sholio: sun on winter trees (Highlander-Methos sword)
Sholio ([personal profile] sholio) wrote2011-04-05 05:16 pm
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Highlander mid-season-five 2-parter

Wow. That was seriously epic. This show! *catches breath*

And the Horsemen of the Apocalypse thing ... did not see that coming AT ALL. Well, okay, having seen those clips of barbarian!Methos did spoil me for that twist once the episode got underway (as soon as Cassandra brought up the horsemen, my reaction was "HOSHIT METHOS"), but yeah ... again with managing to remain unspoiled for what is probably one of the easiest spoilers to run across in the whole fandom. *g*

I'm still processing a lot of it. I love, as always, how complicated the show makes things -- it's not as simple as Methos going along with Kronos & co. out of fear, or because they're his friends, or because he's tempted by what they're offering, but perhaps a little of all three, in different measures depending on the moment. I liked seeing the less pleasant side of Duncan's moral absolutism: that it's both a strength and a failing of his. I liked the recognition that the Bronze Age Eurasian world was rough and cruel and brutal (Cassandra's fate -- captured, raped, her people killed -- was the fate of a lot of women in her time), but also that the same kind of cruelty and brutality still exists today (the Vietnam comparison -- that whole conversation with Joe and Duncan -- was brilliant).

I suspect that when I dive into the fanworks for this show that I'm going to find a lot of stories in which Methos is written as a guilt-ridden woobie, and, I don't know, I guess one of the things I really love about him is that he's not? I don't get the impression that he's sitting around being eaten up with guilt for those days. He just doesn't want to do it again; like he says at one point, it was a phase he went through, and now he's moved on. Which is not to say that he doesn't have regrets or guilt at all -- obviously he does for specific things (like what happened to Cassandra). But, again, not to the consuming level, and I don't think he hates himself for it or anything.

I don't think anything in these episodes changed my general impressions of Methos that I was talking about in the last post, but it added a lot of depth and complexity.

So, yeah ... still pondering the character stuff in the episodes, still kind of blown away by the action and the epic scope.
ext_6615: (methosenguarde)

[identity profile] janne-d.livejournal.com 2011-04-07 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh don't worry - if you start reading HL fanfic you will run across examples of this trope without even trying. It really was the Trinity of its time. And I've always thought it is like a date marker for when fics were originally written because after the eps it was pretty rare for any fics with Methos as a main character to not at least mention the Horsemen in passing, even if it wasn't a plot point.

And I think the 'post CaH/Rev6.8 reconciliation fic' was practically obligatory for D/M writers at one point...