Xena, warrior princess

Context

This long article is now presented in three parts, so it’s easier to read if you lack time. Obvs it should be read in order, namely:

1. Xena warrior princess part #1 – Basics and early adventures.
2. Xena warrior princess part #2 – The story continues.
3. Xena warrior princess part #3 – Notes and stats and more notes.

History (continued)

Sometime later, when Xena was killed, Gabrielle took her body home. The Amazons asked her to take her rightful place as Queen because she received her Rite of Caste from the daughter of the Queen.

Queen Melosa had been killed in combat by Velasca, her adoptive daughter. Velasca was intending to attack the centaurs and start a war. But as one who received the Rite from the blood daughter of the Queen, Gabrielle could assume the Queenship.

Meanwhile, Autolycus, the King of Thieves, was possessed by Xena’s spirit in an attempt to find Ambrosia, the Food of the Gods. Ambrosia could be used tor esurrect Xena’s body.

This led to a confrontation with Velasca and a chase to get to the ambrosia first. Xena switched to Gabrielle’s body and defeated Velasca. Getting the ambrosia to Xena, Gabrielle restored her to life.

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Never Enough Callisto

But Velasca, mortally wounded, crawled to a small portion of ambrosia that Xena had missed. She ate it, becoming a goddess. Obsessed with killing Gabrielle, she started pursuing Xena and the Amazons.

Xena knew she needed an immortal to help her fight Velasca and she had no idea where Hercules currently was. But she had spoken to him not long before and knew what had happened to Callisto, that she was trapped and was immortal.

Xena freed her and got her to join forces in the hopes of getting the small remains of the ambrosia from Velasca and becoming a goddess herself. Neither could trust the other and they knew it.

Callisto tried to switch sides. But Xena sabotaged that by making Velasca think it was a trick to get her to drop her guard. Then, while fighting on a bridge over a river of lava, Callisto got the ambrosia and ate it, becoming a goddess. Xena threw her chakram at the bridge, sending both Velasca and Callisto plunging into the lava, hopefully trapped forever.

For the Horde!

Xena and Gabrielle came into conflict when they faced a savage group of primitives called the Horde. Xena started reverting to her old villainous self as the only way to fight them. But in the meanwhile, Gabrielle found a way to reason with them after all.

They then helped the immortal Cecrops break the pirate’s curse placed upon him by Poseidon.

Cupid’s infant son stole his bow and started shooting people with “Love arrows”. This resulted in Xena in love with the Warlord Draco, he in love with Gabrielle and she in love with Joxer. Everyone assumed Joxer got shot too.

Everything got put right, with one exception. Xena asked Cupid to let Draco stay in love as it was causing him to try changing his ways. Joxer could not be cured as he really was in love with Gabrielle.

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Madness of the Furies

Ares convinced the Furies to drive Xena mad. That was to be her punishment for failing to avenge the murder of her father. She had not known for sure he was alive or dead.

Returning home, fading in and out of madness, she found out from her mother what had really happened, that her mother had killed her father to save her life. But it was a trap. If she avenged her father, then she would still be cursed to madness for killing her mother.

Xena saw a way out. She confronted the Furies and claimed Ares was her father. She asked why her father, Atrius, came home and intended to sacrifice his own daughter all of a sudden?

She proposed it was because Ares tended to take the forms of his soldiers and go have sex with their wives. Someone at the temple must have blabbed to Atrius about her not being his daughter.

Xena then stalemated Ares in a fight, convincing the Furies she must be a demigod. Which woudl confirm that she was the daughter of Ares, not of Atrius. Believing her story, the Furies lifted the Curse of Madness.

After they left, Ares said he knew Xena did not really believe he was her father and she replied that what mattered was that the Furies believed it.

(In the episode, it was pretty clear Xena and Ares knew it wasn’t true. It would make his lusting for her pretty disgusting if it was true.)

The Dahak Saga Begins

Everything changed when Xena and Gabrielle accompanied freedom fighters to Britannia to oppose Caesar. While Xena let her hatred get control of her and prepared to take revenge, Gabrielle was lured to what she thought was a temple to “The One God”.

