Nick Knight (Forever Knight)
Encyclopedia
Nick Knight is the main character of the Canadian
television series Forever Knight
, and its precursor 1989 television movie Nick Knight. He also appears in three novels, A Stirring of Dust by Susan Sizemore
, Intimations of Mortality by Susan M. Garrett, and These Our Revels by Anne Hathaway Nayne.
The character's backstory is revealed piecemeal, primarily through the flashback
scenes that appear in most episodes of the television series. He was born circa A.D. 1200; and, in many episodes, employs the name "Nicolas de Brabant", suggesting that he comes from the Duchy of Brabant
in the Low Countries
. He was born of a noble family, and trained as a knight
. After being falsely accused of murder, he chose to fight in the Crusades to escape nearly-certain conviction. On his return to Europe in A.D. 1228, he was seduced by a vampire
in disguise, Janette DuCharme, who introduced him to her master, Lucien LaCroix.. LaCroix offered Knight immortality, which he accepted, becoming a vampire.. After spending centuries hunting and killing to sustain himself, Knight rejected the vampire lifestyle, and became a homicide
detective
in the Metropolitan Police
in order to redeem himself.
Knight was played by Australian actor Rick Springfield
in the movie, and by Canadian actor Geraint Wyn Davies
in the series.
circa A.D. 1200. Trained as a knight
under Sir Raymond DeLabarre, he was sent to Wales
on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church to investigate pagan
activities. While there, he fell in love with a Welsh noblewoman, Gwyneth
. DeLabarre killed Gwyneth in order to quell a pending pagan revolt, and blamed Knight for her death. Knight was offered to fight in the Crusades
instead of facing a trial he could not win, and accepted the offer. After several years spent in the Holy Land
, Knight returned to Europe in A.D. 1228, disillusioned and embittered, and became a drunkard.
While drunk, he meets Janette DuCharme, who intrigues him with the lure of immortality
. She then introduces him to Lucien LaCroix, and Knight discovers that Janette and LaCroix are vampire
s and wanted to "bring him across" (make him a vampire). LaCroix tempts him with the prospect of having eternal life and youth as well as power beyond his imagination, and Knight accepts. Nicholas is brought to the catacombs of Paris
for his first "feeding", in which Nicholas must kill a mortal for their blood. After some brief hesitation, Knight kills the first of what would become many victims, and fully embraces life as a vampire.
Although it is never mentioned in any episode, writer James D. Parriott
said that he wrote a backstory
explaining the reasons for this disillusionment. In this backstory, Knight was captured by Muslim
s and spent several years being tortured in prison. This caused him to lose faith
in God
, and left him vulnerable to suggestion by Janette and LaCroix.
and weaknesses, many commonly associated with vampires, and some original to the series.
As a vampire, Knight possess enhanced sense
s; infrared vision
, enhanced hearing
, superhuman strength, preternatural speed and agility, is able to regenerate
critical wounds over small amounts of time, and is able to fly. His body is also very resilient to the elements, being immune to the effects of cold, poison, illnesses and diseases, and his heart beats
only once per 10 minutes. One of his most useful powers is the ability to perform hypnosis on some, but not all people (those able to resist hypnosis are known as resisters), which will help several times during his work with the Metropolitan Toronto Police
. Amongst his weakness are a deadly aversion to sunlight, violent allergic reactions to foods (but not all liquids), an allergy to smelling garlic, a compulsion to look away from Holy objects
and religious symbols, and coming into contact with crucifix
es and holy water
will cause his flesh to burn. Like others vampires in fiction, Knight is immortal, but can be killed by exposure to sunlight, having a wooden stake driven through his heart, fire
, or decapitation
.
Knight appears human in normal circumstances, although he rarely perspires – and when he does, he does not perspire sweat, but rather blood
– and his skin is cold to the touch. Knight will reveal his vampire traits when threatened, or when becoming aggressive. This is known as vamping out by the fans of the series, but it is never referred as such during the series. When taking a vampire aspect, Knight's eyes turn yellow, and bares the stereotypical vampire fangs. Amongst the common vampire traits found in fiction, Knight does not possess the ability to shapeshift
into a bat
, and is not inclined to sleep in a coffin. He also does not lose any of his vampire abilities upon at dawn, although exposure to sunlight is still fatal.
