Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Four/@comment-5102537-20131130132300/@comment-5674726-20131214235951

Fimber wrote:

When Morgana realised that Gwen didn't know about her captivity, she should have known at the latest that Arthur probably wasn't involved in Sarrum's sadistic game. Instead of going after Arthur it would have made more sense for Morgana to go after Sarrum, especilly in order to prevent an alliance between the two kingdoms.

The year she didn't make a move against Camelot was probably the year she had to recover from the torture and also to prepare for her next move.

On another note, when Sarrum told Arthur about Morgana and that he had tortured her and Aithusa, Arthur didn't seem to be disturbed about it much. Even after what Morgana had done, two years of torture should definitely have bothered Arthur. Morgana was his half-sister after all and he used to love her. Even for a stranger, two years of torture is something of which Arthur actually should have dispproved of. Guinevere not knowing wouldn't necessarily add up to Arthur not knowing as far as Morgana was concerned. Arthur and Guinevere's budding relationship seems to have flown under her radar until her vision of Gwen being crowned so she wouldn't have known how they interacted. From her perspective, it may have been perfectly credible that Arthur could have known what was happening to her but never said anything to his wife.

As for the timing issue, I'd say that there has to have been at least some time between Aithusa healing Morgana and her capture, enough for them to form their close bond and for it to become known to the Sarrum that Aithusa was Morgana's weakness. There are so many unanswered questions about Morgana's capture, most likely because it was a cheap vehicle to make her even more of a villain; at first, I thought that the torture backstory was intended as a means of making the character more sympathetic and building towards a redemption storyline but I was wrong. Was she in Camelot at the time? If so, it would be a reason for her to think that the Sarrum captured her with Arthur's knowledge and approval. Was she in the Sarrum's territory? If so, why? There are bound to have been kingdoms less hostile to magic.

As for Arthur's reaction to the Sarrum's comments about Morgana's captivity, I think that it's rather a pity that Ghost!Uther wasn't there for that.