There, she was tricked into killing to save someone else’s life. This loss of innocence helped open the gateway for an evil deity called Dahak to enter the world.

While still in Britannia, Gabrielle found she had been magically impregnated by Dahak. The “baby” was born within hours and grew to ten months of age within hours more. Xena chased Gabrielle down. She intended to slay the demonic creature after it killed someone, but it looked completely like a baby.

Gabrielle tricked Xena into thinking the baby had fallen over a cliff and perished. But she had really sent it down a river in a boat in the hope it would survive.

Memories of Lao Ma, and of the killing of children

Xena then received a message that took her to “The East” to repay an old debt to Lao Ma by killing Ming Tien. But Gabrielle could not allow her to throw away all the good she had done. Thus, she managed to get to the target ahead of Xena, warning him of her friend’s intentions. This only backfired and got Xena captured and scheduled for execution.

Calling upon the powers Lao Ma had taught her long ago and that she finally understood, Xena defeated Ming Tien. She then killed him, although she kept this a secret from Gabrielle. Xena again returned to the centaur village where her son, Solan, lived.

Meanwhile Hope, Gabrielle’s daughter, had grown to be almost a teenager within months. She freed Callisto from the lava in which Xena had trapped her. Callisto was sent to destroy what people loved most, their children. Callisto tried to kill Solan but Xena helped him elude her.

Kaleipus, the centaur who had raised him, was killed by Hope. Xena took Solan to be hidden out for his safety but Hope revealed to Gabrielle that she was Gabrielle’s daughter. She thus tricked Gabrielle into taking her to the same sanctuary. There, she killed Solan.

Finally realizing that Hope was a demon in the form of a child, Gabrielle killed her by poison. Xena tricked Callisto into fighting her in a cave and again trapped her. The bodies of Solan and Hope were burned and Xena told Gabrielle she never wanted to speak to her again. As she saw it, Solan would be alive if she had killed that demonic thing when Xena warned her to.

Illusia

Gabrielle returned to the Amazons, where Xena attacked and tried to kill her. Dragging Gabrielle to the edge of a cliff, Xena was about to throw her over when she struck back. That sent them both toppling over, screaming their hatred of each other. They awoke in a land called Illusia where they confronted images of enemies ranging from Callisto to Ares, from Caesar to Ming Tien.

For the most part, Illusia forced them to sing out their strongest emotions as they expressed their blame, each of the other, for everything that had happened. Finally they realized the spirit of Solan had brought them to this place to reconcile. Gabrielle was able to leave but Xena was still trapped because, for her, it was not just hatred.

It was also deception. She confessed she had killed Ming Tien and lied about it. When Gabrielle and Xena forgave each other, Solan appeared and Xena was able to tell him she was his mother. Then Gabrielle and Xena found themselves back on Earth, their journeys continuing.

Four hundred of you. One of me. You’re outnumbered.

One of Xena’s greatest adventures, in terms of battle prowess, was when she had to turn back a Persian army of three to four hundred soldiers. She took out about half of them fighting in a barn that she had booby-trapped. Then she defeated over 30 of them in a straight fight before the rest retreated.

She later went up against Caesar again and proved how much things had changed by playing him. He assumed her goal was to kill him but it was not. Her goal was for him to think that was her goal. The real plan was to free a friend of hers. So she had overcome her desire for revenge.

Hope Springs Eternal, part 1

Soon after, the burned body of Hope, sealed into a cocoon, was regenerating. Callisto escaped from an alternate reality Hercules had trapped her in, Ares switched to Hope’s side for the promise of power from her father, Dahak. It became a race to try stopping Hope from being reborn.

But they could not stop it. Worse, Ares then mated with Hope. She was now pregnant with the first of a new generation of demonic gods.

Just when it looked like Hope would win and Dahak would enter the world, things turned around. Gabrielle sacrificed herself, sending herself and Hope plunging into a fiery dimension to their deaths.

For once, Joxer came through and found the dagger coated with Hind’s blood (although it was unclear how and where he found it). As Callisto laughed over Gabrielle’s death, Xena stabbed her with it, killing her.

