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grav_itySo forgiveness.
It's a theme, a lot. Do you forgive Angel? Spike? Do you forgive Stefan Salvatore? Damon? Do you forgive Logan Echolls? Do you forgive Gul Dukat? Damar? Garak? Locutus of Borg? Do you forgive Darth Vader? Do you forgive John Druitt? Do you forgive Methos? Which of those do you forgive? And why do you forgive some and not others? And after you learn to forgive someone like Methos, does it change your feelings about why you forgave Angel? Is it harder to forgive now then it was before? Did you forgive the Cylons? Did you forgive the humans first? Did you think you had to?
There are really two ways this works. Either they give you a bad guy and they make him good (which happens a lot more often) or they grey the heck out of a shady guy (which can be kind of worse, because if you're unprepared for it, it can really wallop you in the gut). The former is very nearly standard, while the latter is harder to pull off without too much retconning.
(And for simplicity's sake, I'm just dealing with killers. Well, killers and Logan. Because if I start splitting hairs over the likes of Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six, we'll be here forever.)
(I'm also leaving out the Heroic Characters We're Supposed To Forgive, like Duncan MacLeod himself, Jack Harkness, or, say...Angel. Lord, I should just quit while I'm ahead. I'm arbitrary, okay?) (Also, Buffy is still totally the hero, even when it's Angel's own series.)
ANYWAY!
So why do I forgive Angel and not Spike? And why do I forgive Methos almost immediately (though not without freaking out), but hedge on John Druitt?
There are several things that set Methos apart. As I said above, he's already part of the smaller group, the group we find out are evil after the fact, after we've got to know him and be comfortable around him. And yeah, there was always something weird about him, but he's been alive forever, so you shrug it off. And then the show gives you an episode like "Comes A Horseman", and all of his little quirks suddenly make this terrifically awful sense. Now we know why he picked Duncan, because even though Methos is a survivor and a brilliant person, he's still pragmatic enough to pick his own death. It would have been Kronos back in the day, and now it will be Duncan (or Duncan's proxy, but still something that Duncan allows).
The other thing that sets Methos apart is that he's mostly unrepentant. And even that's not in the traditional sense. Because it's not that he's still evil, he just...stopped. And he stopped so long ago that he's not really all that sorry about it any more. It's implied that whatever happened, he gave up guilt in the 11th century, which is still more than 2000 years of feeling bad (depending on how the dates work out), and you'd think that'd do it (though it certainly doesn't for Cassandra), and maybe it does. In any case, he's stopped feeling bad. He's done his time. He's been a doctor for half a millennium, slowly paying it back...and he's going to live forever, after all.
He has a really interesting line in 1806. I made it through the scene with only minimal squirming (the "southern" accent was REALLY BAD, and I think it might also qualify as race!fail, if the term had existed then). Anyway, when Charlotte asks him why he takes care of slaves, he says "Maybe I was on in another life", which she takes at face value. And then he does this thing with his face, and you realize that wasn't, was never a slave...but he did take them for himself, and this is how he manages to sleep at night.
Methos could, if he wanted to, be the most powerful person in the world. I'm reasonably sure he could take Duncan's head if he gave it a legitimate shot. But he chooses to be as normal as possible, chooses to run from the legend of himself, because he knows exactly what he's capable of, and he knows that he doesn't want to do it again. Which makes him a vaguely lazy altruist, I realize, but it's still a choice, and I think it's an important one. If nothing else, he is the greatest enabler who has ever lived (unless it's his own neck on the line). What's neat, I think, is that he's still Death. He never STOPPED being Death. He just...found a new Pestilence, and even though Duncan tends attract all kinds of collateral damage, he's still about a billion times better than Kronos.
So why do I forgive Methos? I have no idea. But I do. And believe me, I'm still a little appalled with myself for doing it.
+++
Fic Recs
Death and the Maiden, by Selene: Cassandra begins. (Methos/Cassandra, Non-con, character study)
I very nearly didn't start reading this fic. And then I very nearly didn't finish it. But I did, and I'm kind of glad I did, because it was truly, truly awesome. Writing Methos/Cassandra is hard (or at least it should be), and what this story absolutely nails is this: the story is about Cassandra, first and foremost.
