Xena
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For the dwarf planet formerly nicknamed Xena see Eris (dwarf planet). See also: Xenia.
Xena of Amphipolis is a fictional character in the television series Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. She was played by the New Zealand actress Lucy Lawless. She reached #100 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters behind Monk and Steve Urkel[1].
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[edit] History
Xena first appeared on the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series (in the episode The Warrior Princess airing in March 1995), as a seductive but treacherous warlord. Two more episodes during May sweeps chronicled her evolution from a villain to a friend and ally of Hercules. Interest in her was so strong that shortly afterwards she became the main character of the spin-off series Xena: Warrior Princess. Ironically, although her character was originally obsessed with defeating Hercules and obtaining his title as the greatest living warrior, she never defeated "Zeus' Favorite Son". In fact, Hercules was the one credited with pointing her down the path of redemption when he beat her in combat and showed her that selfishness and greed were not the way to live. In her own series, Xena set out to redeem her murderous past by fighting against tyranny and evil and protecting the innocent and weak. Many of her adventures prior to the televised stories were subsequently revealed in flashback episodes (although much remained obscure).
[edit] Early history
The only daughter of the tavernkeeper Cyrene, Xena grew up in Amphipolis with her two brothers. Her father Atrius was believed to have left her family when she was a child, but it was subsequently revealed that he was, in fact, killed by Cyrene when he tried to kill seven-year-old Xena as a sacrifice to Ares.
During her mid to late teens, the warlord Cortese attacked the village, which prompted some villagers, including Xena's older brother, Toris, to run for the hills. However, Xena and her younger brother Lyceus convinced the remainder of their fellow villagers to stay and fight. Although Amphipolis was saved, Lyceus and many other villagers were killed in the battle, which formed a rift between Cyrene and her daughter and caused Xena to be ostracized by the town.
The death of her beloved younger brother Lyceus led Xena to leave Amphipolis and begin to build her own army, with her ultimate goal being to take revenge on Cortese. She crossed the seas early on as a pirate, meeting Julius Caesar and a young Gaelic slave-stowaway, M'Lila, who would both profoundly affect the destiny of the Warrior Princess. While onboard Xena's ship, M'Lila taught her several fighting techniques as well as instructing her in the use of pressure points, including what became her signature "pinch" maneuver.
Xena took Caesar as a hostage, and was naively swayed by the young officer to join forces, after beginning an affair with him. She ransomed him back to Rome as they had planned, only to have him come back with his own men and capture her ship. He had her and her men crucified on a nearby beach, watching as his orders to break her legs were carried out.
M'Lila rescued her from the cross and took Xena to a healer named Niklio. They were found by two Roman soldiers, who killed the Gaelic woman as she jumped in front of an arrow meant for Xena. After M'Lila died in her arms, Xena fully embraced her dark side and fought the soldiers, killing them (despite her broken legs).
After surviving Caesar's betrayal, a crippled and rage-filled Xena went East where she teamed up with the warlord Borias, who left his wife and son to become her lover. The two terrorized Qin with their joint forces until Xena angered Borias by alienating the powerful Chinese families Ming and Lao. Without his knowledge, Xena kidnapped Ming Tzu's son, Ming T'ien, for ransom. With Borias' help, Ming Tzu captured Xena, intending to kill her for sport.
Xena was saved from certain death by Ming T'ien's mother, Lao Ma, a woman of great spiritual power. During their time together, Lao Ma healed Xena's legs and gave her the title of warrior princess. Under Lao Ma's tutelage, Xena briefly left some of her darkness behind until Borias re-entered her life. A rift formed between Xena and Lao Ma when she murdered Ming Tzu, and suggested that they also kill Ming T'ien. With Lao Ma now their enemy, Xena and Borias were forced to leave Qin.
