Highlander episode thoughts: Chivalry
ithidrial has a post here discussing the fourth season Highlander episode "Chivalry."
I was going to post there. Then I discovered I was only part way through what I wanted to say and was already up to 20k in text.
So I'm putting it here and commenting with a link there :-)
Somewhat rambly thinky-thoughts on Appearance and Truth (Chivalry in regards to this episode gets its own comments, Sometime,)
Thoughts on "Chivalry"
First off, this episode stands up beautifully to rewatching. I ended up watching it twice in a row -- once to watch complete and again to make notes.
This is an episode about dichotomies:
Surface appearance : Underlying truth
Youth : Age (this one gets used to Quite Amusing Effect several times)
Teacher : Student
Training, making or shaping : Encouraging to find own form
Self-focussed : Other-aware
Lust : Love
What wanted Now : What wanted Most
Holding on : Letting go
Kristin is *all* about appearance, surface -- from the outset she makes it clear that what she is wearing, how she looks, what her outward presentment is, is foremost in her mind. That glorious dress she is wearing in the carriage is so not a travelling dress, for example, but she obviously doesn't care about dust or possible damage to the (very costly) clothes from travelling in them. (I suspect she would care very much about getting blood on them, though, and that is part of why she doesn't get out and fight.) She goes to great trouble for appearance -- commissioning the tartan dress, spending a considerable amount of time and energy on bringing Duncan "up to snuff" as far as looking right and knowing the proper forms of behaviour and so forth. And what is more appearance over substance than a fashion agency/modelling house? (And did Kristin have ties to Morgan Walker, another k'immie in the industry? Might that contribute to Methos' motivations/convictions in regards to her?)
"Do I *look like* a highland lass" is what she says. The truth of what she is is hidden under the pretty surface. She looks like (and may actually believe she is) a cultured, polished, accomplished Beauty. What she is is a Beast with a beautiful appearance.
Duncan is all about underlying truth, though he is susceptable to appearance. His language is about who he is, not what he looks like. (Though he took many of Kristin's lessons about being aware of fashion and appearance and looking good enough to heart that he wears nice clothes, appreciates fine things, and is perfectly capable of using the skills of manipulating appearance to his purpose.) Appearance is a *tool* to Duncan, not an end, and underlying truth will trump it every time. (This actually sets up some of the reasons for Duncan's reaction to the revelations of CaH & Rev 6:8.)
At this time in his life, Duncan is not polished, not cultured, not "pretty" in the fashionable, social sense. (Very pretty indeed from the eye-candy sense :-)). But the fundamental beauty of "who he *is*" is apparent no matter how he is dressed. To strain the metaphor, a Beauty in Beast's clothing.
"I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod." What else needs be said on the subject, as far as Duncan is concerned?
Then there is Methos: the apparent "unassuming graduate student," "new immortal" (that's what Richie assumes, anyway) and "ordinary guy" who is actually a Watcher, Methos the Eldest, and in many ways the most un-ordinary of them all. But, he doesn't just *look like* a graduate student -- he *is* one (for the Nth time, admittedly). As a watcher, he doesn't just hide out looking like a watcher, he is one (or he wouldn't have been as torn as he *visibly* was in the whole Galati mess). The line between "acts like" and "is" is a fine one, and not always an actual line. Ordinary is protective coloration, and, I think, a certain amount of what Methos prefers -- not just because it is safer, but in many ways it is nicer, more comfortable. Substance and appearance both, as tools in the ongoing effort to *survive* and to *live* (which are not quite the same thing.)
Another theme that runs through this episode is that of the dichotomy between Student/Teacher and Trainer/Trainee, with a side-note on the divide or contrast between Youth and Age.
Some attempt at definitions here:
Student: one who learns; is seeking knowledge, growth, understanding, skill, etc.; one in such a learning relationship with another with knowledge/skill/etc. to impart. A student may have many teachers, and may choose to remain life-long engaged in the persuit of knowledge, understanding, skill, etc. There is often the implication that a student is somehow "unformed", but in point of fact what a student is is open to new information, new insights, new connections and interactions with other material they already have. Students are "expandable" rather than fixed or closed. Richie is a student, growing into himself.
Teacher: One engaged in imparting knowlege/skill/etc. to and assisting in the growth and increasing of understanding of another, a student, generally with the underlying assumption that the teaching per se relationship is transitory, (certainly any formal relationship), even though the give and take of knowledge may last indefinitely. A teacher may have many students, and is likely to be a student themselves. Duncan is a teacher. Methos (though he would deny it in all likelyhood) is a teacher. Both of them are also students in the sense of commitment to continuous learning.
A teacher-student relationship is only hierarchical in the sense that one person has the knowledge/skill/ability that the other desires to acquire or increase in themselves. There is a built-in give and take, with an implicit mutual responsibility to each other to "learn" and to "teach". At it's best, a teacher-student relationship will grow and evolve into something lasting, with ongoing respect and friendship/positive interaction on both sides.
Trainer: One who shapes another to a pre-determined pattern of the shaper's will. Knowledge and skill may certainly be conveyed to the one so molded, but generally inquiry, curiosity and thoughtful analysis are not encouraged in the Trainee and are often actively discouraged. Think Svengali and his ilk. Patronage - in both the good and bad aspects - is implicit in the role. The trainer does the thinking and the trainee does the doing. Hierarchy is explicit - the trainer is usually in a "higher" position than the trained. (Manager is another part of this idea, like Walter in "Timeless" but I'll deal with him and that next week.) There are aspects of training in teaching -- for something like swordfighting, one needs muscle memory, and reactions that do not require any thought, or one's lifeline will be very short.
