One of the biggest things to address in an Eve-centric story is figuring out what she does. What is the message she delivers? What is the purpose she serves? She’s not just looking to do penance, she’s on a mission. That meant defining the God of Light, understanding Eli’s message, & looking ahead to see what sort of problems she’s uniquely suited to fix.
I’ve noticed a lot of Eve-related fan fiction avoids this issue by taking Eve off her path as Messenger, by having her discover the cult is corrupted in some way, or she becomes disillusioned with it, & returns to Xena’s original path for her, the Amazons. I’ll talk more about this next week, but I think the most feasible path for her is that of the Messenger of Eli. Among other things, this gives her the opportunity to engage the word at the same scale #Xena did, in a way that an Amazon or a wandering pacifist doer-of-good-deeds would—& she would have to be a pacifist: returning to violence would be a defeat for her character, & very difficult to justify, & there’s no way the former Livia would not be challenged everywhere she went, unless she had a pretext for not responding with violence, & the stature to enforce that. After all, St. Paul was a former practitioner of violence, & was protected from retribution by a church that supported his efforts.
Plus, the idea of Eve going it alone goes against her character. She’s not like her mother, a ronin-style wanderer. She’s spent her life in a community & thrived in that, & we see her building a new one for peace throughout season 6. Being part of an organization is more her style. That said, she has the instinct of an iconoclast, someone who upends tradition & bucking the status quo for what she thinks is right. The community is necessary, but she’s not afraid to defy it, especially in the form of the Roman government.
Essentially, I see her role as a uniter, someone who brings people together, & her organizational skills makes her a perfect recruit for Eli’s mission. Eli himself was a bit of an anarchist, a student who took to the streets driven by his beliefs. Eve thinks on a much higher strategic level, & like Paul, has the temperament for turning a cult into an empire-wide force. But that is yet to come for Eve. It helped me to imagine her arc through season 6 & beyond, into a future spin-off, & work backwards from there. Her casual gestures in this story would one day be seen as humble signs of the legends to come.
Next week, I’ll go into more detail about this Elijian faith she serves, to understand what exactly she’s fighting for, & how we’re to think about it. Is it idealistic, practical, foolish? Or is it an imperialist, colonialist, nationalistic form of evangelism that most Xena fans would have difficulty rooting for? Spoiler alert: most fans should be okay with it, as I understand its workings.
I chose this thread’as picture of Eve on a ship, gazing at the horizon because that’s how she 1st appears in my story (though looking much more frazzled), wondering about her future. She lived her life focused like a deadly laser beam, & now that beam has dissipated in the clouds surrounding her, the future a blinding haze yet to reveal the path forward. This week’s music video is not in the story itself, but is the song I listened to first each day as I worked on this project, & helped get me into Eve’s state of mind at this moment. Its images eventually became woven into the fabric of the story itself.
There is an old saying: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” I guess it depends on the circumstances. My preference for this story was to make it a musical comedy, the format I have the most fun writing. That said, There are issues involved in this story that make it tricky.
This story revolves around Eve’s coming to terms with her past in order to face the challenge of the present: the threat of citywide violence, crucifixion, & the destruction of the Elijian cult she’s just joined. Not the stuff of comedy, you’d think!
At the center of this story is Eve herself, who had no comedic lines on the show (outside of the You Are There parody). Furthermore, comedy eps on #Xena always had a serious subtext. In fact, some of them were originally dark dramas, flipped to comedy for various reasons.
In order to acclimate myself to this challenge, I did a number of things. First, I wrote it as a serious drama. It helped me to take the story’s issues seriously, & to bring in characters from the original show on an equal footing. I added layers of comedy to their scenes once I was certain I had a good grasp of the drama. Some were very easy to convert to comedy. Both #Xena & #Gabrielle had a history of comedic performances, so I had a good feel for their style. Ares & Aphrodite were the comedic relief, so it was more a matter of adding deeper layers to their story than the other way around.
