Any Highlander fans out there? I have some questions.

[thefourthvine]

Do you know HL? I need some help from people who have seen Highlander canon. Here's what I'd like to know:

1. What are all the ways to permanently kill an immortal? I know cutting off heads, but is there anything else? And is it different the first time they die? And does it matter if the whole head doesn't come off - like, can they come back if the neck is only mostly severed?
   
   
2. What happens the first time they (don't) die? I mean, they think they're mortal for a period of time, right? And then they die, except they don't, and they say, "Whoa, dude. I must be immortal, because that sure as shit should've killed me." (Although I think most people would assume the injury or whatever just hadn't been as bad as they thought, so - do some of them have to die a lot before they figure it out?) But I'm a little foggy on the whole deal, frankly. Do they have to be buried and then rise again, like vampires? Or is it more of an instantaneous thing?
   
   
3. What happens if you shoot an immortal (who has already done the first not-death, if that matters) in a way that would kill a human but won't kill him? (Like, gaping chest wound, something like that.) I'm pretty sure he has at least a period of, shall we say, limited activity, but how long is he down for? And exactly how limited is his activity? And what happens - like, do the wounds visibly close over and heal, or does he just suddenly sit up all better, or what?

As much detail as you've got, that's how much I'd like.

And if you know any sources for getting this kind of information without bugging my friends list - like, a Highlander encyclopedia or whatever - I would love to know about it.

Comments

[cold-poet.livejournal.com]

According to canon the only way to permanantly kill an immortal is to cut off their head. There is one bad guy whose throat got slit badly but not enough to decapitate him, he was left with a scar and it fucked up his voice (he used to be a singer)

Immortals do not know they are mortal until after their first death. The first death seems to take longer to recover from. But yeah, they pretty much just pop back up - unless, like, they have been stabbed in the heart and the knife gets left in the wound, they don't recover until the knife is removed and the body heals itself.

Non fatal wounds heal almost instantly, and it's visible - little blue lightening-looking arcs of light sizzle over the wound and close it.

Do you need more specifics than that? Anything else? (HL was my first fandom ever, I can tell you pretty much whatever you need. *G*)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

There is one bad guy whose throat got slit badly but not enough to decapitate him, he was left with a scar and it fucked up his voice (he used to be a singer)

Great. And he had to live with it forever. I bet that made him grouchy.

But yeah, they pretty much just pop back up

Probably causing heart attacks in everyone around them who doesn't know about this neat trick. Yeesh.

Do you need more specifics than that?

Not right now - y'all have been incredibly helpful. (If you want to know things, ask a fan - that is my motto.) But since you offered - if I end up with more questions later, may I email you with them? That way I could just spam you, instead of my whole friends list! (Yes, I know, not such a hot deal for you. But I will be grateful and stuff, if that helps any.)

[wyomingnot.livejournal.com]

(Thing is, there are some of us, well, at least one... who dig reading all this. Y'know?)

[azarias.livejournal.com]

At least two.

[cold-poet.livejournal.com]

Great. And he had to live with it forever. I bet that made him grouchy.

Very grouchy. He was not nice at all.

But since you offered - if I end up with more questions later, may I email you with them?

Oh absolutely. *G* coldest.poet at gmail dot com

[midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com]

There is one bad guy whose throat got slit badly but not enough to decapitate him, he was left with a scar and it fucked up his voice (he used to be a singer)

Great. And he had to live with it forever. I bet that made him grouchy.

Quite. He had been an opera singer (and a monk - or at least pretending - a couple hundred years earlier). He liked to kill people but also loved to sing. Duncan slit his throat with a shard of glass, and then he waited like 70 years to exact his revenge.

*sigh* I miss Highlander. I really need to get the DVDs.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Immortals do not know they are mortal until after their first death.

One thing, though -- Immortals, at least some Immortals, can tell if someone's a pre-Immortal. So the pre-Immortal doesn't know, but J. Random Immortal on the street might.

Also, Immortals can sense one another, if they are in physical proximity. This is conveyed in various HL canons in various ways -- the first time Connor MacLeod meets other Immortals, in the first movie, it seems to make him painfully sick. In the tv show, Duncan mostly seems to hear a weird buzzing/echoing/tingling kind of noise (to my eye, he also looks like he gets an itchy neck -- like he's being stared at).

[cold-poet.livejournal.com]

Gotta love the whooshy noise, heh. ;)

Which reminds me of one of the funnier plot devices, the Immortal that is allergic to the whooshy-recognition thing, and sneezes every time another Immortal is near. *snort* \o/ silly plot devices!