Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Two/@comment-5102537-20130608085206/@comment-5674726-20130608111251

Fimber wrote: Three famous men risk their lives to save the future queen who is still a "mere servant", not worth to sacrifice Camelot's soldier for in Uther's eyes.

I imagine that at least some of the soldiers had wives and children who were glad to know that the King wasn't going to sacrifice them to save Guinevere. To viewers, Guinevere is one of the main characters and should therefore be saved but, for most of the residents in Camelot, I'd say that they'd feel that the life of one servant girl wasn't worth sacrificing the lives of dozens of soldiers (at least) who would leave dozens of widows and orphans behind.

Like The Poisoned Chalice, I think this episode highlighted the difference between the younger generation who want only to save their friend - though I feel compelled to ask whether they'd have been as keen to risk their lives and the lives of others to save a random kitchen maid - and Uther, who is old enough and experienced enough to know that a King must choose his battles and not risk the lives of his soldiers, the men who will be needed to protect Camelot, to save one servant.

I said it on the episode page but it bears repeating that Kendrick is an utter fool for thinking that it was a good idea to try to pass Guinevere off as Morgana. He clearly wasn't to be paid upfront for handing "Lady Morgana" over to Hengist, nor did he make any effort to get his money from him before he could realise that he had been tricked. He can't have imagined that there was the slightest chance that Uther was going to pay the ransom that he would have paid for the safe return of a noblewoman he raised as his daughter to get a servant back, so it was inevitable that he would be discovered. Even if he was counting on Hengist killing "Lady Morgana" when the ransom didn't arrive but not blaming him for Uther's apparent stinginess, it was inevitable that word would reach Hengist that Lady Morgana was in Camelot. If Hengist was going to kill him for returning without Morgana, the only remotely sane thing for him to do was to run as far and as fast as he could, and hope that it would be too much trouble for Hengist to hunt him down.

It's like all the writers were really interested in was to find an excuse to dress Guinevere up as a noblewoman - note that they even go for one of Morgana's purple gowns, just in case anybody might miss the point - and have the heroes rescue her, even if the means by which they got her into the fine gown and in need of rescue made little sense.

Finally, every time I see this episode, I want to smack Arthur over the head with a heavy blunt object for not taking five seconds to ask his terrified, injured, half-undressed foster sister if she was okay, or to express relief that she was alive, before immediately demanding to know where Guinevere was. Uther's genuine relief and pleasure when he and Morgana are reunited is quite a contrast to Arthur's reaction.