Hercules and Xena |
Do The Xenites Really Understand Gabrielle? | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Hercules and Xena |
Do The Xenites Really Understand Gabrielle? | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Do The Xenites Really Understand Gabrielle?
Up until now I haven't mentioned Renee O'Connnor's change in hairstyle. I'm sorry to say I don't like it. Sorry because if she ever reads this article she won't get the kind of pleasant, positive feedback any woman should get about changing the way she looks. What she won't get here either is a load of negativity about the changes in Gabrielle that we've seen this season. Oh, I've seen a LOT of that lately. There just seems to be no pleasing the fans. If Xenastaff were the kind of people who ran back and forth trying to respond to every fan criticism, complaint, and request, we'd all be seasick by now from the intense boat-rocking they'd have given us. And it's not like they aren't rocking the boat anyway, but I think there is a method to the madness. Xenastaff (in essence, the producers) are trying to tell a story. It's not supposed to be the story, or the story to end all stories. It's just their story. I'm currently working on a writing project related to Hercules and Xena and I've had to do some research into how the show began. According to Rob Weisbrot's Xena: Warrior Princess -- The Official Companion, Rob Tapert was not wholly satisfied with the way martial arts had been implemented on HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS. The character of Hercules just wasn't right for the kind of high-flying kicks and leaps that Tapert wanted to see in a hero -- he was trying to emulate the popular Hong Kong martial arts flicks. So, when it looked like work on HERCULES was proceeding well enough an opportunity for replacing the Action Pack show VANISHING SON opened up, and Tapert (and John Schulian) came up with the idea of a warrior woman who could -- surprise! -- use those nifty Hong Kong flick kicks and leaps. Several people were actually involved in working out the initial format of the character, and I guess we're lucky we didn't end up with BEKKA: WARRIOR LADY. Tapert went with a "X-" name because he'd been told that any show with "X" in the title would attract interest. So, where does this lead to? Tapert and the crew came up with the character they wanted to write about first. The name came later, the show came later. It was the character that intrigued them so much. This was a character about which they could find things to say. And Xena's dark past was a part of the character from the start. Unfortunately, Tapert also said Xena needed a sidekick. R.J. Stewart was given free rein to develop one and he came up with Gabrielle. She was the innocent young girl just setting out into the world. Many people have remarked on how Gabrielle has changed Xena -- I'm not so sure of that. Steven Sears has pointed out that Xena was probably about to commit suicide in "Sins of the Past" when Draco's soldiers came driving Gabrielle into her life. Xena, having reformed, was being tormented by guilt over the years of terror and death which had dominated her adult life. Gabrielle was the fresh young girl Xena never got a chance to be. She had hope, optimism, and believed the world was filled with adventure. Xena knew death stalked her behind every tree, in every town and village, and she was constantly weighed down with the burden of her sins. Her redemptive journey must have seemed long and hopeless until Gabrielle offered to share it with her. And here the story began to change. The character of Xena was set, but Gabrielle's character was fresh, an open canvas. Xena's story is well-known -- she is recognized everywhere she goes. Gabrielle's story is still waiting to be written. Gabrielle even comes to understand this in "Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards". Hearing of a competition for would-be bards in Athens, Gabrielle leaves Xena to try her luck. She wins the competition, overcoming great obstacles, but finally realizes she would rather live the story than simply tell it. And here is where the great conflict between Xena and Gabrielle arises. Xena knows the path she is walking. Gabrielle doesn't. At the beginning of the episode "The Path Not Taken" Xena and Gabrielle walk into a tavern and every man in the place hits on them. Gabrielle obliviously prattles on about things which fascinate her while Xena clobbers would-be stud after stud. "Did you ever notice that we never have trouble getting a table?" Gabrielle asks. "Mystery to me," Xena lies. The big complaint today is that "Gabrielle just doesn't get it". Fans are crying out in agony because, after four years, she still doesn't get it. Maybe so, but it took Xena at least ten years to get it. I think the fans need to cut Gabby some slack. In "Path Not Taken" Marcus, Xena's old friend and lover, confides in her that he had tried to change his ways, but he couldn't. And he