(I am over-simplifying here, I know. There is actually a wonderful exploration of this idea in gryphonrhi's Line War story, where one of the characters sits down and works out the difference between teacher and trainer (as well as some other interesting and related concepts.) Excellent writer and lovely, lovely story-cycle. I'll put a link to the page in here somewhere. Found it: half way through this part of Sirocco, the climax of the Line War. I recommend reading the whole series. It is well worth it. For the part I am referring to look for the section called "Farrell Jameson's Diary -- 4/17".)
Kristin is a trainer, not a teacher. (And not even a particularly good one -- while her skill is unquestioned, she cannot let go of what she feels she "made.") Her language is all about "working with" not encouraging growth. Her emphasis is all on form, look, letter of the thing -- Maria needs to "Make a good impression" since she is just starting out. "Feeling good" enters into it too -- certainly making Kristin herself feel good :-). She doesn't understand when neither Richie nor Duncan are swayed by the immediate prospect/promise of Really Good Sex. (One wonders how Kristin herself feels about sex, and the fact that most of the time she is using her body and skills as a means, for coercion and manipulation. Does she actually enjoy sex? Consciously take pleasure in the feel of silk against her skin, the bouquet of a fine wine? Or is it all trappings, and a desperate struggle to be seen to be the beautiful, cultured, skilled, powerful person she is secretly and dreadfully afraid she is not?)
Trainee: one who is trained, shaped, molded to a pattern set by another. Skill is often conveyed by training, as are particular fixed mindsets. (There is a reason that aspects of religious training is called "formation".) A trainee is "under" a trainer. Kristin sees all of her "students" as trainees. She also, like Svengali, sees them as "hers" in an immediate and possessive way. Furthermore, she expects them to be *grateful* for her training.
So, Duncan, as a teacher, wants Richie to learn and grow and become more himself. His trying to convince Richie of the unwisdom of being with Kristin is the result of his concern for Richie, not jealousy on his own behalf. He is happy to have Richie learn from other people, but he doesn't want him hurt -- Duncan cares for Richie as his own person. Furthermore, Duncan knows that he *has* to let Richie go his own way, and sometimes get burned, even when he, Duncan, wishes it were not so. Duncan is a teacher-by-example, by lecture; overt and upfront. Hands-on.
Methos is a subtle teacher. He teaches by asking questions, not by answering them; implication not exposition; story, not lecture. And, despite appearances, by action at least as much as word. This is illustrated in the whole sequence that ends up with him putting the katana to Duncan's neck. (What happens after that in the spar is not so much about teaching :-)) Hands off in a sense.
I think that Duncan considers Kristin to have been one of his teachers, and she certainly gave him information, skills and experience that he used to good effect later -- but that was him being an advertent student, skilled in learning. Kristin saw him not as a student, but as a thing to be shaped, molded, and by that made hers. Hers to break and destroy if in the end he did not stay in the shape and role she wished. Richie, Maria, Louise Barton the painter, all "hers." She could tire of them, and dispose of them, they could not leave her. A one-way relationship, all focused on Kristin.
(It would be terribly plausible for Kristin to have handed off her discards to Walker ... What if one of those "discards" was someone important to Methos? There's a pretty scary plotbunny in that idea.)
Richie assumes Adam is a new(ish at least) immortal -- the scene where he complains about Duncan being right all the time being a pain in the ass has that lovely ironic line about "older and wiser" where it is obvious that Richie is looking to Adam for support as "us kids." And Adam, beautifully, lets the assumption stand. Richie has not yet learned to look past appearance or surface action to consider more obscure possibilities. Adam looks young (younger than Mac anyway) and acts young. Must *be* young.
Methos underlines/indicates Duncan's teacher-status in several ways, but ambiguously. When he enters the dojo (after making a little bow/nod/acknowledgment to the place before stepping in -- such a cool and interesting moment!) he calls Duncan "MacLeod-san" -- Honored master/teacher. Does he mean it as a title? As a role? With seriousness and respect? With irony? At that moment he appears in all ways as Adam Pierson -- shy, hesitant, self-effacing. Then he unfolds into Methos before Duncan's (and our) very eyes. On the other hand, he uses "we" several times while talking to Duncan about the perils of overseeing/bringing up impetuous youth. (There is an interesting unspoken sense of equality in that scene (the one still in the loft) -- a "we are both old enough to know whereof we speak" -- that morphs to a shifting tension in the painting scene.)
This episode has some interesting things to say about love and lust and the interaction/divide between them. Kristin lusts, inspires lust, uses it and manipulates it and is generally driven by it. Her clothes are deliberately provocative, her stance inviting and her whole attitude is a "come hither". the industry she has chosen is all about fanning desire over thought, and she appears to define herself by her (sexual) power over people - men especially. (Actually, her relation to women is ... interesting. She hires a female painter for Duncan's portrait, and has many, many women working for her. Amy-her-minion who is told to draw up the contract is spoken to almost as if she weren't a person. Johann the driver is accorded a (small) degree of respect, and is obviously a dedicated employee/minion. It is pretty obvious that she sees her "girls" as more property than people, while she is a little more gracious to men. I can't imagine her having a best buddy girl friend. I actually have trouble imagining her with a true friend of any kind. She must be very lonely under there somewhere.)
