Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20130906200850/@comment-5674726-20130908001527

I hope that you'll forgive me if I don't answer all of these questions at once. There's too much to cover for one post.

I'd say that the question of Uther's mental recovery would depend on who healed him; "Dragoon" or Morgana. If it was Dragoon, mental recovery would be a possibility, especially as he seems to have been doing a bit better before he was hurt, recovering enough to attend Arthur's birthday party, but not a guarantee. If Morgana did the healing, I'd say that Uther would have recovered mentally because, for the first time since she turned against him, his daughter would have given him reason to hope that they could be reconciled. If he believed (or wanted to believe) that magic had corrupted her, he could take the fact that she healed him as proof that she was fighting through the corruption and that he might get his daughter back.

In the event of a mental recovery, I could see Uther taking the reins again and I don't think that Arthur would object. At first, he would probably be very glad to have Uther back. It'd only be later that there'd be friction over differing views on how the kingdom should be run. I don't know if Uther would go so far as to revoke the knighthoods Arthur granted to Gwaine, Percival and Elyan - though, technically, he could probably point out that they were never knighted in the first place, as Arthur was not King at the time - but I could see him being adamant that the First Code was to be followed from then on, while the three commoner knights would no longer be part of the inner circle or anything like that. He could decide to treat the unauthorised knightings as a once-off anomaly and accept their continuing presence.

As far as his feelings about Guinevere are concerned, I could see a mixture of gratitude for the care she gave him and embarrassment to have her around after she had seen him at his most vulnerable. I could see his gratitude leading him to make a similar commitment to the one Arthur made in To Kill A King, namely that there would always be a job for her in royal service. However, I can't see him ever being okay with the idea of Arthur marrying a servant. If anything, I could see his recovery spurring him to seek to strengthen the kingdom through Arthur's marriage, either by revisiting the idea of a betrothal with Princess Elena or looking to the daughter of another King. I'd say that he'd have little to no sympathy with Arthur if he said that he wanted to marry Gwen but I could see him compromising, to an extent, by lining up a few princesses as potential brides for Arthur and letting him choose one.

Depending on how much was known about Arthur and Gwen's relationship, Uther could get wind of it once he was recovered but I'd say that he would be adamant that there could be no question of Arthur marrying her.