Methos
Template:Highlander character Methos is a fictional character from the Highlander movies, Highlander: The Series and The Methos Chronicles, portrayed by actor Peter Wingfield. He is an Immortal.
What started as a one-shot part, when he was introduced in the episode "Methos", turned into four years of regular appearances in which Methos became one of the most popular characters in the series. It was initially intended that he would be killed at the end of season 3 in "Finale", but the writers saw potential in the character and kept him. The audience liked the perspective of a cynical five-thousand-year-old man combined with the complexity of the character's dual roles.
History
Under the guise of Watcher Adam Pierson, Methos, the mythical "oldest Immortal," hid his secret.
He had seen the rise and fall of many civilizations, including the Egyptian, Roman, and modern eras.
Methos was one of the Watcher Organisation's greatest mysteries. His existence was doubted and questioned for many centuries. During his time at a University in Paris, Methos as Adam Pierson "uncovered" the "The Methos Chronicles" which documented with varied accuracy much of his life.
In order to prevent the discovery of his true existence, he volunteered to study the Chronicles. In so doing he was able to prevent discovery of the true Methos, and keep tabs on other Immortals that he preferred to avoid.
Origin and life
Methos claimed that he was about 5000 years old. His birth date and place were lost, because he couldn't remember the exact details. However it seems that Methos was born either in ancient Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt in around 3000 BC. He was the second son of three boys and two girls, and he lived with his family. When he was approximately 28 years old, he died when a sandstorm trapped him and his family. His family died and Methos had his first death. Afterwards, he roamed the earth without knowing his immortality. People thought he was a demon and tried to killed him many times. Methos learnt how to survive from then on. By the time he was an estimated 603 years old, he took his first Quickening. He then realized that there were many Immortals besides him, and he started to learn about The Game.
When he was a slave back in Egypt, an Immortal Pharaoh named Pharaoh Djer took him under his wing but apparently the ruthless Pharaoh killed his nomad wife during a Smiting of Sinai or killing of all nomads, so Methos buried him alive inside a sarcophagus within a deep tomb and claimed his throne as a Pharaoh of Egypt. His journey after that was unknown.
He kept many journals, almost since the Sumerians invented writing in approximately 3300 BC. He learned how to write in hieroglyphic, Hyksos, cuneiform, Phoenician and Ancient Greek writing systems. He claimed he got to know Helen of Troy, Socrates, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII of Egypt; the English poets George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley along with his wife Mary Shelley (author of The Modern Prometheus, better known as Frankenstein), and he rode with Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. He also claim that he knew Alexander the Great and sarcastically mentioned that Alexander was not that great. In his first meeting with McLeod, he said not many people can claim to have been on the same stage (either metaphorical or not) as both Julius Caesar and The Rolling Stones.
He had been many things in life. One of his aliases was "Benjamin Adams", or rather, "the good Dr. Adams", as he was known in the 19th century. He majored in medicine in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1453.
Methos used the name "Adam" in most of his aliases as an inside joke, because he was amused that people referred to him as the oldest man. He didn't care whether he was the oldest one, as long as people were not looking for him. Even when a fake Methos called The Messenger (played by Ron Perlman) appeared, he was rather surprised that someone else was using his name. He thought it was flattering and was happy to let someone else be hunted for awhile.
Mild-Mannered Watcher
Just like Superman who has his own alter-ego of mild mannered reporter, Clark Kent, Methos tried to be unseen by pretending to study the Chronicles of Methos, and became somewhat of an off-field agent for the Watchers. Therefore, nobody would suspect that he was actually the legend. That changed when two Watchers died at the hand of Kalas, an evil Immortal. Joe Dawson realized that Kalas was looking for Methos. Duncan MacLeod knew that with Methos' Quickening, Kalas would finally be strong enough to defeat him. Kalas and MacLeod raced to be the first to find Methos. Duncan's search led him to seek out "Adam Pierson". Duncan immediately sensed that Adam was an Immortal and guessed correctly that he was actually Methos. MacLeod challenged Kalas, nearly defeating him when the police arrived to send Kalas to prison for the deaths of the Watchers. But Methos also vanished.