Hope Springs Eternal, part 2

Unknown to Xena, Ares used his powers to save Hope. He also saved Gabrielle because he knew he could later use that to force Xena to be with him.

Xena traveled to the Amazon afterlife to reunite with Gabrielle. But therein, she found the tribe of Amazons she once opposed could not cross all the way over. They were trapped in a purgatory because of spells cast by the sorceress Alti, who had taught Xena long before. Overcome by remorse, Xena knew she had to help free them before she continued her search for Gabrielle.

Taking herself near to death with her own pressure points techniques, Xena projected her astral  form. She then fought Alti on the spiritual plane, slaying her there. This freed the Amazons to cross over into the afterlife. During the battle, Alti tried to distract Xena with visions of her future, times when she was in pain.

But Gabrielle was also there. It was the knowledge that Gabrielle was alive that allowed Xena to fight back and win.

Hope Springs Eternal, part 3

When Xena returned to Greece, Ares offered to help her find Gabrielle if she was alive. Knowing Ares could search the world at least a thousand times faster than she could, she felt she had to accept his terms.

He forced her to sign a mystical contract that would result in their marriage in a future incarnation of hers. But Xena hid the contract and Ares never got the chance to use it until she was reincarnated in the Twentieth century.

Xena then found who she thought was Gabrielle in Gabrielle’s home town. But it was Hope. Hope had mothered a monster child, albeit one more driven by its instincts than evil. Xena had to kill it and, in its death throes, it accidentally killed Hope. This was the end of the “Dahak Saga” for Xena and Gabrielle, although Hercules and Iolaus went on to defeat Dahak.

While that was happening, there was also the ongoing saga of Rome and Julius Caesar. Xena dealt them a severe blow when she maneuvered Caesar and his arch rival, Pompeii, into devastating each other’s armies.

India and back

Xena and Gabrielle decided to travel to India. Why was unclear, beyond getting away from their troubles and avoiding retribution from Rome for a while. While there, they met Eli, a skilled stage magician who was destined to become a great healer and a Messiah figure.

They also came into conflict with some of the Hindu gods. Xena met and temporarily became an avatar of Krishna in order to defeat a demon/god that had kidnapped Gabrielle and Eli. She discovered that they would be reincarnated many times and share many adventures together.

While travelling back toward Greece, Gabrielle was captured by the Romans. In attempting to save her, Xena was crippled by Callisto, who had been given demonic powers after being cast into Hell and allowed to return

Both Xena and Gabrielle were crucified and died even as events Xena had set into motion resulted in Julius Caesar being killed by his own senate in Rome.

Heaven, Hell and the Chakram of Light

Xena and Gabrielle found themselves in the afterlife, being taken to Heaven. It was never explained why they would not be taken to the Fields of Elysium other than that another god more powerful took them. Lifted into Heaven by angels, they were attacked by demons and Gabrielle fell into Hell.

Xena was lifted into Heaven. There she completed a test to become an angel so she could go on a mission to rescue Gabrielle.

Gabrielle was rescued but Xena encountered Callisto. Callisto was now tortured in Hell for all eternity for acts motivated by what Xena had done to her. Overcome with compassion, she drew Callisto’s demonic aspect into herself. Thus, Xena became a demon while Callisto was lifted into Heaven.

Xena then led an assault on Heaven. That ended when, back on Earth, Eli and angels resurrected Xena and Gabrielle.

Returning to Greece, Xena acquired a weapon called the Chakram of Light. It was an amalgamation of her own chakram and a magic chakram. The main differences were that it could separate into halves, each one could be thrown individually. Or she could hold one in each hand and use them in melee combat.

It also caused far more damage than her old chakram, enough that even gods feared it for the damage it could cause though it could not kill them on its own merits.

Daughters

Along the way, Xena discovered she was pregnant. But as she put it, there were certain physical requirements for that to happen and she had not met those requirements for a long time. The spirit of her old mentor/ enemy, Alti, tried to take the soul of her baby and she again had to fight her to regain her baby’s soul.

Returning to Chen (China), Xena encountered the daughters of Lao Ma. They were battling each other to gain their mother’s “Book of Wisdom”, one of them to help the people and the other for the power. Xena defeated the evil one, temporarily channeling Lao Ma’s magical powers.