Salmoneus would seem to be easy, but he has a unique style that can get quite meta, so it was more a case of trying to channel #RobertTrebor’s sense of ad-libbed humor. I read his recent book of political satire #TheHaircutWhoWouldBeKing which I very much enjoyed, so it helped me get an idea of his voice independent of the show’s writers. Sal’s daughter was a bit trickier, since hers is a more dramatic role, but she shares some of Sal’s traits & manic energy, which was helpful.
Eve was the most difficult of all, & in fact, her story got darker the longer I worked on it. Her life’s an amazing journey, & I explored as many of its emotions as I could, but it didn’t fit the story tonally. I reviewed as many of Xena’s similar episodes (such as Locked Up & Tied Down) to get a sense of how the writers & Lucy juggled her darker issues with the energy of her action scenes & comedy (which is present in every ep, no matter how dark), & that helped me find an approach.
As it happens, I have no trouble imagining Eve’s sense of humor in a future revival/spin-off. There’s another saying: Comedy is tragedy + distance, so a revival would give Eve decades of distance. But this story is set only days after Motherhood, between 2 tough eps for Eve so it’s hard to figure out where Eve’s sense of humor is at this moment. The writers themselves couldn’t figure it out, either, it seems; earlier drafts don’t show any humorous lines for her. I don’t blame them. As I see it you can’t write comedic lines for her unless you know exactly where she is at this moment, & I don’t think anyone really did.
It seems to me that Eve’s character was in flux during this time, & her backstory not really known by anyone. Adrienne made her own backstory, but it had to be revived constantly as new scripts with new surprises about her past came up. Actors were encouraged to improvise (& she did for You Are There) but Eve wasn’t a character that lent herself to that. Perhaps Eve’s status as a religious leader like St Paul meant they had to tread carefully with her.
That may explain why Eve’s first comedy scenes wait until her 2nd to last appearance. Eli himself didn’t have any real comedy scenes either despite being a street performer. So the challenge for this story is clear: to give Eve comedic scenes, there needed to be a logical psychological framework for it, & that required a clear backstory to shape it. Once I did that, her comedic lines felt more authentic to me, & her point of view actually helped shaped the visual look of the story, over time.
Though I tried as often as possible to imitate the look of the show, I decided to customize that look to integrate it with Eve’s sense of humor, & allowed her to respond more organically to it. We’re seeing the world through her eyes, so I believe it feels more genuine. I feel this is in keeping with the show’s spirit since it often customized locales & costumes to give each town its own look, so the townsfolk & Roman soldiers of Cyprus would also have their own look as well. Cyprus does appear on #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys & does indeed have its own look, but I’ve taken that idea further, borrowing some elements while setting the action in the northern sector of the city, near the ports & canal district, whose influences are more Asian, Egyptian & Indian, more connected to global trade. There’s no visible Greek influence, of course, in keeping with the show’s aesthetic.
It was a lot of fun exploring this side of Eve, though it was a gradual process, but I was able to pull from the original show opportunities for humor that were left unexploited, & of course Adrienne herself has a great sense of humor, so I feel like I’m staying true to Eve’s experience.
A big issue for an Eve fanfic writer is translating Eve’s character from a supporting character to main character. In my story, I carve out space for Eve to have enough independence from Xena so that she can emerge on her own.
Eve is quite a formidable character: she had expanded Rome’s empire, nearly became its empress, was feared by the ruler of Hell, her blood has the power to make the infernal incarnate, she can see into people’s hearts, literally, & is willing to go toe to toe with Lucifer & Caligula without batting an eye. Then she talks Emperor Claudius into sending a peace mission to the very Amazons who’ve vowed to kill her if she returned, & this is just getting started! She did this without friends or soulmates. She has her mothers, & she has the love of Eli, but these make her dependent, in our eyes, important as they are.
As I see it, though, it’s all about framing. In The Gauntlet, Xena is a villain, but she transitions to being a hero. Part of that process was the traveling salesman, Salmoneus, who saw her good qualities before anyone else, thanks to his keen sales instincts. He offers to become her publicist, which sounds silly, but it’s what every good hero needs when they’re establishing themselves. And for Xena’s pilot, she indeed gets her own publicist, in the form of aspiring bard, Gabrielle. That entire 1st season has Gabrielle talking up Xena non-stop. Eve doesn’t have this, but her evil counterpart, Livia, does! Livia gets a triumph in Rome, a salute by Caesar, thanks of the Roman people, makeout sessions with Ares, the works!