They went further east to Jappa (Japan), where they kidnapped a girl named Akemi for ransom. Xena ended up befriending Akemi, who got Xena to teach her one of her signature techniques, the pinch which cut off the flow of blood to a person's brain, resulting in death. Akemi then used the pinch to kill her abusive and tyrannical father, Yodoshi, and committed seppuku (honorable suicide). A drunk and grieving Xena tried to put Akemi's ashes in her family crypt, but was set upon by a mob of villagers who felt she was desecrating the crypt by putting the ashes of a patricide in it. Defending herself, Xena used a fire-breathing trick she had mastered. The result was a fire that spread through the town and killed 40,000 people.
Back in northern lands (possibly Siberia), Xena and Borias met a shaman, Alti, who lured Xena toward greater evil with promises that she would become the Destroyer of Nations. She was also befriended by the Amazon queen Cyane, who tried to steer her toward good; but Xena chose Alti's promise of power, and killed Cyane and the Amazon elders at her instigation. By then pregnant with Borias' child, she set out to conquer Corinth. Borias was increasingly troubled by the excesses of her violence, but could do little to stop her: by then, they had split their armies, and Xena's was the bigger of the two. At Corinth, they became mortal enemies after he stopped her from slaughtering the Centaurs with whom he had tried to negotiate an agreement. With Xena about to give birth, Borias tried to get her out of her camp in the hope of rescuing their relationship. He was killed by one of her lieutenants, Dagnine; but the realization that Borias came back for her because he loved her and their unborn child had a strong effect on Xena. It was enough to make her decide to give up her newborn baby to the centaurs, so that he would be raised in safety and away from her dangerous influence.
Xena also travelled to the Norselands, where she spent some time as one of Odin's Valkyrie and unsuccessfully tried to obtain supreme power by stealing the Rheingold. These events took place after the death of Borias.
During the largely undocumented period immediately prior to her first appearance in the Hercules series, Xena first obtained her signature weapon, the Chakram of Darkness. It was apparently given to her by Ares, the God of War. Having apparently lost her army at Corinth, she built a new one which cut a path of plunder and conquest through Greece.
[edit] Later adventures (televised period)
About ten years after first turning to evil, Xena met Hercules. Initially, she set out to kill him. Then, her army turned against her after she stopped her lieutenant Darphus from killing a child in a sacked village. She ran a gauntlet but survived, being the only person to ever survive the gauntlet. She then fought Hercules, in the hope that she would get her army back if she could bring back his head. Xena seemed to be getting the upper hand until Hercules' cousin intervened, giving him the moment to regain composure and defeat her. However, Hercules refused to kill Xena, telling her that "killing isn't the only way of proving you're a warrior." Touched and inspired by Hercules' integrity and by the fact that he suffered the loss of blood kin as she did and yet chooses to fight in honor of them, she decides to join him and defeat her old army. Hercules tells Xena that there is goodness in her heart, and the two of them share a brief romantic relationship, before Xena decides to leave and start making amends for her past.
However Xena finds this to be more painful than she realized; and, haunted by her past transgressions, she was about to give up on her life as a warrior completely. As she stripped off her armor and weaponry and lay them in the dirt, she witnessed a group of villagers being attacked by a band of warriors. Part of that group was a village girl named Gabrielle (later known as the Battling Bard of Potadeia). Xena saved the villagers and Gabrielle was left in awe of the Warrior Princess' abilities. Gabrielle persuaded Xena to let her be her traveling companion, and over time Gabrielle became Xena's dearest friend. Xena also reconciles with her mother, Cyrene.
At some point in her journeys Xena ran into Ares, the God of War, who had known her from when she was a warlord and was always obsessed with winning her affections, but was more usually her adversary.
