Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130302204954/@comment-5102537-20130309113312

"What if Nimueh's goal was not to wipe out the population of Camelot but to manipulate them into embracing magic and to destabilise Uther's rule?"

Quoting doesn't work for me anymore, so I have to copy and paste. Is it a bug or am I the only one who has a problem with quoting in the forum?

Anyway, this was surely part of Nimueh's plan, if not the only plan. Uther was right in predicting that people would turn to magic to find a cure because most people would try anything in order to be saved from a life threatening disease. This would have been perfect for Nimueh. She would  not only have harmed Uther personally by making him helpless against this invisible enemy but she also would have weakened his kingdom, his reputation, his law and his credibility. Soon Uther would have to face a political uprising or maybe even an armed revolt when the people of Camelot think that their king denied them a cure and watches them die.

This was actually a brilliant plan but the episode didn't make it clear. What the viewers saw was that Nimueh wanted to take revenge on Uther and by that didn't care about the many lives that are sacrificed. It would have been a good idea if someone, maybe even Nimueh herself had mentioned that the plan was to make people turning to magic and by that turning against Uther.

MerlinDragonLord, I'm sure that she would have helped the people. This would have been the only way to gain their trust and to show them that magic was "good" and that Uther was wrong. If she hadn't cured them, it would have proven that Uther was right (which he actually even was, in this case).