In which I talk about the vid until my fingers bleed
Disclaimer: I would never claim to have coherent thoughts about anything, much less my own art.
In the vid, Methos is:
1. Methos haunted by Kronos in dreams/memories
2. IRL (from "Hello" and the knife-to-the-chest)
3. Haunted by The Kronos Within and his Inner Evil Methos in visions and dreams after "dark (grey?) quickening"
Temptations are:
1. Methos's own inner "evil"
2. perhaps represented in Methos's psyche (through long association with that part of Methos) by Kronos
3. The actual Essence of Kronos inside Methos after the shared Quickening
So it's my hope that the vid works whether you think of the images as (1)metaphorical, (2)in the context of my constructed narrative, or (3)in the context of the narrative of the show.
For example, the Amazing Disappearing Kronos at [2:15] could be:
1. A metaphor for Methos's inner evil.
2. a. Methos is going crazy and seeing Kronos.
b. Methos is being haunted by Kronos's ghost.
c. Methos is having a strange Quickening possession thing (like Richie's).
3. a. Ahriman is accessing Kronos in Duncan, which means that because of the double Q he's accessing him in Methos too.
b. Ahriman and Kronos are both evil. Evil tempts Methos.
Methos almost gets overwhelmed by Kronos's quickening both when Duncan shares it with him and when he reactivates the quickening energy by taking Morgan Walker's quickening.
Or he's just tempted by the power that comes from killing and always has to hold himself in check or he'd be taking quickenings and killing mortals left and right.
Completely Random Narrative:
-Methos is haunted by memories of himself and Kronos.
-He tries to drown his memories in romantic love and sex, but it doesn't work.
-Kronos comes back and reawakens the Methos's Sleeping Evil (and isn't that the wonderfullest phrase?)
-Methos gets Mac to kill Kronos, but the double quickening means that Kronos (along with all the rest of the Horsemen) get sucked into Methos's quickening.
-Methos is all conflicty about whether he's an immortal (him cutting his hand) or a watcher (the tattoo).
-Watchers threaten to kill him and Joe. Then (yeah, this is kinda a random transition) Morgan Walker threatens Joe's watcher daughter. (The uh, tattoo ties 'em together. Yeah...)
-Methos fights and kills Morgan Walker and is all savage and stuff. This quickening reawakens the inner Kronos and inner Evil Methos (blatant red filters ahoy!).
-Methos sees himself as he would be if he gave in to this Evil. (NTB!Methos) He exposes this inner evil Methos to Joe and Mac.
-Then he walks away in between darkness and light like the beginning of the vid.
-Is he all evil now? Has he successfully integrated his quickenings? Is he Walking Evil or walking past evil and moving on? You decide. It's a choose your own adventure vid!
In the beginning of the vid we see Methos coming out of the darkness into the light, but still inbetween the two. There are footsteps. A shadowy figure approaches! (Wow it's really hard not to make fun of this vid when I talk about it.) Methos senses something coming. He senses an immortal, a quickening. The misty figure becomes Kronos and then Methos. (Because there's like a duality and shit, yo. Okay, really, stopping now.) Kronos and Methos are equated with each other (both are misty!) and the in-between Methos is afraid of the misty figure. And maybe this too is part of Methos's dream (the Horsemen dream/flashback that comes immediately afterwards). Maybe all these figures are a part of his subconscious.
The beginning verse: "I was searching for the truth." I show Methos pointing to the skulls (of the Horsemen victims). Methos searches for death or the truth of death and life. Because he's immortal and stuff. Yes. So he tries to *become* Death. (I think the breakdown is pretty clear: Kronos = Pestilence/Antichrist, Methos = Death, Silas = War, and Caspian = Famine.) Anyway, then the verse goes on: "I stumbled across you and I know you're not the truth." Kronos and Methos both remove their masks. Methos isn't really Death or the truth, and neither is Kronos. The Horsemen are simply men - maybe not human, but not gods and not any elemental truths of the human condition.
Later on, I use the skull again during Morgan Walker's quickening. The skull is smashed against the floor. Methos's self-constructed identity is being shattered. And whether that destroyed identity is Death or Methos, you decide.
"I haven't found enough" = Methos can't hold on to Cassandra or save her from Kronos, nor can he get the crystal for Alexa to save her from death.
The sexual temptation section is brought to a "climax" by Kronos "penetrating" Methos with a dagger. This underlines the connection between the bond they have and violence. (As does the cutting of their hands to cement that bond.)
1st "can you save me" = can you (Mac) save me from my inner evil Horseman?
2nd "can you save me" = can YOU (women) save me from myself (inner evil and memories) with your love? Answer is no. Then it goes on: can YOU (Mac) save me from myself (the part of me that keeps hurting the women?) by killing me? Mac also says no.
The end of the vid: The evil red Kronos in Methos's subconscious turns into evil red Methos. This is the revelation of the vid, which was foreshadowed in the beginning.
It's not Kronos that Methos is afraid of, not Kronos who is the temptation; it's himself. It's himself.
He reveals this self to Mac and Joe and they reject him. (Is this what he was afraid of? Is he afraid of hurting them, so he's driving them away?) Finally, Methos is alone except for the ghosts in his head. He once again moves in between darkness and light, and there are flashes of Kronos and the Horsemen (their quickenings? their memories? the weird-ass split personalities Methos has assigned their faces to?). Methos moves on.
The cage/jail bars motif is obviously the inner evil that Methos is caging until Kronos breaks it loose.
I used ghosting and solarization whenever I thought Methos was breaking apart internally, splitting into superego-and-id or Methos-consciousness-and-Kronos-quickening or whatever.
I left off the circle on my logo this time because it was Annoying.
The melodramatic red filters come from Ahriman!Kronos's red filters. I was thinking black and white too, but red is just so deliciously shameless - big arrow pointing to EVIL HERE. I couldn't resist. Big stupid visual effects are *my* temptation.
During the double Q, I tried to show Kronos's quickening entering Methos. Methos sees a bunch of Kronos's private memories (cowboyness), pretty standard for a quickening. Then he either integrates them a place between his own memories (Doc Adams-ness) or the Methos memories are being seen from Kronos's quickening's POV. Because who knows how much autonomy quickenings really have - remember Richie's weird-ass possession. So it may be that as Methos is taking parts of Kronos's quickening, what's really happening is that Kronos is taking parts of Methos's. To what extent and effect, who knows? (OMG Dark!Kronos!Methos!!! ::thunder rolls::)
The one image that encapsulates this vid for me is at [1:44] when I additive dissolve caged Methos into tempted Methos.
(In case you're interested, for Needful it's the blood on the cheek, for Black Black Heart it's Fraser tempted by the tickets, for Fallen it's the boxing sequence, and who the hell cares about My TV; I know I didn't. Okay, okay, I guess Curtis's face pressed against the TV. I did have a lot of fun playing around with technical stuff on that vid; it was important to me that way - the title sequence and all those kewl TV transitions like the static and the, um, starburst-thing-when-you-turn-off-the-TV = glee! visual *toys*! style!)
And when I say "encapsulates the vid," what I really mean is that I feel it's the only part of the vid that didn't suck, that I can stand to watch, and that I think actually communicated anything close to what I was trying to say.