About Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena first appeared on the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series (in the episode The Warrior Princess airing in March 1995), as a seductive but treacherous warlord. Two more episodes during May sweeps chronicled her evolution from a villain to a friend and ally of Hercules. Interest in her was so strong that shortly afterwards she became the main character of the spin-off series Xena: Warrior Princess. Ironically, although her character was originally obsessed with defeating Hercules and obtaining his title as the greatest living warrior, she never defeated "Zeus' Favorite Son". In fact, Hercules is the one credited with pointing her down the path of redemption when he beats her in combat and shows her that selfishness and greed are not the way to live. In her own series, Xena sets out to redeem her murderous past by fighting against tyranny and evil and protecting the innocent and weak. Many of her adventures prior to the televised stories are subsequently revealed in flashback episodes (although much remained obscure). Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.The only daughter of the tavernkeeper Cyrene, Xena grew up in Amphipolis with her two brothers, Toris and Lyceus. Her father Atrius was believed to have left her family when she was a child,[8] but it was subsequently revealed that he was, in fact, killed by Cyrene when he tried to kill seven-year-old Xena as a sacrifice to Ares.
During Xena's mid to late teens, the warlord Cortese attacked the village, which prompted some villagers, including Xena's older brother, Toris, to run for the hills. However, Xena and her younger brother Lyceus convinced the remainder of their fellow villagers to stay and fight. Although Amphipolis was saved, Lyceus and many other villagers were killed in the battle, which formed a rift between Cyrene and her daughter and caused Xena to be ostracized by the town.
The death of her beloved younger brother Lyceus led Xena to leave Amphipolis and begin to build her own army, with her ultimate goal being to take revenge on Cortese. She crossed the seas early on as a pirate, meeting Caesar and a young Gaulish slave-stowaway, M'Lila,[10] who would both profoundly affect the destiny of the Warrior Princess. While onboard Xena's ship, M'Lila taught her several fighting techniques as well as instructing her in the use of pressure points, including what became her signature "pinch" maneuver.
Xena took Caesar as a hostage, and was naively swayed by the young officer to join forces, after beginning an affair with him. She ransomed him back to Rome as they had planned, only to have him come back with his own men and capture her ship. He had her and her men crucified on a nearby beach, watching as his orders to break her legs were carried out.
M'Lila rescued her from the cross and took Xena to a healer named Niklio. They were found by Roman soldiers, who killed the Gaelic woman as she jumped in front of an arrow meant for Xena. After M'Lila died in her arms, Xena fully embraced her dark side and fought the soldiers, killing them (despite her broken legs).
After surviving Caesar's betrayal, a crippled and rage-filled Xena went East where she teamed up with the warlord Borias, who left his wife and son to become her lover. The two terrorized Qin with their joint forces until Xena angered Borias by alienating the powerful Chinese families Ming and Lao. Without his knowledge, Xena kidnapped Ming Tzu's son, Ming T'ien, for ransom. With Borias' help, Ming Tzu captured Xena, intending to kill her for sport.
Xena was saved from certain death by Ming T'ien's mother, Lao Ma, a woman of great spiritual power. During their time together, Lao Ma healed Xena's legs and gave her the title of warrior princess. Under Lao Ma's tutelage, Xena briefly left some of her darkness behind until Borias re-entered her life. A rift formed between Xena and Lao Ma when she murdered Ming Tzu, and suggested that they also kill Ming T'ien. With Lao Ma now their enemy, Xena and Borias were forced to leave Qin.
They went further east to Jappa (Japan), where they kidnapped a girl named Akemi for ransom. Xena ended up befriending Akemi, who got Xena to teach her one of her signature techniques, the pinch which cut off the flow of blood to a person's brain, resulting in death. Akemi then used the pinch to kill her abusive and tyrannical father, Yodoshi, and committed seppuku (honorable suicide). A drunk and grieving Xena tried to put Akemi's ashes in her family crypt, but was set upon by a mob of villagers who felt she was desecrating the crypt by putting the ashes of a patricide in it. Defending herself, Xena used a fire-breathing trick she had mastered. The result was a fire that spread through the town and killed 40,000 people.
