Highlander – Methos

Methos – Five Thousand Years

Five thousand years. That’s a lot of time to make mistakes, gain regrets and learn lessons. Imagine what it would be to watch empires rise and fall. To mingle with history’s greatest men and women. To be there when Rome rose to the pinnacle of civilization, or when men first broke orbit, or when the first colored television was invented. Five thousand years of history. How much of the world you would see, would change . . . and how much the world would change you? This is the life of Methos, the oldest Immortal alive in the fantasy drama Highlander the Series. He’s a unique kind of Immortal . . . then again, Highlander is a unique kind of show.

Let’s face it. Highlander’s titular protagonist Duncan MacLeod is a Boy Scout. He can always be counted on to do the right thing. Someone needs protecting? Duncan’s your man. Lost a loved one? Duncan will avenge them. He protects the weak; that’s just the man he is.

Methos is not that kind of man.

Think about it. He’s seen humanity at its best and its worst; all five thousand years of it. But, inevitably, those years take its toll. Unlike MacLeod, Methos sees things not in black-and-white but in shades of gray. Methos has come out of his shell upon meeting MacLeod, but he’s more survivalist than a warrior. He’ll fight the good fight; he’s just not as conservative about it.

Every Immortal in the Highlander franchise is – to a certain degree – defined by death. Immortals, the name notwithstanding, can be killed. Just behead them, and it’s over. However, the dead Immortal imparts his/her Quickening (the mystical sum of the Immortal’s knowledge and power) to the closest Immortal, making him/her stronger. The last Immortal standing receives the Prize, a power that would save or destroy humanity. This the Game. So being Immortal is a lot about survival.

So how does the world’s oldest Immortal – whose Quickening is powerful beyond imagination – live on when so many Immortals die? The answer? Hiding in plain sight. At his television debut, Methos is a member of the Watchers, the franchise’s super-secret organization charged with recording the exploits and lives of every Immortal that walks the earth. In fact, “Adam Pierson” (his current alias) is the Watcher in charge of the Methos Chronicle. Methos is in charge of recording his own life story. Now that’s a twist.

A big part of the television series revolves around flashbacks of Duncan’s life: seeing him interact with a world that’s come and gone. So it stands to reason that amidst five thousand years, Methos’ life is even grander. And in this the show does not disappoint.

Methos was Death. Methos was one of the Four Horsemen.

Think about it. One of the most terrible myths in history is real. This madman slaughtered millions for fun. And yet he was able to recognize the horror of what he was doing. He tries to be better than he was. And he succeeded. The man we meet in the show isn’t Death. Some might argue he doesn’t deserve redemption, but think about it. No matter Methos moves on, he has to live with what he’s done every day. That’s a greater punishment than anything I can think of.

Methos’ been many things: philosopher, scholar, warrior, but most of all a survivalist. He’s done a lot of terrible things. Methos is living proof that people can change. If he can break the cycle of his own destructive history, then maybe – just maybe – humanity can too.

Highlander – Dark Quickening

Highlander – Dark Quickening

In the Highlander franchise, Immortals are beings who come back from the dead after dealt a mortal blow. However, the word Immortal is misleading. Immortals, in fact, do die. All it takes is one Immortal to behead the other and absorb the loser’s spiritual essence (dubbed the Quickening). The entire Highlander franchise revolves around the Quickening: the last Immortal left standing will gain a power beyond comprehension, capable of guiding humanity to a new golden age . . . or subject them to eternal darkness. This article will focus on a rare but dangerous kind of Quickening: the Dark Quickening.

The Dark Quickening occurs when the essence of a truly evil Immortal overwhelms the winner of an Immortal duel. The Immortal in question – no matter how noble or good – is corrupted as all the negative traits of his/her personality subjugate the positive. An example of this is titular Highlander protagonist Duncan MacLeod. Ordinarily the very definition of nobility, Duncan changes into a completely different person under the Dark Quickening’s sway.

This kind of emotional dissonance is difficult to portray, but Adrian Paul (Duncan’s actor) once again rises to the challenge. His different approaches to playing what is essentially two characters goes a long way in making the Dark Quickening work. Throughout the Dark Quickening episodes, we see a subdued Good Duncan, a man distracted and lost. These quick peeks of Good Duncan defines the struggle of a good man trying to overcome his own inner evil. That, combined with the intense bursts of violent behavior, the arrogance and cruelty of Evil Duncan, fleshes out the Highlander in ways the fans would never ordinarily see.

