Line #61 Headscratchers/XenaWarriorPrincess


1	* What on Earth ''does'' rhyme with Aphrodite?! How does that rhyme end that caused three naked Gabrielles to appear?
2	--> ''The Warrior, Joxer the Mighty,''
3	--> ''Asked a boon from the god, Aphrodite,''
4	--> ''And what a surprise, he saw with love's eyes, three times--''
5	** Gabrielle without her nightie?
6	* I realize it's for fanservice, but is there any reasonable explanation why Xena's armor is so... [[BreastPlate impractical]]?
7	** It's not like she needs it, she can catch arrows with her bare hands.
8	*** Well, the boots and skirt are actually a step up from the sandals and skirt that would have been more accurate for...some of the years that the show maybe sort of theortetically takes place during, sometimes. Pants would be too hot for an athletic combat style like hers, and she's on the road a lot where cleaning up is difficult. The exposed arms are pretty normal, for all of the reasons already listed. The exposed shoulders and cleavage...besides the aspect of ventilation/cleanliness, I think it might serve as a target, to make sure missiles are aimed high, where she can see them and grab/ dodge, instead of at her abdominal region, where they might pass unnoticed through the the armor, or perhaps injure a spinning, kicking leg. Not to mention, she's Xena, so I'm not she even CARES about armor. I think she just wears the outfit to pick up girls.
9	** Not impractical at all, considering her fighting style. If you're going to be flipping around scissor-kicking dudes in the face you're gonna want clothes that offer maximum freedom of movement.
10	** One question remains though: how do her armbands stay on? They don't seem to have any means of support
11	*** Just as in [[http://www.hellenic-art.com/images/sphop.jpg traditional Greek armor]]: arm bands and/or leg greaves had the interior side made from bronze sheet, hammered to follow the curves of the muscle. They had no hinges, stood only by friction.
12	** In addition to the answers addressed above, she lives a nomadic lifestyle mostly centered in and around the warm climate of the Mediterranean. Heavier, more covering armour might get impractically hot if she was to wear it all the time, and would be less easy to transport if she didn't.
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14	* Did the opening narration bother anyone else? "A mighty princess forged in the heat of the battle." She was not a princess. She lived in a village with a mom who owned a tavern and a father who was devoted to Ares.
15	** She was forged ''into'' a "mighty princess," perhaps.
16	*** The title "Warrior Princess" was given to her by Alti. It's never adequately explained, though; it was mostly an artifact from ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'', where Xena and her title originated.
17	*** And that never made sense the "Warrior Princess" was just a nickname Hercules called her without ever hearing about her before, in the series proper its the title she always had.
18	*** Watch the episode of Herculaes again. The people of Arcadia also call her princess before Hercules even speaks to them. It's clear her title preceeded her and Hercules just asked around off screen about her when traveling to her location.
19	** Of course "Princess" is used loosely- we just ''assume'' it means the daughter/consort of a king or otherwise [[PrincessesRule ruler of territory in her own right]]. As essentially the chief of a maurauding band of warriors, though, it shows she had some power/authority in that sense. Once she forfeits that, one might think of it as an honourary title in recognition of how good a warrior she is.
20	*** She was given the title by her other (good) mentor Lao Ma, who was an...empress?
21	*** This is the correct answer. It was an honorific Lao Ma intended to give her assuming Xena stayed in Ch'in and became her apprentice. She intended to redeem Xena and make her a war councilor of sorts, hence the title Warrior Princess. Xena probably just liked the sound of it and kept it.
22	* Did something happen to the Greek Amazons? It seemed like after the Northern and Steppe Amazons were introduced they never showed up again...
23	* Season 3, Dahak, the OneTrueGod raped Gabrielle and Hope the child was AlwaysChaoticEvil. Season 5, Callisto, minion of the OneTrueGod raped Xena and Eve the child was AlwaysLawfulGood.
