Line #26 Headscratchers/Lexx


1	* Is everybody who looks human actually "human"? Gigerota is referred to as human by most reference sources but this was never actually stated, and she has a long, worm like, prehensile tongue with sharp teeth of its own which could be an addition she had made to her body to suit her cannibalistic impulses or a natural trait of people from her planet. Whether she is unique or not, and whether she is human or not, is never made clear. In the first movie there is also a blue-skinned humanoid fellow on the prisoner transport. Other populations of planets in Series 1 and 2 are referred to as human, as well as inhabitants of the Dark Zone like the people of Earth and the Brunnen-G before they migrated. The Brunnen-G are specifically referred to as a "culture" and sometimes a "race" of humans, not a separate species, even though they originated in a parallel universe. Actual aliens in ''Lexx'' tend to be nonhumanoid, like the Insects, Cluster Lizards, the Worms from "Eating Pattern," and Lyekka's plant people. In the case of Lyekka, and the Insects, they could take on human form, but their actual nature was clearly alien. And what about "Queen" from Season 3 (Gigerrota's afterlife alter-ego)? Modified human or something else altogether? The only other non-humans who take human form are supernatural entities like Prince and all the inhabitants of the afterlife, who may or may not be considered "human" still. There are also numerous references to unseen, presumably alien creatures, such as in Schlemmie's speech recounting his sexual history in "Luvliner" like a race of "Ape-men" and a "furry nympho leper" and other throwaway references to presumably non-human ''sounding'' life... but then again in the context of the show, these could easily be human subspecies or something similar.
2	* Okay, so, Zev's transformation into a love slave completely physically changes her body. Her clothing also shrinks to better fit her new body. Fair enough, maybe the Lusticon machine also has a feature that alters the size of the victim's clothing. However, the fact that her flat shoes suddenly become knee-high, heeled black boots is rather odd. Can the machine completely transform one's footwear, too?
3	** This is a civilization where forced organ donation is a normal punishment, criminals are regularly fed to a Manhattan-sized insect to it can grow up to be big and strong and healthy and blow up dissenting planets, and the Lusticon exists in the first place; it's not so out of place that it can turn boring shoes into high-heels.
4	** It is also odd that her arms change from being cuffed on each side of her head to being cuffed down at her sides. Is this deliberate, or a continuity error?
5	* After being in suspended animation for thousands of years, Xev's hair grows considerably and goes from red to blonde with red streaks. Stan was also in suspended animation for the same amount of time... and his hair stays pretty much the same.
6	** Might be a part of her cluster lizard physiology. Perhaps she reacts to extreme temperatures?
7	** The WordOfGod excuse is that "Stan got hair implants when he was a Deputy Back-Up Courier".
8	** As far as I can remember, they never specify how much time passed in the Dark Zone before the crew went into cryosleep. It's possible she just grew it out naturally over a few years.
9	* Why does Xev still have an expiration date when she's been liquified and recreated with a different body, one significantly different from her original and made out of a guy who didn't have an expiration date?
10	** More importantly, when she has been recreated from her [=DNA=], why does she look different but have all her memories? That's not how [=DNA=] works...
11	*** there is a [[GeneticMemory trope]] for that
12	*** Lyekka says earlier that she "does not like" dead things. Later she tastes the Zev-goo and says "she is wonderful." This is a subtle nod that Zev was not dead while in goo form, since Lyekka who hates dead things liked Zev. Lyekka created a new solid body for the still-living goo that was Zev using the protein from the astronaut. Zev was not dead, she was just disembodied for a while.
13	* Why does the crew make no effort to find a planet for Lyyeka to live on despite Kai telling her they;ll do just that and then getting upset when she egts hungry and needs to eat a couple episodes later?
14	* Why is there absolutely no mention of the genuinely good/heroic things Stan did when he was arguing whether he'd go to Fire or Water? No mention of him refusing Giggerota and saving Zev in Supernova. No mention of him swooping to Zev's rescue in Giggashadow or Mantrid.
15	** Because Stan is arguing with himself, not Prince. Prince even says Stan doesn't have to convince him, but the mirror image of Stan that suddenly appears. Stan knows how much of a DirtyCoward he's been and in his mind, it outweighs any good he's done.
16	* Why does Xev seem to forget she has super strength at times? Like when she was arrested on earth and tried to leave the prison? She should have been capable of out muscling two ordinary guards.
17	* Why does everyone act like Kai is the only one who has died before? They lost Zev in Terminal? While it's true they establish Stanley doesn't remember anything Xev seems fully aware she died and came back in the episode it happened and Prince should be aware of that as well.
