been the first step to a change and maybe even was. And then, at the same time, it showed hypocrisy when he denied others to use magic but broke his own law himself. Unlike in season one when Arthur was mortally wounded. Nevertheless, asking for magic here was an act of good since it saved Morgana's life, and for a moment it seemed as if the story was back to Uther's way to redemption like the hints in season one. This situation could have been the beginning to a new era in Camelot with Uther coming to terms with it and I was very disappointed that they later chose the opposite. From a psychological point of view, it was actually unlikely.

Morgana should have seen here that Uther loved her but she refused to admit it. Him using magic to heal her should have proven to her that things weren't hopeless and that she meant more to him than his hatred for magic.

One of the best scenes in this episode was the one between Merlin and Uther when Uther told him his most private feelings about his children and cried. There were rare scenes in which Uther treated Merlin like a normal person and not like a servant, and this was one them. He basically talked to him like he would talk to a close friend and I was surprised to see such a scene. Seemed to be a situation where Uther forgot about status for a while and behaved like a man rather than a king when trusting Merlin with his feelings and grief. Such scenes in which the characters forgot about their usual roles but acted like normal human beings were the most brilliant ones because they brought more depth an credibility to a character than any other clichee and heroism. Sometimes the silent tones were the best ones. I was also surprsied that Uther had noticed the father-son relationship between Gaius and Merlin and it strongly contradicted "Goblin's Gold" when Uther redaily believed that Gaius would send Merlin to his doom. For once, Uther was presented as someone who indeed realised the bonds and relationships of others, like a normal person would even though Merlin was only a servant and we were always told that servants were unregarded by Uther.

The entire plot about the future and Merlin trying to alter it was just awesome. Again, we could discuss now whether or not the future is written in stone. Here, as well as in other episodes, the future couldn't be altered but always fullfilled itself, no matter what Merlin tried or what Morgana had tried in other episodes before. This actually proved that no one on "Merlin" was the master of their own future and/or actions but only puppets on a string.

I liked that Merlin was still his old self and tried to help everyone, couldn't stand the grief over the upcoming loss and used his powers to do what was priority to a blurry prophecy. Sure, the fact that he healed Morgana brought Camelot's downfall and Arthur's death - but wouldn't it have happened anyways? Only in a different way? And was Merlin even capable to not heal Morgana when the future was written in stone and everyone's fate and destiny predetermined?

My husband, who is a big Star Trek fan, recently told me about an epsiode of "Voyager". The Holodoc (Emergency Medical Hologram, EMH) had to decide whose life to save after an accident and let one crew member die in the process which caused a severe ethical conflict in his programme. What he said about the future applies to "Merlin" too:

EMH: The more I think about it, the more I realise there's nothing I could've done differently.

JANEWAY: What do you mean?

EMH: The primordial atom burst, sending out its radiation, setting everything in motion. One particle collides with another, gases expand, planets contract, and before you know it we've got starships and holodecks and chicken soup. In fact, you can't help but have starships and holodecks and chicken soup, because it was all determined twenty billion years ago!

TUVOK: There is a certain logic to your logic. Progress?

(... blablabla...) ....

JANEWAY: You. This book is relevant to your situation.

EMH: Oh? What is it?

JANEWAY: Poetry, written on Earth a thousand years ago. La Vita Nuova.

EMH: La Vita Nuova. The New Life? Ha! Tell that to Ensign Jetal. Actually, I killed her countless times.

JANEWAY: What do you mean?

EMH: Causality, probability. For every action, there's an infinite number of reactions and in each one of them, I killed her. Or did I? Too many possibilities, too many pathways for my programme to follow. Impossible to choose, but still, I can't live with the knowledge of what I've done.

There is another thing that I do wonder about. While in season one we were told that a life has to be taken for another in order to restore the balance, which also applied to Merlin saving Arthur, here and on other occasions when Merlin healed Arthur and Morgana and saved them from certain death, no such consequences happened. Basically, when Uther asked Gaius for magical help in order to save Morgana, he should have paid a price according to the life for a life-policy. Even more, he should have known because last time he asked for magical help, Igraine died. So who died this time? Or was this rule only made by Nimueh and vanished with her and the Questiing Beast once both were dead? If so, did Uther even know that Nimueh was dead and that there was nobody left who demanded a life for a life? Or was Uther's own doom the price?

All in all, this was a brilliant episode, very clever and deep. Loved it. I could write more but when I start with Morgana now, this post will get twice as long and I doubt that many people have even read this long post :-D