Xena Warrior Princess: The Deliverer, Gabrielle's Hope and The Debt Part I and II

Season three of Xena Warrior Princess doesn’t waste much time in kicking off the overarching plot – one that will have ramifications for the rest of the show. What’s more, they decide to shake things up a bit by moving away from Greek mythology and into… Zoroastrianism? A couple of names and concepts are borrowed, but there’s a heavy dose of early Judaism in there too, as well as Boudicca and Stonehenge. Ah, this show…

This post includes what is considered one of the best – if not the best – two-parter episode of the entire show, and so for the first time these reviews will cover four episodes instead of the usual three. TV Tropes would call this Growing The Beard, as it’s the first time audiences were asked to watch Xena as a serious drama instead of campy fun, and the quality of writing, acting and cinematography justifies that request. Yeah, I was surprised too.

The Deliverer and Gabrielle’s Hope

Plot: Xena travels to Britannia to join forces with Boudicca in the fight against Julius Caesar, while Gabrielle befriends a man called Krafstar, who tells her about a new religion and its god. She’s intrigued by his teachings, and while Xena is distracted, follows him to the temple where she saves his life by killing one of the god’s crazed followers. Krafstar reveals that this was all part of his plan, and that his god needed a sacrifice of purity and innocence to enter the world.

The following episode has Xena and Gabrielle trying to leave Britannia, only to realize that Gabrielle is pregnant – and is about to give birth within only a few days. A girl-child is born, and Gabrielle’s maternal instincts make her protective of her new daughter, though Xena isn’t convinced of the child’s innocence.

These episodes were pretty crazy, simply for the sheer amount of stuff they managed to pack into it. Let's see, we start with an introduction between Discord and Ares, move into Xena travelling to Britannia to help Boudicca, watch as Gabrielle and Krafstar get kidnapped by Julius Caesar, see Xena and the Brits trying to defeat him whilst Gabrielle kills someone for the first time and becomes forcibly impregnated by an evil demon in a temple – then we've got more Brits trying to burn Gabrielle as a witch, banshees trying to help her, the sort-of Knights of the Round Table, an evil baby that murders people, and finally a flight/pursuit that ends with Gabrielle secretly sending her baby afloat down a river.

Wow, this story definitely didn't end where it started.

In hindsight, I actually thought it was quite clever the way the episode diverts our attention away from Krafstar with the battle between Caesar and Boudicca, thus catching the viewer off-guard with the whole pregnancy angle. The fact that Ares was dancing around the subject of the new religion, first discussing it with Discord and then trying to warn Xena about a certain temple, was a neat way of foreshadowing the issue with a degree of subtlety and bringing in a sense of foreboding for those paying attention.

In fact, I loved the way Ares went about drawing Xena's attention to the whole thing by dropping Caesar into the conversation, and how it was clear by the time they discussed things on the hill that he was really very unnerved by this particular temple and its god.

Looking back on Krafstar, I think Marton Csokas did a great job of maintaining a soft, gentle, self-effacing air that understandably had Gabrielle fooled. I first saw this episode back when it first aired, so although I knew what happened to Gabrielle, I had forgotten the role Krafstar played. I was taken in by his performance this time around, believing his confusion when the cult turned on him and crying out to Gabrielle for assistance.

Looking back, it makes me wonder just how much of it was a set-up: when he called out "we will never surrender to Caesar" to the slavers, was it just a way of calling Xena's attention to his plight? How much was Meridian in on the whole con? And at which point did he decide that Gabrielle would be chosen for a blood sacrifice?

There was a lot of bait-and-switch going on as to his motives, but also regarding the religion itself. It makes sense that Ares and the others Olympians would be nervous about a monotheistic god and his new worshippers, and Krafstar's story to Gabrielle as to how he decided to forego his revenge on the warlord that killed his family obviously leads us to believe this is the introduction of Christianity to ancient Greece. (Though I wonder if Krafstar's story was in any way true, or just a lie to lure Gabrielle in).

So it was a great twist, one based on the fact that Ares would be just as worried about a demonic god as he would a pacifist one, and that Krafstar’s narrative of peace and forgiveness was especially designed to appeal to Gabrielle, all to suggest we’re dealing with Christianity before everything goes full fire-and-brimstone.

