I want to go back to this fascinating moment in season 6 of #Xena, at the end of “ The God You Know.” Eve & Dite are sharing a friendly moment despite Eve being the harbinger of the end of the many gods. Of course, Aphrodite is not actually a god at this point:

Caligula had drained her of her immortality. But Eve herself was never a champion against them, just the  object of their paranoia, & the catalyst for their self-inflicted downfall at #Xena’s hands. 

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that Dite has a future despite the coming of the one god of Eli. I felt strongly about this, & set  this up this concept in my story, but is there any actual truth to this? Did the show’s powers-that-be feel the same way? After all, the original plan for the Twilight of the Gods storyline involved killing off Dite, with only Ares surviving. It makes sense, after all: with Eve & Eli’s God of Love arriving on the scene, having another love god(dess) around seems redundant. Thank goodness Rob & R.J. overruled this when they returned from managing their spinoffs to rectify this.

Why did they do this? As explained in You Are There, set right after Eve & Dite’s scene, we’re told it’s necessary to have both Dite & Ares  to achieve balance in the world. So the God of Love is therefore not sufficient to balance out Ares. Why not? Because I suspect the God of Love represents a different kind of love, a more selfless & non-transactional kind of love. Dite’s love is more incarnate, & in a way, she kind of balances out the selflessness that the God of Love inspires by adding a necessary amount of desire that physicality demands 

if the species is to function properly. This desire could range from pure carnal lust all the way to the energizing feeling of being in a crowd, & this can actually help supplement the spiritual love that Eli preached about. Without it, we might feel an intellectual compassion for each other, but feel irritated & even repulsed by other’s’ unnecessary proximity.

Is there anything in the show itself to indicate that this is how the writers saw it, though? I believe there is. In You Are There, we see a world without physical love, now that Dite is mortal.

People quickly lose their tempers with each other, & visit brothels to pay for what they can’t naturally feel. But the Elijians should be immune from this, since their god of love is doing just fine, right?

Wrong! 

Eve & her prayer circle are fully concentrating on their meditation, but clearly can’t hold onto their feelings of love. Eve quickly loses her temper with a journalist, & her followers grimly crowd around him. They haven’t forgotten Eli’s teachings, they just aren’t feeling it!

After Dite gets her powers back, however, it’s a different story. Eve’s prayer circle appear as friendly guests on his tabloid show, & offer a very physical & downright carnal peace offering. They’re a bit off-balance, in other words, as their commitment to Eli’s spiritual love is suddenly flooded with an unexpected rush of physical desire. 

I’m guessing they all felt a bit silly afterwards about their lack of self-control, but given how everyone else was knocked off-kilter without Dite’s moderating influence, the Elijians handled themselves pretty well, I think. I suspect the future of the Elijians involves a lot of negotiating between the powers of the GOL & Dite, with varying degrees of success.

They’re only human, after all.

There’s no one size-fits-all influence on #Xena, & a lot of them overlap, but The Last Temptation of Christ is one of the big ones, imo. It’s there from the very beginning of Xena’s adventure, & its presence is felt to the end. This should come as no surprise:

We know from the dvd commentary that religious history played a big role in shaping #Xena’s story, so it makes sense that landmark films like Last Temptation would be a factor. According to George Strayton, who helped craft season 5’s arc, & wrote Seeds of Faith, Rob Tapert gave him a copy of the book to incorporate into the story. It’s safe to assume R.J. Stewart got a copy at the beginning, as well, & it came in handy in season 6, no doubt. We see it in specific ways, but also as a general influence. 

The whole idea of what life would be like for #Xena had she chosen a different path is there from season 1 to season 6’s When Fates Collide. The repeated motif of her crucifixion fits the story’s pattern, as well. I loved the movie, & I’ve read the book several times.  Its author, Nikos Kazantzakis, also wrote Zorba the Greek (the film starred Anthony Quinn, who also played Zeus in Tapert’s original 5 Hercules movies. Last Temptation, book & movie, has attracted a lot of controversy, but the author didn’t intend that. He wrote it as a devout Christian wishing to understand the choices Christ made in his time on earth. It’s a meditation on how to regard God’s creation, the world we live in, & the transcendent divine, which lies beyond it. 

