Highlander headaches

[annavere]

Thinking of Immortals and substance abuse (as one does), I am attempting to navigate the canon's treatment of the issue because the whole healing factor is confusing me. It never used to, but there are major alterations that occur to my thought processes once I attempt to write stories for a universe rather than merely consume the show, even if, like Highlander, it's a show I have seen countless times.

So there were two major Immortal drug addicts from Highlander: Brian Cullen and Byron. Kuyler drank a lot of absinthe, which might count, but his real problem was being a mime and there's no cure for that. No recovered addicts ever showed up, to my memory. A few were depicted in more recreational usage - the punk who killed Simone and his evil mentor Tarsis were shown in an opium den, and Methos was into laudanum at Byron's house party. Lots of Immortals were depicted drunk, and Mac told Michelle that if she drank every bottle of liqour in his cabinet she wouldn't die but she'd wish she had, implying they can get killer hangovers just like mortals.

Obviously, Immortals suffer every type of mental malady in the book, so if any of them did get clean for a while, all the deleterious mental effects of drug use and withdrawal would still occur. However, would the healing factor speed up the physical recovery? Or not?

Nefertiri did herself in with poison, so that can trigger death. Therefore, they must be able to overdose, they just come back right away - and clearly remain high. Hence Cullen dying during the crash and still being hopped up on meth right afterward, instead of being returned to factory settings.

They heal from extensive injuries, but if they're run through with a foreign object, that doesn't get magicked out of them when they revive. Presumably, if Cullen had neglected to remove the katana from his torso, he would have died again in a few minutes the way MacLeod drowned for days following the shipwreck until finally hitting the beach on Japan.

How bullets figure in all of this I have no idea. Thankfully, it's not applicable to my doleful tale of woe.

So in that case any foreign poisons in organs and bloodstream would remain there until the normal mortal detox went through, advanced Immortal healing not being applicable.

But if the Immortal doesn't get nicely sped up healing vis a vis foreign objects, then the question is, if someone has been consuming enough drugs to have long since killed a mortal, how long would the physical recovery take? Are they on drugs even when supposedly off? Would they need to be locked up for some uncertain number of years before the detox was finally finished and a century+ of drugs cleared their system? Because if so, that's grim - and would explain why recovery for Immortals is nonexistent on the show.

This is all somewhat incidental speculation. Last time I watched Courage (back in summer as research for my last story) I got fairly upset at Duncan for the 'and where the hell were you?' question that naturally follows Brian asking for help in the opium den in 1854. Being in heavy research mode, this time I found the answer in Duncan's own timeline. His next canonical flashback is from 1862 in Virginia, having gone to work for the Underground Railroad, leaving a gap of eight years in which he no doubt helped Brian get clean and only left when he was sure his friend would be alright. This being much earlier in the downward spiral, most of my above speculation doesn't matter. Brian probably was alright for a handful of years, and then relapsed. This is the only way it makes sense to me and doesn't throw Duncan under the bus as a lousy friend, so I'm going with it.

I've also been checking out all the Watcher bonus material (which I've read before but never this closely), from a desire to fill in as many gaps as possible and wow. Duncan MacLeod's 1854 occupation: Businessman. Well, thank you! That narrows it right down! His Watcher at the time is listed as proprietor of Dixon Mercantile, which is much more important to know. :D

Although I still think the funniest bit of completely useless Highlander information is from the Song of the Executioner episode in which Brother Paul's monastery is helpfully situated in "Europe."

My story stands at 7,601 words right now. So I'm making progress, just slowly, as per my usual.

Comments

[killabeez]

I'm fairly certain that any vagueness about things like Immortal healing/reviving rules, locations, how far an Immortal buzz reaches, etc. were feature not bug in the Highlander writer's room. Even in the heyday of Highlander fandom, commonly held fanon about things like alcohol and drugs, getting sick, sensing other Immortals, etc. were always subject to change at the fanfic writer's whim for specifically this reason—canon doesn't tell us much. (Even the idea that an Immortal's first death has to be a shocking/violent one is from a movie many people consider apocryphal.)

In my opinion, you'll have an easier time if you figure out how you want something to work for your story, and then take a shot at explaining it. Or don't, as the case may be. :) (That being said, it doesn't make sense to me that sobering up from alcohol or drugs would take an unusually long time, or given how many times we saw 18th C. Duncan drunk, he'd never have survived. Though, that does remind me of drunk!Connor fighting a duel in the first movie, which may or may not be considered canonical.)

I still think the funniest bit of completely useless Highlander information is from the Song of the Executioner episode in which Brother Paul's monastery is helpfully situated in "Europe."

XD

[annavere]

Thank you ever so much for the advice. I do have a tendency to overthink things, clearly. It doesn't always serve me well. This story was going at reasonable speed until I looked back over it and started worrying about this sort of thing.

[killabeez]

I do the same thing. It's part of the fun of writing fanfic—putting all the pieces together and filling in the ones that are missing. But in this particular case, the canon is not very helpful. Edit: there is a fanon idea that the more heads you take, the more special skills/power you get. And maybe tolerance, too? Brian had been taking challenge after challenge. I don't have a strong opinion about whether that would make a difference, but it is something people play with one way or another.

[annavere]

I think what tripped me up is partly how used I am to working in an extremely small canon. Adjusting for six seasons of material, which seems like (and is) such a wealth of information, and realizing that most of my questions have no answers regardless takes a moment.

Quickenings and what they do (or don't do most of the time) have been a longstanding source of perplexity and enjoyment, every time I watch Highlander. To me, they're a mystery on the same level with all the psychic phenomena scattered throughout (of which I'm a huge fan).

[killabeez]

Yes! It all gets complicated by the fact that Connor is canonically part of the 'verse, and we have the underwater breathing scenes from the first movie, when he was still a baby Immortal. So obviously, those 'special skills' aren't just down to quickening power. (I do like that Cassandra was able to teach Roland the Voice, just as Ramirez was able to teach Connor mind-melding with animals. There are enough tidbits scattered around that you can pick them up whenever you like, and that's (for me) one of the reasons I'm still a Highlander fan twenty five years after I first got into the fandom!

[annavere]

I should really give in and watch that film.