Though one thing did bug me a little – surely Meridian's death would have been more powerful if she had established a friendship with Gabrielle alongside Krafstar. As it stands, Gabrielle barely knew Meridian, and only killed her in defence of Krafstar. It wasn't what I would call "murder" by any means, and it feels a bit harsh that Gabrielle losing her blood innocence was a "crime" enough to get impregnated by an evil demon.

I could kind of see the logic they were going for, and the play on words that a "blood sacrifice" wasn't actually the death of a person but the loss of innocence... but the whole thing kind of reminds me of Snow White's dilemma over on Once Upon a Time, where her heart is apparently corrupted because she... helped kill a woman who was threatening her entire family. Maybe it's just me, but I don't constitute pre-emptive self-defense as "murder", especially not when it looked purely reactive on Gabrielle's part. Perhaps that scene should have been tweaked a bit more in order to make Gabrielle visibly making a choice to kill Meridian, and doing so out of anger or a sense of betrayal. Then maybe I could get behind the idea that she's lost her innocence.

But at least I liked the emotional baggage that went with it all, namely that (as was pointed out a couple of times) it was Xena's hatred of Caesar that took Gabrielle to Britannia in the first place, and that she couldn't quite believe that Gabrielle had taken a life (as she often likes to put her up on a pedestal). That was nice characterization on both accounts.

Though again, I'm a little torn on the idea that Xena's hate is to blame for Gabrielle's pregnancy. On the one hand, sure – Gabrielle wouldn't have been put in that position if not for Xena. On the other, Xena also went out of a genuine desire to help Boudicca and make amends, and Gabrielle is a grown woman who followed her of her own free will. So… not sure about that one, though I don't think there's meant to be a definitive answer. The story just throws the moral implications into the ether and lets the audience decide.

In the face of all this, Boudicca and Caesar were somewhat forgotten. I liked the casting for Boudicca (though her chariot entrance was a bit silly) and her leadership qualities, but felt that the backstory with Xena was a little unnecessary. Caesar was also good: as charismatic and threatening as always, only for the whole subplot to just disappear when Xena went to the temple. I mean, we didn't even get a line of dialogue in the next episode to resolve what happened to them! Even knowing how it panned out historically, a little closure would have been nice.

Oh, and I almost missed that the temple became Stonehenge at the end.

***

The question that arises from the next episode is: was Xena right to want to kill Hope? Was Gabrielle wrong to protect her? They’re difficult questions to answer, as on the one hand: we the audience knows that Xena is right. Hope is a demonic baby, and a lot of lives would have been saved in the future if she was disposed of quickly.

On the other hand, the whole “would you kill a baby that will grow up to be a monster?” is a sticky moral quandary, one that has been touched on thousands of times in fantasy and sci-fi. Just off the top of my head, Merlin and The Legend of the Seeker has dealt with it, what with Mordred making his first appearance as a child, and Confessor babies being killed immediately if they’re boys. But in those cases, there was slightly more justification for why the hero had to struggle with the problem: Merlin had a dire prophecy from a source he believed in that Mordred was a danger, and the Confessors had an entire history of experience when it came to the threat posed by male Confessors.

In this case, Xena’s decision rests on far less solid evidence. Sure, there was a lot of spooky stuff going on when Hope was born (the panic of the animals but the eerie calm of the goat was especially chilling) and the unexplained murder of one of the knights – but still… She never actually saw the baby kill Goewin, and she’d just found out that the room could be entered via a secret passageway.

Furthermore, I’m not sure why Gabrielle didn’t just point out that obvious: how could a baby physically strangle a grown man? And why would she? If she’s smart and demonic enough to kill a man, surely she’s smart and demonic enough to realize Xena would pin the death on her.

There were also the banshees trying to help Gabrielle and the townsfolk trying to kill her out of fear – that was a nice twist on expectations given that the creepy banshees are providing assistance and the rightfully terrified villages become a violent mob, so I guess Xena could get riled up enough to believe that Hope was the devil incarnate (or daughter of). Yet her first instinct was to protect Gabrielle from the knights, and she arguably was giving Hope the benefit of the doubt by hunkering down in the castle and waiting for events to develop.

They seem trustworthy...

But still... I can't really condone the fact that Xena was about to put a sword through an infant. I suppose I should commend the writers for coming up with a moral conundrum that has no easy answer, so I suppose the only thing I can really say is that Xena probably could have been a lot gentler in breaking the news to Gabrielle. Instead she marches in and is all: "we must kill this child immediately!" and of course that just leads to panic and anger.

