Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Two/@comment-5102537-20130629093831/@comment-5102537-20130701110054

Edrea wrote: Wow, I really missed alot from season 1. Wonder how that happened. I didn't remember watching private scene between Uther, Nimueh, and Gaius. Hmm..the reason to watch them all over again :)

There was private conversation between Nimueh and Uther in "Excalibur" when they talked about Arthur's birth and when Uther blamed her for Igraine's death. Then there was a private conversation between Gaius and Uther in the same episode in which Gaius confirmed that Uther couldn't know that Igraine had to die for creating a life. If Uther actually knew, why would he tell especially Nimueh that he didn't? Gaius also knew about the whole procedure better than anyone and he too said that Uther was unaware of the consequences (Igraine dying). That's why it was so annyoning that "The Sins of the Father" suddenly changed it and simpy told a different story that didn't make sense in regard to season one.

StrengthCourageMagic wrote: I feel sorry for Uther...

Fortunately, we as the viewers can afford to feel sorry for someone like Uther, a fictional character. I'm sure it would be different if he was real and if we were involved somehow. From that point of view I understand that Merlin and others actually didn't exactly love Uther. It's no wonder that Merlin strongly disapproved of what Uther did to magic-users.

However, the show later presented this sort of stuff to us as being the right thing to do instead of questioning it. It's fine to make Merlin acting against Uther but at the same time, the message of the whole thing should be questioned. It should have been questioned that Arthur lost his mind for a while and tried to murder his father. But instead we were being shown that Merlin only saved him for Arthur's sake and that Uther's life actually wasn't worth it. And also that Arthur was actually "right" and only didn't kill Uther because of Merlin's "lie".

Merlin was being presented as the hero because he prevented Arthur from killing Uther, yet Merlin would have preferred Uther to die and didn't value Uther's life even though Merlin did the same thing with Nimueh that Uther had done before.

It would have been heroic of Merlin if he had saved Uther for Uther's sake, despite of Merlin's dislike.

In the final scene, when Merlin admitted that he was tempted to let Arthur kill Uther, Gaius should have given him a lesson in ethics in order to let the viewers know that personal feelings and temporary strong emotions don't necessarily result in the right things to do. Gaius should have enlightened Merlin about the situation with Igraine and he should have reminded him of Merlin's own doings in "Le Morte d'Arthur".