Xena's subsequent life was marred by many tragedies. Her son Solan, who never got to know her as his mother, died at the hands of Gabrielle's demon child Hope with the help of her then-mortal enemy Callisto, a woman warrior who was obsessed with revenge against Xena because Xena had destroyed her village and her family when she was still evil. She nearly lost Gabrielle more than once, and she and Gabrielle were crucified by the Romans on the Ides of March -- the day of Caesar's death -- but later revived by a mystic named Eli with the spiritual aid of Callisto, who by that time had become an angel. Eve, the miracle child Xena conceived after her resurrection (again through the efforts of the redeemed Callisto), was prophesied to bring about the Twilight of the Olympian gods. To escape the gods' persecution, Xena and Gabrielle tried to fake their deaths. Their plan went awry when Ares buried them in an ice cave where they slept for 25 years. During that time, Eve -- adopted by the Roman nobleman Octavius -- grew up to become Livia, the Champion of Rome, and a ruthless persecutor of Eli's followers. After her return, Xena was able to turn Livia to repentance, and Livia took back the name Eve and became the Messenger of Eli. After Eve's cleansing by baptism, Xena was granted the power to kill gods as long as her daughter lived. In a final confrontation, the Twilight came to pass when Xena killed most of the gods to save her daughter, and was herself saved by Ares when he gave up his immortality to heal the badly injured and dying Eve and Gabrielle. Xena later helped him regain his godhood.
Xena's quest for redemption ended when she sacrificed her life to right the wrong she had committed many years ago in Japan. Her spirit, however, still very much appears to be with Gabrielle. According to the darsham, Naima, this is only one of many lives Xena will live throughout the ages, but they all have one thing in common: whatever life awaits her next, it will be spent furthering the cause of good against evil.
[edit] Warrior Princess
Xena performed many feats that were considered outside the normal human range and bordered on that of a demigoddess. She may have been the mightiest purely mortal being ever to live (however, there were occasional hints that her true father was Ares. This thread was generally dropped because of her romantic connection to Ares, which would then have been incest.) While Xena did not possess the brute strength of her friend and ally Hercules, she could arm-wrestle warlords, punch through solid ice, kick down doors, and knock out opponents with a single punch. Her greatest feat of strength to this day occurred when she allowed herself to be arrested for a crime she didn't commit in "The Reckoning". Several men of that town came into her cell, where her hands and feet were chained, and began to beat her. The beating, combined with Ares urging and goading her on, sent Xena into a rage of pure adrenaline. She tore her chains out from where they were rooted and then kicked the thick prison door completely off of its hinges. This has been the only time where Xena has shown that magnitude of strength, so it can be safely assumed that this was caused by a "fight or flight" like response.
She had the ability to absorb a great deal of pain dispassionately, such as when arrows were removed. She ignored the agony of a dislocated shoulder until reminded by Ephiny, at which point she repaired the injury by deliberately colliding with a wall. When she was in a greatly-weakened state such as during the ordeal of crucifixion, this ability was not apparent.
Xena honed her body to peak human condition. Combined with her iron will, she became the only warrior to survive the ordeal of the Gauntlet, where she was forced to run without armor or weapons between two lines of soldiers, who beat her with clubs. In the final episode of the series, Xena was hit with a multitude of arrows in different areas of her body and still continued to fight a samurai army singlehandedly.
While technically Xena did not possess godly powers, she had a leaping ability demonstrated by other warriors of a high skill level, notably M'Lila, Callisto and Draco. Xena performed gravity-defying leaps usually in an acrobatic style up to 30 feet. Xena lept straight up from moat water to the top of a high castle wall and somersaulted from her position on the ground to the top of a tall tree where an archer was ambushing her group with arrows. Xena commonly ran up a ruffian's torso, performed a backflip, and kicked him while still in mid-air. On rare occasions, she actually ran on the faces of a surrounding squad of soldiers. This ability could have possibily originated as an Amazon ability before catching on with other warriors, since Xena was asked in "The Way" about her leaping ability and she answered that the Amazons taught her, which would make sense as Amazons the Amazons "invented the technique of fighting from trees". In martial arts terms these abilities can be referred to as Karumijutsu and Tobi Waza. Karumijutsu, translating literally to “the body lightening art” and Tobi Waza, a.k.a. "leaping or flying techniques". Both involve extensive physical and ki training. Due to the delayed landing effect of Xena's jumps and flips it would be accurate to state that these Amazonian techniques that Xena learned were synonamous with the aforementioned Asian fighting techniques.