Perhaps there should have been more doubt infused into the equation. There was a throwaway line from Goewin in which he seemed to be referencing Christ: "our saviour will come in a similar way" (and I noticed the symbolism of Hope being born in a stable) which could have been fleshed out a little more, as well as Gabrielle comparing Hope to Hercules as "a demigod" and insisting that such creatures can do good.

Also, it would have been nice to get some context on the cult of Dahak and what exactly its members expected from their god. Why exactly would people worship something that wants to destroy the world? I'm also not entirely sure how self-aware Hope is. Did she know what she was doing when (if?) she killed Goewin, or was she "innocently" killing a man in the sense that she didn't know her own strength?

So, I guess my answer is: I don't know. I think it's one of those impossible situations where there is no right or wrong way of behaving and that the audience has the luxury of arguing about it in hindsight and with all the answers at our disposal.

To round off my thoughts on Gabrielle's Hope, the inclusion of Excalibur was a little strange (but cute), and I would have liked to have had more understanding of the knight who suddenly decides to sell out Gabrielle to the banshees. What was his game?

Other than that, it was a fairly packed two-part episode, with plenty to think about.

The Debt Part I and II

Plot: After Xena receives a mysterious summons referring to someone called “the Green Dragon”, she and Gabrielle travel to the land of Chin. Though Xena divulges details of her time there years ago, specifically her relationships with the queenly Lao Ma and the warlord Borias, Gabrielle fails to understand why she’s so determined to assassinate the country’s current ruler.

As with the previous two episodes, I saw this two-parter years ago when it first aired on television, though wasn’t until now that I’ve been able to properly appreciate it. I think what really makes it work as a piece of entertainment is that it’s full of rich three-dimensional characters that bounce off each other in totally unexpected ways.

This was the case in both the past and present storylines; one didn’t overshadow the other; rather it was a perfect balance between the two arcs that made great use of cliff-hangers as each plotline wove back and forth.

Furthermore, this really was a visually stunning episode. That early shot of the sword-fight on horseback between Borias, Xena and the Mongol soldiers was incredible; which really did look like it was filmed on an Asian plateau (only the New Zealand tussock gave it away!) as were all the stunning costumes.

It's also fun to get a better look at Dark!Xena, and following on from her treatment at the hands of Julius Caesar, what we see here makes a lot of sense. She's angry and almost feral, with good continuity on the fact that she has to use a crutch to walk and knows the basics of pressure points, two elements that were introduced in Destiny. It might have been a bit disconcerting to see Martin Csokas playing a different character so quickly after Krafstar's appearance, but the character design and accent of Borias instantly sets him apart.

There was a great dynamic between Xena/Borias, particularly as it took a while to grasp which of the two had the upper-hand in the relationship. The best part about Borias's character is that although he initially looks (and acts) like a typical warlord of the week, it's soon clear that he has common sense and a degree of honour to go along with his ambition.

Despite everything, I actually felt a pragmatic understanding of him when it came to dealing with Xena, and had a little laugh at his tactic of stranding her out in the middle of nowhere with no horse so she couldn’t interfere in the peace negotiations. She really was a liability to his goal of generating peace between Lao Ma and Ming Tzu's kingdoms, and I really liked what little we saw of his interactions with Lao Ma. He actually came across as quite chivalrous, and I loved the moment when Borias sees her step out of the palanquin and is stopped dead in his tracks. Tee-hee.

It also makes hilariously twisted sense that after Borias betrays Xena and sells her out to Ming Tzu, only for Lao Ma to bring them together again, Xena would just… get over it. Somehow it actually worked. After the great moment in which the tranquillity of the two women floating together is disrupted by Borias's entrance, it almost seems inevitable that Xena would gravitate back towards him. Though he's not totally bad, he still brings out the worst in her.

Jacqueline Kim is just beautiful throughout this whole thing; she's probably the best and most memorable guest-star of this entire show. Or at least, it's going to be very hard to top her. And I'll take a knife to anyone who calls her a Mary Sue; since despite her goodness and her powers, she makes a fatal mistake in judgment and was very much an embodiment of the High Queen archetype (she reminded me a bit of Galadriel, actually). She had so much dignity and wisdom, and it all felt very natural to her character.

Most importantly, she also had an amazing dynamic with Xena. You would call it .... mutual fascination, maybe?