Duncan is not ruled by lust, but is ruled by love. Lust can sway him, but will not turn him from either what he loves or what he believes. I think perhaps one of the things that he learned from Kristin is the difference between love and lust. Duncan also knows that love is a wider thing than lust, and can apply without a sexual/physical component. Duncan loves Richie, as a student, as a friend, as a person. Attatchment, affection, connection is something he does as easy as breathing. There is a visible chemistry with Methos that shows a strong if undefined (and unspoken) connection.
Richie does not yet know the difference between lust and love, at least not in any conscious, articulable way, but he does have the capacity for both. Maria is important to him -- and not because he's slept with her -- because I don't think he has. She is sister-friend-fellow. She *matters* to him. Kristin sets him on fire and makes all his (forever in the ferment of 19) hormones jump up and down and totally swamp his brain. Richie *thinks* Kristin matters to him, but ultimately, Maria is not only more important, but more real. Not that he's going to "get over" Kristin any too quickly, but Maria's death would have been a much deeper and more lasting blow. I think that Richie will have learned the same lesson from Kristin that Duncan did, only without the same layer of guilt.
And where does Methos come on the love-lust issue? We don't know. He doesn't let us know. I don't think he quite knows himself just at the moment. (More on *that* next week too :-)). It is easy (and plausible) to interpret his actions in light of that energy between him and Duncan as some kind of compelling connection, but what is the nature of that connection, and how aware of it is Methos? More aware, certainly, after the scene in the dojo. (He's not afraid, precisely, that Duncan will actually take his head. But the look on his face, and the little, telling (involuntary? conscious?) moment at the end where he is watching Duncan walk away with Richie and he does that touch of thumb along his neck.... What has *Methos* learned from that sparring lesson?) Methos loves. I believe he loves deeply. But showing it, demonstrating it in any kind of overt way is just not in it. Not at this point in his journey. Not when immortals and survival are involved. And lust? I think he is quite capable of lust -- and knows it all too well. He also knows how to control it. (One can interpret this through the lens of CaH and Rev 6:8, and posit that lust ruled him then. It is not something he will allow to rule him again.)
Other dichotomies touched on are the idea of holding on versus letting go, and pursuing what one wants *now* opposed to what one wants *most*. This is one where the sharp contrast is between Kristin and Methos, not Duncan. Kristin is both a holder and one to gratify herself pretty immediately. The holding on is explicit -- "no-one leaves me" is something she says over and over. Immediate gratification is fairly clear: taking possession of Duncan right there in the road, Signing Maria on the spot, claiming Richie. She can certainly make long-range goals, but all of them are about making it so she can get what she wants. Even then, she does things that are not conducive to true long range survival. (Though she seems to have done fairly well with her standard technique -- Methos strongly implies that Mac was luck to have gotten away, and that any number of others did not: "Do you know how many she's killed? Do you want the list?")
Methos, even at this point in our acquaintance with him, is all about the long term plan, the long decided goal (which he laid out for Duncan very early on: "Live, Highlander. Grow stronger. Fight another day.") Certainly he lives in the present and enjoys the now (beer, a comfortable couch, teasing and banter, invading Mac's personal space :-)) but comfort will not come before the main goal. It seems, though, that Mac's survival has been added to the parameters of that goal. And with that addition come corollaries like looking out for the people who matter to Mac. There is no hesitation in Methos' move to follow Duncan to Kristin's. (And the sheer beauty of the way those two men move in that scene -- in the whole episode, really, but for some reason that little economical turn and duck under the elevator grille is One of Those Moments for me :-)). As for holding on -- we've seen how quickly Methos can move on. All he has with him at the door is a single bag. I can go with the fanon of stuff stashed hither and yon, but I am more inclined to believe in less baggage (except for books. I am Quite Sure Methos has libraries available to him all over.) Duncan does stuff, but not obsessively. He can be impulsive and immediate and forget to consider the longer term/wider effect. He's still finding his own balance there.
----
Thoughts and musing on other themes/things:
The house-renovation thread - the paint-chip bookends
Methos' non-interaction with Kristin until the very end - how much does Methos know about Kristin, and how does he know it?
The connection I made between Methos and Gerald Tarrant in the "Look at me, MacLeod" moment on the porch
The two swordfights
Throughout the episode The restoration of the old house is a counterpoint to the main action. Duncan builds, restores, makes new (and then gives away, though that isn't in this episode). The painting he is doing is more prosaic than the portrait Kristin commissions (notice she does not paint it herself, just like she did not make any of her clothes, or food or anything else that we see) but it is the work of his own (and his friends :-)) hands, and done with an outward focus. Concrete, tangible creation. The bit with trying to choose the colors is a parallel thread -- Here is a place where Duncan doesn't know what he wants, Richie likes one color then another -- and Methos's suggests getting someone in. This could be read as a kind of metaphor for the problem of the appearance of Kristin -- Duncan cannot solve it - he tries ignoring her, asking her to go away, persuading Richie to stay away, even fighting her, but can not actually kill her. Richie is drawn to her, then has a revulsion of feeling (though I wouldn't call Kristin beige, precisely :-)). Methos is essentially the someone brought in, though he brings himself, it is *for* Duncan. Use the appropriate tool for the job at hand.