In the Forever Knight universe, vampires rarely stay more than a few years in one place in order to keep their true identifies concealed. He thus engages in centuries of killings and murders accompanied by Janette and LaCroix. Janette and Knight were lovers, but Janette ended it; while Knight was initially devastated, he eventually accepted her decision and remain on good terms with her. After centuries of indiscriminate killing, Knight started to feel guilt and resolves to only kill those who deserved death. He also has regrets over his choice to become a vampire, and desires to regain his mortality and humanity. Knight will spend most of the Forever Knight series trying to find a way to become human once again. This is met with amusement from other vampires, but LaCroix finds these thoughts unacceptable; this difference of opinions will be the source of great conflicts between the two over the span of the entire series.
Over the series Knight is seen with several historical figures such as Joan of Arc
, Arthur Conan Doyle
, Ludwig van Beethoven
, Jack the Ripper
, Grigori Rasputin
and Adolf Hitler
. LaCroix and Knight, being bonded by blood, also share a physic bond and are able to sense each other over sort distances, and predisposes Knight to Lacroix's suggestions (it does not make him his mental slave however). His long life also allowed him to master several languages
in addition to his native French
– Cantonese
, English
, German
, Italian
, Latin
, Mandarin Chinese, Russian
, Spanish
and Vietnamese
.
, Canada
, and works for the Metropolitan Toronto Police
as Homicide Detective Nicholas (Nick) Knight as a way to seek penance and atone for his past behaviour. While he still fights his hunger for human blood, Knight has not killed anyone for blood in the last 100 years, and now subsists on cow blood instead. His policing work also allows him to reconnect with human society.
His superior officer, Captain Joseph Stonetree, initially had misgivings about Knight, but tolerated him because he turned out to be an excellent detective. Originally, Knight worked alone, but was eventually partnered with Detective Donald Schanke, his polar opposite in terms of personality and approach to police work, but of equal competence. The two initially butted heads, but came to respect and trust each other, essentially becoming bona fide "buddy cops
". The duo also worked with Dr. Natalie Lambert, a coroner
.
Lambert is one of the few persons who discovered the true identify of Knight during the series – after a bomb explosion injures Knight, she finds him without any injury, and catches him drinking the blood samples of her lab. Nick tried to hypnotize her, but fails as she is one of the "resisters". Lambert is fascinated by his nature, and agrees to both keep his identify a secret, and help him regain his humanity.
In Toronto, Nick will meet both LaCroix and Janette. He destroys LaCroix by drive a stake through his heart, but LaCroix manages to escape permanent death through means which are never revealed. LaCroix and Knight reach an uneasy truce, where LaCroix stops to actively thwart Knight's plan to become mortal again, but still tries to convince Nick to embrace his vampire nature as he once did. Knight also re-establishes a friendship with Janette, who now run a nightclub – The Raven – frequented by both humans and vampires.
After the death of Donald Schanke in plane accident, Nick is teamed up with Tracy Vetter, a recently promoted and capable detective who is often willing to take risks in order to prove herself. Like Schanke, Vetter was unaware that Nick was a vampire, but she was aware of the existence of vampires, having become friends with Javier Vachon, a member of the Toronto vampire community who was acquainted with Nick. Nick knew of Vetter's knowledge of both Vachon and vampires, but refused to reveal his own vampiric nature to her.
Tracy is rushed to the hospital, but she was in critical condition and Nick considered turning her into a vampire, feeling guilty for what happened. Natalie chastises Nick for being willing to bring Tracy over, while he always refused her. Nick decides against, and Tracy dies from her wounds. In the same evening, Nick stops by the The Raven to find LaCroix closing the club, explaining it was time for him to move on as the investigation of the nights event will expose him as a vampire, and will leave Toronto with or without Nick. Nick wishes to move on, but Natalie doesn't want him to leave and insists that Nick brings her across. Nick agrees relunctantly.
Nick however tries to become human by drinking Natalie's blood, as Janette did. However, he draws too much blood and is forced to either complete the process, bringing Natalie over, or have her die. Not able to condemn Natalie to a life as a vampire, he decides to let her die and take his own life as well, reasoning that he will be reunited with her in the afterlife, and that God would forgive his many sins. Nick realizes that LaCroix had been his best friend in all these years, and hands LaCroix a wooden stake.