My favourite scene would have to be the one in which Borias and Lao Ma are flirting over dinner while Xena watches. First of all, it's unclear whether this is exactly what's happening, or whether it's just Xena's biased perspective (especially since she's enjoying the benefits of a hookah at the time), and the fact that it's actually shot from her POV makes it unclear who exactly she's getting jealous over. And then there's that great exchange: "that's my piece of meat you're reaching for!"/"You’re wrong, I don't eat meat."

Let's just say that as a twelve-year old that subtext was WAY over my head, but here and now it was a brilliant addition.

I also love that there was a pre-Hercules/pre-Gabrielle mentor for Xena; one that took a vested interest in her future (and who even coined the term "warrior princess") but who ultimately failed in her mission. There was a real sense of tragedy here, though beforehand it's made clear why Xena feels she owes Lao Ma so much: not only in healing her and teaching her certain fighting techniques, but in the wisdom she shares and the quasi-romance between them.

It was an interesting touch that Lao Ma doesn't have the upper hand all the time, and it's a great moment when Xena confronts her on how upset she gets whenever Ming T'ien rejects her. It not only leads to the reveal that he's her son, but demonstrates that Xena is paying just as much attention to Lao as Lao is to her. Even after the twisted "body parts" gamble, Xena still seems keen to work for Lao (alongside Borias), only to make the terrible mistake of targeting her child.

Another nice character moment was Lao showing Xena that she keeps her husband in a perpetual coma, calling it "my gift to him" by ruling in his stead and writing all her wisdom in his book so that he can take all the credit. I wonder if perhaps – despite her words that "it doesn't matter who gets credit for good, as long as good is done" – she actually was a little guilty about essentially robbing a man of his life.

Perhaps she and Xena are not so different – is there really a difference between killing a man and turning him into a vegetable? Both her husband and Ming T'ien were cruel tyrants... but does that justify what each woman did?

And then there was the Xena/Ming T'ien dynamic. Though the adult actor was a bit iffy (not bad, but definitely the weakest cast member here) the little boy was incredible. Most of his interactions with Xena took place entirely through stares, and I loved the fact that he was able to convey fear and fascination simultaneously – whilst still leaving the audience guessing as to what he was really thinking.

You're almost tempted to believe that he chose to go with Xena when she breaks into the palace, just to learn more from her, and I love the idea that he might never have been all that innocent to begin with, but someone who slowly and surely soaked up the negative influences in his life. I mean, when he spots Xena as a servant in Lao Ma's house, he certainly doesn't raise the alarm.

It all makes sense when Gabrielle and then Xena first confront him as an adult, first telling Gabrielle about how much he grew to hate his father, and then confessing to Xena that he knew the whole time that Lao Ma was his mother. I wonder how it must have felt for Xena to realize that he credited her for the way he turned out. It was certainly an effective way to twist the knife, what with Xena knowing that she not only failed Lao Ma, but inadvertently corrupted her son.

As for the present-day plot, when Xena wakes up and discovers that Gabrielle isn't beside her, it's clear that she's still brooding about Hope, though here she seemed rather wistful rather than moody. I can understand Gabrielle's astonishment and growing resentment when Xena tells her that she's jumping a boat to Chin in order to kill someone in cold blood, especially right on the heels of Xena demanding that Gabrielle kill her own child.

I'll have more to say when I get to the end of this Rift arc, but for the most part I find myself siding with Gabrielle (in intentions, if not actions). That said, I'm not entirely sure what her plan or motivation was in racing ahead to Chin to warn Ming T'ien (and yes, I've seen Forget Me Not, but let's just stick with this episode for now). I mean, what exactly did she expect Ming T'ien to do on hearing that Xena was coming to assassin him? Just let her go? I facepalmed when he told Gabrielle that even if Xena had promised to leave and never return: "I wouldn't have spared her anyway." Gabrielle, you really didn't think this one through.

The forgiveness scene in the dungeon was nicely done; it would seem that whether she lives or dies, Xena can't blame Gabrielle for trying to do the right thing, and I wonder if perhaps if she wanted to go a little easy on her after the Hope fiasco. The whole itchy nose thing was a cute way of reconciling them without the need for any big speeches (it reminds me of that Buffy episode in which Buffy screws up majorly, and instead of ending things with her making an elaborate apology to Willow and Xander, they just begin chatting to her about everyday things as a sign that all is forgiven).

