Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20130929195047/@comment-5367080-20131012185610

I personally think that what she did was driven by her role as a High Priestess and also a desire for revenge on Uther. I think the Questing Beast appears when the balance between life and death is altered, hence when Igraine died so that Arthur could live, the Questing Beast came into being. It later reappeared as a foreshadowing of the events that were to come.

When Nimueh moved against Uther I don't think she knew about Merlin and Arthur's destiny, which is why she tried to kill them. When she realised what they were meant to do, she decided to be more lenient with Camelot. My evidence for this is that if she were planning on ruling the world with Merlin, why make an enemy of him by sacrificing Gaius or Hunith? I believe that in order to restore the balance she needed to eliminate someone close to Merlin, and as Merlin would never have known the truth she would never have needed to bother him until the time of Albion came.

As for her comment about ruling the world together, Nimueh was likely under the assumption at the time that she was the last High Priestess, therefore believed that when Merlin restored the Old Religion she would become a sort of leader for the Religion and would be an important part in the new world, much like Merlin.