24	** Correction: Callisto didn't rape anyone. By that point, she was redeemed and became an angel (thanks to the efforts of Xena herself), and later, made Xena magically conceive a child with her spirit to take a second chance at a mortal life. Also, when they first met Eve as an adult, after the timeskip, she was raised as a ruthless pillager like Xena herself once was; it was only because of Eli that she got her chance at atonement.
25	*** Gabrielle wasn't asked, she was tricked into magic glowy lights that made her have a surprise baby. IIRC, Xena wasn't asked either, simply touched by magic glowy lights that made her have a surprise baby. She was, at least, more willing to be in an angel's hands than Gabrielle was to be in a demon's. But neither of them consented beforehand to be used as baby-vehicles, and it is a little creepy that the instances are treated so differently just because Callisto was pretty at the time.
26	*** In the first episode of the fifth season, Xena assumes all responsibility for the person Callisto became when she takes Callisto's place in Hell. Presumably Callisto and Xena felt that knocking Xena up with Callisto's soul was a better way to repay the damage Xena did to Callisto the first time around. And strangely enough, for Xena it probably felt like redemption: "In her past life, she was a savage, brutal warlord; we're counting on you to prevent her from turning out that way again." As for the consent issue...did God rape the Virgin Mary? Hopefully there's some divine intuition or something that tells angels when impregnating a mortal is a good idea.
27	*** Callisto is DracoInLeatherPants because rape is portrayed as rape = love.
28	*** Callisto had nothing to do with Xena conceiving Eve, that was all "God". It was only after that had been done that the same entity decided that Callisto's soul would also be reincarnated as Xena's child.
29	** There were a number of hints that Hope might not have been quite so AlwaysChaoticEvil - she clearly did want Gabrielle's love and approval. However, she was too powerful to be controlled long enough to be reasoned with.
30	*** Could be more of a female variant of EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas, though. Remember that Hope strangled a man to death a few hours after she was born.
31	** It's all rather odd, however, that Xena and Gabrielle never question the possibility everything Eve-related could be a repeat of everything Hope-related. The basics are the same: a being possessing amazing power and devoted followers sires a child, with the ultimate endgame being wiping out "lesser gods." You'd think after the hell they went through in Season 3 that Xena and Gabrielle would be a bit cautious.
32	* Eli told Gabrielle that she must stop hitting bad guys with a staff because that is violent. She must kill both good people and bad people with sais because sais are non-violent???
33	** The sais came after Gabrielle's peace arc. She dumped her staff, got a [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AHandfulForAnEye magical compact]], did yoga, watched Xena get her spine broken and become crippled ''due to her (Gabrielle's) refusal to commit violence'', snapped and killed a bunch of people before being taken down, was crucified, pulled into hell, rescued to heaven, and brought back to life with a pregnant (and not at 100%) Xena. Picking up the sais was Gabrielle realizing she cannot be a person of total peace, and she accepts violence in defense of others. It was completely logical with her character arc.
34	*** Eli was NOT with her when she bought them. She also originally picked them out for Xena, then used them herself when they were attacked. Shortly after, she told Eli that before she died, she realized that she could not follow his way of peace and was going to follow Xena's path. So she wasn't "obey"ing Eli since she was no longer following his way. Also Gabrielle stabbed the boy in S6 E5 after the Eli arcs with Eli nowhere in the show and while she was with Xena, not against her and not hating her.
35	** Ides of March", Gabrielle takes up arms and fights for Truth, Justice and the Athenian Way. I thought that was the end of her being an Elijan.
36	** There's some major dissonance over what's non-violent. The staff, which she uses to whack people and KO them (but they get up again) is too violent. Using her little compact to knock people out so that Xena can ''kill'' them, however, is acceptably non-violent. Admittedly her whole character arc there was sort of intended to show that this non-violence idea was ridiculous for the lifestyle she was leading.
