Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130420114841/@comment-5102537-20130422102656

Another great episode of season one. It was interesting to see Arthur, Merlin, Gwen and Morgana working together as a real team and also as friends who all had their hearts in the right place at that point of time.

When Hunith requested Uther's help and told him that he was a fair king, I was wondering why she thought of him that way, given that her son is a socrerer and, as turned out later, Uther persecuted her husband Balinor who was forced to live a life in fear, hiding from Uther and his wrath. On one hand it shows that people thought well of Uther when it didn't came to sorcery/magic, proving that he cared for his people and provided a place where people could lead a good life. Others surely also appreciated Uther's ban of magic since, naturally, a lot of people were afraid of unnatural and powerful things, especially back in those times.

However, it's also possible that Hunith just said that in order address Uther's compassion and conscience since she and her village were in a desperate situation. Nevertheless, Hunith's statement seemed to be genuine and I doubt that, at that point of time, it had already been planned that Balinor had to hide from Uther and was deprived of a normal life as a husband and father.

Uther's descision to not send his men to Ealdor was the right decision from a strategical point of view. Risking a war with probably thousands of victims would be a much too heavy price to pay for saving a single village. Not to mention that Ealdor probably would suffer from a war with Cenred as much as every other place in both kingdoms, so saving it first and later leaving it to its doom in a war wouldn't have made sense at all. Despite the desperate plea and situation, Uther did the only right thing. But it was good to see that he despised Kanen's cowardly and dishonourable actions and actually would have loved to help Hunith.

And Arthur going on a secret mission in order to help the village was the only solution on one hand, yet it was very dangerous since Cenred could have gotten wind of Arthur trespassing his land which also could have led to a war between Camelot and Cenred's kingdom. Moreover, Arthur went (again) behind his father's back, disregarding all the risks and following his own instinct. Nevertheless, his actions were understandable and they luckily led to a positive result.

However, I do wonder if Uther knew about Arthur's mission and/or if he wondered where Arthur was, since Ealdor is not exactly just around the corner. Arthur being away for days at least should have made Uther wonder where his son was and unfortunately, it was never explained. Maybe he secretly knew where Arthur was, maybe Arthur told him a lie, claiming that he would go on a hunting trip or whatever.

It was refreshing and great to see that the women fought as well as the men did when the village was ambushed.

I felt sorry for William and Merlin when William died because he was yet another (and here the first) friend that Merlin lost. Moreover, William was one of the few people who knew about Merlin's powers and his death contributed to Merlin's isolation which increased when Lancelot died later and left Gaius and Hunith being the only ones close to him who knew who Merlin really was.