A few months later, Kalas ended up breaking out of prison because of Amanda. She wanted to take his head, but he escaped instead. A woman named Christine Salzer wanted to reveal the secrets of the Immortals and the Watchers to the press, because her husband, Watcher Don Salzer, had been murdered by Kalas. Methos and Joe Dawson tried to talk her out of it, but she refused. In a desperate attempt, Joe tried to kill her, but accidentally shot Duncan instead. Methos wisely reminded Joe that Duncan didn't try to save Christine, but to protect Joe. Ironically, Christine was killed by Kalas. He took the disc containing the information about The Watchers and the existence of the Immortals. Duncan fought Kalas on top of the Eiffel Tower, where he defeated the evil Immortal. The tower, being a giant lightning rod, amplified the Quickening and shut down the power all around Paris, as well as destroying Kalas' computer and the disc containing all the information. The secret of the Immortals and the Watchers was safe, and Methos secured himself as Duncan MacLeod's friend.
Dark Past
Methos had a dark past - he was actually a member of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the mythical and biblical ultimate evil. Duncan MacLeod learned that the man he trusted had a horrible secret. Cassandra pointed out that the polite and witty Methos was actually Death and had enslaved her many millennia ago. Methos had ridden with The Four Horsemen, who plundered and raped villages on two continents back in the Bronze Age. Kronos, the leader of the Horsemen, tracked down Methos in order to get to MacLeod. Methos decided to flee but Duncan caught him leaving, then asked whether Cassandra's accusations were true. Duncan learned the shocking secret that his friend had an unjustifiably evil past. Methos knew that Duncan's moral conscience couldn't stomach this revelation, though he tried to make Duncan understand.
In that confrontation, Methos finally admitted that his past was evil. He told Duncan MacLeod as much, in a chilling monologue:
"I killed. But I didn't just kill fifty, I didn't kill a hundred. I killed a thousand. I killed TEN thousand! And I was good at it. And it wasn't for vengeance. It wasn't for greed. It was because — I liked it. Cassandra was nothing. Her village was nothing. Do you know who I was? I was Death. Death — Death on a horse. When mothers warned their children that the monster would get them, that monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night. Is that what you want to hear? The answer is yes, oh yes."
And in that moment, Duncan decided to put an end of their friendship. Methos decided to put the band together again, and both he and Kronos tracked the remaining members. Silas, the brutal but naive one, and Caspian, the insane one. Kronos had a plan to rule the world once again.
In the end, Methos joined Duncan MacLeod to destroy the Horsemen. The two defeated the Horsemen together, resulting in a powerful "Double Quickening". Duncan firstly killed Caspian and later killed Kronos, while Methos had to kill Silas, the only member of the Horsemen that he really liked. But it was too late to repair the friendship between himself and Duncan.
Although Methos' friendship with Duncan was officially over, it didn't prevent the two from interacting where Methos would talk to Duncan about life. Amanda begged Methos to do something, because Duncan's outlook on life had been shattered by another Immortal named Steven Keane. He shared Duncan's black and white point of view, and it affected him in dealing with The Game. Methos wisely told a reluctant Duncan that life was not as simple as good and evil. There were always two sides of the same coin, and also a grey area in between. Methos claimed that he was not a perfect Immortal, and there was no such thing as being perfect. An Immortal should just accept his life, and decide what was best for himself. Immortals also made mistakes, because they are just human beings, and mistakes could be forgiven. And as Immortals, they had their duty to play in The Game.
Duncan's reluctance to compete in the Game affected him in many ways. He accidentally killed his own protege, Richie Ryan, because he thought he saw an evil being called Ahriman posing as other people. He became more brooding but in the end, he defeated the evil being. But Methos had disappeared again; not even Joe Dawson could find him.
Old and Wise
When Methos returned again, the following year, he found himself being chased by an obssesive Immortal named Morgan Walker, who hated him for having an affair with his slave 200 years ago. Methos had no choice but to hide for the time being and look for some information from The Watcher's computer database. Joe Dawson was angry when he found out that Methos was back, only to try to save his own life by trying to hack into Joe's file, instead of explaining his whereabouts a year ago.
Methos, in his own clever and manipulative way reminded Joe about his Watcher's oath, and that Joe had broken his own vows to help MacLeod, but not Methos. That offended Joe and damaged their already shaky friendship. But Joe couldn't stay mad at Methos any longer, because he needed his help, as a rookie Watcher, named Amy Thomas, had been kidnapped by Walker, and she was Joe Dawson's illegitimate daughter. Both Joe and Methos had to escape Walker's henchmen and try to save Amy. In the end, Methos bonded with Joe and defeated the evil Immortal. Joe patched things up with his daughter, and also patched up his friendship with Methos.
