Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Four/@comment-5102537-20140118143939/@comment-98.193.78.231-20140123032724

Another episode where the Knights were entirely wasted characters. One of their own is possessed by a tortured spirit, and the most we get out of them is one, maybe two, scenes where they're half-heartedly passing it off as his revenge for Guinevere's banishment. These are the people who knew Elyan best. Granted, he was not a fully fleshed out character by ANY means, and the show wouldn't have suffered in the slightest if he'd never appeared at all, but the scenes in which he does feature demonstrate in the very least a vaguely-conceptualised sense of honour and respect for Arthur's authority. It bothered me how quick the others were to believe he was capable of genuinely wanting to see Arthur dead because his sister had been banished--something he was never shown to have been too bothered about anyway.

But then, as mentioned in various other threads, to have focused on the Knights--or any other minor character--would have taken the focus off of Arthur and Merlin.

Also, I wasn't too upset that Arthur didn't make any sort of public statement absolving Uther of any responsibility.

First and foremost, it was a little unclear to me precisely what the circumstances of the raid were. Arthur admitted to leading it, and admitted the massacre itself was unplanned and only occurred because he lost control of his men... but there wasn't any mention as to whether or not Uther ordered the raid in the first place. Depending on how old Arthur was at the time--I'm imagining he might have been a teenager, even--I can't imagine him carrying out an attack or a raid of this scale of his own volition, without Uther's prior knowledge. Indeed, as king, it would have been Uther's responsibility to know every military manoeuvre or action being carried out by his troops.

I also doubt that Uther would have punished him for what happened anyway. If the earlier seasons are anything to go by, Uther was very hostile to the Druids. I imagine he would have given Arthur a good ol' pat on the back at the time.

Also, there was nothing in this episode to indicate that many people outside the inner circle knew what was really going on. The Knights and Agravaine passed off Elyan's behaviour as anger over Guinevere's banishment; there are ways to have explained it, once it was all over, without having to mention either Arthur or Uther's involvement, indeed without even having to mention the raid at all. I think the only two people to believe and explicitly state at one point that Uther had been involved were Gaius and Merlin, and both knew the truth by the end.

But I agree that Arthur's promise at the shrine was an empty one. There was nothing to indicate at any point during the rest of the show's run that his attitude towards sorcerers, Druids, and magic-users had changed whatsoever. Which is disappointing.