looks at Xena and says, "You've changed, Xena. You've found the answer. I don't even know the question." Xena has indeed found the answer, but like Marcus Gabrielle hasn't found the question. And Xena has done all she could to deter Gabrielle from that quest, because in the end Xena has been trying not to redeem herself so much as save Gabrielle. In "Sins of the Past" Xena tried several times to tell Gabrielle to leave her alone -- she didn't want to spoil the innocence she saw in Gabrielle. Gabrielle's innocence became a key factor in their relationship. When the Mystics who had perverted the worship of the dream gods abducted Gabrielle (in the episode "Dreamworker"), they did so because they wanted her to sacrifice her blood innocence to Morpheus. Xena struggled to bring Gabrielle out of the Mystics' fortress before Gabrielle succumbed to their cruel initiations, and in doing so had to confront her own lost innocence -- she was reminded at every step in her journey through the "dreamscape" of how she had turned to evil time and time again. Xena's concern for Gabrielle thus rises above the so-called relationship, the Subtext that many fans focus on. The relationship between the two characters is real and quite complex, but what drew Xena into Gabrielle's world was the unfettered optimism of Gabrielle's spirit. Xena seemed for a while to be seeking her redemption through the protection of Gabrielle. Such smothering love inevitably leads to a division. In retrospect it seems almost inevitable that the so-called Rift would occur. Xena was always trying to prevent Gabrielle's loss of innocence. When Gabriele married Perdicas Xena seemed lost without her -- she really didn't have anyone to take care of but herself. All Greece was suffering from Callisto's depredations but Xena couldn't quite catch up to Callisto in time. When Callisto heard Gabrielle had gotten married and left Xena she went off to remove the focus for Xena's life: she went to kill Gabrielle because she knew Xena still wanted to protect Gabrielle. In the event it was Perdicas who died, not Gabrielle, but Xena found that she had failed in her quest: some of Gabby's bright innocence was lost. Bit by bit the horrors of Xena's redemptive journey have eaten away at Gabrielle, drawn out the purity and naivete and left them straggling in the dirt behind her. But Xena has risen above her own griefs time and again to return to Gabrielle's side and help her resist the lure of the dark way. It's almost like Darth Vader abandoned the emperor to train Luke Skywalker in the ways of the Force. Xena knows what can happen to Gabrielle if she doesn't get the support and encouragement Xena herself never received. In "Remember Nothing" the Fates showed Xena a glimpse of the Gabrielle that could be if there were no Xena in her life, and Xena was appalled by what she beheld. There was nothing left of the young innocent girl. Some day Xena is going to wake up and realize that all Gabrielle's naivete is gone. It has to slowly vanish because Gabrielle learns something at every turn. With each lesson a little bit more innocence is lost. That's a healthy part of human growth, but what Xena needs to do is ensure that innocence isn't replaced by something darker. Gabrielle is seeking a purity Xena never knew. It's not innocence, nor naivete. It's simply a mature reflection of one's self in the toilsome world. Will Gabrielle find that reflection? Will Xena realize she has indeed succeeded in preventing the loss of Gabrielle's soul? Will they find peace and happiness at the end of the series? :) I don't know. But I think the relationship has been all too often defined by fans in a monodirectional sense which has afforded the characters no room for growth. We have, perhaps, been too conditioned by episodic television and formulaiic soap operas to expect characters to settle into a certain pattern and stay there. And Gabrielle refuses to do that. She has grown up before our eyes, and people who want to see the child, or what they thought the child should have become, are disappointed because the new Gabrielle is less and less like the old one. Gabby indeed "gets" some of it. She just hasn't lost that hope and faith in people which set her apart in the first place. Today's Gabrielle probably could never talk a cyclopes out of eating her, but yesterday's Gabrielle might never have left home had she known what lay before her. At least Gabrielle isn't running away. She is strong, courageous, independent, and willing to look for alternatives to the only lifestyles she has known. She hasn't stopped growing. And as long as Xena is there to help Gabrielle, the Warrior Princess hasn't stopped growing either. But Xena's growth is more restricted than Gabby's. She's made too many mistakes. There is no going back for her. Gabrielle still has some options to explore. I hope the fans calm down and look forward to the next bizarre turn. I'm sure it's coming. |
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