Xena

Xena is a female television character who features in Xena: Warrior Princess.

Biography

Xena was a female human born to Cyrene in the Thracian village of Amphipolis. Her father Nelo was a traveller of mysterious background who stayed with Cyrene after learning they had given birth to a girl. When Xena was 7 years old, her father returned home from the Temple of Ares drunk claiming the need to sacrifice Xena to Ares when he was slain by Cyrene with an axe. (XWP: The Furies) She was noted to have had an older brother named Toris and a younger brother named Lyceus. Whilst growing up, she and her older brother Toris did not get along but did so for the sake of their younger sibling. (XWP: Death Mask) Xena was closer with Lyceus where they enjoyed fishing and would constantly attempt to catch Solaris who was the biggest fish in the lake. (XWP: Fins, Femmes and Gems) Later on, Xena came to learn to fight and taught her brother Lyceus as well. In her late teens, their village faced attacks from the warlord Cortese who was raiding the settlement. To fight him, Xena gathered an army consisting of farmers from her village and included Lyceus whilst Toris and others fled for the hills. When Cortese attacked, the defenders managed to fend the warlord off but knew that he would return. Thus, she used the surrounding villages as a buffer against him and when Cortese returned a fierce battle was fought where Lyceus was killed. Xena came to be blamed for her brother's death with her mother Cyrene forcing her daughter to leave Amphipolis. (XWP: Sins of the Past)

Returning to Greece, Xena becomes obsessed with conquering Arcadia but knew this would not be possible as long as Hercules resided in the area as she could not defeat the demi-god in a one-on-one fight. Instead, she concocted a plot wherein she tricks Iolaus into falling in love with her. Once Iolaus was bewitched, she began to poison him against Hercules where her trickery allowed her to drive a wedge between the heroes, eventually even causing them to fight one another. Finally, Iolaus realizes what was happening and re-joined Hercules to fight Xena and her army. (HTLJ: The Warrior Princess) Xena and her army escape and continue to plunder the nearby villages but there is dissension among the ranks. Xena's lieutenant, Darphus, begins to openly question her orders and disobey her. When Xena is scouting ahead of her army, Darphus orders the men to attack a village and kill all the men, women and children. A single baby survives and Xena saves him, giving him into the care of Salmoneus, whom she met after an attack on another village. Xena is furious that her men killed women and children. When she tries to discipline Darphus, he and men loyal to him, decide she is no longer fit to lead the army and they force her to walk a Gauntlet. No one has ever survived this before but Xena manages to get through, bloodied but not beaten. She leaves her army and goes off to heal. A short while later, Hercules encounters Darphus and the army headed to attack Parthus. Along the way, Hercules encounters Xena who is also tracking the army. The two fight in a titanic battle and Hercules defeats Xena. However, he spares her life and tells her that "killing isn't the only way of proving you're a warrior". Xena declines when Hercules asks her to join him in fighting her army. He lets her leave and continues to Parthus where he helps prepare the villagers for an attack. When the attack comes, Xena appears and fights alongside Hercules against Darphus and her former warriors. Xena kills Darphus in combat and the remains of the army scatter. Parthus is saved and Xena asks Hercules if she can travel with him to discover what is next for her. (HTLJ: The Gauntlet) Xena travels for a time with Hercules and Salmoneus. Salmoneus tries to convince the duo to let him write their celebrity biographies. The trio eventually meet up with Iolaus who is understandably displeased to see Xena. They learn that Darphus has been restored to life by Ares and been given the mission of feeding Graegus the bodies of innocents. Meanwhile, Xena and Hercules begin to develop feelings for one another. Iolaus notices this and warns Hercules to watch his back. In time, Hercules convinces Iolaus that Xena has changed and is now definitely on the side of good. Xena apologizes to Iolaus for hurting him and he forgives her. The heroes track down Darphus. Together, they fight off the remnants of Xena's army and manage to turn Graegus on Darphus. The beast is able to kill Darphus for good and the darkest chapter of Xena's life is ended. Hercules confesses that he loves Xena and never thought he would feel that way again for anyone but Deianeira of Thebes. He asks to continue helping her find redemption but she tells him he already has: "You've unchained my heart." Xena rides off to begin to atone for her many crimes (HTLJ Unchained Heart)