The Dark Quickening episodes explores the psychology of Immortals, so it is only fitting that it ends within Duncan’s mind: the Good Duncan fights against the Evil Duncan. This struggle is made even more symbolic with the Clan MacLeod sword (the sword that Duncan was supposed to inherit as the next MacLeod chieftain). The sword is the physical embodiment of Duncan’s good nature. It ties into Duncan’s bond with his Highland home, the part of him that is eternal and unchanging as the Highlands themselves. It’s the perfect weapon for such a symbolic battle.

If the Immortal is a cup filled with the Quickening of slain Immortals, then the Dark Quickening is what happens when the cup overflows with evil. The road to recovery is long and rugged, but Duncan’s Scottish roots and his intangible bond with the Highlands sees him through.

Because, after all, he is still Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod: warrior, lover, champion of justice. And he will conquer every challenge set before him. It’s who he is, what he does. Simple as that.

Connor MacLeod – Changed For Convenience

Connor MacLeod – Changed For Convenience

The Highlander franchise. A universe filled with Immortals, beings who are destined to kill each other for the sake of the Prize (an unknown ability that would make humanity into slaves for eternity). It’s a fascinating concept: these Immortals trying to find some semblance of normalcy in-between the inevitable murdering of their kin; these people who stand by and watch as loved ones grow old and die. I have a particularly soft spot for Connor MacLeod, the first Immortal of the Highlander franchise. It was he who opened the door to the mystic life of those who never die.

But sometimes our heroes are forced down paths for sheer lack of imagination. Sometimes our heroes are changed into people that betrays all that made them noble in the first place. For the Highlander franchise, that person is Connor MacLeod.

Connor MacLeod began life as a relatively unknown warrior of 16^th Century Scotland. He was a rude barbarian whose battle prowess was so insignificant he died on his very first battle against a neighboring clan. His ignorance continued until meeting his first mentor Juan Ramirez, the one that taught him the sword and his heritage as an Immortal.

Ramirez opened a whole new world for Connor. It was through Ramirez that Connor gained the utmost respect for the Game (the shorthand for the Immortals’ millennia-long pursuit of the Prize). To Connor, life wasn’t just about walking down the centuries with humanity. The Game was everything. Not taking it seriously was an affront to everything the Immortals stood for. The Prize held the key of humanity’s destiny, and the Immortals who sought a life of normalcy was basically handing humanity’s future to those Immortals who would abuse it.

Connor MacLeod also set the foundation for the immortal heroes that followed. Edward Cullen may have the monopoly of being tortured by the slow, agonizing loneliness of watching loved ones turn to dust, but it’s Connor who first made that bitterness and cynicism cool in the first place. Connor is the Renaissance man of Immortals.

Then the franchise screwed him over.

The Highlander: Endgame movie gives us an entirely different Connor. Apparently the reason why he’s never shown up for the Highlander television show (an alternate universe where Connor’s victory over the uber-evil Kurgan was not the final battle) is because he’s been in a drug-induced coma. We’re supposed to believe that Connor, who in his four and a half centuries of survival, suddenly broke under the weight of his losses, and willingly put himself in a coma so that he wouldn’t have to face the outside world.

I get why Connor MacLeod actor Christopher Lambert might want to exit the franchise completely. But this is the way he chose to bow out? To break Connor MacLeod’s will? Connor deserved more than a cowardly death. He deserved more than the complete destruction of everything he stood for.

Everyone changes. I get that. We re-make ourselves with every lesson learned, with every experience we undergo. Sometimes those experiences change us in completely different ways; sometimes into people we’d never dream to being. But to tear down an iconic hero to put him out of pasture? That’s an insult to the wave after wave of patient, dedicated fans. The Highlander franchise may have its share of problems, but its casual disregard of its forerunner protagonist was almost a deal-breaker. I guess some heroes don’t get a happy ending.

Thank you for reading.

Khordas – A Man Out Of Time

Khordas – A Man Out of Time

Imagine you’ll live forever. No sickness, no aging. For the rest of your life, you’ll look exactly the same as the day you “died.” Now imagine you outlasted all of your people. It doesn’t matter if its by sickness, or starvation, or conquest. Your entire culture is gone. So what do you do? Do you adapt to the world, or do you cling to the customs you were born to, trying desperately to hold onto something that no longer exists? That is the question every Immortal must face in the Highlander franchise. Some are able to find meaning beyond the death of their culture. Most cannot. Khordas the Salamander, villain of the Highlander novel Element of Fire, is one who cannot.

