What do you think MacGyver's greatest fear is?

Probably losing someone else close to him.
Vertigo from heights wouldn't even come close to that

Commitment and heights. But I think he rather climb a mountain than to be close to someone.

I think of Jack Dalton moving all of his things to another location in order to persuade him to join in a gold hunting adventure. Joking.
I think heights and commitment and of course murdok.

I think I agree with Rocket mostly. Fear of losing someone else close to him. After all, he left his parents (Passages) after not having seen them in so long to save Pete.

Commitment is a close second!

I would agree that losing someone close to him come in first place.
The fear of commitment is definitely second and third would be his fear of heights.

I would say losing someone close to him and feeling responsible for it. The Widowmaker - He was really depressed after Mike's death when he blamed himself.

And he is afraid of commitment of course.


Welome to MacGyveronline wizAgahnim!

LOL!

Welcome to MOL, wizAgahnim!

Hello to all, thanks for your welcome. Its great to be part of this online community.

But his fear of commitment is because he's scared of the person getting hurt, which is what he talks to Maria about at the Start of MacGyver's women.

I agree Kiwi.

For example, in Jerico Games Mac tells Ellen (his high school girlfriend), "Everyone I loved died. My Dad, my Grandma, my best friend, they all died." Ellen said, "I didn't die." Mac said, "No, but by the time I met you I had already started running."

This conversation is the reason I think Mac's greatest fear is of losing those he loves. Just my opinion tho...

I agree that losing a loved one is his greatest fear and that goes along with his fear of commitment. Given his personality, he tends to make friends for life, so it would make sense that losing a friend or loved one would cause him great pain.

Proper tragic hero...

I get that having a steady girlfriend doesn't fit in with his tragic hero stereotype or Mac's previous experiences, but I really wanted Mac to be happy, and would have been cheering if he'd found someone nice at the end of the series

Recently in my daily soap it was said that with love chances and risks comes along. Sometimes you gotta take them. I can understand his fear though. Though no matter how big or small the chances are. As he said in Blow Out they have enemies in their line of work. That's why he resigned to go on a trip with Sam. But Murdoc is still out there.

There are plenty of types that could fit with Mac's life. But a lot of people died in his childhood and that has him marked. So there s no question about that.

Interesting though how that fear of commitment seeped in after he said in Friends that he would like to find someone, get married or something and do normal things while he still had time. It was like it never bothered him. Than Nikki came along but the fans didn't want it and Deborah wanted to kill him. It's kinda hard to pin exactly when the fear came, because in Friends it didn't seem to bother him. There has been no fling after all his season 1 romances. Than his lost love returns, than Nikki and Deborah shows up. Deborah wanted him dead ending up in her own death. Than Maria came along and he tried to reject her and later explains he has a fear of commitment.

So the deaths clearly has something to do with it but I think there also other elements. Mike's death, Deborah assassination attempts, Karen who had choosen for a husband instead of him. Maybe it was indeed Mike's death that made him crawl back in his shell and think some things over but he did fell for Deborah not much later. Or maybe it was the experience with Karen that made him change his mind because in season 4 or 5 there are no girlfriends whatsoever. Lulu kissed him in The Lost Amadeus though but it was just that. Both in season 4 and 5 it was just piling up the adventures without actually looking at the fact of a possible relationship. In season 4 the new writers came along and they probably figured a relationship was not a part of MacGyver so they kept it out. By season 6 almost three years passed since his experiences with Karen and Deborah so it must've seemed interesting to retry that area again. And than they wrote the awful MacGyver's Women, no wonder it didn't work out. Than Jerico Games came, the last one that included an old love and is one of my favorites. But like he said, he already started running. So I think the fear of commitment is his biggest fear. He's not crazy about heights and snakes but he rather deals with them than with relationships.

What's interesting is that we see Mac seem to go back and forth about whether he really wants a relationship or not. It's as if he values that part of himself that likes being independent and traveling the world and doing some good, and isn't quite willing to give that up. But every now and then, someone special comes along who makes him question himself: "Am I really doing what's right for me?" Maybe safety is also part of what makes him hesitant: the question of, "Would I be putting a wife/steady girlfriend in danger because of my work?" As he observes in "Blow Out," "we all have enemies in this business."