A significant event occurred when Eli started a movement that heralded the end of the Olympian gods. Ares killed him, but that was really part of the process that would lead to the end of the worship of the Olympians.

As Xena’s baby was about to be born, the Fates informed Zeus that this child would herald the end for the Gods of Olympus. To help Xena, Hercules, with the help of the reformed Hera, sought the Rib of Chronos, a weapon he could use against Zeus.

In the final battle, as Zeus was about to kill Xena and her baby, Hercules stabbed him, killing him. Though having vowed never to call Zeus “father” again, he cried out “Father” to the sky after Zeus’s body faded away.

Xena went to Tartarus to ask Hades for help, in return for past favors. But he too tried to kill her or her baby. While there, she encountered the spirit of her son, Solan, who had chosen Tartarus where he would remember his mother over the Fields of Elysium where he would just relive the same day endlessly.

Xena convinced him to go to Elysium where he should be. He gave the baby a name, Eve.

Run, Baby, Run

Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer then had to go on the run. The gods and their followers had launched an all-out assault to kill Xena’s baby. Ares offered to help her, though it would mean his eventual death, if she would produce a child with him. A child that would give Ares immortality in a human sense even if he died. But she turned him down, unconvinced of his sincerity.

The gods would never stop pursuing her to get the child, and Xena knew it. She had to face the army of Athena who laid siege to her home village. Xena was able to convince Ares to help her and the army backed off for a time when Athena’s second-in-command was killed.

But the pursuit continued. Eventually, Xena faked Eve’s death, and arranged for a brief death for herself and Gabrielle. The Olympians thought that all three were gone for good.

But Ares was overcome with remorse. He interred Xena and Gabrielle inside a cave in a frozen wasteland, preserved for eternity, not realizing they really were not dead.

Rip Van Xena

25 years later, an avalanche awoke them. They found that the Cult of Eli had grown and the two of them were considered an integral part of it. They soon encountered the elderly Joxer and found he had married Meg (another Xena lookalike). The couple had children – one of whom, Virgil, who would go on to become an epic poet.

Xena discovered that her daughter was now called Livia. She was the Champion of Rome, about to marry the Roman Emperor and also the favored of Ares. Xena’s appearance made Ares realize who “Livia” really was, – Xena’s daughter, Eve.

Livia considered her mother a rival for the affections of Ares and a challenger to her position. Thus, she fought Xena in the Roman arena. Xena defeated but refused to kill her.

Xena pursued Eve. Her daughter’s deeds became so horrible, slaughtering people by the dozens and killing Joxer, that Xena felt she had to fight her to the death. But no matter what she had done, Xena could not bring herself to kill her daughter.

But then Callisto appeared to Eve and made her feel her entire life, especially her infancy. She experienced how much her mother loved her and realized how badly she had become twisted. She ran away, trying to deal with these new feelings.

Monotheistic

Xena and Gabrielle followed but the gods soon realized Eve was alive. As they pursued her, Xena took her daughter to one of Eli’s followers, “The Baptist”. As Eve was being “cleansed”, Xena had a vision. From it, she understood that, as long as Eve was alive, the “One God” had given her the power to kill gods.

In battle, she killed Hephaestus, Hades, Discord, Poseidon and Deimos. The death of Poseidon occurred when she deflected the energy bolt of another god and it hit him. The death of Deimos happened when she caused an explosion that caused a wagon to launch into the air and land on him. So the attacks did not even have to be direct.

However, both Eve and Gabrielle were mortally wounded. Aphrodite, who considered Gabrielle her friend, took them to Olympus.

Xena was willing to negotiate in return for Athena saving Gabrielle. But Athena would not be dictated to by a mortal. As she and Xena fought, Eve died from her wounds. Thus, Xena lost her ability to kill gods. But Ares healed Gabrielle and Eve, resurrecting Eve. Xena struck the killing blow.

As she died, Athena could not comprehend how he could heal them as that required Athena’s blessing. But Ares had burned away his godhood to do it, becoming mortal because he loved Xena.

