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thenerdyindividual · 2 years

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Merlin Week Day 2: Favorite story arc(s) or themes -- Morgana’s Bastardization Arc

Also crossposted to ao3

Okay so this one might be a bit controversial, but my favorite character arc in Merlin, is Morgana’s. I think it was incredibly well done.

It all comes down to one line that she says to Arthur as early as season 1, “Sometimes you have to do what’s right and damn the consequences”. In the first two seasons, we see only the positive aspects of that belief. It makes Morgana one of the most outspoken and determined characters in the show. She disregards the risks to herself in order to help people.

In Season 1, Episode 3, she risks herself twice to do what she thinks is the right thing, and the audience would agree is the right thing. First, she stands up to Uther on Gwen’s behalf, and argues a pro sorcery stance. She claims that even if Gwen were responsible for healing her father, it doesn’t make Gwen evil. It makes Gwen kind, someone who doesn’t wish someone she cares about suffer. Given Uther’s attitudes on magic, and his power over her, that is an incredibly risky point to argue. She does it anyway because it could save Gwen. Later in the same episode she risks her life in a more visceral way by going after the Afanc with Arthur and Merlin. At the time, she did not yet have her magic, but she knew Arthur would need all the help he could get, and she was willing to risk herself to give it to him. In Season 1, Episode 8, she rescues young Mordred, gets caught, and still helps. It doesn’t matter to her that Uther is threatening to execute the person helping Mordred, she knows that leaving a child to die is wrong, so she helps concoct a plan to get him away from Camelot at great risk to herself. She goes with Merlin to Ealdor in Season 1, episode 10 though she would be facing down armed bandits, simply because Merlin is her friend, and it isn’t right to leave him to fight alone. He’d helped her, so she wants to help him even if it means a risking herself.

She has an argument with Uther in Season1, Episode 12 that eerily parallels the argument she had in Episode 3. Once again, she argues for mercy on behalf of someone accused of sorcery. In this case, it’s Gwen’s father. This episode marks the first time we see the shadows on the edges of her belief in “Do what’s right and damn the consequences”. This is where she first turns against Uther and allies herself with Toren. As an audience, we bring our personal ethics to this situation. It is hard to disagree with Morgana’s motivations for wanting to assassinate Uther, which makes it difficult to disagree with the action of assassinating him. (In this case, Merlin’s internal conflict stands in for the audience is experiencing.) Importantly, Gaius provides insight on how destructive Morgana’s self-righteous actions can be. He makes the very important point that Arthur is not ready to be king. He is young and still unexperienced. Killing Uther would cause Camelot to erupt in chaos, and an unexperienced king on the throne at a time when peace treaties are not well upheld, could lead to war. (And though Gaius does not explicitly say that it would lose countless lives, we as an audience know that soldiers aren’t the only people who die in war). This is the first instances in which it is shown that Morgana’s focus on personal consequences ignores societal consequences. This marks the beginning of Morgana’s descent into madness.

In Season 2, Uther’s actions further turn her against him. Once again, it’s difficult to argue against her desire to see him removed from power by any means necessary. He’s caused untold harm in his time as king. However, her justifiable hatred of Uther, also blinds her to Arthur’s virtues. In Season 2, Episode 4, she truly believes that Arthur isn’t going after Gwen when she is kidnapped. Despite knowing that Arthur has already defied Uther in order to save Merlin’s life, she sees Arthur not arguing with Uther as a betrayal of their friend, rather than what it actually is. A tactic to keep Uther’s eyes off of him while he prepares to go after her anyway. In a scene that will parallel her relationship to Arthur for the rest of the series, Arthur says, “If you would stop shouting at me, you would notice that I am packing!” She is so caught up in her righteousness that she can’t see that Arthur is doing the best with the situations he is given. For the rest of the series she believes that he is not fit to be king because he does not legalize magic, while ignoring that he inherited Uther’s enemies, magical and non-magical alike.

Season 2 is also where Morgana allies herself with Morgause. She is so relieved to find someone else like her, she once again doesn’t stop to think about the greater social consequences of Morgause’s plan. She doesn’t stop to think that the Knights of Medhir will kill anyone in their way to get to Uther, and once again doesn’t consider how killing Uther with no plan for after could lead to more deaths than Uther causes. By Season 3, her righteousness has condemned not just Uther, but Camelot as a whole. She wants to burn it all down and leave the rubble behind. She thinks that action is morally correct and if she gets caught and killed for her actions, then so be it. It will still have laid a ground work for magical freedom. What she does not stop to consider, when she is animating skeletons to kill people, is that there are people who live in Camelot who might be on her side concerning magic, but have no way of standing up to the king. She doesn’t care that they might be killed in her war on Uther, to her they are an invisible block of people. Which considering that she doesn’t know Merlin has magic, but does know he agrees with her that magic isn’t evil, is especially foolish. She is still doing what is right, and damn the consequences, but not considering all the consequences.

What finally condemns her to her destined path is not her desire to bring magic back to Camelot, it is her desire for power. When people complain about Morgana being the villain for trying to help people, they miss that Morgana’s motivations changed. Morgana doesn’t seem to realize it either, which is a lovely bit of commentary on how her righteousness blinded portions of the audience too. When she finds out she is Uther’s daughter and has a rightful claim to the throne, her motivation is no longer the desire to bring magic back. It is her slogan to get people on her side, but that isn’t why she’s doing it. She’s attacking Arthur for the throne because she subconsciously wants the power, she thinks she deserves it. In Season 3 and 4, when she speaks to Agravaine and Morgause about Gwen ascending to the throne, she does not express frustration that she cannot use the power the throne gives her to bring magic back if Gwen is queen. She expresses disgust over Gwen ascending at all, saying, “In my dreams that peasant sits upon my throne”. Morgana might think she plans to use the throne as a tool to bring magic back, but the two times she manages to capture Camelot, she makes no moves towards that goal. Instead, she spends her time terrorizing the knights and the commoners.

She has been living in her righteousness for so long that she has twisted herself into thinking that anything she does is right, and therefore any consequences that happen are a necessary evil. Season 1 Morgana would never have thought to fire into a crowd of innocent people to punish the knights. If Uther had tried anything half as heinous as that, Morgana would have gotten herself thrown in the dungeons or killed from arguing with him. Yet, Season 3 Morgana takes the action unprompted to try to solidify support for her claim to her throne. Season 1 Morgana would have been horrified at the thought of starving prisoners and making them fight against well-armed soldiers while they had nothing but a wooden sword to defend themselves. Yet, Season 4 Morgana does exactly that to Gwaine, for no other reason than she hates him. To her, these are the consequences others must face for doing what they think is right.

Queen Annis said in best in Season 4, Episode 4, “I am afraid you are more like Uther than you want to admit”.

Morgana’s devotion to doing what’s right but damn the consequences is exactly what leads her down her dark path. She loses her heart in her self-righteousness. She cannot see the shades of grey the way she used to, she can only see right.

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