LaCroix raises the stake, and the camera focuses elsewhere, leaving the final fate of Nick deliberately ambiguous to allow for the series to be picked up and continued.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
television series Forever Knight
Forever Knight
Forever Knight was a Canadian television series about Nick Knight, an 800-year-old vampire working as a police detective in modern day Toronto. Wracked with guilt for centuries of killing others, he seeks redemption by working as a homicide detective on the night shift while struggling to find a...
, and its precursor 1989 television movie Nick Knight. He also appears in three novels, A Stirring of Dust by Susan Sizemore
Susan Sizemore
Susan Sizemore is an American author of both romance and science fiction novels.-Biography:Susan Sizemore began writing her own stories as a child. As an adult, she wrote fanfiction set in the Star Trek universe. She later began writing original romance novels...
, Intimations of Mortality by Susan M. Garrett, and These Our Revels by Anne Hathaway Nayne.
The character's backstory is revealed piecemeal, primarily through the flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
scenes that appear in most episodes of the television series. He was born circa A.D. 1200; and, in many episodes, employs the name "Nicolas de Brabant", suggesting that he comes from the Duchy of Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
. He was born of a noble family, and trained as a knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
. After being falsely accused of murder, he chose to fight in the Crusades to escape nearly-certain conviction. On his return to Europe in A.D. 1228, he was seduced by a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
in disguise, Janette DuCharme, who introduced him to her master, Lucien LaCroix.. LaCroix offered Knight immortality, which he accepted, becoming a vampire.. After spending centuries hunting and killing to sustain himself, Knight rejected the vampire lifestyle, and became a homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
in the Metropolitan Police
Toronto Police Service
The Toronto Police Service , formerly the Metropolitan Toronto Police, is the police service for the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest municipal police service in Canada and second largest police force in Canada after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...
in order to redeem himself.
Knight was played by Australian actor Rick Springfield
Rick Springfield
Rick Springfield is an Australian-born singer-songwriter, musician, and actor. He was a member of pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971 and then started his solo career with his début single "Speak to the Sky" reaching the top 10 in Australia. In mid-1972, he relocated to the United States...
in the movie, and by Canadian actor Geraint Wyn Davies
Geraint Wyn Davies
Geraint Wyn Davies is a British-Canadian-American actor.He was born on 20 April 1957 in Britain, at Swansea. He was the son of a Congregationalist preacher...
in the series.
Early life
Nick Knight was born Nicholas de Brabant, of a noble family from the Duchy of BrabantDuchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
circa A.D. 1200. Trained as a knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
under Sir Raymond DeLabarre, he was sent to Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church to investigate pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
activities. While there, he fell in love with a Welsh noblewoman, Gwyneth
Gwyneth
Gwyneth is a female given name. It is the name of the following people:*Gwyneth Boodoo is an American psychologist and expert on educational measurement*Gwyneth Cravens, an American novelist and journalist...
. DeLabarre killed Gwyneth in order to quell a pending pagan revolt, and blamed Knight for her death. Knight was offered to fight in the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
instead of facing a trial he could not win, and accepted the offer. After several years spent in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
, Knight returned to Europe in A.D. 1228, disillusioned and embittered, and became a drunkard.
While drunk, he meets Janette DuCharme, who intrigues him with the lure of immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
. She then introduces him to Lucien LaCroix, and Knight discovers that Janette and LaCroix are vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s and wanted to "bring him across" (make him a vampire). LaCroix tempts him with the prospect of having eternal life and youth as well as power beyond his imagination, and Knight accepts. Nicholas is brought to the catacombs of Paris
Catacombs of Paris
The Catacombs of Paris or Catacombes de Paris are an underground ossuary in Paris, France. Located south of the former city gate , the ossuary holds the remains of about 6 million people and fills a renovated section of caverns and tunnels that are the remains of Paris' stone mines...
for his first "feeding", in which Nicholas must kill a mortal for their blood. After some brief hesitation, Knight kills the first of what would become many victims, and fully embraces life as a vampire.
Although it is never mentioned in any episode, writer James D. Parriott
James D. Parriott
James D. Parriott is an award winning American writer, director, and producer, with his own self named production company....
said that he wrote a backstory
Back-story
A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...
explaining the reasons for this disillusionment. In this backstory, Knight was captured by Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s and spent several years being tortured in prison. This caused him to lose faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
in God
God in Christianity
In Christianity, God is the eternal being that created and preserves the universe. God is believed by most Christians to be immanent , while others believe the plan of redemption show he will be immanent later...