Something I noticed about the third time I watched: Methos is very careful to avoid Kristin seeing him -- he stays in the car, hangs back by the tree, comes up from behind her on the beach. It isn't until she actually turns to fight him that she sees him. I wonder why that is. Is there history between them, history that he remembers and she does not? Or remembers at the end? "Who the hell are you?" doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't recognize him; it could well mean that she does, but her memory and current situation do not jibe. Or that a previous encounter was just as mystifying (though that interpretation is kind of a stretch). I suspect that she doesn't know quite what to do with someone completely immune to her wiles, and Methos either is immune, or knows how to not get infected. (Do you suppose Kronos innoculated him to that kind of manipulation? Or some number greater than zero of his 68 wives?) There is now a scary plotbunny fermenting involving Walker, Kristin and someone Methos cared about....
And how does he stay hidden from her? Is his presence masked by Duncan's? Can he thin it out and look small and harmless? Duncan certainly felt some of his strength when he arrived, judging by the music :-) and his reaction, but the show is actually very inconsistent with how the Buzz works. What does his "undisguided Presence" feel like to Kristin? (Again, going by the music and Mac's reaction.) She is really afraid of Methos in a way she wasn't of Mac.
A side-ways connection -- when I was watching through the first time for this discussion, at the point in the scene on the porch with Methos and Duncan where Methos says "Look at me, MacLeod." and the camera is Duncan's pov, I flashed on the scene in "Black Sun Rising" when Tarrant tries to explain how he knows what he knows about the Master of Lema and the nature of vulnerability and a life lived through an awareness of being vulnerable. Just what *has* Methos had to do to survive sometimes? Something to think further on.
The two swordfights. Oh these are sooooo pretty. And remarkably telling about the three people involved. Duncan is his usual centered and brilliant self in both the extended (I first wrote "sextended" there ... :-)) spar and the fight on the beach. In the spar he is also obviously enjoying himself, and not, I think, holding back, though he pulls the head shot of course. Its a spar, not a true combat (it *is* a challenge...). Methos in that is focused, centered, keeps his gravity low and stance stable and flexible. Very nice footwork. And he is always looking at Mac's face, his eyes, never hands or blade. Mac does him the respect of doing the same. There is exhilaration and speed and positive sparks going in between words and blades and the energy between them. That fight is a thing of absolute beauty.
The fight on the beach is grim necessity. Duncan means to finish her, and finds he can not. He beats her quickly, handily, but almost gently. Methos does the job with cold competence, letting her flail at him (and you can see that she is so frightened and rattled that her elbows are rigid and her stance sloppy and unbalanced. Methos is perfectly grounded even in the sand. He beats her blade down with the weight of his own and stabs her (using, I think, the same technique/parry Mac used against him earlier, but it is too dark and too fast to really tell) with efficient, economical movement. (The spin earlier was a little flashy, but conserves the momentum of the parry from the really wild swing of Kristin's.) Mac turns away, but is perfectly aware of what is going on. He isn't going to interfere. He doesn't even, really, want to. He can't look. Methos takes the weight of his broadsword up and back and around, pulling the energy from the earth up from his feet and through his spine and out along arm and hand to blade. The backhand stroke is powered with muscle, will and mechanical advantage. Duncan can't avoid hearing. He looks back and the contact between him and Methos is palpable. Methos knows what's coming -- he knew what he was getting in for, and whether or not he wanted it is irrelevant to the necessity.
And then at the end of the scene (not the completion of the quickening, I don't think, just when the camera fades to black) a bolt of the lightning that is hammering Methos lances to Duncan. Did Duncan share some of that quickening with Methos?
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Bits that make me squee or giggle or sigh with happiness:
The cheerful little waggle of Duncan's eyebrows when Kristin kisses him in the road.
The "Racing Starships" conversation (though it is bittersweet in retrospect, knowing that in canon it cannot happen - but retcon or deny away, I'd love to read a story where it does happen.)
Kristin almost reflexively attempting to straighten the lapels of Duncan's coat. She really does care about appearance, and that isn't all a bad thing.
The bit I mentioned earlier about Methos giving respect to the place at the door of the dojo before entering. It looks like a natural and comfortable move, plus Duncan isn't watching him; it's not an act.
Richie looking to Methos for sympathy over Duncan being older and wiser all the time. Oh the irony.
Nose painting!
The gentleness with which Methos holds and reassures Maria.
"Someone had to." spoken with a rough, resigned but remarkably sympathetic tone. How many people has Methos had to kill that he loved once? He doesn't really answer Mac's question on the porch, except in a way that implies that he has -- though I don't think Mac worked that logical implication out. And then the lighning takes him and he cries out. 200 years since he's taken a quickening, and on the face of it he does it for Duncan. Because he can, Duncan can't, and it really needs to be done, irrespective of Methos's or Duncan's feelings on the matter.
The whole tag -- such a smooth dance where they are completely in each other's space and comfortable/oblivious with it.
And one apparent goof: the ruffians at the very beginning have magically re-loading pistols. After the second shot each they would have had to reload - there is only one pistol each visible. I suppose it's possible that either the first pistols were dropped/put down, since the shots are not seen, only heard; or they had double-barreled pistols (but they don't look like double-barrels). There is no way they could have re-loaded while on horseback in pursuit. But really, in the grand scheme of things this is a mere quibble.