37	** In "Chakram," the same episode where she picks up the sais, she confirms that her departure from nonviolence in "Ides of March" was deliberate and permanent. When she finally came to the painfully obvious realization that traveling with someone who regularly engages in combat and refusing to strike another person even in self-defense were completely incompatible lifestyle choices, she chose Xena over nonviolence. There's a suggestion in one episode--possibly "Between The Lines"--that future incarnations of Xena and Gabrielle get to lead nonviolent lives because of the good karma they've been building up over the series(but we don't get to see those lives because those are the boring ones).
38	*** The sais didn't even enter the show until after Gabrielle had left Eli's way of peace and told him that she was following Xena's way.
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40	*** Can we please delete the posts above that are absolutely incorrect and made up? The ones saying that S5 was all about Xena and Gabrielle hating each other when that didn't happen. And the ones saying that Eli was in episodes that he specifically wasn't. I mean if I edit this to say that season 3 was all about Xena and Gabby flying through space on a flying unicorn, do we keep it up despite it being totally made up?
41	*** Actually the path of non violence was season 4. The sais came in at the season 5, after they came back from death, and when Gabrielle told Eli that she had come to realize that she couldn't follow his way of non violence and had to follow Xena's warriors way.
42	** No, the path of peace requires nonviolence, but Gabrielle switched to the path of friendship, which isn't nonviolent. I think Eli's explanation was that the (nonviolent) path of peace was best, but the other paths weren't necessarily bad, just not as good.
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44	* Although I found the Goliath episode interesting and "A Day In the Life" to be one of the all-time greats: I still don't quite get it. How exactly does flashing sunlight off mirrors compel giants to take their helmets off?
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47	** The reflected sunlight heated the air, making the giants hot. One of the quickest ways to cool off is to cool your head, so they logically removed their helmets.
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49	* What happens to the spirits of Olympians after they are killed?
50	** That was never addressed. The Gods that Xena killed were very rarely even referenced after their deaths, let alone given an episode to depict any sort of afterlife. It's kind of a cool philosophical question: Do gods have souls? Do they have their own afterlife? Do they go to Heaven or Hell like Callisto did? Xena doesn't know.
51	*** Not that she'd care. Killing someone once was always enough for her. Not that she didn't enjoy killing Callisto again. and again. and again.
52	** Seems safe to assume they go to Heaven or Hell whichever is deemed appropriate. We know what happened with Callisto and aside from a formal seat at the table no distinction is made between her and the Olympians.
53	** Xena, Ares, Callisto, Akemi, Eli etc have PlotArmour, when they die it don't matter DeathIsCheap. When Humans, Gods, Centaurs, Amazons etc die, they stay dead.
54	*** Which doesn't answer the question. We know Callisto went to Tartarus when she died as a mortal and to Hell when she died as goddess. I don't recall seeing any Centaurs in the afterlife but perhaps like Amazons they have a special afterlife. (Which in the rare cases of Amazons with lovers must be pretty crappy since it's clearly established that even if Gabrielle wasn't destined for reincarnation for no clear reason that she is not destined to meet her husband in the afterlife.) The question is what happens to dead Gods and the closest to an adequate explanation given is they go to Heaven or Hell just like Callisto and apparently Aoleus was a big enough fish not to go to the Elesian fields (again with his loved ones.)
55	* This is more a Hercules and Xena headscratcher but are the gods really cruel or are they just petty and bored? Unlike the humans who believe in an after life Ares knows for a fact that any good person who dies because his warlords burnt down a village are going to the Elysian Fields to experience bliss. Technically he's doing them a bit of a favor and he certainly isn't doing them anymore harm than you or I do when we start up a game of Warcraft and march dozens of elves off to their deaths.
56	** They're both; their cruelty stems from pettiness and boredom. Ares gets bored, so people die horribly to amuse him. This is hardly an either/or situation. And let's be fair, paradise or not, to describe horribly murdering someone as 'doing them a favour' is, at the very least, a pretty callous (if not outright sociopathic) attitude. The creatures you kill in a session of Warcraft are animated pixels, the humans Ares' armies are butchering are living people (within their fictional universe, of course, but you know what I mean). There's a pretty big difference.