, and left him vulnerable to suggestion by Janette and LaCroix.
Life as a Vampire
Upon become a vampire, Knight gained several supernatural abilitiesSuperpower (ability)
Superpower is a popular culture term for a fictional superhuman ability. When a character possesses multiple such abilities, the terms super powers or simply powers are used...
and weaknesses, many commonly associated with vampires, and some original to the series.
As a vampire, Knight possess enhanced sense
Sense
Senses are physiological capacities of organisms that provide inputs for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology , and philosophy of perception...
s; infrared vision
Infrared vision
Infrared vision can be defined as the capability of biological or artificial systems to detect infrared radiation. The terms thermal vision and thermal imaging, are also commonly used in this context since infrared emissions from a body are directly related to their temperature: hotter objects...
, enhanced hearing
Hearing (sense)
Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through an organ such as the ear. It is one of the traditional five senses...
, superhuman strength, preternatural speed and agility, is able to regenerate
Regeneration (biology)
In biology, regeneration is the process of renewal, restoration, and growth that makes genomes, cells, organs, organisms, and ecosystems resilient to natural fluctuations or events that cause disturbance or damage. Every species is capable of regeneration, from bacteria to humans. At its most...
critical wounds over small amounts of time, and is able to fly. His body is also very resilient to the elements, being immune to the effects of cold, poison, illnesses and diseases, and his heart beats
Pulse
In medicine, one's pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed against a bone, such as at the neck , at the wrist , behind the knee , on the inside of the elbow , and near the...
only once per 10 minutes. One of his most useful powers is the ability to perform hypnosis on some, but not all people (those able to resist hypnosis are known as resisters), which will help several times during his work with the Metropolitan Toronto Police
Toronto Police Service
The Toronto Police Service , formerly the Metropolitan Toronto Police, is the police service for the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest municipal police service in Canada and second largest police force in Canada after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...
. Amongst his weakness are a deadly aversion to sunlight, violent allergic reactions to foods (but not all liquids), an allergy to smelling garlic, a compulsion to look away from Holy objects
Sacred
Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...
and religious symbols, and coming into contact with crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
es and holy water
Holy water
Holy water is water that, in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and some other churches, has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects; or as a means of repelling evil.The use for baptism and...
will cause his flesh to burn. Like others vampires in fiction, Knight is immortal, but can be killed by exposure to sunlight, having a wooden stake driven through his heart, fire
Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....
, or decapitation
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
.
Knight appears human in normal circumstances, although he rarely perspires – and when he does, he does not perspire sweat, but rather blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
– and his skin is cold to the touch. Knight will reveal his vampire traits when threatened, or when becoming aggressive. This is known as vamping out by the fans of the series, but it is never referred as such during the series. When taking a vampire aspect, Knight's eyes turn yellow, and bares the stereotypical vampire fangs. Amongst the common vampire traits found in fiction, Knight does not possess the ability to shapeshift
Shapeshifting
Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
into a bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
, and is not inclined to sleep in a coffin. He also does not lose any of his vampire abilities upon at dawn, although exposure to sunlight is still fatal.
In the Forever Knight universe, vampires rarely stay more than a few years in one place in order to keep their true identifies concealed. He thus engages in centuries of killings and murders accompanied by Janette and LaCroix. Janette and Knight were lovers, but Janette ended it; while Knight was initially devastated, he eventually accepted her decision and remain on good terms with her. After centuries of indiscriminate killing, Knight started to feel guilt and resolves to only kill those who deserved death. He also has regrets over his choice to become a vampire, and desires to regain his mortality and humanity. Knight will spend most of the Forever Knight series trying to find a way to become human once again. This is met with amusement from other vampires, but LaCroix finds these thoughts unacceptable; this difference of opinions will be the source of great conflicts between the two over the span of the entire series.
Over the series Knight is seen with several historical figures such as Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
, Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
, Grigori Rasputin
Grigori Rasputin
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian Orthodox Christian and mystic who is perceived as having influenced the latter days of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their only son Alexei...
and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. LaCroix and Knight, being bonded by blood, also share a physic bond and are able to sense each other over sort distances, and predisposes Knight to Lacroix's suggestions (it does not make him his mental slave however). His long life also allowed him to master several languages
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
in addition to his native French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
– Cantonese
Cantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Mandarin Chinese, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
.
