Connor MacLeod

Connor MacLeod, also known as The Highlander, is one of the two main protagonists (alongside Duncan MacLeod) of the Highlander franchise. He serves as the titular protagonist of the original Highlander trilogy, and subsequently the co-protagonist with Duncan MacLeod of the film Highlander: Endgame.
Connor MacLeod is an Immortal, beings that live forever unless killed by each other through beheadings.
He is portrayed by Christopher Lambert.
==Bio==
===Early Life===
Connor MacLeod was born in 1518, in the village of Glenfinnan. Connor was raised as a warrior by his clan, which was at war with the neighboring Frasier clan over territories and foods. In 1536, during a battle between the clans (hinted to be Connor's first), Connor was stabbed by an immortal who went by The Kurgan, at that time, hiring himself to the Frasiers. (Frasier Clan won the day) The wound was mortal and so, Connor was taken home to Glenfinnan to be given his final rites. Connor was visited by his family on his deathbed, who came to see him in his final moments. Connor slipped away into his first death but then, awoke believing it was a miracle. Connor's clan/family believed the revival to be some form of witchcraft, however. While tradition called for him to be burned at the stake for being touched by witchcraft, as a previously honored clan member, Connor was instead banished from Glenfinnan by Chieftan Angus MacLeod.
Conner wandered the highlands in solitude, trying to come to terms with a life without a clan. After two years of wandering, Connor would meet Heather MacDonald; the two fell in love and eventually wed. The two found an unclaimed piece of land and made it their own, Connor building a modest house for them to live in on it. The house was eventually complete and the couple began living a simple life together. Eventually their land was discovered by Connor's former clan and subject to several raids. The Glenfinnan clan had lost their conflict with the Frasier Clan and had come to blame Connor for it, as a bedevil clan member who had been allowed to live. Connor fought off his former clan but while doing so learned his mother was to be punished as well for her association with him.
Connor returned to Glenfinnan to save his mother, but Connor was captured during his attempted rescue. He was forced to watch as his mother was burned at the stake, unable to do anything as she died because of his perceived witchcraft. The grief drove Connor mad. In his rage he broke free by slaughtering everyone who stood in his way, this including his old friend Jacob Kell, who was son of the clan's holy-man. The end result of the battle was Kell's achieving Immortality and the town's fiery destruction.
===Training for The Game===
Connor gave his beloved mother a proper burial and returned to Heather with a heavy heart. In 1541 he encountered a man known as Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez. Ramirez was also immortal and informed him 'Juan Sanchez' was just an alias; he was actually named Tak Ne and had been born three thousand years prior in ancient Egypt. Ramirez shared his experience with Connor - teaching him what he know of being an Immortal and the rules of The Game. The Game was a contest between the immortals, the only way to kill one was if another one slew them after challenging them to formal combat, engaging in the fight meant acceptance and the winner would absorb the other's "Quickening" - immortal essence. Through Ramirez, Connor learned to fight him in new styles of combat. Through the mentorship Ramirez and Connor became fast friends.
Upon hearing of the background, Ramirez told Connor of The Kurgan. The Kurgan was an immortal from Russia who was particularly cruel to the point of sadism. If The Kurgan won The Game then mankind would surely suffer an eternity of torment from The Kurgan. Training to beat Connor devoted his life to prepare for The Game and slaying The Kurgan, to the point where it consumed his every waking moment. In his obsession Connor ceased his construction of his and Heather's house. Thanks to Ramirez's training, Connor became an adept swordsman - trained in various forms that Ramirez had mastered while traveling through-out "the Far East", likely The Orient. One fateful night though, The Kurgan finally attacked Ramirez while Connor was away. After a heated battle The Kurgan slew Ramirez and absorbed his Quickening. Furious that he did not find Connor there too, The Kurgan raped Heather and, using Ramirez's Quickening, destroyed the MacLeod home.
When Connor returned, he found a grieving Heather and the body of Ramirez. Connor buried Ramirez's remains honorably. Heather did not tell Connor of what The Kurgan did to her. Connor would find out of his wife's violation over four hundred years later. Heather grew old and as she faced death Connor stayed with her until the end. After Heather's death, Connor buried her in the Highlands and burnt down what was left of his house - for with no ties remaining, completion of The Game and slaying of The Kurgan, became Connor's raison d'etre. Discarding his own sword as a tomb to Heather's grave, Connor now carries Ramirez' katana as his own.
For the next several centuries, Connor lived his life as a reluctant immortal, occupying various jobs and titles, assuming identities of various people, pretending to die every once in a while to avoid societies' suspicion, fending himself against other power-hungry immortals on occasion. While living most of his life in obscurity and secrecy, he at times took advantage of his immortality such as his duel during 18th century with an aristocrat after Connor in his inebriated foolishness insulted his opponent's spouse - the duel ended when Connor, eventually sobered up and aware of his fault, apologized to his opponent much to the astonishment of the latter as he is left puzzled why Connor just wouldn't die. Sometime in his life, Connor managed to befriend an immortal named Sunda Kastagir who does not antagonize Connor. During WW2, Connor managed to save the life of a Jew Rachel Ellenstein who was then a little girl from a Nazi officer. When Rachel asked in disbelief that how is Connor still alive after taking bullets from the Nazi officer (who died after Connor shot him with grease gun), Connor simply told her, "it's a kind of magic.". Eventually Rachel grows into adulthood and is the only mortal woman who is aware of Connor's immortal secret. Together Rachel and Connor set up an antique shop in NYC and lived as businessman and his employed secretary.
