Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Two/@comment-5102537-20130601104158/@comment-5102537-20130602124035

I'm not sure about it all. One one hand, I think it was a mistake and also quite incomprehensible that Gaius denied to help Morgana - he knew that magical skills couldn't be just surpressed and would be developed fully one day after all. I also see that Merlin tried his best to aid her best he could to cope with her powers.

However, I never bought that Morgana's hatred simply came out of  fear. In the first two seasons, her fight against Uther seemed to be driven by pride and rebellion. Morgana was always a very proud, determined and also a powerhungry person who had a severe problem with authorities  This was especially evident when she challenged Uther all the time before she knew of her powers and also when she contantly challenged and manipulated Arthur. Granted, she also had a sense for justice and for what is right or wrong which contributed to her rebellion against Uther when it came to sorcerers. Her friendship with Gwen surely also contributed to diss Uther's opinion about servants and commoners. And yes, when she learnt of her powers she most certainly was also scared.

But this fear couldn't have lasted for too long and - in the real world - it wouldn't be enough to suddenly turn somebody into a mass-murdering psychopath.

When she was with the druids she not only learnt that her magical powers and she herself weren't despisable but that she was born with a gift. The druids showed her that she had a place in this world and due to their placidity, Morgana saw that with such powers there comes great responsibility. The druids didn't abuse their magical powers and took her in without asking any questions, despite the fact that they risked their life since Morgana was Uther's "ward". So, according to this, Morgana experienced kindness and benevolence from those of her kind, from people with magical powers. They gave her security and selfconsciousness. And the most important part is the fact that the leader of the druid camp told Morgana that Uther should not be hated but pitied because he is a broken man.

This should have made Morgana wonder why Uther was broken and how the druids could know about it (which, by the way, is also something I wonder about. How could the druids know? Only Gaius, Nimueh and Uther knew of the circumstances of Arthur's birth). She should have wondered what happened with Uther and what reasons he had when even the druids who suffered at his hands did not hate him but felt sorry for him. This wasn't actually the description of an evil man who killed others just for fun.

Additionally, Morgana knew that Uther only ordered to find and to slaughter the camp because he thought that Morgana was kidnapped by them. If he only wanted to have a good kill before breakfast, he could have ordered to find the druid camp long before because he knew that the druids were out there. Yet he left them alone - until he was convinced that they threatened his daughter's life.

These are all things that Morgana completely edited out. She ignored the fact that Uther would do just anything for her and that he loved her. She ignored that he didn't persecute the druids until after he thought they would harm her.

It's not a miracle that she was scared and felt insecure after her safe place (the druid camp) was slaughtered because of her. But the reasons for it were ignored by Morgana, the very fact that Uther did it out of love for her and due to a huge misunderstanding that was caused by her and Merlin. She also never clarified the situation afterwards. She could have lied to Uther and told him that someone else kidnapped her and that the druids saved her, instead she let him believe that he resuced her from some evil sorcerers. Why in the world should Uther ever believe that magic wasn't evil when Morgana herself contributed to his conviction that magic-users/sorcerers could only do evil which was evident to him when they "kidnapped" his daughter and "threatened" her?

If she really wanted him to change and to see that not all magic was evil, she could have tried to talk to him and to tell him (even lies) that the druids saved her from someone else and that it wasn't a sorcerer who threatened her.

It's seems to be quite clear that she had no real interest in defending sorcerers and magic-users but that she only wanted to win a fight over power with Uther who she despised due to his status as king and guardian whom she had to obey.

The more powerful she got, the less reason she had to really fear Uther. Which, I think, is one of the reasons why she even called him a "snivelling dog" in the beginning of season three. It wasn't all fear.

And her hatred towards Arthur, Gwen, Merlin and Gaius was even more incomprehensible and couldn't have to do with fear either.

So the question if she had developed into a different direction if Merlin and Gaius had helped her coping with her powers is not so easy to answer, in my opinion. If she had known about Merlin's powers and had seen that he saved Uther several times and continued to protect him she could have easily betrayed Merlin and told Uther about him in order to get him out of the way the next time she attempts to kill Uther.

Maybe seeing someone else with such powers could have healed her from her hatred but I actually doubt it because of what  wrote above. I only wonder why Gaius didn't want to guide her. As ReganX said, he could have tried without revealing Merlin's secret.