But before one can delve into Khordas’ denial, one must explore what he was. He was the living avatar of his God. He would rise from the mud and take the offering of his Children (chosen people): exotic gems, sacrifices, but most of all a Companion to ease his lonely solitude. For thousands of years he was the Salamander, wielder of Fire and Water, protector of his Children. With his Companion Nerissa at his side (by luck a fellow Immortal), Khordas served as the fulcrum on which the lives of his Children turned. They were everything to him, and he, in turn, was everything to them.

Unfortunately, when you are praised as a living god, you tend to think that the world will go out of its way to accommodate you. And when the world doesn’t go out of its way, you lash out at those pitiful infidels who dare to ignore you.

Psychologically speaking, the “lashing out” comes in the form of preference and custom. Khordas, being the avatar of Fire, naturally acts out by blowing things up. In fact, the bigger the target, the more satisfying the act. Khordas doesn’t care about the people who died; they are unbelievers anyway and as such deserve death for their ignorance. Blowing things up allows Khordas to bask in his own “godhood.” For him, it’s a way to re-live the cultural rituals of his long-dead Children while simultaneously giving the finger to the world that forgot him.

Unfortunately, these acts of violence desensitizes Khordas over time. To get the same thrill, Khordas seeks greater and greater destruction; as well as to appease the need of his cultural godhood. These two urges are the basis of the book’s plot: Khordas takes an 1800-era cruise ship and – gallons of mud and brainwashed people later – transforms it into the caves and mud-houses from which his Children used to worship him. Again, for a brief moment, Khordas has his Children back.

Things may be looking up for the Salamander, while the reality couldn’t be any farther off. The fact that Khordas brainwashed people into his service – and slapped a lot of mud onto a big freaking boat – is a testament of the losing battle he wages with the world and his place in it. When faced with the unforgiving cruelty of passing time, there is no limit to how far one will go to justify one’s existence.

The world is constantly changing. Either people embrace that change, or they withdraw into their own little worlds, content to become prisoners of their own making in order to keep some resemblance of their selves. Khordas, unfortunately, is one of the latter. If someone refuses him, that heretic will burn. And if the whole world needs to burn as well, all the better.

Thank you for your time.

Highlander: The Element Of Fire

Highlander – The Element of Fire

“There can be only one.”

That pretty much describes the Immortals of the Highlander universe. They are witnesses to the history’s grand tapestry: Wars come and go, empires rise and fall, technology constantly changes the definition of humanity. Yet no matter how many causes they champion, no matter how they try to pretend otherwise, one truth is absolute: The Immortals are here to kill each other. The Highlander novel Element of Fire offers a rare comparison between Duncan and Connor MacLeod, and how their experiences have shaped their definitions of being an Immortal. It also shows what happens when an Immortal fails to adapt to a world that passes them by.

Time and time again, history finds Duncan MacLeod at the heart of the human experience: trying to make a life for oneself amidst a great big world. Never mind the fact that humanity is an engine of change, continually pushing their horizon with war or technology. Duncan is opting for a simpler life, content to simply be.

Connor MacLeod is a different story. While Duncan strives to find meaning in his life, Connor remembers only what life has stripped him of. Once he was a son, a warrior, part of a family. Now Immortal, Connor finds salvation in the sword. The Game (the battle between good and evil Immortals) is absolute. Enjoying life is precious, but sooner or later, the Game calls. Connor lives for that call. Rejecting it is more than just blasphemy. It’s a rejection of the responsibilities inherent in every Immortal. The forces of Good must win, or else humanity will suffer eternal darkness.

The novel also explores the potential consequences of an Immortal life that runs its course. What happens when your way of life dies out? What happens when the world moves on without you? Do you adapt, or do you lash out at a world you no longer understand?

Khordas, unfortunately, is the Immortal who fails to adapt. Once he was a god to his people. He was loved and adored by his culture. But then his culture dies out. He’s no longer a god; he’s barely just a man. Unable to face the truth, Khordas finds solace in fiery destruction. Fire allows Khordas to pretend he’s still God. Fire lets him be who he is.

Immortals. Destined to kill each other. But is that all that there is? Can they find purpose with humanity, or purpose with the sword? Can they change, or are they so trapped in the past that moving forward is impossible? The Element of Fire novel explores these questions, giving depth to the untold legacy inherent to the Highlander immortals.

One thing’s for sure: you’ll never look at fire the same way again.