Inner Demons
fighting himself
Sometimes Duncan's worst enemy has literally been himself. Nodding to and expanding the TV tradition of "evil twins", we see Duncan's double a few times. Psychic, psychotic Immortals, dark quickenings, Zoroastrian demons: each acts as a catalyst, forcing Mac to confront his own dark nature. Although each battle is won at a heavy cost, Duncan emerges wiser and stronger.
Duncan begins to question himself - and his sanity - in Shadows, taunted by recurring
nightmares in which Death, in dark robes with scythe in hand, takes his head. When these images cross over into day, he sees hallucinations, alienates friends, and attacks Richie.
However, these Jungian images are not drawn from his own psyche. They are the work of Garrick, an Immortal capable of projecting visions into others' minds, and out for revenge.
Duncan still believes Garrick to be a friend, and takes his advice to be passive. Only a last- minute glimpse of the figure's distinctive ring convinces a heavily drugged Duncan to fight Death, who is, this time, merely Garrick in disguise.
This is Duncan's first battle with his own mind, though he still wins through physical prowess. Curiously, Mac himself seems to possess limited psychic abilities in the film Endgame, "seeing" the deaths of the Immortals in the Sanctuary - perhaps a latent result of this quickening.
Jim Coltec is another Immortal we see with mental abilities beyond the norm. He sets in motion the events of Something Wicked and Deliverance. Coltec experienced a "dark quickening", when Immortals absorb more evil than can be overcome by their innate goodness. Jim suffers since, as a Native shaman, he absorbed the evil of mortals and Immortals alike.
After the quickening, Jim becomes a danger, and Duncan must kill him. A mistake, since Duncan is then overcome by the darkness.
What's scary is that "evil Duncan" is not the opposite of our hero, but simply Duncan stripped of his honour, compassion, and mercy. What's left is a cunning, formidable Immortal who takes whatever he wants, even if it means blood.
This leads him to fight with Richie once again (Joe is able to intervene), to seduce a married woman, and to kill his Immortal friend and psychiatrist Sean Burns.
Yet Burns's quickening restores some of Duncan's conscience, and he's willing to allow Methos to help him. Mac is taken to a mystical pool, where good and evil battle inside his head. Fittingly, Duncan visualizes this battle as physical, his evil half armed with a katana, and good with his original broadsword.
As one would expect, good wins. Duncan seems to believe his evil half has been purged, yet we sense his mounting realizations: that he isn't wholly different from the Immortals he fights, that within him is the capacity for great harm, and worst of all, that he can be pushed over the edge.
These experiences cumulate in the controversial trilogy of episodes, Archangel, Avatar, and Armageddon. Unfortunate horror movie associations aside, the story arc is powerful and necessary for the growth of Duncan's character.
Archangel again has Duncan doubting his sanity, as he puzzles together a series of bizarre events and his own hallucinations. The source is Ahriman, an ancient Zoroastrian demon with abilities well beyond Garrick's. Capable of manifesting as any person dead or living, the demon appears as Mac's past enemies, and as a twisted version of Richie Ryan.
When the real Richie walks out from the shadows, he's attacked. It's happened before, but this time is different - Duncan takes his head. So distraught is he at this nightmarish turn of events, Duncan offers his sword to Methos and kneels, a plea to take his life. Methos refuses.
Though taunted by Ahriman, Mac wasn't "possessed" or under supernatural control. Richie's death, he knows, was the result of his own carelessness. As he tells Joe, " I was a weapon." He also knew that Ahriman couldn't have been defeated with sword alone, but persisted in fighting the only way he knew how.
Duncan is clever enough to know what will be effective, and spends a year in a monastery both mourning Richie and developing his skills of meditation and subtle movement.
A cerebral, focused warrior emerges, though it takes him some time to see past Ahriman's deceptions. By the end of Armageddon he knows that this evil is not an outside force to defeat, but an aspect of himself to accept.
This struggle is conveyed in a visually striking scene: Duncan performs an intense martial arts kata while the demon, in the form of a dwarf, dances round and teases him. In exasperation, Ahriman declares "I'm part of you now!"
Duncan replies with a smile, " You always were."
Though Mac's internal struggles don't end here, it's the last time he fights himself in an altered state or dream scape. He's hesitant to take up the sword after Richie's death: partly because of the painful memories, and partly because he knows he doesn't need it to win every time.
