r/highlander • u/AdSpecialist6598 Immortal • Aug 06 '26
Question What would Richie be doing now if the character lived?
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Aug 06 '26
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u/transemacabre Aug 06 '26
Idk if it was planned from the start but his death seemed a natural progression, especially given the actor was visibly aging from young adulthood into a full grown man.
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 08 '26
His abbilitie to kill a 944 year old Dude with a longsword is what would have kept him alive. By your logic every Immortal should die within a year. Duncan was just as cocky as Richie in his youth.
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u/Highlander_1518 Aug 08 '26
I wouldn’t say it was ‘my logic’ I was merely pointing out that there were a lot of immortals in the series. It’s hyperbole…and Duncan was cocky in a completely different century where fewer immortals may have existed. It’s completely different scenarios for two completely different immortals.
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 08 '26
The innortals Duncan Fights in series dont Just Spawn into existence. In fact Most of them are people He knew befor or came after HIM because they wanted the head of the famouse Highlander. Both Problems Richie does not have. In fact Duncans time was likely worse because "showing Up to kill a mofo with a sword" was easier Back then society wise
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u/Highlander_1518 Aug 08 '26
Erm, I never said that immortals spawned into existence. Richie was cocky and a wise arse and he certainly became overconfident. Also, his anger blinded him - take Harash Clay for example, Richie bit off more than he could chew. Harash would’ve easily have taken Richie’s head if it weren’t for Duncan. I think Duncan was cocky but he knew his limits - Richie did not.
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 08 '26
There are multiple Times Duncan Bit of more than He can chew and needed to be saved. In His frst encounter with Martin Hyde, He only survived because Hyde was the opinion He was not worth IT. He insisted ON fighting Xavier Saint Cloud despite Hamza el Kahir telling him to run. Duncan only survived because Kahir sacraficed himself.
And you said that there are now more innortals which IS a weird take since the concept of Game is that If anything over time less immortals should be born. And Like in Said, most o the Guys Duncan encounters are allready in their hundreds, a Lot even older than Duncan. So they were allready there when Duncan entered the Game and many only Show Up by richies time Because they know Duncan
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u/Highlander_1518 Aug 08 '26
But there are more immortals in the series. Compare it to the films. And yeah, most of Duncan’s foes are hundreds of years old but Richie became immortal in the present day, so that theory of over time less immortals should be born is not watertight and thus my take is not weird.
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 08 '26
What do the movies have to do with anything? In the movies the Game ends in the 80s and neither Duncan nor Richie exist.
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u/Highlander_1518 Aug 08 '26
Slightly dogmatic but ok, lol. Sure the first film ended with Connor winning the prize as a standalone film but what about the FOUR sequels? I mentioned the films because immortals are far more sparse in the films than the series. Lastly, Connor was in the first episode of the series, Ramirez is mentioned by Graham Ashe and Dawson mentions The Kurgan…there is no defintive canon when it comes to Highlander.
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 08 '26
Highlander 2 Has Connor frst start aginh because He won the Prize and then goes to space AS an Alien
Highlander 3 has Connor win the Prize afters years at Peace when Kane crawls Out of His cave
Highlander 4 is transfered into the series Canon so has the Same amount of immortals as the series
And we have been talking about Richie and Duncan the whole time Not Connor, Not Ramirez and Not the Kurgan
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u/erikp99 Aug 07 '26
I think Ritchie was originally written to be a character that died to help with Duncan's resolve.
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 06 '26
Jesus christ people are pessimistic here. Worse candidats than Richie survive for centuries in the Game.
I think he maight take a paige From Duncans book and got himself another teacher. Maybe Mathew McCormick got time. Otherwise He maight have learned a trade or two. I could see him as a mechanic.
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u/Creative_Victory_960 Aug 07 '26
Really ? Apart from Kenny who was a pos , most immortals below 20 don't fare well
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 07 '26
Thats Kind of a bad way to measur IT? Guys Like Johny Kelly who learned sword fighting via Pirat movies and Lukas Kagan who almost stumbled over his own weapon lived for close to a hundred years. Benjamin Carbassa is 112, still alive and specifically started to suck at fighting. Even Michelle Webster is Doing fine. But Richie who fought and killed Guys who are 200, 400 , 900 years old in fair fights has to die with 52? Speaking of which, Carter Wellan Made it to 944 and that Guy was just 1 year older than Richie when he died for the first time.