He depicts Christ as being torn between the two, trying to envision his destiny in Heaven while blinded by the beauty & ugliness this world. Growing up, he feels the shame & sparseness of not knowing his true purpose, & once he glimpses it, finds the world all too beautiful, soon to be left behind.

To me, #Xena is about the struggle to realize your true self, & that’s the theme of this book. It’s a big part of Eve’s story, for me, since she has a very similar quandary, being torn between 2 very different roles & personalities. One of my favorite moments in book & movie is after Christ is baptized, & the fiery John the Baptist, who preaches the wrath of God, exhorts him to be a cleansing fire in the world. “But isn’t love enough?” Christ asks. “No,” John replies. “The tree is rotten. Take the ax & strike!” Christ, who represents a new way, can’t.

He says “If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I’m a heart. I love!” We can hear this in #Xena, when Callisto visits Eli in Seeds of Faith, when he has his Gethsemane moment of doubt. She tells him: “The order of the gods must fall and you, Eli, are the hammer.” The most notorious section of the book is the final 3 chapters, when Christ, on the cross, considers the devil’s suggestion that he doesn’t have to go through with crucifixion to the end. It’s also significant for #Xena as well.

Just before this scene, Simon picks up the cross when Christ stumbles, & carries it for him. Simon is a tavern owner, & is known as the Cyrene. In #Xena’s pilot ep, Xena faces judgment when she visits her mother, Cyrene, a tavern owner. At this same moment in the book, as Simon carries his cross, Christ sees a vision of his mother, filled with lifelong anguish for her son’s inability to find his place, & addresses her: “All my life I toiled to turn the Curse into a blessing. I’ve done it, & we are friends now. Farewell, Mother!” This is analogous to #Xena’s relationship to her mother in the pilot, willing to be pelted with rocks if that would satisfy her judgment against her. Another key moment is just after this, when Christ utters the famous phrase: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The book uses the Aramaic translation, & only the 1st several words, before the chapter ends, & Christ’s alternate life as a mortal begins. He says “Eli…Eli…!”

Originally, the character of Eli was supposed to be named Issa, after a pop theory that Christ went to India where he was known by that name. Rob Tapert realized that was too on the nose, & would create controversy, so he changed the name to Eli, & I’m certain it’s because of this passage. Right afterwards, Christ steps down from the cross, after being greeted by a kindly angel. In reality, he is Lucifer, & the only sign that something is off is that his wings are the color of green grass. During all 3 chapters of Christ’s alt-dream, there is this eerie presence of green. Sort of like The Matrix, how it seems to signify a deceptive reality.

(I wouldn’t be surprise if The Matrix drew this concept from the same book). For the purposes of my story, there’s a very interesting passage having to do with St. Paul. Mary Magdalene marries Jesus, & confronts Saul, the Pharisee. Because there are no Christians in this alt-reality, Saul follows his bloodthirsty ambitions, until he becomes as ruthless as Livia! He’s on a mission to kill Jesus, but Mary tells him: “I was just thinking what miracles you would perform if God suddenly flashed within you & you saw the truth! To conquer the world, my beloved needs disciples like you—not fishermen, peddlers & shepherds, but flames like yourself, Saul!” Saul says: “With love? I too want to conquer the world! In the meantime, I find relief by killing others!” Later, as an older man, Jesus confronts Saul, now self-named Paul, preaching the word of the crucified Christ. Jesus calls him a liar, but Paul laughs in his face: ‘I shall become your apostle whether you like it or not!” This version of Paul is more like John the Baptist: Love is a cleansing fire, filled with judgment.

Jesus realizes the unique nature of his message, & how he was not merely an empty vessel for God’s word, but had specifically shaped it with his gentle heart. It was to be his unique gift to the world, now denied its influence. It’s clear in the context of #Xena that Livia’s conversion by Eli was very similar to Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. But seeing this specific depiction of Paul, we see that Livia is very much an alternate reality version of him. As Eli’s word is spread, we see the presence of the color green.

And just as Lucifer had green wings in Last Temptation, so does he on #Xena. So does Michael & Raphael! Are they deceivers as well? Hmm, maybe there’s just more to them than we can see, but I feel the green color of the Elijians signifies, if nothing else, that we are seeing an alternate version of Christianity, one tailor-made to the themes of #Xena. Tomorrow, I’ll talk more about the real Paul, also a very interesting fellow.

