Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130302204954/@comment-5674726-20130309000107

I think that they could have done a better job with Nimueh in this episode if they'd made her more of a schemer. A mass poisoning of Camelot's water supply is overkill as revenge against Uther goes, given that it would be much easier for her to off either Uther himself or Arthur. It could have worked a bit better if there was another angle at play.

What if Nimueh's goal was not to wipe out the population of Camelot but to manipulate them into embracing magic and to destabilise Uther's rule?

Uther expressed concern that, if a cure couldn't be found, the people would turn to magic for a cure, which would undermine their authority. What if Nimueh's long-term goal was to magically provide the cure to the sickness? Wait for enough people to die to create a panic and then have a sweet looking magic user curing people "in secret" and then getting caught in the act. Said magic user makes sure that it's known that all they want is to cure people, forcing Uther to either break his own laws against the use of magic or to turn anybody who is sick or has a sick loved one against him because he's refusing to allow an available cure to be used.