Once being reverted by Hercules, Xena decided to give up fighting. She buried her belongings and was about to walk away, when she saw Hector, a lieutenant of Draco's kidnapping a group of young girls from the village of Potedia. She intervened and released the girls from him. Her fighting skills caught the eye of one of the girls: Gabrielle. She was a simple farmer, whom had been put into an arranged marriage that she did not want to be a part of. She relentlessly asked Xena to allow her to travel with her and teach her how to fight. In awe with every aspect of Xena, she wasn't satisfied when Xena said no to her offer of accompanying her on the road and so she decided to follow her to Amphipolis, crossing paths with a Cyclops on her way. Xena confronts Draco about his planned ransack of Potedia, and asks him to spare the village. She continues to tell him that she going home, to see her mother, which he tries to talk her out of, telling her that she will not be welcome. He then decides that he is going to ransack Amphipolis instead. Xena confronts her mother and tries to make it up with her, only to be rejected on first sight. She tries to warn her of the upcoming attack, but she and the rest of the villagers do not listen to her and instead decide to stone her. Gabrielle, who had followed Xena there, intervenes and saves Xena from being pelted with stones, which finally convinces Xena to take Gabrielle with her. They go to visit Xena's brother Lyceus first, who died during Cortese's raid. Gabrielle tells Xena that she is not alone, and their friendship begins from there. Xena then returns to Amphipolis to face Draco. The two fight on scaffolding with staves: the first person to touch the ground loses. With some sneaky intervention by Gabrielle, Xena wins and Draco touches the ground first, where she makes him swear on the head of Ares never to return to Amphipolis again. After seeing that she had in fact changed for the good, Cyrene and Xena reconciled. (XWP: Sins of the Past)

Xena decides to return to the ruins of Cirra, the hometown of Callisto, and one of Xena's most regrettable crimes. It was here that she accidentally caused the death of Callisto's mother and father, along with countless other innocent people – one of the few times she was responsible for the deaths of women and children. She hopes that it will help her realize what she must do to redeem her past. As she enters the village, she is immediately haunted by visions of the attack and isn't able to stay there too long. When she returns to where she left Gabrielle, she realizes that she is missing and only her staff can be found on the ground. She heads into the nearby woods, where she finds a strange tribe commencing a ceremony, which involves Gabrielle and a group of other captives. She frees them and Gabrielle leads them to safety. When they are yet again ambushed, Gabrielle leads the captives away, when a small girl stays behind to watch Xena fight them. The girl puts herself in danger when she runs out in front of a large swinging tree stump that was intended to hit her. Xena saves the girl but is hit herself by the stump. She suffers near-fatal injuries, which will claim her life if she doesn't receive help from a past friend and grand healer – Niklio. Xena informs Gabrielle who had been stabbed in the leg by Xena's attacker to take her to the top of Mount Nestus, where he lives. She hesitates at first, complaining that it is very far away, but agrees to do so when she realizes that it is her only option. During her journey there, Gabrielle realizes that Xena is becoming worse and closer to death. She arrives at Niklio's house, where he tells Gabrielle that he will see to her wound first, as he can do something for her, whilst Xena can wait. Xena's pulse begins to drop and Niklio eventually pronounces her dead. Whilst crossing over, Xena is confronted by M'Lila's ghost, who gives Xena the chance to be resurrected.

