User blog comment:Fimber/Why I understand Uther's reasons for banning magic - and why no one is a saint on "Merlin"/@comment-4814726-20120628000258/@comment-5102537-20120628105258

First of all, thanks you very much for reading this looooooooong blog post, Aithusa. I'm proud that you didn't fall asleep while reading it...LOL

You have mentioned a very important thing here regarding the unicorns of which I had almost forgotten about. I agree with you that unicorns are part of the good magic and I would say they are almost "holy" creatures. It wasn't the unicorn's fault what happened after Arthur had killed it. But here it was quite obvious again that magic/The Old Religion acts very unfair and not the slightest bit better than Uther did. It acted even worse because punishing thousands of innocent people just to lecture Arthur, to test him or to take revenge for the unicorn's death was very cruel and more than just ruthless. When someone makes a mistake, that particular person should be the one to set things right and the one the victim or those who defend the victims should deal with. Holding the many responsible for the actions of just one or the few is illogical, stupid and cruel. This was good example for how merciless and ice-cold the Old Religion is. Its actions are disproportionate to what "crime" has been committed or what mistake has been done. It's similar like, I don't know, when someone of country A kills a person of country B and then country B drops nuclear bombs on country A.

Yes, I also agree that magic is being shown to us from its worse side and that only a few people like Merlin and the druids represent the good side of magic. I think it provides kind of a balance between the mistakes Uther and others of the anti.-magic party did/do and what magic/The Old Religion itself did and does. What's annoying is the fact that most of the time it's being sold to us as if magic was the victim (same with Morgana, for example) when magic actually had started the whole thing in the first place and is far worse than Uther's questionable and partly cruel attempts to stop it. Gaius told Merlin that magic corrupted the land and that it had almost destroyed it, so I guess the danger of magic was clearly stated out.

I also agree with you on Merlin's change of personality. In my opinion it's the attempt to bring in more thrill and to make Merlin appear to have grown up, alas I strongly disagree that a person matures because he kills others or ignores the misery of others or acts selfishly. And again, Merlin is being sold to us as the good guy (or angel, as you called him) when he actually has flaws and questionable character traits himself, especially since season four. I remember Gaius' speech to Uther at the end of The Witchfinder. Everything he accused Uther of was actually what had Uther proven right. Merlin and Morgana are indeed magical people and both including Gaius wre indeed constantly betraying Uther. But although I understood why Gaius said those things and while I know he actually wanted to to tell him that those who have magic are not necessarily Uther's enemies, his speech had a different effect on the viewer: it seemed as if all of them were absolutely innocent when they actually are not (especially Morgana).