Shattered Goddess
by Parda
An Essay written in 2000 for the Highlander Down Under Convention
"Her name is Cassandra - long hair, green eyes, a body that will stop your heart."
- Roland in Prophecy
Such was our introduction to Cassandra. The character (portrayed by Tracy Scoggins) was on-screen for less than forty-five minutes and appeared in only four episodes of Highlander: The Series (Prophecy, Comes a Horseman, Revelation 6:8, and a cameo in Archangel). Yet even with this limited exposure, Cassandra generated some of the most heated discussions and some of the longest on-going debates among Highlander fans.
Why does this woman fascinate us so?
At first glance, Cassandra has some of the trappings of a Mary Sue: that annoying and dreaded caricature of an unbelievably wonderful woman. Cassandra is beautiful (of course) and possesses prophetic powers and a form of hypnotic control. Her name has special significance - Cassandra means either "helper of men" or "disbelieved by men." She is older than Duncan and has unusual influence on him. She has sex with Methos, Kronos, and Duncan. She changes the relationships between male characters (Methos and Duncan, Methos and Kronos, even Duncan and Joe).
Yet Cassandra fails the Mary Sue test in critical ways, and her amazing failures are even more irritating than her amazing abilities. Why does she ask Duncan to kill Roland? Can't she take care of herself? Why is she still so angry about the Horsemen? Shouldn't she get a grip and get a life? Why does she forget her sword in the hotel room? How can she be so stupid? Why doesn't she kill Methos when she has the chance? Doesn't she have a mind of her own?
Why didn't she, why hasn't she, why can't she... The continual questions are basically one: What is wrong with her?
The answer is simple: Cassandra is a woman.
Cassandra is not just a woman; she embodies the stereotypes of what society decrees a woman should be. As a slave of the Horsemen, she is the woman long deemed perfect: obedient and sexually available, nurturing and forgiving, self-sacrificing in the extreme. She is a woman of the Bronze Age, the Dark Age, the Victorian Age; a woman of the 1950s and '60s and '70s. She was thoroughly trained in how to please a man, and she has spent three thousand years living in societies that catered to men's desires and rewarded women who manipulated men. She learned those lessons well.
As the Witch of Donan Woods, Cassandra is the woman society has come to expect: seductive and manipulative, yet passive and unable to defend herself physically. Her only weapons are her body and her voice. She has abdicated her power and does not take responsibility for her own actions. She waits for a man to help her. She is always shown in relationship to men, never doing anything simply for herself by herself, never even speaking to another woman on screen. She is a woman alone - spending centuries by herself, sometimes reaching out for affection in inappropriate ways.
As the avenging Fury, Cassandra is the woman society fears: enraged, aware, and ready to kill. She is an angry woman - a woman who realizes she was manipulated before and wants to be taken seriously now. She feels betrayed by a man she loved and trusted. She hates the men who hurt her and used her, who made her feel stupid and worthless, who ignore her, and she hates herself as well.
Yet she is, above all, a human woman - a woman who makes mistakes and does foolish things, who sometimes lets her emotion cloud her reason, who wants to be loved and to give love in return.
Cassandra is not unique. Throughout history and even today, many women have been silent and obedient, have tried to be the perfect daughter, the perfect wife, the perfect mother. Many have been betrayed or have been beaten or raped. Many are lonely or have poor self-esteem, and have been ignored or dismissed at times. All have made mistakes and have regrets; all want love in their lives. Many women have given up some of their control over their lives in return for different types of protection. And many women feel angry - angry at society, angry at men, and angry at themselves.
Cassandra is the woman we have been, the woman we no longer want to be.
Women are changing, society is changing, and Cassandra needs to change, too. Indeed, part of our irritation with her is sheer impatience. She's three thousand years old! Why hasn't she grown up yet?
If we move into the realm of myth, again the answer is a simple one: Cassandra is a symbol.
She is a symbol of what women have been forced to be. In patriarchal societies, women are not allowed to be fully adult or even fully human; they are expected to remain childlike and dependent their entire lives. Women's role is enforced by custom and law and is reflected in religion and myth. The once-independent Goddess with three facets -Nurturer, Creator, and Destroyer - is shattered, and each fragment is demoted to being mother or daughter or wife of a more powerful God. Women can no longer lay claim to holiness or wholeness; they are stunted into isolated roles as Slave or Witch or Fury - mutilated pieces of the original divine.
