Highlander season 3: Mortal Sins
Jan. 20th, 2006 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethInteresting. The children theme continues. It went specifically from 'they're not children, they can choose' to this one with the flashback to the child that did things he couldn't (at least by current thinking) have really understood the full impact of, and then grew up into a man who had to live with the consequences.
And there's the theoretical child, Anne's pregnancy.
Which is the reason they packed off Richie last episode, because would he ever have something to say to Mac about that.
Child in the resistance, doing things with terrible impact. Even a child can do big things, but they don't have the full toolkit to deal with them, or the consequences.
Been guilty ever since? Maybe, with how terrified he gets.
Mac made him promise to never tell. Bernard breaks that vow before anything bad happens to him. Highlander morality coming through pretty clear there.
But is it? I mean, I understand about keeping the secret from the Immortal's point of view, but from the pov of a mortal who has reason to believe he is being hunted? Should an oath bind you if it becomes a matter of your own life and death? Bernard said he'd die before telling about the radio, and the monks were willing to die rather than tell. So their answer then was yes. But that was for a cause. If all that is left are the four individual lives? And it is four, the guy knows who pushed him in the river. Bernard is telling the other guy who is at risk, the only one of the four who doesn't know about the risk yet.
That's actually a right complex question.
I love it when Highlander gets complicated :)
But then the knowledge doesn't help at all. Duncan tells the truth, and even then, it doesn't help. The guy has a bodyguard, but they both end up dead. Beat to death with that chain.
Very, very, very creepy.
40 years at the bottom of the Seine!
So, what, he's been back 10 years? And only now he kills them. He found Bernard by accident. Did he follow him to Georges?
But that underwater nightmare, that would be very very bad for an Immortal. They wake up even when they're drowned - that time when the guy nearly got cement shoes, when Duncan got handcuffed and thrown in the water, he walked back to shore. Before his head got into the air he was walking. So Immortals be awake underwater. Though, since they also drown (noisily) it can't be they stay awake. So a nasty cycle of deaths, dying and coming back, for long and long and long. Or, possibly, its like the poison gas - only works once. Then they'd come back and be awake down there but chained up for all those years.
*terrible* nasty thing to happen.
Even without him being evil I can see him holding a grudge over that.
Grudge against a child?
Well he killed the then-grownup first.
Not that he seemed hugely older in the flashbacks.
Now Mac gets there and tells them another key bit of knowledge, that they are safe on Holy Ground.
But again it doesn't help.
This time, because of fear.
The poor man has been thinking only of this one bad thing he did, over and over, screaming and gurgling in his head. Very messed up.
There's secrets all over. Earlier Mac told Anne somebody elses secret - like Bernard did, though probably without breaking his word to do it. Now Anne listens to Bernard tell her himself.
Duncan beats a secret out of Daimler's thug. Intimidates, scares, him into telling where he went.
The others before, they were believers. They wouldn't tell a secret because there was something more important.
This 'youth and purity movement' (we hear the name in the background on the phone) is supposed to be something to believe in, but after getting their butts kicked they don't keep the secret at all.
And think on that, youth and purity, on each side of the story, with these two old guys and two Immortals mixed up in it. in the flashback, the old priest. In the here and now the old priest.
youth and purity think they're fighting for a cause.
purity is an odd word.
they probably just mean white guys, in the political context.
But it can mean so much more. purity of ideas, singularity of focus. not being mixed or contaminated.
every time an Immortal kills another Immortal they take their Quickening, the essence of that other, into themselves. is any Immortal pure? Only the really young ones.
is Bernard pure?
he doesn't seem to think so.
the old priest in the flashback had lived a long life and was ready to meet his saviour. his purity of belief gave him strength. He was willing to die rather than talk. He stood his ground.
the old priest in the here and now... not ready. isn't sure his saviour is the one waiting for him. everything about his beliefs, his formal religious beliefs, should tell him its very simple, and he is saved. But his emotions tell him he did a very bad thing. he believed then, and said, that he was going to go to hell. He was taken away from the priest before he could correct that impression. It probably settled in, along with the screaming and drowning. Going to hell.
He can believe about Georges "He was no saint, but I think he went to heaven" And talk about seeing him one day. But if he was that sure, would he be so afraid?
So now the very image of his sin comes for him, and he isn't ready to die. Most people aren't.
He isn't quite able to believe in the power of holy ground to save him either.
Very bad man. "Do you think a man like him respects God?"
There's more layers about religion here. It starts with mass, with saying that by coming back from death Christ defeated death (I think, I'd have to rewind to get the right wording). But he knows theres another type of guy who comes back. So what does that do to his faith?
Anne's faith isn't in the church. She believes in Duncan MacLeod.
We see again that the holy ground rule applies to mortals too.
But Bernard is too afraid to rely on it. Can't believe in church or man out the past. Runs away, off holy ground. Gets shot. Probably with his own gun.