From the other side, Xena manages to channel her spirit into the one person she sees fit for the job - Autolycus. She needs him to steal her body back from the Amazons, as they are going to cremate her body. She then needs him to steal Ambrosia, to feed to her corpse, which will revive her. Autolycus, now accompanied by Xena's spirit for guidance and full use of her skills, manages to break into the Amazon village, and even find Xena's coffin, only to be caught by Gabrielle. He tries to explain to her what is going on, but his unbelievable but true story doesn't manage to convinve her and he is thrown into the dungeon. It does not take him long to break out of the prison, but he is still too late, as the cremation has already began. But Xena takes over and manages to stop the funeral and take her coffin away from the village. Gabrielle realizes that Autolycus story that he told her before being thrown into prison is in fact true, as he showcases many of Xena's trademark skills, including her war cry, whistling to hail Argo and successfully throwing and catching the Chakram. She leaves the Amazons and follows Autolycus, where he explains what's going on. They later find the cave to the Hall of Ambrosia, where they find a dangerous ascent to a rock in the ceiling, which has an engraving that resembles the Dagger of Helios, something that Autolycus stole just before he was inhabited by Xena's spirit. Before they are able to attempt the climb, they are intercepted by Velasca, the current vicious Queen of the Amazons, who is reluctant to give the throne to Gabrielle, who is the rightful heir. She takes them back to the village, throws them in the dungeon and steals the Dagger of Helios from Autolycus whilst torturing him, in the process breaking his arm. She throws Autolycus in the dungeon with Gabrielle and all of the amazons who are still loyal to her, including Ephiny and Solari. He manages to break them out and they follow Velasca to the Hall of Ambrosia, where Xena's spirit channels into Gabrielle, so that she is able to follow Velasca instead of Autolycus, due to his broken arm. The two fight their away to the top, but Velasca gets there first, using the dagger to present the Ambrosia, where it falls down and is caught by Velasca. However, she drops it and it falls down to the fire-burning pit, being destroyed in the process. It is not long followed by Velasca herself and she is presumed dead. Gabrielle returns to Xena and reveals that she managed to catch some of the Ambrosia as it fell past her, which she gives to Xena and revives her. Xena is forever grateful to Autolycus, and tells him that she was forever in his debt.

Upon hearing of Julius Caesar's attempt at invading Britannia, Xena traveled there to assist old friend-turned-foe, Boadicea. Along the way, Gabrielle befriended a young man, Krafstar, and became quite close to him. He told her of his religious beliefs: that his One God was to cleanse the land of darkness and spread peace throughout it. She was immediately taken by the thought of such a religion, and chose to accompany him to the one of their religious ceremonies, whilst Xena was otherwise distracted with stopping Caesar with Boadicea. However, Gabrielle soon realized that Krafstar had bent the truth about his religion: in fact it was the exact opposite of his explanation and had only intended to bring Gabrielle to the meeting to lose her blood innocence by killing a member of the religious order, now revealed to be more like a cult. This made her a target for Dahak - Krafstar's 'One God.' Gabrielle was then raped by Dahak and was impregnated with his child. Xena eventually came to her rescue and saved her from Dahak and Krafstar who had morphed into a vicious demon-like creature known as the Deliverer. Xena then managed to defeat Caesar with Boadicea and prevent him from taking Britannia. Xena and Gabrielle, unaware of Gabrielle's pregnancy, tried to get back to Greece and out of Britannia as quickly as possible and so Xena organizes a ship to take them back to Greece the next morning. However, whilst travelling through the aptly named Forest of the Banshees, they are ambushed by it's namesake inhabitants - the Banshees themselves. While they seem hellbent on killing Xena, they try to protect Gabrielle and later inform her of her pregnancy. The baby grew fast and Xena took her to shelter in a nearby castle, where she gave birth hours later to a little girl, Hope. However, the warriors that reside on the castle, known as the Warriors of the Pierced Heart, were less than welcoming to Gabrielle's new arrival, as rumor had it that the child will bring about nothing but destruction. However, half of the warriors saw that she was only a child and couldn't possible be capable of such things and they helped Xena to protect Hope from the other warriors and the Banshees. The baby's development is fast and already resembles five months old in a matter of hours. However, it is not long before Hope makes her first kill while still a baby and Xena begins to doubt her innocence. She confronts Gabrielle and tells her that the child must die, as she too believes the rumors of her future. Gabrielle grabs Hope and runs from Xena, as the Banshees delay her from following. However, after a while Xena manages to catch up to Gabrielle, only to be informed that Hope had turned on her and she threw her over a cliffside, to which Xena informs her that she did the right thing. However, Gabrielle lied to Xena and she had in fact put Hope in a basket in a river, meaning that she is still alive.

Overview

Powers and abilities

Her signature weapon was the Chakram that had the unique ability of being thrown and returning to her. It possessed sharp edges and was able to cut through most things. (XWP: Chakram)

Notes

• Xena was created by Robert Tapert and John Schulian where she was portrayed by actor Lucy Lawless and featured in the Hercules-Xena universe.

Appearances

• Xena: Warrior Princess:

External Links

• Hercules-Xena Wik Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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