brightknightie | Pets in FK and HL

Something that

leela_cat said made me realize for the very first time: There are no pets in all 6+ seasons of HL, but there are fairly many pets in 3 seasons of FK, for a TV show.

To be more precise, except for those with the K-immie in "Leader of the Pack," I remember no named or otherwise non-utilitarian animals in all of HL. We have many horses, of course, but the horses are strictly transportation, less thought-of than the characters' modern-day cars.

Granted that the animals in FK are also less thought-of than some of the characters' cars -- ahem, Caddy ;-) -- nevertheless, Natalie has her cat, Sidney, who appears in one episode and is referenced in 2 more (if I remember correctly). While Perry is a working dog, he is named and a character unto himself, and Nick's Ralegh is surely a pet. Tracy refers to getting a puppy as a gift for someone else. Schanke makes a joking reference to a pet dog (the line is something like, "gotta get home, kiss the wife, kick the dog").

Animals are difficult to have on set. Movies, TV shows, theaters all tend to avoid animals when not absolutely necessary to a story. And neither HL nor (much more so) FK were rolling in funding in '90s syndication. But FK's writers repeatedly referred to pets in their story universe. HL's did not.

Interesting! What do you think?

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It's not really a character thing as much as a logistics thing, in my view. Or maybe the characterization reflected the logistics of having a pet while traveling regularly.

For Highlander, they were all characters with a semi-nomadic existence who traveled between Paris and Seacouver twice a year, at least, and who made jet-setting trips across the world at a moment's notice like the Highlander characters did, pets were a non-starter and the fans would have noticed that they were constantly being abandoned for adventures. Even the humans moved around continually. Can you see a Watcher trying to take care of a pet and feeding/watering them regularly while tailing an Immortal?

Plus the quarantine requirements for getting a pet across country borders would be difficult - not impossible, given that virtually every lead character except Richie and Amanda seemed to have gobs of money built up and could pay their way through every obstacle. (And Amanda just stole Duncan's credit card or stole the money for that.) Logistically speaking, it was a lot to write around and have HL characters who were able to maintain their pets with actual empathy and feeling.

The Forever Knight characters who had pets were all human (to the best of my memory) and were rooted in one place, able to care for pets easily without needing to move them around and deal with immigration/emigration issues or matters of international law regarding animal importation/exportation on a regular basis. The regular vampire characters didn't have pets either - and if there were secondary vampires who had them (maybe someone had rats and didn't eat them? I don't remember), they might have been more rooted in place. Even the vampires were less nomadic than the Highlander characters - it's easier to hide from the daylight when you stick around in one corner of the world and build up your hidey-hole, only interacting with your own kind. But also for some vampires, there's maybe the urge to eat your pets.

You're absolutely right that pets would have fit extremely poorly into the '90s-and-later lives of HL's recurring characters! That's an excellent and insightful point, and definitively ties off that side of that scenario, I think. Thank you.

Now that my attention has been drawn to the presence/absence of animals in the on-screen story universe, I also keep thinking of the past, of hundreds of years of flashbacks without any cat, dog, or named horse. Not even guest stars, supporting cast, or plot points (compared to the horses that reared in FK's "Let No Man Tear Asunder," Matthew's horse Princess in FK's "Dying to Know You," and Nick's dog Ralegh in "Blind Faith," off the top of my head).

I'm not saying that the HL story universe needs more animals! Only that I'm now seeing some places where animals could have been... and where we could place them in fanfic, if we like. Darius was defined by staying put; perhaps he would have had some pets at some times? Tessa and Duncan had apparently been in Seacouver for some time and did not regularly hop continents until she took the curator job in "Band of Brothers;" I wonder if either of them ever wanted a pet in those years. And Duncan has periodically spent very long stretches alone in various wildernesses, plus his island; perhaps an animal's company could have been welcome.

Anyway, just thinking! :-)

I think Immortal and nigh-Immortal characters would find a harder time in keeping an animal that is not a bird or tortoise, and even those would be a trial in the long run.

Longevity of species and reminder of mortality among those they come to care for issues....

Good point!

All we humans do have a challenge with outliving our pets and other animals, but perhaps a character as long-lived as an HL immortal has such a different timescale in mind that getting attached to a short-lived animal is too much to ask.

On the other hand, that's nearly the definition of the line between an evil immie and a good immie in that story universe: one who defines non-immortal humans as short-lived nothings, versus those who value non-immortal human lives. Characters like Duncan and Cierdwyn -- and, yes, Methos, despite his best efforts -- love and love again, and hurt and hurt again, because it is ultimately worth the price. Villains don't. Should animal lives count, too, in their way, for that story point? Just pondering...

There's a C.S. Lewis line that I can't quite remember, something about seeing everyone as their imperishable eternal selves, not their passing mortal shells, and treating them accordingly... was it, "Imagine, what if everyone you meet is going to live forever, how would you treat them?" ...Of course Lewis is talking theology, not HL story interpretation! :-)

Now that I am looking for animals in the story universe, I am seeing the places that they are not, but could be. I'm not saying they need to be inserted! Only that I suddenly see a dearth in HL, and equally a comparative plenty in FK, and both were creative choices, whether on purpose or by omission...

Just thinking! :-)

My own personal approach to immortal types in fiction is influenced by a line in Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. I am on the clock, or I'd grab the book, but basically, all anyone ever has is 'now', and that is what you live in.

I recall the occasional dog appearing with witnesses in FK. There's the dog Alfred (or Albert?) in Beyond the Law, which belonged to the lady that gets questioned by Nick.
And the poodle in Unreality TV that belongs to the receptionist in the hotel where Nick, Schanke and the TV team make inquiries.

Nick himself probably gave up having pets as Lacroix usually ends up killing anything that Nick loves.

With vampires as pet owners there would also be the question of how well do pets fare when they never get to see daylight.

Pets in FK and HL

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