Knowledge wasn't enough. Because he needed more knowledge, enough to stand on? Or because his emotion got in the way?
Bit of both.
Reacting from strong emotion, next, Anne.
The baby is threatened.
So Anne says to kill him.
Anne the doctor, that saving lives bit being the only thing they really established about her, says kill a man. Very Big Deal.
And that is why she leaves. Not risk to lives, hers or otherwise, but risk to... her soul? Her essential self?
Freaking selfish either way.
Not thinking he did wrong, just not wanting to be a part of it.
Quickening so near Holy Ground seems to hurt Duncan's head alot. He ends up all curled up foetal position. Interesting.
Earlier episode said to judge was human. Is Anne not allowing herself to be human, then? Judging Duncan for making her act human? (Forgiveness was being like god, in that one. Revenge then is far from god.)
These episodes stick together in such interesting ways!
I dislike Anne for being wishy washy, stupid and selfish. She leaves for the wrong reasons and does the wrong things, time after time after time.
Sorry. Others can feel free to like her.
I'm frustrated the writers made her such a pawn.
She never acted like a character with her own center, she was just a sounding board for issues, a place for writers to say what the burden of Immortality is.
Back to the 'wanting to kill' bit - Bernard couldn't survive his guilt induced fear. Anne can't live with it, so runs away from a life she wanted. Duncan, he has to learn to live with it, apparently.
Bernard and Anne are both okay with *other people* killing.
It feels like a form of cowardice to be okay with it as long as you don't have to do it.
I don't know, its not that I want to go kill people, but if something is okay to do then surely its okay to want to do it?
But then I'm all about the forgiveness/redemption bit.
(er, not all the time. ideally, given a bit of a run up.)
so the killing people bit don't set will with me anyways.
but thats because I think it isn't often right to do, not because I personally don't want to be the one holding the sword.
There's another layer about where responsibility lies for bad things. The guy giving the orders? He said it was with the priest who wouldn't cooperate. They would say it was with him, yet 'I was just following orders' doesn't stand up in court. Seems like there's a lot of responsibility to go around. The bad guys do the bad things to innocent people, but sometimes its because of things the good guys do. Is it the good guys fault? Well, could they have avoided the situation? How hard would it be? Are they putting people at risk for an easier life, or are they trying to avoid risking more people and making a worse world?
Highlander makes good questions :)
I'm probably babbling some. or a lot. not sure I'm always making sense or picking the right details.
its a good story, so my head is fizzy.
also its 10pm and I've been doing this all day. Time to stop for the night methinks.
And there's the theoretical child, Anne's pregnancy.
Which is the reason they packed off Richie last episode, because would he ever have something to say to Mac about that.
Child in the resistance, doing things with terrible impact. Even a child can do big things, but they don't have the full toolkit to deal with them, or the consequences.
Been guilty ever since? Maybe, with how terrified he gets.
Mac made him promise to never tell. Bernard breaks that vow before anything bad happens to him. Highlander morality coming through pretty clear there.
But is it? I mean, I understand about keeping the secret from the Immortal's point of view, but from the pov of a mortal who has reason to believe he is being hunted? Should an oath bind you if it becomes a matter of your own life and death? Bernard said he'd die before telling about the radio, and the monks were willing to die rather than tell. So their answer then was yes. But that was for a cause. If all that is left are the four individual lives? And it is four, the guy knows who pushed him in the river. Bernard is telling the other guy who is at risk, the only one of the four who doesn't know about the risk yet.
That's actually a right complex question.
I love it when Highlander gets complicated :)
But then the knowledge doesn't help at all. Duncan tells the truth, and even then, it doesn't help. The guy has a bodyguard, but they both end up dead. Beat to death with that chain.
Very, very, very creepy.
40 years at the bottom of the Seine!
So, what, he's been back 10 years? And only now he kills them. He found Bernard by accident. Did he follow him to Georges?
But that underwater nightmare, that would be very very bad for an Immortal. They wake up even when they're drowned - that time when the guy nearly got cement shoes, when Duncan got handcuffed and thrown in the water, he walked back to shore. Before his head got into the air he was walking. So Immortals be awake underwater. Though, since they also drown (noisily) it can't be they stay awake. So a nasty cycle of deaths, dying and coming back, for long and long and long. Or, possibly, its like the poison gas - only works once. Then they'd come back and be awake down there but chained up for all those years.
*terrible* nasty thing to happen.
Even without him being evil I can see him holding a grudge over that.
Grudge against a child?
Well he killed the then-grownup first.
Not that he seemed hugely older in the flashbacks.
Now Mac gets there and tells them another key bit of knowledge, that they are safe on Holy Ground.
But again it doesn't help.
This time, because of fear.
The poor man has been thinking only of this one bad thing he did, over and over, screaming and gurgling in his head. Very messed up.