57	* So as we later find out Xena's Warrior Princess title comes from Lao Ma, but in her debut episode in Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys titled "The Warrior Princess" no less. Without ever having heard of her, or being told that is her title Hercules refers to her as a Warrior Princess as a nickname. Wait what?
58	** Like a lot of things that happen with shows that last long enough in general or SpinOffs in particular some of the details clearly weren't worked out long term. Xena is sufficiently famous that she is recognized on sight in most villages, unlike Hercules who often has to introduce himself to people who imagined him taller. The idea that Hercules had never even heard of Ares' number one warrior is absurd beyond belief. It's been a while since I watched the episode in question; perhaps she was somehow better known as the Warrior Princess than as Xena, so he recognized her title and not her or her name.
59	** Hercules wasn't the only one calling her a Warrior Princess in that episode. Other people were as well without a connection to Herc. It's clear it was a name she had already.
60	* What's with the capital "T" crosses? I got the slight impression they were trying to avoid Jesus imagery but ... y'know, kinda crossed that bridge when the heroes get crucified...
61	** It is called a Tau cross, and was historically used for crucifixion. The Other Wiki has a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Cross good article]] on it, but it was super common in the ancient era for executions.
62	* What exactly was holding Callisto and Valesca in place when they got dumped into the lava flow? Gods can teleport. Nothing we've seen suggests that any gestures or motions are required. They simply want to be someplace else and they are. It would make some sense if perhaps it was something you needed to be taught but Callisto seems to pick it up as soon as she's free of the lava. From what we've seen a lava flow should have kept two gods busy for however long it took them to stop panicking and realize it's not fatal, just really uncomfortable.
63	** Notice how when they fall into the lava they're still fighting each other, and when we see them trapped in the lava they're still locked in combat. It seems easy to speculate that what was actually trapping them in place was less the actual lava and more their single-minded desire to kill the other.
64	*** Also Valesca doesn't seem to be the brightest, and it's unlikely teleportation would even occur to her. She picked the knife over the mask, which seems to indicate that, given the choice between an intelligent non-violent solution and cutting a bitch, she'd pick violence every time.
65	* During the Twilight Arc the Gods are trying to kill Xena. They go so far as to personally summon Death to personally do the deed. Now perhaps killing Xena was actually beyond her power either because God was protecting her or because of some law, but the implication was that she refused which angered the other gods. Fine and good, the episode ends with Xena dying by the hand of three gods. None of them question why Death didn't show up to claim her? None bothered to contact (nor were they contacted BY) the Fates who should have been quite aware that they didn't cut the string? It would be an acceptable oversight if the Fates and Death weren't in the episode itself, but they were.
66	** The whole Twilight Arc has been rightly criticized for shoddy writing. The Olympians became extremely stupid. One example being Xena cannot see invisible beings and the gods can affect things while invisible. But none of them killed Xena.
67	*** It seemed to have been implied that she was under the protection of a greater power, presumably Elijah's God. Clutching the IdiotBall is probably the best answer here, but it is a gross oversight that none of them noticed. Faking your death doesn't work on people who can say "I'll see you in Hell!" and mean they'll see you on a day trip just so they can rub in that you're dead.
68	*** But more than one afterlife has been established. The Olympians might have assumed Xena and Gabrielle were followers of the monotheist God who went to that afterlife.
69	* AcceptableBreaksFromReality and general RuleOfCool aside, just how does Xena get abilities which seem practically superhuman (extraordinary leaping ability, improbable chakram-aiming skills, etc.)? I have read rumours that (despite being revealed to have a very human father) Ares was (creepy though it may sound) her real dad, but is that really substantiated? Would it at least make some sense if she were a demi-goddess, making her a true DistaffCounterpart of Hercules?
