User blog comment:Morganaforever/Episode Review: A Lesson in Vengeance/@comment-5674726-20121118224151/@comment-5102537-20121120004518

Where have I read the expression "love-bombing" before?... I think it was on the DS board.

Anyway, I don't see that Morgause's love for Morgana was genuine. If she really loved her half-sister, she wouldn't have literally destroyed her relationships and ripped her off of any humane feeling towards others, of any desire and possibility to lead a life a normal life with people who love her and who she loves, and maybe even with a family someday. Morgause contributed to Morgana's change into a cold killing-machine, and that's definitely not something you're doing with someone you love. Morgause had some kind of affection for Morgana but she used her most of all. And I also think that Morgana depended on Morgause but didnt love her genuinely. She was what Morgana needed and not who she really loved. If you love someone, you want them to be happy and not to be unhappy when they are filled with hatred up to totaly insanity and cruelty. I'm sure that real evil people aren't capable of really loving others but that their affections depend on other things and that it's more some kind of loyalty and sisterhood/brotherhood you would have for your comrades, for example. In the end, both were not valuable enough to each other to let go of them or to support them in leading a happy life.

"Morgause may not have viewed it as control; if Morgana’s words about the mandrake showing the truth are any indication, it could be that she viewed it as an unpleasant necessity to help Morgana see the truth about the Pendragons and develop the strength she needed to fight back. "

The truth in the mandrake roots meant rather what the victims believe to be true or what they are suffering from, as we could see in The Tears of Uther Pendragon when Uther suffered from his consience when seeing the dead children and Igraine in his hallucinations. It's the truth about their feelings, not the truth that is. It brings your subconsience to the surface, your underlying feelings and what causes you most misery. Moreover, Morgause needed Uther's tears which obviously were necessary to cause the desired effect, meaning, what Uther is suffering from (the tears were the symbols for his inner pain).

Did Morgana take gwen's tears as well? I'm only asking because I haven't watched the epsiode.

"This could make things doubly interesting with Morgana because I would imagine that it'd make it more difficult to overcome brainwashing than it would if her feelings were entirely the result of manipulation, instead of having roots in genuine feelings of fear."

This is why I assume that Gwen had underlying negative feelings about Arthur and the others, in case that the mandrake roots changed her and not an additional spell by Morgana. Something must have bothered her in regard to Arthur and all the others, otherwise the roots wouldn't have worked. And that's also why I asked if she ever mentioned something that she hates about Arthur. As far as I know, she only saw Arthur and Merlin laughing at her in her visions?

As for Morgana wanting Uther to admit that he was her father, I'm totally convinced that she didn't want his love but she only wanted him to confess in order to weaken him and to have it easier to claim the throne. She was again manipulating him like she did in To Kill the King when talking about Gorlois. I didn't see any love or true emotions but only her attempt to challenge and to manipulate him. When she asked him it was already at a time when she had tried to kill him several times before, when she had tortured and driven him almost mad by the mandrake root. If he had confessed, she could have used it against him in her further actions. If she wanted his love she would have told him that she already knew. Instead she kept it for humiliating him when invading Camelot with Cenred's army.