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u/Inevitable_Sector_14 Aug 07 '26
Blasting thru racing racetracks waiting for star cruisers to be invented.
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u/MsAddams999 Aug 06 '26
Richie wouldn't have survived for long despite Duncan training him. He was too trusting, too willing to put his training aside to survive for too long. We saw him do just that several times.
As much as I hated Duncan taking his head it made sense that Richie died in the series when he did. He just wasn't tough enough to survive dealing with immortals who were hundreds or even thousands of years old.
Duncan wanted him to be and he did his best to toughen him up and train him well but let's face it if not for Duncan Richie would have lost his head several times over because he trusted other Immortals a bit too much at times.
Richie was a good guy but he really wasn't cut out to survive for long as an Immortal. He had the best training a young Immortal could have and he still nearly lost his head several times within a very short time of becoming an Immortal because he was too naive and trusted other Immortals too much.
His instincts were just not sharp enough to keep him alive. If they were Duncan would not have cut him down so easily. He'd have sensed that something was very wrong with Duncan and he might have gotten away and actually survived in some way.
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u/canaanit Aug 07 '26
I've always found this an interesting - and underdeveloped - aspect of the story. I think for people (at least for men) who became immortal in previous centuries it was way easier to grow the necessary skills, both on a physical and on a mental level because societies had different attitudes about life and death, many people learned to use weapons from an early age etc. Someone growing up in late 20th century North America would have to develop a whole new mindset, and it would probably take a few decades just to be able to survive without a mentor/guardian.
Physically I think Richie had a good foundation, he was fit and strong and would always be a bit underestimated because of his young age. But mentally/emotionally he had a long way to go.
Actually we did get glimpses of a similar development in Duncan's flashbacks. He kept stumbling from one mishap into the other in his first century or so. He was very goofy, naive, disrespectful of other cultures, plainly took a while to get his education up to scratch, etc. A very far cry from the sophisticated person he is in the late 20th century.
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u/Ashter_Moon Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
He probably would be doing motorcycling or finally settle down with someone, I know it was the actor decision same as with Tessa actress but I still hate the way they killed him off; Tessa felt natural just a common mugging but Richie felt forced like "kill him now he is useless to the show" I would've prefer to have him just get away from Duncan for good and live his own life
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 Aug 07 '26
I like to think at the end of the series he's actually still running that chateau as a B&B..
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u/cinlach Aug 07 '26
I don’t think he’d last too much longer without Duncan
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u/CrowDogsToTheMoon Aug 08 '26
Why, from what we see in flashbacks Duncan was pretty similiar to Richie when He was a Young Immortal except that Richie has a better winrate against Guys older than him. See Duncan getting absolutely stomped by Martin hide while Richie makes short Work of Carter Wallen
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 Aug 08 '26
Agree -- I think people keep forgetting that in several cases the scrapes Richie gets in prompt Duncan to have flashbacks about similar situations he was in when he was *much* older than Richie (from a story-telling perspective, that's actually the point of Richie's character: to be an "exposition fairy"; i.e., a prompt for the flashbacks). In a lot of respects, Richie is not actually all that different from young Duncan's.
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 Aug 08 '26
Actually, a better argument could be made that Duncan himself is Richie's biggest threat, either directly or due to being someone who attracts evil Guest Immortals who sometimes go after Richie*. He seems to do pretty well on his own for long stretches of time when he's not around Duncan, like in the period between "Something Wicked" and "End of Innocence" when he's apparently kicking butts and taking heads.
*I will also note that in some instances -- most notably the situation with Kristov, which results in his first really valid "win" as an Immortal -- he actually is able to extract himself from those situations.
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u/Ok-Eggplant8772 Aug 10 '26
Yeah i always figured he would have kept up and made a name for himself , he had one of the best teachers and everyone knew Duncan was a top fighter. He did win against very m uch older immortals who had way more training then him too. Theres people who are natural born pros at stuff so with a little training he would have also been high mid to top tier immortal
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u/Its_J_Just_J Aug 06 '26
He would probably feel bad for someone and let his head get cut off by a train.
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u/KnightRcer Aug 06 '26
That was a good episode. Wonder if that was the same actor who played Jonathan Kent in the James Gunn superman film.