I love this episode, can you tell?
I was going to post there. Then I discovered I was only part way through what I wanted to say and was already up to 20k in text.
So I'm putting it here and commenting with a link there :-)
Somewhat rambly thinky-thoughts on Appearance and Truth (Chivalry in regards to this episode gets its own comments, Sometime,)
Thoughts on "Chivalry"
First off, this episode stands up beautifully to rewatching. I ended up watching it twice in a row -- once to watch complete and again to make notes.
This is an episode about dichotomies:
Surface appearance : Underlying truth
Youth : Age (this one gets used to Quite Amusing Effect several times)
Teacher : Student
Training, making or shaping : Encouraging to find own form
Self-focussed : Other-aware
Lust : Love
What wanted Now : What wanted Most
Holding on : Letting go
Kristin is *all* about appearance, surface -- from the outset she makes it clear that what she is wearing, how she looks, what her outward presentment is, is foremost in her mind. That glorious dress she is wearing in the carriage is so not a travelling dress, for example, but she obviously doesn't care about dust or possible damage to the (very costly) clothes from travelling in them. (I suspect she would care very much about getting blood on them, though, and that is part of why she doesn't get out and fight.) She goes to great trouble for appearance -- commissioning the tartan dress, spending a considerable amount of time and energy on bringing Duncan "up to snuff" as far as looking right and knowing the proper forms of behaviour and so forth. And what is more appearance over substance than a fashion agency/modelling house? (And did Kristin have ties to Morgan Walker, another k'immie in the industry? Might that contribute to Methos' motivations/convictions in regards to her?)
"Do I *look like* a highland lass" is what she says. The truth of what she is is hidden under the pretty surface. She looks like (and may actually believe she is) a cultured, polished, accomplished Beauty. What she is is a Beast with a beautiful appearance.
Duncan is all about underlying truth, though he is susceptable to appearance. His language is about who he is, not what he looks like. (Though he took many of Kristin's lessons about being aware of fashion and appearance and looking good enough to heart that he wears nice clothes, appreciates fine things, and is perfectly capable of using the skills of manipulating appearance to his purpose.) Appearance is a *tool* to Duncan, not an end, and underlying truth will trump it every time. (This actually sets up some of the reasons for Duncan's reaction to the revelations of CaH & Rev 6:8.)
At this time in his life, Duncan is not polished, not cultured, not "pretty" in the fashionable, social sense. (Very pretty indeed from the eye-candy sense :-)). But the fundamental beauty of "who he *is*" is apparent no matter how he is dressed. To strain the metaphor, a Beauty in Beast's clothing.
"I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod." What else needs be said on the subject, as far as Duncan is concerned?
Then there is Methos: the apparent "unassuming graduate student," "new immortal" (that's what Richie assumes, anyway) and "ordinary guy" who is actually a Watcher, Methos the Eldest, and in many ways the most un-ordinary of them all. But, he doesn't just *look like* a graduate student -- he *is* one (for the Nth time, admittedly). As a watcher, he doesn't just hide out looking like a watcher, he is one (or he wouldn't have been as torn as he *visibly* was in the whole Galati mess). The line between "acts like" and "is" is a fine one, and not always an actual line. Ordinary is protective coloration, and, I think, a certain amount of what Methos prefers -- not just because it is safer, but in many ways it is nicer, more comfortable. Substance and appearance both, as tools in the ongoing effort to *survive* and to *live* (which are not quite the same thing.)
Another theme that runs through this episode is that of the dichotomy between Student/Teacher and Trainer/Trainee, with a side-note on the divide or contrast between Youth and Age.
Some attempt at definitions here:
Student: one who learns; is seeking knowledge, growth, understanding, skill, etc.; one in such a learning relationship with another with knowledge/skill/etc. to impart. A student may have many teachers, and may choose to remain life-long engaged in the persuit of knowledge, understanding, skill, etc. There is often the implication that a student is somehow "unformed", but in point of fact what a student is is open to new information, new insights, new connections and interactions with other material they already have. Students are "expandable" rather than fixed or closed. Richie is a student, growing into himself.
Teacher: One engaged in imparting knowlege/skill/etc. to and assisting in the growth and increasing of understanding of another, a student, generally with the underlying assumption that the teaching per se relationship is transitory, (certainly any formal relationship), even though the give and take of knowledge may last indefinitely. A teacher may have many students, and is likely to be a student themselves. Duncan is a teacher. Methos (though he would deny it in all likelyhood) is a teacher. Both of them are also students in the sense of commitment to continuous learning.
A teacher-student relationship is only hierarchical in the sense that one person has the knowledge/skill/ability that the other desires to acquire or increase in themselves. There is a built-in give and take, with an implicit mutual responsibility to each other to "learn" and to "teach". At it's best, a teacher-student relationship will grow and evolve into something lasting, with ongoing respect and friendship/positive interaction on both sides.
Trainer: One who shapes another to a pre-determined pattern of the shaper's will. Knowledge and skill may certainly be conveyed to the one so molded, but generally inquiry, curiosity and thoughtful analysis are not encouraged in the Trainee and are often actively discouraged. Think Svengali and his ilk. Patronage - in both the good and bad aspects - is implicit in the role. The trainer does the thinking and the trainee does the doing. Hierarchy is explicit - the trainer is usually in a "higher" position than the trained. (Manager is another part of this idea, like Walter in "Timeless" but I'll deal with him and that next week.) There are aspects of training in teaching -- for something like swordfighting, one needs muscle memory, and reactions that do not require any thought, or one's lifeline will be very short.