There's secrets all over. Earlier Mac told Anne somebody elses secret - like Bernard did, though probably without breaking his word to do it. Now Anne listens to Bernard tell her himself.
Duncan beats a secret out of Daimler's thug. Intimidates, scares, him into telling where he went.
The others before, they were believers. They wouldn't tell a secret because there was something more important.
This 'youth and purity movement' (we hear the name in the background on the phone) is supposed to be something to believe in, but after getting their butts kicked they don't keep the secret at all.
And think on that, youth and purity, on each side of the story, with these two old guys and two Immortals mixed up in it. in the flashback, the old priest. In the here and now the old priest.
youth and purity think they're fighting for a cause.
purity is an odd word.
they probably just mean white guys, in the political context.
But it can mean so much more. purity of ideas, singularity of focus. not being mixed or contaminated.
every time an Immortal kills another Immortal they take their Quickening, the essence of that other, into themselves. is any Immortal pure? Only the really young ones.
is Bernard pure?
he doesn't seem to think so.
the old priest in the flashback had lived a long life and was ready to meet his saviour. his purity of belief gave him strength. He was willing to die rather than talk. He stood his ground.
the old priest in the here and now... not ready. isn't sure his saviour is the one waiting for him. everything about his beliefs, his formal religious beliefs, should tell him its very simple, and he is saved. But his emotions tell him he did a very bad thing. he believed then, and said, that he was going to go to hell. He was taken away from the priest before he could correct that impression. It probably settled in, along with the screaming and drowning. Going to hell.
He can believe about Georges "He was no saint, but I think he went to heaven" And talk about seeing him one day. But if he was that sure, would he be so afraid?
So now the very image of his sin comes for him, and he isn't ready to die. Most people aren't.
He isn't quite able to believe in the power of holy ground to save him either.
Very bad man. "Do you think a man like him respects God?"
There's more layers about religion here. It starts with mass, with saying that by coming back from death Christ defeated death (I think, I'd have to rewind to get the right wording). But he knows theres another type of guy who comes back. So what does that do to his faith?
Anne's faith isn't in the church. She believes in Duncan MacLeod.
We see again that the holy ground rule applies to mortals too.
But Bernard is too afraid to rely on it. Can't believe in church or man out the past. Runs away, off holy ground. Gets shot. Probably with his own gun.
Knowledge wasn't enough. Because he needed more knowledge, enough to stand on? Or because his emotion got in the way?
Bit of both.
Reacting from strong emotion, next, Anne.
The baby is threatened.
So Anne says to kill him.
Anne the doctor, that saving lives bit being the only thing they really established about her, says kill a man. Very Big Deal.
And that is why she leaves. Not risk to lives, hers or otherwise, but risk to... her soul? Her essential self?
Freaking selfish either way.
Not thinking he did wrong, just not wanting to be a part of it.
Quickening so near Holy Ground seems to hurt Duncan's head alot. He ends up all curled up foetal position. Interesting.
Earlier episode said to judge was human. Is Anne not allowing herself to be human, then? Judging Duncan for making her act human? (Forgiveness was being like god, in that one. Revenge then is far from god.)
These episodes stick together in such interesting ways!
I dislike Anne for being wishy washy, stupid and selfish. She leaves for the wrong reasons and does the wrong things, time after time after time.
Sorry. Others can feel free to like her.
I'm frustrated the writers made her such a pawn.
She never acted like a character with her own center, she was just a sounding board for issues, a place for writers to say what the burden of Immortality is.
Back to the 'wanting to kill' bit - Bernard couldn't survive his guilt induced fear. Anne can't live with it, so runs away from a life she wanted. Duncan, he has to learn to live with it, apparently.
Bernard and Anne are both okay with *other people* killing.
It feels like a form of cowardice to be okay with it as long as you don't have to do it.
I don't know, its not that I want to go kill people, but if something is okay to do then surely its okay to want to do it?
But then I'm all about the forgiveness/redemption bit.
(er, not all the time. ideally, given a bit of a run up.)
so the killing people bit don't set will with me anyways.
but thats because I think it isn't often right to do, not because I personally don't want to be the one holding the sword.
There's another layer about where responsibility lies for bad things. The guy giving the orders? He said it was with the priest who wouldn't cooperate. They would say it was with him, yet 'I was just following orders' doesn't stand up in court. Seems like there's a lot of responsibility to go around. The bad guys do the bad things to innocent people, but sometimes its because of things the good guys do. Is it the good guys fault? Well, could they have avoided the situation? How hard would it be? Are they putting people at risk for an easier life, or are they trying to avoid risking more people and making a worse world?
Highlander makes good questions :)
I'm probably babbling some. or a lot. not sure I'm always making sense or picking the right details.
its a good story, so my head is fizzy.
also its 10pm and I've been doing this all day. Time to stop for the night methinks.