18	** Re: Prince, Kai says that Prince didn't appear to him when His Shadow killed him, so it's a fair guess that he never appeared to Zev, because her death was destined to be temporary as well.
19	*** Kai is also a reanimated dead body. So his corpse probably wouldn't retain his 'soul', or whatever it is that actually goes to Fire and Water. Indeed, everyone treats it as perfectly plausible that a living Kai would be on Water (despite it actually being Prince).
20	** 790 himself/herself also 'died' in a manner of speaking when s/he was thrown off the bridge by Prince, not to mention the cube of brain s/he has obviously came from someone who died.
21	*** That wasn't a death, though it seems like 790 starts fresh after the reset as time goes on it's clear he still remembers everything else that's happened, he just doesn't care anymore.
22	* Were the Divine Predecessors aware of the insect motivation behind the Divine Order? They make no reference to it and are shocked when His Shadow decides to do away with them. In fact the entire awareness of His Shadow in regards to his insect origin seems murky at best. An explanation is that when the last Divine Shadow (who was corrupted by the mind of the body he was placed in) gathered the rest of his essence he unleashed the insect's full conscious, rather than acting as a sub-conscious nudging the Divine Shadow to create the League of 20,000 Planets.
23	** They're only shocked that His Shadow doesn't care about them anymore, they don't bat a metaphorical eye at the fact the Gigashadow is an Insect. Presumably, we simply never see them in a situation where they ''would'' talk about it. Convening with the current His Shadow when there aren't more pressing matters, for example. We only really see them when they're around other people, who they naturally would not want to tell.
24	** When Kai digs through their memories, he doesn't find what the Gigashadow is, so they may have just rolled with it.
25	* At the end of Season 3, Prince seizes control of the Lexx from Xev and uses him to blow up Water. This is never mentioned again, and in fact he spends the entire next season scheming to steal the key to the Lexx so he can control him. Um...what? If the guy can already take over the ship and supersede the captain's orders, what the hell does he need the key for anyway?
26	** Perhaps such possession could only occur in the spiritual form he had between planets, and once he was embodied on Earth and uncertain of his power set, range, and even if he could still reincarnate, he probably tried to do things the old fashioned way.
27	** It seems to be a unique situation, Fire and Water were trapped in a form of mystical balance, Xev upset the balance by destroying Fire so the balance was reset by destroying Water.
28	* It makes perfect sense for the key to the Lexx to jump to a new host at the moment of death - but why should the height of sexual ecstasy do the same? What function could that serve?
29	** This was actually explained when they discovered it. It's an accident, a loophole, due to the fact that the moment of death triggers the height of sexual ecstasy so the Key reacts to both as they have identical experiences.
30	** Sex and death are so often associated with each other that the French literally call an orgasm ''le petit morte'' -- "the little death". It's just a fairly common bit of symbolism.
31	* Where exactly do humans come from in this show if not Earth?
32	** The existence of Prince, Fire and Water, and Oberon, et al. confirms that there are spiritual powers in the universes, so humanity may have a divine origin, created across multiple worlds. There is also the idea that there are only a limited number of human forms, such as the Stanley doppleganger in Season 4, so perhaps a majority of planets happen to evolve sentient life on the same exact human template along a hypercharged version of EvolutionaryLevels. And these can be combined in a theistic evolution type dealy. But it's probably just best to accept it as part of the setting's ScienceFantasy; even though the Brunnen-G seem to a very non-terrestrial culture (other than Poetman's weird tuxedo), the Light Zone somehow spawned the highly WASPy name of Stanley Tweedle and every single person in the two universes speak English except on Earth, sometimes with inexplicable German accents.
33	*** Plus, ''Potatohoe'', an isolated space Idaho with an exact replica of 1960s NASA. It's just that kind of show.
34	* In the pilot the Lexx wouldn't fire on the Cluster or His Shadow's flagship until after the transition between universes disabled its safeguards. Why didn't it have a problem destroying a frontier outpost and the planet behind it?
35	** This one actually was explained. The Cluster and flagship were specifically coded as banned targets, not just League targets in general.
36	* What was the point of the Lexx? If his Divine Shadow is powerful enough to summon "countless millions" from the League of 20,000 Worlds and slaughter them all to rebirth himself as an Insect who can shrug off the Lexx's WaveMotionGun effortlessly, why go through the trouble of building a planetkiller that will be almost immediately outdated? The show usually plays fast and loose with continuity, but the Time Prophet in "Gigashadow" sure makes it sound like "the Cleansing" had an appointed time and date that his Shadow was working to.

Context Headscratchers / Lexx