Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130323143713/@comment-5102537-20130402143655

"I think that Season Three was a wasted opportunity because, had they not had Morgana turn evil, they could have had her genuinely rebuild her relationship with Uther and both of them would have had to struggle with their bond as father and daughter versus the bad blood over magic. They could have had a lot to explore. Had Uther been able to accept Morgana's magic out of love for his daughter, would it have been a line in the sand or the thin edge of a wedge? How would Morgana have dealt with the idea of being the only person with magic who was completely safe from persecution? It's a fanfic I'd like to read."

Me too. So you better hurry and write a fanfic about it! :-D My English skills are not good enough to write one and I wouldn't have time to write anyway. However, I'm currently reading a fanfic that, so far, seems to give some answers about the entire Uther-thing and the Old Religion, the Great Purge, Morgana etc... Quite interesting.

As for turning Morgana evil and dropping the potential to create a more positive relationship between Uther and Morgana, I'm pretty sure that it would have upstaged the Merlin/Arthur story and it would have taken away the focus on the banter and the journey of them. The entire Morgana/Uther story was - sorry to say - too intelligent for the show. It would have become a show on its own and naturally, they both would have been in the centre of the events which would have been something that the show wasn't supposed to be about. Given that the target audience wanted to see Arthur and Merlin and that the stories became more simplistic in the last two seasons, the Morgana/Uther-relationship would have delivered different stories that would have been for a different audience. No banter, no naive storylines but more serious, complex and adult storylines.

When looking back at the seasons, every interesting, multidimensional and mature character was either killed off or being put in the background or changed. Guest stars as well as main protagonists. Tristan and Isolde, Ruadan, Uther, Lancelot, the Diamair... Kilgharrah hardly appeared, Gaius was put in the background and had no important things to do anymore (his entire past, the Great Purge, his relationship with Uther and the dragon, all gone poof), Morgana was changed into a caricature of herself. They all would have taken over the show and distracted from the juvenile bromance. Which is one of the reasons why Merlin and Arthur (together) irritated me a lot as the show proceeded because every time an interesting plotline or character started to develop, it was/they were sacrificed again in order to focus on Arthur bantering with Merlin and taking him on missions with campfires and whatnot. I liked them both, just not when they were together. Arthur was great with Uther and Mithian but boring with Merlin and Gwen. Merlin was great with Gwen, Gaius, Morgana and Uther, also with Lancelot and Gwaine, but boring with Arthur. Gaius and Uther were great with really everyone, as was Lancelot.

As for Uther asking Nimueh, as I understand it, Uther sent Gaius to Nimueh on his behalf. So according to my understanding, Uther indeed was the one who asked for magical help and Nimueh granted him his wish, yet she was indeed the one who chose Igraine, as was stated by both Merlin and Gaius. Before Igraine died, Uther obviously had no big problem with magic, at least he tolreated it and also was friends with Nimueh (as stated by Nimueh herself). I would imgagine that he thought that magic could only be controlled with magic, which might be the reason why he was friends with a High Priestess. Maybe he saw it in a similar way like Gaius or Merlin did, that magic was simply a tool and not evil itself at that point of time, until he saw that it always corrupted.