User blog comment:Fimber/Why I understand Uther's reasons for banning magic - and why no one is a saint on "Merlin"/@comment-4814726-20120627233958/@comment-5102537-20120628230926

I agree with you that it is unimaginable to kill someone (for us) and that it's a crime, of course. No doubt about that. In those times things were different and for some screwed reason it all didn't work without war and killing. Sadly, it's still the same today. Arthur killed uncountable people, Merlin also killed several times and so have the knights and soldiers, of course (not to mention Morgana). Uther is not the only one, all of them have in every kingdom.

I also agree that killing all those people wasn't good for his psyche but probably caused the opposite effect. But I strongly disagree that he killed for pleasure. Even when thinking to do the right thing, it isn't pleasure. If I had to do something terrible, maybe to protect myself or my loved ones and if I thought it is the right thing to do, it wouldn't be pleasure, not even satisfaction. It was clearly shown that everytime Uther had sentenced someone to death, no matter how aggressive he seemed to be, he didn't take pleasure in it at all. On the contrary, in season one he always had a drink when sentencing someone to death and he also did that when he sentenced Alvarr to death in season two. And it wasn't celebrating. Facial and body expression showed that he didn't like it and he also told Morgana that he doesn't take pleasure in this (or did tell Arthur..? Can't exactly remember). Sometimes it even seemed to me as if he wasn't so sure that he did the right thing.

And this is what made me think about the whole thing. No matter if we're talking about a TV show with fictional characters, characters have to follow a certain logic and direction, even those who behave totally crazy and fickle. There must be reasons for it. And I wanted to understand why an actually so protective character like Uther who tried to protect his family, friends, people and kingdom at all costs, someone who wanted peace rather than war (aside from magic) and someone who set great value upon honour and fairness was capable of killing so many (magical) people and even children. I'm sure the writers had some thoughts about it and they didn't try to describe him humane and likable just for fun or by accident. Even though Igraine's death had caused the whole thing, there surely was much more behind it, which I had tried to describe in my blog, simply because Uther's behaviour told us stories behind the stories, in connection to what we have learnt from other characters as well as situations. Magic, the actually most important thing on the show, plays the biggest part in everything surrounding the characters, and magic is also the thing that explaines almost everything. If Gaius hadn't talked about the great danger of magic and what it had caused, if we hadn't seen most of all dangerous sorcerers and if Uther had really taken pleasure in just killing magical people and wouldn't care much about anything but himself, I would have never wasted a thought on this subject and probably would have just waited for him to die. But that's not the case.

As for Nimueh, we do know a lot about what was going on between them. Nimueh claimed that she wanted to help Uther and that she used to be his friend. Uther said that he hadn't known that Igraine would be the price and Nimueh claimed that she had not foreseen it either (so how should Uther have known?). Giaus told Nimueh that "this time" she better take a fair price (in regard to Igraine) when he wanted to sacrifice himself and Nimueh said that Gaius had asked for the favour (a child) on Uther's behalf. Merlin said that Nimueh was the one who chooses who has to die. So we have Uther and Nimueh having been friends, Uther had no idea about Igraine being the price, Nimueh claimed she had no idea either, Merlin said she has the power to decide, and Nimueh said that Gaius had come to her for Uther. Why should Uther threaten her when they were friends? The only thing that hasn't been clarified is wether Nimueh had indeed the power to decide who had to die or not, but everything points into the direction that she did. I'm convinced it was her doing alone.