=== Main Plot ===
In 1986, while going outside and watching a wrestling show from atop of stadium (Madison Square Garden), Connor suddenly left the match and made his way to the interior parking lot of the stadium. Here, he is ambushed by an antagonistic immortal named Iman Fasil, one of the few surviving immortals (Connor, Iman, Sunda Kastagir, the Kurgan, Yung Dol-Kim and Osta Vazilek). Initially not wanting to fight Iman and attempting to reason with his opponent, Connor changed his mind as Iman attacked Connor with a Toledo Salamanca broadsword, while Connor fought him with Ramirez's Katana. After a prolonged battle of sword-clanging and hide-and-seek, Connor prevailed and without mercy beheaded Iman, receiving Iman's powers and knowledges through The Quickening. The mess that was created during The Quickening, commotions caused by their duels and the fire alarm tipped, Connor attempted to leave the scene only to be intercepted and arrested by the arriving police. However, due to lack of evidence in addition to Connor's right to remain silent, the police had to let Connor go.
Meanwhile somewhere in other part of New York City, the Kurgan was on his way in search of Connor after battling and managing to behead two other surviving immortals (Osta and Kim). This dwindles surviving immortals down to three: Connor himself, the Kurgan and Sunda, who would eventually die at the Kurgan's hand. Upon hearing of the death of Iman Fasil through the news on his car radio, the Kurgan immediately realizes who caused it. The Kurgan arrives at some run-down motel and sets up his base of operation, biding for the time of The Gathering.
Connor's life, as an Immortal, would not go unnoticed. When he went to collect his katana from the car park, Connor encountered metallurgist and sometime NYPD forensic agent Brenda Wyatt looking for clues. Despite Connor secretly claiming his weapon without Brenda's knowledge, she began to work her way into his life. The katana was dated as coming from 600 B.C., but the blade's metal had been folded two hundred times during forging, a method which originated from the medieval period. To Brenda, such a weapon was comparable to finding a jumbo jet some two centuries before the Wright Brothers' first flight. She and Connor made plans to have dinner together at her apartment; although Brenda just wanted to know about the sword, Connor always knew who she really was, especially after discovering a tape recorder and revolver in her apartment, a unmarked police car waiting outside, and even brought a copy of one of her books to the dinner. Trying to avoid emotional attachments that would only end in tragedy (and more importantly wanting avoid attention), Connor demanded Brenda to leave him be.
Undeterred, Brenda kept digging, and discovered Connor's immortality, evident through his living at the same address (1783 Hudson Street) since the year 1700, all his past identities having the same handwriting, and the identities being the son of the previous tenant, who always claim that his son died at birth. Brenda returned to Connor's shop, and revealed that she knew the truth, but not completely. Connor showed her his apartment, filled with historical relics from his past lives. To remove Brenda's last doubts, he stabbed himself with a knife, but came back to life. Despite his best efforts to avoid relationships, he and Brenda fell in love, and had passionate sex.
In the morning, Connor tried to leave her again, but the Kurgan oversaw their encounter and abducted Brenda at night, in an attempt to finally kill Connor once and for all. His brief dalliance with Brenda had proved that he could love, so he made the difficult decision to fight the Kurgan, but that even if he won, the Russell Nash identity would die that night. After a ferocious duel at the Silvercup Studios, Connor eventually killed the Kurgan and received the Prize: all the knowledge of all the immortals, along with the 'gifts' of mortality, fertility and telepathy.
Now able to spend the rest of his life with Brenda, Connor moved back to his native Scotland, and saw how it had changed. He vowed to use his gifts to help the world.
==Skills and Abilities==
Connor is immortal unless killed by another Immortal, at which point his life-force is absorbed by the victor, conversely, Connor can kill other Immortals and absorb their essence - becoming imbued with their strength. Connor was raised on Celtic brand siege warfare, but with Ramirez's training became proficient and sword styles from across Asia, and appears to know a pseudo-form of Kendo. Connor has also picked up European fencing styles. His sheer experience has made him very adaptable to all forms of combat and though he is no tactician he can still improvise quickly with a combination of refined training and survival techniques still culturally instilled in him.
==Gallery==
Macleod Sword 1.jpg|Connor's first sword
Mt-hi8180b.jpg|Connor's second sword inherited from his mentor Ramirez
Highlander-affiche-francaise-1185420.jpg|French DVD artwork
==Trivia==
*Highlander II and Highlander III pose different (and contradictory) accounts of Connor's life post-1985, but both hold to the original film's assertion that Connor is the "only one" remaining after the events of The Gathering; at least, until more villains appear.
**Highlander II introduces General Katana, who is either the leader of an alien species to which Connor, Ramirez and all other immortals belonged to, or a warrior from the distant past. Somehow, Katana knew that Connor had won, and with his thugs Corda and Reno, sought to kill Connor and take his powers. Connor had, by now, become mortal, having won the Game. When he was attacked by Corda and Reno, Connor killed them both, and became immortal again, at the same time bringing Ramirez back to life in Scotland.
**Highlander III shows that after Heather died, Connor ended up in Japan, wanting to learn the magic of the immortal Japanese sorcerer Nakano. Unfortunately, the evil immortal Kane and his immortal henchmen, brothers Senghi and Khabul Khan, wanted it, and sought to get it as well. Nakano refused to teach them, and Kane lost his temper and violated the 'holy ground' rule, wherein immortals, even the most evil of them all, may not fight on ground considered holy to anyone, as Nakano's cave home was holy ground. This caused an earthquake, which didn't kill Kane and his men, but left all three of them buried alive.
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