Talk:Queen of Hearts/@comment-4047575-20131203190343/@comment-5102537-20131204232740

A death sentence is always cruel, no matter what. In the dark ages, in our modern world, it's always proof of failure to kill a person, especially "legally". In my opinion, it's babaric and vile.

However, in the show's canon as well as in the dark ages, it was common punishment for anyone who commited a crime that made continuing the life of the accused or convicted offender/criminal unacceptable. Magic was against the law and was punishable by death.

Uther only sentenced Gwen to death once she was "convicted", meaning when he got "proof" of her using magic (the poultice). He didn't know that it was all a set-up by Morgana, and in his eyes, Gwen directly violated the law of Camelot. Plus, even if magic hadn't been outlawed she was "convicted" to have enchanted the prince and future king of Camelot in order to take revenge on Uther and to cause mayhem. The ban of magic was secondary in this case because Gwen's supposedly enchantment put Arthur, Uther and entire Camelot in danger (to Uther's knowledge). This is something which no king, queen or any leader would have ever pardoned whatsoever.

Sentencing Gwen to death was a perfectly normal reaction of a king who had to protect his kingdom and most of all his own son. Since he was convinced that Gwen had done it all on purpose to plan evil and to threaten the kingdom plus Arthur and Uther (thanks to Morgana), and Uther didn't know that Gwen was framed, his reaction was more than understandable and (from his and any other king's point of view) completely justified.

And once Gwen was released of all accusations Uther released her again. I can't find anything wrong here in Uther's reaction, except for the perfidity of death penalty at all (due to my and hopefully most people's modern standard of ethics and morality). Remember, Arthur put Kara to death because she commited a crime. Unfortunately, that was the way they handled big crimes back then (and even today in some countries).