I must admit that I'm something of a newbie when it comes to "Highlander", but can anyone explain to me...

a) Why Immortals are sterile?

b) What happens if an Immortal tries to fight on Holy Ground?

I don't think it's been explained exactly why Immortals are sterile. It's just one of the prices of Immortality (aside from the head-hunting thing).

As for Holy Ground, no one really knows what will happen, exactly, if that taboo is broken. But there are the occasional legends. Such as the one Joe Dawson mentioned in 'Little Tin God', about two Immortals fighting in a temple...in Pompeii.

In any event, the Immortals refer to their 'activities' as 'The Game'. And, as such, The Game needs rules. And the 'no fighting on Holy Ground' rule is the one rule just about every Immortal abides by. Even the most despicable Immortals respect it.

The rule goes for Holy Ground of all religions, by the way. Which makes sense, as Immortals tend to be pretty diverse, coming from all sorts of cultural backgrounds.

I don't think anything would really happen on Holy Ground. I believe that some cultures believe everything in nature is sacred, therefore all ground would be Holy Ground. It probably began as a form of respect and then developed a mythology all its own.

Wasn't the priest immortal (Darius?) killed by Watchers on Holy Ground?

Perhaps, but it was always my impression that the Holy Ground rule applied only to inter-Immortal combat.

I realise that I'm going to leave you guys hunting for my blood for this, and I'm sorry about it, but does anyone know where I can find a transcript of "Highlander II: The Renegade Version" (ie, the improved version)?

A week later, no reply...

Okay, point taken! I'm sorry I asked! Fuggedaboudit!

Okay, new topic:

Where did the saying "There can be only one" come from in the context of "Highlander"?

As a only a causual viewer, I have one question. Where do they keep the swords? I mean those things are huge, yet they seem to come off the person with no problems.

Local Immortal: "There can be only one" came from the first movie, but to the best of my knowledge there was never a good explanation of how this belief got started. Unless the earliest immortals somehow had a foreknowledge it just seems to be a statement without basis.
Although at the end of the movie Connor gains incredible power after killing the, supposedly, only other surviving immortal on Earth.
I suppose some early immortals might have suspected something, since they would gain power by killing another, but it would still be a guess.

Matt: Some immortals wear long coats, other immortals keep their swords in the trunk of their cars or in their homes, but all those other times... oops!

In the first movie, a big deal was made about the serial decapitor that the police were trying to find, but I only remember one episode of Highlander where a policeman or federal agent investigated someone for chopping a head off. Considering all the dead immortals lying around, you'd think there would be a bit more attention paid to all this.
(Then again maybe the media just got tired of it all. "And once again a headless body was found... *yawn* neighbors reported a freak lightning storm in the area, and police went to the site and found the body. Ho hum.")

Two things that bug me about how the creators handle immortality.
1. The range of Immortal Radar. Sometimes it seems like they sense another immortal quite some distance away, sometimes they almost bump into them before they know. I wish someone had picked a distance and stuck with it.
2. How long an Immortal stays dead. Sometimes an immortal pops back to life almost instantly, sometimes several minutes pass, in the movie, Connor drowns, but is able to walk along the bottom of the loch. Again I wish someone had picked a time limit and stuck with it. (Although that walking along the bottom causes lots of problems.)

Re: Buzz Range
Fans speculate that it varies between immortals, depending on age and number of Qs received.
Re: Length of time dead.
Depends how they died. The more damage done the longer it takes. Also the immortals in the movie don't seem to die at all. Conor didn't drown at all at the bottom of the lake where as DM did in 'The Samurai' Also DM can't breath under water as seen in Season 1. Different abilities between the series and the movies.

Immortals in the movies seemed to have more resilence then the ones in the series. Such as when Connor was in the duel and he was stabbed with the knife. It did not seem to phase him and he continued with the duel much to his opponent's surprise.

The Holy Ground rule and one last immortal comes from Flint. You know Flint from Star Trek. He was this immortal human lving on another planet. Anyways described himself as a Bully who went to war and would not die. Anyways if Early Immortals were like this too and would kill each other anyways and just happened to gain power from it. The holy ground rule also probely came from early supersitous Immortals who wouldn't fight on it for other reasons.

The Holy Ground rule was broken I believe, in Highlander III: The Sorcerer, (that was what it was called in the UK). There was a sort of energy backlash on the immortal if I remember the scene right. I haven't seen the film in a while though.

Some immortals heal faster than others. Take the amount of damage in account for the quick or slow recovery times.

As for Holy Ground, the quickening that dispells from the loser in battle would not go to the winner but to the holy site instead. Well, that's my theory since holy ground could also mean a NODE of energy where the quickening would absorb into.

But the healing is inconsistant with the same immortal.
In Full Disclosure, Amanda shoots herself and takes a minute or two to pop back to life, but in The Ex-Files she falls down the stairs and is dead for quite a few minutes.
I should think that a gunshot wound would take longer to heal than say a broken neck, because a gunshot blows away pieces of the body that have to be regrown.