Eve really only gets one outright endorsement, of sorts, & it’s from Mephistopheles, lord of Hell! Everyone else greets her with yawns or sarcasm, o r the odd blow to the head. True, Livia killed Joxer, which should’ve hurt her likability with the audience, but it’s Eve who apologizes for it, making her look weak—in entertainment terms, of course. Objectively, Eve is the stronger of the 2; she has to juggle a lot while on very shaky ground, while Livia is a tragic figure who’s vulnerable to Ares’ whims & treacherous Roman politicians.
Eve does very well: she only backslides once, when her mothers seem to withdraw their support, in Heart of Darkness, but she bounces back quickly. So the challenge for Eve fanfic writers is to give Eve credible publicists, & chances to express her strengths through action.
I’ve no doubt that the Eve spin-off intended to do these things, most likely in the form of disciples constantly defending her, & strong opponents overcome by her. I think we already saw one of them on #Xena: Archangel Michael clearly resented Eve, & it’s hinted he resented Eli, too. The exaltation of all these humans into the ranks of the divine hierarchy must’ve grated against his angelic sensibilities, & I suspect that was set up to be developed on Eve’s own show.
The earlier drafts of The God You Know depict Eve as much more subject to manipulation than we saw, & I suspect it was removed because it made her look weak. It would be around this time that the producers would be thinking of a spin-off,& you can’t be weakening the lead character like that. Instead, it now looks like Eve was betrayed by Michael, but not fatally, & would be much the wiser around him in future. Eve’s faith in Eli wasn’t fatalistic, but decisive, & we can assume that it was rewarded, after all, in spite of Michael.
So, you have to be a bit of a salesman, like Salmoneus, to sell a hero, & that’s one of the reasons I felt he’d be a perfect guest star on an Eve-centric ep!
Literally speaking, Eve is the redeemed spirit of Callisto, reborn by choice as #Xena’s child. Reincarnation is part of the Elijian cosmos on this show (as it was among some early Christians). That said, there’s an interesting line that gets overlooked in that ep, “Seeds of Faith,” in which #Xena, who doesn’t trust Callisto’s new perspective, dares her to get off her angelic high horse & try living in the real world again. I wonder if this put the idea in Callisto’s head to accept this challenge, deciding to be reborn as her child?
If so, this casual taunt of #Xena’s sets in motion some amazing events for the rest of the series, not to mention, endanger Callisto’s salvation when, as Eve, she gets separated from her mother & reverts to her warlord ways. This also leads to some interesting layers in Xena’s & her child’s relationship, as adults. Though they don’t know each other, after 25 years separation, still, there’s the unusual bond between Xena & Callisto that surely must exist. In a sense. Xena is the mother of 2 people: Callisto & Eve; quite a burden.
This is the final shape of Eve’s origin, but it took a while for the writers to arrive at this, given that the show changed hands during this period between its temporary show runners, & the return of R.J. Stewart from running the spin-offs. Preliminary plans were made, perhaps from Rob Tapert’s notes, I’m guessing, for Eve’s birth, the Twilight of the Gods, & finally, the 6th & last season. Some of these were kept, but a fair amount of Eve’s story was dramatically revamped.
Originally, Eve as Livia was intended to continue on through to the end of the show. She would pursue Xena & Gabrielle as Caesar’s queen, while the heroes fled Greece much like they did in season 5 from the gods, under different names. A final confrontation in the series finale would end with Livia realizing who she was, and Caesar beginning the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. I’m glad they didn’t do this. It’s the equivalent of Gabrielle’s descent into madness in The Play’s the Thing, turning a show about peace into a bloodthirsty crowdpleaser, destroying the message in the process.
Rob wanted Livia to last only 2 eps, ending season 5 with Eve’s return, so a different idea was proposed: Livia corrupts Caesar & tries to get Ares to build a siege engine that shoots firebolts (which sounds to me very much like Ares’ unsuccessful 1st appearance on #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys ).