Police career
By 1992, Nick had re-established himself in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and works for the Metropolitan Toronto Police
Toronto Police Service
The Toronto Police Service , formerly the Metropolitan Toronto Police, is the police service for the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest municipal police service in Canada and second largest police force in Canada after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...
as Homicide Detective Nicholas (Nick) Knight as a way to seek penance and atone for his past behaviour. While he still fights his hunger for human blood, Knight has not killed anyone for blood in the last 100 years, and now subsists on cow blood instead. His policing work also allows him to reconnect with human society.
His superior officer, Captain Joseph Stonetree, initially had misgivings about Knight, but tolerated him because he turned out to be an excellent detective. Originally, Knight worked alone, but was eventually partnered with Detective Donald Schanke, his polar opposite in terms of personality and approach to police work, but of equal competence. The two initially butted heads, but came to respect and trust each other, essentially becoming bona fide "buddy cops
Buddy cop film
The "buddy cop" is a subgenre of buddy films and crime films with plots involving two men of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process...
". The duo also worked with Dr. Natalie Lambert, a coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
.
Lambert is one of the few persons who discovered the true identify of Knight during the series – after a bomb explosion injures Knight, she finds him without any injury, and catches him drinking the blood samples of her lab. Nick tried to hypnotize her, but fails as she is one of the "resisters". Lambert is fascinated by his nature, and agrees to both keep his identify a secret, and help him regain his humanity.
In Toronto, Nick will meet both LaCroix and Janette. He destroys LaCroix by drive a stake through his heart, but LaCroix manages to escape permanent death through means which are never revealed. LaCroix and Knight reach an uneasy truce, where LaCroix stops to actively thwart Knight's plan to become mortal again, but still tries to convince Nick to embrace his vampire nature as he once did. Knight also re-establishes a friendship with Janette, who now run a nightclub – The Raven – frequented by both humans and vampires.
After the death of Donald Schanke in plane accident, Nick is teamed up with Tracy Vetter, a recently promoted and capable detective who is often willing to take risks in order to prove herself. Like Schanke, Vetter was unaware that Nick was a vampire, but she was aware of the existence of vampires, having become friends with Javier Vachon, a member of the Toronto vampire community who was acquainted with Nick. Nick knew of Vetter's knowledge of both Vachon and vampires, but refused to reveal his own vampiric nature to her.
End of series
In the last half of the final season, Nick began to lose ground in his quest for humanity. Natalie, who was developing strong romantic feelings for Nick grew impatient at Nick's lack of progress. On one night, Nick tried to hypnotize a suspect, but the trance was broken and a firefight occurred. The suspect shot Nick, but the bullets went through him and hit Tracy instead. Nick killed the suspect while displayed his vampire features, to a shocked Tracy who displayed disappointment that Nick never trusted her with this secret.Tracy is rushed to the hospital, but she was in critical condition and Nick considered turning her into a vampire, feeling guilty for what happened. Natalie chastises Nick for being willing to bring Tracy over, while he always refused her. Nick decides against, and Tracy dies from her wounds. In the same evening, Nick stops by the The Raven to find LaCroix closing the club, explaining it was time for him to move on as the investigation of the nights event will expose him as a vampire, and will leave Toronto with or without Nick. Nick wishes to move on, but Natalie doesn't want him to leave and insists that Nick brings her across. Nick agrees relunctantly.
Nick however tries to become human by drinking Natalie's blood, as Janette did. However, he draws too much blood and is forced to either complete the process, bringing Natalie over, or have her die. Not able to condemn Natalie to a life as a vampire, he decides to let her die and take his own life as well, reasoning that he will be reunited with her in the afterlife, and that God would forgive his many sins. Nick realizes that LaCroix had been his best friend in all these years, and hands LaCroix a wooden stake.
LaCroix raises the stake, and the camera focuses elsewhere, leaving the final fate of Nick deliberately ambiguous to allow for the series to be picked up and continued.
See also
- Janette DuCharme
- Javier VachonJavier Vachon (Forever Knight)Javier Vachon is a fictional character in the Canadian television series Forever Knight, appearing in ten episodes in season 3. Vachon is introduced in the first half of the two-part season premiere, "Black Buddha"; and his backstory was revealed in the second part...