Xena possessed incredible speed and reflexes. She was able to catch knives and arrows in midflight and dodge energy blasts from mystical foes. She was able to routinely catch her chakram, a skill only Callisto, Eve and Gabrielle (fully-trained by the end of the series) were able to duplicate. Xena's greatest feats of speed were shown in "The Execution" and "King Con". In "The Execution" when three arrows were being fired at one of her allies. She caught one in each hand and the third one in her teeth. In "King Con", Xena grabs the conman, Rafe's hand and held it in place on the table he was seated at, while jabbing a knife down between the spaces of each finger in a display of incredible reflexes. So fast did she execute this feat that she was able to go over the hand, jabbing between each space, a total of six times in less than a second.
Xena was a master of martial arts. As a young girl, Xena and her brother Lyceus practiced "fighting and swordplay" and even surpassed her brother in certain areas. After Lyceus was killed, she studied many advanced fighting techniques under the tutelage of M'Lila over the course of several months. She was so proficient and prodigious in her training that upon M'Lila's death, she was able to defeat attacking Roman soldiers while her legs were broken, she could even whip her hair with such force that it spun her enemy around into her grasp . Later, Xena encountered the Amazon Queen, Cyane, who defeated Xena in their first meeting. Cyane however took Xena under her wing and taught her powerful Amazon techniques and fighting styles. This training put Xena on a whole new level of fighting, and later, she attacked and defeated not only Cyane, but her entire Amazon tribe at the same time. It is also suggested that Xena was being trained by Ares between the time of Borias' death and her transformation to good. It should also be noted that Xena has gained more experience and skill with time and with every challenging foe she encounters. Observing her fighting style, Xena has been shown to use different styles ranging from Tae Kwon Do, Aikido and Ju-Jitsu, judo, kung-fu, boxing, escrima and multiple sword-fighting styles. Xena flows through different techniques effortlessly and fluidly combining them into a virtually unbeatable fighting style. For example, in a typical hand to hand combat, Xena can flow from straight boxing punches to the chinese style of punches mid-battle before launching into a flurry of tae kwon do and jeet kune do inspired kicks. In one instance, when Xena awoke in her ice coffin after 25 years of sleep, she executed a vertical punch (without chambering) through the thick block of ice placed over the coffin, demonstrating Jeet Kune do's famous one inch punch. When she engages with her sword, she can use the more elegant parries of fencing however more often switches with techniques attributed to escrima arts, or the asian styles of sword-fighting. As truly awesome in battle as she is on the ground, Xena becomes her opponent's nightmare when she takes to the sky. Most notable is Xena's ability to incorporate her leaping and acrobatic skills in her hand to hand combat, utilizing flip-kicks, bicycle kicks and somersaulting great distances out of harm's way.
When the Warrior Princess picks up an object, no matter what it is, it becomes a weapon. Xena can fight with frying pans (A Day In The Life); use rags as whips, even turning one into a staff after getting it wet and taut. In "Altered States", Xena uses fish hooked on a string in a ball-on-chain fashion. As far as traditional weapons go, Xena is an expert combatant with the following and their derivatives: swords, chobos, staffs, whips, axes, knives, and bows and arrows. In terms of weaponry, Xena usually carries her sword, chakram, a breast dagger kept in her bosom armor, and a whip.
Xena is capable of launching numerous objects into the air as effective projectiles. She can hurl arrows, crossbow bolts, and hair pins through the air with her own hands with enough force to penetrate wood. In "Eternal Bonds" she was able to spit a diaper pin from her mouth with such force that it penetrated a man's skull. In "A Friend In Need" she was able to kick embedded spear blades out of the ground and through the air towards an enemy in one move.
