Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20140630220202/@comment-5102537-20140810093926

Nimueh's character was either subsequently rewritten or the writers wanted to state out that she was a lying and deceiving villain who manipulated Uther. If she wasn't retconned, she suerly was one of the reasons why Uther's character was planned to be sympathetic and ready for redemption, given that she chose Igraine and betrayed a friend in the most terrible way by taking the life of an innocent one.

I tend to believe that she really chose Igraine and that this was the show's intention, because I think that in the beginning, "Merlin" was not only thought through better but obviously also planned differently. I think that Uther was supposed to be redeemed somewhere along the way. Almost everything about him during the first seasons hinted that, especially season one when we finally learnt why he was the way he was and that he himself suffered from it and was willing to die for his son immediately.

Maybe Nimueh was even supposed to return at some point?

Sometimes I think that the writers played with the audience and made an experiment, finding out what side the fans will take and what they will believe with all the discrepancy, inconsistency and changed characters:  the stories about Uther actually being a manipulated victim who could do better, Nimueh and the powers of the Old Religion being the big baddies who corrupt everyone and everything - or Uther being simply a psychopathic tyrant and all sorcerers and magic-users being the victims of a mad man who lost it and started a holocaust. All that with Merlin and Arthur in the center of it and never really taking sides.