Alternative Methos
Once when Duncan MacLeod was killed temporarily, he was thrown into another reality where he had never been born.
Alternate Methos had a lover named Jillian who was killed by the Watchers. It made him swear revenge to all the Watchers. He gathered back the Four Horsemen and Richie, but the Watchers killed the members. He killed Richie who couldn't kill Watcher Joe Dawson. Duncan MacLeod saw this and tried to stop all of it. He fought alternate Methos, and killed him. But seconds after, he returned to his original reality where Methos tried to wake him up. In the end, it was the wisdom of Methos that put Duncan MacLeod back again to The Game. Methos said that life was about changes, and about accepting who you are, good or bad.
Spin-Offs
Methos appeared in four Highlander novels: Scotland the Brave, Zealot, The Captive Soul and An Evening at Joe's.
If in the first two books he was a secondary character with a role similar to the series, in The Captive Soul he was the main character and had to face villain Prince Khyan. In the short story compilation An Evening at Joe's most of his stories focused in his last days with his lover Alexa Bond.
The 2001 The Methos Chronicles, was an animated internet Flash series based on Methos. Peter Wingfield was the voice actor for the main character.
Pharaoh Djer escaped his imprisonment and Methos had to, once again, face him. In the end Djer escaped and dissapeared.
In 2000, Peter Wingfield returned to the role of Methos for a cameo appearance in the fourth Highlander film, Highlander: Endgame, which served as a melding of the Highlander movie universe with the Highlander television series universe.
In 2003, in the 10th anniversary of Connor MacLeod's disappearence after Rachel Ellenstein's death, Duncan MacLeod came to his house to ask him about visions he was having. In the visions, Duncan saw glimpses of Connor and other Immortals being beheaded. Methos told Duncan that Connor had been in The Sanctuary all that time until it was destroyed by Jacob Kell. He would later rescue Duncan alongside Joe Dawson when Duncan was kidnapped by renegade watchers who wanted to make him a "voluntary" to The Sanctuary to prevent The Game from ever being finished. He would later reveal how powerful Jacob Kell really was by showing Kell's record of Quickenings. Duncan would leave him and Joe to search for Connor, not believing him to have died in The Sanctuary massacre.
In 2005, Peter Wingfield recreated the role of Methos yet again in the first installment of a new trilogy of Highlander films. Highlander: The Source, which is due for release in 2006, will follow the exploits of Duncan MacLeod, Methos and other Immortals and mortals as they search for the origins of immortality.
Personality and relationships
Being the oldest in the gang, he could be very witty and have a great sense of humor and an extremely sharp mind, which sometimes could be annoying according to Duncan and Joe. In some ways, he was pretty manipulative towards his friends and foes. Not to mention a bit arrogant. Duncan once compared him to a hammerhead shark. Methos said although he knew most of everything in life, he was a bit weak in pop cultures.
Most people considered Methos to be weak, because he always avoided a battle or even any Immortals who closed by, and tended to be paranoid unless there was a good reason to stick around. He even hid his sword under his bed and sometimes carried a fire weapon. Some say that his behavior seemed unusual for an Immortal; he would hardly participate in The Game and just continued his life, travelling around the world, appearing here and there whenever he liked. Whenever there was a great danger nearby, he suddenly disappeared for years until he came back again like nothing happened. He prefered however to observe rather than fight. This wasn't a sign of weakness. As Methos himself once said, "I don't like to fight, but it doesn't mean that I can't." And when he had to, he was one of the strongest adversaries.
He considered opera music to be boring, and he liked Bruce Springsteen, Queen, and other music as well. His lifestyle was a bit expensive, because he collected things, mostly antiques and modern art, that many people considered to be junks. He thought some of the 'junks' could be his from earlier times. He enjoyed life so much, he considered himself to be a peaceful and regular guy who drinks beer at the bar with his friends. Nobody knew what was in his mind. Very easy going, but could be serious when needed. Although his loyalty was questionable several times.
Many argued that Methos might be one of the strongest Immortals, albeit not in a physical or fighting technique way, but more in strategic and survival way. He hardly felt guilt anymore for some of the things he had done in the past, but he did regret some. Sometimes he hardly wanted to help others unless it had some benefit for him, which made his friends and foes really angry sometimes.
According to Methos, he got married 68 times, never to an Immortal however, because according to him, it would be too much of a commitment.
Several important relationships in his life:
Alexa Bond
He fell in love with a mortal named Alexa Bond, a waitress who worked in Joe's bar, who was terminally ill. At first Alexa refused his proposition of dating, because she didn't want to disappoint him. He was persistent, and waited for her under the rain and asked her on a date. He mentioned to Alexa that the reason of asking her on a date was because, "The alternative is unthinkable." Methos had knowledge about The Methuselah's Stone, rumored to be able to make a person Immortal, and tried to steal it (with help from Amanda) to cure Alexa. Methos failed to retrieve the stone and unfortunately Alexa died of sickness, becoming one of the true lost loves of his life.
Amanda
The only person that could match him, in his manipulative ways was Amanda. Methos and Amanda sometimes could be very cunning, especially to Duncan MacLeod. Their relationship was more like siblings or good friends. She seemed to know Methos from earlier times. There was a possibility that Methos used to date Rebecca, Amanda's mentor centuries ago. Amanda was also the one who helped him to steal the Methuselah's crystal. When he failed to cure Alexa, Amanda gave him a heartfelt hug and words of encouragement. Both Amanda and Methos understood the dilemma of being Immortal. Both of them knew that life was about changes, and about accepting who you were, good or bad.
Quotes
-"Live, Highlander. Grow stronger. Fight another day."
-"What do you expect? Einstein? Freud? Buddha? Sorry Joe, I'm just a guy."
-"I was born before the age of chivalry."
-"Because the alternative is unthinkable."
-"I'm too old for this."
-"Don't go, MacLeod. It's a trap, MacLeod. MacLeod, your pants are on fire."
-"If I'm going to die, you're going to pay me for it."
-"That's okay, sometimes I don't like myself."
-"Whatever you need: lawyer, doctor, Indian chief. I've got the paperwork to cover it all."
Methos in The Game
Sometime during his life, when realising that for being the oldest Immortal, he was the main target for all the other Immortals, he retreated himself from The Game, eventually hiding within The Watchers. When Duncan MacLeod met him in 1995, he hadn't take an head for 200 years. That changed when he had to behead Duncan's obssessive former lover Kristin Gilles, because Duncan couldn't do it himself. However, after that he only fought when it was necessary. Like Methos said: "Just because I don't like to fight, doesn't mean that I can't".
1 - Kristin Gilles, 1995 (Chivalry)
2 - Silas, 1997 (Revelation 6:8)
3 - Morgan Walker, 1998 (Indiscretions)
4 - Prince Khyan, 1999 (The Captive Soul)
Appearances
Movies - Highlander: Endgame, Highlander: The Source
Episodes - Methos, Finale, Finale Part 2, Chivalry, Timeless, Deliverance, Methuselah's Gift, Through A Glass, Darkly, Till Death, Judgement Day, One Minute to Midnight, The Messenger, The Valkyrie, Comes a Horseman, Revelation 6:8, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, The Modern Prometheus, Archangel, Indiscretions, To Be, Not To Be
Animated Series - The Methos Chronicles
Books - Scotland the Brave, Zealot, The Captive Soul, An Evening at Joe's
Trivia
- In the episode "Indiscretions", fans thought there would be a spin-off based on this storyline; presumably a "Methos and Joe Show" kind of series, but the idea of a spinoff never occurred, so it was just a speculation.
- One of his favorite drinks was beer, maybe because the Mesopotamians invented the drink.
- His car was a Land Rover Range Rover, and his sword was the Sword of Ivanhoe; a rendition of the Sword of Richard the Lionheart.
- Although Methos claimed he was a second son from three boys and two girls, most of immortals usually are foundlings. He didn't say whether the other brothers and sisters were step siblings or not.
External links
- Highlander: Endgame at IMDb
- Highlander: The Source at IMDb
- Highlander: The Series at IMDb
- The Nitpicker's Guide to Highlander
- Highlander Page for Beginners
- The shows & movies summed up
- Highlander Watcher Chronicles - Fan page of the series
- Methos:Chronicles – includes Methos' timeline and history
- Mild-mannered Watcher - profile of "Adam Pierson"
- Methos - a detailed timeline of Methos's life
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