Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Three/@comment-5102537-20130824120945/@comment-5102537-20130829115834

I liked the way Gwaine was introduced, and most of all I liked the fact that Merlin had found a new friend. At that point of time I was convinced that Gwaine would be the one who finds out about Merlin's powers soon. Shame he didn't.

Gwaine was a great character, especially in the beginning, before he joined the knights in bullying Merlin later. I've never understood what that was all about but that's a different episode and discussion.

However, despite the humour and the great chemistry between Merlin and Gwaine (I've always seen a deeper friendship and more chemistry between Merlin and Lancelot as well as between Merlin and Gwaine than he ever had with Arthur, in my opinion), I've always wondered what Gwaine's specific problem with Uther was. He said that his father was a knight and that Caerleon let down his mother when his father died. He also said that he had a problem with kings/royals/nobles in general (which was actually quite prejudiced) but I would have liked to know what exactly he blamed Uther for.

At first I thought that it was about the ban of magic but as we could see in later seasons, Gwaine supported even Arthur's ban of magic (like all the knights did). This seemed to be the first time that he even met Uther, and given that it was said that he was a fair and good king (according to Gaius und Hunith, aside from the ban of magic), it all seemed to come down to his prejudiced opinion only which was "Please, no. I've met a few kings. Once you've met one, you've...you've met them all."

Hating nobles actually meant hating his father and himself too. Since he thought well of his father he should have known that not all nobles or royals were despisable people. He could at least have given both Arthur and Uther the benefit of a doubt, so he would have seen that Uther paid people for their services (and when Hunith asked for help, he wanted to help her village but didn't in order to avoid a war).

I have always had difficulties believing that people in those dark ages didn't accept the rules of society but always wondered why commoners had not the same rights as nobles when they grew up in such a society and had never even heard of something like democracy. It's normal to disagree with and disapprove of bad treatment of commoners and servants, but in this case, Gwaine had never met Arthur or Uther before, and Uther was (naturally) arrogant towards servants but treated them according to the social statuses of that time, even better when considering what really happened in medieval times.

An example of what Gwaine might had heard about Uther or Arthur before they met would have helped understanding his despise, because Gwaine should have realised that when the fake knights accused him of having tried to kill them, Uther had to act according to the law and had to protect his people and himself from supposedly attackers. Gwaine blamed every other royal for what Caerleon had done - and I found it weird that obviously he had never met a servant or commoner who behaved wrong and treated others badly, given that he obviously thought that only nobles/royals would treat others unfair. That's a bit immature.

In short: thinking that all royals/nobles are bad people is the same as thinking that all sorcerers/magic users are evil. At least Gwaine thought otherwise when he got to know Arthur. Nevertheless, he judged Uther too hard in regard to what happened. By the way, I wonder what would have happened if Gwaine had revealed his nobility from the beginning. Would Uther have believed him over his old "aquaintances or would he have suspected him nevertheless?

I think this was just another way of showing the viewer the injustice of class-oriented societies - which is true, of course. However, I would have liked a more differentiated view on this instead of a simple "they are all the same".

Anyway, this was good epsiode. Good humour and a great beginning of a friendhsip between Merlin and Gwaine that unfortunately was let down later again.