(I am over-simplifying here, I know. There is actually a wonderful exploration of this idea in gryphonrhi's Line War story, where one of the characters sits down and works out the difference between teacher and trainer (as well as some other interesting and related concepts.) Excellent writer and lovely, lovely story-cycle. I'll put a link to the page in here somewhere. Found it: half way through this part of Sirocco, the climax of the Line War. I recommend reading the whole series. It is well worth it. For the part I am referring to look for the section called "Farrell Jameson's Diary -- 4/17".)
Kristin is a trainer, not a teacher. (And not even a particularly good one -- while her skill is unquestioned, she cannot let go of what she feels she "made.") Her language is all about "working with" not encouraging growth. Her emphasis is all on form, look, letter of the thing -- Maria needs to "Make a good impression" since she is just starting out. "Feeling good" enters into it too -- certainly making Kristin herself feel good :-). She doesn't understand when neither Richie nor Duncan are swayed by the immediate prospect/promise of Really Good Sex. (One wonders how Kristin herself feels about sex, and the fact that most of the time she is using her body and skills as a means, for coercion and manipulation. Does she actually enjoy sex? Consciously take pleasure in the feel of silk against her skin, the bouquet of a fine wine? Or is it all trappings, and a desperate struggle to be seen to be the beautiful, cultured, skilled, powerful person she is secretly and dreadfully afraid she is not?)
Trainee: one who is trained, shaped, molded to a pattern set by another. Skill is often conveyed by training, as are particular fixed mindsets. (There is a reason that aspects of religious training is called "formation".) A trainee is "under" a trainer. Kristin sees all of her "students" as trainees. She also, like Svengali, sees them as "hers" in an immediate and possessive way. Furthermore, she expects them to be *grateful* for her training.
So, Duncan, as a teacher, wants Richie to learn and grow and become more himself. His trying to convince Richie of the unwisdom of being with Kristin is the result of his concern for Richie, not jealousy on his own behalf. He is happy to have Richie learn from other people, but he doesn't want him hurt -- Duncan cares for Richie as his own person. Furthermore, Duncan knows that he *has* to let Richie go his own way, and sometimes get burned, even when he, Duncan, wishes it were not so. Duncan is a teacher-by-example, by lecture; overt and upfront. Hands-on.
Methos is a subtle teacher. He teaches by asking questions, not by answering them; implication not exposition; story, not lecture. And, despite appearances, by action at least as much as word. This is illustrated in the whole sequence that ends up with him putting the katana to Duncan's neck. (What happens after that in the spar is not so much about teaching :-)) Hands off in a sense.
I think that Duncan considers Kristin to have been one of his teachers, and she certainly gave him information, skills and experience that he used to good effect later -- but that was him being an advertent student, skilled in learning. Kristin saw him not as a student, but as a thing to be shaped, molded, and by that made hers. Hers to break and destroy if in the end he did not stay in the shape and role she wished. Richie, Maria, Louise Barton the painter, all "hers." She could tire of them, and dispose of them, they could not leave her. A one-way relationship, all focused on Kristin.
(It would be terribly plausible for Kristin to have handed off her discards to Walker ... What if one of those "discards" was someone important to Methos? There's a pretty scary plotbunny in that idea.)
Richie assumes Adam is a new(ish at least) immortal -- the scene where he complains about Duncan being right all the time being a pain in the ass has that lovely ironic line about "older and wiser" where it is obvious that Richie is looking to Adam for support as "us kids." And Adam, beautifully, lets the assumption stand. Richie has not yet learned to look past appearance or surface action to consider more obscure possibilities. Adam looks young (younger than Mac anyway) and acts young. Must *be* young.
Methos underlines/indicates Duncan's teacher-status in several ways, but ambiguously. When he enters the dojo (after making a little bow/nod/acknowledgment to the place before stepping in -- such a cool and interesting moment!) he calls Duncan "MacLeod-san" -- Honored master/teacher. Does he mean it as a title? As a role? With seriousness and respect? With irony? At that moment he appears in all ways as Adam Pierson -- shy, hesitant, self-effacing. Then he unfolds into Methos before Duncan's (and our) very eyes. On the other hand, he uses "we" several times while talking to Duncan about the perils of overseeing/bringing up impetuous youth. (There is an interesting unspoken sense of equality in that scene (the one still in the loft) -- a "we are both old enough to know whereof we speak" -- that morphs to a shifting tension in the painting scene.)
This episode has some interesting things to say about love and lust and the interaction/divide between them. Kristin lusts, inspires lust, uses it and manipulates it and is generally driven by it. Her clothes are deliberately provocative, her stance inviting and her whole attitude is a "come hither". the industry she has chosen is all about fanning desire over thought, and she appears to define herself by her (sexual) power over people - men especially. (Actually, her relation to women is ... interesting. She hires a female painter for Duncan's portrait, and has many, many women working for her. Amy-her-minion who is told to draw up the contract is spoken to almost as if she weren't a person. Johann the driver is accorded a (small) degree of respect, and is obviously a dedicated employee/minion. It is pretty obvious that she sees her "girls" as more property than people, while she is a little more gracious to men. I can't imagine her having a best buddy girl friend. I actually have trouble imagining her with a true friend of any kind. She must be very lonely under there somewhere.)