It also reinforces an unsavory idea (to me, at least), by blaming Livia’s evil on her innate evil qualities inherited from Callisto’s spirit. The writers saw it as Callisto’s karma she had to work off, but that doesn’t make sense to me: would an angel carry bad karma? Of course, in the dvd commentary, both Rob Tapert & R.J. Stewart suggested this was so, but this is a rare moment when I think the writers got it wrong. I think Adrienne Wilkinson got it right when she attributed it to Livia’s upbringing.
It’s the most logical conclusion, & no surprise, since she would have to make logical sense of the role with her performance. This is also how I interpret Livia’s downfall, & I’ll talk more about this next week, when I discuss the Elijian philosophy.
These are story details, but the overall arcs also help shape Eve’s origins. There’s the Child of Destiny, i.e., the Rosemary’s Baby motif, that culminates in Eve’s story, but there’s also the series-long teasing of the coming of the One God to replace the Olympians that is fulfilled with Eve’s character. But there is another motif as well: the Dionysus motif, which is strongly associated with Xena, but finds full expression with Eve, as she most resembles, more than anyone, the character of Dionysus in The Bacchae: the stranger who brings the new disruptive faith to town, & leads to the undoing of those who refuse it.
There are hints that Eve fits this pattern in her names, as well. It was Chris Manheim who originally gave her the name Livia, taking it from the BBC series, “I, Claudius,” & the matriarchal figure from The Sopranos. But I notice she was referred to as Lydia in one of the early drafts, making me think this was a placeholder name, which I believe was taken from The Bacchae: Dionysus declares he has arrived from his home, Lydia.
Eve’s name has several roots, I believe. Paradise Lost was one of the sources that was required reading at this stage of the show, featuring Adam & Eve at the center of a war between Heaven & Hell. Another, I’m certain, was Aristophanes’ comedy, The Women’s Festival, which refers to Dionysus by his other names: Evius, Evivus, & Evoe. I believe The Women’s Festival was used as a source for a number of Xena episodes, including Kindred Spirits, which is where Xena took baby Eve to protect her from the gods. But there’s one more major factor to Eve’s origins I believe we should look at.
Over at Hercules, as Xena was airing Adventures in the Sin Trade, in which Xena is separated from Gabrielle by death, there is a similar, but longer arc on Hercules, in which Herc is also separated from his friend Iolaus. That arc is much longer, & explores that idea much more fully (due to Herc having more flexibility in its format: Xena fans would not tolerate Gabrielle being out for an entire season).
At one point, Hercules goes to Ireland, where he meets a group of druids who are very similar to Elijians: they’re a new religion, threatening to the old gods’ order. They send an assassin, Morrigan, to eliminate the druids, but she quickly discovers that when she kills the Druid of Justice, she must take his place. It’s a role that’s completely opposite to who she is, & the very idea of it makes her ill. Hercules is the mediator, the one who provides exposition by asking the druids how this all works, then talking to Morrigan in her now-weakened state, since she can no longer drink the blood that sustains her.
This is a full season before Eve’s story, but it’s very similar; in fact, it gives us a few more story beats to Eve’s story, should we want to extend it, & that’s what I’ve done in this project, using this idea of Morrigan trying to adjust to this new life of justice & peace, feeling very unsuited to it all, but finding her motivation in the end.
I think this beat is missing in Eve’s story, & can help provide background should we wish to expand on her story further. There’s one more building block to consider, & that’s the biblical source of her story. When Motherhood originally aired, it was immediately recognized that Eve’s story matched St. Paul’s story, in the New Testament Book of Acts. His conversion from persecutor of Christians to their greatest champion is clearly a model for Eve.
I will address this more next week, but I believe she is not just modeled on a generic idea of Paul, but on a very specific literary depiction of Paul that will shed light on her & the Elijians. Understanding these sources was key to how I approached this project, as well.
Last November, at the 2022 Salute to Xena in Los Angeles, Adrienne Wilkinson asked the crowd which version of her character, Xena’s daughter, they preferred? Was it Livia, Commander of the Roman Army & the Bitch of Rome? Nearly all stood up & cheered.