I agree it's inconsistent but to play devil's advocate, the neck is especially vulnerable in immortals.

Good point! ;-)

I wonder what would happen if an Immortal ran into the Headless Horseman?

Is it just me, Or do these guys seem to have severe emotional problems?

Well, gee, let me think about that: if Connor and Duncan are any indication, then Immortals are natrually depressed, for the simple reason that every friend or lover that they meet will eventually grow old and die (case in point, Heather).

Or the fact that they live their lives constantly on their guard against any possible enemy coming to take their head.

This may seem like a silly question, but when was it ever really stated that all Immortals are foundlings? I know that a good amount of them have no recollection of their real parents (Duncan, Richie, Kenny, etc.), but I haven't seen anything in the films or shows that says that all Immortals are like this. (keep in mind, I haven't seen any of the first season, because the station that carries it around here doesn't have the rights to do so)

That has never really been stated even though there seems to be a long list of immortals who had adopted parents. In one episode Amanda swears on her mother's grave and Duncan replies "you don't have a mother." I believe many of the FAQ's though say they are foundlings which would work with the second movie. They would be transported from Ziest or time (Renegade version of Second movie) and transformed into children during the transport.

I believe that most people completely discount what is affectionately known as "The worst sequel of all time" from the Canon when it comes to Highlander. So you don't need to worry about anything coinciding with the movie.

Blech. What a bad movie.

I know it's been a long time since anyone posted on this board - but I have a question about the immortals. By the way, for the record, I have only seen the series two or three times, and consider it the b-st--d child of the cherished original Highlander movie.
Anyway, in this day and age, certainly an immortal might be accidentally decapitated (say in a car wreck). So, where would the quickening go? To the nearest immortal?
Also, if immortals cannot reproduce, then why has their been three sequels and a cheesy television show?

If an immortal dies and no otehr immortal is near by the quickening does not happen. One ep of the seriees featured a human who was hunting immortals and when one dies he said "This isn't right. Their is no other of my kind near their will be no quickening"

Quite a few immortals seem to be orphans who were found or raided by people who don't know exactly where they came from, which leads some fans to think that all immortals may be orphans and no one knows where they come from (give or take what you think about Highlander II)

Also, if immortals cannot reproduce, then why has their been three sequels and a cheesy television show?

If you're asking why Immortals still exist there, it's actually because of continuity, not reproduction (since they're all adults, it would be impossible for Connor to have spawned a new race like that anyway!)

The simple answer is this: BAD CONTINUITY. The producers claim that these episodes take place in an alternate universe from the first movie, where Connor killed The Kurgan, but didn't get The Prize (personally, I think this is an attempt at convenient bulls***, and a poor one at that).

The system I'd invented in my fan-fic stories to make it a bit more plausible is that The Gathering works a little like a tournament; the Immortals are divided into groups at random, and they go at each other indiscriminately until few remain in a group. Then, as Ramirez says, they are drawn together, in some fairly remote location, and they finish each other off. The winner of this Gathering, as we saw with Connor, would get a Prize of some sort, though perhaps there would be some choice involved as to what it does. Once these survivors are the only Immortals left, they'll go at it, and the winner of that - the absolute, undisputed LAST Immortal - gets The Final Prize, whatever that is (this never got shown in my stories, for fairly obvious reasons, so it was never described or explained).

The simple answer is this: BAD CONTINUITY. The producers claim that these episodes take place in an alternate universe from the first movie, where Connor killed The Kurgan, but didn't get The Prize (personally, I think this is an attempt at convenient bulls***, and a poor one at that).

I don't see why it's so hard a concpt to swallow. It's been done quite a few times with other fictional characters. For example Robin Hood has existed in the universe of the Erol Flynn movies, the universe of the Sean Connery movie and the universe of the Kevin Costner movie. No one would suggest that all of those movies form a compleat straight timeline of the life of one character. Similary you have the universe of Spider Man the movie and the universes of the comics, or the universe of the TV show.

Growing up reading DC Comics the idea of parallel universes is rather easy to accept. Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth 3, etc., etc. Some events remain the same, but other events are different.
Highlander (the movie) was a universe where Connor was the final immortal.
Highlander (the TV show) was a universe where he wasn't. (I imagine that the events of the movie happened, but either, like Local Immortal mentioned, this was a minor Gathering, or these immortals were in in New York for different reasons than given in the film and there was no 'prize' for Connor.)

Also I believe that immortals can have children while they are mortal. It's only when they become immortal that they stop reproducing. Which makes sense. Immortals producing hundreds to thousands of children over their lifespans could seriously upset the gene pool.

While the second movie was bad, except for Sean Connery's scenes, the explanation they gave for where the immortals came from really didn't seem that bad. Maybe if the movie had been better the explanation would be better accepted?

In the TV continuity, it has been specifically stated that pre-immortals can't have kids.

Sandra MacDonald (an excellent fanfic writer) gives an interesting concept of where new immie's come from in one of her stories. I'll try and locate the link.

I seem to remember an episode of Highlander: The Raven that had an old pre-immie with adult children.

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