Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130316141226/@comment-5102537-20130327132823

"Tactless and cold, yes. But still not wrong. It would make a saint to forgive everything Uther did to Gwen and I am sure she was in no mood to forget that, even for Arthur.  As I said, she was treated above ordinary servants. If someone else, even Merlin had said that, the repercussions would have been different. But Arthur was a man in love. Nothing Gwen said or done would have turned him away from her, except offcourse adultery. Gwen being there and taking care of king was support enough for him,  and in this show that kind of standing by the side of your friend/ man is usually done by the knight friends and or Merlin. So you know showmakers to blame :P" It was wrong in the sense of telling it to Arthur while his father died. You don't hurt someone you love, and if it's a slip of tongue you make clear afterwards that you let your anger get the best of you and that you didn't mean it that way. Gwen wanted to demonstrate to Arthur that she didn't care and she actually should have known that she would hurt him. As she did or risked to do when she told him that she counted the days until he is king (and Uther dead), as ReganX mentioned already. This was impudent and callous. And Arthur was always weak and naiv. I'm not casting stone at Gwen for holding a grudge or being indifferent towards Uther, but I disapprove of her tactless behaviour that the showrunners had given her character, plus Arthur's lack of backbone.

"The thing is, human emotions and feelings do not really depend on cold, disspassionate logic by which we observe it. But I do think she felt compassion and kindness towards him, she looked after him quite well till the end, inspite of that tongue of hers."

She did her job and surely had no intention of hurting him. She simply complied to her duties but Uther was nothing more than that, her duty because Arthur wanted her to take care of him. I didn't see any kind of compassion.

"Like Morgana’s character, hers was also one which was butchered as the show progressed. She was human in the beginning and then one d cartoon heroine in the end."

You mean villain. Morgana was nothing like a heroine. And yes, several characters were butchered - Morgana, Merlin, Uther, Gaius, even Arthur.

"She was a free spirited girl and there were many things which she did not like the way it was. Maybe that was the reason why she thought Uther was a bad king. Maybe she did not like his strong views and stringent actions. Not very easy to like for someone who has no idea of how it feels to be responsible for a lot of people. It’s easier for her to judge him. No matter how wise she was for her position or age, if Arthur or Morgana could be such naïve idealists, she had even less exposure to big picture." I agree but it would have been a good idea if the show had answered this question once in a while or at some point so that the viewer could understand what Gwen was thinking.

"Huh! You expect her to follow logic and see sense with her father being executed and wrongly, she being on the dock multiple times?  In all the occasions, Uther never really considered all sides of the story. It is perfectly possible for her to hold grudge for that. Even though, what Uther did was perfectly lawful and nothing terrible; it’s pretty hard to digest it."

No, I expected the show to make clear that whatever Gwen thinks, there are always many sides of a story, which means that Uther had good reasons and that someone mentions it in order to state out that not only Gwen or only Uther were right but that the dilemma and the reasons have a background. It was too much of black & white concept. Additionally, Uther had no choice but to believe that first Gwen was guilty when all evidence was against her (and he had to stop the plague that was killing countless people of his kingdom) and that later her father conspired with a dangerous sorcerer. There weren't any other sides to consider since no "criminal" would ever admit to have committed a crime but would try to save their life by claiming that they had nothing to do with it. Uther could have only either believed Tom or believed the evidence. And regardless, he regretted his actions later when he told Morgana that he did the wrong thing even though he actually had no choice according to the law. I wonder if Gwen even knew of that.

We weren't watching a documentary or history channel but a fantasy tale with characters that used to be larger than life in order to send messages out to the audiences, especially since it was a family show. If Gwen feels indifferent, it's alright. But the problem was that whatever the four main protagonists did, it was okay and their right and not to be questioned.