Ares was then driven mad by the Furies. They hoped to capitalize on the deaths of the Olympian gods to eliminate both the mortal Ares and Xena and establish their own reign. But Xena was able to kill them and free Ares.

Hell hath no fury

Returning to her home village, Xena found that her mother had died years earlier. An arch demon, Mephistopheles, was holding her spirit captive. He wanted to force Xena to give him her daughter’s blood and release him into the world.

Xena realized she did not have to kill her daughter but just use a little of her blood. She brought the Ruler of Hell into the physical world where her god-slaying ability could affect him. Xena killed him though she knew she would have to take his place.

But the Gateway to Hell stayed open and Xena was getting corrupted. An arch angel named Lucifer showed up to throw her into the pit and make her take her place as Ruler of Hell. But he immediately showed two of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Seeing her chance, she manipulated him into changing sides until he committed all seven of them. As a result Lucifer was transformed into a demon, being cast into Hell as its new ruler.

When in Rome

In Rome, the Mad Emperor, Caligula, who was some sort of succubus or incubus, had managed to steal Aphrodite’s godhood.

The Arch Angel Michael sent Xena to kill Caligula. But Ares intercepted her and explained that if she killed him, Aphrodite would die too.

Michael later appeared and tried to kill Aphrodite to cause Caligula to die so there would not be a mad god as ruler of Rome. Xena attacked him to save Aphrodite. But before she could kill him, Michael’s god took back from her the ability to kill gods. She still managed to bluff, tricking the demented Caligula into killing himself to avoid her wrath.

The capacity for love began fading from the world without Aphrodite (and because love must have a balancing force). Xena went to Odin, King of the Norse Gods. She convinced him to give the Golden Apples to Aphrodite and Ares, restoring their godhood.

(This made little sense, as the ongoing storyline involved the growing Cult of Eli and the Way of Love. But this was the sort of tongue-in-cheek incongruity that Hercules and Xena were famous for. This episode also featured a modern day reporter and camera crew interviewing Xena and other people in the middle of an adventure in a parody of the Jerry Springer show with the characters readily accepting their presence.)

(In most episodes, there was a blurb at the end in which the show made fun of itself. The blurb in this one was: “The concept of linear time was severely damaged during the production of this motion picture”. This one definitely broke the Fourth Wall.)

The End

A messenger then asked Xena and Gabrielle to travel to a land beyond China (Chen). There, Xena was asked by an old lover named Akemi to free the land from a powerful demon. Akemi was a spirit, a woman who once tricked Xena into helping her kill her evil father. Akemi had then stabbed herself and called upon Xena to strike the death blow as she was already mortally wounded.

But the only way this demon spirit could be slain was by another spirit. Xena intentionally entered a hopeless battle, outnumbered a thousand to one, and was slain. She arose as a spirit and was finally able to defeat the demon in a pitched battle. However, she could not return to the land of the living.

Still, she could make her presence known to Gabrielle. Hert friend carried on in her place as a traveling warrior and righter of wrongs with Xena’s spirit at her side.

Then, after the End

In one modern story, the evil sorceress, Alti, created clones of Xena and Gabrielle. They received the memories of the real Xena and Gabbie.

Her intent was to recreate only the evil Xena as her accomplice. However, Gabrielle was able to awaken all of her memories and they defeated Alti. Faking their own deaths, the clones of Xena and Gabrielle made a home for themselves in the early 21^st century.

The real Xena, along with Gabrielle and Joxer, awoke in their reincarnated bodies in the early 21^st century with some help from Ares. He was making yet another attempt to win over Xena. In fact, he was trying to enforce the contract he had gotten her to sign thousands of years earlier.

Possessing the memories of all their past lives, Xena and Gabrielle defeated him yet again. Then the walked off into the modern sunset forever. Or did they?

Hercules was still out in the world, not a full god but ageless nevertheless. While pretending to be an actor in a television series about himself, he defeated several of Ares’ plots for world conquest.

There were also references to Zeus sitting up on Olympus, the gods having eventually come back to life though it may have taken a long time.

So it is quite likely that, sooner or later, they all encountered one another in the modern world for adventures that, alas, were never told.

This profile is continued in part #3.