Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140510092611/@comment-5102537-20140511170847

I agree with a lot of you've written, Areanna123 and Issy5209. However, as for Kara, she wasn't a hero at all in my opinion. It's one thing to fight for freedom and to join a war, which is actually worse enough (and was an all sides), but Kara didn't just fight for freedom but did it all only out of revenge and hatred.

This was especially obvious when she first told Mordred

"He will never show mercy to someone like me."

and then rejected Arthur's offer to spare her life. She either didn't believe that Arthur would show mercy and then be surprised when he does - or she simply manipulated Mordred and had been determined from the very beginning, no matter what. And this was what happened, she didn't care for Arthur changing his mind whatsoever but only wanted to manipulate Mordred into hating Arthur. While I agree that Arthur was far from being a hero especially from season four onwards (as was Merlin), he was the one here who reached out to his enemy. Sure thing, it was totally ridiculous that in season three he promised the druids freedom and later in season five we learn that not only the druids are all of a sudden not a peaceful people anymore but that Arthur even persecuted sorcerers and changed nothing in regard to the druids. Nevertheless, he wanted to spare the life of a murderer and a magic-user no less. He was willing to act directly against the laws of Camelot and to ignore the very fact that Kara killed people in cold blood and tried to kill Arthur and was filled with hatred like Morgana was. This was even too soft for Arthur. You just can't let go off a murderer and a declared fanatical enemy of the state (kingdom, in this case). If he had at least offered another punishment, I would have understood his offer.

Anyway, the fact that Kara refused and wanted to die for her cause showed her pure fanatism. People who have nothing to lose and don't even care for their own life, when they're so filled with hatred, are the most dangerous ones. They are the reason for terroristic suicidal acts in our times. They too call the people who are killed in the process "casualties of war" or "collateral damage" and that the innocent ones will go to paradise. And people like Morgana who brainwash and manipulate others, are similar to the ones who brainwash terrorists and make them wanting to blow themselves up in order to kill people.

Kara had all qualities of a terrorist, just as Morgana had (unfortunately). Her own life and Mordred's fate was as unimportant to her as the lives of innocents and the ones he had already killed. This isn't a fight for freedom but pure blind hatred and fanatism. Had she wanted to bring about a change, she would have taken Arthur's offer and realised that he at least tried to change something. This would have been an important first step on the way to peace.

Instead she manipulated Mordred by pretending that Arthur would not show her mercy, which made him believe that she would be willing to take an offer (he even tried to talk Arthur out of killing her on her behalf) but that Arthur simply didn't make such an offer. Had she told him from the beginning that she doesn't care and wouldn't take an offer anyway, things might have been different in regard to Mordred. But she did the opposite and Mordred felt even worse about it all, thinking that she only did it all for their rights when it was actually only a wicked attempt to fuel Mordred's hatred. And by doing that she even sealed Mordred's fate. She knew exactly that he wouldn't forget this and just go on with his life. If she really loved Mordred, she would have taken the offer and survived, and even if she hadn't, she would at least  have made sure that Mordred learns of Arthur's offer and that it was her own decision to die. But had she done that, Mordred might have seen that Arthur was willing to spare her life and maybe not turned against him, wouldn't he? And that wouldn't have served her purpose. So with Mordred not knowing of it all, she could be sure that the loss of his loved one would make him run to Morgana and join forces with her. Poor Mordred was nothing but a tool in the hands of a fanatical cold-blooded woman.

The entire story showed once again one thing very clearly: it was revenge and hatred that drove almost everybody in it.

