User blog:Fimber/Your views on Morgana before she "changed"?

Since a lot of things on "Merlin" are being left to the viewer's imagination due to lack of clarification and explanation or sometimes intentionally done to leave the interpretation to the audience, I'd like to compare my views on the "former" Morgana to your opinions and observations.

I think most of us agree that Morgana has changed up to a point that is not comprehensible anymore, regarding her cruelty, and that she used to be different in the first season and the first half of season two.

But weren't her current character traits not actually just sleeping deep inside her, just waiting to be woken up? When rewatching the first seasons, there were hints to her darker side, yet I didn't expect her to get that insane. I loved her in the beginning, her strength and sense for justice, the way she treated Merlin and how she tried to help others. However, I saw a glimpse of darkness in her when she, for example, approached Uther in To Kill the King in order to seemingly apologize. I use the word "seemingly" because to me it clearly wasn't a real apology but her whole conversation with him was just an attempt to manipulate Uther. When she left him after she told him that killing fathers of others keep happening, her facial expression showed everything but sadness. It seemed that she was well aware of the fact, or at least assumed, that Uther had indeed not intended to have Gorlois being killed and that he deeply regretted and grieved his death. Her facial expression showed rather kind of saticfaction and anticipation because she had tried to trigger certain emotions in Uther and had addressed his conscience and his love for Morgana. We could see that she had succeeded when he later came to her to make peace with her and to apologize.

Morgana has always had the great ability to manipulate others by using their trust and love against them. That's what she did with Uther several times. During the following epsiodes I had a hard time believing her when she talked sweet to others and I couldn't believe a single word of her in season three at the latest when she lied to Merlin about her understanding that he poisened her and when she, of course, assured Uther of being kinder to him from now on when they hugged each other in tears. Later, when she was healed by Merlin and had overheard Uther talking to Gaius, she wanted Uther to confess that he is her real father, demanding the truth by crying and telling him how important he and Arthur are to her. Granted, that was when she had already turned evil, but she had done such things before (e.g. in To Kill The King). Always using other people's love and trust to reach her goal. She also manipulated Arthur several times, knowing exactly how to get him where she wanted.

What bothers me a bit is a particular situation in To Kill the King. When Morgana helped Tom to escape, was she aware that he wouldn't make it and that she could use his death later to manipulate Uther and to lead him into a trap? I'm not sure about that. Her face didn't show a clear emotion when she looked out of the window, seeing Gwen crying for her dead father. I might be wrong about this but I can't really figure out if this was a part of her plan or if she had really tried to help Tom.