In a world without Morgaine, Gorlois may have held on to Cornwall. Without the fear for his daughter, he would have been Uther’s enemy from afar, invading Camelot every spring but without the dreadful need to protect his child from the King’s attentions.
Without Morgaine, Bedivere’s horse would never have thrown a shoe. Arthur would never have ended up at that nunnery on the border of Cameliard. It would have been another knight, educated and gentle and kind, who arrived one day to fall in love with the soft smile of King Leodegrance’s daughter. Lancelot and Guinevere would have lived forever, perhaps, in contented bliss. She would have given him the children they both so desperately wanted, and he would have fallen in love every time he returned home.
Without Morgaine, Emrys would still have pined for Perceval. Some things are beyond even the blood magic of Avalon, and the small boy who set fire to a barn rather than talk to the baker’s son would never have done well with the best knight in Avalon. In every version of this tale, Emrys fell in love with Perceval and Arthur the day they rode into his village, and in every version, he loves Perceval from afar until Galahad comes to court. Without Morgaine, though, Emrys would have been a Merlin without a tragic backstory. No blacksmith’s wife to help him control his magic - and then to corrupt it. He would have had years at court, learning to understand the power at his fingertips and in the earth around him. Without Morgaine, Emrys would still have fallen in love with Arthur, but the difference is that Arthur might have loved him back. Not as a brother, not when they were old enough to know the distance, but as someone that he would spend days and nights and lifetimes with.
Without Morgaine, High Priestess Eibhlinn would never have been ‘Evie’. Perhaps she would never have become High Priestess at all. Perhaps she would have left Avalon and gone back to Camelot. Without Morgaine to love her and then break her heart, she would not have acquired either the inner strength or the motivation she needed to become High Priestess. Without Morgaine, after all, there would have been no small children on Avalon to keep an eye on and to protect. Urien, too, the husband she abandoned, would have lived a happier life - and certainly a longer one - without Morgaine and her obsession. He was no revolutionary without her whispering in his ear.
Without Morgaine, fewer people would have died.