Xena's incredible fighting prowess made her a match for foes who were otherwise physically superior to her, such as gods, demigods, archangels, and demons. In the trilogy of her debut episodes on Hercules, she faces off against Hercules, and definitely had the upper hand in the beginning part of their fight. After she pummeled him with fists and feet, and overwhelmed him with her high flying acrobatic maneuvers, Xena took Hercules to the ground and prepared to strike the killing blow. However the momentary interference of Hercules' cousin, whom Xena quckly dispatched, gave Hercules enough time to recover and turn the tables on Xena. Later she engaged Ares, the God of War, in a fight in the season 3 premiere, "The Furies". The fight resulted in Xena being the victor. In other episodes, Xena is also able to fight Ares and hold her own ("Deja Vu All Over Again", "Soul Possession"). One of the Furies even makes a comment to Ares in the guise of Xena after he turns mortal in the season 6 premiere, "Coming Home", saying, "You were barely a match for me when you were a God!" In the episode "Motherhood", Xena takes on the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare, Athena (who had defeated Ares in "Amphipolis under Siege"), and bests her in combat before killing her. Later on, Xena defeats Michael the Archangel and nearly kills him before the God of Eli strips her of her power to kill Angels. However in spite of this Xena manages to face off against Odin, The King of the Norse Gods, beating him in order to obtain the Golden Apples. Xena even stood toe to toe against Mephistopheles and Lucifer when they reigned as the King of Hell.
[edit] Mystical and temporary powers
While in Ch'in and on the brink of being tortured to death by Ming Ti'en, Xena was finally able to achieve sufficient inner serenity to master the qi powers of her mentor Lao Ma (a form of psychokinesis that allowed her to deal a powerful "blow" to either a person or an object with spiritual energy, shattering walls and repelling attackers). After this first manifestation, she was unable to recapture this power. However, about two years later, she was able to retain its use for a longer period after intense spiritual training with Kao H'Sin, one of Lao Ma's twin daughters. On that occasion, she was able to use qi powers to turn an entire attacking army to stone.
From Alti, Xena learned the powers of a shaman. She used them to cross over to the Amazon Land of the Dead to seek out Gabrielle (believing her to be dead), and then to battle Alti in spiritual form on two occasions.
During their travels in India, Xena and Gabrielle encountered a darsham (wise woman) named Naima who enabled them to use the powers of "The Mehndi", activated by Mehndi tattoos on their bodies, to trap and destroy Alti. Xena achieved this by creating chakram constructs made purely out of the Mendhi's supernatural energies as weapons, while Gabrielle bound Alti with what appeared to be magical lightning. This was the only time they were ever seen using these abilities, presumably because Naima was the one channelling the power.
Also in India, Xena conversed with the Hindu God Krishna who helped her battle Indrajit, the King of Demons; after Indrajit severed her arms, she called Krishna's name, and was filled with his strength and took on the appearance of the Hindu goddess Kali, in order to defeat Indrajit.
In the Norselands, Xena put on the Rheingold ring and received god-like abilities which enabled her to defeat the combined forces of Odin the King of Norse Gods, The Grendl beast, and Odin's Valkryie army. However, the consequence of this action (as for anyone who had not forsaken love) was the loss of what Xena valued most. Her identity and all her memories were erased, though she began to regain brief flashes of memory a year later and finally recovered her true self after finding Gabrielle (asleep behind a mystical wall of fire conjured by the Valkryie Brunhilda that only Xena could walk through) and kissing her awake.
Probably the most unique and most famous of Xena's temporary powers was the power to kill gods (and apparently other immortals such as angels). While normally a sword or other weapon would go right through a god without drawing blood or inflicting a wound, Xena possessed the ability to pierce this "veil of immortality" and make them bleed or die. She was granted this power by the God of Eli and the Archangel Michael after Eve was cleansed of her sins, in order to protect her daughter from the Olympian gods, and was told that she would have it as long as Eve was alive. During this time, Xena became widely known as "Slayer of Gods." She lost this power approximately two years later when she tried to use it to kill the Archangel Michael for trying to manipulate Eve into a suicide mission to bait Xena into killing the insane emperor-turned-God, Caligula.