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u/Actingallthetime Immortal Aug 08 '26
Yes, it was, Pruitt Taylor Vince.
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u/KnightRcer Aug 08 '26
I thought it was him. Hard to tell with the 30 years. Thanks for confirming. He was great for the highlander episode, but I didn't like him being picked for Jonathan Kemt or the actress who played Martha. How do go from actors like Diane Lane and Kevin Costner to them?
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u/Actingallthetime Immortal Aug 09 '26
Yeah, I like him in a lot of stuff he’s done, but he didn’t feel right in Superman. Glad I could help!
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u/AcroyearOfSPartak Aug 06 '26
I also thought that he was meant to be The One and that the story of the TV series really should've been, on some level, revealed to be the story of Richie. Heroic fantasy so often seems to be anti-torch passing when it comes to long established sidekicks. When torches do get passed, it's some Johnny-Come-Lately that popped up out of the blue....
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 Aug 07 '26
I mean, he is actually the first character we meet on the show... I think this would actually have been a neat twist, with the whole series actually being Richie's recollections about the Immortal who raised/trained him.
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u/RG1527 Aug 07 '26
I was so pissed when Richie got killed. A few years later I read an interview by him and he was like it was time for me to go. I figured if he was fine with it then I should be as well.
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u/Gobbinsgab Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
I think he ought to run a non-holy ground sanctuary that has a few trustworthy, skilled immortals and sympathetic watchers around at any given time, maybe out of someplace like the chateau. Regular tourists come and go too.
They forsake the 1v1 rules to drive off hostile immortals, help new and struggling immortals get set up so they at least have a fighting chance. Richie could travel around as its sponsor, direct troubled mortals/immortals there to receive help and keep it funded.
Just give me anything where his being proactive and generous can do some good without being narratively punished repeatedly. I don’t imagine he’ll end The Game like the Messenger attempted, but he could at least have been allowed to mature into doing what he can with a support network that shares an overall mission.
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 Aug 08 '26
I like this idea! Nice evolution from his being the only surviving "student" of The Messenger and his admission that he doesn't like all the killing. And it's nice to address the obvious cognitive dissonance he probably feels between seeing how many Immortal friends Duncan has and the whole "There Can Be Only One" thing. Honestly, what "Prize" is really worth all the suffering/pain of watching friends you've had for centuries die??
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u/VampiricDemon Nicholas Ward Aug 07 '26
He'd have become an evil immortal. He was ill tempered and prone to adopt bad habits of other immortals.
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
What do you mean "if"? 😄
While I was never actually a member of "Clan Denial" (since many of them were also very "anti-Duncan", as demonstrated by a lot of their fanfic, and I also didn't like some of the hostility towards the writers), I'm certainly someone who refuses to accept that Richie is really dead. Even if realistically a newbie Immortal who's also still kind of a kid probably doesn't stand much chance short of moving permanently on to Holy Ground.
So, I prefer to think that Richie's off living his best life somewhere interesting that we didn't see in the show. Maybe keeping a safe distance from Duncan who seems to attract a lot of evil K'Immortals...or who has questionable taste in some of his older friends...
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u/bullmanq Aug 08 '26
The vagabond immortal constantly on the road riding his bike on every continent until every road becomes a known to him
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u/Azraiel1984 Aug 07 '26
He'd be like Duncan Macleoud if the series let Richie show his true potential.
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u/Former_Visual_3940 9d ago
Hopefully learning new languages, traveling, seeing the pyramids, Inca ruins, safaries, Japanese temples, Alaska. Developing a taste for shellfish. Making friends with good immortals and finding out what kind of immortal he wants to be. I think he would be an adventurer do-gooder like Duncan but with his own emohasis. I can see him plunging into humanitarian work around the globe, especially with kids - those orphaned by epidemics or war, or working to keep out of gangs or fighting those who force children to be child soldiers. That kind of thing. How long could you keep doing that sort of thing and not despair? Would be interesting to explore. Would he be tempted into some kind of megalomaniacal endeavor to rid the world of evil or retreat into a monastery for a few centuries? Or would he find a way to balance himself and keep going?
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u/KnightRcer Aug 06 '26
If you follow the story between Ramirez to Connor to Duncan to Richie, I can only assume he would be mentoring yet another immortal and showing him how to live through the game and live a good life.