Let’s talk some more about #Salmoneus, who’s quite entertaining, but a really interesting character, the closer you look. His character is often associated with blindness, or lack of insight, his own, or other folks. In Eye of the Beholder, he stands with a cyclops who’s discriminated against because of his height. A contrast is made with the single-eye cyclops & the blindness of the country folk who can’t see past his appearance. In The Gauntlet, he sees the potential goodness of #Xena before anybody else. He tells #Hercules: “She’s not as evil as you think she is. She’s got some heart!” Hercules is skeptical: “You’re serious?” Later, Sal tells #Xena she should be teaming up with Hercules against their common foe. BTW, Sal even tells us #Xena’s scent, in Unchained Heart: “Hyacinth & cinnamon”.

So his nose is perceptive, too! He does a number of eps related to blindness. In season 3’s Lost City, he’s blinded by a type of lotus leaf, & the same is true in All That Glitters. That saying, about gold, is also about not judging the worth of something by its appearance.

I used All That Glitters as an important source for my story, because I believe he meets his future wife on this show. Sal, a former toga salesman, shows off his latest custom-made toga in gaudy colors, & Herc responds: “Are you color-blind?”

Sal & Herc visit King Midas to see his new gambling casino, The Golden Touch. It turns out, the king lost his golden touch, & works as a greeter. He lost control of his kingdom to a couple of venture capitalist sharks, & now they’re running it into the ground, with predatory lenders & gambling destroying its economy. At 1^st, Sal is blinded by gold: he’s impressed they’re making money hand over fist, however unethical. The casino’s predatory queen, Voluptua (played with relish by Jennifer Ward-Lealand) catches Sal’s eye  with her dress & business sense: “What I could do with a partner like her!” Later, Sal is approached by Hispides, a bearded lady. If you’re wondering what the deal with that is, the casino has a distinct circus atmosphere, with flame throwers, trapeze artists, etc.

I suspect the reason has to do with an apocryphal phrase attributed to P.T. Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Barnum introduced the bearded lady at his circuses, & they were mostly the real thing. Bearded ladies have a genetic trait that is distinct from intersex or transgender people. Hispides has a mustache & a beard, & approaches Sal with what sounds like a pick-up line: “I like your toga.” Given the established fact of his toga’s garishness, Sal definitely interprets this as a come-on, & focuses on his dice.

She tries to approach Sal several times, after removing some of her facial hair, but he’s brushes her off each time. The action comes to a head when Hercules desperately needs a knife to cut the rope trapping King Midas & his daughter. Sal tries to find one.

Turns out, Hispides has a knife, presumably the one she’s been shaving with. Now coyly filing her nails with it, she agrees to sell it to Sal for a fair price. Sal agrees, & Herc is able to save the day. The kingdom gets its native economy restored, & the casino is shut down to be sold for parts. Hispides now corners Sal once & for all, her face totally shaven. Sal is stunned with her fetching appearance (in his eyes). “Oh, you like it?” she asks. She quickly shifts the topic to what she’s been trying to talk to him about.

She wants his help to buy the casino parts cheap, & resell them at a marked up price. Suddenly, she’s even more beautiful to Sal, & they fall deep into discussion, as Sal begins to see the benefits of delayed gratification as an economic principal.

My guess is that Hispides’ whole agenda throughout the ep was to size up the casino as a potential opportunity. She probably realized it was an unsustainable business model, & posed as the bearded lady so she could get an inside look. She spotted Sal, game recognized game, & it was business at 1^st sight! For her, at least. She was willing to blow her cover to get his attention, & saw through his silliness & found something more substantial. I don’t think it was necessarily love at 1^st sight, since Sal would go on for several more seasons as a satyr on the make. But in my alt-universe, she & Sal hook up again in the middle of season 6 of #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys with an arc of their own, as they attempt one business venture after another, each crazier than the last, until they find their pot of gold, metaphorically speaking, that is, culminating in a clip-show wedding ep of legendary proportions.

I like them as a couple because she’s well-suited for him, & is equally attractive to his non-satyr side, & I believe she’ll strengthen that quality over time. Plus she’s the type of gal that he’s qualified to actually make her dreams come true: he’s the salesman that can bring her schemes to life.

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.

