Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140405091322/@comment-5102537-20140412103827

Areanna123 wrote:

The way Morgana and Gwen acted after this point confused me. Were the creators trying to say that Morgana had been enchanted this way by Morgause? Or were they implying that you could read it that way if you wanted to? It would really bother me if Morgana had been enchanted and nobody knew and none of this is her fault, but she dies because of it anyway. That would just be awful, I would rather go with she just went bad.

I wish it had been that way. Morgana having been enchanted/brainwashed would have made much more sense than any other attempt to explain her sudden sadism and madness.

Alas, in "The Tears of Uther Pendragon", Morgause told Morgana that the mandrake roots won't work on those who have magic. So if this was true, Morgana couldn't have been affected by the mandrake roots but only by something else to enchant or brainwash her. What's more, they needed Uther's tears in order to make the spell work, but here with Gwen, no tears were needed. How come?

The mandrake root was known to bring the deepest fears and sorrows to the surface, all the things that tormented a person due to regret, a bad conscience, sadness and fear. The tears made perfect sense, given that Uther saw his dead wife, the one who was the reason for his broken soul and hatred for magic, which is why he also saw the boy and other children he had killed. It was clear that his grief and bad conscience was showing, plus that all those he saw were innocent or considered to be innocent by him (Igraine being innocent and the children being children, killed by a powerful king). This was all brilliant and gave a great insight into Uther's mind and soul, for the Great Purge (at least in regard to the children) tormented him and the grief over his dead wife plus her possible disapprovement of his later actions were impossible for him to overcome and destroyed him bit by bit.

But Gwen's tears weren't needed for some reason. Moreover, I found her visions not very convincing. I was never under the impression that she feared to be rejected by Arthur or to lose her friends. If I had to think of something that she suffered from subconsiously, given how little we know of her past, I would have given her visions of her father and his possible disapprovement of taking care of Uther and marrying his son. Tom's death wasn't her fault at all but she agreed to Arthur's request to take care of the one who had killed Tom. And instead of turning her back on Camelot she became Queen of Camelot. Not that Tom would disapprove of it but Gwen may have had a bad conscience deep down inside of her.

I get it that the visions of Arthur and Merlin were needed in order to make her hate them after the brainwashing, yet I didn't find them convincing at all. So the entire thing with the mandrake roots were a bad idea, in my opinion.

And yes, Gwen could hear the screams even though we were told that only those with magic were able to hear them scream. I doubt that this means that Gwen had magic. It all would have only made sense if

- Morgause had lied and the mandrake roots worked on magical people, too

- Gwen had magic

- the tears were only necessary from those without magic

- Morgause had brainwashed/enchanted Morgana that way which would explain her sudden hatred and evilness

Funny, if Gwen really had magic, Kilgharrah's comment that Merlin had fulfilled his destiny would have made sense indeed ;-)

Areanna123 wrote:

"The scene with Gwen and Morgana having dinner together was interesting. I don't know what to make of it. Was it all part of the Stockholm syndrome angle Morgana was working on or is she lonely? Both? Morgana choosing Gwen makes things complicated, couldn't she have used one of the knights just as well? As the plan didn't really seem to call for Arthurs death, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal if she took a knight and Arthur didn't show up. She could just send the knight back after the brainwashing with a story about how he escaped."

I think that Morgana's plan was to prove to Gwen that in all those dark thoughts and among the threats of those in Gwen's visions, she was the only one who Gwen could trust. It's similar to people who secretly bully others and pretend that their victims are being hated by other people when telling them lies about them. The real offenders present themselves as the ones who are on their victim's side when actually they are the ones who destroy their other relationships. So the victims start to believe them and put their trust in them while slowly rejecting the others who have never done any harm to them. Morgana being the only one to show Gwen some kindness was supposed to make her "realise" that Arthur, Merlin and the others were a bigger threat and the ones who tormented her.

She obviously chose Gwen for this in order to destroy Arthur emotionally. Additionally, with Gwen on the throne Morgana would have had every chance to return to Camelot unharmed once Arthur was dead and Gwen ruling until giving the crown to Morgana. So Gwen was the best choice for Morgana's desired comeback as queen. A knight could have never made that possible for her.

As for Queen Mab and the Old Religion. Well, yes... Again we have to wonder what's really going on among all the gods/goddesses/spirits/powerful forces of the Old Religion. Mab wasn't really nice when laughing at Merlin after telling him that one of them is going to die. Once again it proved the relentlessness and cruelty of the Old Religion, and once again I wondered why magic should be allowed again. Or better, why the Old Religion should return to the land and be the power that people submit to. There we had the cruel games again. Queen Mab obviously knew what was going to happen (another one with the ability to see the future), yet she neither prevented it from happening nor did she give Merlin a chance to prevent it but pushed him where they all were supposed to be in order to make it all happen. Plus, she apparently found it funny.

In my opinion, the forces of the Old Religion were a bunch of psychopaths which reflected itself in their High Priestesses like Nimueh, Morgause and Morgana.

Why, oh why should anyone ever wish for the Old Religion to reign again? Though I detest the Great Purge, I understand perfectly well why Uther had fought the Old Ways.