[edit] Role in historical/mythological events
The show credited Xena (or her friends and associates) with a central role in many events in history and mythology. Among other things, she:
- helped David kill Goliath and defeat the Philistines.
- assisted Ulysses in regaining his kingdom in Ithaca after returning from the Trojan War.
- single-handedly stopped the invading Persian army at Thermopylae.
- led a band of pirates in the capture and ransom of Julius Caesar, who then captured them and had them crucified (this story of Caesar and the pirates is based on fact, though Xena was not, of course, the pirate leader.)
- helped Boadicea defeat the Roman invasion led by Julius Caesar (in actual history, Boadicea fought the Romans some 100 years after Caesar's death and was defeated).
- helped manipulate the power games of the Roman First Triumvirate, taking advantage of the rivalries between Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Pompey first to free the Gaul rebel Vercinix and then to stop the Roman armies from rampaging through Greece.
- helped engineer the assassination of Caesar by pitting his friend Marcus Junius Brutus against him.
- posed as Cleopatra VII of Egypt and double-crossed Mark Antony in order to help Octavius Caesar defeat both Brutus and Antony and gain control of the empire (after becoming convinced that Octavius was more honorable than both his rivals).
- engineered the death of the crazed Roman emperor Caligula.
- encountered the Virgin Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus; Gabrielle gave them the donkey which they rode.
- Killed Mephistopheles, the King of Hell, in order to release the trapped soul of her mother.
- Tricked Lucifer into bringing out his "inner demon" and becoming the new king of Hell (the devil).
Xena (and occasionally Gabrielle) was also often credited with a variety of discoveries and inventions. For instance:
- the discovery and naming of The Big Dipper
- the harnessing of electricity by tying a metal item to a kite (or "flying parchment")
- the discovery of cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR (when a wounded Gabrielle goes into cardiac arrest, the grieving Xena bangs her fists on the chest of the seemingly dead Gabrielle, and Gabrielle revives)
- pioneering the custom of Santa Claus bringing gifts and coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve. In a kingdom where Winter Solstice celebrations were banned, Gabrielle encouraged a toymaker named Senticles to sneak into an orphanage through the chimney to hand out toys to children on Solstice Eve; he was wearing a red coat at the time.
Xena also played a key role in the destruction of the Greek Gods, and the transition to monotheism (the Elijan faith seems to have been the show's version of Christianity). Among the Elijans, Xena was known as "Defender of the Faith." The show seems to have subdivided the roles of central figures in the story of Jesus Christ and early Christianity among several characters, with Xena assigned some of the characteristics of Mary (giving birth to a child miraculously conceived without sex) and Jesus (being crucified and rising from the dead), Eli as the main Jesus figure, and Eve as both Jesus (miracle birth intended to herald a new order) and Saul of Tarsus (a persecutor of Christians who "sees the light," changes his name, and becomes a champion of the new faith).
[edit] Love interests
Xena's sexuality was a source of much controversy in the fandom. The show often implied, through humorous innuendo as well as ambiguous lines and scenes (the subtext), that Xena and Gabrielle were not only friends but lovers as well. Their relationship was kept ambiguous throughout the show, though in the last season they were defined as "soulmates" who were "meant to be together." In an interview with Lesbian News magazine two years after the series ended, Lucy Lawless said that she came to believe the two were lovers after the scene in the last episode when Gabrielle revived Xena with a mouth-to-mouth water transfer, saying "There was always a 'well, she might be or she might not be' but when there was that drip of water passing between their lips in the very final scene, that cemented it for me. Now it wasn't just that Xena was bisexual and kinda liked her gal pal and they kind of fooled around sometimes, it was 'Nope, they're married, man."[1]. However, in the interviews and commentaries on the DVDs released in 2003-2005, the actors and producers continued to stress that the question about Xena and Gabrielle's relationship was never answered and was up to each viewer's interpretation.