Or,
Was it Eve, her redeemed, pacifist counterpart, disciple of the prophet Eli? About half a dozen folks stood & cheered. I was one of them! Just 2 days prior, I had finished writing the 1st draft for this webcomic, but I was neither surprised nor disappointed.
I’d been in the fandom for decades, & knew that folks preferred Livia’s entertaining villainy, her cruel snark, explosive action scenes, not to mention, love scenes with the handsome god of war, Ares. And Eve? No romance, no action, no humor (except at her expense), & only the purest feelings of love for mankind. Surely her character was unsustainable? After all, Gabrielle began in a similar way: determined to follow the path of peace & love, until she was betrayed, taken advantage of, then followed Xena’s path as a warrior.
That’s usually how these arcs work out on tv shows. Peace & love is synonymous with naïveté; eventually, such a character learns that the only practical answer to violence is more violence, hopefully as little as possible. So I was very surprised that Eve stuck to her path.
She had one moment of weakness, in season 6, & a tongue-in-cheek moment later on, but the powers that be kept her true to path. I was really surprised by that, when it 1st aired. There was almost something transgressive about it. Some folks even thought producer Rob Tapert was trying to sneak a Christian message into the story (he was actually very concerned not to cross that line). I thought that was a very gutsy move, featuring a pacifist on a show that relied on action for its appeal.
Eventually, as I learned more about pacifism, I realized it’s not as strange as I 1st thought. I’ll talk more about that this week & next, but let’s get back to that half dozen of fans vs. 100s at the convention. If that ratio holds up in the fandom in general, then most folks reading this must wonder what appeals to us about Eve? My goal with this project is to fully communicate that appeal. But maybe I can give some idea of that now. There’s an old story about a man who has to choose between 2 doors. Behind one is a tiger. Behind another, is a lady. Choose the tiger, he’s dead. But choose the lady, & he must marry her. He asks his lover, a princess, who knows the answer, to tell him which door to pick. Whichever one she picks, she’ll lose him. So what does she tell him? We have to guess, & the answer tells us something about ourselves.
As I see it, Livia is the tiger, Eve the lady. Which do you choose? Pick the tiger, & the story is over quickly. Pick the lady, & you must endure seeing a character you love living another life. But, of course, that life is long, & full of interesting twists & turns, who knows what’s in store for you both? The lady offers a future; the tiger does not. But I would say you don’t have to choose, because in this case, the lady & the tiger are one & the same! There is only 1 character. Livia never goes away, & I believe Eve was never entirely absent either.
This is true on the show, as well. Ask Lucifer or Caligula if Livia’s spirit is gone for good. And ask Livia herself, who believed her own heart was a traitor. The best part of this project was writing for her character through the eyes of both, & the possibilities seem endless. Livia is much easier to write for, because she sticks to the script. There’s no limits to what she’ll do for you. She’ll kill anyone you want, betray anyone you like. But Eve doesn’t: she’ll befriend the opponents you write for her, mess with the allies you send to her aid, knock down any walls & break through any doors you set in her path. Try to contain her, & she’ll become bored & listless, until you see things her way. Trust me, it’s better to just let her figure things out herself. It’s awesome, in fact!
This week I’ll look at what shaped Livia/Eve’s creation, issues in writing for her character, challenges in expanding her character while matching the show’s arc. I’ll conclude with the music video that inspired me while writing for her.
In season 3 of #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys , we meet up with Salmoneus again. This time he’s king’s bookkeeper, & we can see his logbooks & abacus nearby. Decades later, he will need his own bookkeeper for his Known World Enterprises, a role that his daughter takes on for him. In “Men in Pink,” however, Sal can only dream of such riches.
He’s quickly caught up in one of the most classic screwball comedies of all time, an homage to “Some Like It Hot,” with the ancient world’s equivalent of Marilyn Monroe. Both Sal & Autolycus dress up as women (Autolyca & Salmonella) & hide among a dance troupe to escape a false charge of murder. Sal has gone from avoiding war on #Xena by crowning a transgender model, to the world of cross-dressing men. It’s an old theatre tradition, of course, not to mention, common in military entertainment to this day.
