A Ramble About Xena

Recently, I've been indulging in an old favorite series of mine, Xena: Warrior Princess. For those who don't know the series, Xena is a spin-off from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys set in a fantasy world based on Greek Mythology. The title character Xena is a woman who was previously a terrible warlord bent on conquering everyone she could. She is converted to the good side of things by Hercules and then spends the rest of her life repentant trying to redeem herself by fighting against the forces and powers she had been previously allied with. She travels with a young woman named Gabrielle who becomes Xena's best friend and moral compass, as well as the chronicler of her story.

This particular television show is infamous both for its popularity, and its controversy surrounding the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, which throughout the series grows more and more explicitly homosexual (though I don't believe any actual “sexual” scenes were ever shot between the two women, but I haven't yet actually seen every episode). Oddly enough though, this is one of the more realistic aspects of ancient Greek culture that the show deals with.

I think it was the concept of the main character that always intrigued me. Here is a woman who is deeply contrite and almost desperate for redemption. She is constantly having her past thrown back in her face no matter how hard she tries to get away from it, and she seems to always be facing the temptation to say, “to heck with it,” and return to that past in anger. In reality, Xena was a complicated character, and Lucy Lawless played those complications believably, allowing for a good blend of both drama and comedy.

I just recently watched some of the later episodes that were intended to parallel the beginnings of Christianity, and intended to use elements from tradition “Christian” mythology. In my opinion, there are two ways to view these episodes. The first is heretical and blasphemous, and a good argument could be made for that. However, theological orthodoxy was never the intention of either the Hercules or Xena series. And to judge the story lines on that basis is both unfair and pointless. The second way however opens up the potential for some profound, Christian, truths being expressed through metaphor in a way that they rarely are to an audience that may otherwise never bother to hear them.

I found the story arc of Xena's archenemy, Calisto, to be one of the more profound ones. Calisto was a little girl when Xena's army attacked her village and burned it, killing Calisto's parents in the process. This set the little girl on a path of anger and vengeance that drove her to the edge of insanity, and then through the series shoved her off the edge as she became a worse warlord than Xena. Ultimately, Calisto is condemned to Hell as a demon. After Xena and Gabrielle are crucified by Caesar and his legions, they die and are carried to heaven by angels, though Gabrielle is captured by Calisto and her demons in order to draw Xena down to Hell. In the process of trying to rescue Gabrielle, Xena (having been made an Archangel) goes into Hell to help the other angels free her friend. Gabrielle is rescued, but Xena fights the demon Calisto. After Calisto rages at her because of the death of her parents which caused all of it, Xena, out of deep compassion and forgiveness, gives up her own place in heaven to redeem the soul of Calisto, her worst enemy, from Hell taking her place in the process. Can anyone really not see the metaphor for Christ in this?

This theme of redeeming love continues in the series with Ares, the god of war, whose character's relationship with Xena is similar to an abusive ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. When Xena gives birth to a daughter, there is a prophecy by the fates that her birth will herald the end of the Greek gods. Many years later, her daughter (having taken the warlord path her mother first took and then becoming repentant) is baptized into the “cult of Eli” (the Xena series' version of early Christianity, also persecuted by the Romans), and then like St. Paul who first persecuted Christians and then received a call from Christ, so her daughter receives a call from Eli to be his messenger.

The Greek gods try to kill the girl, first as an infant, and then later as an adult. Xena is given the power by Heaven to kill gods in response, and she becomes her daughter's protector against them, slaying them one by one as they try to kill her daughter. Finally, there are only four remaining gods after she takes the fight to Mount Olympus; Athena, Artemis, Ares, and Aphrodite. Artemis is slain with her own arrows by Xena. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, because she has attempted to help Xena and her friends is allowed to escape. Ares is engaged by Xena and is down but not killed. Xena's daughter and her friend Gabrielle are mortally wounded and dying. And then the battle comes down to Athena and Xena.

One interesting thing I learned about Ares is that, for all of his abusive behavior, he did actually care about or love Xena. And out of his love for her, in this moment when she is about to be killed by Athena, in order to save her, he gives up his immortality to restore her daughter and Gabrielle which enables Xena to end Athena. Ares, the Greek god of offensive war, sacrifices his own immortality out of love for her. In a later episode, as he is going insane she allows him to nearly drown her to use his grief to bring him back to reality. As he realizes what he's done, he dives into freezing cold water to retrieve her body (which Gabrielle is able to resuscitate). In so doing, through her act of self sacrifice, she is able to start Ares on the path to his own redemption, and possibly to him finding peace later on as a mortal farmer. There's a profound metaphor there as well.

These themes of redemption by forgiveness, love, and self-sacrifice run through this series and the teachings of Christ where He taught to love one's enemies and to forgive those who have wronged you are, in the later episodes, played out in story after story, adventure after adventure as Xena constantly puts her life, and even her eternal soul on the line for those who had been her enemies, and had hurt her and those she loves deeply until she finally sacrifices her mortal existence completely in the final episodes.

I think this, more than anything else, is why I liked Xena and still do. In these things, the character of Xena ultimate follows what Jesus taught better than most who actually profess to follow Him.