It’s weird how sexy Scottish highlanders became such a big thing isn’t it?
I mean…why highlanders in particular? In some ways to me it just seems so random. Like theres nothing in history that makes them stand out particularly in terms of…I don’t know romance. Like theres no deep really romantic traditions for highlanders I don’t think. The only analogy I can give is how penguins mate for life by the male penguins finding the prettiest stone on the beach they can and presenting it to their potential mate.
There’s no Highlander equivalent to that that I can think of that would explain why highlanders got this eroticism/romance novel treatment. I mean my god just look at the success of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. Literally the same concept as The Dark Highlander and a couple other books in Karen Monings Highlander series. Hugely popular, has its own tv show, etc.
So I guess what I’m really asking is why are highlanders so sexy? A Scottish brogue is extremely sexy don’t get me wrong, but that can only take you so far. I just don’t understand why there is a whole romance subsect that is like THIS IS ALL WE READ/WRITE NOW AND FOREVER.
Onto another topic though, I think one of the reasons why I didn’t like Adam Black was that he just wasn’t that…interesting. Like what made him even a little interesting was his immortality and cockiness. The first one isn’t really a personality trait and the second one is just annoying. (When I see cockiness I mean that literally as well. I heard about his dick-twitching WAY too much.)
And Darroc as a villain…the author definitely needed to lean more into that whole setting-up-coup thing (fun fact while writing the original notes for this episode I could not remember how to spell coup for the LIFE OF ME. It drove me freaking bananas.) It COULD have been cool, if she actually leaned into it and made it scary. I was WAY more worried about Dingus’s thirteen demons than I ever was about Darroc. With Darroc whenever he showed up I was like “oh, huh, you’re part of the plot. Right. Nearly forgot about you.”
And the author insinuated at least once, if not twice, that Darroc would actually be very interested in kidnapping Gabrielle. And so the whole book I was kind of expecting it to happen and then it…didn’t. It felt like a shit-ton of foreshadowing without having anything happen. Adam and Darroc just disappear and then…Gabrielle sits in the car for literally hours.
Anyway, if you’re going to choose a book out of this series don’t choose this one. Go with The Dark Highlander and see how you like that ride
This week’s title is a pun on Natalie Babbitt’s, Tuck Everlasting
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