Duncan is not ruled by lust, but is ruled by love. Lust can sway him, but will not turn him from either what he loves or what he believes. I think perhaps one of the things that he learned from Kristin is the difference between love and lust. Duncan also knows that love is a wider thing than lust, and can apply without a sexual/physical component. Duncan loves Richie, as a student, as a friend, as a person. Attatchment, affection, connection is something he does as easy as breathing. There is a visible chemistry with Methos that shows a strong if undefined (and unspoken) connection.
Richie does not yet know the difference between lust and love, at least not in any conscious, articulable way, but he does have the capacity for both. Maria is important to him -- and not because he's slept with her -- because I don't think he has. She is sister-friend-fellow. She *matters* to him. Kristin sets him on fire and makes all his (forever in the ferment of 19) hormones jump up and down and totally swamp his brain. Richie *thinks* Kristin matters to him, but ultimately, Maria is not only more important, but more real. Not that he's going to "get over" Kristin any too quickly, but Maria's death would have been a much deeper and more lasting blow. I think that Richie will have learned the same lesson from Kristin that Duncan did, only without the same layer of guilt.
And where does Methos come on the love-lust issue? We don't know. He doesn't let us know. I don't think he quite knows himself just at the moment. (More on *that* next week too :-)). It is easy (and plausible) to interpret his actions in light of that energy between him and Duncan as some kind of compelling connection, but what is the nature of that connection, and how aware of it is Methos? More aware, certainly, after the scene in the dojo. (He's not afraid, precisely, that Duncan will actually take his head. But the look on his face, and the little, telling (involuntary? conscious?) moment at the end where he is watching Duncan walk away with Richie and he does that touch of thumb along his neck.... What has *Methos* learned from that sparring lesson?) Methos loves. I believe he loves deeply. But showing it, demonstrating it in any kind of overt way is just not in it. Not at this point in his journey. Not when immortals and survival are involved. And lust? I think he is quite capable of lust -- and knows it all too well. He also knows how to control it. (One can interpret this through the lens of CaH and Rev 6:8, and posit that lust ruled him then. It is not something he will allow to rule him again.)
Other dichotomies touched on are the idea of holding on versus letting go, and pursuing what one wants *now* opposed to what one wants *most*. This is one where the sharp contrast is between Kristin and Methos, not Duncan. Kristin is both a holder and one to gratify herself pretty immediately. The holding on is explicit -- "no-one leaves me" is something she says over and over. Immediate gratification is fairly clear: taking possession of Duncan right there in the road, Signing Maria on the spot, claiming Richie. She can certainly make long-range goals, but all of them are about making it so she can get what she wants. Even then, she does things that are not conducive to true long range survival. (Though she seems to have done fairly well with her standard technique -- Methos strongly implies that Mac was luck to have gotten away, and that any number of others did not: "Do you know how many she's killed? Do you want the list?")
Methos, even at this point in our acquaintance with him, is all about the long term plan, the long decided goal (which he laid out for Duncan very early on: "Live, Highlander. Grow stronger. Fight another day.") Certainly he lives in the present and enjoys the now (beer, a comfortable couch, teasing and banter, invading Mac's personal space :-)) but comfort will not come before the main goal. It seems, though, that Mac's survival has been added to the parameters of that goal. And with that addition come corollaries like looking out for the people who matter to Mac. There is no hesitation in Methos' move to follow Duncan to Kristin's. (And the sheer beauty of the way those two men move in that scene -- in the whole episode, really, but for some reason that little economical turn and duck under the elevator grille is One of Those Moments for me :-)). As for holding on -- we've seen how quickly Methos can move on. All he has with him at the door is a single bag. I can go with the fanon of stuff stashed hither and yon, but I am more inclined to believe in less baggage (except for books. I am Quite Sure Methos has libraries available to him all over.) Duncan does stuff, but not obsessively. He can be impulsive and immediate and forget to consider the longer term/wider effect. He's still finding his own balance there.
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Thoughts and musing on other themes/things:
The house-renovation thread - the paint-chip bookends
Methos' non-interaction with Kristin until the very end - how much does Methos know about Kristin, and how does he know it?
The connection I made between Methos and Gerald Tarrant in the "Look at me, MacLeod" moment on the porch
The two swordfights
Throughout the episode The restoration of the old house is a counterpoint to the main action. Duncan builds, restores, makes new (and then gives away, though that isn't in this episode). The painting he is doing is more prosaic than the portrait Kristin commissions (notice she does not paint it herself, just like she did not make any of her clothes, or food or anything else that we see) but it is the work of his own (and his friends :-)) hands, and done with an outward focus. Concrete, tangible creation. The bit with trying to choose the colors is a parallel thread -- Here is a place where Duncan doesn't know what he wants, Richie likes one color then another -- and Methos's suggests getting someone in. This could be read as a kind of metaphor for the problem of the appearance of Kristin -- Duncan cannot solve it - he tries ignoring her, asking her to go away, persuading Richie to stay away, even fighting her, but can not actually kill her. Richie is drawn to her, then has a revulsion of feeling (though I wouldn't call Kristin beige, precisely :-)). Methos is essentially the someone brought in, though he brings himself, it is *for* Duncan. Use the appropriate tool for the job at hand.