Aye, he keeps dipping a toe into the relationship pool without ever quite summoning the nerve to jump in...

Poor Mac

More than commitment, more than heights - he's at least in touch with his feelings on those - it's got to be guns.

But he's not scared of guns. He just doesn't like them.

There's a HUGE difference between disliking something (even to the point of hate) and fear.

He doesn't fear guns.

But dislike is often rooted in fear. I might buy the "he just doesn't like them" argument if he were as staunchly opposed to violence in general. But there are dozens of episodes where his gadgets and concoctions could easily maim or kill anyone who was too close - they usually don't, but they could. That just doesn't seem to bother him because 1) it's usually necessary to complete his mission and to come back alive, and 2) a bomb made of baking soda and rusty paperclips and cooking oil or whatever didn't kill his best friend when he was a kid. So it's not violence in general that repulses him - of course he doesn't like it, but neither does any rational human being - it's guns in particular.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MacGyver was in the military, right? So, he would have some training with guns... right? I dunno, never been in the military. lol I ask because he seems confident with guns, just not comfortable. He knows them well enough on how to hold one and how to take them apart without fear of it going off... which I would think he wouldn't be if he hadn't had prior experience. I would know because I don't have ANY experience with guns at all... and I wouldn't want to touch one, let alone be confident enough to take it apart.

I would think his fear wasn't the gun itself, but what damage and loss of life guns cause. In Trial to Doomsday, he did use an Uzi (I think that what it was) without a problem.

I still go with the lose of people he cares about as his biggest fear. He just has a really high regard for life, any loss of it seems to really bother him... even if it's a bad guy.

But, just my humble opinion.

Mac indeed has been in the military as part of the bombs disposal team but I'm sure every soldier needs guntraining as he stated in The Golden Triangle. So I wouldn't be shocked that Mac knows how to handle a gun, how to load it, hold it, take it apart. An Uzi can become a wrench.

Interesting that after a deadly gun incident in his youth, Mac still went to the military and probably learned how to shoot. But I think they were requiered to do military service in those days.

But again your confusing dislike with fear.

As others are saying, he will quite happily and confidently handle a gun, pull it apart to use it for something else. You don't do that with something you have morbid fear of.

Fear is something you hide away from, you strive to avoid at almost any cost. MacGyver certainly doesn't do that with guns.

Close, but not quite. MacGyver graduated from college in 1973, the same year the US abolished the draft. My best guess as to why he joined is the military certainly had use for his skills, and it was an immediately available job.

Close, but not quite. MacGyver graduated from college in 1973, the same year the US abolished the draft. My best guess as to why he joined is the military certainly had use for his skills, and it was an immediately available job.

Hmm. I guess you could argue the timing of when he finished college and when the law was passed to stop the drafting.

Take a look at the discussion we had about this earlier. Feel free to jump in with your thoughts and ideas in there. It would be good to see some new perspectives and/or additional ideas posted in there.

Close, but not quite. MacGyver graduated from college in 1973, the same year the US abolished the draft. My best guess as to why he joined is the military certainly had use for his skills, and it was an immediately available job.

Hmm. I guess you could argue the timing of when he finished college and when the law was passed to stop the drafting.

I thought of that too. So I googled it, and apparently the draft was abolished in January 1973. Most US colleges and universities graduate the great majority of their students in May, with some also graduating in August (if they had to take some classes over the summer) or December (if the fall semester was their final one). Since we know Mac graduated in 1973, it's nearly certain he graduated no earlier than May, April at the earliest.

Now, it could be that he didn't know the draft was about to end and he took steps earlier in his senior year to join just to avoid being drafted, i.e. to avoid ending up in combat in Vietnam. But besides that being completely out of character for him, we also know he still did go to Vietnam as it was. So I've got to assume it was by choice, whatever the reason.