Board Thread:What If?/@comment-20237552-20130917085057/@comment-5674726-20130918194040

''2. What if: Gauis died in the Isle of the Blessed while saving Merlin, and how would Merlin be able to survive without Gauis's knowledge? (Would he be able to cope? Or would the events of saving Arthur after that episode have never happened without the help of Gauis? Try to note the changes of Gauis's absence to what may have happened when Gauis still lived)''

This is one I could see resulting in some positive changes as well as negative.

One of the biggies would be that Merlin wanted to speak to Morgana about her magic before Gaius forbade it so, if Gaius was dead, he could well have sat Morgana down for The Magic Talk when her powers manifested rather than sending her off to the Druids and perhaps confided in her about Arthur being destined to restore magic once he was King. I'd say that, if anybody could have convinced Arthur to amend his stance on magic, it was Morgana before she turned on Camelot. It's not outside the realm of possibility that she could have brought about a change of heart on Uther's part. Merlin confiding in Morgana would also mean that the Druids wouldn't have been killed, and that Mordred would have remained with Aglain rather than ending up falling under Alvarr's sway.

I could also see Merlin's relationship with Kilgharrah being very strained, much more so than in the series, so he could be less inclined to take what he has to say at face value.

Another major change would be that Merlin's living arrangement would have to change. Gaius gave up the only bedchamber in the physician's quarters for Merlin and slept in his working space but the new court physician could not reasonably be expected to let somebody else have the only private living space in his quarters - contrary to the position taken in more than one fanfic I've come across, where the poor court physician is vilified for not wanting to sleep on a cot in the work area while a stranger commandeers his living space.

This would mean that Merlin would either be given a bed in the servants' quarters or that he'd sleep in the antechamber attached to Arthur's chambers, the one Cedric mentioned sleeping in. Either way, it would mean that he would no longer have the same degree of privacy, so he'd have to be extremely careful about using magic and would not be able to have any magical books or objects around. He also would no longer have access to the magic books Gaius retained.