The fifth season of Highlander showed us some of Duncan MacLeod's journey to integrate the Dark and the Light within himself, and it showed us some of Cassandra's journey as well. Cassandra can not become fully adult and fully human - can not become fully Woman - until she integrates the three aspects of the Feminine within her soul.
In the Bronze Age, Cassandra is the innocent in white, the Maiden brought by Death to new life. At first reluctant, eventually she accepts the role of Nurturer as her duty and her joy. But unlike Persephone, who ruled as Queen of the Underworld and was consort to Hades, Cassandra is not an equal. She is a slave. Instead of a crown and a wedding ring, she dons a necklace and a single bracelet, a chain around her neck and a shackle on her wrist. When she realizes her status, she rejects the role. The necklace and the bracelet are removed. She kills Death's brother and escapes alone into the night. Her innocence and her childhood are gone, and she has claimed the power of the righteous Destroyer as her own.
Her life after the Horsemen is not shown. She tells Duncan, "I tried to forget what happened. Years turned into centuries, then more centuries. I thought I'd succeeded." Perhaps she marries and raises children, perhaps she rules as a queen or is enslaved again, perhaps she does all of that and more. Three thousand years is a long time. Sometime, somewhere, she learns the Voice and takes Roland as a student. The prophecy is made. Cassandra goes to the Highlands of Scotland and becomes the Witch of Donan Woods.
When thirteen-year-old Duncan first sees her, Cassandra is in the role of Creator, an unclothed woman bathing unashamed in a forest pool. For most of the episode Prophecy, she dresses in red and green and brown, the Matrix of blood and life and earth. A protective mother-figure and a lover, she is sexuality in both its forms. Yet, following the norms of patriarchal society, she misuses this awesome power, bargains and teases instead of shares. Not only does she manipulate others, she also enslaves herself, allowing the words of an ancient prophecy to become her religion, to dominate her life and control her every move. In Seacouver, the chains around her neck are back, and she wears bracelet - shackles on both arms. This time, they were not gifts from her master; she put them on herself. And this time, she fails. She does not become the Destroyer she needs to be; her Champion fights her battle for her.
After the Voice of Death is vanquished, Cassandra appears once more in simple white with no jewelry, the Maiden reborn. Instead of being chosen by Death, Cassandra chooses life in the arms of her Champion, again naked and unashamed. The Prophecy is completed; she wants to begin anew.
She can not. Her recent failure still haunts her, and when she discovers her ancient enemies are alive, she goes too far and allows the Destroyer to take over her soul. There is no hint of magic now - her visions are never mentioned, and the power of her Voice no longer works - she has cut herself off from her creative side. Dressed in gray and black and red, she pursues the guilty as Fury personified, grudging, vengeful, and unceasing.
Yet Cassandra does not kill. Her Champion demands a boon of her: the life of Death. We can not know what thoughts go through her mind as she stands over her former master, a double-bladed axe in her hands, the two of them alone on a barren island amidst stagnant black water. We can not know why she makes the choice she does. We know only that she drops the weapon and walks away, once more alone, but this time going through the shadows to the light of day, leaving death behind.
Where does she go? What is she doing? These questions are not answered, for Highlander is the story of Duncan's journey, not hers. We catch only a glimpse of her in Archangel, when Richie reminds Duncan of the Prophecy, and we hear Cassandra's words again. "An evil one will come, to vanquish all before him. Only a Highland child, born on the Winter Solstice, who has seen both darkness and light, can stop him."
Cassandra has also seen the darkness and the light. Like Duncan, her challenge is to accept the darkness as part of herself, and yet not be overwhelmed. The strength of the Destroyer needs to be tempered by the mercy of the Nurturer and balanced by the power of the Creator. Only then can she succeed in becoming Woman as woman ought to be - fully human and fully adult, accepting both power and responsibility, a giver of life and a bringer of death, an equal and complementary partner to Man.
Does she succeed? We do not know. But it is fitting that her journey is not shown as completed, for neither is our own.
Essay for HLDU in 2001: Women of Highlander: Jungian Analysis and Freudian Questions.
For more on Cassandra as Persephone and Methos as Death, read Selena's story Death and the Maiden.