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 1^st 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 1^st 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 1^st 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.

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 13^th 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 13^th 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.

Writing according to canon for a show like Xena is a toughie, because it seems so chaotic. I’ve spent a lot of time compiling what I think makes up the show’s aesthetic canon, based on my watching the show, reading interviews, and researching the source materials.

A fair amount is guesswork on my part, but it was important to me that I have a grasp of things that couldn’t be figured out just from observing the show. Why did they repeat certain types of motifs throughout the series? 

Why did they avoid using quite obvious stories from Classical Greek lit that would seem to fit the show like a glove? Such as the Trojan War? The depiction of Troy in #Xena & Herc are very non-intuitive, & seem totally unrelated. Why does the show look the way it does?

There’s no Greek architecture, for example. Every other kind, but instead of Greece, they depict a kind of gothic realm. Some say it’s a cost-cutting measure, but that doesn’t make sense. Greek buildings are highly modular. You can save a lot of money reusing those columns.

Ridley Scott did, in Gladiator, when he created the sets for the imperial palace & the Roman Senate with just a few pillars & curtains, moved around. In fact, RenPic did save a lot of money, by shooting a lot of scenes in forests & parks.

But they seem to have spent a lot of time creating an alternate Greece. So it was definitely an aesthetic choice to build things in such a distinctive & unique way. Others say they just didn’t know any better, but clearly, they did.

RenPic went on to make Spartacus, full of period detail. As I present this project, I’ll explain why I made the choices I did, based on what I believe to be the aesthetic logic of the show.

This is Salmoneus’s last scene on Hercules the Legendary Journeys: “ Genies & Grecians & Geeks, Oh My!” ( Note the Wizard of Oz reference!). Sal was peddling art to a sultan. He wears a beret, now that he’s in the art world. He get strapped by a genie in a magic lamp with Autolycus the thief. Sal makes a wish that harkens back to one of his earlier eps, when he goes into the self-actualization business, in The Outcast (co-starring Lucy Lawless). There, he just wants to be “the best Sal I can be”, & make money hand over fist helping people.

 Here, he wishes for self-improvement, which conjures up 3 versions of himself. In the final scene, he & Autolycus manage to escape, & as they leave, Sal says to. Autolycus: “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship!” They each consider the implications of that, grimace, then slip away in opposite directions. This aired Oct 1998, & the final Herc ep ever aired a year later. During that time, it was joked on the show that Sal was arrested for tax fraud, & that gave me the idea of having Sal return as the object of Livia’s contempt, 21 years later. Sal’s final quote is a quote from “ Casablanca”, so it’s fitting that he’s exiled to Cyprus, which on Hercules, is a stand in for both Paris (given the Aphrodite connection & the use of similar letters), & the West African city of Casablanca. 

It appeared on only one ep, “We’ll Always Have Cyprus,” (another Casablanca  homage!) in which the city looks very much like a Moroccan milieu. To me, it’s a nice closure for the character. 

In my alt history of this show, Sal’s next appearance is over a year after his last one, the first of a trilogy where he reconnects with a character he previously met, & later becomes his wife.

Next week, I’ll discuss how I view canon on #Xena & #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys

A footnote to yesterday’s post about Proteus: this god appeared on Hercules The Legendary Journeys. It’s an unusual episode because Herc admits he used to be kind of a jerk to him. There are elements of the myth  in this ep: Herc plays the role of Menelaus, wrestling with Proteus while he changes shapes. The story of Protean Challenge also concerns a father & daughter, with Iolaus standing in for Menelaus for that portion of the story. More specific to the play, the ep ends with Proteus changing into a dove. 

Is that an intentional reference to the only surviving line from Aeschylus’s lost play? The writer of this ep, Brian Herskowitz, went on to write another Herc ep, A Star Shall Guide Them, which ends with a nativity scene hinting at the birth of Christ. 

Interestingly, the feeling they all get from this baby of destiny is peace, the message Eli will deliver. This is one of numerous coy suggestions that the show is set in New Testament times, but none of them actually line up chronologically. 

For example, 8 months later, #Xena’s Christmas ep, A Solstice Carol possibly shows us Mary & Joseph looking for an inn. This teasing of the  arrival of the one God continues until the appearance of Eli & Eve.

#HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys