Lyric Wheels
Dec. 18th, 2003 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuAnd yea, verily, now is the time of the next Highlander Lyric Wheel. I've signed up for it. Once the sign-up period closes, for those who don't know what a lyric wheel is, everyone on the list sends someone else on the list a set of song lyrics, to which they are supposed to write a short fanfic story. Then all the stories get posted somewhere, and everyone can read them. Some of the stories that get produced are truly glorious, some...not so much.
My favorite villain in the series is Xavier St. Cloud. He fascinates me like no other character in the series. He was an unrepentant villain, and came to a well-earned end at the hands of our hero, Duncan MacLeod. And yet... he wasn't only a villain.
In one flashback he first encounters MacLeod when our hero is less than a century old. He's pursued MacLeod's current traveling companion--an older, experienced swordsmen--a long way in order to challenge him. Said older swordsman, being wiser, chooses the better part of discretion. MacLeod is scandalized by this craven cowardice and goes to fight St. Cloud in his mentor's place. St. Cloud refuses to fight him, saying, "I don't sleep with virgins and I don't kill children." MacLeod's mentor shows up, reluctantly, unwilling to let MacLeod fight and die in his place (although St. Cloud showed no interest in fighting MacLeod) and goes to his death in battle against St. Cloud.
This is the same man whose first appearance on the series, in then-contemporary 1992, showed him using poison gas cannisters to murder everyone in a jewelry store in order to rob it. Later on, after losing a hand to MacLeod, he joins forces with Hunters--mortals who know about and are killing immortals. He arranges for masked mortals with SMGs to gun down the other immortal, then he moves in to take their heads, against every rule of immortal dueling etiquette. MacLeod tracks him down and kills him--only to have a student of St. Cloud's, who also isn't averse to using poison gas to kill people in robberies, confront MacLeod and try to kill him to avenge St. Cloud.
I look at all these facets of his character and wonder how did the man who refused to kill a newbie immortal turn into a man who would use mortal henchmen to take down his enemies so he could take their heads? And I wonder also how a man who could do the latter, and who clearly shared his poison gas robbery technique with his student, could produce a student who loved him enough to try so hard to avenge him. What happened to St. Cloud over the years to transform him thus?
Did he have other students? I think he must have. What did they think? Did they see the change happen? Did they mourn the slow transformation of their mentor from the man who didn't sleep with virgins or kill children into a vicious, unprincipled killer? Did they try to prevent it? Could they have prevented it?
I haven't written a lot of fanfic but my one recurring Highlander fanfic character is just such a student of St. Cloud's, a woman he took as a student not long after she became immortal. And yes, she saw the change happen, though it began long after she'd struck out on her own. There was little she could do, and I imagine that it was a painful thing to witness, that she loved him for all that he'd done for her while she grew to hate what he'd become. I imagine that he taught his students to hunt. Connor MacLeod taught Duncan to survive, to fight; Duncan did the same for his student(s) (with mediocre success, alas); but St. Cloud would have taught them to hunt, trained them and coached them and ultimately matched them against carefully chosen opponents until they were ready to strike out on their own. I imagine that even up to the end of his life, he treated his friends and his students well and was utterly trustworthy where they were concerned, but that the circle of friends he acknowledged was very small at the end.
A lot of fanfic writers seem to take pleasure--pride, even--in writing about the muses who pester them, demanding that their tales be told, or simply making a home in said writers' minds. I've often responded that "I don't have muses," but...maybe I have one.
My favorite villain in the series is Xavier St. Cloud. He fascinates me like no other character in the series. He was an unrepentant villain, and came to a well-earned end at the hands of our hero, Duncan MacLeod. And yet... he wasn't only a villain.
In one flashback he first encounters MacLeod when our hero is less than a century old. He's pursued MacLeod's current traveling companion--an older, experienced swordsmen--a long way in order to challenge him. Said older swordsman, being wiser, chooses the better part of discretion. MacLeod is scandalized by this craven cowardice and goes to fight St. Cloud in his mentor's place. St. Cloud refuses to fight him, saying, "I don't sleep with virgins and I don't kill children." MacLeod's mentor shows up, reluctantly, unwilling to let MacLeod fight and die in his place (although St. Cloud showed no interest in fighting MacLeod) and goes to his death in battle against St. Cloud.
This is the same man whose first appearance on the series, in then-contemporary 1992, showed him using poison gas cannisters to murder everyone in a jewelry store in order to rob it. Later on, after losing a hand to MacLeod, he joins forces with Hunters--mortals who know about and are killing immortals. He arranges for masked mortals with SMGs to gun down the other immortal, then he moves in to take their heads, against every rule of immortal dueling etiquette. MacLeod tracks him down and kills him--only to have a student of St. Cloud's, who also isn't averse to using poison gas to kill people in robberies, confront MacLeod and try to kill him to avenge St. Cloud.
I look at all these facets of his character and wonder how did the man who refused to kill a newbie immortal turn into a man who would use mortal henchmen to take down his enemies so he could take their heads? And I wonder also how a man who could do the latter, and who clearly shared his poison gas robbery technique with his student, could produce a student who loved him enough to try so hard to avenge him. What happened to St. Cloud over the years to transform him thus?
Did he have other students? I think he must have. What did they think? Did they see the change happen? Did they mourn the slow transformation of their mentor from the man who didn't sleep with virgins or kill children into a vicious, unprincipled killer? Did they try to prevent it? Could they have prevented it?
I haven't written a lot of fanfic but my one recurring Highlander fanfic character is just such a student of St. Cloud's, a woman he took as a student not long after she became immortal. And yes, she saw the change happen, though it began long after she'd struck out on her own. There was little she could do, and I imagine that it was a painful thing to witness, that she loved him for all that he'd done for her while she grew to hate what he'd become. I imagine that he taught his students to hunt. Connor MacLeod taught Duncan to survive, to fight; Duncan did the same for his student(s) (with mediocre success, alas); but St. Cloud would have taught them to hunt, trained them and coached them and ultimately matched them against carefully chosen opponents until they were ready to strike out on their own. I imagine that even up to the end of his life, he treated his friends and his students well and was utterly trustworthy where they were concerned, but that the circle of friends he acknowledged was very small at the end.
A lot of fanfic writers seem to take pleasure--pride, even--in writing about the muses who pester them, demanding that their tales be told, or simply making a home in said writers' minds. I've often responded that "I don't have muses," but...maybe I have one.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 11:35 am (UTC)BTW, popped over to tell you that your icon is mocking me, with it's little dance routine.
Gir mocks you?
Date: 2003-12-19 12:39 pm (UTC)A chainsaw? Now we're slipping into "Ash" territory--not that I don't think Ash is really cool. I always thought Xavier should have regrown his hand. The idea (canon, sadly) that immortals can't regenerate limbs even while they can have their brains blown out or their hearts cut out and come back just fine--annoys the hell out of me. Which is why I like Rhi's take on it, where they do regenerate, albeit fairly slowly.
Re: Gir mocks you?
Date: 2003-12-19 02:41 pm (UTC)