User blog comment:Fimber/Why I understand Uther's reasons for banning magic - and why no one is a saint on "Merlin"/@comment-4814726-20120627233958/@comment-5102537-20120628110815

Yes, Uther was a very proud man and behaved arrogant towards commoners. But this didn't make him a bad person but only a king in the times when it was normal that commoners didn't have a say. Remember that our democracy is still very young. I once had a teacher, a very strict man, who didn't tolerate any contradiction or disobedience. A lot of students were afraid of him but it was obvious that he was a fair teacher. Arrogant and very strict, but fair. He was the teacher, we were just students. He knew it all and we had to learn. Most people can't stand such people but when I figured that this was just a part of his personality and that he was indeed fair in his lessons despite his temper and arrogance, I could live with it very well.

You can see a similar behaviour in all sorts and parts of life even today. The ones in higher positions are the ones who are "right" and who often don't care much about what those beneath them think or have to say. And in medieval times and even in the times of our grandparents, it was even worse. Life was harder and rules were stricter. My grand-grandmother wasn't allowed to contradict her parents, not even when she was already married and had children of her own. The punishments and the rules even some decades ago were very different from ours today. Im not impressed by hard punishments or by opressing others and my children are being raised in a more liberal way. We discuss things rather than just punishing and saying "shut up, you're just a child". But we can't compare our today's social life to earlier times.

Uther was even much more modern than real kings were in those times. Arthur and Morgana challenged him more than was allowed in the dark ages - and it was the same with children of commoners, not only kings. Uther had to make sure that people respected and obeyed him, this was a very important and necessary thing in those times. Listening too much to servants/commoners would have been a sign of weakness in people's eyes. We should also not forget that most commoners couldn't even read back then. Education was most of all a privilege of the noble people, which was another reason why they were the ones who saw themselves standing above others.

Is it so different from today? How many people are not being heard because they are not in high positions?