In fact, this dates back to the time of Ancient Greece. They join the Twanky Tulips, a dance revue headed by the imperious Widow Twanky (played by Michael Hurst). The Widow Twanky is also an old theatre tradition, dating back to the last days of the Commedia del Arte in Britain. She was originally in a pantomime production of the Arabian Nights, a series of Middle Eastern folk tales. The name Twanky is based on a Chinese slang word for tea past its prime.
The part was always played by a man in women’s clothes, & has been played by such actors as Ian McKellan. Michael starred in a production of the Arabian Nights, & created his version of the role, & for Hercules, turned her into a formidable lady who specialized in dance. In this ep, she even uses dance moves to fight with! This ep makes good use of the pantomime tradition of cross-dressing players, with all the leads doing so. It’s the only time we see actor Robert Trebor without his signature Salmoneus facial hair, even after he returns to his old outfit.
Salmonella in pink
This ep ends with the Widow revealing that she knew all along the 2 fellas were in disguise, & fully approved of them doing so. After all, a man can learn a lot by spending some time in a woman’s shoes! The Widow returns for another ep, Greece is Burning, based on the 1990
Sal, Autolycus & the Widow Twanky
documentary Paris Is Burning, about the NY drag scene. I did not use the Widow Twanky in my upcoming story, but was greatly inspired by her to draw upon the pantomime tradition & the Commedia del’Arte, which finds its roots in the ancient world, so I depict what I believe are its earliest known practitioners. In particular, the idea of blending dancing & fighting styles is especially fascinating to me, & important to this project. Michael Hurst is a classically trained actor familiar with the pantomime & Ancient Greek plays, & is another reason why Renaissance Pictures is so well-named. Tomorrow, let’s talk about Eve!
Going out with a song on #PrideMonth , Salmoneus awards Miss Artiphys the title of Miss Known World, played by transgender actress Karen Dior (this was Sal’s last #Xena ep, & the only ep in which he sings). In real life, Karen was also an AIDS activist with a PhD in philosophy of religion, & an ordained minister, so it was only natural she would inspire a character in my story, a multi-faith Elijian with the Council of Elders.
Gabrielle’s “A Message of Peace” gets a little jiggle from 3 wood nymphs
Something I had to keep in mind about canon for my project is that I had 3 different kinds to juggle. Although my story is a #Xena episode, it actually draws upon 3 of the “RenPic Cinematic Universe” shows: Xena, #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys , & #YoungHercules.
In my view, the 3 comprise one complete story, but they approach it in 3 different ways. In a Xena ep, Xena is the source: she caused the problem, she solves it, & along the way, she’s the source of all important info about it. Even when she has no way of knowing the info, she delivers it to us. The result is a highly unified story, which makes it the most sophisticated of the 3 shows. It’s like the “Oedipus Rex” of Greek tragedies: the perfect illustration of a hero that encapsulates all the story’s choices & destinies in one.
Even when Xena isn’t present, she’s the subject of the ep. Hercules is very different: the hero is more of a mediator, a peacemaker, & we see more of the world beyond him, because he’s just one aspect of it. When he’s not in an ep, life goes on.
In a way, he’s actually a good model for Eve the Messenger, & in fact, next week I’ll talk about how Eve’s roots may actually be on Hercules. Young Hercules is more limited in scope. It’s set in ancient Greece’s equivalent of a high school, a military academy, complete with “malt shop,” actually, an unusually cheery, sunlit tavern nearby, frequented by the younger crowd. Most of the stories focus on learning how to take on responsibility, & retaining one’s values as they face a morally complex world.
One of the leads has to take over his father’s kingdom at an early age, & it’s clearly not an envious task to wear the crown. There’s virtually no romance at all. There’s a female student, an Amazon, but she’s just one of the guys. Is a serious look at becoming an adult.
Despite that, Young Hercules has a lot of fun with concepts that appear in Xena & Hercules, & I found it a good source of how RenPic did world building in their version of Ancient Greece. I also found it inspiring when trying to imagine how Livia spent her younger years, since this would’ve been similar to her environment, I believe. Not to mention, the Elijian youth movement, who would be similar in spirit to YH’s cast.
