Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20141004175104/@comment-89.64.130.39-20181213141540

On one hand, I believe she was destined to become evil, one way or another. That's what Kilgharrah always suggested and what the keeper of the spirit world pretty much said (though the latter is less obvious, it could be understood that she only sealed her destiny when she tore the veil). It looked to me a bit as if she was the necessary evil for the events to unfold the way they were supposed to... For example, all the evil she was doing helped Arthur become the king he was meant to be (obviously he didn't fully achieve it, but I believe it was only because writing the reveal into the show earlier was complicated and someone responsible for it might have been a little... lazy :)). The first time she took the throne of Camelot (and killed Uther's spirit), he knighted commoners - it was a big step and just a few episodes before he'd said it could never be done. Her schemes involuntarily helped Arthur make peace with King Odin and Queen Annis. Sure, as for the latter, there wouldn't be war if not for Agravaine's bad counsel, but they weren't friendly either.

Look at the episode in which Arthur, Merlin, and Gwaine go to Perilous Lands. The Fisher King claims it's Merlin's quest, and Merlin could only discover it because Morgana wanted to kill Arthur. Not only that, The Fisher King could only die because Morgana and Morgause were evil and the former gave Arthur the bracelet.

On the other hand, I sometimes suspected that Morgause did something to her when she cast a sleeping spell or in the year when she fake-kidnapped her; though of course it could have been just solid brainwashing. In truth, it was probably simply poor writing, but she went from wanting to kill Uther to free the land from his hatred to saying that it's good that poor people are dying in a blink. This was one of the biggest undoings of the show IMO.

In the first season, Nimueh was a relatively interesting antagonist. We knew the back story, she wasn't really overused, she seemed to be playing by some rules of the Old Religion (even if she might have been twisting them) instead of just blindly killing or deceiving everyone and everything that went her way. And well, she had some character. Morgause and later Morgana evil was so boring and out of the blue that each time the camera showed them doing one of their evil smirks, I wanted to throw up. Why didn't they show/tell us anything about their mother? Why didn't they elaborate more on why Morgause hated Uther so much and didn't give her as much as one conversation with anyone in which she does something else than bossing people around, declaring her loyalty to Morgana, or demonstrating her hunger for power and revenge? And later Morgana becomes that boring, one-dimensional character, as if she was a copy of Morgause, just less confident. Virtually every dark character that is associated with them (Agravaine, Cendred) is more interesting than them. So, maybe if Morgana didn't meet Morgause, at least she'd be more exciting to watch.

Two scenarios that in my mind could have potentially saved Morgana (though I still find it more likely that she simply had to go bad) is 1) if the whole druid thing was planned better or 2) if Gaius was a little braver in regard to Morgana, or understood magic better. Unlike some people, I believe Merlin was right not to tell Morgana about his magic. Obviously Kilgharrah new things that him and Gaius didn't, if he was calling her dangerous before she had any control over her powers, well, it wasn't worth the risk; Merlin's word didn't mean much in Camelot anyway and she could still turn against Uther and Arthur, and exposed Merlin just to make them powerless against magic.

So, IMO, it was a good plan to send her to the druids, if only there was a plan. In that episode, both Morgana and Merlin were at their absolute dumbest. They knew that Uther was on the hunt for sorcerers and that he was convinced they were targetting Morgana; it was fairly obvious that her simply disappearing was a very, very bad idea. She should've lied to Uther, like Arthur later did with the wager, and then, when she decided she wanted to leave Camelot, she could've faked her death or whatever. And of course, if everyone was out searching for Morgana, Merlin could have been more discreet when following her, or not follow her at all and instead help the sorcerers/those suspected of sorcery escape from the dungeons.

The druid chieftain that died that day seemed to have a good influence on her, and possibly on Mordred too. If only he didn't die because of Morgana and Merlin, though at that point they both had good intentions, things could have been different. Unlike most people with magic, he was even quite... understanding toward Uther, acknowledging that above all the king was unhappy and hurting. Alvarr wasn't a good substitute for either Morgana or Mordred; not to say that he was pure evil, but he likely pushed them both in the darker direction. If not for him, maybe Morgana wouldn't be so easily lured by Morgause.

And as for Gaius, well, I don't even know what he wanted to achieve with hiding the truth from Morgana. And what's even weirder is that Kilgharrah seemed to be on the same page, saying that the witch shouldn't know the extent of her powers. I actually think the latter was another misstep by the writers, the dragon knew the prophecies and was a creature of magic, it's in no way believable that he thought keeping her in the dark would do any good. But it's less meaningful because he had no relationship with Morgana.

Gaius might not have known the prophecies about Morgana becoming the ultimate evil but he knew Merlin and how he used to feel "like a monster." I guess he still didn't get it, he showed it a few times (with Gilli and Freya too). But when her gift started showing, even if he had no compassion for her living a lonely and confused life, he didn't have to be a genius or a creature of old magic to know that someone would sooner or later try to exploit it. I have no idea why he didn't help her like he helped Merlin, at least to some extent, without telling her about Merlin while making it absolutely clear that Uther or even anyone else can't know. She was good at hiding her magic; she could've even helped in some ways.

Maybe then, meeting Morgause wouldn't be so meaningful; the latter was the only person who accepted her. Though it's also possible that their bond was very strong and it all had to happen (after all, Morgana felt like she knew Morgause from the start). Would be easier to tell if we could see more of their relationship, and knew more about their family/Morgause's past. As it was, I sometimes wondered if Morgause cared about Morgana or if the latter was just the instrument in her revenge plot, but I also couldn't fully tell if Morgause was more after revenge or power, because in fact, we knew little about her.