It's also about Power, though, which is so, so important to immortals. It's about the Power Cassandra has, the Power she thinks she has, and then, gloriously, the Power she finds out she has. It's about the girl that got taken by Death in every imaginable way except for one, and when she volunteered that one thing, it changed him just a little bit. But it changed her even more, and when she wandered out of the wilderness, she finally realizes that yes, she was taken by gods and lesser demons, but also: she is one too. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Sixty-Eight Wives, by Hmpf_MacSlow: Exactly what it says on the tin.
One of the things that I love the most about the Ents (the real Ents. Not the ones in the movie), is Treebeard's admission that the Entwives have been gone for so long that he doesn't remember what they look like. It boggled my mind when I was nine, because I didn't really understand what forever was. I still don't, obviously, but I'm starting to. And this fic captures the long, long time that Methos has been alive really well. Also, it's archaeologically sound, fairly witty, and the TIME, you guys. THE TIME.
A Proper Education, by ishafel: Those who can, teach.
I'm not going to lie: I read this story because of the summary. What I found in the story itself was Methos (as Adam, for the most part), trying to make undergraduates appreciate anything, and his internal monologue as he does it is just awesome. This nicely fills my kink of "teachers I wish I'd had (but don't actually exist)".
A Postcard From Adam, by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lferion: A Challenge in Cairo.
I think I love this one the best. The backdrop of Egypt is stunning, the details in the story come together perfectly, Alexa is just wonderful, but the best part, my favourite part, is howlferion sets Adam against Methos, and how he struggles to be Adam when the world is making him be Methos. Also, there are swords. :)
I am not watching Queen of Swords. Well, not this week, anyway. (There's always Cold Squad. Which, I imagine, has more dignity. But fewer cravats. Decisions, decisions...)
It's a theme, a lot. Do you forgive Angel? Spike? Do you forgive Stefan Salvatore? Damon? Do you forgive Logan Echolls? Do you forgive Gul Dukat? Damar? Garak? Locutus of Borg? Do you forgive Darth Vader? Do you forgive John Druitt? Do you forgive Methos? Which of those do you forgive? And why do you forgive some and not others? And after you learn to forgive someone like Methos, does it change your feelings about why you forgave Angel? Is it harder to forgive now then it was before? Did you forgive the Cylons? Did you forgive the humans first? Did you think you had to?
There are really two ways this works. Either they give you a bad guy and they make him good (which happens a lot more often) or they grey the heck out of a shady guy (which can be kind of worse, because if you're unprepared for it, it can really wallop you in the gut). The former is very nearly standard, while the latter is harder to pull off without too much retconning.
(And for simplicity's sake, I'm just dealing with killers. Well, killers and Logan. Because if I start splitting hairs over the likes of Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six, we'll be here forever.)
(I'm also leaving out the Heroic Characters We're Supposed To Forgive, like Duncan MacLeod himself, Jack Harkness, or, say...Angel. Lord, I should just quit while I'm ahead. I'm arbitrary, okay?) (Also, Buffy is still totally the hero, even when it's Angel's own series.)
ANYWAY!
So why do I forgive Angel and not Spike? And why do I forgive Methos almost immediately (though not without freaking out), but hedge on John Druitt?
There are several things that set Methos apart. As I said above, he's already part of the smaller group, the group we find out are evil after the fact, after we've got to know him and be comfortable around him. And yeah, there was always something weird about him, but he's been alive forever, so you shrug it off. And then the show gives you an episode like "Comes A Horseman", and all of his little quirks suddenly make this terrifically awful sense. Now we know why he picked Duncan, because even though Methos is a survivor and a brilliant person, he's still pragmatic enough to pick his own death. It would have been Kronos back in the day, and now it will be Duncan (or Duncan's proxy, but still something that Duncan allows).
The other thing that sets Methos apart is that he's mostly unrepentant. And even that's not in the traditional sense. Because it's not that he's still evil, he just...stopped. And he stopped so long ago that he's not really all that sorry about it any more. It's implied that whatever happened, he gave up guilt in the 11th century, which is still more than 2000 years of feeling bad (depending on how the dates work out), and you'd think that'd do it (though it certainly doesn't for Cassandra), and maybe it does. In any case, he's stopped feeling bad. He's done his time. He's been a doctor for half a millennium, slowly paying it back...and he's going to live forever, after all.
