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Highlander, Connor and the Oedipus complex...

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  • Highlander, Connor and the Oedipus complex...

    In the first movie there is a Freudian conflict between the father represented by the Kurgan and the son who is the pre-Immortal Connor. Connor is murdered by the father who cannot bear to see the child reap the Prize instead of him.

    His tries to castrate the boy whose penis cannot father a child with the village girl awaiting his return from battle. After his death, Connor is cast out from his village : his adopted father rejects him, his lover won't bear his children anymore. Connor finally settles with a gentle mortal girl, Heather, with whom he creates the fantasy of two children playing together, without having to face the consequences of raising children.

    Comes the powerful imagery of Ramirez playing the older uncle who is benevolent to Connor : he teaches him to use a claymore, gives him his manhood and a warning : he will have to face his father if he wants to survive, and before this he will need to grow up and become a man who can father children (i.e the Prize at the end of the movie). Ramirez advises Connor to leave Heather MacDonald, a condition tantamount for him to grow up, i.e live behind him his long-gone pre-Immortal life which ended by the sword of the Kurgan. He must discard his life as a little boy : he must leave the comfort of his farm which is the comfort of the womb. Heather represents both his lover and mother figure through the womb imagery, thus creating an incest where the son sleeps with his mother, a taboo in society.

    The dark father returns and murders Connor's benevolent uncle, burns his house and rapes his wife, destroying his womb, severing his ties with his childhood. Connor must leave and travel the world upon Heather's death, his life of trials has started.

    So far we have the childhood lover, the violent father, the benevolent uncle and the mother/lover who have created an incestuous cycle broken by the Kurgan upon Ramirez' death.

    In every culture, it is the father duty to put the son to his place so he doesn't create an incest with his mother.

    Four hundred years later, Connor has grown up a little but he remains an adolescent without sexual charisma, carrying a manhood that isn't his (Ramirez' katana). Connor has been raising a little girl into adulhood, this time possibly avoiding the taboo of incest : his daughter didn't become his lover.
    She isn't seen again by the end of the movie, seemingly a non-existent entity, raised by an adolescentr father.

    The time of the Gathering, i.e the unavoidable adulthood, has come. Vazilek dies by the Kurgan's sword, possibly the Kurgan murdering another one of his sons, Connor kills his brother in Immortality (Fasil), the dark father kills the boy's best friend (Kastagir) and kidnaps Connor's new lover/mother figure with whom he repeated a cycle of incest : Brenda Wyatt didn't sleep with him out of sexual interest but to protect an adolecent who fears his father and lives a fantasy where he is an Immortal warrior.

    His confrontation with the police department of New-York can be seen as the boy's confrontation with the adult world : swords are for children and killing people is one of the three main taboos in society along incest and cannibalism. However, Connor avoids the confronation by mocking the policeman in charge of interrogating him.

    Even more : the katana cannot exist according to Brenda since it was forged centuries before katanas were manufactured in Middle Ages Japan. Connor's manhood cannot work without help, a fact proven by Connor's final battle.

    Finally, Connor must grow up and rescue the damsel in distress from the monster. He must face his father.

    And this is where he meets his greatest failure because he simply can't do it alone : Ramirez' katana, i.e his manhood, isn't strong enough against the Kurgan's mighty sword and this time it is his lover/mother who strikes at the monster, distracting him long enough for Connor to give a fatal blow with the sword.

    Connor doesn't kill the father with his manhood : he kills the father with the katana he inherited from his benevolent uncle, a replacement penis. And when done, he must face the Quickening : the wrath of the defeated father, raging at his son and tormenting him one final time.
    Connor returns to the pathologist and takes her to the place he was born : the original womb.
    Connor is a failure as an Immortal man, the little boy who cannot and won't grow up.

  • #2
    Interesting way to analyze the story, albeit quite forced. I imagine any story could be analyzed in a similar manner if you really want it to be, but I think such probably says more about the person doing the analysis than the story being analyzed, itself.

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    • #3
      Ouch! I have no such problems myself. The analysis was inspired to me by a discussion on Sigmund Freud's Taboo and Totem book and how it applies itself to fictional genres such as Highlander or Star Wars, i.e Darth Vader cutting off his son's hand. This analysis is a bit far-fetched but shouldn't be taken too seriously... As for what it says about myself, well, I do tend to overthink things lol

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      • #4
        In a galaxy far ... far away ... =p
        La Peur Tue l'Esprit ...

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