I was a big fan of the show for many years, and I have always wondered about a few things. Mainly, what would happen, for example, if a limb was severed during combat with another immortal or even just in an accident. WOuld it grow back? would it be gone forever? And the other question, what would happen if they were thrown off a building, wouldn’t the body just be flattened?
Thanks for the help
-Mith
I can’t believe I know this, but in the first couple of seasons, the lead singer of Fine Young Cannibals played an evil immortal who had his hand chopped off by Duncan. When he came back, he was still missing his hand, establishing that limbs don’t grow back.
There was at least one episode, as well, where an immortal jumped off a building and walked away.
That’s Xavier St Cloud.
There was another Immortal - I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name - mmmm…Calas, or something, IIRC. He was an opera singer. Another Immortal (Duncan, IIRC) almost took his head off (by accident - if it was deliberate, the job would have gotten finished). His neck healed, but it was scarred horribly, and his voice was ruined (and, IIRC, that’s why he was after MacLeod - revenge for destroying the thing most important to him - his voice and carreer).
The examples of St Cloud and Calas seem to suggest that while fatal wounds (shy of beheading) heal over completely and instantly (as shown COUNTLESS times), some non-lethal wounds, at least, heal no differently than they would in Mortals.
In the movie (Highlander, the movie, there should be only one) an immortal jumps several stories, breaks various bones, dies, then gets back up.
…which is, of course, just a rip-off of the same thing happening to the Kurgan in the original movie - Ramirez never finishes the job, and that’s why Kurgan has that lovely gravelly voice in modern times…and a scar across his throat.
I can’t remember if I’ve asked this before, but here’s a set of questions which have pretty much always nagged at me since the series came out:
Where does the series fit into the time-frame of the first movie? (I’m working off the theory that the subsequent Highlander movies never happened.) The first Highlander won, so his cousin shouldn’t have been alive for the series.
Was that ever explained?
Retcon. Connor never won in the first movie. Just eliminated Kurgan and a couple others. The first movie holds an uneasy place in the TV series canon. It happened, but it didn’t happen as it happened in the movie. The rest of the movies, save Endgame are wholly non-canon.
The series just sort of glossed over the “last battle” aspect of the original movie, instead making it more like the first blip of the Gathering. I’m pretty sure that the very first episode, guest starring Lambert, attempts to explain it away.
From the Highlander.org FAQ
The FAQ’s a good place to start for any of these questions.
Maybe I have this wrong, but the Gathering ended when Connor killed the Kurgan, right? So, basically, what they’re saying is that the series happens during the Gathering–but if that’s true, how could Connor have killed the Kurgan “eight years ago” by the start of the second season? At that point, the Kurgan (as well as every immortal but Connor) would have been dead, and the second season never should have happened. Er, right?
Thanks for the link to the FAQ, by the way! It’s only slightly confusing me at this point, so maybe I’ll eventually get it hammered down.
Oh! And to compound the confusion, Highlander: Endgame (I know I said I’d ignore all subsequent movies, but since they apparently made an attempt to tie this movie in with the series…) had Connor dying. But I can’t see how that happened when he won in the first movie and no other immortal should have been around to do any killing.
I don’t think “There Shall Only Be One” means what they think it means. 
Gave me the spelling for the Immortal I couldn’t remember above. Kalas. May he burn in hell, having killed my second favourite character in the series (Fitz, second only to Methos).
I’m danged chuffed I remembered the name, even if I misspelled it. Although I misremembered a few details of his story.
Correct in movie continuity (Er…at least if you ignore all subsequent movies), not in TV continuity. As I said, the movie holds an uneasy place in TV canon. It happened, but it wasn’t a big Final Showdown of the last Immortals - just the start of a winding down period.
There can be only one - but a lot of Immortals (Duncan, for example) aren’t in any hurry to end the Game, and a good number of Mortals are very eager to keep it going - or else wipe out every last Immortal before one gets a chance to enjoy the Prize.
Ahh, thank you. It was mainly bugging me because I didn’t know if they had intentionally ignored the ending of the first movie or there was a continuity secret I was missing. On retrospect, that’s exactly what Only Mostly Dead was saying, only I didn’t quite understand yet.
Thank you both!
Remember: “There can be only one…but we’re flexible”.
I always enjoyed the series, but the end of Endgame had me walking out of the theater. Its the only movie I have ever walked on…
With that said, I was always told that the movie was the future of the series, but apparently that is no longer true (or never was).
There was a TV episode in which Dawson mentions that Connor killed Kurgan. Basically, the TV series decided that Connor and Kurgan were never the last two, it was just a major battle and one big mother of a Quickening. So they ignore the last few minutes of the first movie.
As for severed limbs, I read somehwere that if the immortal has the opportunity to grab the lost limb and hold it against the stump, it would likely re-attach as the wound healed. So if Xavier hadn’t run off, he probably could have grabbed his mitt and put it back. Serious wounds to the neck that come close to offing the immortal lead to scars. Both Kalas and Kurgan almost lost their heads and were scarred as a result.
I’ve heard there are discrepancies with respect to injuries to the head scarring yes or no.
As for falling off a building, as long as the head remains attached, the body will de-flatten and heal. There was an immortal who got blown up in Viet Nam and he was toast because he was blown to pieces.
BTW, the line I’m referring to is when Duncan is in Dawson’s office and Dawson says:
“Your kinsman, Connor, did the world a favour when he killed the Kurgan.”
For the last year or so, the Internet Movie Database has included a fifth Highlander movie, Highlander: The Source. Upon reading this thread, I went back to look at it again. It doesn’t look very promising that it will be either made or released. Has anyone heard anything about it?
No, but it sounds (from the one listed actor) like it might be a prequel. Story of Methos. I’d beware. I’d still be interested in hearing more about it, though.
In the third movie, didn’t Mario Van Peebles’ character get chopped in half, and heal when (in an out of place comedic scene) he repositioned his lower half (which was still amazingly mobile) with his upper half?
Or am I not allowed to reference that movie?
That would be, by far the best thing they could do.
Unfortunately, if it comes to pass, apparently Adrian Paul is supposed to be involved, which still doesn’t make Methos impossible, but either spreads the story thin, or sets it in the present, which would probably end up putting more emphasis on Duncan than Methos, even if it was nominally the latter’s story.