Miscellaneous Observations:

I thought it was a neat way to reveal that Ming T'ien was the Green Dragon, what with the servant holding up the handkerchief and Ming Tzu remarking that it bore his nickname for his son. It was subtle and effective, especially since up till that point the audience would have been trying to figure out who among the new characters it was.

I also loved the effect of Assassin!Xena crawling through the birdcages/hanging baskets – it made no real sense, but at least it looked good!

I'll admit that I'm not a huge fan of the way fight scenes are staged in the show. They too often involve Xena bending the laws of physics and gravity to a ludicrous degree, to the point where the fights lose all sense of danger – I mean, Xena may as well clap her hands really fast and deafen her opponents for all the sense it makes. Here at least, we get some sense of justification for all the crazy antics: it's Eastern mysticism, the answer to everything! Other than the somewhat silly ninja fight that opened the episode, I found myself enjoying the action sequences here.

The more I think about it, the more devastating Lao Ma's life really was. I mean, she worked so hard to establish peace between the two kingdoms, only to make a bad judgment call on Xena and bring it all tumbling down. In fact, you could make a Marian/Guy analogy here: like Marian, Lao Ma is confident that she can redeem somebody, only to drastically misjudge what's going on inside their heads. And the (rotten) cherry on the top is not only that her prodigy tries to kill her own child, but that she dies at the hands of said child and can't bring herself to use her powers to harm him when she's lying on the execution table. Ouch.

There were a few lingering questions. First of all, if Xena knew that Ming T'ien was Lao Ma's son, and if her final interaction with the woman was to get thrown repeatedly across the room because she was defending her son from harm, then why on earth did Xena think she was honouring Lao's memory in any way by going to assassinate him?

Secondly, what was the deal between Ming T'ien and his mother? Why was he such a brat to her? When exactly did he find out she was his mother? Did knowing effect the way he constantly brushed her off? And why did he eventually execute her?

Thirdly, not so much a question as a query. It would have been nice to get more idea of what the history between Ming Tzu and Lao Ma actually was. She says at one point that she was a courtesan who Ming Tzu sold to her eventual husband... and yet she was a fairly respected wife and queen. And did this happen before or after Ming T'ien's birth? Did her bearing a son to the ruler of a country figure into his decision to marry her off to the other king? I could have done with more of that.

Finally, did Xena know that Lao Ma was dead when she initially went to Chin? And the messenger that died at the beginning – did he come from Lao Ma before or after her execution? And what exactly was Lao Ma's intention when she sent him to Xena? Knowing that her son was a tyrant, did she expect Xena to do what she had attempted to do all those years ago and simply kill her son?

If so, that's a pretty hypocritical thing to do really. She can't bring herself to kill Ming T'ien herself, but she'll rely on Xena to do it instead? Or did she just want Xena to "make the dragon small" by discrediting him in front of his people (as Xena said at the end) and trusted that Xena would know what she meant?

Which of course leads to the final question: did Xena do the right thing in killing Ming T'ien? And would she have spared him had he not mocked her about killing Lao Ma? The fact that she used Lao Ma's hair-pin to kill her son was an interesting bit of symbolism – it seemed to suggest that Xena was in fact very wrong to go through with it. Or did the murder weapon deliberately tie into their "you could kill someone using a hairpin" conversation, in which Lao gave Xena her implicit permission to go through with it?

I'll probably answer these questions when we get to the end of the Rift storyline, but for now it's interesting to compare Xena and Gabrielle at this point in time: Gabrielle has spared a (possibly) evil child out of love and lied about it, whilst Xena has killed an evil tyrant and lied about it. Gabrielle did the wrong thing for the right reasons, while Xena did the right thing for the wrong reasons. It's interesting to see where this will lead them both...

All in all, this was an amazing pair of episodes. It all really settled on the characters and the way they interacted with each other. Every single one of them – even the guest-stars – had complexity. Lao Ma misjudged Xena, Gabrielle misread the situation, Xena (whatever her reasons) still killed a man in cold blood, Ming T'ien could have been a ruthless killer even as a child, Borias had a sense of honour to go with his ruthlessness, and Ming Tzu (who was otherwise a typical villain) was described as crying tears of joy when Ming T'ien was found safely.

No one acted stupidly (and when they did, they’re understandable mistakes), and everyone's decisions made sense in the context of their characterization. To throw such nuanced characters in the mix together makes it inevitable that a really good story is going to be told. As I said at the beginning of this post, Xena had already become a hit show by this point, but these episodes demonstrated what the writers and performers were really capable of.