Considering Kara and Mordred as heroes would mean to consider Uther and Arthur as heroes, too. They acted out of revenge. Mordred's reaction to the death of his loved one was a repetition of Uther's reaction to the loss of Igraine. While almost everyone blamed Uther for the entire war on magic and considered him a tyrant, Mordred is being viewed as a poor victim who has every right to take revenge for the death of his girlfriend. I wonder why? Where's the difference? Magic killed Igraine, Uther (who had already seen the chaos and destruction of abusive magic in the land before that) reacted with the Great Purge in order to rid the land (his kingdom) of magic. He was betrayed by his friend Nimuhe and lost his beloved wife, but magic had started it all long before he was even born (as we know especially from the Diamair). Mordred felt betrayed by his friend (Arthur) and lost his loved one at Arthurs hands, so he seeks revenge and wages war against Camelot in which thousands of people will be killed, guilty people and innocents alike. Both men did it out of grief and because they were betrayed by trusted friends, both were driven by hatred when they lost who they loved. The only difference here, on Uther's behalf, was that Igraine was completely innocent whereas Kara was not. Igraine was a victim, Kara an offender, assassin and killer.

So why was Mordred right and Uther wrong? Same goes for Kara who blamed Uther and Arthur for bringing misery upon her people, yet she, as well as Morgana, desired the death of everyone they considered their enemy, innocent people included, no matter what. They wanted no peace and no change but only to see blood. They wanted to rid the world of what and who they hated.

So why was Kara right and Uther wrong? Or Arthur, who hated magic because both his parents died at the hands of magic?

And yet, Kara was even worse, because Uther and Arthur cared for their loved ones, their friends and their own lives whereas Kara didn't. She couldn't care less about Mordred but only used him, even if it meant to destroy him, both his soul (his grief for her and his hatred for his former friends) as well as his body (his upcoming death).

It also seemed that Kara was aware of the prophecy, at least of the part where Camlann was concerned, when she said several times that Arthur deserves everything that is coming to him. If she knew of that, it would make the whole thing even worse.

As for Kara's execution, Arthur's offer and Mordred not knowing about it, I think it was tremendously stupid of Merlin to not hurry to Mordred straight away in order to let him know that Arthur wanted to spare Kara's life. Instead of witnessing Kara being hanged he should have run to Mordred to inform him and to make sure that he doesn't escape. Speaking of which, Mordred was able to destroy the cell-door, so why hadn't he done it much earlier? Or at least tried to?

This episode demonstrated once again that the show was filled with characters who acted like children who don't care about the greater good and who can't even think of more sensible and appropriate reactions but only about themselves. Every great misfortune and cruel thing that happened to them made them freak out like crazy egomaniacs who are eager to go to war and drag thousands of people into their own personal drama and tragedy. ''Hurt me and I will destroy the world. Kill my loved ones and I will kill thousands. Betray me and I will torture you. Deprive me of what  I desire and I will destroy you''.

It often seemed as if the protagonists and antagonists were suffering from severe behaviour disorder. Of course, the concept of revenge is as old as humanity is, yet "normally", people seek revenge on those who directly hurt them, not on the rest of the world. Had Mordred or Kara wanted to kill the one they considered to be responsible for their misery - Arthur in this case - it would be understandable from where they were standing. But going to war about the death of a single person... Same would apply for Uther if it had been only about Igraine and not about the real threat of magic and the almost-destruction of the land before he came to Camelot/took the throne/was king. As wrong as the Great Purge was, there was an additional reason for it and the war on magic made at least sense from his point of view, as well as from Arthur and everyone else's point of view who was against magic. In a political sense, the war against Camelot makes sense too, at least from the magic- user's point of view.However, total destruction, slaughter and misery for thousands of people because of the death of a loved one does not. Mordred acted hastily and completely emotionally. He basically was running amok.

Morgana's reaction to Merlin being Emrys was alright for the final scene of the epsiode, but it was a joke in regard to the finale and when looking back to the previous seasons. Her knowing of Merlin didn't change the slightest bit, she still just wanted to kill him and everyone else. I wanted to know what she thinks of it, what she might realise, now that she knew that the saviour, Emrys, tried to save Uther and protected Arthur and Camelot. She must have realised and wondered that something was going on and that he must have had a reason. Shame we never saw any reaction of hers to it whatsoever.