Back in northern lands (possibly Siberia), Xena and Borias met a shamaness, Alti, who lured Xena toward greater evil with promises that she would become the Destroyer of Nations. She was also befriended by the Amazon queen Cyane, who tried to steer her toward good; but Xena chose Alti's promise of power, and killed Cyane and the Amazon elders at her instigation. By then pregnant with Borias' child, she set out to conquer Corinth. Borias was increasingly troubled by the excesses of her violence, but could do little to stop her: by then, they had split their armies, and Xena's was the bigger of the two. At Corinth, they became mortal enemies after he stopped her from slaughtering the Centaurs with whom he had tried to negotiate an agreement. With Xena about to give birth, Borias tried to get her out of her camp in the hope of rescuing their relationship. He was killed by one of her lieutenants, Dagnine; but the realization that Borias came back for her because he loved her and their unborn child had a strong effect on Xena. It was enough to make her decide to give up her newborn baby to the centaurs, so that he would be raised in safety and away from her dangerous influence.
Xena also traveled to the Norselands, where she spent some time as one of Odin's Valkyries and unsuccessfully tried to obtain supreme power by stealing the Rheingold. These events took place after the death of Borias.
During the largely undocumented period immediately prior to her first appearance in the Hercules series, Xena first obtained her signature weapon, the Chakram of Darkness. It was apparently given to her by Ares, the God of War. Having apparently lost her army at Corinth, she built a new one which cut a path of plunder and conquest through Greece.
About ten years after first turning to evil, Xena meets Hercules. Initially, she sets out to kill him. Then, her army turns against her after she stops her lieutenant Darphus from killing a child in a sacked village. She runs a gauntlet, but survives, being the only person ever to survive the gauntlet. She then fights Hercules, in the hope that she will get her army back if she can bring back his head. Xena seems to be getting the upper hand until Hercules' cousin intervenes, giving him the moment to regain composure and defeat her. However, Hercules refuses to kill Xena, telling her that "killing isn't the only way of proving you're a warrior." Touched and inspired by Hercules' integrity and by the fact that he suffered the loss of blood kin as she did and yet chooses to fight in honor of them, she decides to join him and defeat her old army. Hercules tells Xena that there is goodness in her heart, and the two of them share a brief romantic relationship, before Xena decides to leave and start making amends for her past.
However, Xena finds this to be more painful than she thought; and, haunted by her past transgressions, she is about to give up on her life as a warrior completely. As she strips off her armor and weaponry and lays them in the dirt, she witnesses a group of villagers being attacked by a band of warriors. Part of that group is a village girl named Gabrielle (later known as the Battling Bard of Potadeia). Xena saves the villagers and Gabrielle is left in awe of the Warrior Princess' abilities. Gabrielle persuades Xena to let her be her traveling companion, and over time Gabrielle becomes Xena's dearest friend. Xena also reconciles with her mother, Cyrene.
At some point in her journeys Xena ran into Ares, the God of War, who had known her from when she was a warlord and was always obsessed with winning her affections, but was more usually her adversary.
Xena's subsequent life is marred by many tragedies. Her son Solan, who never got to know her as his mother, dies at the hands of Gabrielle's demon child Hope with the help of her then-mortal enemy Callisto, a woman warrior who is obsessed with revenge against Xena because Xena had destroyed her village and her family when she was still evil. She nearly loses Gabrielle more than once, and she and Gabrielle are crucified by the Romans on the Ides of March -- the day of Caesar's death -- but later revived by a mystic named Eli with the spiritual aid of Callisto, who by that time had become an angel. Eve, the miracle child Xena conceives after her resurrection (again through the efforts of the redeemed Callisto), is prophesied to bring about the Twilight of the Olympian gods. To escape the gods' persecution, Xena and Gabrielle try to fake their deaths. Their plan goes awry when Ares buries them in an ice cave where they sleep for 25 years. During that time, Eve -- adopted by the Roman nobleman Octavius -- grew up to become Livia, the Champion of Rome, and a ruthless persecutor of Eli's followers. After her return, Xena is able to turn Livia to repentance, and Livia takes back the name Eve and becomes the Messenger of Eli. After Eve's cleansing by baptism, Xena is granted the power to kill gods as long as her daughter lives. In a final confrontation, the Twilight comes to pass when Xena kills most of the gods to save her daughter, and is herself saved by Ares when he gives up his immortality to heal the badly injured and dying Eve and Gabrielle. Xena later helps him regain his godhood.
Xena's quest for redemption ends when she sacrifices her life to right the wrong she had committed many years ago in Japan. Her spirit, however, still very much appears to be with Gabrielle. According to the darsham, Naima, this is only one of many lives Xena will live throughout the ages, but they all have one thing in common: whatever life awaits her next, it will be spent with her Soulmate Gabrielle furthering the cause of good against evil.
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