User blog comment:Emily Windsnap/What's so great about Lancelot?/@comment-5102537-20120528090910

In my opinion, Lancelot was actually very important to the entire story because so far, he was the only real mature and noble knight who embodied what most people connect with knights and honour, especially romantic ones. I like Gwaine, too, but he actually doesn't provide very much maturity. This isn't a bad thing, he is the funny guy and that's totally fine. I just had a problem with the knights bullying Merlin and most of all being bystanders when Arthur executed defenseless Caerleon. This wasn't exactly honourable, and both things would have been unimaginable with Lancelot around. He would have never bullyied Merlin and he surely wouldn't have agreed with killing an unarmed man who already was defeated.

Lancelot was Merlin's best friend, I would even think he was a much better friend than Arthur was. He knew about Merlin's secret and never told anyone, he backed off when he saw that Arthur and Gwen were meant to be together and he finally sacrificed himself to save everyone. With Lancelot, Merlin had the opportunity to be just himself without hiding, simply because he could trust Lancelot with his life, which he can't with Arthur. He actually could have been Merlin's strongest ally in Camelot if the hadn't killed him off the show. And Lancelot being the one loyal to Arthur but absolutely loyal to Merlin too while keeping his secret and therefore conspiring with him now and then would have given a lot of stuff for great stories.

Last but not least, he actually was a knight of the round table, THE knight of the round table. Retelling or not, Lancelot, since he appeared in this version too, has always been one of the most important characters and knights in the legends (in those in which he appeared) but here he has become a tool to support the drama between Arthur and Gwen and a character that they obviously needed to get rid of due to that. Shame.