Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Three/@comment-5102537-20130824120945/@comment-5102537-20130827153740

Selecasticon wrote: It is interesting, although I get the impression that Gwen was struck beyond her beliefs!!!

Also, when the Fake Knight asks Uther to execute Gwaine, I was disgusted at how Uther thought about it!!!

And Uther exiling Gwaine in the end despite saving Arthur's life!!!

I find Arthur being jealous of the farewell Gwen gives to Gwaine very interesting as well!!!

An attempt to kill a knight/noble was terrible crime in the dark ages and punishable by death. Uther was quick believing nobles over servants or commoners but it's actually not surprising, given that the knights followed a code and had a certain sophistication whereas most commoners/servants hadn't and were suspected to try to get their hands on either gold or to harm nobles out of revenge, hatred, jelousy or whatever reasons. The poor attacking the rich wasn't a rarity. Educating/training a knight took a lot of effort and money, so losing a knight to an ordinary man due to whatever reasons wasn't an option, whether we like it due to our today's ethical standarts or not.

Uther had no reason to believe that Gwaine saved Arthur from the goodness of his heart when he later was alleged to have attempted to kill an appreciated knight and a special guest of the royal household. In Uther's mind, Gwaine could as well have saved Arthur in order to get into the castle and committing a crime (trying to kill the the "knight" in this case). Good thing that Uther listened to Arthur every now and then, because if he hadn't, Gwaine would have been sentenced to death according to the law. Actually, Uther was quite soft with his sentence (from his point of view because he didn't know what we know about the fake knights). If Gwaine really had been an assassin/criminal he could as well have tried to kill either Arthur, Uther or Morgana or any other person too. How would Uther know?

Moreover, sparing the "commoner" who supposedly tried to kill a "noble friend of Camelot" would have insulted the knights, not to mention that the "knights" had the right to demand justice (death in this case). All in all, Uther acted totally normal according to the law of Camelot (or in the dark ages) and due to his status as king. We may not like it but we're not kings or queens in that time.

But, of course, since we know what was really going on and we like Gwaine, this goes completely against our wishes and sense for justice. As usual, the viewers have an advantage over the fictional character because they know the truth.