Something I noticed about the third time I watched: Methos is very careful to avoid Kristin seeing him -- he stays in the car, hangs back by the tree, comes up from behind her on the beach. It isn't until she actually turns to fight him that she sees him. I wonder why that is. Is there history between them, history that he remembers and she does not? Or remembers at the end? "Who the hell are you?" doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't recognize him; it could well mean that she does, but her memory and current situation do not jibe. Or that a previous encounter was just as mystifying (though that interpretation is kind of a stretch). I suspect that she doesn't know quite what to do with someone completely immune to her wiles, and Methos either is immune, or knows how to not get infected. (Do you suppose Kronos innoculated him to that kind of manipulation? Or some number greater than zero of his 68 wives?) There is now a scary plotbunny fermenting involving Walker, Kristin and someone Methos cared about....
And how does he stay hidden from her? Is his presence masked by Duncan's? Can he thin it out and look small and harmless? Duncan certainly felt some of his strength when he arrived, judging by the music :-) and his reaction, but the show is actually very inconsistent with how the Buzz works. What does his "undisguided Presence" feel like to Kristin? (Again, going by the music and Mac's reaction.) She is really afraid of Methos in a way she wasn't of Mac.
A side-ways connection -- when I was watching through the first time for this discussion, at the point in the scene on the porch with Methos and Duncan where Methos says "Look at me, MacLeod." and the camera is Duncan's pov, I flashed on the scene in "Black Sun Rising" when Tarrant tries to explain how he knows what he knows about the Master of Lema and the nature of vulnerability and a life lived through an awareness of being vulnerable. Just what *has* Methos had to do to survive sometimes? Something to think further on.
The two swordfights. Oh these are sooooo pretty. And remarkably telling about the three people involved. Duncan is his usual centered and brilliant self in both the extended (I first wrote "sextended" there ... :-)) spar and the fight on the beach. In the spar he is also obviously enjoying himself, and not, I think, holding back, though he pulls the head shot of course. Its a spar, not a true combat (it *is* a challenge...). Methos in that is focused, centered, keeps his gravity low and stance stable and flexible. Very nice footwork. And he is always looking at Mac's face, his eyes, never hands or blade. Mac does him the respect of doing the same. There is exhilaration and speed and positive sparks going in between words and blades and the energy between them. That fight is a thing of absolute beauty.
The fight on the beach is grim necessity. Duncan means to finish her, and finds he can not. He beats her quickly, handily, but almost gently. Methos does the job with cold competence, letting her flail at him (and you can see that she is so frightened and rattled that her elbows are rigid and her stance sloppy and unbalanced. Methos is perfectly grounded even in the sand. He beats her blade down with the weight of his own and stabs her (using, I think, the same technique/parry Mac used against him earlier, but it is too dark and too fast to really tell) with efficient, economical movement. (The spin earlier was a little flashy, but conserves the momentum of the parry from the really wild swing of Kristin's.) Mac turns away, but is perfectly aware of what is going on. He isn't going to interfere. He doesn't even, really, want to. He can't look. Methos takes the weight of his broadsword up and back and around, pulling the energy from the earth up from his feet and through his spine and out along arm and hand to blade. The backhand stroke is powered with muscle, will and mechanical advantage. Duncan can't avoid hearing. He looks back and the contact between him and Methos is palpable. Methos knows what's coming -- he knew what he was getting in for, and whether or not he wanted it is irrelevant to the necessity.
And then at the end of the scene (not the completion of the quickening, I don't think, just when the camera fades to black) a bolt of the lightning that is hammering Methos lances to Duncan. Did Duncan share some of that quickening with Methos?
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Bits that make me squee or giggle or sigh with happiness:
The cheerful little waggle of Duncan's eyebrows when Kristin kisses him in the road.
The "Racing Starships" conversation (though it is bittersweet in retrospect, knowing that in canon it cannot happen - but retcon or deny away, I'd love to read a story where it does happen.)
Kristin almost reflexively attempting to straighten the lapels of Duncan's coat. She really does care about appearance, and that isn't all a bad thing.
The bit I mentioned earlier about Methos giving respect to the place at the door of the dojo before entering. It looks like a natural and comfortable move, plus Duncan isn't watching him; it's not an act.
Richie looking to Methos for sympathy over Duncan being older and wiser all the time. Oh the irony.
Nose painting!
The gentleness with which Methos holds and reassures Maria.
"Someone had to." spoken with a rough, resigned but remarkably sympathetic tone. How many people has Methos had to kill that he loved once? He doesn't really answer Mac's question on the porch, except in a way that implies that he has -- though I don't think Mac worked that logical implication out. And then the lighning takes him and he cries out. 200 years since he's taken a quickening, and on the face of it he does it for Duncan. Because he can, Duncan can't, and it really needs to be done, irrespective of Methos's or Duncan's feelings on the matter.
The whole tag -- such a smooth dance where they are completely in each other's space and comfortable/oblivious with it.
And one apparent goof: the ruffians at the very beginning have magically re-loading pistols. After the second shot each they would have had to reload - there is only one pistol each visible. I suppose it's possible that either the first pistols were dropped/put down, since the shots are not seen, only heard; or they had double-barreled pistols (but they don't look like double-barrels). There is no way they could have re-loaded while on horseback in pursuit. But really, in the grand scheme of things this is a mere quibble.
I love this episode, can you tell?