There were also suggestions of other possible lesbian relationships in Xena's past: with Lao Ma, with a Japanese girl named Akemi whom Xena kidnapped for ransom and to whom she then developed an attachment, and with Alti's apprentice Anokin.
Both in the past and in the present, Xena also had numerous male love interests. At one point, probably shortly after she left Amphipolis, Xena was engaged to the warrior (and later warlord) Petracles. She had a brief affair with Caesar before being crucified by him, and then a stormy relationship with Borias that lasted over a year and resulted in the birth of a child. She also appears to have been Odin's lover. It was also suggested that during this period she became a protegee of Ares, and that the two had a sexually charged relationship that may or may not have included sex. She may also have had a relationship with warlord Draco.
In the Xena trilogy on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, in which the character first appeared, it was implied that Xena had sexual relations with a number of men in her army. She seduced Iolaus in order to pit him against Hercules. After Xena changed her ways and joined forces with Hercules, she and Hercules had a brief romantic relationship as well, though remained only friends thereafter.
Early in her travels with Gabrielle, Xena met Marcus, a warrior who had been a friend (and perhaps lover) when she was a warlord. Under her influence, he gave his life to save a kidnapped woman from being killed. Subsequently, he was briefly allowed to return from the dead, teaming up with Xena to help recapture Hades' helmet of invisibility and return an escaped villain to the underworld. While on this mission, Marcus and Xena spent a night together, and at least for a while, she considered him her one true love.
About a year later, Xena met Ulysses in her travels and had a romance with him (apparently not consummated physically). However, after they returned to Ithaca and learned that Ulysses' wife Penelope was alive, she encouraged him to return to his wife.
While posing as Cleopatra and seducing Antony, Xena seemed to develop genuine feelings for him, but eventually she had to kill him when she realized that he was a threat.
Shortly after the birth of Eve, Ares, who had previously tried to woo Xena to his side as a warrior, declared his love for her and offered to protect her and her child from the other gods. Xena spurned his offer, believing it to be a trick, but on one occasion used Ares' help to defeat Athena. After he sacrificed his godhood to help her, Xena, in turn, helped him as a mortal. In the Season 6 premiere, "Coming Home," the two shared a tender kiss but Xena told Ares that they could not be together: "You always got to me. But you were bad for me, Ares; you still are." Eventually Xena restored Ares to the godhood of war, and they returned to an adversarial relationship when he tried to start a war between the Amazons and the Romans -- a plan Xena thwarted -- but also seemed to have a new level of understanding. In the DVD interview for the 6th season episode "Coming Home," Renee O'Connor, who played Gabrielle, said that "If there was ever going to be one man in Xena's life, it would be Ares."
[edit] In popular culture
The show is mentioned in the last ever (first of a two part) episode of Seinfeld "The Finale, Part 1" when the main character Jerry phones his parents to tell them that his show which is also entitled Jerry is finally being made. Jerrys father tells him "it's all crap on tv, the only thing I watch is Xena, the warrior princess. She must be about 6′ 6″. Jerry did ya ever watch that?" to which Jerry replies "yea it's pretty good."
On a The Simpsons Halloween episode, Lucy Lawless appears at a Xena convention only to be kidnapped by The Collector and saved by Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl.
[edit] See also
- Xena: Warrior Princess is about the show as a whole, and contains links to other characters.
- Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
- Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar for the legend of a Viking warrior princess.
- West End Games published a Hercules & Xena role playing game.
- Red Sonja, Marvel Universe version of a barbarian warrior girl.
[edit] External links
- Xena, Warrior Princess at the Internet Movie Database
- Top 10 Kick-Ass TV Divas
- Xena on TV.com
- Whoosh.org
- Australian Xena Information Page
- Xena Online
- Juicy Flawless Online Xena Still Images