He has a really interesting line in 1806. I made it through the scene with only minimal squirming (the "southern" accent was REALLY BAD, and I think it might also qualify as race!fail, if the term had existed then). Anyway, when Charlotte asks him why he takes care of slaves, he says "Maybe I was on in another life", which she takes at face value. And then he does this thing with his face, and you realize that wasn't, was never a slave...but he did take them for himself, and this is how he manages to sleep at night.
Methos could, if he wanted to, be the most powerful person in the world. I'm reasonably sure he could take Duncan's head if he gave it a legitimate shot. But he chooses to be as normal as possible, chooses to run from the legend of himself, because he knows exactly what he's capable of, and he knows that he doesn't want to do it again. Which makes him a vaguely lazy altruist, I realize, but it's still a choice, and I think it's an important one. If nothing else, he is the greatest enabler who has ever lived (unless it's his own neck on the line). What's neat, I think, is that he's still Death. He never STOPPED being Death. He just...found a new Pestilence, and even though Duncan tends attract all kinds of collateral damage, he's still about a billion times better than Kronos.
So why do I forgive Methos? I have no idea. But I do. And believe me, I'm still a little appalled with myself for doing it.
+++
Fic Recs
Death and the Maiden, by Selene: Cassandra begins. (Methos/Cassandra, Non-con, character study)
I very nearly didn't start reading this fic. And then I very nearly didn't finish it. But I did, and I'm kind of glad I did, because it was truly, truly awesome. Writing Methos/Cassandra is hard (or at least it should be), and what this story absolutely nails is this: the story is about Cassandra, first and foremost.
It's also about Power, though, which is so, so important to immortals. It's about the Power Cassandra has, the Power she thinks she has, and then, gloriously, the Power she finds out she has. It's about the girl that got taken by Death in every imaginable way except for one, and when she volunteered that one thing, it changed him just a little bit. But it changed her even more, and when she wandered out of the wilderness, she finally realizes that yes, she was taken by gods and lesser demons, but also: she is one too. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Sixty-Eight Wives, by Hmpf_MacSlow: Exactly what it says on the tin.
One of the things that I love the most about the Ents (the real Ents. Not the ones in the movie), is Treebeard's admission that the Entwives have been gone for so long that he doesn't remember what they look like. It boggled my mind when I was nine, because I didn't really understand what forever was. I still don't, obviously, but I'm starting to. And this fic captures the long, long time that Methos has been alive really well. Also, it's archaeologically sound, fairly witty, and the TIME, you guys. THE TIME.
A Proper Education, by ishafel: Those who can, teach.
I'm not going to lie: I read this story because of the summary. What I found in the story itself was Methos (as Adam, for the most part), trying to make undergraduates appreciate anything, and his internal monologue as he does it is just awesome. This nicely fills my kink of "teachers I wish I'd had (but don't actually exist)".
A Postcard From Adam, by
lferion: A Challenge in Cairo.I think I love this one the best. The backdrop of Egypt is stunning, the details in the story come together perfectly, Alexa is just wonderful, but the best part, my favourite part, is how
lferion sets Adam against Methos, and how he struggles to be Adam when the world is making him be Methos. Also, there are swords. :)I am not watching Queen of Swords. Well, not this week, anyway. (There's always Cold Squad. Which, I imagine, has more dignity. But fewer cravats. Decisions, decisions...)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 06:50 pm (UTC)And because I'm not in thinking mode at the moment, I can't actually comment on the important part of this post. :P Except to say I forgive Methos too.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 07:36 pm (UTC)I never forgave Methos. But then, I never thought I had to. No. Perhaps ... I never thought it was my right. Not to forgive him, not to judge him in the first place. It's just ...
He's been alive for five thousand years. He's lived through an incredible variety of societies and mores. He's been a part of who knows how many tragedies. How many people has he killed? How many times has he died in return? How many people did he save? How many times was he spared in return? Five thousand years down the line, centuries removed from the crimes with so much in between ... how much does it matter anymore? *shakes head*
When we see him, he's doing more or less what's right. He's doing more or less what's good, if in his own unique way. He has power. He doesn't use it. I just ... can't help but think that it's not our right to judge beyond that. We weren't there. We don't know, not how much damage he did then, not how much good he's done to make up for it, if the books balance, if they ever can. We can't know. The best we can do is judge him as he is now, and Methos now has chosen to do right. If nothing else, I respect the choice.
