So I’m watching the second movie (don’t ask, I’m bored), and heard the bad guy mention the rule about not fighting on holy ground. Has there ever been any explanation as to why? What would happen if they did?
Not as far as I can remember; not in the movies and not in any episode that I saw of the TV show. I think it’s generally left to the viewer to imagine the sort of Very Bad Things™ that happen to immortals that break the rules.
“Highlander: The Series” episode “Little Tin God,” Joe Dawson suggests that the eruption of Vesuvius was caused when an immortal beheaded another immortal in a temple - i.e. on holy ground.
And from the rules for Highlander: Tha Gathering
I thought they actually did fight in a church in one of the movies? Although nobody got beheaded there. So maybe you just can’t kill another immortal on holy ground.
Thanks, Arden Ranger! That sounds familiar, now that I hear it.
I can’t remember the names, but there was an episode where a priest was an Immortal and he was killed in his church. But not by another Immortal. By some rogue Watchers (it been awhile. I think they were Watchers.) who were convinced that the Immortals looked down on the human race and suoght to rule them. Or some such nonsense.
In the third movie, IIRC, Connor and the villain fight on Holy Ground. Disappointingly, all that happens is some force disarms them (destroys theit swords).
This is why the movies after the first are ignored for the most part…
There WAS only one (Highlander movie that is)
There are rumors that there are similarly named movies, but if they exists they have no relation to the One and Only Highlander movie.
Brian
Darius was killed at the end of Season One by Horton, Joe Dawson’s (IIRC) brother-in-law who was indeed a rogue Watcher. Darius’ death led Mac to America where he met Joe for the first time and we found out about the Watcher organization.
I believe Darius was actually killed off because the actor died… lemme check imdb on that.
A few years back someone created rules for using Highlander type immortals in the White Wolf role-playing universe. IIRC the holy ground issue was due to the energy released from the the beheading of an immortal being sucked into the suroundings, rather than the victor. In that world, places of worship are dedicated to collecting the energy produced by acts of devotion, and therefore, they tend to draw in whatever energy may pass by.
As for the movies:
Highlander
Highlander II: The Sickening, (There Should Have Been Only One)
Highlander III: The Inadequate Apology
So basically, some force disarms them and we don’t really know why?
Pretty much, m’Lord.
Also, imdb has this to say about Werner Stocker, who played Darius:
Nice to see I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, but these little useless tidbits of information stay with me.
It’s a bit of a hijack, but as long as we’re asking questions about the series, I had a question about End Game. I saw it on video, where it was announcing “New footage and an alternate ending.” I recall from the trailer of the film two little bits that I didn’t remember being in the movie, so I’m curious what big changes were made between the transition from film to video? One scene showed Connor cutting the big villain down the middle and the guy splitting into two forms, and the other showed the bad guy holding up this little ball with Connor’s face in it, then blowing it and the ball shattering. It seemed like the villain was supposed to have some super powers, but then they changed their minds.
Also, were there any immortals in the television show that had magical abilities? I saw maybe a third of the episodes, and asside from the “Purely Evil” immortal, I don’t recall any of them having any special gifts aside from immortality.
As long as we are on the subject, what happens if a human were to behead an immortal? Would he/she receive the Quickening and become part of the game?
From what I can tell (mainly from the aforementioned “Killed by a group of Watchers” plot divice), the quickening goes to the closest Immortal. There’s an episode where Richie befriends a mentally handicapped immortal, and for some reason or another, it’s decided that the best thing for this guy is to be killed off (he wouldn’t make much of a fighter and would just be easy pickings for an evil immortal). To help with Richie’s concience, the guy runs away, lies down on the train tracks, and gets decapitated that way. Richie still receives his quickening, though.
I believe they used the “Death by Train” in another episode, where one of Dunca’s opponents accidentally hit the third rail with his sword, and while he was incapacitated, was taken out. Again, the quickening went to Duncan.
So, from this, I always assumed it would go to whichever immortal is closest. Of course, I don’t know if there’s an area devision for this, so who knows?
I believe that the quickening goes tot he closest immortal, IF they are within a certain range. One of the immortals killed by the Watcher Hunters was begging for his life and said something like, “My Quickening will be wasted!” I think that was what made Darius’s death even more tragic… centuries of knowledge and power destroyed out of predjudice…
It was the third movie (yeah, I know, there’s only one) where Connor and Kane fought on holy ground without knowing it, and their swords broke.
None of the immortals on the show had any funky powers like Nakano or Kane. Unless you count the Dark Quickening, or (shudder) Ahriman, the demon. There was one that was implied to be a vampire, but it turned out he was faking. And there was one with terminally bad luck, but that’s hardly a superpower.
There was the Methusuleh Stone, and a magic pool, but other than that, the only supernatural stuff was the immortals themselves.
The scenes from engame with the funky powers were cut after the trailer. Don’t know why, other than the fact that it’s stupid, of course. 
Since we’re throwing out random questions now, does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks for the info gonzoron. One thing, though…
Didn’t Connor make a comment to Kane that it was holy ground, and thus, they shouldn’t fight, but Kane essentially said “I play by MY rules” and attacked him anyway? I found it really funny, because Kane was the aggressor, yet it was Connor’s sword that broke. The only reason Kane left was because, after that, the drapes pulled off of a Buddha statue, and cued him in that “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”
I could be wrong, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, and pushed it to the far recesses of my brain behind Troll 2.
Yeah, you may be right… my memory of the Final Dimension (What dimension? why is it final?) is fuzzy too, and irreparably tainted by the influence of the card game. (The card called Hidden Shrine led me to remember that they were unaware it was holy ground)
Cassandra and some other immortal both had a hypnotic voice power like the Jedi mind trick, and I think there was an episode with a scupltor immortal that was able to make Duncan see things that weren’t there.