One of the best examples is what I wrote in my previous post, which was that Uther persecuting sorcerers was terrible but Arthur persecuting them wasn't much of a problem, except to the Disir/the Triple Goddess. Not even Morgana cared much anymore in her rage and hunger for power. As the show progressed, the freedom of sorcerers/magic-users became unimportant when Morgana even sacrificed and killed those of her kind, when Merlin didn't care much about them anymore and when Arthur seemed to have every right to continue his father's work by killing sorceres and denying them a proper burial. It's all double standart and illogical. And in case that suddenly all protagonists had realised that Uther wasn't so wrong, it was never mentioned by anyone. On the ontrary, whenever we learnt that magic had already been a destructive force before Uther came to the land (when Arthur told Merlin in "The Disir"), the next moment Uther was being described as the monster again who was wrong, even though magic wasn't the priority to anymore anymore.

"As I said, I don’t really like the way creators made her character. There are so many contradictions and unexplained behavior. For a servant at that time, she was extremely outspoken, occasionally rude and forward. Was it because of her close association with Morgana who treated her like an equal and friend? Don’t know. She was somewhat of a female Merlin of the show. Endearing to us fans but not realistic at times."

I agree. Although I've always liked Gwen very much, I couldn't agree with her later description of character anymore. And I've always thought that her rather weird attitudes (the ones we're talking about here) would be relativated or dealt with later. Instead they were sold to us as the right things to do (or to say).

"And I wish they did not do all those leaps and we could see what she thought about Arthur’s stand on magic, but I doubt any of her actions were motivated for Uther and Arthur’s stand on magic so much as to Uther’s  stubbornness and refusal to consider any other side of a story. Granted he had his own experience to go by, but a godo and flexible leader should connect with the changing times and modfiy his views. He was extremely rigid. As a viewer I often felt stifled and wanted to strangle the show creators."

Yes, he was rigid most of the times when it came to sorcery. And he couldn't change it so quickly since, naturally, he had to expect numerous sorcerers trying to either take revenge on him or to take over Camelot and therefore threatening his life, his kingdom and the lives of his children. Given his reasons for the war on magic, he had no reason to reconsider until he learnt of Morgana's powers. And even Morgana and her magic proved once again how dangerous magic was. However, he stopped the Great Purge even though he knew very well that magic was still out there and that sorcerers/magical beings continued to attack Camelot. In the first three seasons, many things pointed into the direction of redemption for Uther, especially in season one. They should have continued this path.

"Yes. But you forget, Gwen was at fault there. Enchantment or not, she almost cheated on Arthur. You don’t do that two days before your wedding  even now, forget in those days, when the bride had to be of impeccable purity. And also she was in love with Arthur, the king, and that justifies all the crap she forgave. It’s stupid, but that’s how these romance angles usually work. *cliché alert*"

Yes, but working with the sorcerer was also Tom's fault. Even though I don't support it, Uther had more reason to sentence Tom than Arthur had to even threaten the life of his one and only true love. I can't imagine myself to reunite with a man who threatened to kill me only because he freaked out over something. But if Gwen accepted it because it was normal in that period of time she also should have realised that sentencing a "conspirator" (which Tom was believed to be) was the common treatment and logical consequence. So it shouldn't have made Uther a bad king in her eyes but only the one she despised because she lost her father. She can be indifferent or even in rage with someone without thinking that that someone was a bad king or evil man, given that his son even wanted to kill her because he was hurt.

"Oh yes, there is a reason, the dragon called him the bravest and most noble. Except maybe Merlin, he was the noblest. And even Merlin had some questionable actions at times."

Yes, more than questionable actions, at least since season four. But still, I do wonder how Kilgharrah could have known about Lancelot's nobility since Lancelot didn't do much to the dragon's knowledge until he sacrificed himself.

''"Umm, Uther killed a lot of people, and as far as I understood, it was because of his personal reason. His wife died because of a calculated risk he took.  And he even ordered killing of children. He might never enjoy it, but he certainly did not repent either.

The risk didn't seem to be calculated since he, Gaius even Nimueh herself said that he didn't know Igraine would die. And it wasn't only Igraine's death but also the fact that magic corrupted and almost destroyed the land. As we know, even long before Uther was even born when even the Euchdag told Merlin that his/her/its race had been hunted for centuries. The war between magic and non-magic had been going for a very long time and wasn't Uther's doing.''"