Now, Cassandra, Cassandra has a right to judge. She was there, she was hurt, it is her right not to forgive him. It's her right never to forgive him, if she so chooses. And, oddly, I think Methos himself understands that. Accepts that. He doesn't repent, but he accepts the judgement that falls.
*shrugs* I have ... perhaps a skewed sense of morality, though. *grins sheepishly* Forgive the rambling, yes?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 07:44 pm (UTC)I have a locked entry from right after I watched the Horsemen arc where I freak out because I deal very, very badly with rapists on TV. (And yes, my focal point in history is the Bronze Age and the early to middle Iron Age, so I know what went on back then, heck I even understand the reasons for it...but when I watch it on TV, watch it from a character I genuinely like, I feel the need to shower in bleach for about a year.)
This is the pertinent part of what I wrote:
Because he never asks her to forgive him. He comes close, a couple of times, and for a while when she was in the cage, and he was all "It wasn't all bad, when we were together.", I was all "DON'T YOU DARE!" (that's not true: I was hiding under my pillow begging the screen "make it stop!", because it's Methos, and he's the only reason I'm watching the show, and if I hate him, it will suck), but then he surprised me quite thoroughly by telling her the truth, and essentially asking her to forgive herself, which is what really needs to happen.
At which point I had to stop, start typing this post, freak out a little bit, and hope like hell the ending lived up to my expectations because, so help me, if there was a joke I mightn't have been able to continue. (And, thank goodness, there wasn't and it did. I need a hug. No, I need a sword.)
OMG, and what he did to her! Not telling her what she was or what to do, not explaining The Game or how to protect herself...I kind of hate him right now, which I think am supposed to, and he also hates himself, which is somehow even better, because it was 1997 and if Stargate taught me anything, it's that these things can go very, very wrong sometimes.
I have to forgive him because of my own personal issues, outside of the show. I have to over think it and make it into some kind of sense, because if I didn't, I'd have to stop watching. But what you've said is completely true: it's been 5000 years, and Methos has chosen to do right. But moreover, he's also chosen to let others judge him, and that scene at the end of the episode, on his knees and weeping, fully giving his life over to two people who kind of hate him at that particular moment...that is why I was able to keep going.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:52 pm (UTC)I think somewhere along the way, fandom accepted that Methos has been Everything at some point, including a slave. There's a lot of time unaccounted for between Cassandra and, say the 11th century.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 05:56 pm (UTC)Secondly, Methos - for me it was crucial the show itself doesn't downplay the enormity of what he did, or demands that Cassandra ought to forgive him. Which is what would have happened on some other shows. (And don't get me started on all those post-Horsemen stories presenting Cassandra as a sadistic looney torturing people left and right so that Methos and/or Duncan can take her head and feel completely righteous. And then there were the stories where it turns out the evil woman totally misrepresented Methos who was a real gentleman to her and even send a doctor after her in the desert, I kid you not. Death and the Maiden was written partly in response to all those "how dare she not forgive him? Poor woobie Methos!" tales.) That's what has allowed me to continue appreciating Methos as a character.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 06:04 pm (UTC)(and, uh, welcome! The more the merrier!) :)
See, in my reaction post to the episodes themselves (which is locked, but you can read the pertinent parts above), I had a SERIOUS FREAK OUT because it was the NINETIES, and I expected them to do it badly. And then they didn't. And even the END of the episode didn't let me down.
There is VERY SPECIFIC fanfic for Methos that I cannot read, and you've pretty much described it. I nearly couldn't read "Death and the Maiden", but I made myself do it...and it really helped me process (it's a Thing of mine, triggers and what not).
But yes: the part where he never asked forgiveness or pardon, the part where he cried, the part where they sort of talk about it in his next episode, and STILL Duncan doesn't absolve him (and Methos doesn't ask)...that's why I can still deal with Methos (and, more importantly, it stops me from having uncomfortable flashbacks every time I hear the actor's voice, which would make watching Sanctuary awkward).
So, uh...thanks for writing. :)
ETA: Having just finished "Incubus", I wanted to add that my reaction to the end of "Revelations 8:6" was at first "I need a hug" and then "No, I need a sword", which is exactly why I love both Death and the Maiden and Incubus so much. They are both really good, and I am looking forward to the remainder of the trilogy.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 10:12 am (UTC)(I'm over from
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 01:52 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, I cannot reveal my sources. But I'm pretty sure you can see all his scenes on youtube.