Later in Hercules, they revisit the academy of his youth, to find it’s become a very different place, expanded in scope & much more ruthless & corrupt. This is more how I imagine Livia’s upbringing, & given the timing of its appearance on Hercules, it would’ve coincided with the Xena staff’s preplanning for her arc. So all 3 shows were helpful to me in expanding Eve/Livia’s character & world in a way that feels authentic to me.
Why not just stick with Xena’s world? Because of the highly centralized nature of its stories, there isn’t much breathing room for a third main character, & it’s hard to conceive how that would work. As it is, I think the writers pushed it as far as they could go with her; any further, & the show could’ve felt unbalanced. I’ll talk more next week about the challenges of her character, & I’m impressed they got as far as they did.
I’ll talk more about canon as I go through the project, but one more word for now. The Rosetta Stone of Xena canon, imo, is a show that ran concurrently during its 1st season: American Gothic. It’s completely unrelated, but because it ran 1 season, the gothic concepts it introduced were picked up by Xena. The most important one, for my purposes, is the Rosemary’s Baby-inspired arc. The Child of Destiny motif is big in Xena, throughout its run, & finds it biggest expression in Eve herself. This was something I kept in mind for this story:
She’s not merely a personality, but has real thematic momentum behind her, & that impacted how I expanded on her backstory. I’ll close with another video that inspired the look of this project. There’s a lot of dance-related videos I looked at, & this one helps connect several storylines.
The opening dance sequence in the musical Hair shows tai-chi-inspired dance in NY’s Central Park, as witnessed by a recruit bound for Vietnam. Here it illustrates their freedom and uninhibitedness, & it inspired how I portrayed the Elijian youth, but strangely enough, it also inspired how I imagined teen Livia danced. Her military discipline would’ve drawn on the same movements, in a very different context. To me this illustrates the idea of synchronicity: how lives & events seemingly headed for tragic collision can suddenly find themselves aligned, as if by the planets & stars themselves.
One of the things that gets tricky about canon in #Xena are the comedy episodes. They seem to challenge the idea that there’s any consistency. Should we consider them part of #Xena’s actual story? I’ve heard some argue that anything that couldn’t literally be in Gabrielle’s scrolls shouldn’t be canon. Sorry, Soul Possession! Then there’s one of my favorite eps, You Are There, that couldn’t possibly exist anywhere, seemingly. But I consider these all canon. There was a translation of Sophocles’s only surviving comedy,
“The Trackers”, a story about Apollo fighting with the satyrs over Hermes’ new invention, the lyre. Since only half the play survived, Harrison filled in the rest about the team that discovers the fragment, & sets free the characters in the story. Chaos ensues!
There’s a number of reasons why I believe this was a source for #Xena (Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire, etc.), but I’m also interested in the “uber” quality of this translation. It shows how the past is present, & the classic themes are eternal. More to the point, it tells me that the show’s canon isn’t just about plot or character, but it’s about how it’s all presented: the aesthetic, or style, is as important as the story itself. It also tells me that we can’t really understand the past without a good sense of humor to put it in perspective. It’s good to have a healthy appreciation for the ridiculous (a life lesson that took me a while to learn).
So, with that in mind, what about You Are There? Perhaps that was also a translation, using a fragment of Gabrielle’s scroll, & the only way to knit those scenes together was comedically? Nothing really happens that isn’t true to character, after all. Not even Eve’s scenes, which I don’t think would actually have played like that, but I can definitely picture her doing things like that: there was some real overturning-the-tables-in-the-temple energy there! The scene implying the Elijians are repressed sexually, indulging in disguised role-play, is something that may be embellished, based on perceptions about the cult, but I lay the groundwork for that in my story, with one particular sect that practices celibacy while waiting for Eli’s return.
The idea of a musical ep finds fertile ground in the Greek plays, because they were the original musicals in Western theatre tradition. Opera was invented in the Renaissance as a way of recreating how they might have looked. It’s fascinating that #Xena almost had a 3rd musical, featuring Sappho: that unproduced script also uses celibacy as a plot point. It went through many incarnations (at one point, spawning Lyre, Lyre), but never happened.