Uther did seem to repent somehow. In "The Tears of Uther Pendragon" there were two things that haunted him when Morgana used the madrake root - Igraine and the dead children. His tears were necessary for the spell because the tears were symbolic for what bothered his conscience and made him suffer. So we saw that his dead wife and the children he killed because they were accused of having magic (or even had magic) was what he fought with in his subconscious. Supposingly, the children stood for the Great Purge at all. He didn't take it lightly but suffered from it all, otherwise the visions wouldn't have haunted him when the mandrake root did its work.

''"And there is no excuse for killing children or ordering their execution. Neither is better in this department. Only Morgana, by virtue of being the show’s primary antagonist, had to be twisted and torture loving. Uther however had many good qualities too. He was a good king when things run by the rule book, loved his children insanely. ..... Errm, when she was good, she did her best to protect her family and friends. She travelled with Merlin to his village, pleaded and fought with Uther to get Gwen back, served as Arthur’s moral compass in more than one instance. And in the episode, where she was the carrier of the plague, she was frightened and yet tried her best to help Merlin and Arthur keep Uther alive. Her bouts of I want to kill Uther came for various reasons and vanished too. I shall never forgive the storymakers for ruining such a character, with so much potential and layers and turning her into comic book villain.

As I said before, both Morgana and Arthur were correct. They were more like Uther than they both cared to admit. From their stubbornness, to selfishness ( Arthur used magic to cure Gwen), to being firecely loyal and protective to those they cared for ( Morgana: Aithusa and Mordred, she went through terrible torture under Sarrum for Aithusa). None of them were pure white and pure black. The show, should have tried to highlight that more often."'' Morgana used to be good in the beginning, though not entirely good which was evident when she tried to kill Uther in season one already. There was already hatred and the will to get violent in her. And she was manipulative and quite callous at times when it came to Uther. She didn't think twice and she never reconsidered once her mind was set because she thought that her own subjective emotions were reason enough to kill who she disapproved off. In "To Kill the King", she didn't only get mad at Uther because he executed Tom but also because he put her in the dungeons for a night. Morgana was always driven by colossal pride which was enough for her to kill Uther. Yes, it's a shame that they made her so one-dimensional and unbelievable. She would have made a good villain if they had described her being still in her senses without the need to kill and torture everyone.

However, no, Uther was not as bad as Morgana. He felt responsible for his kingdom and, of course, for his family and friends. There is a huge difference between people who are convinced that they have to do the things they do in order to protect others but don't enjoy it (and suffer from it), and between those who only act selfishly and enjoy the pain they bring upon others. Uther didn't even torture sorcerers/magic-users, the ones he feared and hated the most whereas Morgana wanted those to suffer who genuinely loved her. Uther protected his loved ones and Morgana destroyed them. She had no higher goal but was only powerhungry and crazy, and she thought of the most horrific things to do to others.

Arthur compared her to Uther in order to hurt her. He didn't just say that she has his eye-colour or his temper or whatever children inherit from their parents. No, he was comparing her evilness to his father. If he thought that Uther was as horrible and evil as Morgana, he wouldn't have looked up to him, so Arthur's comparison was not only out of line but it even made no sense at all. And even if I thought that my parents had flaws, I would never ever think of comparing them to my arch-enemy, telling it to my arch-enemy who wants to kill me and my loved ones, and I certainly wouldn't say it in front of others to betray my parent's hounour and to insult them.

"But sadly, according to folklore, Lancelot would be banished and he would die in the end. But I wish he stuck around a while in the show. A noble brave guy, who knew who Merlin truly was. He could have persuaded Arthur to see magic is good too. Could have served as Arhur’s moral compass. *Sigh*" Yes, that would have made seasons four and five much more interesting. Lancelot, Uther and Gaius actually were the only "real" and mature characters on the show who delivered substantial plots. As for Lancelot having to die or to leave, in "The First Knight", he survived Arthur and was trusted with Gwen and the kingdom by the dying Arthur. Keeping Lancelot around on "Merlin" would have been great.