What do we know, what episode(s) told us, and how would we do it now?
(I also posted this at 
hl_chronicles , so apologies if you're seeing it twice. Meanwhile, the back of my brain is still looking at last night's dream and muttering about 'Are you sure we posted all the zine fics to the net?')
So I had an odd, writing-related dream last night and this morning I was wondering what kind of dreams, or other effects, immortals have from quickenings. Because when I think about it, it's kind of odd how little we know about what quickenings do to immortals. We see a lot of quickenings from the first movie to the end of the series, but there aren't really any universal certainties about them. There's fanon that quickenings make you horny*; in the episode "Haunted," Richie takes up smoking cigars for a while after killing an immortal who did, and falls in love/lust with the guy's wife, too. And of course, there's Coltec & Duncan's Dark Quickening, and Darius and the Light Quickening.
Mostly, however, we're told things about quickenings. "Quickenings make you stronger, make you faster, make you heal faster, give you memories and skills the other immortals had" -- but we never really see any of this on the screen, or in long-term effects on the characters.
I'm fond of continuity myself, although I'm aware it can A) be a complete pain, and B) in a case like this, be a stone bitch to work out and follow. I'm honestly not sure what I'd do with quickenings in a reboot. Do you keep a chart of the relative strengths of immortals so that you can update as they take heads, or lose theirs? Do you end up with immortals who bounce around like superheroes? Do you have long, fun arguments about: 'Okay, fine, Rich killed Carter, Duncan killed Haresh -- are they going to start trying to hit on each other, or fall into more of a squire/knight relationship than they already can be said to have?' Is this something age helps older immortals withstand, or are the really old ones delicately perched atop the insanities they're balancing?
Hell, is there any way to reject a quickening? Not just kill and get out of reach, but bounce the damn thing back if you really don't want it? I mean, come on -- I wouldn't want a quickening from Caspian! And if anyone had taken Darius' quickening... would they be dreaming the future too? Or taking up life as a new priest? Or would the immortal in question be desperately trying not to get that part of Darius' quickening?
What can I say? I find it interesting that in a show with probably a hundred quickenings, I can't point to definitive answers to more of this.
* Screencaps after Duncan defeats Haresh in "End of Innocence" go a long way to explaining this fanon, I grant you!
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hl_chronicles , so apologies if you're seeing it twice. Meanwhile, the back of my brain is still looking at last night's dream and muttering about 'Are you sure we posted all the zine fics to the net?')
So I had an odd, writing-related dream last night and this morning I was wondering what kind of dreams, or other effects, immortals have from quickenings. Because when I think about it, it's kind of odd how little we know about what quickenings do to immortals. We see a lot of quickenings from the first movie to the end of the series, but there aren't really any universal certainties about them. There's fanon that quickenings make you horny*; in the episode "Haunted," Richie takes up smoking cigars for a while after killing an immortal who did, and falls in love/lust with the guy's wife, too. And of course, there's Coltec & Duncan's Dark Quickening, and Darius and the Light Quickening.
Mostly, however, we're told things about quickenings. "Quickenings make you stronger, make you faster, make you heal faster, give you memories and skills the other immortals had" -- but we never really see any of this on the screen, or in long-term effects on the characters.
I'm fond of continuity myself, although I'm aware it can A) be a complete pain, and B) in a case like this, be a stone bitch to work out and follow. I'm honestly not sure what I'd do with quickenings in a reboot. Do you keep a chart of the relative strengths of immortals so that you can update as they take heads, or lose theirs? Do you end up with immortals who bounce around like superheroes? Do you have long, fun arguments about: 'Okay, fine, Rich killed Carter, Duncan killed Haresh -- are they going to start trying to hit on each other, or fall into more of a squire/knight relationship than they already can be said to have?' Is this something age helps older immortals withstand, or are the really old ones delicately perched atop the insanities they're balancing?
Hell, is there any way to reject a quickening? Not just kill and get out of reach, but bounce the damn thing back if you really don't want it? I mean, come on -- I wouldn't want a quickening from Caspian! And if anyone had taken Darius' quickening... would they be dreaming the future too? Or taking up life as a new priest? Or would the immortal in question be desperately trying not to get that part of Darius' quickening?
What can I say? I find it interesting that in a show with probably a hundred quickenings, I can't point to definitive answers to more of this.
* Screencaps after Duncan defeats Haresh in "End of Innocence" go a long way to explaining this fanon, I grant you!
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
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