Apparently that musical never left Rob Tapert’s mind. In 2017, he produced Pleasuredome in New Zealand, starring Lucy, directed by Michael Hurst, which used that idea, set to 80s music this time (the original script used 70s disco, I believe).
It just goes to show if you hang in there, things can eventually fall into place! I’ll finish up my thoughts on canon tomorrow, then move on to at look at how I view Eve’s character, possible origins & development.
Joxer, the Hanged Man of the Tarot, can’t shake his image, in The Play’s the Thing
An important part of canon in Xena, Hercules, & Young Hercules is the use of Greek myth, cinema, & world religions as part of its aesthetic structure. In a show that uses a lot of references, you can imagine how elaborate it gets as they intertwine over seasons.
These days, there’s an additional concern, that of cultural appropriation. Using references to religions & cultures in the name of entertainment are considered insensitive by some, depending on how they’re used. The audience is global, these days.
The nice thing about Xena et al is that they were designed for global audiences already, so imo past the test a great deal of the time. Not everyone agrees, but I think there’s some misinterpretation at work in those cases. Some things I’ve heard criticized recently:
Depicting Indians as primitive for the practice of suttee in Between the Lines (i.e., burning the surviving widow with the deceased husband, as his “property”). The alleged stereotypes in “The Way” commonly found in Hollywood films about the Arabian Nights.
& I’ve heard it said that the Horde in The Price is a racist depiction of aboriginal people of color. I see these in a different context. “The Way” looks to me like an homage to Bollywood, & that’s how many Indian viewers interpreted it.
I’m a big Bollywood fan, & that’s how it looks to me as well. Those films often play with the depictions of the Indian gods, just as the West gets creative with its own depiction of Christianity, & the dividing line between homage & pure entertainment is often blurry.
The practice of suttee, sacrificing the widow, was indeed an ancient practice in India, but it was also an ancient practice among the Vikings and the Greeks. Euripides even included it in one of his plays about the Trojan War. So why does Xena single out India? It doesn’t!
In season 2’s Blind Faith, we see Gabrielle wedded to a dead man (Greek), & nearly burnt with her deceased husband, 2 full seasons before “Between the Lines.” Re: the Horde in The Price. Its racial makeup is actually no different than the Athenian soldiers who fight them.
But what most interests me is that we eventually learn that the Horde lives underground, & in caves. This, along with suttee, I believe is a cinematic reference to the film The 13th Warrior. Based on a true story, but fictionalized by Michael Crichton, this film is a known source for some of the writers of Xena & Hercules. It’s the story of a Persian diplomat who travels to the land of the Vikings (the true part) & encounters a prehistoric race of matriarchal warriors that survived into the modern era (the fiction part).
It’s a fun movie, & there’s numerous episodes that play on its plot points in Xena & Hercules. The prehistoric tribe lives underground, in caves, like the Horde, & are unintelligible. Actually, the Vikings are unintelligible to the diplomat, who learns their language simply by watching them. This connection between primordial humans & ability to speak occurs throughout both series. Its last appearance, I believe, is in season 6’s The Abyss. Why do they use The 13th Warrior in this way? That’s a matter of interpretation, & you don’t need to ponder the connection in any way, unless you’re wondering why all these things are popping up. If you assume they’re problematic associations, you may miss the larger pattern. Myself, I think it has to do with Rob Tapert’s wish to illustrate how religion develops & spreads. This is the reason given on one of the dvds, & it makes sense to me. Religion was extremely fluid in the ancient world, & not governed by national boundaries (which didn’t really exist as we know them). This is what fascinates me about Eve’s story, as it takes this idea of the growth of religion & extends it into an era that’s more familiar to us in the West: the time After Christ (A.D.). You can probably guess this would also be extremely problematic to explore, & that’s a major concern of mine as well, for this project.
Hinduism also exists in our era, but it’s unavoidable for #Xena: she is openly & conceptually tied to Hinduism, & the show stays true to that to the end, rather than just borrow the images. I’ll explore the issues of depicting Eve’s religion in the next 2 wks.