70	** You answered your own question for the most part. Originally Xena was a DistaffCounterpart to Hercules as the daughter of Ares but that was dropped in favor of the romance angle between the two. Though one episode, "The Furies," has Xena convince the Fates that Ares was her father and the facts line up well enough to cause her own mother to question it. However Xena's superhuman powers aren't exactly unique. Callisto and Najara both match Xena skill for skill, including Callisto apparently being just as skilled with the chakram despite apparently not owning one [[spoiler: and in the seris finale, Gabrielle successfully wields the chakram, too]]. Every Amazon seems to be nearly on par with Xena as well, close enough anyway that the differences can easily be chalked up to experience and natural skill.
71	* If Eve doesn't have a father, shouldn't she look just like Xena?
72	** She's Xena's child but reincarnated from Callisto ergo she looks like both.
73	* If there are multiple other women running around who look like Xena (three within this show and a fourth going by Lucy Lawless's first appearance in ''Hercules TLJ'') then A) why has she never met them before now since she's traveled much of the world and knows most of Greece, or B) why aren't any of Xena's enemies trying to kill them on sight, OR C) why does NO ONE ELSE mistake any of those women for Xena? They certainly recognize Xena on sight, but not her identical clones?
74	** First depending on what you do and don't count as canon there are more Xena clones than than that. Meg (the barmaid), Diana (the princess), Leia (the priestess) Lysia (Amazon from Hercules and the Amazon Queen), Lyla ("As Darkness Falls) and then Xena makes five that we know of. Lysia is questionable canon but she's also an Amazon and probably has minimal contact with people who might mistake her for Xena. Lyla seems to be a bit off the beaten path, living someplace that has a sizable centaur population. Basically everybody there knows she isn't Xena and/or doesn't know what Xena looks like and nobody else goes to that town though she might be in trouble if she ever traveled. Meg doesn't act or move anything like Xena. Someone who really knew Xena probably would just think 'gee they look a lot a like' and move on. Hell, being a prostitute who looks like Xena would probably fetch top dinar. Diana is a spoiled princess who never travels outside her castle. Virtually nobody has seen her face to face and if they did she again acts and moves nothing like Xena. As well-known and traveled as Xena is, not everybody knows what she looks like, as is evidenced by Hercules himself and the people she has to introduce herself to. She's also gone undercover as scantily clad babe often enough to prove that not she's not quite as famous as it often seems. Finally, the people out to kill her probably have a rough estimate of where she is at any given moment via whatever passes for word of mouth. While it happens less frequently to her than Hercules, people are constantly running up to her in bars asking for help. Unless scared villagers are constantly in EVERY town shouting "I need Hercules/Xena" clearly the populace has something along the lines of "Xena was here last week. Headed north to deal with a monster" going on.
75	*** There were no cameras, film, or even accurate portraits available back then. Short of having a statue built in your image or your profile on a coin, there was no way to preserve what you looked like--and even then, it was dependent on people recognizing you. We know roughly what Caesar looked like, because coins were minted in his image, but the average person didn't have that privilege. Also, travel was harder and people were more isolated. You could have a hundred doppelgangers running around and never know it. It's likely that people had a rough idea of Xena's description--tall, dark hair, blue eyes--but she was probably more recognizable by the giant murderous burninating army that followed in her wake. On her own, and especially in normal peasant clothes, she would blend right in, noticeable only as a particularly tall, attractive woman.
76	*** This is supported by the fact that Calisto was able to impersonate Xena successfully despite having no resemblance to Xena at all.
77	* So, where did the last of the gods go? Callisto kills Strife, Zeus kills Hera, Herc kills Zeus, Xena kills Poseidon, Discord, Hephaestus, Hades, Diemos, Artemis and Athena. This leaves Ares and Aphrodite alone of the Olympians. Except what happened to the other gods like Dionysus, Hermes, Demeter, Persephone, Cupid, Bliss, Apollo and Evander?

Context Headscratchers / XenaWarriorPrincess